ST: Battle Garegga (20.7.14 - edits, record replays list)

[BulletMagnet]

The score you get tends to depend at least to some extent on what plane you're using...for instance, one superplay I saw had a guy making it to 2 million after he was finished with the flamingoes a short ways into level 2, using the Wild Snail; there's no way he woulda been able to do that with the Silver Sword, for instance.

In any event, if you want to compare yourself to a hack like me, if I manage to score a decent amount of points off of the flamingoes, I can usually get myself at least close to the 1 million mark, whichever plane I'm using. If I can keep my medal count going without missing, I'm pretty much certain to hit it either at the second boss or shortly thereafter...of course, that's nothing compared to what the experts can pull off.

[Icarus]

Can someone tell me offhand what sorts of scores to be aiming for in the first three levels? (If it says something in Icarus' guide, I haven't gotten to it yet.)

Stage 1: 560,000 (average for all non-Gain ships)
Stage 2: 3.0 - 3.5mil (average for all non-Gain ships. Yes, even Chitta ^_-)
Stage 3: 4.2 - 4.9mil (average for all non-Gain ships, assumes 3.25mil after MadBall)
Stage 4: 5.8 - 7.0mil (average for all non-Gain ships, I've seen 7.5mil for Snail).

I note that these are averages for ships other than Gain, as Gain can score an obscenely high amount of points throughout the game. All basic scoring targets should net you around 5mil by the stage4 boss, Satanic Surfer.

EDIT: Just remembered I had put up a small list of easy scoring targets for The cap'n a while back. For reference, I've copy-pasted them here:

• Stage 2 - Pink Flamingoes
  Depending on the ship you use, you can get between 600k - 3mil. Golden Bat averages around 1.6mil.
• Stage 3 - Destroyed Railtrack
  The whole section of railtrack is worth 400k at MAX Medal value
• Stage 4 - Pipes
  At the start of the stage, there is a tunnel on the right side of the screen, and you can see tanks underneath the covering. The two pipes above it are worth 10k plus house five Medals per pipe
• Stage 4 - Tank Hangars
  Small square hangars are dotted around the stage, and tanks will appear from them. Attacking with Weapon will stop tanks from appearing, and also give you four Medals per hangar. There are ten square hangars in total, but four are located at the end of the stage with the boss, and are hard to get (part of the Medal Rails section)

Icarus, could you use any help with the rest of the stage and boss guides for the ST? I'm not quite 100% on playing the stages myself but I could send you text for the guide that you could edit/enhance where necessary.

Sure. I have little to no time now to work on any of the forthcoming ST guides due to university commitments. (Notice how I haven't posted a score in ages.) If you want to start with stage6, then please feel free, and I'll edit/add to where required ^_^

Stage 5 has been forthcoming in what seems like forever, it's half-written but not copychecked yet. Stage 4 just needs the screenshots I took about half a year ago -_-;;

EDIT: Anyone willing to give me a hand with the Ship by Ship Breakdown as well? All I need are snapshots of each of the different Shot levels (even the secret 6th) and a snap of the Weapon in action. ^_-

[Rastan78]

Sure. I have little to no time now to work on any of the forthcoming ST guides due to university commitments. (Notice how I haven't posted a score in ages.) If you want to start with stage6, then please feel free, and I'll edit/add to where required ^_^

Alright, I'll get to work on a stage 6 guide and maybe stage 7 later.

[professor ganson]

Thanks much BM and Icarus. I have lots of ideas now for getting the score up on stages 1 and 2. This will keep me busy for at least a week.

[BulletMagnet]

Anyone willing to give me a hand with the Ship by Ship Breakdown as well? All I need are snapshots of each of the different Shot levels (even the secret 6th) and a snap of the Weapon in action. ^_-

I vaguely recall seeing a site someplace which showed pictures of the shot levels for each plane, but it's been a long time since I last frequented it...heaven only knows if it even exists anymore.

[Randorama]

sheep's site, i think, if anyone remembers the url...

