Blimp Killing (and other difficult normal missions)

[Rub3z]

Hey guys, I have over half a days' worth of playtime in this game so far and I've been banging my head against the wall trying to score a single blimp kill so I can get further missions for all of the parts, as it seems I've damn near completed every single one (besides killing 3 subs with bomb body, as subs are rare and I don't have the patience to spawn them; and also killing a sub at max combo with hover).

Going over some of the other threads, it seems opinions are divided on whether to melee it, tank it with an armor body, or try to nuke it. Each of these approaches runs up against their own subset of issues:

-Melee body is fragile and it's a crapshoot whether or not you'd survive the approach to camp inside it 'til it dies, or survive long enough to make it spawn in the first place

-Armor body makes you too slow to dodge the hailstorm of projectiles that you'll be up against by the time the blimp spawns

-Nuking it is not a one-hit kill, as you have to do some damage to it in the first place in order for the nuke to wipe the rest of its health

So guys, I ask you... what did you use on your first successful blimp kill? If you are one of those enviable players who has bagged themselves multiple blimp kills, what do you find is the best strategy? What do you think is best to use in conjunction with the missiles or cannon to complete those respective blimp missions?

Personally, I've been trying for a melee kill, but there's something weird going on... it seems like no matter how high I stack my score, the blimp does not want to spawn while I'm using a melee body... even when I've gotten scores as high as 19-20k. I've been able to get the blimp to spawn more consistently with armor body runs, but each time I just get pwned by its hail of gunfire accompanied by several aces and/or carriers.

And on another, kinda hilarious note, my best run with a highscore of around 22-23k resulted from, of all things, using The Scientist, which was given to me on a twirl of the random parts. It consists of:

Cannon
Armor Body
Gungine

Imagine my surprise as I found myself racking up an over 20k score with this seemingly hilariously inept combination of parts, then being promptly blown to smithereens when a blimp spawns, as I'm struggling to putt-putt-putt my unweildy plane into the sky to escape a barrage from three carriers and like, four aces.

Not surprisingly, on subsequent runs with the Scientist, I've never been able to scrape 10k. And yet that score still stands, taunting me every time I'm sent back to the menu upon death. Tragic.

***UPDATE:***

YES! I've successfully killed my first blimp, and am now well on my way to completing the (dastardly hard) SFMT missions. I killed it using ganilganilder's strategy he showed in his video... Cannon, Nuke, and Superboost... and as soon as the blimp spawned, I flew straight towards it, fired off a shot from the cannon as I drew closer, then exploded in a hail of bullets. :D

So far my highscore in SFMT is a bit over 15k... which, when I checked, surprisingly puts me at #52 in the overall leaderboards, compared to my pathetic 22k on normal which only places me at #1600 or something. Still though, I feel like I got that score out of luck than pure skill... I just so happened to bag a kill on an ace submarine with the cannon while I had racked up a considerable multiplier, getting me 15000 pts for a SINGLE kill... how much is the base score for an ace sub? 1000? If so, then I must have had a x15 multiplier before I fired that hail mary shot directly down onto the sub, killing it about a fraction of a second before i was blown away by several aces.

On normal missions, I've still yet to complete the bomb body: kill 3 subs total mission and the hover engine: kill a sub at max multiplier. By comparison to SFMT mode, subs seem to spawn very rarely on normal... before I unlocked SFMT and saw subs about once every three games in that mode, I'm fairly sure I had less than ten total sub kills across a dozen hours of playtime, which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me... with such a low spawn rate on normal mode, it may take me at least another hour to bag my last sub kill with the bomb body, and many hours more playtime to kill one at max combo... is there any way at all to make subs spawn more frequently in normal mode? Because with the current spawn rate, killing 3 subs for a mission, much less getting one at max combo, will take a loooong time.

Thanks so much to ganilganilder for showing me how it's done, and the rest of you for your helpful advice. You guys are awesome!

[Sprout]

Oh man, scientists are the worst :^)

As for blimp kills, nuke + some buttering up before you die has always done the trick for me, some missions don't count it when nukes are used though so you kinda have to keep that in mind. (MAX combo for example, I think?) And for that I use the cannon and kite the blimp, shooting once, getting out of range and then coming back in, it's pretty effective.

"Smalls" is my current favourite and it consists of cannon, armor body and superboost engine. Superboost allows for great maneuverability if you let go of the gas to re-align and I find not having the armor means I die to sudden aces or if battleships start bunching up.

As for when blimps spawn I'm not sure, I'd argue it's on a combination of how many enemies are out there (I think boats are worth 2 planes and battleships are worth 5 etc) and that the blimp can't spawn unless there's "room" and I confess I haven't been paying attention if it's time or a certain amount of score that is the other prerequisite for a blimp to spawn.

All of this is complete speculation, of course.

Gungine is great for keeping a combo up but it was in my experience a bit too slow in combination with armor (evidently not considering how well it did for you) and at the moment I'm not good enough to roll without armor.

I wanted to end with a Top Gun quote but I couldn't think of any :( Tell us if you make any progress!

[Ulex]

I did this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlBQB05TmcM&list=UUNZBrFWLQXl3SWIGM7woiaw

[zaPP]

I made it with a Tuberauser: Armor Body + Superboost Engine with a beam weapon. Attacked it from the sides mostly.

A second blimp spawned immediately after the kill, I got close to killing that, too before the aces eventually got me..

