Recommended Auto-Fire Settings for Shmups in MAME?

[bcass]

Has anyone compiled a list of the best auto-fire settings for MAME? I mostly play on a pad these days, and it's not much fun tapping buttons non-stop for 20+ mins using a pad. Besides, having spent most of the 80s and 90s tapping constantly I feel like it's not really healthy for the fingers / wrist any more.

[Rastan78]

Kinda depends on your goals. If you want to replicate normal mashing just to go easy on your fingers without changing the game balance stick to 5 to 10 hz. Other than that the main thing is max damage vs having wide gaps in your shot pattern. Super fast autofire of 30hz can be a big disadvantage in games with a strict shot limit due to those gaps, but it can be devastating when point blanking. So some games, especially old school ones like Darius II or Raiden DX can benefit from having two speeds set up, one for clearing out waves of small enemies and one for point blanking medium sized enemies and bosses.

Also 30hz auto can drop out intermittently during heavy slowdown bc it becomes too fast for the game too read as an on/off cycle, so if you're playing a game like Blazing Star go with something a little slower. You can always check out superplays to get an idea of what they're using or just play around and see what works for you.

I did see a list like that a long time ago on a Japanese player's site. He was a world record holder for Gunbird 2 and had schematic to make a homemade auto circuit and a list of ideal speeds for different games especially Psikyo ones. IiRC some of the Psikyo games used slower speeds ie 12 to 15 hz probably to limit gaps in the shot spacing.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Set autofire to be the same as what a reasonable humanly achievable tap speed is, and that doesn't feel too overpowered or underpowered for the game. It can also depend on the game where mashing too fast can accidentally register as holding shot. In Shmupmame I use speed 15 for Giga Wing as it's slow enough it won't use the shield accidentally even during slowdown. For most other games, Speed 6-8 in Shmupmame generally, I'd have to check what the exact speed is in Hz but it's 4-7 Hz I think for a given game (more if the game heavily encourages point blank button mashing).