[BulletMagnet]

Unless I missed it, I don't think it's there. Here's the Garegga page if you want to have a look...

http://www.world-of-arcades.com/R8zing/ ... aregga.htm

[Icarus]

The Battle Garegga Handbook has the screenshots of all the Shot levels, but the screenshots are not very good. I'd prefer better quality snaps for use on the guide ^_-

@Rastan78: Thanks! No rush, just do it in your own time. I will probably add and edit where required if that's okay with you, such as adding exact point values for targets, tricks and techniques I know of and other things, but I will try and keep the copytext as close to your submission as I can. ^_-

[stratos]

I'm back! I had gone for a while since I had problems with my pc motherboard, but now it's all ok... How are you? Hope you're very well...

So, even if I'm a beginner myself, I'd like to share my Garegga experience with Professor Ganson; I think I coul'd give him some good advices since, like him, I'm practicing too and I'm trying to find the easiest consistent scoring targets to get cheap extends to suicide and, paradoxally, to survive, rather than develop skills in advanced techniques (this will come later). The easy scoring summary by Icarus (how 'r you, bro? ^_^) it' s very handy and I referred to it so much to build some strategies, but I think that beginners like us coul'd add to it other specific thougths to make their job easier and less frustrating, adding intermediate and advanced tricks slowly with the improvement of their skills.

Premitted: as Bullet Magnet (hi fella! It's all right?) wisely stated before, an important thing is the ship you choose:

I like the Snail variants like the Mackerel (B version) and Golden Bat (A+B+C version) since they have the power of the Snail and penetrative shot combined with hi speed, or the Snail itself, great for biginners that can't control hi speed machines at start. Snail weapon it's very good too: it's powerful, its attack is aimed and last for a long time; with that weapon, the Snail can easily make a million with the flamingoes and take down many scoring targets and strong enemies, and in many cases you will use it very well if combined with rank-killing suicides... but this incredibly handy aircraft has its disadvantages: it shots at least three bulletts at any shot level, one of them penetrative, plus, if I remember well, it's weapon raises the rank a lot. So the Snail it's a very easy to use machine but a hi rank type also...

To the other side, if you use Silver Sword and variants you will have good speeds, low shot power without piercing bulletts and a very quick homing napalm weapon (poor on flamingoes but really great for defense if you are playing for survival). You will find yourself scoring very hardly with this plane, and it will be difficult to get rid of group of hi-resiliance enemies (like the ground turretts in stage two) because of non penetrative shot, but the Sword is definitely a low rank machine, that coul'd make your life easier in farther stages, in wich you will encounter a large number of enemies that otherwise will be impossible to deal with using a ship like this...

I don't have so much knowledge regarding properties of other machines, but the principle shoul'd be: the less powerful and score proficient the ship is, the less rank goes up... but keep in mind that non penetrative shot ships are for expert players, and I think you shoul'd ignore the secret ships for now since they are a bit more difficult to use. Now, if you think that you have four plane selectable and other secret four, anyone with four variants, with a total of 32 combinations, and you think that you can finish the whole game (seven stages at all) in 1 credit with ANY ship type, and obtaining also some great scores, you can easily realise that Raizing developers are simply geniuses...

If anyone can add informations about Snail and Sword or the other ships (secret or not) I'll very appreciate.

So, now onto the previous thoughts.
The easiest ways to get extends in the first section of the game (the first four stages) are the flamingoes, the medals and the bonus life in stage three.

The birds

Since the birds can give you easily a million with the Snail, you need to get to stage 2 with an average score of 400.000, or at least 380.000; if an extend is granted at 1.000.000, its useless risking a life with the advanced techniques of the Nose Lavagghin in stage 1 to get only 100.xxx in surplus. If you are playing with less powerful weapon ships, you will make less points with the birds and get the extend later, but since the rank counter shoul'd roll more slowly you shoul'd be able to get to level five with less suicides... Now, to obtain these 380.000/400.000 you can concentrate on some easy Lavagghin techniques.
You can bash the tail turret with the option (and gain cheap 75.000 this way), then easily destroy three wing turret and one rotating turret; now, try to strike down one of the side propellors with the option (this requires a bit of practice, but it's really funny and not too difficult to achieve by beginners), and then destroy the boss, even without suiciding. Now you have a base score for building the extend at the birds, one life in stock to suicide against the Gunblimp, another life in stock to have much room for occasional errors, one life active and have obtained this without accumulating too much frustration.

