Auto-aim: Super-cheap?

[Bosh]

What's you're opinion on auto-aim ships? For me, they're perfect; with regular ships I could barely get past hardcore difficulty but with these I can do suicidal with relative ease, but they do seem fairly cheap since you don't have to aim, but that was also my biggest problem.
P.S. Ignore my short period of butturt earlier, it was like 1 in the morning and I was pissed at other stuff.

[Robodemon]

They have their downsides. For one, like many other games, the auto-aim is not perfectly precise. It will target a fast-moving enemy, or even just a missile, and attempt to shoot it for some time despite failing. Only auto-aim ships with a bit of spread negate this weakness.

Also, odd priorities. When the auto-aim is locked onto a random missile or a Stalker on the other side of the screen you're going to wish you had manual aim as you dodge the seven junk heaps circling around you. This totally never happened to me >_>

[Leaf [DG]]

I don't like the auto-aim ships. They work well enough on lower difficulties and boss rush mode or survival if I'm feeling lazy and want to give my aiming arm a break, however, I normally play on suicidal.

And on suicidal I have no patience for it's odd target priority. It goes after ships I do not consider immediate threats more often than critical threats. It always places the plasma that causes you to stop firing way too high. Normally that is easy enough just to fly around and avoid. It also places the asteroids dead last in priority, which is fine when they're normal asteroids, but if they're homing I'm screwed. Also, the mini snakes? It shoots at them even when I'm not positioned in the right spot to damage them. You don't wanna know how many times I lost a life or had to waste a bomb because a random scout ship got too close while the auto-aim was too busy trying to kill something not as important on the other side of the screen.

In order to get it to actually destroy the enemies that need to be killed the most I find myself flying right in the face of the most dangerous enemies just so the auto-aim will actually shoot them. It's terrible for suicidal difficulty on hard songs.

[iggy fisk]

It's not a competitive game so I wouldn't worry about "cheap". Separate leaderboards for each ship is a perfect solution, auto/manual aim is pretty much a different game.

[''Y'']

I normally play on Suicidal, and man are these ships boring. It's already a simple game; I don't need 50% of the game to play itself. I wouldn't be complaining, except a third of the fleet is autoaim. Ugh.

[Leaf [DG]]

Originally posted by Yishai:

I normally play on Suicidal, and man are these ships boring. It's already a simple and shallow game; I don't need 50% of the game to play itself. I wouldn't be complaining, except a third of the fleet is autoaim. Ugh.

Thankfully there's plenty of great workshop ships that aren't.

[Sturm]

They can be entertaining to use, simply for some variety.
Cheapness isn't really an issue, due to the separate leaderboards, and the auto-aim priority can sometimes require a little bit of strategy.

They may make it easier to survive higher difficulties, but you generally won't be able to get as good scores, due to not being able to get Dare Devil multipliers most of the time.
As a highscore ♥♥♥♥♥, I don't really care for that.

[Apfelwasser]

First i think the auto-aim ship is okay to play.
It's a little bit easier and first you get better scores.
But the problem about it is, that you "do not increase your skill".
So you better play with normal Ships.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Severstarr:

They may make it easier to survive higher difficulties, but you generally won't be able to get as good scores, due to not being able to get Dare Devil multipliers most of the time.
As a highscore ♥♥♥♥♥, I don't really care for that. :spazdunno:

I've never seen the appeal of daredevil multipliers. Why would you stop firing just so you can get a multiplier, something you can get by killing stuff?
Also, what kind of score should I be getting on suicidal? I usually get anywhere between 7 and 15 mil, but that's with bonus multiplier drops and increased score perks.

[''Y'']

Yeah, daredevil seems really useless (unless maybe you use the associated perk?).

As for what kind of scores you should be getting, I think that really depends on the song length and content.

So far my favorite song to grind points would be a lossless FLAC copy of "In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson, which is about 9 minutes and 30 seconds. On Suicidal, at 50% visual intensity, and three or four of the score perks, you can get at least 65 million points in one completed run.

[Leaf [DG]]

Originally posted by Souperzombie:

I've never seen the appeal of daredevil multipliers. Why would you stop firing just so you can get a multiplier, something you can get by killing stuff?
Also, what kind of score should I be getting on suicidal? I usually get anywhere between 7 and 15 mil, but that's with bonus multiplier drops and increased score perks.

Daredevil is only worth equipping if you're doing boss rush, or on low difficulty. On sucidial forget it. There's way too many ships on the screen at all times and you will never have a chance to use it.

I run with pretty much every score-related perk except Daredevil, and my scores on suicidal range from 1 million to 213 million. It really depends on the song.

