shmups.system11.org

I was thinking about using just basic trigonometry to create somewhat simple patterns, but as things grow larger I don't thing that's going to be the way to go.

How do you create your patterns? Maybe parametric equations? Or just straight up trigonometry...
I'm very interested on how do people come up with some crazy pattern ideas.

Large bullet patterns are not challenging, just keep shooting and bullets accumulate and spread further.
Complex bullet patterns are made up of basic components and can usually be evolved from simple patterns: you can spawn particles from other particles rather than directly from a weapon, change movement after a certain time, feed subtle and unsubtle contributions of forces and initial velocities into a generic, robust dynamical simulation that simply doesn't allow bullets to move strangely, steer and aim bullets instead of shooting in a fixed direction, and so on. Any number can become time-varying, assigned randomly, adaptive to battlefield state, etc.