EAB/Lemon Super League 2015: Round 1 - SWIV

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by lifeschool

THANKS! for starting off the annual discussion on how we can beat games by working out their logic. My old logic partners Lonewolf10 and Capehorn seem to be off the radar lately so I'm glad a couple of us are interested in finding out these secrets.

I've been busy playing new games (Love Dungeon, Maxwell Mouse & The Missing Game Mystery, JetHunt AGA etc.) and trying (and failing) to work on my own game... I didn't realise the new season of the Super League had started!

I'm not sure I'll get round to playing SWIV until next week, but you can definately count me in

[Graham Humphrey]

Not played this since the last time it came up here. Very very rusty but what a great game this is. Will be playing some more.



114,460

[Graham Humphrey]

215,780

[BlackOceans]

1,391,600

New personal best. Don't think I ever got past 2/3 of the game playing it on the real hardware back in the day, so I'm really happy with this performance

[lifeschool]

Mega Score!

Any further tips as regards 'rank'. Its a hidden part of the game and I think its important for us to understand it. I know if I collect too many powerups my heli slows down!

[Harry]

938.020

[kipper2k]

nice scores... are people using autofire ?

[lifeschool]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

nice scores... are people using autofire ?

I found that holding down fire is faster without autofire than with. It looks like the makers of this game took auto into consideration and made it so that auto users come out worse. As there is no autofire collectable token in this game, you are free to try auto or not.

[BlackOceans]

Originally Posted by lifeschool

Mega Score!

Any further tips as regards 'rank'. Its a hidden part of the game and I think its important for us to understand it. I know if I collect too many powerups my heli slows down!

Hmm.. didn't notice that. I'll pay attention to it the next time I play.

I don't think there's a way for us to be sure how exactly the rank in SWIV works without reverse engineering the game or doing A LOT of test runs and noting each and every change in enemy behaviour etc. For an average joe like me I can only guess and experiment a bit.

I tried suiciding (ie losing life on purpose) right at the begining of the game (so that I don't lose any powerups) - it makes the game a bit easier, but for that to be beneficial I'd have to be doing better on my second life after suiciding than on first two lives without suiciding. It didn't work that way, so it's not worth it.

For my best run I didn't try to lower rank in any way and I collected all power ups up to maximum power. After that I just picked $, didn't try to get the 8-way weapon as I'm not sure it's useful in any situation.

Without trying to sound like an expert on the game (which I'm not) I'll offer some hints for specific situations:

The section on screeshots below in particular seems easier with a 4-spread instead of 5-spread weapon. If you enter it with 5-spread don't even try to kill those "flying boat" (or whatever they are) enemies, as it would take too much time and there's much more important stuff to destroy. Just pass them by and they will fly away.

You have to be very aggressive in this section. Try to point blank everything, especially these planes sitting there in groups of 3. Try to destroy them before they take off.

(click on thumbnails to see full images)



This is especially important right before the goose shows up. You don't want to have those things flying and shooting at you while also trying to destroy the goose. Try to destroy two groups of them while they sit on the ground and then point blank the center of the goose before it assembles (I didn't quite make it while trying to take these screenshots - on the second screenie I'm miliseconds from dying )



I found the spots where a goose shows up and there's no protective bubble around to be the most difficult in game. I'm losing perhaps half of my lives at these spots.

In the spot below try to point blank the cannon before the goose enters the screen. Then avoid parts of goose flying around and again: point blank the centre before the goose assembles. May seem like a tricky stuff, but once you practice it a bit it's much more effective than just staying at the lower edge of the screen and shooting at everything at the same time.



Hope this helps.

[dirk_the_daring]

147.310
Sorry... I'm so bad with this game as I was before...

[Harry]

1.589.340

Died shortly before the end boss.

My previously entered score isnt present anymore, i must have pressed quit uae instead of quit whdload.

[Harry]

2.026.810

I completed the game, and the 2 end bosses gave a huge score boost.

I looked at the previous scores, and its hard to guess for me where the additional 400 k come from. The only source I can imagine is that they got it at the second boss by not shooting the last dome but the waves of helicopters coming.

