how well do you do in survival?

HunterXI · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:37 am Post subject: how well do you do in survival?

what can you get? I can only do like 11:30...

Lothar · Starscape Jedi Joined: 21 Dec 2003 Posts: 522

Best time: 1 hour 17 minutes 26 (?) seconds. 76,306 points.

Survival strategy guide coming soon.

Weeble · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 3:24 am Post subject:

Oh my. By about the 20 minute mark I'm not really scoring any points, since I'm spending most of the time running away from the worms. And if I kill any, more spawn in, generally in front of me. I think the top-level shields can survive a bump with a worm without letting any through to armour (not sure there), but as soon as they trap you at a wall or sandwich you, you're bouncing around like a pinball. I'd love to hear how you survive that long. Maybe if you keep lots of little ships alive the number of worms stays down? I think my best time is around 25 to 30 minutes, and my score about 53,188.

sonofzeal · Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 7

My record is around 7,500 but that's on the 10 Minute Mode 'cause I only have the demo (see the topic I created). Heh....

Zatar · Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 16

I'm finding this pretty frustrating.

I do ok on the first few stages but by stage 4 I'm finding too many ships after me to stop and pick up crystals to advance any further and if I leave em for later the other ships just run into them and destroy them. I also can no longer stop moving long enough to kill any capital ships.

By stage 5 I'm barely able to destroy anything as I'm still in the 3rd or 4th ship and there's no chance in hell I can stop to pick up any of the crystals left by anything I do destroy. I can stay alive just by running from everything and turning around and firing.

Eventually the worms come out and I can't kill any of them so I just end up getting bored and suiciding.

How do I collect crystals when I have 50 ships in a huge swarm behind me?

Poo Bear · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 9:16 am Post subject:

You need to get upgraded quicker - target enemy mining barges straight away in the early stages. Initially they are quite weak but gold mines, but you don't have much time. Don't spend money initially on anything other than upgrades.

Lothar · Starscape Jedi Joined: 21 Dec 2003 Posts: 522

Target the cap ships. They give you a lot more mins than anything else.

Also, I like to hold on to my mins after the last prowler, and not get the first avenger until I have nearly enough money to afford the second as well. The first avenger is much harder to kill cap ships with than the last prowler.

Remember you can use upgrades like repairs -- wait until your ship is nearly dead and out of missiles, and *then* upgrade.

HunterXI · Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 8:53 pm Post subject:

Zatar · Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 16

OK, following that advice I've managed to get upgraded quicker.

I still have the same problem though. Now instead of hitting stage 4 and not being able to destroy much and not getting any crystals, I can destroy lots of things but I still don't get any crystals. There are crystals flying all over behind me but the problem remains that if I stop to pick them up, I get smashed by the swarm of small ships that are constantly warping in.

Well, that and the fact that my missles, bombs and ion cannons home in on the crystals and destroy them for me.

Actually I think I take as much damage running into crystals before they become "authorized for pick up" by being in the gravity beam long enough as I do from being shot at.

Well, anyway, I'll get better.

I have two major annoyances with this mode.

The first one is that having the "select purchace" keys be the same as the movement keys means I'm often buying the wrong thing or crashing into things as I try to buy something while moving. Bad UI.

The other one is I want a suicide button. If I die with 15 worms around me and there's no chance I'll ever be able buy my ship back (or I just don't like playing worm-only mode), if I hit escape and quit the game I get no high score or anything. But if I just sit there and wait to die it takes a surprisingly long time to go through all of the ships... Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Poo Bear · Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:40 pm Post subject:

Weeble · Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 12:36 am Post subject:

Might or might not work, but I'd suggest a slight delay (about half a second) between holding down the key and having up and down start moving the purchase cursor. Include some visual indication (maybe superimpose a big rectangular box over the current selection, and play some sound effect) to show this has taken place. My reasoning is that the main circumstance that causes mis-selections is that you're trying to buy more bombs (or maybe life) in a fight, but you accidentally move to another item. Since you're only tapping the key to keep buying the same thing, this change would prevent accidental mis-selections. The visual and audio cues would help to make sure you don't accidentally fail to move the cursor. As I said, it might be no good - you'd need to try it out. It might be that you'd end up trying to move the cursor too soon and buying the wrong thing just as much or more.

OvermindDL1 · Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 138

Or perhaps have weapon fire1 move up and fire2 move down, ergo you can keep fleeing from enemies as you make your selections...

HunterXI · Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 3:04 am Post subject:

Bobacles · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 123

There are only three options for buying things, so why not use the q/w/e keys? Holding 'R' would scroll out the 'shop', and you press one of the other keys to buy what you want.

Weeble · Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 12:16 pm Post subject:

Errr... I can only assume these other suggestions imply pausing the game while buying things. I'm neutral on that, but I got the impression Poo Bear wasn't so keen on it.

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