Nicely done, Icarus. I still have you covered, but it took a few hours this time. Anyway, a nice improvement to Hard and a surreal improvement to Extreme:
Lock/Hard: shiftace - 18 412 520 - 110 - keyboard
Lock/Extreme: shiftace - 21 337 050 - 97 - keyboard
I had the presence of mind to get a
screenshot for the extreme score right after I died. I dread having to top either of these...
As to tactics, it sounds like I'm doing about the same thing as Icarus, with a touch more aggression and a ton more practice. Just holding the lock button is a bad idea; if you don't make some mad dashes across the screen, you can't chain, and if you can't chain, you might not survive to the next extend. Besides, it's better defense to move in jumps and create holes in the incoming fire (i.e., leading and cutbacks). But perhaps the best defensive behavior is to kill everything quickly.
FWIW, I drop chains without dying about once every 5 credits. I think I should drop more, though, as it would make me die less.