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 Post subject: GD: Rolling Gunner
PostPosted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:33 am 

Joined: 16 Apr 2018
Posts: 47
Really enjoying this on Switch but struggling to find much footage of higher level play to help me understand the scoring better.

Here's my strategy for stage one which is the highest score I can find at 57m or so:

After that, though, I can regularly survive to stage four but my scoring is pretty paltry. I've still not broken 100m despite over half of that coming on the first stage.

Any ideas or advice would be much appreciated, as well as any tips on where I could squeeze a few more million out of this first stage.


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 Post subject: Re: GD: Rolling Gunner
PostPosted: Wed May 01, 2019 3:02 pm 

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Joined: 03 Oct 2011
Posts: 4115
Location: Southern Ontario
Scoring usually follows a consistent flow:

1) Build up meter. Using rapid shot on small enemies generally gives bigger medals versus focus shot giving bigger medals on small enemies. There's a small bonus for getting in close; it's not massive but it helps especially on targets you can stick the gunpod into.

2) Wait for a lot of bullets to appear onscreen and activate hyper to cancel them. This gives you a good initial chunk of red meter in your second hyper, and helps tremendously to boost your medal value. If you have to activate hyper for safety it's not going to completely tank your score though, so don't be afraid to use it for survival where necessary.

3) Build up your second hyper by collecting medals. Same rules apply in 1st/2nd hyper as outside, use rapid shot on small enemies, and focus shot on big enemies. Enemies and boss phases that full-screen cancel should be killed when a lot of bullets are onscreen.

4) Activate second hyper when either a) the meter maxes out, or b) when the 1st hyper is about to run out. Try to activate hyper when a lot of bullets are onscreen and then the same rules as 3 apply. The medals collected during second hyper are more valuable than the first hyper.

5) When second hyper is running low, leave some enemies alive or one big cancel enemy alive, and try to kill them just as the hyper runs out. The goal is to generate as many big medals as possible and then collect them just as the hyper ends to get a rapid hyper recharge. This technique is similar to rapid recharge techniques ones in Deathsmiles as well as Dodonpachi Saidaioujou.

6) Repeat from 1).

Scoring is based on the medal value (the smaller number at the bottom left that goes up to 10000 as you collect medals) as well as the current Rank multiplier. Collecting medals at any time increases the medal value at the bottom left, which affects the value of subsequent medals collected. Collecting medals while in hyper or second hyper raises the Rank (every time the green number beside hits 10000 Rank goes up one level, up to a max of I think 40). Each Rank level has a score multiplier, so the key to scoring is to keep hypering as frequently and as long as possible, ideally getting rapid recharges and then maxing out the second hyper meter during first hyper whenever possible. Rank affects the overall difficulty of the game, gradually increasing the speed of the bullets (not sure about density).

In addition to Rank, much like Dodonpachi Daioujou, Crimzon Clover, etc, being in hyper also temporarily makes enemies more dangerous. Your first hyper makes it slightly more difficult, and then activating second hyper makes enemies even more dangerous than that, firing extremely fast compared to normal. However, second hyper is crucial to score as you can rapidly crank up the Rank by collecting medals during it, so there's an element of risk vs reward at play.

Bombing, autobombing (getting hit with at least 1 bomb in stock), and dying all lower the Rank value. Bombing is preferable as far as I can see; there's a small end-of-game bonus for lives stocked, but more importantly if you use a bomb on a large enemy such as a boss, the bomb lasts a long time and allows you to easily pointblank and fill your hyper meter up a portion of the way (usually about 300-400 on a boss?) which then lets you get back to hypering for score.

Another technique you can do is safe hypers, where you only hyper long enough to cancel attacks and purposefully activate the second hyper when the meter is as low as possible so you end the second hyper (and the much harder difficulty that comes with it) as quickly as possible without having to bomb out of it. This isn't ideal for scoring though as you want to try and push to keep hypers going as long as possible, but has potential use late game when you're trying to hoard bombs for survival purposes. Note that unlike Crimzon Clover's "Double Break" second hyper, you can bomb at any time during a second hyper to end it, so RollingGunner generally doesn't make it as risky to use the second hyper.

I'm currently just breaking 1 billion on my clears, hoping to push it to 1.3 or possibly 1.5 in Original. I know for sure there are areas I can improve upon. Here is a 1.37 billion Original run with the RA (Yellow) ship which should be a handy reference:

The blue ship, the fast one, is probably the best for score potential as you can control your kills more easily and its speed is helpful for survival to maneuver while using the focus shot. All ships have identical focus shots though (the only difference between focus shots is movement speed), so perhaps the yellow ship's wide shot may be more advantageous in quickly getting popcorn kills for rapid recharges, etc. I don't particularly like its low speed though.

I will have to record my current PB as I use a different hyper strategy on the midboss - I feel that shooting it before to gain a few medals outside of hyper is wasteful, as those are medals that are not contributing to Rank, which is what matters most scoring late game:
Spoiler: show
My strategy is to not shoot and sit in front of it, activate a hyper off the initial fan spray attack, then pointblank it as much as possible until it hits red health. Activate second hyper while bullets are still onscreen, and as the second fan attack comes out, kill it so that you get the kill just before second hyper exits. If you time it right you'll get a fresh hyper ready to go. Hyper again as the first helicopter pops in, and aggressively pointblank it and the next one as it comes on-screen. You'll enter the boss with about half meter remaining in first hyper, with second hyper charged just under 3/4. Pointblank the boss aggressively to milk medals during hyper, engage second hyper during one of its thicker attacks, and then time a second hyper kill to its second phase so that you get a quick recharge. If you don't have a full hyper, shoot the second phase enough to charge a fresh hyper. Wait for the screen to fill with bullets, engage hyper to cancel and start shooting until you have a second hyper charged. Keep shooting until it's low on health, wait for screen to fill to engage second hyper. Kill it with second hyper when there's a lot of bullets onscreen, making sure to kill it before second hyper runs out.

I don't think my current PB is on Twitch any more and I haven't uploaded anything to YT cause I know I can improve on it. I should just record my stage 1 PB, easier than reading everything above, but I'm pretty sure my stage 1 is an improvement over your method and the first video. My scoring issues are a result of me having trouble from stage 4 boss onwards and play more timidly, instead of being aggressive with hypers. If I can cash in on hypers more without having to quickly cancel them for safety I should be able to push my Rank and score significantly higher.
YouTube VideosTwitch
1CCsRestart Syndrome scores

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 Post subject: Re: GD: Rolling Gunner
PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:55 pm 

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Joined: 26 May 2008
Posts: 1664
Location: France
Great tips BKR.

The "refill" technique you mention is indeed useful, and lot of spots in the game allow to do that. Though sometimes it may be better to just collect the medals during the hyper to get the score boost. You will either get the score boost, or the counter refill, but never both.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.

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