ST: Armed Police Batrider (21.7.14 - correct rank info)

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Icarus
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ST: Armed Police Batrider (21.7.14 - correct rank info)

Post by Icarus »

Image

Updates (21.7.2014):
  • trap15 very kindly did what he does and took apart Batrider's rank system to provide us with correct information pertaining to how it works and what affects it. As expected, a lot of the information we had previously was either incorrect or incomplete, so having a more complete and accurate set of details gives us a better, clearer picture of the devil in the details. Thanks trap! :3
    I've dumped up his pastebin notes directly into the ST thread pending a complete "layman's terms" rewrite in the future.
    There's still a few things I need to flesh out all section, which I've posted as a list in this thread. If you've got the time, please feel free to contribute to the completion of this guide!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Raizing's Batrider is a strange beast, being both more accessible (in some cases) than Battle Garegga, yet being the more vicious of the two in terms of scoring and survival. the game has tremendous depth, however, with the four individual play modes, and the level of customisation available with regards to team composition and stage order.

The Batrider ST will try its best to put everything you need to know in one accessible location.

> CONTENTS <
  1. General Information
    - In-Game Setup
    - Items and the Drop Order
    - Training Plan For Beginner and Intermediate Players
  2. Weapon System
    - Shot
    - Bomb
    - Option
    - Self Destruction
  3. Rank System - The System In Basic
    - What is Rank?
    - What does Rank affect?
    - Basic Rank-controlling Strategies
  4. Rank System - A Hacker's Guide
  5. Scoring System
    - The Medals
    - Scenery Destruction
    - Specific Attack Usage
  6. Ship by Ship Breakdown
  7. Secrets and other fun stuff
  8. Metro City Stage
    - Stage Strategies
    - Conflict (Boss)
  9. Sky High Stage
    - Stage Strategies
    - Boredom (Boss)
    - Bashinet (Boss - Mahou)
  10. Sewer Stage
    - Stage Strategies
    - Deviate (Boss)
    - Black Heart (Boss - Garegga)
  11. Airport Stage
    - Stage Strategies
    - Bazzcok (Boss)
    - Gob-Robo (Boss - Mahou)
  12. Colosseum Stage
    - Bashinet2 (Boss - Mahou)
  13. Highway Stage
    - Tsumujimaru (Boss - Mahou)
    - Stage Strategies
    - Hayatemaru (Boss - Mahou)
    - Blunt (Boss)
    - Sobut (Boss)
    - Envy (Boss)
  14. Airport2 Stage
    - Black Heart Mk2 (Boss - Garegga)
  15. Zenovia City Stage
    - Stage Strategies
    - Grubby (Boss)
  16. Night Sky Stage
    - Bashinet-R (Boss - Mahou)
  17. Airport3 Stage
    - Glow Squid (Boss - Garegga)
  18. Gigantech Building Stage
    - Stage Strategies
    - Discharge (Final Boss)
> RESOURCES <

Taken from the current scorethread, run by Enhasa. Thanks!
  1. Previous score threads: 1 2 3 4 (some good info inside if you want to look for it)
  2. Page at The Sheep's WORLD-OF-ARCADES
  3. 17.8 mil replay for advanced course at SuperPlay!
  4. Strategy thread
  5. Introductory post if you are a complete newbie (warning: written for a different audience)
  6. More info: Gamest strategy scans, differences between revisions, debug mode info
  7. Must-see unbelievably awesome endings in English at The Video Game Museum (JYUJI WOW!)
  8. Other threads: 1 2 3 4 5 6
(if you know of any more, please let me know.)

> THE "THANK YOU" LIST <

I stupidly forgot to put in a list of big shout outs and thanks, as there has been lots of great contributions to the guide, not just in data acquired and submitted, but from ever-curious players asking a steady stream of good questions as they push on in their Garegga mastery. Here goes:
  • Aquas
    Massive shoutout to the man that wrote almost all of the boss strategies for me. Saved me a big chunk of work, and really helpfully laid out to boot. Nice one!
  • Randorama
    Many thanks for all your continued input with this game as I both write and play it. All your information has been a great help!
  • rjpageuk and snacky of ikaruga.co.uk
    You guys get a huge thanks for kindly accepting my request to host my massive store of players guide video material on your server. I owe you guys, bigtime ^_^
  • Twiddle
    Thanks for the work done on both Garegga and Batrider's rank systems. Great stuff.
  • Plasmo
    Thanks for your contributions to past scoring discussions. Much appreciated.
  • cigsthecat
    Good discussion in the Batrider SD thread. Great player.
  • namakoteam! - DEL, Smraedis, freddiebamboo, elbarto, mulletgeezer
    Great discussions at the HQ for STGT, and in person at our various meets.
  • Enhasa
    Nice and concise resources list, and the running of the current score thread.
  • DMC
    Awesome scores and replays for Normal Course. Keep it up!
  • Kaiser and notman
    For tracking down the 17.8mil Advance Course teamplay input and sharing the link.
  • sbr and croikle
    For finding the 20mil Car-Pet replay on nicovideo, and sharing the links. A real eye-opener.
  • And other people I might have forgotten to list, thanks!
So lets get to it!
Last edited by Icarus on Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:22 pm, edited 19 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> BASIC INFORMATION <
  • IN-GAME SETUP:
    It is very important to note that Batrider has a very unusual game options setup as opposed to most other shootemups. Besides the standard control configuration of SHOT, SPECIAL WEAPON and OPTION (which only affects the Garegga ships), and 3 LIVES (current active ship plus two in stock), the default Extend setting is at 1,500,000pts PER EXTEND. Also, with the preferred Japanese versions, Extends appear as items which need to be collected, and in the Item Drop Order (detailed later), they generally replace the next Medal scheduled to appear.
  • ITEMS AND THE DROP ORDER:
    There are many, many, items to collect (or not collect, depending on preference) in Batrider. They are:
    • Small Shot Powerup
      These need to be picked up in quantities to power up your shot level. Your shot level will only be powered up to a maximum of five (normally) or six (with a special condition), and any surplus items collected after that are worth 100pts.
    • Large Shot Powerup
      These advance your Shot power up by one immedately, and are worth 5,000pts if collected as surplus.
    • Small Weapon Bullet
      One SMALL Weapon bullet is added to your current stock, and 40 is required to get one full Weapon. They are worth 1,000pts if collected in surplus.
    • Large Weapon Bullet
      One full Weapon is added to your current stock and are worth 10,000pts in surplus.
    • Option Item
      This equips an Option - your current ship's special sidearm - and subsequent Option powerups add to the strength of the sidearm.
    • Medal
      These things bump your score up by a fair bit. Read the Scoring Tips section for more details
    • Extends
      Aside from the Extends that appear on every 1.5mil gained, there are some secret Extends, too. One is a hidden Extend that appears during the Highway stage, and there are Special Extend refills gained via difficult methods, detailed later in the Secrets section of the guide.
    Remember to note that flying enemies drop these items, and that an item will appear every five flying enemies you destroy. Some tanks and medium-sized artillery will drop these items too, but in most cases ground-based enemies will leave SMALL Weapon bullets instead. There is an appearance order as well, and it is:
    • 1: small shot powerup
    • 2: medal
    • 3: small shot powerup
    • 4: medal
    • 5: option (the first five repeat 4 times, then...)
    • 6: small shot powerup
    • 7: medal
    • 8: small shot powerup
    • 9: medal
    • 10: large shot powerup (then back to the top)
    A few things to note.
    One, this order carries on even through successive credits, so if you play a new credit, your item cycle starts where your last credit ended. The only way to reset the item order is to reset the arcade board (for PCB/MAME players).
    Two, whenever you pass the next scoring Extend threshold, the Extend item will appear in place of the next Medal in the drop order.
Last edited by Icarus on Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> WEAPON SYSTEM <

Batrider features a pretty intuitive weapon system that is integral to the many gameplay mechanics that need to be mastered. While the actual control setup can be customised to the player's liking, the base weapons are as follows.
  • SHOT:
    While the term Shot in other shmups is used to describe your total firepower, in Batrider it is used to describe the bullets that are fired from your ship only - the Options are classed as optional (hah) weapons - so it is important to get accustomed to this from the off.

    Each and every ship that you can select has different Shot attributes - some bullets are larger than others, some more powerful, some have an armor-piercing (hereby referred to as penetrative) capability - so ship selection isn't just based on it's movement speed and special weapon attributes, but also on it's Shot abilities. The only advice I can really offer is to try all the ships and see which one has a Shot style suited to your playing style.

    One other thing, the Shot weapon also has an effect on your optimal stage-by-stage strategy if you are playing the rank-controlled way, so choose carefully.

    To powerup your Shot, pick up small or big Shot powerups. The small powerups need to be collected in quantities:
    For each Shot Level, Icarus wrote:
    1. default
    2. 1 item
    3. 2 items
    4. 4 items
    5. 8 items
    6. Special Power Up - gained by missing 3 Shot items, then picking up the next Shot item to appear - large and small Shot items have independent tallies, and you can Special Shot Up from any power level
    There is also something that is termed Shot Frequency, which relates to the autofire speed of your Shot. At the start of the game, you have a set autofire speed which varies depending on ship and subtype, but you have the ability to change your autofire speed in-game through a variety of commands - HOLD START and press A to increase speed, HOLD START and press C to decrease speed. You can see your current Shot Frequency at the top of the screen, displayed to the left of the course difficulty.

    Learning to use Shot frequency changes is pretty good to know about, though. In theory and practice, you can use a much faster Shot speed to give you the added power to defeat larger targets without resorting to the Options that can potentially add more to your rank.

    The only problem with moving to a fast Shot frequency is that it can be very difficult to get the right speeds, and with a faster Shot speed, you also raise the rank a bit faster. If you can balance it though, it's worth the effort.
  • AURA/CHARGE ATTACK:
    In Batrider, you have a new combination attack which players here refer to as Aura. By releasing the Shot button, you'll start to build up a charge in front of your ship, about a ship's length long, that also doubles as a sort-of melee attack. This attack isn't too powerful, but has its uses.

    Once the charge attack is fully powered, pressing Shot will give you a momentary burst of fire with your weapons temporarily upped to maximum power. Again, this has its uses in that it can be used to supplement your Shot and Option power in places where it is required (especially if you're playing the rank-controlled way).

    The other use of Aura is in scoring - Aura seems to score the same as Weapon for some targets, and this can be useful as you can use Aura instead to conserve Weapon stock for scenery bombing.
  • SPECIAL WEAPON:
    All the ships carry a unique Special Weapon (hereby referred to as Weapon, in Garegga terminology) that is fuelled by the many small and large red-and-grey bomb-shaped pickups littering the stages.

    The special weapons first and foremost act as bullet neutralisers, so they can get you out of a jam. However it is important to note that every Weapon has a delay in activation, so it is important to get accustomed to the length of time it takes to deploy a Weapon. Also remember that you don't necessarily have to have a full Weapon in stock to use the attack, but you can only deploy a partial Weapon if you have no full Weapons in stock, and the overall effect of the attack is much shorter than a full Weapon.

    To get one full Weapon in stock, you must collect 40 SMALL Weapon bullets (or one BIG bullet), and you can hold a maximum of four full Weapons and 40 SMALL Weapon bullets. Whenever you die, you get a bonus of 20 SMALL Weapon bullets added to your current stock.

    Each ship's Weapon also has a certain range unique to that ship, so be mindful of your current ship's Weapon range when you chase scoring targets. For example, Tag-T has a revolving blade attack that is extremely short-ranged, making it good for attacking close targets only, and panic bombing (not counting the throw move you can do with the Weapon).

    For more info on Weapon ranges and strengths, make sure you check out the Ship by Ship Breakdown, later in the guide.
  • OPTION:
    In Batrider, Options are the sidearms that each ship comes equipped with. Each ship has a unique sidearm that is powered up by collecting more Option items, and I believe they have a maximum strength of three, whereby afterwards you're awarded points for surplus.

    Unlike the Garegga ships, the Batrider and Mahou ships cannot change the firing direction of their Options.

    And while we're on the subject of the Garegga ships, there are five basic formations available which are controlled by pressing the Option button. They are:
    For basic Option forms, Icarus wrote:
    • Spread
      Two on each side of your ship, one fixed by your side firing at a wideish angle, and one fixed near your ship's nose, firing at a tighter angle. Overall firepower style similar to a fiveway spread.
    • Tail
      Four pointing backwards in a wide fan shape, similar to a Silvergun's fully powered Tail shot.
    • Front
      Four pointing straight forwards, fixed in front of your ship's nose. Good for concentrated attacks.
    • Rotate
      Four Options spaced equally in a ring around your ship, spinning and firing when you do. Pretty useless >.<
    • Trace
      Similar formation to Front, except they follow your ship around the screen, firing in the opposite direction to your movements. More useful than Rotate .
    The order in which the Option formations are cycled are as follows. It is important to learn this order, as quick switching of formations is important to survival in many stages:

    Spread > Tail > Front > Rotate > Trace > (back to Spread)

    There are also secret formations, that are activated when you fulfill certain requirements. These requirements are based on missing a certain number and type of item BEFORE you pick up the next available Option icon, and also remember that it is a lot easier to set up for certain special formations than others.
    For Special Option forms, Icarus wrote:
    • Search
      These are fixed in a similar formation to Spread, but they track and fire at nearby enemies. It is quite hard to destroy faster moving drones with this formation, so if possible, avoid this and go for Homing instead.
      To get Search, miss 5 Option items, then pick up the next one that appears.
    • Shadow
      The Option items trail your ship much like the Gradius Options do. Useful if you like that sort of thing.
      To get Shadow, miss 5 Medals, then pick up an Option item.
    • Homing
      The Options have full range of the screen, and will fly right up to the nearest enemy and attack. Very useful.
      To get Homing, miss 5 SMALL Weapon bullets, then pick up an Option item.
    • Wide
      They are fixed in the same manner as the Spread formation, but have a much wider firing angle.
      To get Wide, miss 5 SMALL Shot powerups, then pick up an Option item.
    • Rolling
      The Options will spin around the ship a-la the Rotate formation, but they'll continue to fire forward. Think of the Rolling formation in Gradius 5.
      To get Rolling, drop 5 BIG Shot powerups, then pick up an Option item.
    There is also a activation order for the special formations which takes effect if you satisfy two or more activation conditions. The order is:

    Search > Shadow > Homing > Rolling > Wide

    You can also cancel a special formation by a press of the Option button. Cancelling a special form puts you straight back into Spread options.
  • SELF DESTRUCTION:
    One other unlisted weapon you can use is the explosion and resulting scattered shrapnel released from your ship when it is destroyed. The power of the explosion itself isn't very powerful, but the shrapnel can cause moderate damage to larger enemies. The shrapnel released from your ship's explosion also nullifies bullets.
Last edited by Icarus on Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER AND WILL BE EDITED EVENTUALLY :V

> RANK SYSTEM - THE SYSTEM IN BASIC <

Here, I've taken the "Rank System In Basic" from the Garegga ST and done a few minor edits to make it Batrider-relevant, as both games rely on roughly the same rank system in the background, with a few changes as to how that system is actually mathematically calculated.

All numbers, charts, etc. listed here are based upon the Japanese B version of the arcade game, with Advanced as the difficulty of choice. Obviously, Training and Normal rely on lower rank calculation levels, and Special is a Boss Only mode that appears to have a constant rank level (though this is unconfirmed).

Thanks to BulletMagnet for the original write-up, and Twiddle and AWJ for the original Garegga-specific hacking posts that led to this write-up. Hopefully this guide will be of some help.

  • WHAT IS RANK?:
    In case you hadn’t heard of it before, “rank” is the term used to describe an invisible “system” of sorts which a shoot-em-up will use to automatically adjust its difficulty level based on the player’s status and/or performance. One simple example is the Gradius series: in those games, the more powered-up your ship is, the harder the game gets. Different games use many different factors to determine rank, but Batrider’s rank system is particularly complicated, and dependent on a large number of factors which the player MUST understand and consciously manipulate in order to complete the game. This makes Batrider’s gameplay system much more unorthodox than it first appears, and quite challenging to master: the information contained in this guide exists to give you some idea of what exactly you’re up against.
  • WHAT DOES RANK AFFECT?:
    A game’s difficulty, of course, is dependent on several factors, and depending on the status of Batrider’s rank, the following elements can change:

    • Enemy Aggression:
      Enemies are more willing to attack you point-blank, charge straight at your craft, or engage in other aggressive behaviors.
    • Enemy Fire Rate:
      Enemies fire bullets at you with greater frequency.
    • Enemy Bullet Speed:
      Enemy bullets travel more quickly.
    • Enemy Bullet Number:
      Enemy bullet patterns contain more bullets and tighter formations.
    • Enemy Resilience:
      Enemies take more shots to destroy. Note that this particular characteristic recedes much more slowly (if at all) compared to the others: basically, if the game’s rank increases by a large amount (thus intensifying all of the factors listed here) and then is decreased by a large amount, enemies’ aggression, fire rate, etc. will drop substantially, but their resilience will remain at or close to the high level they were at before the rank drop.
    • Item Falling Speed:
      Items dropped by enemies fall offscreen faster.


    Needless to say, it’s to your advantage to put forth sufficient effort to keep the rank under control: if you fail to do so to enough of an extent, later stages of the game will become literally impossible to beat. Not “very hard,” not “extra difficult,” Impossible, with a capital “I”. That said, there are several things you can do to control and manipulate the rank in this game, as detailed in the following sections, so read on.
  • BASIC RANK-CONTROLLING STRATEGIES:
    Now that you know what the game’s rank can do to you if you don’t handle it properly, it stands to reason that you’ll want to know exactly how to do just that. This guide will get into a bit more of the “nitty-gritty” aspects of rank control as you read further in, but for starters, here is a sort of “digest” version of the “main” things you’ll want to do to succeed at Batrider, which breaks down at least most of the basic strategies you’ll want to use to successfully tackle the game and its demanding rank system. The guide will explain the listed items in more detail later on, but the stuff here ought to give you at least a general idea of what you’ll need to do.

