GD: Vimana

[Macaw]

Toaplans least known of game? Probably.

Anyways I've been playing it a bit and I have a few questions. Originally I was playing without autofire, and was only getting about 400,000 points after a few days practice (and my hand would hurt unbeleivable amounts), but now I've switched over to a 3-button setup. Apart from the bomb button, I have 2 shot buttons, 1 on autofire and 1 not so that I can use the charge-attack. This made a HUGE difference, the first time I tried I got 1.7 million points and got to the 2nd loop. So my question is, is this cheating? do the world record scores use autofire?

Also, how come the 'Bonus' sometime goes back to 1000? I had it up to 6000 at one point then it returned to 1000, then later I built it back up to about 2000 then it went back again.

And 1 more thing, how many loops are there? Is this another truxton where the record holders get up to about loop 10 and play 8 hours to get there? (I guess at that point its more a matter of physical stamina rather than skill in the game, and a few friends around to feed you while you play)

[sven666]

most japanese players seem to be using autofire (where appropriate) for their records...

[Damocles]

Also, how come the 'Bonus' sometime goes back to 1000? I had it up to 6000 at one point then it returned to 1000, then later I built it back up to about 2000 then it went back again.

And 1 more thing, how many loops are there? Is this another truxton where the record holders get up to about loop 10 and play 8 hours to get there? (I guess at that point its more a matter of physical stamina rather than skill in the game, and a few friends around to feed you while you play)

I always figured the bonus dropped if you didn't collect it fast enough. I was never fast enough to raise it to an ungodly level, so I don't know how high it can get. Pretty miniscule in the early stages, if you ask me.

As for loops, I'm pretty sure it loops indefinately. I've only managed three, but someone on the boards (DEL?) has gotten a counter stop.

[DEL]

Yeah, just play a 2 Player game with a skilled or even semi-skilled player and you'll go round and round and round and......

Its all about destruction rate. Playing doubles....doubles

Of course on single play, autofire would be a huge advantage for the above^ reason.

[Angry Hina]

The Bonus Point Items are the key. They go up to 9900 and stay there as long as you dont miss one. Its even ok to die, so you should in many cases really get those, even if you could get shot on the way to do it because the higher score drops can grant you of course more extends if you keep the score drops up.

(but dont die on some of the parts of the game where you get heavily punished for your pea shooter )

Anyways I've been playing it a bit and I have a few questions. Originally I was playing without autofire, and was only getting about 400,000 points after a few days practice (and my hand would hurt unbeleivable amounts), but now I've switched over to a 3-button setup. Apart from the bomb button, I have 2 shot buttons, 1 on autofire and 1 not so that I can use the charge-attack. This made a HUGE difference, the first time I tried I got 1.7 million points and got to the 2nd loop. So my question is, is this cheating? do the world record scores use autofire?

most japanese players seem to be using autofire (where appropriate) for their records...

Its true but whats what you get? A game you have to play for at least araond 2 hours to have a ok-good run. You definitely dont whant a really good run in this game lol
One should really try to play without autofire. You dont need to tap that fast (only on some bosses). Most of the time its good enogh to shoot fast spreads. But stage 5 can get extremely messy without some bombs but its also true for autofire (to a much lesser degree of course).

I promote I video, I've made recently with a side by side comparison (with and without autofire) for the first loop. It shows as well, that you dont need extreme tapping skills to play the game as intended and how the game really dont work with autofire.

https://youtu.be/AEBNeMjefqk

Also, how come the 'Bonus' sometime goes back to 1000? I had it up to 6000 at one point then it returned to 1000, then later I built it back up to about 2000 then it went back again.

You missed one for sure. Especially on the water section of stage 3 I was at the beginning so focussed on the enemies, that I didnt noticed one of the score drops and thought "1000 again? where was this thing I missed?".


Sometimes the game grants you up to 4 weapon powerups or three and a bomb or so, after you dies, but I dont know when.

EDIT:
here are some information about it from the closed Score Thread:

The game apparently uses a random generated seed to determine how many orbs you usually get in the game. For example, if you put down a save at the beginning of the game and there's one orb or a bonus, there's always going to be one orb and a bonus. Thus, if there's two orbs at the beginning of the game there always will be.

I'm not sure how useful a cheat this would be as it seems that the final orb always appears before the gray UFOs come out of the bottom corners of the screen diagonally, and the game's still really easy at that point.

Additionally, sometimes four orbs get generated all at once, which is nice because you can start collecting only bonuses faster. I haven't seen it happen with bonuses, I think only one ever comes out at a time.

[Angry Hina]

Also, how come the 'Bonus' sometime goes back to 1000? I had it up to 6000 at one point then it returned to 1000, then later I built it back up to about 2000 then it went back again.

You missed one for sure. Especially on the water section of stage 3 I was at the beginning so focussed on the enemies, that I didnt noticed one of the score drops and thought "1000 again? where was this thing I missed?".

But possibly this is true but after I thought like you at the beginning and reallytried to watch out for the bonus, it never happened to me.

I lost my bonus chain in almost every loop.... and also, I finally figured out why it usually happens in the water stage: The enemies that shoot the long straight shots are always releasing a bonus item and they are also extremely easy to be killed. One of the first of them appears when there are almost no enemies on the screen, allowing the shot to kill it almost instantly - and the bonus item doesn't appear in this situation, so I assume it is likely released off-screen and immediately "lost", hence the combo break.