High Score Competition #180: Time Pilot

[leapinlew]

Is using a spinner legal?   
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81745.0

The game isn't properly geared for someone using a spinner and it's much easier, but I think it's much more intuitive.

If you call cheating by using a control device that alters the game's difficulty to your advantage legal, yes, it's perfectly legal.  While you're at it, you might add autofire, too 

I wouldn't call it cheating, but I'd say it's definitely not in the spirit of the competition.

I mean, if you played Donkey Kong, I would assume you could use any 4 way joystick and not just the standard crappy nintendo 4 way joystick. If you played Centipede, I also assume you'd let someone use a joystick and not just a trackball?

[yamatetsu]

I mean, if you played Donkey Kong, I would assume you could use any 4 way joystick and not just the standard crappy nintendo 4 way joystick.

You would still be using the same control device, not a completely different one that is much more precise and much better suited to play the game. The spinner is much more precise than any joystick and makes the game easier. So, if you are playing the game at an easier difficulty level, you gain an unfair advantage.

If you played Centipede, I also assume you'd let someone use a joystick and not just a trackball?

If using a joystick makes the game easier for you, no.

[leapinlew]

I mean, if you played Donkey Kong, I would assume you could use any 4 way joystick and not just the standard crappy nintendo 4 way joystick.

You would still be using the same control device, not a completely different one that is much more precise and much better suited to play the game. The spinner is much more precise than any joystick and makes the game easier. So, if you are playing the game at an easier difficulty level, you gain an unfair advantage.

If you played Centipede, I also assume you'd let someone use a joystick and not just a trackball?

If using a joystick makes the game easier for you, no.

You live by a complex set of rules. For the record, just about any 4 way joystick is more precise and better suited for a game than a Nintendo joystick.

So, if playing sitting on a bar stool is easier for me, it sounds like that would be against the rules. What about wearing glasses? That could make it easier for some people. Oh, what about doping? I assume that's illegal - should be.

I get not using the spinner for Time Pilot. Just giving you a hard time since you took such a hard line "NO THAT'S CHEATING!" stance on a friendly competition. 

[yamatetsu]

Is using a spinner legal?   
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=81745.0

If you call cheating by using a control device that alters the game's difficulty to your advantage legal, yes, it's perfectly legal.  While you're at it, you might add autofire, too 

I didn't take that too seriously. wp34 put a smiley after his question so I knew he was not serious. Hence my reply also had smileys.

[wp34]

Yeah my point was really just to advertise what I've thought was a really cool hack for one of my favorite games. 

[kixfan]

331,600

A helicopter represents level 10 (upper right)

[Xiaou2]

It IS cheating, because the games skill challenge comes in the fact that you can not spin around instantly.  You need to calculate the time it takes to turn around... and often, you risk / gamble your judgements.

 Look at the vids posted of the hack.  You can literally spin around on a single point, and at speeds that are impossible on the real game.


 The Pacman 4 way example is completely different.   That is allowing the game to operate the same way it was designed to operate.  Any controller used that is inferior... is your loss of control.     Using a Speedup hack, is a far more similar example.  The speedup hack will allow pacman to move faster... the same way that the spinner hack will allow the ship to spin faster than it should... and on a point of reference that it shouldnt.

[BGoulette]

119,000. Feels like I hit a plateau.

[yamatetsu]

305,500.

[yamatetsu]

1.  kixfan              331,600

2.  yamatetsu        305,500

3.  Diet_Pepsi       304,700

4.  jasonbar          239,900

5.  opt2not           195,900

6.  popsicle           194,900

7.  mnewt             169,200

8.  vorghagen       153,900

9.  BGoulette         119,000

10. RTyper56        116,800
 
11. wp34              108,100

12. Token               95,400



edit : updated the scoreboard since popsicle's 237k have been done on difficulty 3.

[opt2not]

Is it over?  I thought we were going till the 13th?

[yamatetsu]

Nah, this is far from over. Just a reminder how the scoreboard looks at the moment.

[kixfan]

So, LeapinLew

HYPOTHETICALLY what kind of score can a spinner produce on this game?    I watched the short video and while it does seem like an advantage, I have to say my strategy involves going in a fairly straight line for most of the time (at least on the first 4 screens).   I usually get in trouble when I make sudden direction changes.

[yamatetsu]

370,300.

[leapinlew]

So, LeapinLew

HYPOTHETICALLY what kind of score can a spinner produce on this game?    I watched the short video and while it does seem like an advantage, I have to say my strategy involves going in a fairly straight line for most of the time (at least on the first 4 screens).   I usually get in trouble when I make sudden direction changes.

It's like fast shoot Galaga. Total advantage, for me at least. You can outmaneuver everything. The game sucks with a joystick, lol.

