Time Pilot Leeching - Mike Dietrich - 2,053,400

Discussion about MARP's regulation play

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Zhorik
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Time Pilot Leeching - Mike Dietrich - 2,053,400

Post by Zhorik »

Mike's a very good Time Pilot player, but I don't think his new replay of 2,053,400 can be allowed.

http://replay.marpirc.net/inp/f/7/6/wmd ... olf106.zip

He's doing what I think is clearly excessive leeching at the end of the first level of some loops by intentionally not killing the mothership when it comes out for a very prolonged period of time to get more points. Stages which I think are clearly excessive are:

Stage 1 - Over 11 minutes, of which 10 minutes of it are after the mothership is out and he's just flying around shooting planes and avoiding killing the mothership.

Stage 6 - Almost 9 minutes, almost all of it after the mothership has come out

Stage 21 - Almost 10 minutes, almost all of it after the mothership has come out.

Renzo's recording was DQed for similar end of stage leeching per this thread: viewtopic.php?p=32950#32950

TG allows indefinite leeching on Time Pilot, but MARP does not. It is natural to point press stages on Time Pilot, but since it has no timer it can't be excessive without violating MARP rule 2(h):
Point or life leeching is strongly discouraged, and banned on some games, as described in the banned techniques list, or in the specific game's special rules. You cannot continuously gain points without some degree of risk and you must keep moving to complete a level.
A rule of thumb I try to use on Time Pilot is to avoid playing any stage longer than 10,000 frames (which is 2 minutes 47 seconds). This isn't a MARP rule, but in practice I find this gives some leeway to skillfully point press levels 1 and 2 of each loop, without IMO violating rule 2(h). If you're allowed to stay at the end of level 1 of loops indefinitely without advancing, I find the game an easy marathon (and in fact played to 13M+ this way back in the 80's).

Mike, welcome to MARP and thanks for the replay! I hope you submit an alternate replay that tones down the leeching to comply with MARP rules. You reached stage 32, so you're clearly very good at the game!

Regards,
George
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Chad
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Re: Time Pilot Leeching - Mike Dietrich - 2,053,400

Post by Chad »

I agree with this but I think we (or the regulation coordinator) has to come to a ruling on how much leeching is allowed. 10000 frames per level seems appropriate, if you stay on a stage for longer than that the final score taken. Presumably the mother ship can't be accidentally delayed to not be able to find it before then. or something like that, then we can accurately litigate recordings.
-skito
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Re: Time Pilot Leeching - Mike Dietrich - 2,053,400

Post by BeeJay »

Chad wrote:Presumably the mother ship can't be accidentally delayed to not be able to find it before then.
The mothership comes out once you've shot enough of the 'standard' enemies, you have an indicator on the lower part of the screen showing how far away you are from the mothership appearing. You can delay it by never shooting the 'standard' enemies, but it would be very hard to accidentally delay it.

On the '1910' stages, I personally try to mainly/only shoot the standard enemies when they come out in formation mode, where you get a bonus for shooting all of the formation quickly enough, and take as many 5k parachutists as possible until such time as the mothership appears after shooting enough formations.

On the '1940' stages I also like to try and maximise the number of 1,500 point planes as well as the formations and parachutists.

For the '1970' stages I'll shoot everything all the time, trying to get formations and parachutists as much as possible.

For the '1982' stages I spend a lot of time going upwards, waiting for the ships behind me to get into just the right place where I can avoid heat seeking missiles and loop under and get as many of the standard ships as possible. Definitely not a stage on which I can point scab, although sometimes you manage to loop around at just the right time to be heading straight up again when the parachutist appears.

For the '2001' stages, I'm too busy trying to just survive the stage with minimal ship losses to even think of trying to point scab, and there are no parachutists to point scab with anyway.

My personal take is that once the mothership starts coming out, you should be actively trying to destroy it at the earliest 'safe' opportunity. Sometimes you do need a couple of runs at it to get lined up without getting shot, but it should be quite clear you're actively attempting to target it versus deliberately avoiding it just to point scab!

Cheers,
BeeJay.
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