Warnng Forever: More Tips From the Workshop

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 8:00 pm

here's some more tips from me... useful, pehaps?

THE GAME

http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/#wingame

THE BRAKES - using the brakes is the key to advancing to the later levels. paradoxically when you first start to use them, every instinct in your mind will be screaming at you to stop immediately, but you must be brave to get better.

DEFENSE - the brakes are highly valuable in certain key situations. simplest is when the enemy fires a triple 'corona pulse' at you and you need to zig-zag very subtley to survive. another is when you are trapped in the middle of a maelstrom of different types of fire and must (like an asteroids expert) make a small side-stepping type of movement but not freak out and move too much.

OFFENSE - the brakes are also very useful when you are trying to concentrate your fire on an enemy segment and the enemy is moving around a bit. you want to maximize your firepower without any interruption so as he moves, you move with him, holding down the brakes to maintain a nice smooth connection.

SEGMENTS - every single game you get a boss that's built differently, so it's almost a science / art deciding how to take them out. one thing that's *extremely* useful is to take out a whole chain of segments by taking out the weakest link, i.e. like taking out the whole arm by attacking the armsocket-shoulder.

THE CORE - when almost all the segments are destroyed this is what's left. be very careful against relaxing too easily. sometimes the core is a pushover, sometimes it's a nasty @#$% that will take out your precious ships (20 sec penalty) and time if you're not wary. learn when you can attack it most efficiently by going point-blank, and when you need to back off.

FUNCTION KEYS - i think these are undocumented:

F1 - faster game
F2 - normal speed game
F3 - fastest game
F12 - restart game

Originally posted by _Zaphod_
if you need to very quickly recenter the searchlight double-tapping the button will reset it to fron center. This may save your life someday.

fantastic tip, btw!

n54 · Post by **n54** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 10:48 pm

nice tips & info

edit: here's a pic to show some of the action in this game so ppl can't get an impression of how it is (NOT!) lol

if anybody wonders i'm (or was) at where you see the pyrotechnical effects close to where the lasers cross in the lower left part of the picture

n54 · Post by **n54** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 4:52 pm

i have seen level 18!

(19.455.000 points and 8 deaths)

up to level 3 i fired from the top down (boss grows upwards) then up to 8 i played by firing from the left (causes the boss to grow in width) and onwards i played "normally"

i think i still have a lot to discover about this "pruning" method

anyway here's a screenshot from level 18

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 5:24 pm

holy crap!

holy, holy crap!

holy, holy, holy crap!

geez, and i'm STILL stuck on fifteen. so btw, what exactly does "normal" behavior mean? almost all levels i get sort of pinned down in the lower left and operate from there, firing diagonally from ESE to NNE until i get freed to move around some more. but in any case:

huge congrats, sir! :)

EDIT: what's funny i just noticed- that particular boss looks like a huge green louse (member of the crustacean family), and the english writing in the lower left gets turned by the thumbnail view back into japanese. :D

n54 · Post by **n54** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:01 pm

nicolas.b wrote:holy, holy, holy crap!

hehe you took the words right out of my mouth

they tend to get this crab/spider/insect-like apparance, i will describe a bit more details/insights

although there's some randomness in the boss evolution i think the following is more or less correct:
- there are 3 "zones" of "pruning" (by pruning i mean hacking away a limb right down to the core). remember all the bosses have 4 "attachment points" directly on the core (the innermost joints which sprout directly from the core). 2 of these are "up/rear" and 2 are "down/forward"

Code: Select all

picture the innermost joints and core like this:

1 2  ---- 1 is upper left joint and 2 is upper right joint - 1 & 2 is the rear zone
 C   ---- core
3 4  ---- 3 is lower left joint and 4 is lower right joint - 3 & 4 is the forward zone

1&3 or 2&4 are the side zones

- when pruning a zone the boss will evolve to strenghten that zone
- important: if the innermost joint of a limb isn't taken out it isn't pruned

- pruning 1 and then 4 and then 2 will count as the rear zone as 1&2 is completed first, this logic applies to all such combinations
- i don't know what happens if you prune 1 and then 4 and then do a "core-kill" as i'm not that good yet

- i don't know what effect pruning "branch-joins" (ie. spots where the limbs divide into sub-limbs) has, or if it has any effect
- moving around a lot, or perhaps rather making the boss rotate a lot to shoot at you increases the 'searching' capability of the boss more it seems
- not focusing solely on one or two zones helps you go a few levels further as for example the rear zone has little impact on the amount of forward fire
- the earliest levels are best for taking out the rear zone imo (might change that opinion later

