And a Challenge
High Score List said:
11. - 202380 - Volcano - Newt and Edwards
...
14. - 193480 - Wasteland - Newt and Edwards
...
17. - 163720 - Forest - Newt and Edwards
...
19. - 154402 - Crazy Zone - Newt and Edwards
...
43. - 129520 - Ice Caves - Newt and Edwards
...
74. - 113800 - Factory - Newt and Edwards
As you can see, it is quite possible to get more than 100,000 points on every multiplayer level. Given this, I don't see why there are only four names that appear with any frequency on the high score list. I hereby declare a challenge to all of you reading this: Get one score, just one , on the high score list that is not on the Forest map before I get back from Spring Break next week (or, presuming that the current score-posting bug isn't fixed soon, post a screenshot of the score sheet in this thread- take the picture fast, as the game will disconnect you after about five seconds). If you're feeling ambitious, try to get a complete sweep of all six levels, although I warn you that Factory is nearly impossible.
To aid in this end, I am posting a guide with some suggestions for how to play multiplayer SketchFighter effectively. Some of it is very basic information, but there's a lot of useful stuff in it.
Edwards
Weapons:
Picking up a second pickup for whatever weapon you are using will give you the Super version of that weapon. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade to the Super version of a weapon as fast as possible, especially if you are using the Wave gun. Also, in cooperative play, never snag a pickup for a weapon if the other player has the standard version of that weapon- doing this will rob both of you of the tremendous power increase of the Super version, as there are almost always only two pickups for any given weapon in a level. In competitive, of course, you probably will want to prevent the other player from getting a Super weapon, especially if you're nearly dead and most likely won't need to deal with a low-powered weapon for very long.
In terms of which is best, you will almost always want one person to get the Super Wave as soon as possible. The other person can have whichever Super weapon they happen to pick up, although some are better for certain maps. For the standard weapons, Pellets are actually one of the best choices: They go where you want them to, they have an un-matched range, and they have a pretty good damage rate. The Beam gun is also good, but the damage rates for the Homing and Wave guns are quite low- I only recommend using them if you are going to upgrade them to the Super version.
Missiles:
You can fire missiles using the "option" key. Missiles are very useful for getting out of a tight space, like when you are cornered by two fighters. They can also be useful for blasting through particularly tough enemies, like giant bug, although I recommend trying to keep at least one missile on reserve in case you end up cornered by something.
Note that there is no limit to how many missiles you can have, and picking up one of the large missile pickups that appear in a couple of levels (which are used in the single-player game to increase your missile cap by five) will give whoever picks it up 100 missiles. Note also that it extremely bad manners to pick up the hundred-missile bonus and then never use any of the missiles it gives you.
Shields:
Shields are the second most important resource in multiplayer games, right after a good weapon. Getting high scores requires that speed be a much higher priority than safety, so you will get bumped around by walls, critters, and bullets. If you pass by a loose shield recharge, pick it up- it will boost your shields by increments of 50, up to a maximum of 300. However, do not spend much time "mining" rocks for powerups unless you are very low on shields- 50-100 shields are quite enough once you know how to dodge, and 150 shields are plenty to make a decent pilot effectively immortal.
In competitive mode, a very effective tactic for taking control of a game is simply to prevent your opponent from getting any shield recharges. The bumps they get from normal combat will eventually add up enough to kill them, and rob them of whatever weapon they had. Avoid doing this in co-op, however- it will annoy whoever you are playing with to be robbed of all the shields, and if they are using a powerful weapon (as they should be) losing it will have a major negative effect on your combined score.
Death:
Getting killed causes you to lose 1000 points and whatever your primary weapon was, and be out of the combat for about five seconds. However, when you are respawned, you have 100 health, so in some cases it is actually beneficial to kick the bucket in order to replenish your shields. In my experience, the 1000 point loss is just a minor penalty, and can usually be made up very quickly. Much more of a punishment is the loss of whatever weapon you had- you will never be able to recover that weapon, and losing a powerful weapon like Super Wave can effectively cripple a run through a level. The timeout period is also important to note in competitive play- if you work things just right, you can get your opponent to die just before reaching a cluster of stars, leaving you free to pick them up with no distractions. It may actually be beneficial to help your opponent stay alive, although not to the point of giving them shield boosts, and then let them die right before some stars.
Points:
The best sources of points are stars, which give 1000 points each. However, do not discount critters entirely- some of them give quite a few points, and there are far more critters than there are stars. I have been known to hold my own in a competitive game while deliberately letting my opponent pick up all the stars, simply by managing to kill the majority of the critters that we encounter. Basically, watch the little numbers that come floating up when you kill things, and you should find some useful information.
Maps:
The best way to improve at multiplayer play is to know the maps very well. If you can end up at a random place in a map, and know exactly where all the enemies and star clusters are relative to you, then you will be able to go exactly where you need to go to get a very high score. In competitive play this is even more important, because if you know where the stars are and the other player doesn't, you can gently direct the game in the direction of a good area, and then suddenly leap forward and grab any stars before your opponent can react. Do note that this sort of thing can be quite demoralizing to the other player, however- if you're good enough to do this, I recommend only doing it to registered players, or perhaps playing a game of "how little can I win by?".
The Tether:
This is both a very useful and very annoying feature of SketchFighter's multiplayer game. In co-op play, it should generally simply be ignored to the greatest extent possible- fly close together, don't move around if your partner is trying to make a tricky shot, and learn how to adjust for its slight pull even when you're close together. It is also possible to use the tether's pull to dodge out of the way of incoming bullets while maintaining your aim, although this takes practice. The tether shouldn't be a problem in co-op if you don't have any disagreements about which way to go, which should be the case if one of the players is assigned to be the leader for a map. In competitive play, it may be tempting to use the tether to drag your opponent into a dangerous situation, but I recommend not attempting this- it's a dirty tactic to manhandle your opponent into dying rather than just out-flying them, and it doesn't really work very well. The tether can also be used to prevent someone from going down a path you don't want to go down- this is also fairly dirty, but it generally can't be used to directly kill someone, so I won't tell you not to use it- just be careful, as an extended tug-of-war can waste a lot of time, and may need to be decided in the chat dialog.
Courtesy:
When you arrive in the tracker, ask if someone wants to play before inviting them. They will probably be willing to play, but they may be waiting for someone, or be in the middle of typing a message to someone else in the tracker.
Do not over-use the pause/chat feature while playing, especially if you never use it to say anything. It will annoy the other player to constantly need to stop playing and hit the "resume" button.
In the post-game chat, ask if the other player wants to play again before clicking the "play again" button. This is not so much to make sure that they're willing as to make sure that they haven't half-typed a long message that will get deleted when you hit "play again". Newt and I have been using a much more concise system, where we simply type the "SketchFighter" symbol (option-shift-1) when we are ready to play again, but simply asking "play again?" before hitting the button works quite well.
This post has been edited by Edwards : 18 April 2007 - 04:03 PM