In my opinion, a few games definitely needed a spinner but for whatever reasons didn't (cost most likely). Asteroids, Gyruss, Star Castle, and a few more games would have been great with a spinner. It adds a whole new dimension of complexity to the games. Unfortunately, these games were programmed with the fixed move rate that a joystick gives instead of the variable speed you would get from a spinner. I mean, imagine trying to play Arkanoid or any driving game with a joystick - it's do-able but you wouldn't do very well since it's a fixed rate of speed. So, using a spinner with a variable rate of speed makes games that were designed with a joystick much easier.

I get it, it's a hack. It's the only way Time Pilot and Gyruss are enjoyable to me though. I only enjoy Track and Field with a trackball, and that's not even a hack, but it does make the game much easier.

[Diet_Pepsi]

@yama - nicely done!

[leapinlew]

370,300.

Assuming everything is legit, what you're seeing here is some BIG time farming. 350k by stage 7? That's like 65k+ a level?

Your difficult settings there Yamatetsu on 4?

[yamatetsu]

Yep, everything's legit and the difficulty is on 4.

I'm assuming that you have not followed the competetion very closely from january up to now, otherwise you would have known that I'm very good at maximizing points.

Also, it's not like 65k per level, it's more like 200k+ in the first two levels and then declining. And it's not done by parachute hunting either.

[leapinlew]

Yep, everything's legit and the difficulty is on 4.

I'm assuming that you have not followed the competetion very closely from january up to now, otherwise you would have known that I'm very good at maximizing points.

Also, it's not like 65k per level, it's more like 200k+ in the first two levels and then declining. And it's not done by parachute hunting either.

Not parachute hunting? Is that frowned upon? Why not parachute hunting? That seems like a good way to score lots of points. When I played, (using a spinner of course), I parachute hunted until they started lobbing a lot of bombs, and then I bailed on the level to go to the next level. I'd get somewhere north of 60k on the first level. I suppose if I died, I could just stay on the levels as long as possible and take out formations and get parachutes until I got my quota of ships.

[yamatetsu]

There are purists who frown upon parachute hunting, or at farming in general. When I looked up the high scores at Twin Galaxies, I found a link that was discussing opening up a scoreboard just for parachute hunters. Just because you can do so much more points parachute hunting than by blasting everything that moves.

I don't use parachute hunting much because I suck at it. In the first two levels I usually get the cutes until I get 5000 points for them, then I collect 1 or 2 more tops and then I'm at the end of the level. I found that I die a lot more by trying to collect as many chutes as possible, especially in the first level (damn those bombs !).

I suppose if I died, I could just stay on the levels as long as possible and take out formations and get parachutes until I got my quota of ships.

That's the problem. To do some serious parachute hunting, you have got to stay in the level as long as possible, which means you should do no shooting at all, except for saving your life. That, however, is not easy to do.

[kixfan]

I guess my strategy is closer to parachute hunting.   Though I usually only get about 5-6 per round.   When a parachute shows up there is a formation of enemies that if you shoot them all you get 2k.   First 2 rounds I get 40-50k per round and drops off from there.   I tried farming but find that totally boring.   The most frustrating thing about this game is at one moment you have 4 guys and you are almost out of the level and next thing you know you never make it out of the round.   I'm taking my 331k and going to bed.  :-)   Congrats YAM!

[yamatetsu]

I tried farming but find that totally boring.

There's a guy on youtube who made approx. 2.6 million points, getting to level 55. He played for 1 hour, 41 minutes. THAT is boring 

Unofficial scoreboard.

[yamatetsu]

Diet_Pepsi, your turn to pick a game and make a new thread.

[mnewt]

Final Scores (not changed much since yamatetsu kindly updated them)

1.  yamatetsu       370,300  WINNER
2.  kixfan              331,600
3.  Diet_Pepsi       304,700
4.  jasonbar          239,900
5.  opt2not           195,900
6.  popsicle           194,900
7.  mnewt             169,200
8.  vorghagen       153,900
9.  BGoulette        119,000
10. RTyper56        116,800
11. wp34              108,100
12. Token               95,400

What's it to be Diet_Pepsi?

[wp34]

Great competition.  Congratulations yamatetsu.   

[harveybirdman]

Pick a good one, maybe another horizontal shooter...

Chuka Taisen
Hyper Duel
Raiga Strato Fighter
St. Dragon

Or hell get all grandpa's guitars and go with Scramble.

[Diet_Pepsi]

Wow I didn't know the rules were changed such that the third place finisher gets to pick...I'll give it some thought and send out a new thread by the end of today.

Clearly its been awhile since I've participated...

[yamatetsu]

Wow I didn't know the rules were changed such that the third place finisher gets to pick...

That was done so that it's not always the same guys who pick the games. Works like a charm 

[opt2not]

Wanted to take another shot at this, but I ended up getting busy last week and didn't get around to it.

Great comp though, and a good pick.