    • Don’t hoard lives.
      Perhaps the toughest of Batrider’s rank control methods to get used to, but once you do so, things will actually get easier, rather than harder (as it might sound at first), for you. As you might have heard before even reading this guide, you’ll need to make sure that you get shot down periodically to lower the rank. Moreover, as will be elaborated upon below, the fewer lives you have in reserve when you die, the greater the (positive) effect the death has on the rank. As such, you’ll want to never have more than one or two extra lives in reserve at a time, so that your deaths, whenever they happen, help you the most. This means, if you’re scoring well enough to be earning regular extends, you should make sure to lose a life or two on a regular basis, rather than hoarding them and then dying a whole bunch of times at once (likely at a rough area). Obviously there’s a good deal of risk to having fewer lives to fall back on, but as you practice you’ll become confident enough to tackle previously-tough areas without a whole lot of backup.
    • Play for score.
      As the previous item brought out, you’ll need to sacrifice quite a few lives along the way to keep the rank from getting too high, and aside from the single item extend in stage 3, the only way to earn those lives back is to score well. Batrider’s (default) extend rate is pretty generous when you’re taking advantage of scoring opportunities properly, so you definitely want to exploit that fact as best you can. In some shmups you can more or less choose to play either “for survival” or “for score”: in Batrider, the two are, to a large extent, the same thing. You MUST learn to score well to survive in the long term, so read the stage-specific guides or watch some superplays (or just do a bit of experimenting) to figure out how.
    • Don’t hoard bombs.
      In most shmups, players are encouraged (even rewarded) for using bombs as little as possible, letting them go only when in a tight spot or to make up for a mistake. Batrider, on the other hand, includes bombs (or, as some have argued, not really even “bombs” but “special weapons”) primarily, not for survival purposes, but to help you score more, largely through background scenery destruction and a few other “tricks.” As such, for most areas of the game (barring a few exceptions, like the flamingoes in Stage 2), you’ll want to be using your bombs regularly to destroy scenery and uncover hidden medals to boost your score: oftentimes this means having no full bombs on hand, using only a few fragments at a time (since that’s all you’ll have handy) to take out the scenery. In similar fashion to having fewer lives as explained above, having fewer bombs to rely on to get out of a tough spot can make for some extra-tense situations: in the same manner, though, practice will see you through.
    • Limit your firepower.
      Similar to the above-mentioned treatment of bombs, most shmups encourage you to power yourself up fully as fast as you can: if you do so in Batrider, the rank will likely end up out of your control before long. To prevent this, do your best to get as far as you can with as little firepower as possible: until you’re forced to upgrade, stick with a lower-powered main shot (use the tables below to decide with which planes/characters this will be to your greatest advantage), fewer options, and non-hidden option formations. As with the previous few items on this list, doing this may sound prohibitively difficult, but give it a try and you may be surprised how far you can get with what you might have previously viewed as a mere “pea shooter.” Of course, later levels pretty much require you to have high firepower to progress, but the longer you can go without it, the better.
    • Limit your shooting.
      The more shots you fire the angrier you make the rank, so as a matter of principle, when there’s nothing to shoot at, let go of that fire button and stop shooting. Unlike in many other games, where you have little incentive to ever let go of the fire button, in Batrider you’ll want to “conserve ammo” in the few spots where you’re able to do so, although most of the time you’ll have no choice but to fight enemies off. Just keep this thought in the back of your head and you’ll be fine.
    • Use large items to power up when possible.
      Using small shot or weapon items a handful of times won’t utterly decimate your rank, but when possible you’ll want to use large shot or weapon icons to power yourself up, as in each case they end up doing less damage to your rank than their smaller counterparts will, especially in the case of the small shot icons, which can permanently affect your “per-frame” rank (detailed below).
    • Beware of raising the autofire rate.
      Batrider gives the player the ability to raise (but not lower) the game’s autofire rate during play, which gives you the ability to do more damage to enemies more quickly. This is certainly tempting, but it comes with a steep price: raising the autofire rate has a drastic effect on the rank, and should be used with extreme discretion, since its effects are impossible to reverse once activated. As mentioned earlier, later levels require greater firepower, but earlier on try to go without it.
    • Don’t collect power-ups when your power is “maxed.”
      As in many shmups, if you collect additional power-up icons after you’re already at full power, you get a few extra points. However, in Batrider, such items give you only paltry points in most cases (especially compared to the regular 10,000 apiece you can get from keeping your medal chain going) and increase your rank much faster than if they were collected when not at full power. As such, it’s generally in your best interests to avoid collecting further “enhancements” once you get to that point.
    • Don’t lose your medal chain.
      Speaking of medals, this point bears repeating: not only are medals a vital source of points (and all-important extra lives), but losing your chain and being forced to collect lower-value medals instead of higher-value ones will raise your rank many times faster than if you’d been able to keep the high-value medals coming. As with everything else, practice makes perfect.
    • Make sure the starting rank level is as low as possible.
      A relatively minor thing, but every little bit helps: in short, every time the game is played, the starting rank will become slightly more difficult. As such, you might want to either reset it (via switch or Option menu) or let the attract mode sequence run for awhile before trying again, to ensure that you don’t have the odds stacked too high against you right from the get-go.
    • Don’t seal too many enemy bullets.
      Also relatively minor compared to some other tips, but it can make a difference: while it may be tempting to sit right on top of that big ol’ tank to take advantage of its “dead zone” and prevent it from sending that nasty spread at you, those bullets are still hurting you, so to speak, even when they’re not actually fired at you. Sealing a few bullets here or there won’t destroy your game, but do it too much and you’ll likely wish you hadn’t.
    • Persevere!
      Batrider is a tough game by almost any standard, and its unorthodox play style goes even further to ensure that you’re not going to master it quickly. As such, don’t get frustrated or discouraged when you have a tough time; you can always try again later, and the more you play, the better you’ll get. Starting off focusing on certain rank elements only, while not bothering with others (or maybe even none at all), might help to ease you into things, and gradually work your way up to trying to handle everything at once, but there’s no need to rush yourself, just so long as you don’t give up. You’re supposed to be having fun, after all.


    Okay, so there you have the basic idea of what you’re going to need to do in order to play Batrider properly.

    It sounds daunting, certainly, and it definitely isn’t a cake walk to pull off successfully, to say the least; as was said, though, practice definitely helps, so don’t give up. Anyway, now that we’ve got the basics covered, the rest of this guide will go into more detailed information about exactly how the rank system works, so that you know what you need to be most careful to avoid and what you might be able to get away with once in awhile.

    Trust me when I say that the more you know about how the game works, the more at ease you’ll be when playing it, and the better you’ll be able to adjust your play style to work towards success. That said, get ready to crunch a few numbers as we go on: memorizing absolutely everything definitely isn’t necessary, but having a general idea of the elements at work will definitely help you. Ready for the next step? Then read on.
Last edited by Icarus on Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:19 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> RANK SYSTEM - A HACKER'S GUIDE (in progress...) <
Icarus wrote:This is a raw copy-paste from trap15's pastebin with his findings. This information is still needing to be written in a way that is clear to non-programmers, but for now, it should be useful to those wanting to look at the system a little closer. Thanks, trap!
!! IMPORTANT !!
Icarus, via trap15 wrote:We should put something in about how to start the game with easier rank.

Batrider's minimum rank is set to a high value when it is booted up, and this value is used for every subsequent new run until the board is reset. However, there is a way to set its minimum rank value to something much lower than this, by:

1. entering the test menu on boot (F2 flips this dip in MAME)
2. pressing START with the cursor on GAME MODE.


The button used is important: pressing A does not get you the desired effect. Also note you can achieve the same effect by booting the game while holding START.

One other thing is that unlike Garegga, Batrider's rank does NOT carry across new games - every new viewing of the Character Select Screen sets the rank off from the current base value, like Bakraid. The only thing that will affect your new games is the amount of credits currently entered, so for the lowest possible starting rank, only put in one credit at a time.
!! END IMPORTANT !!

Code: Select all

Quick crashcourse on formatting:
	$## means the number "##" is in hexadecimal.
	@ prefix means this is an address. The number following maybe be suffixed with .b,.w, or .l, meaning it's a byte, 16bit word, or 32bit long integer.
	An address may be followed by [#] meaning there are # entities of the specified type located here.
	Rank numbers are specified in the most understandable way; an increase in rank (or positive value) makes the game harder, and decrease makes it easier. Do note that the actual rank value is stored in the opposite way; a decrease in the value makes the game harder. This is worth noting for the starting/minimum rank values.


rank_start_base_mul: @$20F9CE.w
	This is depending on the button you hit to exit test mode, or the button held when the machine reboots.
	If the start button was held/hit, value is $100. Otherwise, $C0.
	This value is "sticky", in that it only needs to be done once, then the cabinet is locked to that value until next reboot.

difficulty_dip: @$20F9FA.b
	Picked based on Difficulty DIP switches. easy,normal,hard,veryhard = 0,1,2,3
timer_dip: @$20F9FB.b
	Picked based on Timer Rank DIP switches. low,normal,high,highest = 0,1,2,3

course_x2: @$20E6A6.b
	Picked based on difficulty selection. training,normal,advanced,boss = 0,2,4,6

rank_start_tbl: @$C7E.w[4] $FF,$F8,$F0,$E0
rank_start_mul_tbl: @$C86.w[4] $100,$100,$E0,$D0
rank_timer_start_tbl: @$C8E.w[4] $00,$04,$10,$40

rank: @$20F9D0.l
rank_frame: @$20F9D4.l
rank_min: @$20F9D8.l

rank_min = rank_start_tbl[difficulty_dip] * rank_start_base_mul * rank_start_mul_tbl[course_x2/2]
rank_frame = rank_timer_start_tbl[timer_dip]

Rank begins counting at the character select screen, and is set to rank_min at that point.
Rank will never be "greater" than rank_min, and never "lower" than 0.
Each frame, rank will be increased by rank_frame PLUS HOW MANY UNUSED CREDITS ARE IN THE MACHINE HOLY SHIT YAGAWA YOU GENIUS
Upon continue, rank does not reset, but rank_frame DOES.

Difficulty |   Easy  |  Normal |   Hard  | VeryHard|
-----------|---------|---------|---------|---------|
Training   | $FF0000 | $F80000 | $F00000 | $E00000 |
  Non-Start| $BF4000 | $BA0000 | $B40000 | $A80000 |
-----------|---------|---------|---------|---------|
Normal     | $FF0000 | $F80000 | $F00000 | $E00000 |
  Non-Start| $BF4000 | $BA0000 | $B40000 | $A80000 |
-----------|---------|---------|---------|---------|
Advanced   | $DF2000 | $D90000 | $D20000 | $C40000 |
  Non-Start| $A75800 | $A2C000 | $9D8000 | $930000 |
-----------|---------|---------|---------|---------|
Boss Only  | $CF3000 | $C98000 | $C30000 | $B60000 |
  Non-Start| $9B6400 | $972000 | $924000 | $888000 |
-----------|---------|---------|---------|---------|

Frame rank used in code: @$9F2

No rank for stage clear/boss kill
No rank for autofire change

Bullet seal: @$3A99E, for $800
	Exceptions:
		Boredom doesn't rank up for sealing his helis
		Others?
Bomb: @$306BC, full bomb = 0, partial bomb = $8000
Graze: @$9AA2, for -$80 per frame per bullet, graze animation denotes a graze

Shot rank: @$3040C
	Rank is added for each bullet fired, not each time the ship "fires"
	All non-piercing main shots are worth 6 rank each.
	All piercing main shots are worth $28 rank each.
	For characters with mixed shots, the rank increase is as according to each bullet.

Option rank:
	Rank is added for each bullet fired, not each time the option "fires"

   Character | Rank |   Code  |
-------------|------|---------|
        D.D. | $004 | @$36868 |
      Shorty | $040 | @$37794 |
       Jyuji | $004 | @$36EA8 | Options rank per frame laser being fired.
-------------|------|---------|
       Maria | $028 | @$36A06 |
      Golden | $004 | @$36CE0 |
    Strawman | $01C | @$370EA |
-------------|------|---------|
    Birthday | $028 | @$372C4 |
       Tag-T | $090 | @$37794 |
        Adam | $01E | @$36B84 |
-------------|------|---------|
Silver Sword | $004 | @$30D62 |
 Grasshopper | $004 | @$30D62 |
Flying Baron | $004 | @$30D62 |
  Wild Snail | $004 | @$30D62 |
-------------|------|---------|
        Gain | $01E | @$32520 |
      Chitta | $004 | @$32DC6 |
    Miyamoto | $028 | @$331BA |
     Bornnam | $01C | @$33784 |
     Car-Pet | $028 | @$36602 |
-------------|------|---------|

Death: @$2FA96
	(Rest is characters alive after death)
Rest | Value
-----|---------
0    | -$400000
1    | -$100000
2    | -$040000
3    | -$010000

Extend: @$3016E
	(Rest is characters alive before extend)
	Dropping has no effect
	Special Extend has same rank effect as a regular extend at same rest
Rest | Value
-----|--------
0    | $000000 // Shouldn't be possible normally
1    | $080000
2    | $100000
3    | $200000
4    | $400000

Item:
	No extra rank for reaching "next level" of anything
    Type | Value   | Code
---------|---------|-------
  SmShot | $000100 | @$2FCA2
 CashWad | $000400 | @$302BE
BombFrag | $000800 | @$2FD24
 BigShot | $008000 | @$2FD94
  Option | $008000 | @$2FE72
 BigBomb | $020000 | @$2FE12

Medal: @$30010
	Dropping has no effect
    Type  | Value
----------|--------
 100~900  | $000
1000~9000 | $100
    10000 | $200

Special item get:
     Type | Value    | Code
----------|----------|--------
ShadowOpt | Frame+=0 | @$2FF42
  BigShot | Frame+=1 | @$2FDF2
   SmShot | Frame+=1 | @$2FDF2
   Option | Frame+=1 | @$2FFC6
  WideOpt | Frame+=1 | @$2FF7A
RollinOpt | Frame+=1 | @$2FF96
SearchOpt | Frame+=2 | @$2FF2C
HomingOpt | Frame+=2 | @$2FF5E
Last edited by Icarus on Thu Jul 24, 2014 12:57 am, edited 11 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> SCORING SYSTEM <

Batrider's score system first and foremost is based around acquisition of the many Gold Medals that are littered throughout the stages, and on enemy and scenery destruction. However these factors are pretty complex in themselves and require a bit of thorough explanation. The score system is also closely tied to the rank system in the attainment of constant Extends to suicide with, so knowing where and how to attain the most points from a stage is important. For more detaled scoring info, check out the Stage by Stage Strategies.
  • GOLD MEDALS:
    The Gold Medals that are available throughout the game will make up a substantial portion of your score - about 40 to 50% - therefore being able to attain and keep MAX value Medals becomes an important part of developing a good strategy for the first few stages.

    The Medals will start at a value of 100pts, and their values will increase whenever you release more Medals when there are none on-screen. From 100pts, they will ascend in value by 100pts until they get to 1,000pts, and from there the will increase in value by 1,000pts per Medal until they get to MAX value, or 10,000pts. This diagram shows all the medals, their shapes and values:

    Image

    For a good explanation of Medal chaining, here's AWJ (thanks!):
    Regarding Medal Chaining, AWJ wrote:The way medals work in Battle Garegga (and Batrider, and Bakraid) is actually very simple conceptually. Whenever you collect a medal, the medal type is set to (medal_you_just_collected + 1). For example, collecting a 400 point medal sets the medal type to 500 points. Whenever a medal drops off the screen, the medal type is reset to the lowest type (100 points). The value of each medal is determined at the instant it is created.

    The upshot is, you can let a medal drop without losing the chain as long as (a) there is still another medal onscreen to collect, and (b) you don't create any more medals prior to collecting that medal. Why? If you create another medal at this point, it will be a 100 point medal and you're screwed no matter what you do with it. If you drop it, the medal value will reset, obviously. But even if you collect it, the medal value will be set to 200 points, which is scarcely better.

    Grounded medals aren't treated any differently by the game; their importance comes from the fact that they stay onscreen for a long time and you can choose when to collect them.
    The optimal strategy for medalling in the early stages of the game is to pick up and release Medals one at a time. As stated in the Basic info section, an item is released every five flying enemies you destroy (or for every single stationary "flying" enemy you destroy), which gives you plenty of time to catch all the Medals on screen and set up to release more.

    This small diagram (stolen from VGMaterials and edited) shows a good method for getting Medals and recovering from misses (the top set is GOOD strategy, the bottom set is BAD):

    Image
  • SCENERY:
    Certain parts of the scenery on some stages can be destroyed for points, but only with your Weapon. These parts of scenery sometimes hold hidden Medals, so knowing where these bits of destructible scenery are and working them into your strategy can imporve your score substantially. Even if a bit of background doesn't uncover Medals for collection, just destroying the bit of scenery still adds points to your total.

    Another point to note is that some parts of scenery and enemies that can be destroyed with Shot often give more points when destroyed with Weapon.
  • ATTACK USAGE:
    As with Garegga, many of your scoring targets will have differing point values depending on what weapon you use to destroy it with. In most cases you'll be charging through with your Shot and side Weapon, occasionally moving to Aura certain things.
Last edited by Icarus on Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> SHIPS AND CHARACTERS <

Detailed ships guide will go here at some point. For now, cross-posting some old ship related information I found in my old score thread.
[url=http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=194652#p194652]In this thread[/url], Icarus wrote:ABC selection only applies to Normal and Advanced Course boss unlocking. You have more freedom in ship selection for Special Course, as you're guaranteed to unlock X boss as long as you have X character still alive in your team. So you can mix and match both ship selections and subtypes according to taste.

I'd recommend picking ships you feel comfortable with. You've probably noticed that in all my scores, I use ships that have good attacking strength and Shot/Option range, with wide-area bombs. That is because in Normal/Advanced, you're going on bombing runs and need to be able to cover all the screen at key points quickly, while in Special you just need Shot power with a good bomb to back yourself up in case of trouble. That should be basic knowledge to any Batrider player.

If you must know, however, there are better subtype selections for particular ships for all three courses. They are:

* Strawman, Maria - A or C type (C type if you desire attacking strength while sacrificing speed)
* Shorty - B type (beef those huge missiles up!)
* Silver Sword - A or B type
* Grasshopper - B type
* Flying Baron - B or C type (the ship moves pretty quickly, so you can sacrifice a bit of speed)
* Wild Snail - B type
* Bornnam - A or B type (huge Shot range for both A and B, excellent for milking all Garegga bosses)
* Chitta - B or C type (good speed but needs Option strengthening)
* Miyamoto - C type (sacrifice that insane speed for higher attacking power. Options have mild piercing ability too)
* Gain - B or C type (lose a bit of speed for higher attacking strength)
* Carpet - A type (Options are already quite strong, so increase Shot power)

Note that I haven't listed all the Batrider ships, as the others aren't worth using.

My current best score is the 6.7mil run (to Bashinet-R), but my best boss run is 15 bosses total (to Discharge), using my current setup of Bornnam (A) / Grasshopper (B) / Miyamoto (C), and is a lower 6.2mil score. Both runs missed out on Glow Squid.

As for actual ship order, I'm experimenting with both Mahou/Garegga/Mahou (for easy passage past the Rivals) and Mahou/Batrider/Garegga (for all 18 bosses). You do need a near-perfect run in the second half of Special Course, however, to unlock all 18 bosses. That and you need to make sure that you don't draw Envy if you are using the first configuration listed before, as it can make or break a good run.

