ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

For posting and requesting strategic gameplay tips on shmups!
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ProjectAKo
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by ProjectAKo »

Wow, cool stuff. I was originally looking for how the rank effects shot generation / speed / seal range but I took a break after the garegga life stuff and still haven't found it...
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Shepardus
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by Shepardus »

Radigo wrote:I'd like to fill a leaderboard of the regular version with 10 counterstops
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:D
Had some fun with this tonight and got three counterstops, two of them on stream (highlighted the better one, which was a clear). I've also got one counterstop on Advanced so that's six total.

Going for the counterstop in this game is actually a pretty fun exercise. It's a bit more forgiving than going for a high score in the Unlimited version since you can make some mistakes and still hit the counterstop, which means I don't reset as much as I would if I were trying to beat my high score. I suppose avoiding the temptation to reset at every mistake would help me clear Advanced Course someday too... It's actually quite surprising what mistakes it's possible to recover from and get back on route for scoring, albeit with a lower score.
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wgogh
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by wgogh »

Someone got a advice to control the rank?
I've read about the things that increase or decrease, but I'm still planning a way to apply
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Vludi
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by Vludi »

wgogh wrote:Someone got a advice to control the rank?
I've read about the things that increase or decrease, but I'm still planning a way to apply
Suiciding before extends in the first stages helps a bit, but nowhere near as much as Garegga. The main problem to clear this game is the final boss, if you don't have enough resources you are dead.
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Shepardus
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by Shepardus »

If you chain the first stage boss (Axebeak) you can get five extends at the start of stage 2, which takes you up to maximum lives even after committing suicide three times, twice while doing the chain and once after collecting the first of the five extends. Thanks to the rank decrease from the suicides (unlike Batrider and Garegga, you don't start at minimum rank in Bakraid), you'll be at lower rank than when you started, even after collecting all the extends. The only downsides are the extra time you spend on Axebeak which can get boring if you do it a lot, and the initial investment to learn the trick (it's pretty confusing if you're not familiar with the game's scoring mechanics).

After that you can control your rank by not grabbing more powerups than you need and by not grabbing extends if you have three extra lives in stock. Grabbing a surplus life when you're at the maximum, four, is actually not the end of the world unlike in Batrider, though it's not great for you either. To be honest this is probably all you really need to know if you're not going for high scores.

By far the biggest contributors to rank are extends (especially with 3 lives in stock), 100k medals, and high chain multipliers, none of which are likely to bother you if you're not actively going for them. However, there are a couple places where it's easy to build up a large chain even if you have only basic knowledge of the chaining system, which can potentially send your rank spiraling out of control. The two most threatening ones are the second half of Seaside, from the durable green planes until the popcorn rush just before the boss, and the wave of enemies right before the last boss.

That last stretch in particular can add a noticeable amount to rank by itself if you shoot indiscriminately. If you start with no multiplier and chain the whole wave, your rank will increase twice as much as it does from picking up an extend at three stock, which is a lot for such a small part of the game. However, doing so also gives around 700,000 points which might be what you need to get one more extend just before the final boss, Vampire. It's up to you to judge whether that extra score would get you to an extend, and if so whether you'd rather go for that extend or break the chain in the middle to avoid the rank penalty. Generally I would say that if you have plenty of lives and your rank is already fairly high, avoid chaining that part, otherwise go for the chain.

You probably won't chain too much of the second half of Seaside if you just shoot normally, but it's one of the easiest parts of the game to chain if you understand how bombing and suicides extend the chain timer, because there's far more chain targets than you actually need to maintain a chain through the section. It can be tempting to improvise a chain through the section to try to get an extra extend or two, but if you're not careful about it your rank will skyrocket from all the x64 chaining and the extra lives may not be worth it, if you even get any. If you do want to chain that part (like you should if you're going for score), I have two tips. The first is to very consciously control rank, committing suicide down to zero or one stock even if it's not required to keep the chain, and skipping chain targets if you don't need them to keep the chain. The second is to make sure you bomb, not shoot, the popcorn rush at the end of the stage when you've got a high chain. Bombing or using the aura to kill those popcorn gives 10x the points shooting does; with a x64 multiplier each enemy is worth 128,000 points when destroyed with bomb/aura but only 12,800 with shot. Multiply this by however many popcorn there are (which is dependent on rank), and this can easily net you an entire extra extend or more.

