RQ: ESPRade scoring

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GaijinPunch
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RQ: ESPRade scoring

Post by GaijinPunch »

Explain. I am completely lost.

Another note... the controls feel a bit 'messy' to me. I'm trying to dodge bullets and I wind up running into them. Playing in Mame on a pretty damn good computer.
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Post by zakk »

The key to the scoring system is your B-shot. The bubbles 'stick' to enemies, this is important. The way to score is:

1) Hit a big enemy with a full b-shot. A fully powered up b-shot (the meter for your b-shot is down on the bottom of the screen, should say 15 when fully powered) will stick 15 bubbles of various sizes to the enemy.


2) While the bubbles are 'stuck' to the thing, kill it with your A-shot. This will trigger a multiplier equal to the number of "stuck" bubbles+1. This multiplier lasts a fixed amount of time, based on the enemy size. (See below, however)

3) The enemy will release some items upon death. Normally they are worth 100 points each. However, the multiplier from step 2 is applied to them. Even more importantly, the collection of these items INCREASES the multiplier time. Also of note: the multiplier applies to the base point value of any enemy you kill, even if it is just with the A-shot.

4) Keep doing this. You will discover after you 'chain' a few 16x enemy kills together and get the multiplier high enough, some enemies will release items tons of items even if you don't B-shot kill them. Not only that, the items will fall fast towards you. This is the real trick to scoring. Triggering this racks up points pretty quickly.

Another thing: Kill bosses the exact same way. (b-shot "stick" -> a-shot kill). This will cause all on-screen bullets to convert to items, and the same multiplier rule applies. The multiplier and the resulting timer will be in effect when you start the next stage. So convert a thick bullet pattern, collect to jack your 16x multiplier up, and then kill things for 16x points at the beginning of the next stage.


Getting lots of 16x chains/items requires fairly aggressive play.

Oh, one other 'advanced' technique. It seems that any bullets over/near an enemy with you kill it and trigger items will ALSO be converted to items. I think the explosion needs to touch them. If you watch any replays you'll note sometimes the player will exploit this.


There are also boss-milking techniques in this game, involving peppering a boss with the 'small' parts of the b-shot for extended periods of time.

I also noticed what you mentioned about the controls, it took me a while to adjust. I play on a PCB now, and I honestly can't tell you if it's MAME's fault or not.
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GaijinPunch
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Post by GaijinPunch »

Brilliant Zakk, thanks. That's exactly what I wanted. Also about the "peppering" thing. That's an issue when they talk about scoring in that interview and I couldn't quite understand what they mean (in actuality). Then I recall them doing this on the bosses in the replay.
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Post by black mariah »

On a related note, how do you trigger the additional energy items? I can do it intermittenly, but haven't figured the correct way of doing so.
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Post by zakk »

Energy items appear when you max out your 'item counter'. The max starts out as 200, and when you hit 200 AND you're out of energy, it will start counting down. At this point, anyone you WOULD have released score items from a kill, you will get energy items instead. When the item count gets to zero, you start getting score items again. And you max items increases by 100 each time you do this.
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Post by black mariah »

Alright, that makes sense. I figured it had something to do with the item collection but I wasn't sure sure exactly what. This seems like a much more subtle scoring system than other Cave games.
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Post by GaijinPunch »

One last question zakk, and isn't really related to gamplay as much as story. Do you have any idea what a "PK" is the ESPRade world?
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Post by BulletMagnet »

"Psychokinetics," maybe?
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Post by zakk »

Given the themes of the game revolving around psychic type powers, it's probably someone who possesses such powers. But that's just a guess.
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Post by GaijinPunch »

Yeah, I think that might be it. Hmm.... strange. Well, guess that won't be translated directly. :)
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Post by black mariah »

Trying for score with jb5 I can manage just under 1 million on the firs stage (I suck... slow progression). Probably lameass, although I have no idea what a typical 1st stage score is. I'm having trouble determining when things will blow up so I can hit them with the B shot right before. Guh... practice sucks.
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Post by Waddle Dee »

While we're on the topic of scoring...