[lifeschool]

Originally Posted by BlackOceans

The section on screeshots below in particular seems easier with a 4-spread instead of 5-spread weapon.



I'm losing perhaps half of my lives at these spots.

Same Here! That spot is terrible, although I know I have been beyond it, I have a feeling this was using the continues in the past. Thanks for all your help. I wrote all about the 8-way on the Lemon side, but I concluded this toy weapon isnt worth the hassle.

[lifeschool]

Originally Posted by Harry

I completed the game, and the 2 end bosses gave a huge score boost.

Congrats Harry on a storming lead this round. I had a feeling the last boss(s) gave a large score boost as my 400+ k's by the 43% mark doesnt make sence otherwise.

Of course this may seem to have skewed the scoreboard in your favour, but scoring 50% complete (500k) in this game is still worth 10 points (half your score), so the scoring system is actually still perfect.

edit: there you go, 520k, 10 points.

[Harry]

I want to share still a tip: You can take out one of the gun turrets at the second boss while the boss scrolls in, before it begins to shoot. One turret in addition to the 3 domes is tough, but two are mayhem.

Originally Posted by lifeschool

Congrats Harry on a storming lead this round. I had a feeling the last boss(s) gave a large score boost as my 400+ k's by the 43% mark doesnt make sence otherwise.

Thanks. There is also a lot more action going on in the later stages, and it becomes breathtaking in the last 2 sections, thus also more points there.

[mailman]

547,750

My personal best.

[Harry]

As a note, I experienced no slowdowns with the WHDLoad install on my A1200 with Blizzard1230IV. Now, I play for the League on UAE, because thats much more convenient with the screenshots.

One trick with the game is to know the places of the fixed-placed enemies.

Another is with the wave of enemies flying in from the bottom left or right side - if you are at the very bottom they will come in at the very bottom too, but if you are a bit higher, they will also appear a bit higher so you can fly under them and shoot them from below without much risk before going a bit higher for the next wave.

As for the goose copter, when no bubble is near: I fly in close proximity to the middle part from below when its still unprotected and shoot it, and sometimes I can take it out before its cover docks on, and even if not its seriously hit and will not take much damage anymore. But beware, it does not only fire tracking but also the small straight missiles sometimes.

And for the weapons: I try to upgrade to 5-spread with 2 speedups as soon as I can, and then collect the $ for shields in the later play. When "blocker" aircrafts appear and the game has decided that they take much too much damage before being destroyed, I fly past them in the top direction and they fly away.

If real action is going on, I try to clear one half of the screen with the 5-spread and to outmanoeuvre the straight missiles from the other side, its simply not possible to kill all things on the screen and you have to concentrate on the important enemies.

[Graham Humphrey]

Nice set of tips there, thanks Harry!

Some impressive scores rolling in. It's been busy this round but not quite busy enough over here at EAB so it would be good to see some more people submit scores

Remember the winner gets to pick an additional game of their choosing to play in the next round!

[vagrant]

835,790
How long do the pickups generally last?
I was under the impression that when you die, you lose shot power & speed - however during my last run I died 3 times and remained at full power throughout.. (without picking up extra upgrades, just $$)

[lifeschool]

Nice of you to join us ED, I was wondering where you were at? I see you did your usual of not posting until you had something really good. Thanks for the suspense. I see you went far beyond the second boss on your last try, so perhaps the game gets easier again at that point?

As for weapons mechanics. I think there are a few things here. At some point the game makes up its mind about the difficulty curve based on play. If you die early it gets easier. If you collect x3 speedups its gets harder, the the copter slows down and becomes heavy. If you had collected x2 speedups then you would fall back to rapid fire (and I see no difference between 1 or 2 speedups only the game gets harder). If you say you didnt pick a second one, sometimes the game decides to keep your 'rank' and therefore speedup.

Did you play the Silkworm round? In that game it gave the player a break if they got so far by collecting so many tokens, maybe this is similar. I realised the $ trick is very similar to waiting to collect rank tokens in Silkworm for a free shield.