Now, can someone tell me how to stop Bashinet2 from throwing those really annoying homing grenades? Every run in Normal and Special starts to go at around that point. -_-;;
Last edited by Icarus on Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> SECRETS <

There are A LOT of secrets in Batrider, so many that it can potentially scare off a lot of players (especially if you're looking for scoreplay). Here, I've listed all the secrets (appropriated from this thread). For players looking for actual stage secrets, consult the stage guides. Those looking to understand the nuances of the team and ship select setups can peruse my posts in the first page of the GD thread.
  • PLAYER SELECTION SECRETS
    At the player select screen, your fighter's capability is determined by which button(s) you press to pick your craft:
    • A Button - Strong shot, weak option
    • B Button - Strong option, weak shot
    • C Button (or A+B on a 2-button cab) - Strong option & shot, slower speed
    • Start Button - Weak option & shot, faster speed
  • PLAYER TYPES
    Each character has different "shot" and "power" categories for their option attacks. This doesn't affect gameplay, but is important if you want to unlock some of the secret bosses later on. Excuse the messiness of the list - I'll try and make this into a neat table later on.

    Code: Select all

    Character        Shot Type         Power Type 
    
    D.D.             Wide              Vulcan 
    Shorty           Search            Napalm 
    Juji             Front             Beam 
    
    Maria            Wide              Beam 
    Golden           Front             Vulcan 
    Strawman         Search            Beam 
    
    Birthday         Front             Napalm 
    Tag-T            Search            Laser 
    Adam             Wide              Laser 
    
    Gain             Front             Laser 
    Chitta           Wide              Vulcan 
    Miyamoto         Wide              Napalm 
    Bornnam          Search            Vulcan 
    Car-Pet          Front             Napalm 
    
    Silver Sword     Vulcan            Garegga 
    Grasshopper      Laser             Garegga 
    Flying Baron     Vulcan            Garegga 
    Wild Snail       Laser             Garegga 
  • COURSE SELECTION SECRETS
    - Hold left or right on the joystick while selecting "Training" mode, and the game will be just 2 stages long (M-City, then Highway)

    - Select either Normal or Advanced course by pressing buttons A+B to enable Stage Edit mode. This can also be enabled by setting DIP switch #3-3. (Note that, in stage edit, you can opt not to select stages for levels 2, 3, and 4. This lets you go straight to the Highway stage after level 1 if you want to.)
  • GUEST CHARACTERS
    At the title screen, press U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Start. The Garegga and Mahou characters will now be available in "team edit" mode. This can also be enabled by setting DIP switch #3-6.
  • PLAYER SELECT
    At the title screen, press U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, B, A, Start. Now, you will be able to select all 3 of the same player. This can also be enabled with DIP switch #3-7.
  • SPECIAL BOSS ATTACK COURSE
    At the title screen, press U, D, U, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Start. This will enable a fourth "Boss Attack" game mode. You can also enable it with DIP switch #3-8.
  • GAREGGA OPTION FORMATION CODES
    The Garegga ships are unique in that their options can be set to a variety of different formations. Typically, this is done by pushing button C, just as in Battle Garegga. However, since Batrider is "officially" a 2-button PCB, some cabinets may not have a third button. If you're stuck playing on one of these cabs, use these "Street Fighter" moves instead:
    • Front - UP, DOWN, A
    • Back - DOWN, UP, DOWN, A
    • Wide - RIGHT, DOWN, DOWN-RIGHT, A
    • Control - LEFT, DOWN, DOWN-LEFT, A
    • Rolling - LEFT, DOWN-LEFT, DOWN, DOWN-RIGHT, RIGHT, A
  • GAREGGA SPECIAL OPTION FORMATIONS
    Just like in Battle Garegga, you can get unique (and in most cases powerful) option formation upgrades by collecting items in special sequence:
    • Wide - Miss 5 small shot items, then pick up an option item
      Options shoot out to the sides in a very wide pattern
    • Search - Miss 5 option items, pick up an option item
      Options automatically aim themselves at enemies
    • Homing - Miss 5 bomb icons, pick up an option item
      Options fly right up to enemies and shoot them
    • Shadow - Miss 5 bonus medals, pick up an option item
      Options follow your ship a la Gradius
    • Rolling - Miss 5 large shot items, pick up an option item
      Options roll around your ship while still shooting forwards
  • IN-GAME COMMANDS
    Press these button combinations during play to customize the game's bullet patterns. Note that, contrary to popular belief, the Start+A and Start+C combinations affect only your ship, and not the enemies:
    • Increase your ship's Shot Frequency - Start + A
    • Decrease your Shot Frequency - Start + C, or Start + Up (B ver. only)
    • Score Display - Start + B (displays points given for destroying enemies)
    • Change colour of round bullets - Start + Left
    • Change colour of straight bullet - Start + Down
    • Change colour of destructible bullets - Start + Right
  • SECRET EXTEND ITEMS
    An extend item will drop after each 1.5 million points. In addition, there are three secret methods for triggering extends:
    • Kill the Highway Stage's blue hovercraft only after it's stopped
    • Miss 3 max bomb items
    • Miss three Extend items - yields a "special extend", refilling all your empty life slots.
  • SHOT SPECIAL LEVEL UP
    Dropping three shot power up icons and picking up a fourth will get you a Special Power Up, which boosts your shot level to maximum. This can be done with either large or small shot icons - these are tallied independently of each other.

    Raizing's website seems to imply that getting a Special Power Up at power level 4 will boost your ship to level 5, presumably overcoming the limitations of the type B or S ships. However, I've had trouble getting this to work. Both the Shot and Option Special Level Ups are mostly useful for triggering the secret bosses.
  • OPTION SPECIAL LEVEL UP
    Drop 3 option items and collect a fourth to get an Option Special Level Up, which will boost your options to max level.
  • GALAXY VALHALLYZER
    This is Gain's "dream machine" from the Mahou Daisakusen games. In Batrider, you can actually play as this ship for the first time, although it's not particularly useful.

    To get it, you must be playing as Gain. Miss an extend item with no options on your ship, and collect the next option you see. Your ship will now transform into the the Galaxy Valhallyzer. It can be difficult to reach 1.5 million points without using options, so it's easiest to just suicide to drop your options right before you hit the extend.
  • SPECIAL BOSS APPEARANCES
    Batrider has an enormous array of bosses, many of them borrowed from Raizing's previous games. Most of these are hidden, however, so you'll need to perform various tricks to fight them all. Each stage except for the first has at least one hidden boss.
    • Sky-High Stage: Bashinet
      Destroy all of the large triangular ships in the middle of the stage. You must have at least one surviving Mahou character in your team after you defeat Boredom.
    • Sewage Sytem Stage: Black Heart
      Destroy all of the vertical laser/gun turrets while they're open. You must have at least one surviving Garegga character in your team upon beating Deviate.
    • Airport Stage: Gob-Robo
      Defeat the two side panels of the large gun turret in the middle of the jetliner. At least one surviving Mahou character must be in your team.
    • Highway Stage: Bashinet MkII
      On the first level, destroy the used car dealership building first and the billboard afterwards, causing a flock of birds to fly out. If this is successful, and your party contains at least one surviving Mahou character when you clear level 4, you will fight Bashinet MkII before progressing to the Highway stage.
    • Highway Stage: Tsumuji-Maru, Hayate-Maru
      • Tsumuji-Maru
        All three of your characters must have different "shot" types (refer to the table at the beginning of the post). At least one of your surviving characters must be a Mahou character. However, you can still fight this boss if one or more of your other players are dead.
      • Hayate-Maru
        All three characters must have different "power" types. Otherwise, the criteria are the same as for Tsumuji.
      For example, to fight both of these bosses, you could use a combination of Golden (front, vulcan), Strawman (search, beam), and Miyamoto (wide, napalm).
    • Highway Stage: Sobut, Blunt, Envy
      Listed in increasing order of difficulty, these three are the "default" bosses of the Highway stage. You'll always fight at least one of them; which one(s) you meet and how many will depend on your actions during the game.

      To begin with, each boss corresponds with a different stage:
      • Sobut (green) - Sewer System
      • Blunt (yellow) - Sky High
      • Envy (red) - Airport
      At the end of the Highway stage, you will fight the boss corresponding with whatever stage you played as level 2, as determined by "stage edit". Because Envy is extremely difficult, it's a bad idea to play the Airport stage first if you're shooting for survival.

      To fight more than one of these bosses, you must have a surviving Batrider character in your team, and fulfill the following conditions:
      • Bosses for levels 2 & 3 - Get a shot Special Level Up
      • Bosses for levels 2 & 4 - Get an option Special Level Up
      • Bosses for levels 2, 3, & 4 - Get both option and shot Special Level Ups

      Naturally, if you're trying to survive, avoid special level ups like the plague! The opposite is true if you're aiming for a high score.
    • Zenobia City: Black Heart MkII
      All three of your fighters must have been selected with at least two different buttons (A type, B type, C type, etc.) If you have at least one surviving Garegga ship in your team upon clearing the Highway stage, you will fight Black Heart MkII before progressing to Zenobia City.
    • Final Stage: Bashinet-R & Glow Squid
      • To trigger Bashinet-R, in Zenobia City, there are 3 large rectangular doors with missile launchers that pop out of them. Destroy all 3 with bombs, and if your team contains at least one surviving Mahou character after beating Grubby, you will fight Bashinet R before progressing to the final stage.
      • To trigger Glow Squid, destroy all 4 of the large spinning gun platforms in Zenobia City, and if your team has at least one surviving Garegga Character after beating Grubby (and Bashinet R also), you will fight Glow Squid before progressing to the final stage.
Last edited by Icarus on Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:43 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> METROPOLIS STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    The starting stage, fairly simple to score in, but with a lot of scoring targets all packed together. Efficient scoring here will get you over 1mil easy. Welcome to Violent City!

    Player: Icarus - 1.28mil (Team - Strawman, Grasshopper, Miyamoto) (XVID AVI - 19.6MB)
    Player: Icarus - 1.25mil (Team - Miyamoto, Strawman, Silver Sword) (XVID AVI - 18.6MB)
    Player: Icarus - 1.25mil (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • BOXES AND FIRE HYDRANTS:
      Dotted around the level are grey-colored square and oblong objects, and small red circular objects. The boxes (the grey objects) are worth 10k with Weapon/Aura, and the fire hydrants (the small red circular objects) are worth 30k with Weapon/Aura. There aren't many of the fire hydrants in the stage though, so learn where they are and prioritise them for efficient scoring.
    • CARS:
      The various cars in this stage are worth 1,000 each with Weapon/Aura. The wave of cars at the beginning can be particularly lucrative if you use a wide-area Weapon such as Strawman's to destroy them (and you get plenty of Weapon fragments back as a result), however I personally prefer to use rapid Shot on this set to save Weapons for later use.
    • SUBWAY TRAIN:
      The subway train that zips past the large hole in the ground is a good source of points - 10k per car when destroyed with Weapon. You'll get maximum points from the train if you have a long duration Weapon available (Strawman, Car-Pet, Flying Baron etc).
    • RED FLYING SHIPS:
      These things are a bit trickier. On their backs are six containers that release Medals, and they're worth a good source of points on their own (around 50k estimated) - the most difficult issue with them is using them to try and boost your Medal values. The best technique involves using Car-Pet's Weapon to quickly hover over them and then back off, breaking open some of the containers. Collect the Medals that are loose, then quickly hover over them to break open the remaining containers and destroy the ships. You should be able to gain a few Medal ranks here if you're quick enough.
    • FOUR LARGE SIGNS:
      The car dealership that scrolls into view has four signs lined up in a row. The optimal technique here is to use Aura to knock them over (though Weapons work as well), for 10k per sign.
    • CAR DEALERSHIP BUILDING: !! BOSS TRIGGER !!
      The fun trick in stage one, and one that is key to unlocking Bashinet MkII. To do it successfully, you must destroy the building before you knock over the sign, and to fight Bashinet Mk2, you must finish the fourth stage with a Mahou character in stock. Now, the building itself is worth 50k when destroyed with Weapon/Aura, and the sign is worth 30k when knocked over with Weapon/Aura, but there is another scoring element involving the building - you get a 30k bonus for every second you hit the building with a Weapon attack. This can be tricky to do as you can accidentally knock over the sign first with the Weapon attack, but if you can plan a good Weapon strategy at this point, you can gain between 150k - 200k in extra points.

      Also, it helps if you have a few full Weapons stocked as well, as doing this trick successfully spawns birds that can be attacked for masses of extra tick damage, similar to Garegga's famous flamingos. Try it with Strawman. ^_-
    • GLASS PANELS:
      Try to get as many Weapon fragments from the vehicles that fly past the car dealership for the glass panel section, as you can get around 100k - 120k for destroying all of the glass panels, and the central concrete pathway that hides Medals.

      Speaking of the hidden Medals in this section, again you can boost your Medal ranks with smart play here. This section favors characters who can exercise selective destruction (Car-Pet), as you can carefully uncover Medals when required. Alternatively, if you line yourself up with the pathway, activate your Weapon then quickly sweep up the screen to boost your Medal values up a few.

      And the big green helicopter is worth 10k with Weapon and Aura, probably Shot too. Pick off the wings for Medals and more points, and I'm sure the tail is a destroyable target as well.
  • BOSS TACTICS - CONFRICT

    Potential score-gain: ~500,000pts
    Confrict has a wide array of destructible targets that you are able to dissect down piece by piece. Brute forcing Confrict is an option and he'll go down within moments if you choose that route. However, instead, you should aim to take him down piece by piece. You're also on a time budget and managing your time during this fight is paramount so that Conflict will expose the desired weapons to destroy. With the proper approach, you can see score consistency with fighting Confrict, and less of Confrict timing out.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Flame-throwers [x2] & 30,000pts each [Aura or Non-piercing]
    R=2 & Yellow plasma cannons [x2] & 50,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    R=3 & Backpack missile launchers [x2] & 50,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    5,000pts [Piercing]
    R=4 & Side laser turrets [x2] & 5000pts each [Aura]
    500pts [Non-piercing, piercing]
    R=5 & Confrict kill & 100,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS
      On Confrict's two bulging arms are money safes that can be cracked open to spill out $500 dollar bills. You could crack open one safe and collect the dollar bills and then the other, but you'll only be wasting time on Confrict's clock if you do this. Crack open both safes and position yourself below him to collect two streams of dollar bills at once. Eventually, the safes will explode and Confrict's arms will deploy their next armaments.
    • PHASE 2: A SPECIFIC HATRED FOR FLAMES
      The arms begin extracting until a narrow flamethrower weapon pokes out of each arm. On each extracted arm are a couple turrets that you can shoot off separately for 5K each. The flamethrowers can be destroyed separately for 30K with Aura or with the side of a Garegga's default option formation. It's easy to accidentally destroy the whole arm. This comes with risk as Confrict is using a twin laser attack from his core armor, twin lasers from his side "shoulders", or missiles from his missile backpack.
    • PHASE 3: SET US UP THE CONFRICT
      Phase 3 comprises the rest of destroying Confrict's parts until his destruction or time-out. At this point, Confrict's "side shoulders" remain and Confrict can cycle between a few different attacks.
      1. His backpack missiles.
      2. A spread shot from his core (after you destroy the core armor)
      3. The "side shoulders" can expose a laser turret.
      You want him to expose his laser turrets but don't wait longer than a couple cycles. The laser turrets are worth 5K instead of 500pts for Aura'ing, which comes at slight risk. Weaken the side shoulders in case he doesn't use the laser turrets, so you can advance the fight speedily.

      At this point of the fight, Confrict's RNG will begin to dictate how you progress efficiently. The destroyed side-shoulders expose weapons that spray bullets wildly to their sides. Destroy one side-shoulder, and begin destroying the wild-weapon while taking caution to not damage Confrict's core too much. This bit is very important because it is easy to misdirect your fire towards his core, which will prematurely end the fight. Once the wild-weapon is destroyed, you are clear to use that side of the screen to position an attack aimed at his missile backpack, preferably with option-directional fire from a Garegga ship. The missile backpack has a left and right side and is only destructible when firing missiles at you. It's Confrict's most challenging target to isolate but is worth good points.
    • PHASE 3.5: SO YOU LIKE POINTS? CONFRICT LIKES YOU TOO.
      Depending on the order that you destroy his wild-weapons, missile backpacks or yellow laser cannons (soon to cover): Confrict will increase and / or modify the aggression of his core bullet spray attack. These 3 weapons are used randomly between each other, so youmust take every chance to capitalize. Basically, if you wear him down to three, two, or one remaining part to destroy, the core bullet spray becomes a threatening or impossible attack to survive.

      The yellow laser cannons are exposed adjacent to the core but won't remain exposed for long, you'll likely have to wait for them to appear again to get both. The same goes for the missile backpack, which takes 2 or 3 opportunities to destroy. One trick to destroy both yellow-laser-cannons is to have Confrictat near-death, then kill Confrict so that he leaves the cannons exposed while the stage ends. This will give you enough time to take out both. The cannons and missile backpack parts are worth a whopping 50K each.

      Your skill in dispatching these parts efficiently will be the difference between a good Confrict and a bad one. But sometimes, Confrict simply won't expose one of his last 3 attacks, and forces you to wait for your chance, which is exactly what you don't want if you're going for optimization ashe'll time-out and roll away. Throwing you into restart hell, an emotional conflict.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:11 am, edited 11 times in total.
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Icarus
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Post by Icarus »

> SKY HIGH STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    This stage is short, and devoid of any major Medal caches, so it is generally used to safely increase Medal values. You can pick up a few freebie Medals in this stage from particular targets, of which I will detail in a bit.

    Player: Icarus - 600k (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • DRONE CHAINS:
      At the beginning of the stage you'll come across a number of drone chains. While they're worth a pittance in general, they are worth 300pts each if you Weapon or Aura them (Aura recommended), compared to tick damage if you use Shot.
    • MISSILES:
      In two sections in this stage, you'll come across a rain of rapid-fire straight missiles. They're worth 1k each with Weapon or Aura, and can be a good source of points if handled properly. For the second set of missiles before Boredom in particular, a well timed wide area Weapon can net over 150k, though in most cases, it's better to save Weapons for later.
    • LARGE BLUE BOMBERS: !! BOSS TRIGGER !!
      Another boss-related secret, destroying all of them that appear will unlock Bashinet if you have a Mahou character in stock when you defeat Boredom. The bombers themselves aren't worth that much in points on their own - probably around 10k on their own if you pick off the wings - but there are two guns mounted on the body that will drop a Medal each if destroyed. While I'm not certain of the exact conditions for dropping Medals, it does appear that if you can destroy the a gun before the wing on that side, you'll get a Medal.
    • YELLOW AND GREEN BOMBER:
      A tricky part of the stage, as they can spam the screen with spreads. Targeting the body always works to destroy them quickly, but for the adventurous, if you destroy the guns first (four on the yellow bomber, two on the green bomber), you'll get Medals for each gun destroyed.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BOREDOM

    Potential score-gain: ~800,000pts
    Boredom has three main phases. Boredom isn't difficult to obtain an okay chunk of score from, but optimizing him takes finesse. Particularly with effective usage of deployed options to attack from both sides.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Helicopters [x4] & 30,000pts each [Aura]
    3000pts [Non-piercing]
    R=2 & Laser-racks [x??] & 10,000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Boredom kill & 100,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: FLY UP TO HELIS AND STICK IT IN THEIR FACE
      Boredom begins the fight being carried by 4 tethered helicopters whom all shoot bursts of aimed fire at you. Instead of shooting them down from afar, which causes the helicopters to let out an oddly aggressive bullet attack. Fly up to eachhelicopter and use the large hitbox of your aura to take them out one by one for 30K each. When close to one, you will seal their fire, and likely seal the fire of the one close to it as you weave back and forth, dodging the volleys of aimed lasers. This takes a decent amount of familiarity with the frequency of attack from the helicopters and you'll likely fumble around at first trying to pull off these mini-stunts. But once you got it you'll be weaving in and out only three or four times for each helicopter. When the last helicopter remains it will let out a constant stream of lasers at you. Just flank him and aura. Boredom detaches from the broken helicopters, Aura the debris of one helicopter for another 30K.
    • PHASE 2: LET THE DRONES OUT!
      Boredom's 2nd phase randomly cycles between 3 attacks:
      1. Aimed, large green circles emitted from the pods. Easily herded and avoided.
      2. A slightly quirky spread of lasers, also aimed from the front.
      3. A semi-fast bullet-flack attack, rolled off of a gun on Boredom's back. Not particularly aimed.

