Defender tactics/Strategies?

[racketboy]

May sound obvious but don't forget you got bombs and a warp button. My score was hovering around 8k till I realized I had those now I can hit 15k+ often as not (MAME).

I don't forget about them necessarily, but usually, I'm so into zooming around and shooting, I don't get around to using them.
I suppose I should try to use them more instead of letting them go to waste

[marurun]

The first time I actually used a couple bombs in a game I improved my score dramatically.

Also remember, it's 500 points to grab a falling humanoid and another 500 to return him safely to the ground.

[Ack]

I don't really like the warp button. It has the nasty tendency of teleporting me into enemies, or just randomly killing me when I use it. Bombs, however, are excellent.

Also, I'd definitely avoid getting too close to enemies. Variable projectile speeds for the aliens have resulted in me dying a lot when trying to perform a quick U-turn too close to the enemy.

Finally, the game can be pretty cheap. The cheapest kill on me occurred on one of those landers pulling the "people" up to the sky. I shot the lander, then ran in and snagged the person, and promptly died. The lander had fired a projectile straight down, moving at the same speed as the person. Much swearing ensued.

Still, I'm liking it. Great sound effects.

[racketboy]

I don't really like the warp button. It has the nasty tendency of teleporting me into enemies, or just randomly killing me when I use it. Bombs, however, are excellent.

Also, I'd definitely avoid getting too close to enemies. Variable projectile speeds for the aliens have resulted in me dying a lot when trying to perform a quick U-turn too close to the enemy.

Finally, the game can be pretty cheap. The cheapest kill on me occurred on one of those landers pulling the "people" up to the sky. I shot the lander, then ran in and snagged the person, and promptly died. The lander had fired a projectile straight down, moving at the same speed as the person. Much swearing ensued.

Still, I'm liking it. Great sound effects.

I've had all of the exact same thoughts. Except I haven't had that cheap of a shot yet.
But never have a I cursed a game so much yet keep going back!

[Niode]

I love old skool difficulty curves. It's hard as nails but you very rarely blame the system. That's the key to keep you going back. If it seems unfair I don't have any interest in going back.

[Ivo]

Try to remap controls so you feel better with them (the ones I use are 50% sensible - the "reverse" button was a bad idea). I use Right to thrust, and Left to reverse. When I'm flying right I'm sort of ok, when flying left it takes some effort to use the opposite to thrust, and when you need to swap sides in rapid succession it requires a lot of focus. I don't use hyperspace at all as I'm stuck with playing with keys and it's not so useful. Smart bombs are a valuable resource, so you should map them where you won't accidentally trigger them, but somewhere accessible in a rush.

Try to get used to beating wave 1 with more than the minimum score, without losing lives. That involves 1 or 2 rescues - if you lose a human but perform one rescue you will get more than the 3250 of wave 1 with 100% humans, but no rescues (each living human gives 250, each rescue you manage well gets from 250 just for dropping, to 500 + 500 for picking and landing). After some practice you should DEFINITIVELY try to milk wave 1, which is basically the only place you are going to be (somewhat) comfortable and safe to an extent.

In wave 2, don't get frisky with scoring unless you are really good. Avoid any human captures that you can, and rescue those only if that won't waste too much time (otherwise more captures will take place, and you'll soon be overwhelmed - one mutant is bad but you should learn to handle it, as it WILL happen. However, 2 is disaster, 3 you're probably done, so you can't afford to prevent one mutant at the cost of 2 sprouting up!). Killings humans that are abducted (because you don't have time to pick them up to land safely) is sometimes the right choice, despite the opportunity to score an extra 1k!

Use the scanner (this goes also for wave 1), and get used to oscillate slightly up and down while firing, as you approach a lander - this helps one of your shots actually hit the alien as you will effectively increase the width of your (very narrow) beam.

In wave 2 and 3 (and 4, I get to 4 very rarely) the landers are fast enough that you should fly mostly low, fire mostly all the time (if you kill an abducted human, at least there won't be a mutant - don't get frisky with scoring, just survive from there on).

If you can, save at least 2 smart bombs to use on the motherships of level 3. Getting 10k gives more bombs, getting 15k (or near) gives more lives. As soon as you can get more lives and more bombs, there will naturally be a boost in the score you can reach.

Use your head, not just your fingers.

Ivo.

[racketboy]

Good tips, Ivo!
I'm gonna try to brave the game again.
I wish I could play it on a real machine though....

[Ivo]

After my last tries with the game, I think it's good if I expand my previous tips, wave by wave.