)
- the words said when you change the use of the weapon are "forward" and "loose". try to always use the loose option even for direct forward fire as it is more concentrated when narrowest than the forward option is (i think this helps on killspeed - might be wrong)

about savefiles (the .rec-files)
- go to "options" and set "stage replay" to "yes", this will save every stage in your game (otherwise only the last boss gets saved)
- if you want to keep you .rec-files you need to rename them or move them to another folder (files in a subfolder will not be shown for replay unless you move them back)
- any .rec-file directly in the rec folder with the generic name stageXX.rec (where XX is a number) or last.rec will be overwritten when playing a new game and best.rec will be overwritten if you get a new highscore. files with other names are safe and will be available for "replay"
- .rec-files from the same version number of the game can be exchanged between players

the description i gave can thus be changed to:
- up to level 3 i pruned the rear zone (in later games i've pruned the rear zone up to level 8-ish by sideways fire and then downwards fire - it seems to get "beefy" then, using the largest limb type (so far))
- to level 8 i pruned the side zone
- afterwards i pruned the front zone more or less (not always, i guess sometimes the side zone as well)
- i could check this as i've saved the complete playback for the entire game - 18 stages of .rec-files (not feeling like doing such a "game autopsy" right now though

)

*phew* something tells me this game still has some secrets making level 25 more attainable, presently i'm dead stuck below lvl 18

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 9:21 am

welp, until i understand everything you wrote, node, here's this... an example of a level replay save file.

to use it, unzip and place in your REC folder. then from the main menu choose REPLAY and step thru replays until you see the one that says 'nicolas13'.

this one is a little unusual in that it was a good opportunity to use a very broad beam from underneath the boss. usually i wind up having to use a tight beam from the sides. also, i'm becoming very fond of finishing off the boss from point blank range.

hope you enjoy and remember to share.

(btw, i'm at lvl16 now... still a ways to go...)

n54 · Post by **n54** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 11:52 pm

hi - think i've seen that boss as well (or one very similar) i've zipped 4 levels i think are kind of interesting. one of them has an almost circular boss

have you gotten savefiles named bossXX? i have some and don't really know why - i'm wondering if the game perhaps makes special .rec-files if you meet one of the "pure" bosses ie. one of the bosses most other bosses are combinations of if you get my point (i think i posted a link to the "family tree" image somewhere elsewhere on the forum or maybe you did

)

n54 · Post by **n54** » Sat May 01, 2004 1:03 pm

ok i've seen the big 20, i'm now convinced boss 25 is possible with a lot of training and luck

up to about 8 i did the rear zone thingy then i used a tactic with a twist: trying to leave the stub at point 3 (see earlier post) then taking out the rear zone. after doing this a while i had to "throw in the towel" and go for the side zone (1 & 3)

end result: 22262900 points level 20 with 9 deaths (9 deaths = 180 seconds)

oh and i've confirmed that the .rec-files bossXX are automatically created by the game but not the specifics (but it's likely that they're the protobosses)

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Sat May 01, 2004 6:16 pm

holy crow, TWENTY?? and you left me behind at 16? geez, how rude!

wow, i'm going to look thru those rec files again and sift thru your explanations again to see if my little pea i call a brain can suss it this time.

n54 · Post by **n54** » Sun May 02, 2004 3:02 am

don't worry about it too much - there's plenty of time

me reaching 20 might be explained by not having a life so being slower is actually very good news

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Sun May 02, 2004 7:18 am

that's what i keep telling myself.

that's what i keep telling myself.

that's what... oh, bowb.

n54 · Post by **n54** » Mon May 03, 2004 1:30 am

tried http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/uncgi/acronym it snafued bowb so i googled bowb found http://www.panix.com/~sos/bc/bowb.html and now i have to grok this bowb stuff

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Mon May 03, 2004 3:58 am

you know, i finally watched "n54's glorious road to level twenty" video and i finally understand some things you were saying:

1) boss reinforces attacked areas, and when the reinforced area is a limb, the strength effect is often wasted since the arm joint is still as weak as ever.

2) could be my majination, but i think the tail seems to be weaker than the rest of the core, hence you always shoot for the tail.

3) i look forward to my results not amounting to a pile of bowb.

(btw, you would do damage even more efficiently if you invested in the mother-bowbing brakes once in a while!)

nicolas.b · Post by **nicolas.b** » Mon May 03, 2004 9:38 pm

holy crap. holy crap! check this out... WF just got updated with a bunch of new modes:

About the version 1.03

Appended new game mode. You can select game mode at OPTION screen.

GAME MODE
- NORMAL
Same as the old version.
- 3 SHIPS
Player has 3 ships, without timer rule.
- SUDDEN DEATH
Only 1 ship, survivor game.
- 5 MINUTES ATTACK
Score competition in 5 minutes.
- CUSTOM
It can customize freely by four lower items.

Appended pause button. Please choose a button at OPTION screen.

Fixed some bugs.

The game system and the point system are basically unchanged.
All data files are compatible with v1.01, v1.02.

and there's even a kind of flow-chart that i must have missed that shows the different style of bosses:

n54 · Post by **n54** » Mon May 03, 2004 11:43 pm

oooooooooooooooooooh! *slobber slobber* that's great!

sadly i have to get up early tomorrow, but afterwards...

and yes i haven't mastered the brake art yet - it's a bit too much luck so far but i like the speed (hmm maybe armagetron has something to do with this issue lol)