[TAS] Time Pilot Arcade (3 of 5) 284500 in 5 minutes

Channel:

Prog61

Subscribers:

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Published on April 27, 2021 4:00:52 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiRCnNEK0VY

Game:

Time Pilot (1982)

Duration: 5:23

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12

Tool-assisted superplay (TAS) of Time Pilot Arcade (3 of 5) 284500 in 5 minutes

The goal is to find out what is the best way to get the best score in 5 minutes.
This is known as Caravan mode in 'Arcade Archives TIME PILOT' on PS4 and Switch
The stopwatch starts as soon as the player can shoot.

I tested 5 different strategies:
1- Stay on wave 1 while getting as many paratroopers as possible (5000 points), shooting formations but not shooting 56 planes so as not to see the boss
2- Stay on wave 1 shooting as many planes as possible. (optimized for combo)
3- Stay on wave 2 capturing as many paratroopers as possible (5000 points) and shooting mid size Bombers for 1500 points each
4- Shoot anything as fast as possible
5- Stay on wave 3 shooting as many helicopters as possible, taking advantage of the missiles to score many combos (optimized for combo)

Notes:
-All bosses give you 1200 points for killing him by shooting or hitting him. This is given when he explodes, then you get another 3000 points.

-Scoring combo:
-When you shoot something (planes, bomb, missiles, boss) you get 100 points.
-But if you shoot a second thing before 1/2 second elapses you will get 200 points
-And so on, the score increases with each hits as long as the new hit is within 1/2 second from the previous one: 300,400,500,600,700,800
-The maximum points is 800, the next hit (9th) (always within 1/2 second), points will reset to 100
-If you shoot 8 planes in 4 seconds, you will get 3600 points not 800
-When you shoot a mid size bomber on wave 2 (1500 points) it take 4 shots, if each shots are within 1/2 second of the previous one, you will get 100+200+300+400 = 1000 points + 1500 points
-All bosses take 8 shots to kill, so you get 3600 points for the 8 hits, plus 1200 points for killing a boss, plus 3000 points more for a total of 7800 possible points for each boss.

-In video 2 and 5 I do not shoot as fast as possible, I wait for some enemies to appear before shooting them quickly to maximize the scoring
-In video 4, I did not optimize it. The TAS should be able to score higher if it did not shoot as fast as possible. I should do another TAS to test that.
-I should try a TAS that stays on wave 4 and shoot as many planes as possible, I think they spawn faster than the helicopters, if so maybe I could get a higher score .

Conclusion:
-Getting only the paratroopers in wave 1 is much slower than expected. I did not predict that the score would be so low.
-Only shooting planes in wave 1 is not fast enough, the planes are too slow to spawn.
-Shooting helicopters in wave 3 seem like a good strategy. Their patterns are relatively easy to predict and learn, unlike the fighters in wave 4 and the saucers in wave 5.

For a good introduction to TASing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ietk1-Wb7oY
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun for more information or http://tasvideos.org for more video.

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