Shock Troopers Mathematics 201

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 8:58 am

Welcome to Shock Troopers Mathematics 201.

For the uninitiated, Shock Troopers Mathematics 101 should be taken as a prerequisite before coming here.

....aw hell, I may as well repost the important data from before here too. Here were the maximum amount of points obtainable from each level when last I left off:

Stage 1 - 8001500
Stage 2 - 3952500
Stage 3 - 6557300
Stage 4 - 2144500
Stage 5 - 7203500
Stage 6 - 5601000
Stage 7 - 4704000

Add these all up, and you get a possible score of 38,164,300. That's assuming [near?]-perfect play on all stages, and hoping you get a lot of blue gems. The closest a score has come to this limit was 37,669,300... a mere 495k away.

I have just uploaded a score of 36,698,800 on the shocktro romset, let's look at the data for that:

Stage 1 - 08232000 (8232000)
Stage 2 - 11778500 (3546500)
Stage 3 - 18035300 (6256800)
Stage 4 - 20058800 (2023500)
Stage 5 - 27125300 (7066500)
Stage 6 - 32154800 (5029500)
Finish - 36698800 (4544000)

Obviously, the Stage 1 score is a new record! Breaking the old best for that stage by a whopping 230k... doesn't seem like much, but when you've been playing these stages for so long, just extending the limit at all on any stage is kinda rare. While Stages 4, 5, and 7 were solid enough (but not perfect, obviously), there were big point losses on 2, 3, and 6. Better performances there could have boosted this score by a million or more.

Now that Stage 1 has a new record, let's add the scores up again to see how many points one should have after each stage.

Stage 1 - 08232000 (8232000)
Stage 2 - 12184500 (3952500)
Stage 3 - 18741800 (6557300)
Stage 4 - 20886300 (2144500)
Stage 5 - 28089800 (7203500)
Stage 6 - 33690800 (5601000)
Finish - 38394800 (4704000)

That extra 230k on Stage 1 has made 38 million look like it could be a definite possibility with very few mistakes, but how often does that happen? We'll have to see.....

Post by **mahlemiut** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 4:36 pm

You really know how to make as much use of the available time, don't you?

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 10:08 pm

mahlemiut wrote:You really know how to make as much use of the available time, don't you?

my Stalling Theorem sez: "If there's 3 or more seconds left on the timer when the stage is over, then you haven't maxed out the stage".

(Stages 4 and 7 excluded because there are no opportunities to stall)

sikraiken · Post by **sikraiken** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 10:32 pm

Man, I suck.

Post by **mahlemiut** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 11:06 pm

JoeyL21988 wrote:Man, I suck.

Practice is all it takes. And a lot of watching BBH l33tness.

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 8:59 am

New score of 37,630,300. A mere 39k away from the 37,669,300 on the shocktrj romset! That's just crazy. It made me think "What if I hadn't gotten that red gem on Stage 2" "What if I'd gotten just two more blue gems" etc... but nothing can be done about that except prepare for the next game. I'd also like to mention that Stage 1 was pretty fucked up, the pattern I use for the opening part was really weird, I was about to push Esc and give it another try, but I decided to stick with it to see where the level was going. I was also really clumsy, dropping into the red on the lifebar... oops.

Stage 1 - 07875000 (7875000)
Stage 2 - 11659000 (3784000)
Stage 3 - 18504300 (6845300)
Stage 4 - 20396300 (1892000)
Stage 5 - 27709800 (7313500)
Stage 6 - 33084300 (5374500)
Finish - 37630300 (4546000)

What's this? Not one but TWO new stage records?? That's right, Stage 3 has increased from 6557300 to 6845300... a solid 288k! I'm going to have to study my performance on that level carefully to figure out how the hell I got so many more points. Less impressive but still great is that the Stage 5 record rose 110k, from 7203500 to 7313500. All in all, this game raised the limit nearly 400k... wow!

8232000 + 3952500 + 6845300 + 2144500 + 7313500 + 5601000 + 4704000 = 38,792,800.

An actual 38 million score looks even more likely now.

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 8:38 am

a new world record! 37,768,300. This score was achieved on difficulty Level-8, which affects the number of enemies that show up in Stage 1 only... if they increased for all stages, 40 million would surely be possible.

Stage 1 - 08277500 (8277500)
Stage 2 - 12113500 (3836000)
Stage 3 - 18987800 (6874300)
Stage 4 - 20995800 (2008000)
Stage 5 - 28119300 (7123500)
Stage 6 - 33443800 (5324500)
Finish - 37768300 (4324500)

Records on Stage 1 (naturally) and 3 were improved, but only by a little bit. Every little bit counts though...

8277500 + 3952500 + 6874300 + 2144500 + 7313500 + 5601000 + 4704000 = 38,867,300 (almost raised the limit to 39 million now!)

Tomorrow's lecture: the Pros and Cons of Level-8.

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 11:33 pm

Level-8 or the default Level-4 for going for new high scores? This is a tough decision.

Advantages of playing Level-8:
- It increases the amount of enemies on Stage 1. Strangely, Stage 1 is the only one affected, enemy amount stays constant through all other stages. I have no idea why.
- Bragging rights, sounds more impressive to finish a game on the hardest difficulty

Disadvantages of playing Level-8
- INCREASED DAMAGE. Especially on shocktrj, a regular attack that hits Milky or Marie Bee will do somewhere around 45-48% damage. (basically two hits brings you down to next to nothing) Because of the increased damage, one must be very careful in playing. You can't make too many mistakes, I'm kinda sloppy at times when I'm going for combo kills amidst big groups of enemies
- enemy bullet speed is faster, boss patterns are "tougher".
- would playing on Level-8 disqualify me from anything? Here on MARP it's accepted if you play on difficulties that are harder than default. But apparently the Gamest records are usually done with default settings, so it might be best to just stick with that.

So the question is, is it really worth it to play through on Level-8? The only scoring advantage to be had is in Stage 1. I'm not sure how many points could be had from Stage 1... I'm guessing a score of around 8.6 million could be done with near-perfect play. That's 400k more than I've managed on Level-4 (so far). Is this 400k worth jeopardizing my ability to actually finish the game while still getting maximum points on enemies as often as I can? I mean, I almost died on the last boss on my last recording. The shocktrj romset would suffer even more from increased damage, cuz once a team member dies (and they WILL die faster), they're gone for good.

cosumel · Post by **cosumel** » Sat Jun 22, 2002 2:46 pm

I'm almost ashamed to ask, but BBH, please fill me in. How do you change the level? Nobody ever told me.

BBH · Post by **BBH** » Sat Jun 22, 2002 5:12 pm

cosumel wrote:I'm almost ashamed to ask, but BBH, please fill me in. How do you change the level? Nobody ever told me.

Press F2 to enter Service mode, then go to "Setting Up the Soft Dip" and press A (button 1). Push Down to highlight whatever game is in Slot1, and push A again. There you can make difficulty adjustments and all that other stuff...

(this applies to all Neo-Geo games)