RQ: Battle garegga Ships? and rate of fire

[Diabollokus]

Right I'm playing in the easy menu setting with my saturn version.

the 4 ships (not including the guests)

they come in different colours found red, green blue and silver/ gold shots from em.

do these different ship colours affect the game in any way?
how many colours for each ship are their?

Rate of fire?

Read in icarus' great guide you can change rate of fire how? in the japanese menu does this process be done. (japanese menu translation anywhere)

I think I've bitten more off than i can chew in this game..

[Vorpal]

Yes the different color ships affect the gameplay dramatically.

There are 4 different types for each ship, depending on what buttons you use to select them. I don't know how the saturn buttons correlate to what ship you get, but with the arcade it's:
A button (shot button) = normal
B button (weapon button)= increased speed
C button (option formation button)= increased damage
A + B + C buttons (or just let the ship screen timer run out) = increased speed, smaller hitbox (I'm not sure about increased damage, I don't use these ships. I'm sure Icarus knows).

As far as I can tell all the ships have the same rate of fire, but you can change it slightly. Supposedly if you tap the shot button very rapidly, you can create your own shot-stream, and once you hold down the button again it will retain that same shot-stream. Though if you manage to make a faster shot-stream, there will be a slight gap in your shots, as there is a limit to how many can be on screen or something.

[Diabollokus]

wow, this game has some serious depth, thank you for clearing that up for me! 4 types eh?

so golden bat is the same as wild snail just the golden version with increased speed.

[Icarus]

If you don't mind me requesting, please ask all Garegga related questions at the ST thread, to save cluttering up the Strat forum, and to keep all Garegga related QnA's in one location

so golden bat is the same as wild snail just the golden version with increased speed.

Actually, no. Golden Bat is the ABC variant of the Wild Snail, so it has increased speed AND a smaller hit box.

Just to correct Vorpal's post regarding alternate ship selection:

A button (SHOT) - regular version
B button (WEAPON) - increased speed
C button (OPTION) - smaller hitbox
A+B+C buttons - increased speed and smaller hitbox

There is no "increased damage" type. Each ship will have a stronger variant of Shot depending on how much you power up your ship's Shot, and the "thickness" of the bullets fired: for example, Wild Snail's lvl1 and lv3 Shot are comparable in strength, except lv3 has a wider range. lv2 Shot is stronger than lv1, and equal in power to lvl's 4 and 5, but with a lower range. And so on.

Regarding the variable rate of fire, to quote Rando's edit on the ST thread:

Edit by Randorama:
Your main weapon has variable fire rate, and it can be programmed by you. How? When you hold down the button, you will shoot at a fixed fire rate (i think 4 out of 8.) If you tap the button, you may shoot at an higher or lower fire rate, the game will record about 2 seconds (i think 1.5 seconds actually) before you hold down the button and use them as the new fire rate. This means that if you can fire pretty fast (more than the default autofire) you can basically enable the autofire without resorting to extra buttons. This isn't easy to do, actually: if your stream is not constant, you risk having "holes" in your fire rate. To make and example:

You may furiously tap 8 times in a second, rest for half a second and then furiously tap again 4 times in the other half second. You hold the button and get an autofire that shoots 8 bullets in a second, then nothing for half a second, then other 4 bullets (repeat this cycle). This is something you should avoid, because holes can be very, very risky when dealing with small and fast planes. It's better to have a slow coherent stream than a fast but uncoherent one.

By the way, you have 8 speeds, that can be selected in the special menu as the default ones (I mean, you can change from 4 to any value between 1 and 8,) but then you will have troubles changing fire rate during the game.

And to quote myself, again from the ST thread:

Please note that the Sega Saturn version of Garegga offers Classic and Maniac modes of control - Classic means basic Shot, Special and Option controls, while Maniac has rapidfire, option cycling and controlled weapon firing enhancements unique to the Saturn joypad.

In short, you can either use the Maniac controller configuration to assign new customisable autofire settings to your controller (from values 1 -the slowest - through to 4 - the default - and up to 8, for both rapid Shot and Option cycling), or you can vary the autofire rate by hammering the Shot button for as fast as you want it to be, and holding Shot to "lock" the new autofire rate in place.