      Your goal is to break the pods on the left and right of boredom. This can be difficult without a piercing shot or Garegga.

      You'll have to take deft opportunity with deployed options to break them. With Strawman, his options can lock on to the pods. Once broken, the pods release packs of drones simultaneously, about 7-8 each. Breaking one pod makes for an easy, small cash-in thanks to the drones spawning medals. But breaking both will meet some danger when both packs rush you at once. Deploy your options on the other side of the screen to cover yourself. The faster you break the pods, the more drones you'll receive before Boredom's 3rd phase initiates.

      You can also gain significant tic-points on his sides during this phase because his center is his weak point.
    • PHASE 3: "LASER RACKS 'TIL I DIE!”
      Boredom expands his shoulders and begins to protrude long, twin-laser shooting racks out of his back to the left and right. When destroyed are worth 10K each, andinitiates the next laser-rack to come out. The twin lasers are like spears and attempt to confine your movement. His two cycling attacks remain besides the green circles, but now he uses a new, aimed laser attack, shot from his claws.

      During this phase, a piercing attack like Car-Pet's shot or options is preferred because you can get okay tic points from his now expanded shoulders. **Your goal is destroy as many laser racks that you can, while bearing in mind when to finish off Boredom before he times out. Boredom's movement can be erratic, sometimes moving far in one direction or not far at all. Because of this, you must take care in how you deploy your options. If Boredom decides to move straight into one of Car-Pet's option volleys, it's going to receive a TON of damage, and in turn, cause you to become more prudent in your attacks on the laser racks to avoid damaging the center. If Boredom moves into your attack, quickly recall your options and re-deploy them.

      Get the feel for Boredom's HP so you can kill him right before he times out.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BASHINET (MAHOU)

    Player: Icarus (Bornnam only) (XVID AVI - 18.2MB)

    Potential score-gain: ~1,200,000pts
    Risk and reward come into play for how hard you want to press for score. A great deal of score from Bashinet will come from tic-points if you have Car-Pet in your team. The strategy described is optimum, but there are score-diminishing consequences for destroying parts in the wrong order that won't be described.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Homing missiles [x??] & 1000pts each [Any]
    R=2 & Shoulder blue bulbs [x2] & 10,000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Buzz-saws [x??] & 3000pts each [Aura]
    300pts [Piercing / Non]
    R=4 & Grenades [x??] & 3000pts each [Non-piercing]
    1000pts [Piercing / Bomb]
    R=5 & Detached front limbs [x2] & 50,000pts each [Bomb]
    R=6 & Ph.2 large missiles [x??] & 1000pts each [Non-piercing]
    100pts [Piercing][/table]
    • PHASE 1: DON'T GET FLANKED!
      Bashinet begins the fight moving around the screen while using 3 static attacks.
      1. Two bulbs to his left and right that shoot blue plasma charges.
      2. Homing missiles launched from his back
      3. A tentacle that emits a 3-pronged slow, single bullet attack.

      Begin the fight by destroying the left bulb. Then let the missiles fly into your aura for 1K each, collecting any missing power-ups you need and medals of course. Beware of the missiles flanking your craft, the aura won't protect your sides very well, so position yourself below them when needed or use your regular shot. The main reason to Aura here is to save yourself from damaging Bashinet too much.
    • PHASE 2: BUZZ-SAW MADNESS
      Bashinet throws away his right bulb and re-attaches two buzz-saw armaments while throwing down a medal carrier on both sides. Now Bashinet will launch the buzz-saws at you in a boomerang fashion. Destroy the the left device releasing the buzz-saws and now begins one of the most difficult milks in the game.

      Leave the buzz-saw device on the right side in-tact. If destroyed, or a buzz-saw returns to the right side, Bashinet will go straight into Phase 2.5. At this time you are shooting down the missiles and luring the buzz-saws into a path of destruction, while dodging the three-pronged attack as well. It's a lot to juggle and Car-Pet is probably the best at managing it thanks to her trailing options. The buzz-saws have a respectable amount of HP and are going to be more difficult to destroy with other characters. Theworst part about this milk is that occasionally a medal will be falling down awkwardly close to the 3-pronged attack or a buzz-saw trajectory. Consistently surviving for the full milk takes practice. Many times you'll accidentally damage Bashinet's bodytoo much, prematurely ending the phase.

      An advanced technique is to let the buzz-saw return when Bashinet is about to time-out to Phase 3. Then time a bomb to scoop up grenade points as well as the two-detached front-limbs. This is only worth an extra 30K.
    • PHASE 2.5 (optional): BUZZ-SAW RETURNS AND GRENADES
      When a buzz-saw returns or both buzz-saw devices are destroyed, Bashinet lets a large amount of mines out from his back that drop down towards you. After a few waves of mines he uses his final attack. Bashinet generates a charge of electricity between his front-limbs which edges towards you and coils into a circle. If you use a Garegga ship, seeing this attack might be worthwhile because he goes back to mines once it's done and repeats. Non-piercing and Aura gain 3K from each grenade.

      When Bashinet ends phase 2/2.5, he drops to the bottom of the screen and detaches his two front-limbs. They can be bombed for 50K each, for 100K total. Not bad!
    • PHASE 3: TIC-POINTS UP THE ASS -- OR BOREDOM
      Now Bashinet just hangs out and randomly cycles between a few attacks while shooting large missiles out of both of his shoulders. The missiles are destroyed for 1K each with Non-piercing, to make up for the inability for tic-points.
      1. Bashinet drops down to the bottom of the screen and emits large, alternating blue lasers, pushing him back to the top. He can end this attack earlier or later.
      2. Fireball attack from main cannons, use the safe spot adjacent the cannons.
      3. Bashinet pokes a port beneath his center that launches spinning, destructible-bullet pods. The options remain stationary, shooting in circles until they relocate. Bashinet also throws a flack attack at you during this, which can trap you against the side of the screen. Every now and then he'll use the flack attack at the very beginning of this attack and catch you by surprise so keep your distance.
      • FIREBALL SAFE SPOT:

        One trick I did notice during my play is that the range of the fireball attack on the second form is limited to a tight cone shape, due to the way the fireballs curve when they are fired. Because of this, there is a nice little safe spot in front of each wing where you can safely sit during the attack.

        Image

        However, to use this safe spot, you have to pay attention to Bashinet's movements, as it telegraphs its attacks after it does its missile volleys:

        Code: Select all

        - if Bashinet stops dead and the disc on the front spins rapidly, it'll attack using the fireball wave.
        
        - if Bashinet stops dead and the port on its underside opens, it'll drop mines and attack with a fast moving spread.
        
        - if Bashinet moves down the screen, get out of the way of the alternating lasers.
        Once you get used to watching Bashinet's movements, avoiding its attacks is easy. In fact, for the really adventurous, there's another safe spot for the fireball attack, right between the two fireball cannons. ;D
      Bashinet is a great boss to get tic-points. His shoulders are okay for tic but if you run Car-Pet's options along the main cannons you'll get even more. It's amazing how much many points you get. While you fight Bashinet, take care of his HP so that he doesn't time-out. His time-out timer is quite long.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:46 am, edited 13 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> SEWER STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    One of the two big scoring early stages, the other being Airport. You can pick up quite a lot of points here through accurate play, but you will need to bring in lots of full Weapons in order to do so, as well as a couple of Extends spare for suiciding. Deviate and Black Heart are good bosses to milk for plenty of points.

    Player: Icarus - 1.5mil (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • SUBMARINES:
      During the early stretch of the stage you'll be flying over a central canal with two columns of blue colored submarines appearing. Destroying them will give you a Weapon fragment, destroying them with Weapon or Aura gives you 10k per submarine.
    • GIANT HELICOPTERS:
      These oversized whirlybirds crop up in many of the stages. There are two in this stage, one large blue on at the beginning, and one large red one just after the panel turrets. For both, destroy both wings for a Medal each. Easy stuff.
    • PANEL FLIP TURRETS: !! BOSS TRIGGER !!
      These things are pretty tricky to score from, as they give different items depending on the "state" they are in when they are destroyed. From observation (and I could be wrong), to get four Medals, you have to destroy them with Weapon (and possibly Aura), just as they're flipping back over to a dormant state. If you destroy them with Weapon/Aura when they are fully dormant, you get one Medal. Destroy them with Shot, or when they are firing, and you get a large Shot item instead.

      Also, these five panel turrets are a boss trigger - destroy all five of them to unlock Black Heart, and make sure you defeat the stage boss Deviate with a Garegga ship in stock.
    • HIDDEN MEDAL CACHE:

      Image
      Thanks for the map, Twiddle!

      Just after the panel turrets is a large gap in the floor, followed by a platform - you'll know which one it is, as you should be fighting a red helicopter at this point. Hidden in the central tube column in the floor, is a cache of about 16 Medals which you'll need to Weapon to access. You should expend a full Weapon here anyway, as most of the things loitering around at the point (yellow walkers, small choppers etc) are worth good points.
    • TANKS AND TRUCKS GALORE:
      Just after the Medals cache is a nice little stretch of stage with tanks everywhere, starting with a large group of inactive blue walkers on the left and large inactive green walkers on the right. There are 13 of the inactive enemies at the beginning, worth 3k each with Weapon/Aura. Just after these are two trucks worth 10k each (Weapon/Aura), some yellow tanks on the right worth 20k each (Weapon/Aura), and a box of Medals on the left.

      The laser-firing trucks that appear in this stretch (about three of them) are worth a nice 30k each with Weapon/Aura, so make sure you make care of them appropriately. Also, make sure you try and stock up plenty of Weapon fragments for the end of the stage.
    • MEDAL HANGARS:
      Just before Deviate is five large Medal hangars, three on the left, two on the right. You'll want to destroy them all, as they give you four Medals each for a total of 20. However, I have noticed that they will just simply blow up, taking the Medals with them on occasion, and I'm not entirely certain why this happens. At any rate, you should pick up a healthy boost in score here from accurate collection.

      Also, on the right side are six blue tanks. If you fancy a challenge, try activating Homing options for your Garegga ship with them (something I do a lot in Special Course). ^_-
  • BOSS TACTICS - DEVIATE

    Potential score-gain: ~1,100,000pts
    Deviate is one of the nastier bosses of the run to survive and to optimize for score. He is similar to Confrict in that he is another "time-budget" oriented boss. He has three main phases, and each phase is on it's own timer. If you time Deviate out on an earlier phase, he will simply walk off screen and skip his last 2 phases. So it is important to advance his phase when the time is right; before he changes movement direction up to the 6th time. A well executed Deviate is worth a whopping million points. Of important note about Deviate is that piercing shot attacks will not earn 10K for each of his pod-turrets destroyed.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Center chassis weapon [x1] & 10,000pts [Any]
    R=2 & Center chassis [x1] & 10,000pts [Any]
    R=3 & Spiky “ears” [x2] & 30,000pts each [Any]
    R=4 & Regenerating pod-turrets [x??] & 10,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    1,000pts [Piercing / Bomb]
    R=5 & Pod-turret final destruction [x6] & 50,000pts each [Any]
    R=6 & Kill & 100,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: "DIE MOTHERFxER, DIE!”
      The intro to Phase 1 is Deviate's most dangerous phase. He begins the fight exposing 2 rows of artillery at his center that let small bursts of tiny bullets. Almost immediately afterward, 6 more artillery open to his sides that shoot quasi-aimed bursts of 3-segmented bullet chunks.Another artillery opens between a destructible chassis above his center (2 targets)and it fires dangerous, high speed aimed bullets. Two of his pod-turrets activate and single laser-turret fixtures on the edges of Deviate shoot aimed slivers at you. This all happens at once and is a hectic moment while you herd and dodge near theback of the screen, pairing down the chaos with your attack.

      Your goal is to delay Phase 2 before until changes movement direction the 6th time. If you destroy both of Deviate's “ear spikes” and center chassis it will trigger Phase 2.

      Leave the center chassis alive and focus on destroying the pod-turrets as soon as they appear. Because the center chassis does not line up with the pod-turrets, you can safely attack the pod-turrets aggressively without ending Phase 1 early. This is compared to if you left only one of the ear "spikes" alive instead of the center chassis, as the ears are lined up with the pod-turrets and can be prematurely destroyed.

      You need precision with your attack to pull this off right. Garegga ships are best at fighting Deviatedue to the forward-option formation. Deploying your options carefully is paramount in capitalizing on the 10K from each turret destroyed. Don't spend too long on Phase 1, you only need to delay enough to destroy about 8 pod-turrets. Take out the center chassis when you're ready.
    • PHASE 2: HARROWING BATTLE
      Deviate brings out two large cannons that fire pink plasma' bursts simultaneously on a somewhat gracious cool-down. If both are destroyed, Deviate is forced to Phase 3.

      About the pod-turrets: they have a few different attacks and are chosen randomly by Deviate. They are on a timer for when Deviate will expose more of the 6 pods. It is best to destroy the pairs before the next, so that you aren't overwhelmed by a combination attack from multiple active pod-turrets. If, however, you become overwhelmed, the single best way to alleviate this is a well-placed charge shot to attack both sides. You may be forced to bomb.

      The attacks of the pod-turrets:
      1. Thick bursts of aimed destructible bullets.
      2. Semi-fast, aimed twin-lasers.
      3. Four-pronged, single destructible bullet spread.
      4. Red turret: Spinning, dual opposing pole twin-lasers.

      Attacks #2 and #3 are the most dangerous. The twin-lasers will increase in speed quite dramatically depending on the rank. The spread of #3 can flank you if you're caught near the sides of Deviate and need to cut back. Use a spread shot to help cover yourself. Respect the outer-prong of the spread sometimes if you think it's too risky to cut-back.

      As you pick off pod by pod, eventually the pods themselves will become destroyed to ruin. You gain a whopping 50K from each one utterly destroyed. Near the end of Phase 2, a couple of the pods are annihilated and that should be a sign that you're ready for Phase 3. You'll have weakened the two cannons severely in your pod-destruction quest and should be easy to finish.
    • PHASE 3: TOTAL DESTRUCTION
      Deviate resets his time-out directive again which gives you another large window to resume pod destruction. Deviate unleashes his final attack: a frequent, three-pronged volley of contracting and expanding speared lasers. He'll confine your movement with this attack while you try to finish him off, tread carefully and pick your opportunities of attack.

      If unsuccessful in finishing off all the pods, if you see him walking off screen, bomb immediately to guarantee you gain the 50K from each pod's utter destruction. This is the easiest way to gain big points from Deviate, especially if you sucked at destroying his pods exclusively or prematurely reached phase 3 by a forced panic bomb.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BLACK HEART (GAREGGA)

    Potential score-gain: ~600,000pts
    The Black Heart fight starts out easy but at the end is quite nasty. He has multiple phases that are triggered by damage dealt to his core. Black Heart is nearly identical to the B.H in Battle Garegga with the main difference being that B.H's wings are destructible in this iteration.Your goal is to focus on damaging each wing until the wings start flashing, indicating they are running out of health. Don't forget to damage his core through-out the fight, you need to kill Black Heart right after you destroy his wings, to score optimally.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Wing Deterioration [x??] & 1000pts each
    R=2 & Broken wing [x2] & 50,000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Kill & 100,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: FOCUS ON THE WINGS
      In Phase 1 Black Heart cycles between different attacks while he moves around. These are:
      1. Milk-able, homing drones, that curve out from the top of Black Heart. (The drones can be mixed with another attack as well.)
      2. Simple 4-pronged, spread out twin-lasers.
      3. Exposed artillery at his center: an aimed spread of two-bullet chunks. Varies the amount of two-bullet chunks. And these bullets separate slightly as they reach the bottom of the screen. Fairly dangerous if not macro-dodged.
      4. When B.H comes to a stop, he uses an aimed (off-center), confining Vulcan attack. To avoid this, simply stay still as he prepares the attack, and he'll aim the attack around you. This attack only kills people who wildly flail.
      Focus on damaging the wings until a few cycles of the Vulcan, and he will time-out to Phase 2.
    • PHASE 2: THE WINGS!
      Phase 2 initiates when B.H's core pops, turns on his after-burners and drops to the bottom of the screen. Phase 2 is simple. Black Heart alternates between his after-burner movement and a screen-filling spread attack that isn't particularly challenging to avoid, but certainly keeps you on your toes as you continue to damage the wings. During this phase it's prudent to damage the core here and there as you damage the wings to ready a kill on him in Phase 3.

      Phase 2 times-out after a few after-burner movements.
    • PHASE 3: "MY WINGS?! HOW DARE YOU!”
      His core pops again and B.H goes straight into his final attacks. When you destroy the wings, B.H will receive overall damage on them now. If B.H uses his after-burner after the wings are destroyed, he'll use a slow, aimed-spread shot attack to make life a little more difficult. The attacks of the final phase are quite vicious and you'll have to be quite sharp to successfully avoid them. Because the last phase doesn't last long I won't detail the variations and combinations but just know, it is vicious and you will likely need to bomb to finish B.H off.

      Destroy both wings completely for an extra 50K each. Black Heart's final time-out pattern will probably kill you. Don't go there.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:19 am, edited 7 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> AIRPORT STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    Another early big scoring stage (the other being Sewer), you'll need quick and accurate play in order to pull good scores from this stage. You will need lots of Weapons for this stage, however, in order to access most of the secrets, so come into the stage with a good stock.