The medals

The medals are a very important source of scoring in Garegga, especially in stage 3 and 4. Let's do some math to understand the reasons of what I stated. When you maximize your medal value, you earn 10.000 per medal, so 100 medals can give you a million (I like to think to them like the coins in Super Mario :D ); in stage 3 you can easily pull 40 medals off the rail track at the beginning, 6 off the water containers and a great number of them off grounded planes and flying enemies in general. You shoul'd earn at least 60 medals only in stage three that are worth 600.000 points, other points from shooting down enemies, extra points shooting the final grounded planes with bomb, boss shots points and the extra life. If you feel confident with the hovering tank rush, you coul'd take down some scenary portions with the weapon for extra score, but only if it's not too risky. Then, in stage 4, Plant, you can earn a big number of medals from the tubes, the tank hangar and the iron bridges near to Satanic Surfer (stage 4 boss). I can't count them, but they are a LOT. So, since you can make about 60% of your (poor beginner) score in stage 3 and at least 40% in stage 4 only from the medals, obtaining one score based extend in stage 3 (counting also enemies and normal targets shut down), an extra life from the hovercraft and another score based extend in stage 4, you shoul'd not risk aiming difficult targets in Factory or milking Earth Crisis (even because this actions make rank go up). You shoul'd try instead to catch all the medals in the first two stages, taking advantages from the large number of them appearing in the middle section of the game. So let's focus on easy strategies to maximize your medal values.

In stage 1, taking all medals and a good amount of weapon fragments for the flamingoes shoul'd be an easy task.

In stage 2 you will encounter some threats that can make you miss a medal at certain points. You shoul'd avoid to generate these medals until you are really confident with the techniques to catch them, since it's more important to avoid missing a medal rather than generate them all and missing even only one... this way you catch less medels, you earn less points from them in stage two (how many medals you will not generate? If you lose even 4, you don't lose so much score), but you are sure to max their value and to earn about 600.000 points in stage three!!!

At the beginning of stage 2, you should suicide against the blimp to tame the rank and to get all the medals from its turrets. If you can't do the trick in Icarus ST, try at least to get all the medals on screen: it shoul'd be easy since you are invincible...

You shoul'd also be able to shot the three tanks while they are bashing the houses, one of my favorite parts :)

Now onto the big tank: you shoul'd be able to catch medals in Plateau until the section with the houses on the sides of the screen. At this point a big tank will appear in the centre, shooting at you with big and fast projectiles. The easiest way to destroy it without dodging this attack and avoiding to generate medals difficult to catch is to point blank it. You shoul'd position yourself on the centre of the tank, so you'll be out of the trajectory of its missiles, avoiding other enemies' bullets going slightly up or down; if you have options, swtch them to straight positions to avoid striking side enemies and generate medals too risky to be catched. Usless to say that pros will try to shoot all enemies down and try to catch all the medals, but we are trying to survive, memorize levels and become confident with those needle bullet, trying to extend at the same time, so...

Finally, the big crafts with aiming cannons. In many super replays, you see the pros going left and right to lure the aiming cannons and to destroy them without taking down the aircrafts; then, they shot down first aircraft's wings and then its body, taking the medals, then the same thing with the other... untill you are not confident with this strategy, try only to generate medals you are sure to catch... if you want to blow up a craft withowt generate medals, shoot it in the centre.

And now the boss: Mad Ball. Since we can obtain at least three extends at the end of stage three by many means, and of course we are only beginners, we should'nt risk a back up life in stock against the vicious pattern of Plateau boss. So we shoul'd concentrate on understanding its attacks and then use a suicide to: 1) tame the rank counter, 2) earn points striking its outer ring with weapon taking advantage of invincibility (only Snail players) and 3) earning some bomb fragments to generate medals from the rail track in stage 3. Then kill the boss.

Medals can also be used to manage rank. When many maxed value medals are displayed on screen (like in stage three and four) you can let some of them drop off of the screen. Try to do this trick if you are sure to have other medals to catch right after the medal goes offscreen.