If you want to score big...

Practice a bit surviving one mutant. It's going to happen. There is a relatively good way to deal with one, which is to trust a bit with some height difference from where the mutant is (be below it, for example), let it follow, reverse while sliding, and cover the height difference (if you were below it, go up) while shooting frantically. Because the mutant oscillates in height, it is very likely you will hit it. If you don't, run away until you get some more distance and try again.

1st wave: You should not lose lives nor smart bombs. You can lose humans, but only if your score is larger than 3k. You should not pass this wave with anything less than 3250, you should be able to get 4k regularly, 5k once in a while. I got 7k once but I had to use a bomb as things got out of control - I rescued humans but wasted a bomb early. I only got 6k once without losing lives and bombs, and that was when I got my best score - those extra 2 or 3k will matter a LOT when you're in wave 3 (or 4) trying to score enough to get an extra bomb or life, and clearly 3k is a relevant difference in high scores.

After wave 1: If you can rescue any humans instead of killing them, so much the better, but as I said before in wave 2 onward the most important is preventing mutants, so don't be particularly careful in aiming to the lander; if you waste too much time, things will get out of control.
Don't lose all your lives while you still have smart bombs, but use them well.

2nd wave: You should not lose lives. Personally I think 1 smart bomb is perfectly justified, don't feel too bad using up two bombs. If you can pass without using them and not losing lives congrats, you are in very good shape! But if you are using a bomb, use it well. My priority for the bomb is to destroy the annoying thing that bursts into more (motherships, I believe... There is only one in wave 2), but you should either get also 2 or 3 of those pink squares, or destroy 3 or so landers together with it.

3rd wave: If you got here without losing lives and only used one smart bomb, you are in good shape. Even if you used two, you will have 1 more by now to scoring (or 2 more?). As soon as you pass near the motherships (there are 3 in this level) try to catch all of them with a single bomb. Often you will nail 2 of them entirely and the 3rd just releases the tiny buggers. Sometimes I could flee and handle the tiny guys, but often the best thing is just to flee to kill some landers before things get too out of hand with mutants, and when the buggers catch up you probably have more stuff in the screen to justify using another bomb. Don't hesitate in using all your bombs here, although if you happen to get to wave 4 without bombs you're not lasting much, try to get to 30k to get an extra bomb. If you have 2 mutants and 1 lander in the screen, for example, that is a good blast in my book. If you have 2 landers with humans near the top, that is very good use of the bomb, as you can probably get 2k out of the bomb with the rescues, and you avoided two mutants.

4th wave: Good luck I usually get here with some lives, but not many bombs (zero, one). If you can shoot enough stuff to get one extra bomb (you may have gotten to 30k just as the few survivers get accounted for at the end of wave 3) then use it on motherships, there should be so much chaos you will get someone else with the blast.

World goes BOOM: If they kill all the humans, which probably happens in wave 3 sometimes and as far as my skills allow, always in wave 4 always granted that you survive that long (I never got past wave 4 myself, although usually they kill me before they kill all humans), DON'T PANIC. It's actually surprisingly survivable (surprising as in, more than you thought, not as in very survivable). You can squeeze some extra points if you have 2 lives left or so (for my best score I got some heavy points after the world went boom). I recommend not changing directions often to start moving in the other direction - although you should definitively reverse to fire back at mutants chasing you (see a good way to dispose of them above). You should never stand still, and moving too slow is not good either (which is why changing direction is bad - you will need to stop to start going in the other direction).

[bobbynewmarkiii]

I don't know if this topic is still open as the 'club' seems to have moved on.. but - i found the passage below at http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... php?page=2 - may be of interest - I've not tried it out yet...

The Winner's Book of Video Games describes a tactic, similar to the hunting strategy in Asteroids, involving a place on Defender's planet's surface colloquially called the "International Date Line." While the scrolling planet wraps around horizontally, internally the game still marks player and enemy positions using X and Y coordinates, and simple greater-than comparisons are used to do direction checks to figure out how enemies should chase the player. The International Date Line corresponds to the zero on the X axis of the game's coordinate system. When the player crosses over that point, he may have moved only a pixel on the screen, but his position is suddenly clear across the map, and aggressive enemies will rush away from the player to attack by going around the world. The IDL is near the tallest mountain on the planet.

[marurun]

Anyone is more than welcome to keep playing older games and contributing in the forums. With any luck we will be winning a few games a couple new fans, and I'd hate for new fans to think they can't talk about their new love.