    Player: Icarus - 1.4mil (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • LARGE TRAILERS:
      The two large trailers that appear before the airport itself are worth 10k with Weapon or Aura, and if you destroy them before the trailers open up to reveal turrets, the truck cab will leave a large Weapon icon behind. This is a good opportunity to set up for a Special Weapon Extend if you have plenty in stock, otherwise feel free to take them to get scoring targets later in the stage.
    • TARGETS IN THE LOBBY:
      Once you get to the airport itself, you'll want to use Aura for a bit, as everything here is a Weapon/Aura target:

      - glass panels are worth 3k each when you crack them, and a little extra when you destroy them completely,
      - the large rectangular object in the middle of the lobby yields 30k,
      - drone chains give 2k per drone,
      - tanks are worth 1k each,
      - seats are worth 5k each
      - plant pots are worth 1k each.


      Also, the three sets of escalators leave Medals when destroyed with Weapon - six per escalator set for a total of 18 - so make sure you destroy them efficiently to boost your score. You can also use the rush of tanks in this area to pick up more full Weapons.
    • AIRCRAFT TAIL:
      The tail of the large aircraft that appears has a hidden Medal cache revealed by bombing - 16 Medals in total, plus the cache itself is worth a few points when destroyed. There is a further six Medals from the the hatches that follow immediately after the Medal cache, accessed by bombing, and the three large blue helicopters give another six Medals by destroying their wings. Nice and lucrative scoring section, which requires at a minimum two full Weapons if done correctly.
    • BODY CANNON: !! BOSS TRIGGER !!

      Player: Icarus - Aura Destruction Demonstration (Strawman only) (XVID AVI - 3.8MB)

      This large "wall" of turrets is the mid-boss of the stage, and can be tricky to handle if you sit back and let it spam the screen with bullets. There are several ways to handle this midboss, though. One of the trickier, but more consistent methods I've used is to get right up to point-blank range and use Aura to damage the side segments, while luring the main cannon to fire off in random directions. You have to be careful, as you can still be point-blanked by the spread turrets that pop open on each side segment. You should also bear in mind that the main cannon increases its rate of fire for each side segment destroyed.

      This mid-boss is a secret boss trigger - destroy both side segments to unlock Gob-Robo, and make sure you defeat the stage boss Bazzcok with a Mahou ship in stock.
    • ENGINES:
      Just next to the mid-boss are two engines, one on either side of the screen. Bombing them gives you 10k for each engine. It can be easy to miss them though, as they're right off the side of the screen.
    • DRONE HATCHES:
      There's four more drone hatches here, that will spit out drones at regular intervals. Bomb them to uncover a Medal per hatch.
    • AIRCRAFT NOSE:
      A cheeky little secret most people won't bother to access involves the nose of the aircraft - when Bazzcok slices it off and flies out, you can destroy the nose segment with Weapon for 30k. Most of the time it is skipped over as Weapons are required for later stages, but if you find yourself here with a handful of Weapon fragments in stock, use them for a small bonus.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BAZZCOK

    Player: Icarus - 1mil + Safe Spot Technique (Flying Baron) (XVID AVI - 18MB)

    Potential score-gain: ~1,000,000pts
    Bazzcok is one of the more straight forward bosses to approach for score. Given that you know what to do, you can consistently and confidently fight him optimally. He has 3 phases that bleed into each other.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Last notch of tail only [x1] & 30,000pts [Any]
    R=2 & Wing deterioration [x??] & 1000pts each [Any][/table]
    • PHASE 1: BREAK POD, KILL DRONES, GET MEDALS.
      At the beginning use your Aura to destroy the bottom of Bazzcok's tail for 30K. Bazzcok's attacks come exclusively from his two pod-turrets. These pods will change armaments until time runs out and his back extensions expose themselves to release drones.

      The armaments of the pod-turrets:
      1. Aimed red lasers, signified by the red stripe on their shaft. Once shot, the lasers remain active for a couple seconds, confining your movement. In Advanced, these lasers sweep towards you a couple ship lengths once active. Try to bait.
      2. Spinning spread-shot artillery, easily avoidable.
      3. Five-way, single needle lasers, easily avoidable.
      Quickly proceed to destroying the left turret pod so that you can start milking medals off the drones that now begin to pour out from his extension. After theright pod changes arms a few times, that's your cue to start damaging the drone-releasing extension on the left. This is easy with a piercing shot. With non-piercing, damage the wing of Bazzcok enough for your bullets to penetrate to the extension. This is similar to how damaging the back weapons of Nose Lavagghin in Battle Garegga works.

      Once the extension is gone, Bazzcok releases a fixed-pattern needle-laser spread shot on his left side. Carefully navigate out of this area to the right side and knock off the right pod armament ASAP. This initiates the 3rd phase. If you are late to destroy the extension, you'll have to deal with the extension on the right exposing itself on it's own, releasing drones at you. Not a great look.
    • PHASE 2: 1%, 2%, OR WHOLE MILK?
      In the 3rd phase three attacks are now occurring.
      1. Five-way, single needle laser spread. On the left side.
      2. Single layer, aimed shotgun blasts.
      3. The milk-able drones, given that the extension remains.

      The ideal scoring in this situation is best done with a Garegga ship. Simply position yourself at the top right of the screen, above Bazzcok, and let the drones fly into your spread shot. Bazzcok's other attacks can't reach you here, so your only threat is a drone flying into you.This lasts for a while and you get 1K from each drone.

      If you don't have a character who has a good spread shot, like Strawman or a Garegga to take advantage of the top-right milk. The alternative is dodging the shotgun blast on the bottom right while collecting medals. If you destroy the extension, say with a piercing shot on accident, you'll have to deal with dodging the shotgun and five-way needle laser now. You can be a cool dude and dodge these two attacks at the same time, say, if you have Car-Pet who will benefit from getting tic-points instead of still collecting medals.
    • PHASE 3: THE WHOLE MILK
      As mentioned, the five-way spread begins on the right side as well. This is your cue to start getting rid of the extension if you didn't start already. After 8-9 medal collections, that is your cue to destroy the extension, and in turn, finish off Bazzcok.

      Destroying the extension can be dangerous. Only risk getting close to damage it with your spread-shot when Bazzcok is floating downwards: this allows the drones more breathing room before they rush you. Sometimes when Bazzcok bobs upwards, it causes two drones to overlap each other when they rush. One drone serves as a shield for the other and can tag you. Be wary of this.

      Jumping back into the fray to damage the core is dangerous when you're using a non-Garegga. The time-out pattern is also dangerous, but avoidable. Just use a bomb to get back into the fray, and try your best to finish him.
  • BOSS TACTICS - GOB-ROBO (MAHOU)

    Potential score-gain: ~1,000,000pts
    Gob-robo is the most boring boss of the game. He's extremely lucrative if you have Car-Pet (fully powered up) alive for large tic-point gain. His timer is exceedingly long that you may want to consider counting loops of the music in order to time your kill (what's the count?). He only has a couple dangerous methods of attack that will rarely, if ever, kill you beyond your will.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Spike-and-chain [x2] & 10,000pts each [Any] + [x12 medals]
    R=2 & Flame-throwers [x2] & 20,000pts each [Aura / Non-piercing]
    2000pts [Piercing]
    R=3 & Kill & 100,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: "THESE ARMS GOT GOBS”
      Gob-robo has two destructible parts on both of his arms, that both have obvious actions:
      1. Spike and chain (12 medals, 120K) -> Thrown on the 9th spin.
      2. Flamethrowers (Aura for 20K)

      Gob-robo has a few attacks / movement patterns:
      1. Large cannons at center shoot yellow plasma charges on a long cool down.
      2. Charges you.
      3. Shuffles right or left.
      4. Jumps at you.

      All of these attacks / movements are incredibly telegraphed except for #3, he sometimes quickly jukes.

      While the spike-and-chain is extended, the chain links explode into medals for a max total of 12 medals each. Timing the destruction of the spikes is somewhat difficult because once they're flaming, they take an extra ~5 secondsuntil they pop. Getting a feel for killing them is key. Put as much distance between you and the spike once it's thrown. You want Gob-Robo to be mid-screen or further back when he starts spinning the spikes. If he's too close, it becomes extremely awkward to successfully grab the medal chain if you timed the kill right. As far as I can tell, whether or not Gob-Robo spins the spikes is random.
    • PHASE 2: TIC MILK EVER
      Phase 2 starts when one of the flamethrowers is destroyed. Gob-robo uses a fixed, fast, waving spread attack. This attack becomes faster depending on if the other arm's parts are destroyed. It's barely annoying enough not to dodge through it to capitalize on tic points during. It forces you to tickle his shoulders. Gob-robo continuesto use his normal movement patterns, but stays stationary when he uses the attack. Take any safe opportunity to lay piercing fire over his whole arm and shoulder.

      One of the main ways to be killed by Gob-robo is if he has his flame-thrower ready, and he times his jump so that he traps you with a flame wall. If you are aware of your position it should never get you.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:36 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> COLOSSEUM STAGE <

One of the highest scoring secret bosses, and also one of the trickiest to handle due to some of the screen-filling attacks and randomness. To access Bashinet Mk2, uncover the birds in Stage 1's boss trigger secret, and finish your fourth stage with a Mahou character in stock.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BASHINET MK-2 (MAHOU)

    Potential score-gain: ~1,200,000pts
    The main source of anguish for a Batrider score chaser. The reason is because Bashinet MK-2's attacks are random and certain combinations of attacks plus, his choice of movement willoutright force you to bomb. The especially annoying thing is that Bashinet MK-2 is a great source of score if the cards play in your favor. Up to 1.2 Mil, but a top end score like that has a 1/20 chance of happening. You could hope for 800K with a bitof consistency, but again, that doesn't exactly exist here.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Pokeballs [x??] & 10,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    1000pts [Piercing]
    R=2 & Homing missiles [x??] & 1000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Kill & 200,000pts
    R=4 & Death debris & 20,000pts [Aura][/table]
    • PHASE 1: STAY THE FxxK AWAY!
      Bashi MK-2 has a two main attacks that are used one at a time on both shoulders / arms. When one attack finishes, it randomly chooses the next immediately afterward.
      1. Tentacle claw protrudes from his back and launches 2 large green sickles that begin separated from each other, but close in on you in a gradual crescent motion. Damage the shoulder now! Phase 2 can only begin by damaging the shoulders during this attack!
      2. He throws pokeballs at you that leave blue, exploding trails. The pokeballs stop in their tracks for a moment, giving you a chance to destroy them, then they rush you in an aimed, aggressive arch, while the trails explode.

      Any mixture of these two attacks is manageable, but death closes in if Bashi MK-2 decides to move to the bottom of the screen. Leaving you no room to dodge the sickles or time to kill the pokeballs. In this situation you're forced to bomb. The tentacle claw is what you want to appear on his left shoulder in particular, when destroyed it will cause him to launch missiles off of his back which are the main source of point gain. Destroying the right shoulder yields a slow, aimed bullet attack. When he uses the tentacle claws, attack the shoulders ASAP.
    • PHASE 2: "Missiles, give me missiles!”
      When both shoulders are destroyed Bashi MK-2 goes to his next array of randomly selected attacks.

      Green Needle-lasers: A fixed spread shot of green needle lasers. This is the only attack where he can be damaged. If using a Piercing ship, position yourself vertically to hit between the arm and shoulder for good tic-points.

      Mortars: His shoulders open up and launch mortars in front of him. The shoulders can be damaged during this attack, but beware, if the shoulders are destroyed, he will constantly use the mortar attack without stop. Avoid this.

      Missiles and slow, aimed bullets: Weave in-between the bullets to collect the medals gracefully. Avoid damaging his core too much while you shoot down the missiles.

      Once again, you want to milk missiles as long as possible while still finishing off Bashi MK-2. I'd say it's a matter of feeling him out but you may be able to count music loops. The time-out pattern is avoidable, he usesa combination of the 3 final attacks and walks away. Don't forget to aura his debris for an easy 20K.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:50 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> HIGHWAY STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    A tricky stage to handle, given that there are a grand total of FIVE bosses on this stage to fight. One of them you'll get automatically, and is determined by your stage order, while the other four are secrets that require triggers activated. I will list all boss strategies at the end of this guide, even though one of the bosses appears right at the start of the stage. ^_-

    Also, this stage holds a secret full Weapon and a hidden Extend for the taking, which can help you in your play. Details below.

    Player: Icarus - 1.1mil (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • LARGE BLUE HOVERCRAFT: !! SECRET EXTEND !!
      I'd consider this the stage mid-boss, as it's big, takes a ton of damage, and is a gigantic pain in the ass. It's also the bearer of the secret Extend, and you have to jump through hoops to get it.

      In order to get the secret Extend, you have to leave the mid-boss until it comes to a stop in the tunnel, then destroy it there.

      This can be quite difficult as it does take a great deal of damage, but I've always found it easier to destroy the side segments and then hit it with a bit of sustained damage to weaken the main body - note that you can only weaken the main body when you've destroyed the side segments. Then when the wiggly section of the road appears in the middle of the stage, move so that the mid-boss is off-screen - if it's not on screen, it can't fire at you. This should at least make it easier for you to pick up the secret Extend without getting killed in the process.
    • FLYING BIKER GANG:
      As you fight the mid-boss, you'll see the road first curve off to the right of the screen, then back to the left. When it starts to move to the left, an enemy consisting of a floating bike with eight rotating options will appear, filling the screen with bullets. This can be a pain to handle on its own, and makes life hell if you're trying to get the secret Extend from the mid-boss.

      For scorers, it would appear that you can generate Medals by destroying each option ship with Shot for a total of eight extra Medals. It would seem that piercing and splash damage attacks (Gain, Car-Pet, Miyamoto, Tag-T etc) are unable to release Medals from options, though I need to test this theory out, and I think Weapon attacks won't release Medals either.

      For survivalists, concentrate all your attacks on the central bike, and it'll run away when it takes enough damage.
    • HELICOPTER PAIRS:
      There are three pairs of large helicopters, and they are the primary cause of dropped Medal chains in this stage. If you know how to deal with them, you can boost your score a bit, and maintain lives and Medal chains.

      - For the first pair (red) that appear after the flying biker gang, charge an attack just after the biker gang fly off - you can safely use Aura to destroy the drones that appear - and stick to one side of the screen. Drop your charge attack as the helicopters appear to release the Medals from one side and destroy that helicopter, then as you're collecting the Medals, tap Shot to recall your Options and attack the other helicopter.

      - The second pair of helicopters (red-orange) appear after you meet the mid-boss at the end of the tunnel. These can be tricky as they fire spreads everywhere, but again, if you charge up before they arrive, and concentrate all your fire on one of them, you can leave the other one alive and safely dodge its attacks.

      - The third pair (blue) appear just after the second pair at the end of the tunnel. Like the second pair, you can concentrate all your attack on one and leave the other. Alternatively, for this pair, you can use cutback movements to dodge their attacks, and there is enough space along the sides of the screen to move up and past them.
    • LASER HOVERTANK:
      The laser hovertank that appears at the beginning of the tunnel is the bearer of the secret full Weapon icon, which can be useful for generating a Special Weapon Extend or some bonus points in later stages. To get the full Weapon icon, destroy the laser hovertank when it comes to a stop at the end of the tunnel - it stops right in front of the mid-boss, which is a golden opportunity to destroy both in one go.
    • DRONES:
      One last note is that most of the drones flying around the stage - the blue ones especially - are worth 10x the points when destroyed with Weapon or Aura. You can safely Aura most of the drones that appear if you sit in the top half of the screen.
  • BOSS TACTICS - TSUMUJIMARU (MAHOU)

    Potential score-gain: ~600,000pts
    A quick cross-post from the Mahou Daisakusen GD, since his attack patterns are identical in both games. The difficult factor with this battle is predicting what attacks he will use first.

    From experience, his attack pattern is:

    Code: Select all

    (if he starts jumping) flame column attack
    (if he raises his left arm) ninja summon
    (if he dashes to the left/right side) shuriken dash
    (if he dashes anywhere else) mines
     -> then ->
    (stop and spin in place) kunai spinning attack
     -> then ->
    then
    repeat from top
    Avoiding each attack is as follows:

    - Flame Column:
    As soon as he starts jumping, you have to quickly get up the side of the screen (any side will do) and sit over halfway. The flames can't hit you from that position on the screen, and if you have a homing or wide option, or a Garegga ship with Trace options, you can deal a bit of extra damage.

    - Ninja Summon:
    Just sit in front of him until he raises his arm, then back off and destroy the ninjas. If you use Wide it makes this considerably easier.

    - Shuriken Dash:
    As soon as Tsu makes a dash to the side, move quickly along the bottom of the screen. You have to move in a fast cutback pattern starting from slightly up the side of the screen, down past the corner to the middle (stopping for a split second to lure the attack), then cut up past the other corner to a spot a little up the other side of the screen. A sharp U-movement pattern, in effect.
    Alternatively, if you understand the timing of the pattern, you can cut from left to right and back again, starting your movements in the split-second when Tsu isn't firing shuriken.

    - Mines:
    There is no real easy method to avoid this. All I know is that the mines fire an aimed 3-way pattern at you when they explode, and they explode in the order that Tsu dropped them. If you position yourself correcty, you can move in large steps through the gaps in the 3-way. The only other option is to drop a bomb on Tsu just as the mines explode.

    - Kunai Spin:
    When Tsu stops moving during the randomly selected attack pattern phase, get over to the left corner and watch the spin carefully. By staying on the left side, you can watch for where the gaps are, and move into them. From there, just tap right slowly to stay in the gaps.


    Safety strategy: Before the kunai attack ends, ready a charge shot to be deployed at the bottom-center of the screen. Deploy it when the attack ends. This allows you to re-enter the fray if he decides to summon ninjas. Learn to dodge the kunai attack in the center of the screen so you can reliably set this up: dodge right for two kunai, then dodge left one, and repeat.
  • BOSS TACTICS - HAYATEMARU (MAHOU)

    Optimal score-gain: ~450,000pts

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Hayate dummy [x?] & 30,000pts [Any]
    R=2 & Green suits [x?] & 2000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Kill & 200,000pts[/table]

    Straight forward boss. He has two potentially threatening attacks that could force a bomb. Hayate's staple attack has him leaping to the left and right sides of the screen, creating large flame walls alternating from side to side.

    After the flames he randomly chooses between his variety of:
    • NINJA TECHNIQUES
      1. Double Fake Hayate Kunai Throw: Hayate splits into two figures, positions both figures randomly, and starts spinning, throwing kunai similar to Tsumuji's kunai attack. Immediately target both figures, or target the Hayate that is closest to you as that is the most threatening. If the Hayate close to you is the fake one, you're lucky. If it's the real one, you're in trouble unless you defeat the fake Hayate quickly. If both ninjas are active for this attack, you're pretty much forced to bomb if one is close. If you have enough open space, you can dodge both volleys by nudging left and right repeatedly. The dummy ninja is worth 30K.

      2. Hayate summons ninja reinforcements to throw shurikens at you. Easily avoidable spread out shurikens. You'll trigger a couple medals from this attack.