With this techniques, you can maximize your medal values before stage 3 without risking too much and also managing the rank a bit... Factory it's a difficult level yet, Plant coul'd be punishing at some points, so you HAVE to tame rank counter; in order to do this you shoul'd continue to suicide in strategical points that let's you execute easy scoring tricks or in places where you don't risk to generate medals that coul'd potentially be missed, and in general few points before you get an extends: the right place to suicide coul'd vary depending of the situations and, since this is a beginner strat, we assume that we will not suicide in the same places the pros do, since they use different and more tricky techniques.

In your first "practice plays" you coul'd suicide all your life in stock except one, so you'll have an active life plus one in stock that gives you much room for errors, as Bullet Magnet suggested in an old post. But when you become perfectly confident with the game you shoul'd try to save only your active life since rank counter it's a rampaging beast that will be mentioned in the shmups mithology books for generations...

And then, after 1 credited the game, we coul'd concentrate on advanced scoring tricks, since we probably woul'd be accustomed with enemy location, invisibullets detection, strong enemies point blank techniques, enemy behaviour ecc. ecc.

Another thought: in some versions of the game you can select the order of the first stages, but in the japanese one with the 1.000.000 extend it's fixed. That's probably why in other games with too punishing extends or WITHOUT extends at all the rank can't be manged very well, so the players coul'd play the tougher stages at the beginning and taking on the easiest at the end with higher rank levels...
We know that the japanese fixed level order it's disposed to let you do this things in this order:

1) get bomb fragments

2) get the falmingoes extend/s

3) maximize medal value

4) generate large amounts of maxed level medals in stage 3 and 4

Then you go to Clouds, get another extend, suicide it, beat the Black Heart and proceed to the last stages without rank managing, power upping to max level and point blanking everything mercyless while praying your favorite ancestors to bless you...

The order is disposed this way probably because these tricks are the minimum required to 1cc the game with the more intuitive ship, the Snail, taking advantage of the 1.000.000 extend, so I think that this strat shoul'd be the easiest way to 1cc Garegga... but I hadn't yet managed to do this, since I'm still practicing, so I hope our beloved Rando and Ica woul'd join the discussion trying to confirm this :)

[stratos]

Slowly rethinking my strategies and making progress...

But I'm curious about some serious plays with many Garegga and Mahou ships. Coul'd you give me some links to good superplays?

Thanks

[Rastan78]

stratos, you might want to check out www.mog-rep.net for some good mame .inp files. The replays there show the game cleared with just about every ship and with very nice scores.

[stratos]

Ah, very interesting site... there are so many games superplay, thanks :)

[stratos]

Another question: rolls the rank more faster depending on the number of extra ships you have in stock?


We know that suicide decrease the counter, but still I don't know if the per frame increase is proportional to the number of extra lives...


It's crucial: some scoring strategies involve extend hoarding to have the possibility to suicide and gain extra bombs in a particular section of the game, while a surviving strategy woul'd probably discourage it, and you shoul'd keep suiciding the sencond before you get the next extend...


I have tried it navigating the Factory (stage 3) with three extra ships in stock, and the rank seemed to be higher than before...

[Rastan78]

Yeah, hoarding a bunch of lives will send the rank sky high. The best way to keep rank down for survival is to go through most of the game while on your last remaining ship. Of course one hit at the wrong time will end it all, so maybe it's best to balance it so you have that extra life in the rough places just in case.

[stratos]

Thanks Rastan!


I'm glad to see you currently hang around this thread!


I really love this game; can't practice eight hours a day, nor EVERY day, but I continue to play it over and over and, even taking pauses, I always return on it.


Are you currently playing Garegga? What ship/s you use? What can you achieve? Let's discuss, if you like, 'cause I really enjoy talking about this game, it's really my favourite shmup (haven't played Ibara yet, though :))!