How can you possibly use the bomb to extend the multiplier time?

This question has been bugging me since last summer, when Click-Stick put up the Clover-TAC replay. At the Alice swarm (Stage "6"), he starts off with a x16 multiplier (290 frames / ~5 sec), but manages to keep the same multiplier going for the entire stage, through the use of bombs.

In most Cave games, bombing will screw up your score: anything killed with the bomb usually won't create, increase, or extend the multiplier... usually. (Granted, the timer slows down while charging, and stops throughout the bomb release.) On the other hand, in the replay the multiplier timer clearly increases to some high number (around 700), allowing Clover-TAC to kill all the clones in the stage for 16x points.

I just don't get it. Does anyone else know?


(It might have to do with charging the bomb longer than necessary. Just a thought.)
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Post by GaijinPunch »

Not sure -- sounds trange, especially since those guys said they specifically left out such a feature due to feedback at a location test.

Anyways, I'm back on this damn game now and getting the living shit kicked out of me aorund stage 3. It seems I can't twitch through a swarm like I can in more recent games. Having played ESPGaluda and Ketsui, have I completely ruined myself? I couldn't hit more bullets if I tried.
Last edited by GaijinPunch on Tue May 31, 2005 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by NTSC-J »

To extend the bombing time like Clover-TAC does, use bombs when you're getting energy refills. After the first 200 cubes you collect, cubes will be converted into energy refills for a short amount of time. Usually the counter runs out quick, but if you use bomb energy during this period, it'll actually pause it until you're done bombing. By stage 5-2 TAC had about a 500 cube counter so he could continue using bomb energy and still end up with a full energy bar.
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Post by Acid King »

I don't know that it's mentioned anywhere in the other ESP Ra.De. threads but if you hold down B when you press start after putting in a coin, you'll get a counter in the upper left that shows you how long you have left on that multiplier.
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Post by BulletMagnet »

I think the Sheep's site mentions that...not sure though, I'm sure I'd heard that before someplace.
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Post by zakk »

Seems like as good a place as any to document this.

I think I remember this vaguely being mentioned before but I was experimenting tonight and observed this first hand.

There's an important difference in multiplier timer behavior between P1 and P2 side.

Both scenarios below assume you have an active multiplier:
I'm a bit fuzzy on a few details, which I may verify via a capture later.

P1 side: when you hold the bomb/charge shot button down, the multiplier timer slows down by quite a bit. When you release the bomb, your multiplier timer FREEZES when you kill enemies with the bomb. (Although I'm not 100% sure here, it may freeze for the entire duration of the bomb, but I wasn't able to get in any place where I wasn't killing things with it)

P2 side: holding the bomb/charge button does seems to slow the multiplier timer a bit, but I don't think it's nearly as much as it does for P1 (need to verify). HOWEVER. When you release the bomb, every enemy you kill INCREASES the counter. I'm not sure if it increases a fixed amount per enemy or if the increase depends on some other factor.

You can see this in action if you have the Clover-TAC Irori replay. It's one of the reasons he uses the bomb so much in the last stage (that and getting a higher bonus item max). If you look, his timer is at 800+ at one point. It's how he holds a 16x through the entire stage.
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......

Post by Waddle Dee »

:shock: Wow. wowwowwowwowwowwowwow. Mystery solved. Thanks!

So I guess playing as p2 is required to achieve higher scores.
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Re: ......

Post by Dave_K. »

Thanks Zakk!
Waddle Dee wrote:So I guess playing as p2 is required to achieve higher scores.
This is true of a another Cave game. DDP's p2 can obtain higher scores because the collected stars accumulate over each level (if you don't die) versus just total for that level with p1. This is why everyone switched to p2 once they were able to 1cc both loops and wanted to get a quick increase in score. Unfortunately for me, playing p2 in DDP is like trying to write my name with my left hand. :?
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Post by BulletMagnet »

That's very interesting...does anyone know whether this stuff was intentional, or just a bug they forgot to fix? Also, specific to the DDP thing, is that one present in the home ports, or just the original arcade version? Offhand it sounds almost as stupid as the Gekirindan trick, heh heh.
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Re: ......