      3. Hayate jumps around like a mad man, throwing a jumbo shuriken spread at you. The shurikens come at you quickly and they are quite large, care must be taken to choosethe path of least caution. On higher rank this attack can be vicious.

      4. Hayate summons fiery wolves to lunge at you in an aimed, homing fashion. The higher the rank, the more wolves are thrown and how fast and fierce they are. Take caution, Hayate will begin his flame-wall attack before the last wolves are past you. Basically, you want to lure the wolves so that you can dodge to where the flame wall isn't, the flame wall dictates your position as you dodge the last wolves. If you aren't on the correct side, you better know the flame wall's hitbox well.

      Like Tsumijimaru, when Hayatemaru dies he spits out power-ups, including the potential of full bombs and medals.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BLUNT (RIVAL)

    Potential score-gain: ~600,000pts

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Wrist turrets [x14?] & 10,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    1000pts [Piercing / Bomb]
    R=2 & Kill & 200,000pts[/table]

    Blunt is a beast of a boss. He has tons of weapons and parts to destroy. His attack pattern is fixed so you can anticipate his moves every time. The weapons he uses are only vulnerable when they are in use.
    • ATTACK CYCLE: "RIP ME APART, IF YOU CAN!”
      1. Core shoulder artillery:
      Double volleys of semi-slow, large bullets aimed in a V-spread. Can be avoided easily unless you corner yourself.

      >> 1A. When destroyed, triggers an arm to unfold and begin extending towards you. These arms have mini-turrets lined along them, that are worth 10K each when destroyed with non-piercing.

      >> 1B. When both are destroyed, it triggers a dual armament on top of Blunt's core that fires periodic volleys of pink plasma, similar to Deviate's 2nd phase plasmas.

      >> 1C. When both plasma cannons are destroyed off of the armament, it triggers another new attack: a screen-filling attack of slow and large bullets. Dangerous and will likely end up trapping you.

      >> 1D. When the armament is completely destroyed, it triggers his final core attack: a lightning fast 3-pronged spear attack. The direction of the attack is fixed so you can use a multitude of safe spots. Familiarity with this attack is key for a successful Blunt.

      2. Shoulder mini artillery:
      the artillery track you with a lag as you change position and shoot semi-aimed bullets. They don't remain active forever, but return to activation a few cycles later.

      >> 2A. As this attack ends, Blunt opens up two panels on the front side of each shoulderthat emit a fixed flack of destructible bullets. These panels remain active now, until destroyed. If the rank is high, these bullets will have more durability. Beware!
      A quirk with Blunt: destroying all of the mini-artillery and panels before the Core shoulder artillery triggers (1A) the arms to unfold.

      3. Primary pair of laser weapons at his front-end:
      these things are nasty. They are slow to track and fire an aimed 3-prong spread that closes at the tail end ofthe attack, forcing you to slip through the seems, or to macro-dodge the pattern completely. When this attack combines with 2.A. it's possible you'll be dodging straight into the destructible bullets. Beware of your movement decision making when dealingwith this attack. It may force a bomb on you.The consequence of destroying 3 too early is that Blunt's core HP can be reduced.
      A quirk with Blunt: destroying this pair before 1.A is destroyed triggers (1B) the dual armaments of pink plasma. Avoid this.

      The scoring strategy with Blunt boils down to successfully destroying all of his crap until the extended arm turrets (1.A) and dual plasma armaments (1.B) remain. If Blunt has 1.C or 1.D active, you're in a bit of a pickle as it will be very difficult to pick off the 10K turrets of Blunt's arms. If (3) the front-end lasers are active this is also a problem. You can skip dealing with 1.C and 1.D entirely by damaging Blunt's core through-out the fight, so that when you finish 1.A and 1.B for points: Blunt is near death.
  • BOSS TACTICS - SOBUT (RIVAL)

    Potential score-gain: ~300,000pts

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Chest cannons [x2] & 30,000pts each [Any]
    R=2 & Kill & 200,000pts[/table]

    Very simple boss and not particularly threatening. Her attack cycle is fixed with one minor altercation depending on when you destroy her chest cannons (4A.).
    • ATTACK CYCLE: PLANNED GIMMICKS? PATHETIC.
      1.Sobut encloses you between two aimed gatling guns. Adjusts her vertical distance relative to your position. Remain in the center for safety.

      2. Tiny homing missiles while Sobut floats around aimlessly.

      3. Fixed, many-pronged bullet streams. Dodge off-center to avoid.

      4. Fixed, needle-laser streams, shot from two cannons at her chest. The center is safe. Sobut shuffles around in an attempt to catch you with the laser walls. If you deal heavy damage, the two weapons are destructible in this phase for 30K each. The benefit of this is that she'll skip an attack (4A.) that sometimes appears immediately after this one (related to rank?).

      4A. From Sobut's chest, she fires fixed, medium plasma blasts aggressively towards the center. The 4 limbs will also confine you with needle-laser streams. Position yourself a ship-length past off-center while maneuvering in respect to Sobut's shuffling. If you didn't destroy the cannons in 4, they'll be destroyed here.

      5. Tiny homing missiles while Sobut floats around, this time an aimed laser "line" is shot at you. Easy.

      6. From Sobut's back armaments is another fixed, confining needle laser attack. Position 3-4 ship length soff-center to avoid. Will fire her tiny missiles at you at the same time (related to rank, or Advanced Course only), a spread-shot will take care of them.

      7. Back to 4A, minus the destroyed weapons now.
      8. Back to 6.
      9. Back to 5.
      10. Back to 6 and so on.
  • BOSS TACTICS - ENVY (RIVAL)

    Player: Icarus - Envy, No Miss (Strawman only) (XVID AVI - 7.3MB)

    Potential score-gain: ~450,000pts

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Cabled laser-turrets & 30,000pts each [Any]
    R=2 & Kill & 200,000pts[/table]

    Envy's one of the more challenging bosses to survive. He has at least a few legitimately scary methods of killing you outright. But withthe proper knowledge, you should be able to knock him out with only 1 and a 1/2 bombs. High rank makes his attacks more aggressive of course. He has 3 phases and each phase times out fairly quickly (not that this is something you want to do,) and can behurried along by damage dealt. Damaging Envy at the very beginning of the fight seems to influence him to use the green lasers, instead of the nastier pink ones.
    • PHASE 1: "I AM ENVY.”
      One or the other:
      1. Erratic, extra-long pink lasers. Potentially threatening, but avoidable if you stay sharp.
      2. 5 homing green lasers shot from Envy's back. Easily avoidable. Then...
      3. Envy releases outward spirals of banana-lasers from each of his hands. This attack has 4-5 variations and at higher rank he'll useit twice instead of once. You can make a decent judgment to hide in the bottom left corner of the screen to avoid it. But depending on where Envy's position rests during this attack, the yellow lasers can pick you off in the corner. On top of this, athigh rank when he uses the 2nd set of lasers: Envy interrupts before the end of the bananas with either (1) or (2) again.
    • PHASE 2: "I PLAYED GRADIUS.”
      1. From Envy's shoulders he repeatedly launches single layers of needle lasers, all aimed straight downwards. Think Gradius Cores. Fairly easy to avoid.
      2. Envy sweeps half of the screen horizontally, towards you with two thick beams. Take care to end (1) on the far left or right side to avoid being trapped. If Envy is positioned low enough, you can fly up and around him to avoid this in a pinch.
      3. From Envy's front shoulder panels, Envy launches single bursts of 8-pronged lasers while following you around. If you dodge off-center you're safe but take care if you need to cut to the other side, as the center is not safe.
    • PHASE 3: "I PLAYED DARIUS GAIDEN.”
      1. Envy releases 3 laser turrets attached to cables out from his back. These lasers are extremely fast and aimed, however the position of each attached weapon changes erratically and can snipe you off predictably. These turrets are destructible with a piercing shot or piercing bomb but triggers the dreaded purple lasers (4).
      2. Envy unleashes her ultimate attack: an Akira-esque devastation wide beam. Easily avoidable if you stay out of the large cone in front of him. This attack is also aimed.
      3. Goes back to 1. except this time the lasers are off-sync, which is a big danger. Bomb during this attack. If you can destroy all but 1 laser, leave it alive until you get the kill or else...
      4. Envy emits a scattered mix of incredibly erratic purple laser segmentsthat zigzag towards the bottom of the screen. Very dangerous and continues until the end of the fight. Delay your bomb as long as possible.
      5. Back to 2.

      Just a pure battle for survival. To beat Envy with 1 bomb, delay a bomb until until 3.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:23 am, edited 9 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> AIRPORT2 STAGE <

Potential score-gain: 1,800,000pts
Not to be confused with the early Airport stage, Airport2 is actually the final stage in Battle Garegga, and in Batrider, where you'll meet the entertaining Black Heart Mk2. To access Black Heart Mk2, select your team members with at least two different buttons, and finish the Highway with a Garegga ship in stock.

Black Heart Mk2 is another of the high scoring secret bosses, and is handled in much the same way as in Garegga, with a couple of minor pattern evasion and scoring technique differences, that will be covered in the guide below.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BLACK HEART MK2 (GAREGGA):

    Player: Icarus - 1.3mil, No Miss with Bornnam (XVID AVI - 14.4MB)
    • SCORING BREAKDOWN:

      Point value data coming soon.
    • ATTACK PATTERNS AND TECHNIQUES:
      • PHASE ONE:
        The first phase is quite simple. When Black Heart2 appears, it'll randomly select an attack as its first attack pattern - either homing missiles or the grenade spray - and move from left to right. Make sure you note which attack Black Heart2 selects after it appears, as this attack will always be the first attack during it's left-right cycle.

        After a few seconds, it'll switch attack patterns and move around the top of the screen erratically, before stopping.

        When it stops moving, make sure you stop moving too, as it'll fire the sweeping vulcan attack. Yes, unlike the Garegga variant which has a reflecting vulcan attack during its first form, Batrider's version has a sweeping vulcan attack. The behavior of the sweeping vulcan is similar to Garegga's Black Heart, but instead of using the screen as a marker for the sweep direction, it uses your position relative to itself as a guide - if you're on the right side of Black Heart2, it'll sweep left first, and vice versa.

        Image

        Black Heart2 will then repeat this following pattern another two or three times (depending on how much damage you do to the main core):

        Code: Select all

        Left-to-right shuffle with initial attack ->
        Erratic movements with mixture of two attack patterns ->
        Stop to fire sweeping vulcan -> REPEAT ->
        When you see the core 'explode' and Black Heart2 drifts straight down the screen, be on your guard, as it has shifted into it's second attack phase.
      • PHASE TWO:
        This attack phase is a little more straightforward. As soon as you see the core 'explode' and Black Heart2 drifts straight down the screen, be ready, as it'll try to pointblank you with a larger spray of grenades. Black Heart2 won't stay around the bottom of the screen for long, though, and will travel back up the screen while still firing grenades.

        Unlike Garegga, it is best not to attempt to grenade-milk the second form - your main aim throughout the first two forms is to try and destroy the wings, because Black Heart2 will constantly spew grenades from a destroyed wing, greatly increasing pointgain. So for now, conserve your Weapons.

        Now, after Black Heart2 does it's yoyo-grenade attack, it'll start moving around the top half of the screen erratically, firing a nasty looking spread pattern that covers the screen. This pattern, however, is not aimed at you, which makes dodging it a lot easier. Black Heart2 will do this screen-spray attack twice (stopping for a second in-between each set) before repeating the yoyo-grenade attack.

        For the second phase, Black Heart2's pattern is:

        Code: Select all

        Yoyo pointblank grenade attack ->
        Erratic movements with spray pattern ->
        Stop for a second -> 
        Erratic movements with spray pattern -> REPEAT ->
        Black Heart2 will repeat this attack cycle three times, before shifting to it's third cycle. There is no visual clue as to when it changes attack cycles, so be on your guard.
      • PHASE THREE:
        As stated above, the third attack phase comes without warning. The only way you can tell when the third phase starts is by either counting how many cycles have passed during phase 2, or by seeing Black Heart suddenly shift into a combination attack pattern after returning to the top of the screen.

        This third attack cycle also has Black Heart's trademark moving vulcan attack, but it is much harder to dodge, there is less space to move, and it moves faster and without pauses as well. Unlike the first form, whose movement pattern depended on your position relative to the boss, Mk2's moving vulcan follows a set pattern. First, imagine that there is an invisible line between the core of Black Heart2 and your ship, like so:

        Image

        Now, Black Heart2's pattern is:

        Code: Select all

        From it's initial firing position, move RIGHT, then LEFT, then RIGHT, then BACK TO INITIAL POSITION. All moving vulcan movements will cut across the initial position by at least 30 degrees.
        This pattern assumes that you are directly underneath the core of the boss, like so:

        Image

        If however, you are a little further off to one side then you will have to move a bit more than usual to compensate.

        Image

        As with the first form, get as close as you can to Black Heart2 during the moving vulcan attack to cut down on the maximum distance you have to move.

        Black Heart2's third phase pattern is:

        Code: Select all

        Randomly selected movement pattern with attack pattern ->
        Moving Vulcan attack ->
        Randomly selected movement pattern with attack pattern ->
        Moving Vulcan attack ->
        Drop downscreen while firing grenades/spread combination ->
        [ Slide across the base of the screen in your direction -> ]
        Move back up to top of the screen, still firing combination -> 
        Randomly selected movement pattern with attack pattern -> REPEAT ->
        During the third phase, all of Black Heart2's attack patterns and movement patterns will be randomly selected, so there is no easy way to predict or advise you on how to dodge them, besides "stay alert!". One thing to note is when BHMKII drops downscreen, he doesn't neccessarily have to slide across the screen. Sometimes he just decides to immediately go up again, like he does during the second phase.

        At this point, you should have destroyed one or both wings. If you have enough Weapons stocked, use them all up to both score and protect yourself from the grenade attacks - you should get a hefty scoring bonus from this boss as a result.

        Also, if you are aiming to time out each phase with the intention of scoring maximum, it is also worth noting that the third phase will time out sooner, if you've took too long on the other phases. If you're going for the timeout on all phases, the maximum number of attack cycles and individual attacks is as follows:

        Phase One: 2 2/3 cycles - 8 individual attack patterns
        1. Random attack
        2. Random attack
        3. Sweeping Vulcan
        4. Initial attack
        5. Random attack
        6. Sweeping Vulcan
        7. Initial attack
        8. Random attack

        Phase Two: 2 1/3 cycles - 7 individual attacks
        1. Yoyo pointblank grenade attack
        2. Yellow spray pattern
        3. Yellow spray pattern
        4. Yoyo pointblank grenade attack
        5. Yellow spray pattern
        6. Yellow spray pattern
        7. Yoyo pointblank grenade attack

        Phase Three: 1 5/6 cycles - 11 individual attacks
        1. Random attack
        2. Moving Vulcan
        3. Random attack
        4. Moving Vulcan
        5. Drop downscreen (slide across screen)
        6. Random attack
        7. Random attack
        8. Moving Vulcan
        9. Random attack
        10. Moving Vulcan
        11. Drop downscreen (slide across screen)

        BHMKII's 27th and last attack is always the same: He uses his reflective Vulcan while dropping downscreen and tries to ram you.

        With this knowledge one should approach this boss the following way:
        Check his very first attack of the first phase, if it involves grenades, try to milk the first phase i.e. let it timeout after 8 attacks. If the first attack does not invovle grenades, try to get to the second phase as soon as possible, so that the third phase takes longer before the timeout and your chances to get a lot of grenade attacks during that phase rises.

        Since you don't have to deal with anything random during the second phase, you should milk all three grenade attacks (1st, 4th and 7th attack of that phase), aim to destroy both wings, and let this phase timeout.

        The third phase can get very difficult, because it can generate some really nasty patterns, that seem to be almost impossible. The most important attacks during this phase are the 5th and 11th. If you have enough Weapons in stock, these two attacks alone can yield up to 1,2mill points! You should try to destroy the boss right after the 11th attack.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:40 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> ZENOVIA CITY STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    A nice and long stage, full of scoring opportunities and secrets, including two full Weapon icons and two secret boss triggers. This stage is capped by the often infuriating boss Grubby, however, so smart rank management throughout the stage will give you a better chance of getting past it and onward to the final stages.

    Player: Icarus - 3.2mil (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • FLYING TANKS:
      There are two of these in-stage at the beginning - the first one appears on the right side, the second one on the left. You can get Medals if you destroy the thrusters keeping it afloat - four in total.
    • BRIDGES, HATCHES AND HANGARS:
      Just after the second large flying tank, just before you get to the first wall turret, you'll fly past some glass bridges, with a couple of hatches on each side spawning lots of ships. This is a prime Medal section, and it pays to have at least two Weapons in stock, as both glass bridges hold six Medals each, the drone hatches give a pair of Medals each, and the two large hangars on the sides of the screen have eight Medals each, giving a base pointgain of 360k (not counting destruction points).

      Another point of note is that there are a lot of drone and tank hatches in this stage, and virtually all of them will leave behind a pair of Medals if bombed, so make sure you pick them all up for a nice score boost.
    • FIRST TURRET WALL:
      The large rotary disc turret is the first obstacle in this stage, and is thankfully pretty easy to deal with. There is a nice safe spot you can access once you've picked off all of its turrets, which is right on top of the disc turret itself, as shown in this pic.

      Image

      Since the firing pattern is regular and fixed, there are a number of safe zones in certain positions at the bottom of the screen as well, but these are generally a little trickier to access due to the volume of bullet spam that might be going on.

      If you're an advanced player, you can attempt to milk the regenerating missile launchers by charge-dropping your options on one side of the screen while you camp a safe spot on the other side.
    • RETURNING ENEMIES:
      An important note concerns some of the enemies scattered around the stage that have appeared in previous stages, including the yellow trucks and laser cannon tanks from Sewer. As usual, deal with all of them in their usual way (usually Weapon or Aura) to get the same amount of extra points from them.
    • LARGE GREEN TANKS:
      These large tanks hold secret full Weapon icons, and to access them, you must destroy both treads, both small turrets and the large turret BEFORE you destroy the body. There are two of these large green tanks in this stage, the first one appears just after the first turret wall, the second one appears after the second turret wall.
    • RING TURRET PLATFORMS: !! BOSS TRIGGER !!
      There are four of these large "Mad Ball" style ring turret platforms in the stage, and they are the key to unlocking Glow Squid - to access the Garegga last boss, destroy all four of them in stage, and make sure you have a Garegga ship in stock after clearing Grubby, and possibly Bashinet-R if you've unlocked that boss as well.