[thchardcore]

Just got into Garegga seriously, had the saturn version, but something seemed off, so I got the pcb and everything is legit now. Just trying perfect my score on stage 1 at the moment. Do I have to milk the bosses as long as possible or after I have destroyed all optional parts can I just shoot the core.

lol

Mike

[stratos]

@thchardcore:


I can suggest you to choose the Saturn version instead, since you can easily reset the rank by simply accessing to the option screen and then starting a new game. You can also practice levels in the score attack mode, that's a great thing too, or changing the default shot frequency and other cool things... for technical matters, many user browsing this forum say that Saturn Garegga is one of the greatest console ports ever made. From what I coul'd see, the only real difference from the arcade Jap version is the sound you hear when you pick up a bomb fragment, more "audible" on Saturn. MAME version it's not bad too, but you have to use the weired save states to reset the rank or practice bosses and levels. Being myself a Garegga fan, I'll probably buy a Saturn Jap console around the month of April (for my birthday ) only to play Yagawa San masterpiece. I'm really bored to use that mechanically low balanced Microsoft Sidewinder pad directional button, being killed while attempting an Earth Crisis milking only because I press "down" and it make me go "down/right"... And the button response on MAME seems a little slower than the PCB or Saturn version. Untill April, I'll probably enjoy Ibara on my PS2, that's another great work by S. Yagawa, even if I continue to prefere Garegga...


For boss milking, you shoul'd milk the boss timing its "strategical withdrawal", killing them while they are going out of the screen, but this will make rank go up and it's really difficult to time perfectly. You coul'd see the USI video on www.super-play.co.uk for reference, and then working on slightly different strategies for the ship you usually choose.


For any other informations, you can check the great strategy FAQ at the top of this thread and also the interesting discussions that follow. Then, if you have other sipecific questions that I can answer, I'll do with great pleasure!

[fl0w]

In case anyone is interested, I've made a few changes to MAME so that the rank is shown (top left):



The first bar shows the value added to the rank each time you shoot, the second bar is the countdown until your rank changes, and the third bar is the rank itself.

[BulletMagnet]

Wow, that's really nifty...any possibility you could put up some of your findings about exactly how the rank works (since there are apparently still some uncertain elements) here for the rest of us to read? AWJ put some such stuff up earlier in this thread, and it dispelled a couple of earlier well-accepted theories, maybe more new discoveries are in store?

Dang, now a rank counter like this is the kinda extra feature I wish the Saturn port had had.

[Twiddle]

The first bar shows the value added to the rank each time you shoot, the second bar is the countdown until your rank changes, and the third bar is the rank itself.

Wow. How did you pull this off?

[fl0w]

Wow. How did you pull this off?

Simple: I've read Icarus' ST

OK, let me give a few more details. I've downloaded the source code of MAME 0.104 and VCMAME and compiled the whole thing in Debug.

I've found which driver was used in MAME (easy).
Then, I've tried to draw something over Garegga's normal screen (easy).
Then, I've had to find how to read the RAM of the "PCB" (not so easy).
I've then been able to display a few bars to see exactly which bytes were meaning something.
You know the rest

I confirm grabbing big medals and too many "options", as well as shooting restlessly, increase the rank...

One thing must be said: it's a MAME trick, I have NOT hacked the ROM itself, so don't expect your PCB to display the rank!

MAME has a built-in debugger but I haven't used it yet. Now that I know where the rank value is stored, I think it wouldn't be too hard to trace if there are other parameters which affect the rank. I don't know how this debugger works yet, but it shouldn't be a problem.

At the moment I'm building a stick so please give me some time. At least I can provide the modified source code of the driver, I'll upload it somewhere soon.

[Dave_K.]

The graphical bar is a nice touch! Good work fl0w.

Here is what I had posted in the rank meter thread...anyone can already do this if they have the mame cheat codes loaded and enabled for overall rank, and per frame rank.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=30

[fl0w]

Good job Dave_K, I couldn't believe no one had done this before!

Here's the code of the modified function in drivers/toaplan2.c:

Code: Select all

VIDEO_UPDATE( truxton2_0 )
{
	//fl0w
	unsigned int x,y;
	//~fl0w

	video_update_toaplan2_0(screen,bitmap,cliprect);
	tilemap_draw(bitmap,cliprect,tx_tilemap,0,0);

	//fl0w
	//rank speed
	x = (program_read_byte_8(0x10C9D8) + 10)/11;
	for(y=0;y<=x;y++){
		plot_box(bitmap, 320-32, y*3, 2, 2, 33);
	}
	//rank countdown
	plot_box(bitmap, 320-32-3, 0, 2, (program_read_byte_8(0x10C9D5)>>2)+1, 33);
	//rank
	x = program_read_byte_8(0x10C9D2);
	plot_box(bitmap, 320-32-6, 0, 2, (0xFF-x), 64+(x&1));
	//~fl0w
}

The countdown is divided by 2 so that the bar is not too big.
The rank changes color each time its value changes (feel free to use other colors than the ones I've chosen ^_^)

Enjoy!

