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Galaxian (Namco, set 1).

Swarm.

I read in some places (Robert Mruczek lessons and Gary Whelan faq) that enemies are change to swarm when on screen left about 7-12 enemies. It's not true. Not true? No magical number? Magical number is, but it's no 7-12 range. Magical number is 3 and 0.

In game are 4 types of enemy:
- Yellow
- Red
- Violet
- Blue

Yellow and Red are special enemies, they create convoys. Every Yellow capture 3 Red.
Violet and Blue are normal enemies.

Important to know when enemies change to swarm is count Violet and Blue enemies. But when count Violent and Blue enemies and why magical numbers are 3 and 0?
During game some Violet and Blue enemies fly and others stay in place.
I call these modes as
- 'fly mode'
- 'stay mode'
No more than 4 (four) enemies can be in one time in 'fly mode' (exceptions are convoys, they can start when they want).
We must count Blue and Violent enemies which are in 'stay mode'!
In game are 2 situations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Situation 1 (magical number 3):
if in stay mode are Blue or Violet enemies then we must count all enemies on screen which are in stay mode INCLUDING Yellow and Red enemies. If total number of these enemies is 3 or less enemies change to swarm.
Example.
- In stay mode are 2 Blue and 3 Red and 1 Yellow = 6 total enemies -> no swarm
- In stay mode are 1 Blue and 1 Violet and 1 Red = 3 total enemies -> swarm

Situation 2 (magical number 0):
if in stay mode is o (null) Blue or Violet enemies then enemies change to swarm. Number Yellow and Red enemies which are in stay mode is unimportant here.
Example
-In stay mode are 0 (null) Blue and 0 Violet and 6 Red and 3 Yellow = 9 total enemies but Blue are 0 and Violet are 0 -> swarm
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Reference to numbers from different faqs -> 7-12 we can calculate:
maximum -> magical number 0 -> 4 enemies can be in fly mode, in stay mode: 0 Blue, 0 Violet, 6 Red and 4 Yellow = total 4+6+4 = 14 enemies.
minimum -> magical number 3 -> 4 enemies can be in fly mode, in stay mode 3 Blue or Violet, 0 Red and 0 Yellow = total 4+3 = 7.
Then number of enemies when swarm is create is 7-14.

Some examples best situtations:
When we leave 1 Yellow and 1 or 2 Red (these Red must be captured by Yellow) be aware and leave no less than 8 Blue or Violet enemies -> best if 8 -> no swarm then and we can easy destroy convoy and next 8 enemies which will not be fire.
When we leave 2 Yellow and 1 Red for every Yellow be aware and leave 6 enemies -> no swarm (4 enemies will be in fly mode and 1 convoy will fly then in stay mode will be 1 Yellow, 1 Red and 2 other) -> no swarm and we can easy destroy enemies after destroy convoy.
Otherwise here is more combinations.

Maybe tommorow I will add some screens.
Players, please don't shot convoys too fast. Leave them and shot before end of stage.

Please correct my English language

8 violet+blue is something I use myself, and pretty much the only thing above that doesn't have me confused . Maybe I'm just tired.

Well, I hated to play this game... I played around 1h30' and my high was 24k... of course, as I hated this thing, I didn't analisys to learn deeply PATTERNS to this game (and, of course, Golden Era games are mostly pattern games... this is the reason I don't like older games!).

However, reading Destructor math explanations, maybe I will target on this game in the future, just out of curiosity! Well, I don't know if Des is correct on your affirmations, however, congratulation man!

love the game
used to go to Lawson's convinent store here in the states.
played these games just a few blocks from the house.
1980-81 Galaxian
1982-83 Tron , Joust
..
1986 -87
1 Double Dragon , UFO Dangar
1988 NAMCO Assault
.
i actuallly scored 286,000 on Galaxian
Midway in 1980. had about half a dozen witness'(was 12 yrs. old)
including one of my brothers (Joe)
suck at it now.
flipped Defender back then too.
Mame DEfender & Sinistar are
WAY harder than any arcade settings i ever played
and from 1980- 1983 i was at many many racades in Columbus ,Cleveland Area.
One arcade chain owned by Bally/ MIdway Manufacturing
besides Alladins Castle or Palace or whatever
was called Electronics 101 on Ohio University campus
game room was huge , twice the normal game room.
population of the college back then was 50,000.

was galaxian machine inside a vons supermarket 1982 near the house , the coin trigger was loose so you could usually get a free game by hiting it just right, defender replaced asteroids in the hoagies corner store, those were the days. Both are not there anymore or are different entities. It's all going away.

sober 73 days
doing some home improvement
.
checking the up page today
i did a double take ..... like whaaaat um yeah six digits listed .
that is 362,000 not thirty six thousand.
i will look at it , when time permits
pacwhiz is great

I watched the entire replay in awe.

The shooting accuracy PacWhiz has is outstanding, and it seems he can at the same time

- shoot non-flying enemies
- shoot flying enemies calculating their swing
- dodge bullets

all while getting an incredible amount of 800 bonus points.

It's definitely time I configure my other laptop (the non-work one) and the X-Arcade in the other room to play with xwolfmame 104 under Fedora7 where I don't get the silly audio lag, and I don't have fingers fumbling on a Dell laptop keyboard.

Not that I think I'll ever get THAT good, but well, I hope I can do better than I recently did !