      These gun platforms are worth a nice bit in points too, as you'll get 10k for destroying each turret with Shot, and if you bomb the linking cable that joins each pair of platforms together, you'll get seven free Medals.
    • SECOND TURRET WALL:
      A tricky one, as it primarily uses spread patterns to trap you in the corners of the screen. The best way to deal with this enemy is to use cutback movements to tap-dodge the spreads, which gives you at least some breathing room to move quickly if you get caught out. Not much other advice I can really give for this turret wall, other than "stay sharp". ;P

      You can bomb the hatch in front of the turret wall for a pair of Medals, though it'd be smarter to save your Weapon fragments for the three hatches that shortly appear after this enemy.
    • HATCH LAUNCHERS: !! BOSS TRIGGER !!
      Shortly after the second turret wall you'll see three large hatches, with a regenerating missile launcher that pops up regularly to fire at you. These three hatches are the second of the two boss triggers in this stage, and will unlock Bashinet-R if you bomb-destroy all three of them - make sure you have a Mahou character in stock after beating Grubby.
    • THIRD TURRET WALL:
      The third turret wall consists of two very big rocket launchers, and a swarm of drones. Pretty easy this, actually - for speed, just destroy both rocket launchers. For scorers, however, you can stall the game out for a bit by destroying only one of the rocket launchers, and them Aura milking the drones that appear for Medals. If your especially confident, you can use a Garegga ship with Trace options to milk the rockets fired for about 1k each.
    • TANK GRATINGS:
      Not entirely sure how much the metal gratings that cover the tank routes under the second pair of turret platforms are worth, but you can bomb them. It'll also give you access to the tanks underneath, for some extra Weapon fragments.
  • BOSS TACTICS - GRUBBY

    Player: Icarus - Grubby, No Miss (Strawman only) (XVID AVI - 10.1MB)

    Potential score-gain: ~1,600,000pts
    (with a strong character like Car-Pet, Miyamoto to destroy more 10K turrets)

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Plasma cannons [x??] & 5000pts each [Piercing / Non]
    R=2 & “Hands” [x2] & 30,000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Regenerating weapon attachments [x??] & 10,000pts each [Any]
    R=4 & Fire wheel [x?] & 50,000pts each [Aura]
    R=5 & Green toothpaste laser [x?] & 50,000pts each [Aura]
    R=6 & Single-layer destructible bullet turret [x?] & 50,000pts each [Aura] Part of Phase 3
    R=7 & Kill & 200,000pts[/table]

    Three phased boss. Grubby is genuinely challenging to optimize forscore but it's worth it. He has a variety of armaments to destroy, a deep pocket of unique attacks and a ton of HP overall. Each phase can be advanced early by damage dealt to the core.
    • PHASE 1 / ATTACK CYCLE: HUMBLE BEGINNING
      1.1. Center dual-column quad artillery:
      The initial attack. Fires semi-slow, aimed streams of bullets from each artillery. Each artillery changes behavior depending on how many artillery are destroyed on that particular side. For example:

      - If one artillery is destroyed on the left column, the remaining 3 artillery in that column now fire an aimed dual-spread around you.
      - If two artillery are destroyed, a three-pronged aimed-spread activates.
      - If all but one artillery in that column are destroyed, Grubby uses a heavy spread of aimed bullets.
      - This behavior applies to the other column, separately from the left.

      Despite this behavior the quad artillery are not very dangerous. It's easy to dodge any combination of variations with small tap-dodges in one direction. Purposefully leaving an artillery remaining is not useful.

      2.1 Shoulder needle-laser artillery:
      From Grubby's shoulders are 6 artillery. 3 on the front and 3 on the back that fire aimed, slow 3-pronged spears of lasers. The shoulders have very limited movement so Grubby can only aim slightly. Because of this, the left corner can't be reached by the right shoulder.

      Position below the left shoulder, dodging around the lasers or through their gaps. Milk tic-points off of Grubby's hands. The hands have a ton of HP so they are good for tic-points (Car-Pet), when destroyed are 30K each.

      3.1. Exposes spinning artillery from ends of both shoulders:
      Both fire a confining, fixed spread-shot. There are a few good safe spots:
      1 ship-length above bottom-center. 2-3 ship-lengths off-center. Corners. These safe-spots are spacious and easy to use.

      Use the off-center safe spot to continue damaging Grubby's hands, the middle to damage Grubby and the others for emergencies.

      After 1.1 is destroyed, cycles ~6 times until time-out to Phase 2.
    • PHASE 2 / ATTACK CYCLE: “KNOW YOUR PLACE”
      1.2. Destructible plasma cannon on each shoulder:
      Fires about every 2 seconds an aimed, purple plasma charge. Combined with the needle-lasers (2.1).

      2.2. Mini-mech rolls onto center platform:
      Tracks you quickly and fires a wild bullet spread that is hard to avoid normally. Bait the mech's fire by flying a circle around it from the top, then position yourself over his shoulders to avoid his next attack. If you're going for Grubby's hands you can deploy your options on either side when you make your round-a-bout.

      3.2. Laser-artillery fixtures along the torso:
      Each artillery fires fast, 3-pronged needle-laser spears, nearly covering the whole bottom half of the screen. Primary safe spots are two ship-lengths off-center but just avoid it entirely by being above.

      Cycles four times until time-out to Phase 3.
    • PHASE 3 / ATTACK CYCLE: SERIOUS GRUB
      1.3. 8 Regenerating weapon attachments:
      An all-out variety attack. When destroyed are 10K each and when regenerated, are one of 3 types of sluggishly tracking weapons.

      - Semi-fast, purple plasma mines. Decelerate at their end and explode.
      - Semi-fast, long lasers.
      - Flame-throwers that remain active for a few seconds.

      The most lucrative attack to milk and is worth well more than 100K per cycle depending on your character. Herd all of the weapons, destroying them ASAP. Pay most attention to the flame-throwers, with the lasers at a close 2nd. Takes familiarity to survive consistently. Consider using deployed options to cover both sides.

      2.3. Various, random select weapons behind Grubby's head:

      - Wild twin-laser spread. React to it.
      - Single layer destructible-bullet spread. Bait it's attack and flank to Aura! Will have trouble tracking you. 50K if Aura'd!
      - Missiles.
      - Fire wheel. Impossible to avoid if you don't kill it before it spins, or can get up close to fly circles around it while damaging with Aura. Watch for the weapon's red-stripe so you can react early. 50K if Aura'd!
      - Thick, aimed green toothpaste laser. You can time-out this attack by using small tap-dodges or by flying around it to Aura but, that isn't guaranteed as some ships have their hitbox back further than others. 50K if Aura'd!
      - Erratically zig-zagging drones that shoot aimed needle-lasers. These guys are dangerous if you aren't pairing them down fast enough. Beware of medals or an extend item dropping.

      3.3. Repeats 3.1, the confining bullet spread.

      Cycles eight times until complete time-out. The time-out combination attack is vicious.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:50 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> NIGHT SKY STAGE <

Bashinet-R is one of the final bosses in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, and the Batrider variant, much like the version from Shippu Mahou, is designed to take lives from you with large screen-filling attacks. To access Bashi-R, destroy all three hatch launchers in Zenovia City, and have a Mahou character in stock after beating Grubby.
  • BOSS TACTICS - BASHINET-R (MAHOU)

    Potential score-gain: ~1,000,000pts
    Three phase boss. The Bashi-R fight has its share of problem situations. He randomly selects attacks and has a knack for being a dick to you.

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Mini-Bashi-R [x??] & 20,000pts each [Non-piercing, Aura]
    10,000pts each [Piercing, Bomb]
    R=2 & Huge shoulder armor kill & 100,000pts
    R=3 & Shoulders [x2] & 50,000pts each [Any]
    R=4 & Bashi-R kill & 300,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: ONE MORE TIME…
      Before Bashi-R appears, you're flying at high speed while mini-rockets barrel towards you, trying to snipe youwith aimed shots. Dodge in the direction away from where the rockets come from.

      Bashi-R appears and immediately summons mini-Bashi-R's to his left and right, one by one. Destroy their two arms and head to trigger medals off them. From the arms are fired curving, destructible green oval bullets. From the head is fired a few aimed bullets. Point blank them from below to kill them off quickly. You can skip this phase early by damaging Bashi-R himself.

      It's very possible you'll drop a medal if the Mini's are too far apart and you trigger both medals. Make a safety judgment sometimes to skip triggering a medal when it's unlikely you'll collect it successfully.
    • PHASE 2: BIG LASERS, BIG BALLS
      A huge shoulder armor is attached to the top of Bashi-R. Thearmor's panel opens to expose 6 beam devices, 3 on each side, and 3 bullet devices at the panel ends and center. Now Bashi-R uses a constant attack and randomly chooses between 3 different attacks as an addition.

      Constant attack:
      Tosses large green globes in an arch towards your location, one at a time. These won't reach you at a certain distance or arch. Notice where Bashi-R is on the screen when you choose where to hide.

      Randomly selected:

      - Randomly chooses which of the 6 devices to fire huge beams from. They remain active for about 4 seconds. Doesn't use more than 4 at a time. The outer beams can trap you against the screen, and the middle ones can trap you inside. Notice Bashi-R's movements so you can be on the “safe” side.
      - Similar to the destructible green ovals of the Mini Bashi-R's. More plentiful and are pink. Best avoided by sweeping left or right.
      - The aforementioned 3 bullet devices activate, spitting out a slow, random spread. Can be annoying while avoiding the globes.

      Bashi-R has one ofthe more odd point gains on this phase. If you let let him time-out he detaches from his huge shoulder armor. It fires the same attacks separately behind him while he goes into his Phase-3 attacks. Destroying the shoulder armor nets you 100K. It's pretty risky but the points are there.
    • PHASE 3: MACRO OR MICRO DODGE
      Shoulders and core are now damageable. Randomly selects between 3 attacks:

      - An aimed, tightly-knit spread of needle-lasers. Really stresses the size of your hitbox if you micro-tap-dodge through. Macro-dodging the attack entirely and hiding in the top corner is a valid option. You can't stay there for long because it is in fact aimed when it initiates.
      - A slow curtain of bullets, fairly easy to micro-dodge but you can macro-dodge to the top corners to safety.
      - The constant globe attack from Phase 2 returns. He throws 8 globes total and after the 8thgoes straight into his next attack. Preemptively macro-dodge immediately after the 8th globe to avoid the lasers.

      The advantage to micro-dodging both patterns is that you can quick kill Bashi-R in a few cycles.

      Opting to macro-dodge takes a different approach to the fight because as mentioned, the tight-knit lasers will aim at you anywhere. The solution is to react to the lasers and macro-dodge away. This method isn't fail-proof because Bashi-R can trap you in the corner if he uses the globes. Pick your moment of escape carefully.

      Both methods have real dangers and in the end, you'll probably bomb anyway. Good luck!

      Finally, destroying the shoulders triggers bullets to pour out in large numbers so time your kill before they fill the screen.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:54 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> AIRPORT3 STAGE <

The continuation of Airport2 (the final stage from Battle Garegga) sees you fighting against Garegga's final boss Glow Squid, complete with its insane spam attacks and randomly selected weapons. The third form is just as lucrative as ever, but must be handled in a different way to the Garegga variant.

To access Glow Squid, destroy the four gun platforms in Zenovia City, and finish Grubby (and Bashinet-R if you fight it) with a Garegga ship in stock. Bring plenty of Weapons. ;p
  • BOSS TACTICS - GLOW SQUID (GAREGGA)

    Potential score-gain: ~925,000pts

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Wing deterioration [x??] & 1000pts each [Any]
    R=2 & Drones [x??] & 1000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Diabolical weaponry [x??] & 10,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    1000pts [Piercing / Bomb]
    R=4 & Phase 2 destruction [x1] & 100,000pts
    R=5 & Kill & 300,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1 / ATTACK CYCLE: “I WISH THE GAREGGA G. SQUID MUSIC PLAYED.”
      The first phase is very straightforward. Glow Squid will cycle through three simple attack patterns in order:
      1. Cone-shaped scatter shot from core. Hard to micro-dodge. You can stay off to Glow Squid's side and attack the wings with little problems. Don't forget to get back to the bottom of the screen when it fires the arc spread.
      2. Dual twin-lasers, fixed behavior. Don't be in the corner when he's low down.
      3. Fast, aimed spread shot coupled with a slow, aimed spread shot. Focus on the slow bullets and react to the fast ones with your peripheral vision; this allows you to plan ahead your evasion more efficiently.
      4. ~20-30 drones released. Drones halt movement when you change location and home in when you're stationary. Lure them to the side to prevent complication from1.
      5. Before the drones are completely gone, the cycle repeats. If drones are mid-screen this is bad because a medal might drop within the cone-shaped scatter shot.
      This attack cycle repeats ~5 times until time-out to Phase 2. The full milk is worth about 200K. Not too shabby.
    • PHASE 2: DIABOLICAL WEAPONRY
      Once you see the two turret arms appear, Glow Squid will shift into its second form, with some trickier patterns to dodge.

      First off, The cockpit section of Glow Squid will regularly fire a six way pattern that covers the screen. This pattern does not affect you if you hang around the bottom of the screen, but it does stop you from using the sides of the screen to dodge patterns, so bear that in mind.

      Adding to that, the body of the ship itself fires a pair of slow-moving bullets straight down the screen. Since Glow Squid moves slowly from side to side in this phase, these bullet pairs will create a slow moving zig-zag pattern that isn't hard to dodge, but does take up space. The best way to avoid this pattern is to use the space outside of the zigzag pattern.

      Image

      Finally, the two arms will regularly and randomly select one of a few different armaments - these weapons refresh themselves with a random selection of arms after destroyed or time elapsed.

      - Single-layer spread of destructible bullets.
      - 3-pronged, aimed spread-shot + outer layer bullets. Confines yourmovement to tap-dodges.
      - Wild twin-lasers, as seen on Grubby.
      - Purple, lightning beam. Once initiated, extends rapidly (like lightning), fires about every 3 seconds.
      - Long rifle: a single, constant stream of aimed destructible bullets.
      - Long double barrels:fast, aimed beefy rockets shot two at a time. Fired every .8 seconds.
      - Flame-thrower: Aimed and remains active for a few seconds. Sometimes waves slightly.
      - Plasma mine: an aimed, dark matter mine is launched, then detonated in a large radial burst.

      All of these attacks are aimed. The best way to dodge them is to tap move into the spaces made by the zigzag pattern. There is no easy way around this phase, so stay alert. One point of note is that the Batrider variant has destroyable armaments, they're worth 10k each, but they are very resilient and quite difficult to hit without piercing weaponry. Certain combinations are deadlier than others obviously, so in this way you play with RNG here. Damage core ASAP to advance to Phase 3. Gain 100K from avoiding time-out.
    • PHASE 3: FATAL ERROR
      Detaches from his main body as a pod and twitches around the screen violently, leaving in his wake a fixed cycle of attacks.
      1. Twin-lasers shot directly beneath Glow Squid.
      2. Scatter spread of small and large bullets.
      3. ~20-30 homing drones. Sometimes you get 'em all sometimes you don't. Beware.
      4. Scattered destructible bullets.
      5. Repeats @ 1.
      The Batrider variant of Glow Squid is considerably more aggressive and resilient than its Garegga counterpart, and this you should bear in mind.

      One of the major differences between the two involves the homing missile attack - the missiles in Batrider are far more resilient to damage, therefore typical Garegga-style milking isn't recommended. The best way I've found to deal with the missiles is to just use Weapon on them - you'll probably get more points for using Weapon anyway, and it makes you invincible. Alternatively, if you're Car-Pet, you can attempt Ibara-style milking, by using the options as a barrier.

      Milking this phase is a viable option if you're confident with managing the drones. Glow Squid doesn't have a lot of HP so 1 ½ bombs or surviving 3-5 cycles will kill otherwise.
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:05 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

> GIGANTECH BUILDING STAGE <
  • MAIN STAGE:

    The final stage, and typical Raizing tankfest. You'll likely pick up a lot of Weapon fragments here, so use them regularly to get lots of Medals. Rank will most likely be somewhere near maximum at this point as well, so stay on your toes. ;D

    Player: Icarus - 3.2mil (Strawman only) (YouTube link)
    • THE DESK:
      As soon as you've entered the building - watch out for the overhanging part of the scenery, admittedly a bad bit of design from Raizing as it can obscure falling items - you'll come across a guy sat at a desk. Soon, you'll be attacked by a mass of turrets from the desk and the floor - they're all worth 1k each, and some of them regenerate. The large turret that appears is worth around 10k, and you can destroy the desk with Weapon or Aura for 30k.
    • GREEN GLASS CANISTERS:
      After the killer desk, you'll enter the lab. The large flying armors here (with laser beams) are worth 1k each, and each glass canister is worth 3k, but when they're destroyed, they fire an aimed three-way attack at you in retaliation. Make sure you use small, efficient dodges to get yourself through this section safely.
    • FLAME TURRETS:
      The tank zone is easily the most lucrative part of the stage, but it can be difficult to get consistent pointgain without a regular flow of Weapons. Thankfully, there is a way to get full Weapon icons from each and every large flame turret in this stage, but it requires some precision.

      As for as I can discern, the item you get from each flame turret differs depending on its "state" when you destroy it:

      Code: Select all

       - if you destroy a flame turret while it is attacking, you'll get a large Shot item.
      
      - if you destroy a flame turret after it has finished attacking or when it is dormant, you'll get an Option item.
      
      - if you destroy a flame turret when it is about to fire (flame should be spraying out of the front back of the turret, but no actual flame bullets fired), you'll get a large Weapon icon.
      It would appear that the item dropped is not dependent on what you used to destroy the flame turret - Shot, Aura or Weapon - so you can improvise your way through the tank zone, and pick up some free Weapons along the way. The timing for getting large Weapons is tricky, however, and the window of opportunity is small, so try and get a feel for the timing between each attack.
    • TANK HATCHES:
      There are loads of tank hatches in this stage, and each hatch drops a pair of Medals when bombed. Try and get all of them for a nice healthy boost in score.
    • GIANT LASER ARMORS:
      After the tank zone, just before the end of the stage, you'll come up against huge armors spraying bullets everywhere. These things are worth plenty of points if you can destroy all of their components - use a piercing attack like Car-Pet, Tag-T and Gain's options, or Grasshopper's Shot - and if you can destroy all of the components before destroying the body, it'll drop a Medal.
    • TURRET ALLEY:
      The approach to the final boss Discharge features an alley of 12 turrets - the type of turret in the alley is randomised, and can be anything from rotary turrets to aimed lasers, but the alley will only feature one type of turret each credit.

      Inexperienced players can be caught unawares at this point, as these turrets can fill the screen, or attack with precision. The easiest way to deal with them is when the music changes to boss music, quickly sit in the top-center of the screen, between each pair of turrets - as you're in pointblank range, the turrets will not fire at you, giving you the chance to destroy them.

