At first I thought it was simply a fixed pattern. The first three carriers for example drop weapon power-ups, the fourth one a missile, the fifth one another power-up and so on and so forth. There are some choppers that drop four items instead of just one, and these too always appear in the same spots. I noticed some slight alterations here and there (the first chopper in the fifth stage would drop a missile instead of a weapon power-up once in a while), but nothing major.
Now I'm noticing all kinds of irregularities. The first chopper in the second stage once you're flying over the water is - I believe that, at least - supposed to drop the first bomb in the game. But sometimes he just drops a weapon power-up. Whenever that happens, the game just skips the bomb entirely and proceeds with the cycle as if nothing unusual happened. The first quadruple power-up carrier (which never appears before the third stage if I'm not mistaken) seems to be completely random. Oftentimes it's the first or second chopper in the stage, but I also had it happen that he spawned near the end of the stage or not at all. Sometimes the game just delays the cycle by a few carriers, sometimes it omits the pattern altogether. I can't make heads or tails out of it.
This might not sound so bad, but it actually has the inherent tendency to massively screw you over in several regards:
- You potentially lose out on several bombs. I think you're supposed to have seven bombs (edit: forget that, I just had a run where I got to the boss with eight bombs AND the bonus for another one which I couldn't even hold...) by the time you reach the sixth boss provided you didn't bomb beforehand. I had one particularly screwy run where I got there with only five bombs. You absolutely need these for the second loop, and the difference between two (edit: or four!) bombs is massive.
- If you miss one or two of the quadruple choppers you'll also lose out on up to 150,000 points (or the cumulative bonus for a bomb depending on what surrogate you might get) which is likewise substantial.
- The worst of all, however, is that the cycle of the weapon power-ups also might change. Normally there's a completely static factor that determines which type of weapon a destroyed helicopter will drop: the time of its demise. Yet when the game alters its cycle it also alters what specific weapon power-up will be dropped. During busier sections (particularly in stages 4 and 7) it can prove fatal when you also have to constantly dodge an unwanted power-up on top of whatever else might be happening.
Does anyone know how this works, precisely? I've considered the amount of points, the position on the screen, the enemy kill count in a given stage (which may or may not influence the likelihood of bonus cars in stages 1 & 3) and the on-screen objects, can't seem to find any concludent proof, though. Perhaps those hacks at Allumer just messed it up, it wouldn't be like them to create a thoroughly sound game, after all.