The rank control game is very different if you're doing chaining routes for the stages and going for high scores. Powerups become insignificant; the only things that matter are deaths, extends, chains, and 100k medals. Controlling rank while still getting a good score mostly boils down to managing how many lives you have, and in some places, such as the end of Seaside, skipping some chain targets if you need a bit of extra rank control.
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wgogh
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by wgogh »

Thank you for the tips. Gotta love these complex mechanisms

I've already watched yours and Icarus's videos and tried to reproduce with little luck. I read the thread and texts in other sites in order to learn more about the system, but still need to work a strategy to apply. Since I couldn't do the Axebeak chain, I thought about doing a "regular clearing" before trying to raise my scores. Also, I thought that doing the Axebeak chain plus getting the extends would raise my rank like crazy, even with the suicides.

But it looks like you're saying that learning the Axebeak chain is actually safer than a "regular" play, so I'll give it a try again.
(I'm using Saber Tiger.)

Still playing with a usb keyboard and flipping the laptop!!
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... &start=990
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ciox
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by ciox »

I just did a quick experiment and doing Axebeak the quick way is not something reserved for type B ships (longer bomb) like I thought before, you are free to do it with any ship and any type selection in the game.

Even with the slowest ship in the game played without Start selection (no speed powerup) and the bad case where Axebeak tries to slide the cockpit off screen right when you need to kill it, there's still time to kill the cockpit early before it scrolls off the top of the screen.
Now there's some awkardness if you take it that far but you should be just fine using this strat while going for types A (shot), C (sideshot) or S (speed) for your ship if it's not too slow. If you've got a fast speed, like Flame Viper (S) or Blade Owl (S) or Buster Lizard (A, C) or Hammer Shark (A, C) then it's not even very challenging.

battle bakraid - fast axebeak, slowest ship, no bomb type, no speed type
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by trap15 »

:o jesus almighty
@trap0xf | daifukkat.su/blog | scores | FIRE LANCER
<S.Yagawa> I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go.
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ciox
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by ciox »

Man, playing random ships is fun as hell once you've got the fundamentals down and use type B to help with chains, I've been having a look over all the unused ships and feel like I have enough impressions to start some kind of a ship guide for this game, one more constructive than "use flame viper or die", so here's a start which will hopefully be fully accurate in time


R= [b]BAKRAID[/b] & Sky Dragon & Saber Tiger & Lightning Wolf & Hammer Shark & Flame Viper & Steel Bat & Solid Ray & Buster Lizard & Blade Owl R= Minimum Shot Width & 2 & 2 & 2 & 2 & 1 & 2 & 2 & 2 & 2 R= Side Shot Power & Very Low & Medium & [b]Very High[/b] & Low & High & Low & Medium & Low & Medium R= Side Shot Coverage & High & High & Low & Low & High & Low & Medium & Medium & Medium R= Side Shot Homing & No & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & No & Yes & No R= Charge Attack Power & Very Low & Low & [b]Very High[/b] & High & High & Medium & Low & Low & Medium R= Charge Attack Coverage & High & Medium & Medium & High & High & Low & Medium & Low & [b]Very High[/b] R= Charge Attack Piercing & No & No & No & Yes & No & No & No & No & Yes R= Speed & High [6] & Low [2] & Medium [4] & [b]Very High[/b] [7] & Medium [3] & Medium [3] & Low [1] & High [5] & Medium [4] R= R= Main Strength & Speed & Side Shot & Side Shot & Speed & Side Shot & Main Shot? & Charge Attack & Speed & Charge Attack R= Main Weakness & Power & Speed & Coverage & Power & Minimum Shot Width, Speed & Almost Everything & Speed & Power & Power R=


R=Sky Dragon & Saber Tiger & Lightning Wolf & Hammer Shark & Flame Viper & Steel Bat & Solid Ray & Buster Lizard & Blade Owl R= Very low attack power but still a great ship for advanced players & Very difficult to score with such a low speed & Its charging attack has some limited but useful piercing ability if used point blank on bosses. Unlike most ships, its Side Shot is very powerful with just one Side Shot powerup installed & The controllable sideshot beams are very promising from a scoring perspective but require tremendous skill to aim. Pointblank to increase their fire rate significantly & A very good all around ship, but most likely not the ship used to claim the world record & What is this apparently weak ships secret, is it enhanced shot power, or something else? & Same problem as Saber Tiger & Side Shots from this ship will fire a lot faster at point blank & Charge attacks can boost your score when dealing with enemies that have many parts but must be destroyed without bombs R= & & & & & & & & R=


Minimum shot width is how many lines of shots the plane fires when its shot is not powered up by selecting Type A or by picking up a shot powerup, it's quite important mainly in one place, Cyclops where it can help you chain 3 wagons per life, it's only slightly important in other places where you want to a) be bombing away from your ship b) damage two things at once with shot, typically shot targets that lose points if destroyed with bomb.