Post by Smraedis »

Dave_K. wrote:This is true of a another Cave game. DDP's p2 can obtain higher scores because the collected stars accumulate over each level (if you don't die) versus just total for that level with p1. This is why everyone switched to p2 once they were able to 1cc both loops and wanted to get a quick increase in score.
So how come this trick/bug has been fixed in newer MAME versions, when it happened in older MAME versions? :lol:
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Re: ......

Post by Dave_K. »

BulletMagnet wrote:That's very interesting...does anyone know whether this stuff was intentional, or just a bug they forgot to fix? Also, specific to the DDP thing, is that one present in the home ports, or just the original arcade version? Offhand it sounds almost as stupid as the Gekirindan trick, heh heh.
I believe this is a gimick Cave uses to reward 2p players, and not a bug. So if the ports are true, I'd imagine its there as well. I'm not familiar with the Gekirindan trick, care to elaborate?
Smraedis wrote:So how come this trick/bug has been fixed in newer MAME versions, when it happened in older MAME versions? :lol:
This is not a bug, its part of the original rom/PCB so I don't know what Mame has to do with this.
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Post by Waddle Dee »

Dave_K. wrote:I believe this is a gimick Cave uses to reward 2p players, and not a bug.
Why would they want to favor 2p? (Perhaps practical reasons, like spreading out the wear-and-tear between the two sides, I guess. Casual players default to 1p, veterans know to use 2p.)
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Re: ......

Post by BulletMagnet »

Dave_K. wrote:I'm not familiar with the Gekirindan trick, care to elaborate?
It's been mentioned a handful of times around here...when you play Gekirindan on the 2P side instead of the 1P side, the game's difficulty level goes way down for some odd reason.
Why would they want to favor 2p? (Perhaps practical reasons, like spreading out the wear-and-tear between the two sides, I guess. Casual players default to 1p, veterans know to use 2p.)
That's about the closest to a decent reason I can think of, though I still say it's kinda silly.
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Post by PROMETHEUS »

what about the end game bonuses ?
I heard you get points for life slots you have when you clear the game.
How much ? Any other end game bonus ?

edit : found the answer : http://shmups.system11.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=279
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Re:

Post by Beebop »

Sorry to revive such an old post but i just happen to be enjoying this game now and have noticed that nobody has mentioned that yuusuke is the only character that can fire both a and b shot simultaneously. As far as i know how the scoring system works, you can only get multipliers if you are attacking the enemy using "a" shot while your "b" shot is stuck to them. Wouldnt that make yusuke easier to score with? The other 2 characters can only fire either "a" shot or "b" shot but not at the same time.
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Re: RQ: ESPRade scoring

Post by captpain »

I didn't see anyone mention that when your box counter is maxed out, there are some changes: namely, when you have an active multiplier, any enemy killed will drop boxes at the value/speed of that multiplier when killed with Shot. Also, right when you max out your boxes, the screen is quickly cleared of bullets.

Here's a description of the max box behavior: in the High School stage, there are those rolling APC looking tanks and multi-part weak yellow-orange flying ships after the miniboss. If you start a 16x with the tanks, then you can quickly shoot the ships with Shot and they will all drop loads of 16x boxes.
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Re: RQ: ESPRade scoring

Post by MovingTarget »

Does the amount of cubes already collected affect the score mechanic in any way? Or is it just used to gain back bomb energy?
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Re: RQ: ESPRade scoring

Post by borislaw »

does anyone know what determines the amount of gun-powerups that an enemy releases. I am referring to the cubes that are released before the red ones while you are still powering up your gun, sometimes enemies release more, sometimes less I can't figure out what determines this. Its mostly only important for level one scoring, in order to begin acquiring red boxes as early as possible in order to have 200 at the start of level two.
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