EDIT: the hack works with both battleg and battlega ROMs.

[fl0w]

Wow, that's really nifty...any possibility you could put up some of your findings about exactly how the rank works (since there are apparently still some uncertain elements) here for the rest of us to read? AWJ put some such stuff up earlier in this thread, and it dispelled a couple of earlier well-accepted theories, maybe more new discoveries are in store?

Hi again,

it's quite painful to trace events which affect the rank. MAME runs at sth like 3 fps in debug mode :-/

I've spotted a few things that affect the rank, but nothing new (main shot, options shots, various power ups...). Icarus' ST is much more precise.

If your have very specific questions, I might help but I don't feel like reverse engineering the whole rank system

[captain ahar]

sweet mod flow. i look forward to seeing it in action someday.

[BulletMagnet]

it's quite painful to trace events which affect the rank.

Heh, it'd seem that pretty much anything related to this game's rank is painful.

If your have very specific questions, I might help but I don't feel like reverse engineering the whole rank system

Don't kill yourself trying to analyze this, but on the ST it was said that (non-piercing) "big bullets" fired from your plane don't increase your rank any more than "small bullets" do...as such, IIRC, levelling your Grass Hopper up from a level 1 shot (2 small bullets) to a level 2 shot (2 large ones) won't affect the rank at all, while putting it up to a level 3 shot (4 small ones) will double its output. I've always wondered in the back of my head if that'd ever been confirmed...

[Icarus]

Okay, all image and replay links have been repaired, and a preliminary write up of Stage 5 (Cloud) and Stage 6 (Base) has been added to the main guide. The Stage 6 writeup comes courtesy of Rastan78, so I have left his contribution unedited save for bits and pieces I've added here and there, in the form of quotes by myself. Many thanks, Rastan78. Sorry it took so long. ~_~;;

The writeups for stages 4 to 6 will be redone in the near future to incorporate more detailed info and scoring data, as well as the customary quick-replay-links and stuff. Stage 7 is in the works as well, as I've been having some fun playing against the stage and Black Heart2 in Score Attack Mode, to refresh my memory. For now though, please enjoy.

One other thing, I need to consolidate all the information on Garegga that will no doubt be scattered to the four winds all over the Strategy, High Scores and Shmups Chat forums. I have an idea of where things are, but if anyone happens across some useful data that would be better served in the guide, please do not hesitate to copypaste it into a new reply here, or point me to it so I can do it myself. Thanks. ^_^

Whohooo! ST guide almost completed.

[Icarus]

Many thanks to Twiddle for sitting down with a waypoint enabled MAME build to get us the following nuggets of information, and to Rando for forwarding Twiddle's information to me.

What will follow will interest a few people. ^_-

-Good News-

There is no point of no returns in Battle Garegga.

"What?"

Yes, there is no point of no returns. This does not mean, however, that you can recover to managable rank from max rank by dying repeatedly (you waste your extends, and your deaths are less efficient in cooling down rank due to your high initial stock). You can't lose it fast enough to pull that off because you do not get extends fast enough, along with a slew of other factors such as the amount of rank-increasing firepower needed to destroy enemies/get medals/etc and other things that I just can't get to at the moment.

In fact, it is possible that you can put yourself in a "point of no returns" situation by stocking up as many extends as possible, and having a blantant disregard for rank control (picking up excess OPTION icons, picking up tons of 100-400 point medals (this is explained later)) in that rank will raise faster than it will be reduced by dying.

This means that there is no point in the rank system (early on) where your rank is unrecoverable because you were a few hundred rank points too late before a suicide. This also means that the rank system works much closer to Zanac.

Looking at the rank counter while playing and clamping lives at certain stock levels (lol cheats) and dying repeatedly at elevated rank levels, the formula while checking the values before and after death for rank reduction is closer to (7 - remaining lives) * 131072, (or if you want the hex value, 020000) which is probably not exact. I could be off a couple thousand or so in practice.