Maniac controller mode is actually pretty interesting. It has options which not only let you assign custom autofire rates to both Shot and Option, but you can also assign buttons for Shot Only (even if you have Options, pressing this makes only your ship fire) and Option Only (the opposite of Shot Only, for the Options). Would be pretty interesting seeing how Maniac controller modes affect rank-controlled play.

I will put up a translation of the Saturn version Options screens at some point.

[BulletMagnet]

There is no "increased damage" type.

Hmm, then the info at The Sheep's site is incorrect? it lists the "C Button" type as the "Shot Power Up" type, IIRC...

[Icarus]

Hmm, then the info at The Sheep's site is incorrect? it lists the "C Button" type as the "Shot Power Up" type, IIRC...

Oh yes, I'm very certain that my information regarding the ship reinforce selection is correct. To "quote" a machine translated page from the Japanese HTML'ed Battle Garegga Handbook:



Technically, you don't even need to enable the "Small Hitbox" option in the Options screen, since using C to select your ship works just as well. Unless of course, you want a microscopic hitbox, making dodging easier, but Medal collection harder

As stated in my previous post, if you want a more powerful Shot, pay attention to which Shot levels have thicker bullets, and try to keep your ship on those Shot levels. Wild Snail players are recommended to stick with one Shot level under maximum, only upgrading to maximum for certain sections/bosses.

And although the C-type Snail (Rust Champion) is pretty good in it's own right, most players use Iron Mackerel (larger hitbox, faster speed, easier to collect Medals), or Golden Bat (easier dodging, faster speed). Although it's usually up to the player's preference.

[BulletMagnet]

Technically, you don't even need to enable the "Small Hitbox" option in the Options screen, since using C to select your ship works just as well. Unless of course, you want a microscopic hitbox, making dodging easier, but Medal collection harder

Heh, I assume not...guess I was a tad misled on what the different buttons did up till this point...might as well just turn the option off...assuming that the "microscopic hitbox" thing is a joke, heh heh.

[Icarus]

...might as well just turn the option off...assuming that the "microscopic hitbox" thing is a joke, heh heh.

Dunno, never tried it. The "Small Hitbox" option has never been turned on since the day I bought it.

Compounding the effects of both the "Small Hitbox" option and C selection might work in theory. If it does, then the hitbox will be minute - Cave-style 2x2 pixel box size is possible, since the C select hitbox is already pretty small - which would make dodging through the tougher patterns simpler, but make Medal and item collecting a b*tch.

Care to try it out?

[BulletMagnet]

I've been using both the small hitbox option and the C or ABC type planes for a bit now, but haven't really compared whether or not the hitbox there is any smaller than if the option is turned off...I doubt it'd make a difference, it probably just gives all the ships a "regular" small hitbox (thus making itself rather useless, heh heh). Maybe I'll experiment a little though, just to further embarass myself...

[BulletMagnet]

I toyed around with using one of the "c button" ships both with and without the small hitbox option on, and while I'm hardly an expert, I didn't notice much difference, if any at all...at this point I tend to think that the small hitbox option is only much use for those who want the small box feature with a different paint job on their plane, heh.

[AWJ]

I toyed around with using one of the "c button" ships both with and without the small hitbox option on, and while I'm hardly an expert, I didn't notice much difference, if any at all...at this point I tend to think that the small hitbox option is only much use for those who want the small box feature with a different paint job on their plane, heh.

The C button versions of the ships shave one pixel off the top and bottom of the hitbox. Maybe the "small hitbox" option shaves one pixel off the left and right? That would make the two features orthogonal (literally).

[BulletMagnet]

I tend to think that the "small hitbox" option simply shrinks the hitbox to the size of the "c" or "abc" planes for ALL the craft (making it rather useless), but that's just a guess. Does anyone know if there's a manual translation or anything out there someplace?