The main problem with strong charge attacks is that you get few opportunities to use them in a scoring run, in between bombs you can barely manage 1-1.2 seconds of charge attack before having to bomb again if your charge attack is not triggering new chains, this relegates charge attack use mostly to the starting of new chains from scratch, which is rarely done.
One thing you could do with these charge attacks is try to score on bosses without bombing, your piercing attack will work almost like bombs do in setting up a chain of up to x4 or x8, then killing the boss will give full points since you didn't use a bomb, up to 100,000x4 or 100,000x8 or so, problem is there aren't many opportunities for this, and most opportunities that do exist have bombing routes that allow you to score around 20,000x64 or 50,000x64 which still blow those no-bomb scores out of the water. Still who knows, maybe there is a boss setup hidden somewhere in the game that lets you kill a boss with an x64 multiplier, without suicides and bombs and just relying on piercing charge attacks from Hammer Shark or Blade Owl, this would net you a score bonus of 100,000x64.
--
On the bright side, the piercing charge attacks do not suffer from any kind of scoring penalty like you saw in Garegga and Batrider, they do shot damage so they're good for killing most of the 50,000 point parts hidden inside bosses which you would want to pierce in the first place.

The roster seems to show a decent distribution of strengths and weaknesses, the only wildcard is Steel Bat, which seems uncharacteristically weak, the only special thing I noticed is that it seems to kill stuff faster with its main shot when used at 30hz (i.e while you're bombing and can't use sideshot) it really feels that way but it's only a hunch until there's definitive proof (ideally checked from the game's code). It's the only ship that feels off and it must be either a secret brilliant choice or really bad.
Note that "main strength" reflects the ship's apparent intended advantage, not necessarily what is its real main strength for scoring or survival, just what looks like the peak in its abilities that the rest of the ship was designed around (mostly by adding disadvantages to the ship)

This may change in the future but so far the ships that seem to have the highest scoring potential are Sky Dragon, Blade Owl, Buster Lizard and Hammer Shark.
Last edited by ciox on Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:46 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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ciox
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by ciox »

Okay, there are some good uses for the Blade Owl/Hammer Shark piercing charge attacks after all

1. the huge planes that appear at the start of Seaside and Empire
Everyone bombs those planes since it's too hard to destroy all their parts and keep the chain otherwise, thing is those planes have the boss flag that makes their point value get divided by 10 if a bomb or suicide is used anywhere near them.. if you kill all their parts and the main body without using bombs or suicides you'll get 30,000x16 at the end, from my tests there's about a 600,000 point difference between bombing the planes the way you have to with other ships and using two piercing charge attacks to chain them for full point value.
600,000 x2 = +1.2m if you use Blade Owl/Hammer Shark. Worth it? Maybe..

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2. Grell the pink miniboss in Cloud
This one is more situational and not as lucrative, piercing charge attacks make it a fair bit easier to avoid bombing and still take out both its 50,000 shot targets and 100,000 main body for full points, finishing off with 100,000x2. Point difference from bombing it directly is about 350,000, from bombing it partially and taking out one battery with aura (50,000x2) it's about 250,000.

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ciox
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by ciox »

I keep forgetting to make an actual note of this, but bombing at the absolute very edge of an object (bomb barely intersects the object) will make that object take damage from the bomb only once every 4 frames or so instead of every frame, could be a high-level technique to compensate for having more bomb fragments in stock than needed or for trying to use a type A/C/S bomb strat with a type B ship and longer bombs.
the1truepickaxe
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by the1truepickaxe »

One thing I like about Bakraid as opposed to its predecessor is that the game doesn't punish you for playing aggressively. Wanna play this game like a Cave shooter and destroy enemies left and right? Go right ahead. Wanna milk bosses like in Garegga? You can do that too. The only time the game goes batshit is if you spam your special weapon.
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wgogh
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Re: ST: Battle Bakraid (15.09.10 - rank modifiers added)

Post by wgogh »

Bakraid is a great game and was my first arcade clear.
I'm not able to do the Axebeak technique though, for some reason, so my scores will always be low.
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