Death At: Rank Reduction (hex)
0 remain Game over please insert another quarter
1 remain ~786432 (0C0000)
2 remain ~655360 (0A0000)
3 remain ~524288 (080000)
4 remain ~393216 (060000)
5 remain ~262144 (040000)


-Bad News-

If you break your medal chain, THE RANK VALUE DOES NOT LOWER.

Numerical Rank value: 14.7m
Medal chain broken
Pop an enemy, see 100pt medal
Numerical Rank value: 14.7m or 14.6m (depending on how long it was/what happened since the last event)
Player feels the sting of failure and kneels, hunched over, hands to the ground

Another funny thing to note here is that the first four "buildup" medals (100-400) increase rank by roughly 10k (100) to 40k (400) each, while the 500-10k medals increase rank by about a hundred or a couple hundred each. This is even more frightening to see after noting that rank does not decrease after breaking a medal chain, but the first four medals that build up to that point increase it by hilarious amounts (a minimum of 100k raise by rebuilding the chain to 500). You can possibly utterly destroy your game by destroying scenery and collecting all the 100 to 400 point medals that spawn.


-Misc-

* Rank does not go up slower or faster if you turn extends off or slow them down/limit them, but (at least with score-based extends off) the rank LEVELS themselves are much less severe than if you had set extends at 1m extends.

* While rank changes for enemy firepower and aggressiveness are effective immediately, enemy hitpoints are not. To explain:

-Spawn a few enemies [we'll call this enemy group 1]
-if you raise rank very sharply, [enemy group 1] will have more firepower but are still weak, armor-wise
-Dispatched [enemy group 1]
-The next wave, [enemy group 2] has increased hitpoints and firepower
-If you lower rank very sharply at this point, [enemy group 2] will have tamer firepower but the same increased hitpoints.

This strategy is shown (somewhat) in action in T3 WIZ-SHISHIOU KAMOI's video in Super Play where he spawns Black Heart mk. 2 at max rank (and thus, it has a ton of hit points) and then starts dying to increase his bomb stock and to milk the hell out of the insane amount of points generated by the bomblets BH2 drops. BH2 can survive these attacks for a long period of time, of course, thanks to it having insane health.

This stuff will be added to the ST guide soon. I'd be interested in cross-referencing the basic data from the Handbook and the combination of Twiddle's and AWJ's math-based information into a more coherent, more functional analysis of the rank system.

Any takers? ^_-

NOTE TO SELF: Time to do an .mht archive of all the pages in this ST guide, just in case...

[BulletMagnet]

Lemme make sure I can follow this...

Death At: Rank Reduction (hex)
0 remain Game over please insert another quarter
1 remain ~786432 (0C0000)
2 remain ~655360 (0A0000)
3 remain ~524288 (080000)
4 remain ~393216 (060000)
5 remain ~262144 (040000)

Doesn't this just sort of confirm what we already (think we) know, namely that dying with fewer lives in reserve means a greater decrease in the rank? However, when you say that...

This means that there is no point in the rank system (early on) where your rank is unrecoverable because you were a few hundred rank points too late before a suicide.

...does this suggest that, unlike what was previously thought, there is no point where the rank will "roll over" and you won't be able to reduce it down past that point? If this is confirmed, then that makes a big difference in my impression of the game's structure, at least...not sure about anyone else. Let me know if I intepreted that correctly...

Another funny thing to note here is that the first four "buildup" medals (100-400) increase rank by roughly 10k (100) to 40k (400) each, while the 500-10k medals increase rank by about a hundred or a couple hundred each.

Ouch...as if the game's inherent system didn't give you enough incentive not to break your medal chain.

This is even more frightening to see after noting that rank does not decrease after breaking a medal chain...

I presume this includes dropping the max value 10K point medals, too? I guess that debunks the old saw that dropping those reduced your rank...as such it seems that the sole way to lower the rank is to kill yourself.

Some interesting stuff...let me know if I read anything incorrectly...

[Plasmo]

Another funny thing to note here is that the first four "buildup" medals (100-400) increase rank by roughly 10k (100) to 40k (400) each, while the 500-10k medals increase rank by about a hundred or a couple hundred each.

Does that mean that losing your medal chain actually INCREASES your rank? (because after losing medal chain you obviously start a new one and you pick up the low medals again...)