      However, there is a little-known fact that each turret is worth 10k when destroyed with Weapon or Aura, so if you have a Weapon to spare, feel free to use it for a healthy score boost. ^_-
  • FINAL BOSS TACTICS - DISCHARGE

    Potential score-gain: ~2,000,000pts

    APPROACHING

    When the music text appears while fighting the big mechs, that's your cue to get to the top of the screen ASAP. On the approach to Discharge's first form you are met by two parallel columns of artillery. You can seal their fire entirely by sitting between them and picking them off with any character with a decent spread shot. Garegga's are okay for this. Car-Pet struggles with this approach. If you're forced to attack them from the bottom of the screen, the pods will use one of two types of attacks.
    - Laser beams that remain active for about 5 seconds.
    - Spinning spread of bullets.

    If it's the laser beams you can herd the lasers to one side of the screen and take out the pods. If it's the spinner bullets then you'll have to micro-dodge a very thick cloud of bullets in an attempt to destroy them on the approach. You may have to bomb. It's okay though, the pods are worth 10K each for bomb or aura.

    FIRST FORM
    Potential score-gain: ~600,000pts
    Form 1 kill: 100,000pts
    • PHASE 1: A GOOD BOMB IS A USED BOMB
      The scrolling screen unveils a green capsule containing Discharge himself mounted at the center top of a massive contraption. Damage Discharge at the capsule and deploy options on top of him. When the scrolling stops Discharge begins to attack. First from artillery above him, then combining artillery at his sides:

      - Many-pronged, aimed spread shot fired from 3 separate artillery directly above Discharge's green capsule.
      - Aimed, horizontally aligned 3-bullet chunks fired from artillery on each side of the capsule.

      Both attacks create a heavy cloud of bullets. Be very careful and tap-dodge from one side of the screen to the other, watching for gaps to slip through. Delay as long as possible.Listen for the sound of the capsule receding into the mecha. This means you've activated Phase 2 and his previous attacks will ceasefire. Using a bomb is a great idea. Depending on the strength of your bomb, use it early or late to save yourself and force Phase 2. Position yourself to either side of the screen in order to herd the following aimed attack across the screen.
    • PHASE 2 / ATTACK CYCLE: DARE YOU TO SCORE!
      New attacks activate, 1 is constant, 2 and 3 cycle.
      1. Fixed direction 5-bullet waves fired downwards from the front-sides of both shoulders.
      2. Five artillery on each side of Discharge's “face.” Fires slowly aimed, tiny bullets. Do not attack or else you'll activate nasty weaponry. Herd these bullets for about 8~10 volleys until it ceases.
      3. Spread-shot fired from the nose, covering the whole mid screen. Dodging through this is harrowing.
      This is your opportunity to fly above Discharge and damage the core with Aura. After ~6 seconds the cycle repeats. Assume position on the right side of the screen before the attack resumes. Continue this approach to soundly dispatch Phase 2.
    • GIVE ME POINTS INSTEAD!
      Destroying two targets will activate new weapons that refresh themselves, that when destroyed are worth 10K each for a potential bonus of 200K (realistically speaking). These targets are the shoulders and the 10 artillery.

      - When a shoulder is destroyed you activate a dual-laser cannon as a replacement. The laser also expands slightly after it's active for a couple seconds.
      - When one of the 10 artillery are destroyed, it triggers a weapon on each side of the head that fires aimed, 3-bullet rectangles. They are released about every 1 and ½ seconds.
      -- You can destroy these only when they are active. The TTH method displays using Grasshopper's backwards option formation above the core to destroy all at once onthe first assault. The other method is picking them off from below. Destroying them all in one pass may prove difficult.

      When all 10 artillery are destroyed it negates their aimed attack which will be replaced by a phase of inactivity. Bait the dual-laser cannon to fire towards the upper corner at every opportunity. During theinactivity phase take the chance to shoot down the weapons adjacent the head.

      After 3~4 cycles the 2nd dual-laser cannon activates and this is your cue to finish off Phase 2 with a bomb as the resulting attack is nigh impossible to avoid.

    SECOND FORM: SHENANIGANS

    The ceiling gives in and rains destructible debris as you take off into the sky. Collect medals from the debris. Discharge floats onto screen mounted on his Technodrome and unleashes surprise laser-beams from 9 weapons fixed along his torso. When he assumes position on the top of the screenhe fires aimed, semi-fast bullet volleys from his head.The head tracks you quickly. Beware, extra debris falls down as he begins his attack.

    Discharge starts his attack pattern, spinning the laser weapons around his torso until activating the beams. He combines the aimed bullet volleys as a constant attack. The pattern for the laser weapons:
    1. First direction spun, decelerates, laser, stops.
    2. Laser, spins in same direction, stops, changes direction.
    3. Spins in opposite direction, decelerates, laser, stops.
    4. Laser, spins in same direction, decelerates, laser, stops. Repeats to 1.
    In other words, he spins in the same direction twice, then the opposite direction twice and repeats. Knowing this, anticipate your positioning bearing in mind the aimed bullets and that you are being confined between the lasers.

    As a jerk move, depending on how you time the destruction of this form, Discharge may unleash the lasers as his Technodrome falls off of the screen.


    THIRD FORM: ONE HELL OF A FORM

    Potential score-gain: ~400,000pts (boss kill not included)

    [table]R=H & Target & Pointgain w/ attack type
    R=1 & Blue spark emitters [x2] & 30,000pts each [Non-piercing]
    3,000pts [Piercing, Bomb]
    R=2 & Light sabers [x??] & 10,000pts each [Any]
    R=3 & Mines [x??] & 300pts each [Any]
    R=4 & Green capsules [x3] & 5,000pts each [Piercing]
    3,000pts [Bomb]
    R=5 & Popping the head [x1] & 10,000pts [Any]
    R=6 & Discharge kill & 500,000pts[/table]
    • PHASE 1: VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE
      Begins a combination attack from the core and “arms”, randomly selecting for each one. The weapons are listed in order of threat level, descending. The worst mixture is1 + 2 and is very difficult to avoid.

      From the core:
      1. Homing, green, Taito lasers fired from the 3 green capsules on his back.
      2. Volleys of aimed, single streams of bullets from the head. The head is destructible for during this attack for 10K.
      - Popping the head causes a new, aimed, many-pronged spread-shot attack to occur instead. This is worse.
      - Popping the head causes a new, aimed, many-pronged spread-shot attack to occur instead. This is worse.
      1. 6 artillery on each side: fixed bullet streams fired outside of the center cone.
      2. Forward spread of mines.
      From the “arms”:
      1. Light sabers:Rotate until locked on, then barrel towards the location in which you were locked. Destructible for 10K each.
      2. Four spinning artillery on each side: each artillery fires bullets, filling the screen but with large gaps. The bullets trajectories are fixed. If this attack is alone, you don't have to move much at the bottom of the screen to avoid it.
      3. Blue sparks: Emitted from the corners of the arms randomly towards you. Somewhat slow and medium sized. Destructible while active for 30K each. Avoid destroying these if at all possible, as ridding them eliminates the attack from his selection. Also helpful for Phase 2.
      4. Every now and then... uses nothing!
      Damage dealt to the core will advance Discharge to Phase 2. You can wait for the light sabers to appear to milk this phase, though it comes with risk of deadly combos.
    • PHASE 2: RNG HELL PART 2
      Discharge detaches from the arms and both go to their respective side, floating to the top and bottom of the screen in opposing directions of each other, continuing to randomly select from their attacks. They're able to make combination attacks between their arsenals separately from each other now. When 1 + 2 combine it gets really nasty. 2 + 2 is also bad. For this reason, it's beneficial to leave the Blue spark weapons alive from Phase 1 as that gives the arms a third option to choose.

      Focus on destroying an arm if it's floating upwards first, so that you can deal more damage to it. When things get hairy, bomb. When one arm is down, the other is much easier to finish off.

      One trick of survival is to hug the side of the screen, as this will cancel out the other arm's attack when it's scrolled off screen entirely. The light sabers ignore this trick unfortunately.

      Damage dealt to the core forces Phase 3, regardless if arms are left alive.
    • PHASE 3: LAST DITCH EFFORT
      Just like the detached arms from Phase 2, now Discharge's core can mix two of his own weaponry. Thankfully this isn't very threatening.

      Discharge has a final attack in which 8 laser-turrets expose themselves and spin around Discharge. After a couple of attack cycles the laser-turrets come to a halt and either lock onto you or fire in all directions. Easy to avoid if you watch how the turrets behave.

      The mines are a small bonus if milked in this phase as well as the previous phases.

      An advanced and weird score gain exists in all phases. Phase 3 has two methods. The most lucrative method is accomplished by intentionally dying so that the 3 homing Taito lasers hover over your exploding ship. The game thinks you gain an extraordinary amount of graze points, up to about ~150K worth. The other method is by dying to the aimed laser-turrets of phase 3 which gains only 30K. If you have an extra life and are confident enough to finish Discharge, go ahead.

      Finally, destroy Discharge for a cash bonus of 500K!

COMPLETE!
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:21 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Icarus »

Post overflow and random scoring-related copy-pastes:

From here:
NTSC-J wrote:The other day at the arcade I saw a guy clear Advanced course with an O,800,000 score. He`s always there on Friday nights ripping the game up but this was the best run I`ve seen him do. Some notes on what he did:

-He used Carpet, Wild Snail and the red Battle Garegga ship.
-I`m not well-versed in how the bosses are triggered or how many you can get in a run, but he got all the ones I know of excluding Envy and Sobut.
-He used the aura all the time, except on big enemies or when the screen was too packed.
-Every boss was milked for at least 5 minutes. Any boss with respawning enemies was abused as much as possible. The only one where he seemed to just want to get through it and survive was Wild Snail.
-He never had more than 2 lives at a time.
-He had 1 million at the end of stage 1 and reached A,000,000 on stage 5, which was Bashinet

The moral of the story is, if there`s even a micron of a point to be had, milk it.
Last edited by Icarus on Mon Jun 29, 2009 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Icarus »

Okay!

The Batrider ST is finally open, after much procrastination. I've taken a large portion of the Garegga ST as a framework and edited it to be relevant to Batrider's many systems. The ST thread framework is in place, and is now ready to be populated with information that is scattered throughout the forum's extensive database.

I'll start pulling bits and pieces from all the different threads and consolidating them with my own techniques and knowledge into stage by stage guides, as well as hunting for obscure information around the internet. The goal of this guide is a complete one-stop shop for all Batrider info.

As with the rest of my ST threads, this is a slow-moving, on-going project, and is open to public editing. If you have information you want to share and add to the ST, feel free to PM me, or write up a post here in ST guide format, and I'll add it to the ST with credits.

</disclaimer>
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Post by Twiddle »

Here are a few glaring rule changes from Garegga to Batrider:

Do *not* worry about raising the autofire rate all the way up, especially since it resets after death. Shooting speed and survival time do shit for rank (~2 or 4 rank points per frame each,) shooting itself is worth only 4 points per "wave" regardless of weapon power, and raising the autofire rate does nothing to per-frame rank. Which makes autofire chip milking with piercing weapons a viable strategy, especially for Carpet. Make sure you know the key combinations for raising your fire rate to 60!

Instead...

...the rank effect of all powerup types (small shot, large shot, and Option) add ~65k to ~80k worth of rank points regardless of whether you're picking them up maxed or not. Yes, small shot powerups are only worth a little less to the rank system than large shot powerups. So, largely, the biggest rank killer is picking up powerups; period.

There is a way to cheat this, however; that is by picking up special powerups by dropping 3 of one type (small shot and large shot are counted as different types) and picking up the next of that type. A special powerup gives the rank of a single powerup and does nothing to the (already insignficant) per-frame rank increase, so if you don't mind having extra bosses at the end of Highway you can control your rank a little better. Even if you don't have a clue how many you dropped, you can pick up one, then drop the next three, then pick up one, which means you saved one powerup's worth of rank to get to max power.

Medal rank gain is largely the same as Garegga's, with 100-400 point medals gorging your rank level as usual.
so long and tanks for all the spacefish
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<Megalixir> now that i know garegga is faggot central i can disregard it entirely
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Post by Icarus »

That's pretty interesting stuff. I've gone and added it to a preliminary rank system section, along with your data from the STGT that's buried in the GD thread. Many thanks.

Aside from general Extend acquisition and powerups, do you know what are the other large causes of rank increase? I'd also assume there's no detrimental effect on rank by using a charged attack?
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Post by Twiddle »

Charge attacks do the same per-shot rank as regular shot (4 per wave) which pretty much limits their use to having the options hanging around to shoot something while you go somewhere else.

And no, there's pretty much no other rank-jacking factor that I know of.
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Post by Icarus »

Makes sense in a perverse Raizing sort-of way. Thanks again. ^_-
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Post by ncp »

Awesome, been wondering when you'd put together a ST thread, the Garegga one is great. Twiddle mentioned that both small and large shot items give roughly the same increase in rank. However, in the old thread both Plasmo and Enhasa said that it's reverse from Garegga (which is to say, its better it pick up small shots in Batrdier, aside from the Special powerup). These two statements seem to be in direct conflict with each other, unless I'm misunderstanding, so can someone clear this up for me?
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Post by Enhasa »

I actually said the opposite of what Plasmo said. I avoid small shot powerups like the plague. For that matter, I avoid large shot powerups until Zenovia City too. They can be lucrative for points (5000 per) if you don't mind the rank though. Avoiding them is in contrast to Garegga, where I pick up almost every large shot powerup I see.

This thread has been a long time coming, and no better person to finally write it. :)
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Post by Plasmo »

Enhasa wrote:I actually said the opposite of what Plasmo said. I avoid small shot powerups like the plague. For that matter, I avoid large shot powerups until Zenovia City too.
Sorry for the confusion guys! I was definitely wrong. I usually pick up all big power ups right from the start and avoid all small ones, don't know why I said that it's better to collect small powerups... :?

I'm very glad to finally see a proper Batrider ST. I was right about to post my own one, but it would've never reached the awesome ST's Icarus makes. :wink:
Thanks a lot ICR. I'll try to contribute stuff once I'm playing again.
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Post by Icarus »

It's interesting reading people's powerup strategies.

Generally I power up my Options to maximum and leave Shot at its lowest level, using a charge attack if I need a quick boost in attack strength, and upping Shot Frequency to 20 or 30 depending on ship. I find that this strategy gets me through most of the game.

The only time I really boost Shot strength and Shot Frequency is during Zenovia City and the Gigantech Building stages, when you really need the power to get through the stages safely. You can tear through everything if you have maximum power and autofire speed at this point.

Thanks for the nice comments, guys. This, as with all the other ST's I write, is pretty much open-source, and public contributions are always welcome.
I might build the framework for an Ibara ST, as that's another game that desperately needs consolidation of information. That'll be a little project for the near-future, however, as I'd like to get this one rolling first.
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Post by Icarus »

Just digging through my old score thread for EIHoppe's posts, as they have some relevance to the rank system discussion. The juicier of the posts are quoted below. (Posts start here.)
EIHoppe wrote:
DEL wrote:I tried Advance and Special on highest rank start (as soon as board was switched on). More enemies come on certain Bosses, but the Bosses definitely have the same time span before disappearing - so no advantage in Boss milking time.
I did some research using the cheat mode in MAME to set the rank to max and can confirm this...there is no time advantage to high/max rank. However, this can have benefits in the form of less worry when milking, say, for medals on Bazzcok or Boredom. (perhaps...though I didn't personally notice that large of a health increase for the bosses...) Both bosses also literally spew the mini-fighters at max rank, giving more opportunity for medals.

As for increasing small enemy appearance, having a higher rank has a profound effect on popcorn enemies (especially during the levels). I've noted large ~15-20 enemy ROWS (15-20 per row, not 15-20 rows. =P) that fly out in formation, usually two or three of these said rows at a time. Next time I note it, I'll save a screenshot to show what I mean.

The only problem with all this as far as scoring goes, of course, is the ridiculous amount of firepower the bosses obtain, and the extra health that most, if not all non-boss enemies get, forcing a lot of firepower to be used to subdue a single enemy.

I'll look into this more if I can. Maybe I'll be able to find the health/time variables for the bosses/enemies if possible and see if there's any effect on rank at all.
EIHoppe wrote:
Icarus wrote:Are you sure? I've played the game at both minimum and maximum rank and have noticed no difference in the rate the drones are generated.
I just double-checked it now. Between a decent rank when I was playing without much regard for rank control, and setting it to max on a seperate playthrough, there was almost a doubled drone output (this was tested on Boredom). He went from a volley of four (x2 drones x2 generators for a total of 16) to a volley of eight (x2 drones x2 generators for a total of 32). This definitely has milking potential.
Icarus wrote:Wouldn't mind seeing that, actually. I can't imagine there being many places that this occurs, however.
The spot I noticed it the most was in Airport, where there are those natural rows of enemies. But even in other parts of the game, there is a noticable increase in enemies between standard rank and max. I forgot to snag screenshots, I'll hopefully remember next time. >_>;
Icarus wrote:It would tie into the maximum rank play, by maxing out Shot and Option power to compensate for the increased enemy resilience (which again adds to the rank counter).
The major issue in this is that, especially on the part of the popcorn enemies, there is a SEVERE increase in health, to the point where a piercing weapon (such as Car-pet's) is REQUIRED to be able to hit more than one enemy and not have all your shots tied up. Without piercing, each enemy takes (subjectively, of course) maybe 2 or 3 times the firepower to beat. That is enough where it's difficult to keep up (especially on the part of larger enemies--in fact, on max rank, even WITH Carpet, I have let quite a few large enemies by despite concentrating a lot of firepower on them).

I'm also working on the health variable thing...though there's definitely quite a few variables in use. I also think I may have found one of the boss countdown variables, but it's very difficult to pin down as it seems both the health and the countdown get assigned to some random temp-variable, of which there appears to be a staggering amount. I'm still trying to determine if there's temp-variables just for the health and countdown timers, or even if there's any pattern to the variables used at all.

Two values I have pinned down:
Address 20A36B (this appears to be a health variable, sometimes. As far as I can tell it seems to consistently be the "main body" variable for Deviate--i.e. if this hits 0, it dies. I'm still figuring it out for sure, though.)
Address 2086E2 (this appears to be a countdown variable, sometimes. I've seen it act as such for both Gob-Robo and Bashinet Mk. II, but I'm not sure if those were isolated causes as this is still quite untested. One thing's for sure, though, when it acts as a countdown timer, it starts off in about the 1.5 million range and decreases by somewhere in the neighboorhood of 150-200? each frame. It's also noteworthy that when I was testing it out on Bashi-2, I somehow got the value to jump up 300k. I'm not sure how this happened (I THOUGHT it was dropping a Max-medal (from which my chain somehow didn't die...), but I dropped my chain again and the value didn't change) but it DEFINITELY delayed the timeout by that much because it still didn't timeout until this variable hit 0.)

Can someone watch these variables (notably the first on Deviate and the second on Gob-Robo and Bashi-2) and see if you can get consistent results with them?

~EI

EDIT: Got some pictures (on Bazzcok) of the drone change in action:
Minimum rank (rank at F00000): Image
Maximum rank (rank at 000000): Image
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