[MovingTarget]

Are the 4 other ships types that I'm seeing in the highscore thread available for the saturn version? If so how do you get them? I dont mean the variations of the standard ships...

thanks

[Icarus]

Are the 4 other ships types that I'm seeing in the highscore thread available for the saturn version? If so how do you get them? I dont mean the variations of the standard ships...

thanks

If you're talking about the Mahou ships, you can go into the Options and enable the Guest Players option to get them permanently. There's also a cheat code that will let you access them (Konami Code at titlescreen with coin inserted I think).

[zakk]

On the arcade board it's:

Title screen -. U U D D L R L R A B C Start

It does not save, you must do it before every game.

I assume the code is the same on the Saturn, but you really don't need it.

[MovingTarget]

ahhh, thanks!

I thought the guest players was something to do with the 2 player mode...

[mjclark]

So if I select the ship speedup variant (B) is there some corresponding sacrifice in firepower? I can see that the small hitbox variant has it's own advantages and disadvantages (harder to be hit but also harder to collect pickups) but what are the disadvantages of the speedup variant?

[charlie chong]

weaker firepower

[Enhasa]

I thought it was just that some ships are already fast enough like Gain and Miyamoto and don't need to be any faster. Speed can be a tradeoff in and of itself, just like hitbox.

[Icarus]

weaker firepower

Where the hell did you pull that from? Try not to spread misinformation, thanks.

FYI, the only thing a Speed (Type B) variant affects is player movement speed - not firepower, hitbox, background music, sprite design or anything else. Obviously, Type B is better suited to some ships over others.

[charlie chong]

sorry i really was under the impression that b or c both had weaker firepower than a ship or an a+b+c ship .. you learn somethin new everyday

[charlie chong]

just one little question myself actually icarus ... is golden bat just as fast as iron mackerel and is it's hitbox just as small as rust champion???

[BulletMagnet]

Icky will have to confirm, but as far as I know the "D" version of any ship is pretty much just a straight-up combination of the "B" and "C" types, with no "penalty" applicable. After all, higher speed and a smaller hitbox aren't always advantages in this game.

[Icarus]

just one little question myself actually icarus ... is golden bat just as fast as iron mackerel and is it's hitbox just as small as rust champion???

"D" version, BM? You should know better than that. ^_-

But yes, charlie, what BM said is correct. Golden Bat (ABC) is basically a combination of Iron Mackerel (B) and Rust Champion (C). Same deal goes for the other seven ships - ABC is a combination of B and C. But to reinforce my previous comment, some ships benefit from B more than others - Gain and Miyamoto would be unusuable as B since they're already stupidly fast, hence most players leave them at default (A) or use C.

When you're playing, try and get a feel for the speed of the ship at default - if it is very fast, then you won't need to use Type B; if it is quite slow (say like Bornnam or Wild Snail), then Type B or ABC work well.

... I should really do a more in-depth ship section for the ST... -_-;;

[BulletMagnet]

"D" version, BM? You should know better than that. ^_-

Yeah, but it's easier to type.

... I should really do a more in-depth ship section for the ST... -_-;;

Not going back into self-imposed exile after the tourney would be a good first step in that direction.

[mjclark]

... some ships benefit from B more than others - Gain and Miyamoto would be unusuable as B since they're already stupidly fast, hence most players leave them at default (A) or use C.

But 3 of the Top Ten Overall Scores in the Highscore thread use Magic S-Bomb, which I thought was Gain with a speedup (and reduced hitbox)...
...why didn't they teach us this at school?

[charlie chong]

thanks for clearing that up for me guys! i've been playing this since 2003 and i still suck i've been trying on and off for months to beat my old high score but i'm still a million off

[Icarus]

But 3 of the Top Ten Overall Scores in the Highscore thread use Magic S-Bomb, which I thought was Gain with a speedup (and reduced hitbox)...
...why didn't they teach us this at school?

Gain has the highest scoring potential of all the ships (20mil) and one of the more powerful Options, as well as the fastest speed in the game, which is good for bullet leading (and bad for precision movement, for example Black Hear2's sweeping vulcan).

[tommyb]

Okay, I'm an idiot.

How do you get the Mahou characters in the arcade version of Garegga?

[croikle]

About halfway down this page zakk explains. It's pretty much the Konami code before you press start, though you may have to do it somewhat quickly.