shmups.system11.org

Thanks again.

Ok the last question, while the autofire is enabled sometimes the game will crank the rate to 30hz permanently at certain situation. Is there any methods to avoid this?

Are you using MAME autofire or something like that? That can be a somewhat common issue. The safest way to prevent that is to only use the game's built-in autofire (hold A) and tap A faster manually when you want to raise the fire rate.

There's little reason not to use 10Hz autofire if you can set it to that, since the per-frame rank increase only starts at 12Hz. I only didn't because I had the same issue where autofire rate would get set to 30Hz, and I didn't want to try manually tapping at 10Hz. For good scoring, as Eaglet said, you should raise the autofire rate earlier since tick points are such a big part of Miyamoto's scoring. Note how sddkaede gets nearly 900k in his replay by the end of stage 1, while I can only manage around 720k with default autofire rate.

I can confirm that having 2,000 point medals at the end of stage 1 does not initiate max rank mode.

I haven't been able to activate it that low either. The only times I've triggered it, I had reached max medals (minimum of 9k medal collected during Stage 1, ready to get 10k medals on Stage 2).

Even the PS4 port does this. I had a button set to shot+rapid 15 and if you hold it right as your ship launches the auto fire rate will go up to 20, sometimes 30. I kept using the rapid button for the whole game, and usually it'll jump to 60 right before the two big planes in stage 4.

I was playing without any of the M2 gadgets on (since I was playing in tate and most of them are useless anyways) and I had a save state in stage 5 to practice the end of the stage. I started becoming suspicious when MB2's outside bits would not die even with a full bomb, and Slayer was nearly impossible to kill before timing out. 60Hz auto fire is bad stuff.

I think the way the rapid shot buttons work on the port is 'accurate' but it means you can't rely on them to maintain a consistent fire rate. You have to tap them at the beginning of the game real quick to set your initial auto fire rate and then use the "normal" shot button. Or learn to tap to get your desired setting.

I think the main problem with autofire circuits is that the game in itself has a very variable framerate because of the processor sometimes chugging because of the amount of stuff on the screen.
In places with heavy slowdown a full cycle (or time) in the game will be executed more slowly than when nothing is happening so even if you tap at the same frequency you might be setting a higher AF rate just because of the "time slowdown", if that makes any sense.

One of the places this is most common in is right before the two last platforms in stage 5 come into view. For some reason the game chugs pretty bad at that point and it's very easy to set 15/20 instead of 12 even if you're tapping in a correct rhythm.

Isn't there a button in the PS4 port that lets you cycle through shot frequencies?

Yes, but it's subject to the same issues with frame rate and suddenly ending up with 30 or 60hz auto fire if you press it at the wrong time.

Just had something really weird happen when fighting Junkey monkey.

In the second form, with the grey flooring still there, all the spread turrets on the right remained after the form ended/ the floor blows up. So they were present and still firing in the 3rd form.

Is this a common occurence?

Could someone elaborate a little on the Auto Fire issue?

I sometimes, more often than i'd like, find myself having BIG gaps between salvos, and even a ship that simply refuses to fire for seconds if i have the button pressed (it somewhat fires if i keep pressing fast enough).

I don't know about "seconds," but there's a limit to the number of bullets you can have onscreen at a time, so if your autofire rate is high enough, you may end up firing "blanks" until some of your earlier bullets leave the screen. If you move towards the top of the screen and the gaps in your fire disappear, that's probably what's happening.

ok, yeah, i just tested that. So how is this achieved? For me it happens completely out of the blue. What am i doing wrong? or should i say right..?

You're jacking up your autofire so you fire too many bullets. Stop raising the autofire.

No rly, is this supposed to happen? clip here: https://youtu.be/i6cO8FD0BAA

So, i'll ask again. How the hell am i raising my autofire. This is what i wanna know

Thank you!

By tapping. Did you look at the guide?

damnit stop taking attention away from my super important post...

If you're using an autofire button, either in MAME or the PS4 port, it can also very easily jack up your autofire way higher than you intended.


I've never seen this before, but if anyone here would have, it's probably Eaglet.

yes, i did. Sorry for messing your topic, i guess in a couple of posts once i'm satisfyed with the answer, i'll be on my way.

Now, i am tapping and nothing happends, the rate stays the same. 2 minutes later, without doing anything out of the ordinary, i suddelnly have massive holes in my salvos
No autofire enabled (FBA).

Sorry for being late on the ball. Studying for exams while recovering from the flu is not fun...

Blinge/Keres: True, i have experienced that twice before.
There's a variety of bugs that can occur with Junky Monkey (another is not transitioning between form iirc.) and this one most likely has to do with incorrect triggering of some sort of interrupt flag. It doesn't happen often but it's kind of like with most of the bugs in the game; nothing game breaking.

el_rika:
You're probably not realizing how the shot works.
You're supposed to hold down the button for continuous fire. Tapping only sets the fire rate and it's pretty easy to trigger a higher rate than you want with the odd twitch/faster interval or tapping during slowdown.

Cheers Eagz

actually.. Is there a way to get autofire rate back to default other than dying? like tap once or twice slowly or something?
And as I understand it, you can't set a lower rate than the default, right?

thank a lot for answering eaglet

So i guess it can be a little tricky sometimes.

I found that overclocking the FBA emu Cpu to 200 (default is 100), completely eliminates slowdown in the game (like when you lose a credit and all medals fall from your ship, or the 2nd stage boss). Maybe this will help with the issue. Does the PCB actually have slowdown in those moments or is it only in later stages..?

the guide says there's no way to lower the rate once it goes up, not in realtime.

Nope. In fact, dying doesn't reset autofire rate either. I don't remember if continuing does, but it doesn't matter much either way.


Correct.


Yes, the PCB does have slowdown in places like the stage 2 boss.

It really shouldn't be hard to avoid involuntarily triggering faster autofire rate. Just hold the fire button, don't tap it rapidly. If your emulator or keyboard/gamepad/arcade stick/steering wheel/etc. has rapidfire/turbo enabled on your fire button, disable that. There's nothing "tricky" about it at all if you're not using external autofire (and the only thing tricky about external autofire is that slowdown can cause the game to treat the autofire as faster than it really is). If you continue to have trouble with FBA just switch to MAME.

thanks boss!

Word on the streets is Eaglet subsists on a diet of medals.
Medals and nothing else.
And if a single crumb drops from the table he'll throw away his meal and prepare a fresh one.

Edit: what's gareggamame and what are its benefits?

Does it reduce input lag at all..?

GareggaMAME has MAMEPlus-like autofire settings and comes with a comprehensive cheat file. I don't think it reduces input lag.

Cheers Shepper.

Okay so, raising autofire to 10hz doesn't affect per shot rank?? Have I understood that correctly?

It doesn't affect per-frame rank, if that's what you mean. That's why 10Hz is nice; the overall rank impact is pretty low.

Per-shot rank itself has nothing to do with the autofire rate, and is just based on your main shot power level and how many options you have. (Obviously, with a higher autofire rate, you'll shoot more often, though.)

I meant what I said, but you've answered my question.

It's a simple explanation I know, but.. This game makes me second guess myself.