[Quar]

As long as you're having fun, that should be the goal. Auto aim just gets me killed, cause it's not aiming at what it needs to be ahead of time.

I'm currently playing no beams no misiles on suicidal to make it fun. (syntax buit in track is great) Though, I also run at 1024x768 false widescreen no monitor scaling so I can track everything... mostly.

[Sturm]

All score-based perks + Dare Devil perks + all Reflect Shield perks. Think about it.

Here are some of my scores [rounded off] on the included songs, using those perks on 200% Suicidal (Standard Ship):

Ouverture                - 9:09 - 155 million
Who Will Be There        - 5:14 - 122 million
Tendril                  - 5:28 - 88 million
Smile Through the Stars  - 4:44 - 80 million
I Think it's Gonna Rain  - 4:15 - 72 million
Syntax                   - 3:36 - 64 million
The Lighthouse           - 3:34 - 61 million
Clarity Master           - 2:48 - 42 million
Ambrient                 - 2:01 - 31 million

Edit: Actually, I don't think I used those perks on Ouverture, so it's probably a lot lower than it could be. Had to go with other perks to survive, IIRC.

[Leaf [DG]]

Originally posted by Severstarr:

All score-based perks + Dare Devil perks + all Reflect Shield perks. Think about it. :sm:

And that's still a horrible setup IMO. In order to get all score-based perks and all reflect shield perks, along with daredevil, that means you're going in with fewer bombs and without full volume and power.

And the Daredevil perk gives what, +8 to daredevil? Every other score-based perk will give you a higher score than that unless you're playing on boss rush with downtime between waves, or on a lower difficulty where there aren't enough enemies to warrant constantly shooting.

[Sturm]

Goodie Bag gives you multipliers and VOL + POW at the start of the song, and by the time you actually start firing, you'll have them maxed out anyway.

To be specific:

Jamie Likes Big Boom
The Devil Pays Well + I Don't Die
Multiplier Rain + Score Booster + Spawn More Mulitpliers + Goodie Bag
Reflect Shield + Extra Reflect Shield + Stay Hidden

(I believe Starg himself has said this is the best set-up for high scores, and it's what he uses.)

1. When the song starts, avoid enemies for as long as possible, without firing at all.
2. When you are certain you can't dodge any longer, activate all 10+ Reflect Shields at once.
3. Do not fire the entire time the shield is active; you can fly into most enemies to damage / destroy them and collect items.
4. Set off a Super Bomb as the shield disappears, and start firing away.

You'll now have a massive multiplier from Dare Devil and Survivor bonuses, and a mostly clear screen (at the cost of having to finish what's left of the song without any offensive / defensive perks left, other than Super Bombs).

[Leaf [DG]]

Originally posted by Severstarr:

Goodie Bag gives you multipliers and VOL + POW at the start of the song, and by the time you actually start firing, you'll have them maxed out anyway.

But if you already have maxed VOL + POW, Goodie Bag gives you nothing but mulitpliers ;)

Originally posted by Severstarr:

To be specific:

Jamie Likes Big Boom
The Devil Pays Well + I Don't Die
Multiplier Rain + Score Booster + Spawn More Mulitpliers + Goodie Bag
Reflect Shield + Extra Reflect Shield + Stay Hidden

(I believe Starg himself has said this is the best set-up for high scores, and it's what he uses.)

1. When the song starts, avoid enemies for as long as possible, without firing at all.
2. When you are certain you can't dodge any longer, activate all 10+ Reflect Shields at once.
3. Do not fire the entire time the shield is active; you can fly into most enemies to damage / destroy them and collect items.
4. Set off a Super Bomb as the shield disappears, and start firing away.

You'll now have a massive multiplier from Dare Devil and Survivor bonuses, and a mostly clear screen (at the cost of having to finish what's left of the song without any offensive / defensive perks left, other than Super Bombs).

I decided to give that a try and compare it to my own setup, running through the same song with both perk loadouts.

Here's what I use, for comparison:
Jamie Likes Big Boom + Chart Topper + I Don't Die + Multiplier Rain + Score Booster + Spawn More Multipliers + Goodie Bag + Pump Up The VOL + POW POW POW + Reflect Shield

I will admit that the setup you gave me did actually make Daredevil useful, however, I actually got a *slightly* higher score by sticking to my usual perks. I'm not entirely sure which setup is truly better for high scores, but just throwing daredevil in there is worthless unless you dedicate a lot of reflect sheilds towards it.

Also, I don't see Chart Topper in Starg's setup, so that isn't every score perk.