Edit: I guess Hover instead of Superboot will work, too, although I don't have a confirmed kill yet. (Laser, Armor, Hover = "Billy 40" )

Edit #2: Killed it with a Warturtle: Cannon, Armor, Underwater Engine

[Nix]

The easiest way I killed a blimp was using the original weapon with the gravity engine (use the body you want).
Why was easy? Cuz you dont even have to see the blimp to kill it, the orginal weapon has a VERY long range, once you figure out where the blimp is you shoot in his direction from FAR away, it doesn't regenerate healt, hit it and meanwhile defend yourself. Easy and clean.
The most complicated way to kill a blimp for me (but also pretty safe) was totally melee, not firing a single shot.

weapon: not important, but cannon is the most viable thing, still I didn't fire a single shot.
body: melee body
engine: the fastest one.

What you do is to engage the blimp from his left or right part, you go all the way in the middle of his body, keep flying in that direction because the map is a circle, you will get right in the same spot and you will go through his body again, and again till it explodes.
Why don't you just go back and forward instead of flying in circle?
Because turning back you will most likely fly directly into a wall of bullets, specially if there are aces around, flying straight in one direction at that speed makes you virtually invincible.

[Starman]

If you have the laser attachment plus nuke, it takes about 3-5 continous seconds of consistent laser fire to get enough damage for the nuke to insta-kill it.

[glass]

Not sure exactly how making a blimp spawn works. But I think that killing multiple battleships increases the chance.

If you want to use nuke, the easiest way should be to use the cannon.

Laser and orginal gun is great for killing it without nuke. But if you just want to do the mission nuke is the way to go.

[Rub3z]

Well, thanks so much for all of your input guys, and great video ganilder! It looks like you just shot it a couple times and then nuked, should be useful. The consensus seems to be that I should nuke it or go armor with a laser or cannon... and most seem to agree the superboost engine is invaluable in conjunction with armor for speed and maneuverability.

That video is also interesting in that it proves you don't need to get any specific carrier or ace kills or whatever in order to get the blimp to spawn, as he just mostly stopped or slowed down to one-shot small boats with the cannon before moving on.

Nix, your suggestion for meleeing the crap out of it seems like the most viable way to get the blimp kill mission with the missiles, as some other people in the threads have complained about the difficulty involved with using missiles to take it down.

And on using the original gun, I've actually found one of my favorite builds to be "Jaws": Original + Melee + Underwater. It's incredibly maneuverable for carrier and ace kills, I find, because using the original weapon means you don't have to sacrifice maneuverability to line up shots that would otherwise result in you taking more hits, and you can micromanage your health regen (a must with the melee body) much easier. As many great runs as I've had with such a setup, though, I couldn't get the blimp to spawn. It just makes me think the criteria for spawning it changes depending on the body you use or something... I'm not sure.

I'll update when i get my first successful blimp kill! Thanks so much guys!

[Nix]

Originally posted by Rub3z:

I couldn't get the blimp to spawn. It just makes me think the criteria for spawning it changes depending on the body you use or something... I'm not sure.

I'll update when i get my first successful blimp kill! Thanks so much guys!

There is no particular criteria, the blimp spawns even if you just stay alive for a while.

[Mekhazzio]

The blimp spawns like everything else does: it has a rank requirement before it becomes a spawn option, after which it may or may not be part of a newly spawned wave.

So, step 1: build rank. Stay alive, kill stuff, especially big stuff. You need 600 base score for blimps to be a spawn candidate. If you've done all of it in one combo, that'll be around 10k total score.

Step 2: clean out old waves so new ones spawn. Finish off any jets / boats / battleships that are lingering around.

[Jinroh]

Originally posted by ganilganilder:

I did this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlBQB05TmcM&list=UUNZBrFWLQXl3SWIGM7woiaw

Man, you're so luck! Blimp only appear (I mean, everytime!) when there is 3 destroyers, 2 submarines and 3 aced... among with them, many fighters. To me, it's impossible to kill a Blimp. I gave up
=(

[Sprout]

Originally posted by Jinroh:

Man, you're so luck! Blimp only appear (I mean, everytime!) when there is 3 destroyers, 2 submarines and 3 aced... among with them, many fighters. To me, it's impossible to kill a Blimp. I gave up
=(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxGRhd_iWuE

NEVER GIVE UP!

[Ulex]

Originally posted by Jinroh:

Originally posted by ganilganilder:

I did this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlBQB05TmcM&list=UUNZBrFWLQXl3SWIGM7woiaw

Man, you're so luck! Blimp only appear (I mean, everytime!) when there is 3 destroyers, 2 submarines and 3 aced... among with them, many fighters. To me, it's impossible to kill a Blimp. I gave up
=(

Originally posted by Kintsukuroi:

Originally posted by Jinroh:

Man, you're so luck! Blimp only appear (I mean, everytime!) when there is 3 destroyers, 2 submarines and 3 aced... among with them, many fighters. To me, it's impossible to kill a Blimp. I gave up
=(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxGRhd_iWuE

NEVER GIVE UP!

You heard the man... NEVER GIVE UP!

[Jinroh]

hahaha After that, I won't give up! I'll kill this Blimp!

[Squirtleawesome]

It was pretty easy for me. I just used the Tubrauser combo and I was able to do it if I played safe.

[DSBMudkip]

I just used the cannon regular engine and bomb body (useless) and kept dodging, It took ages