2017 - 2018 7800 HSC Season Game 4: SCRAMBLE

[Cousin Vinnie]

 

The best tip I can offer is to stay as close to the ground as possible during the 3rd stage and only pop up to fly over the hills when it looks like there's a break in the low flying meteors. There's no definite pattern to them so you'll still get hit sometimes when you go to fly over a hill even if it looks like you have an opening, but for the most part you'll live a lot longer if you stay low.

 

Speaking of staying low, the bottom 50% of your ship is invincible to terrain so keep that in mind when skimming the ground during the 3rd stage and navigating the maze in the 5th stage.

Sweet tip

[Trebor]

Normal: 150,810

 

 

Hard: 168,370

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Normal: 150,810

 

IMG_0387.JPG

 

Hard: 168,370

 

IMG_0388.JPG

 

Holy cow! Okay, I have to ask... How did you make it past the seemingly impossible to finish Round 6? At the end of Round 4 you don't have enough fuel to bomb the target before your ship runs out of fuel and crashes, so it's mandatory to have an extra life in reserve to even make it to Round 5; and another extra life to make it to each round after that since you always run out of fuel before reaching the target at the end of every round from 4 onward. I don't doubt that your scores are legit, I'm just curious how you did it since as far as I knew it shouldn't have been possible to achieve scores that high. You would have needed to survive until at least Round 7 to get your Hard difficulty score and there aren't enough extra lives in the game to do it.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Jin

[Trebor]

Holy cow! Okay, I have to ask... How did you make it past the seemingly impossible to finish Round 6? At the end of Round 4 you don't have enough fuel to bomb the target before your ship runs out of fuel and crashes, so it's mandatory to have an extra life in reserve to even make it to Round 5; and another extra life to make it to each round after that since you always run out of fuel before reaching the target at the end of every round from 4 onward. I don't doubt that your scores are legit, I'm just curious how you did it since as far as I knew it shouldn't have been possible to achieve scores that high. You would have needed to survive until at least Round 7 to get your Hard difficulty score and there aren't enough extra lives in the game to do it.

 

After quite a bit of practicing, under the Normal game, all my lives were lost end of Round just before being able to take out the base. Indeed, either Round 4 (or 5?) onward - under the Normal Game - there is not enough fuel and I would lose a life.

 

Now, here's the odd thing, under Hard, I had enough fuel - at least the majority of the time. Only once I recall losing a life just before the base. All other deaths, especially stupidly my last one, occurred elsewhere, such as just before the UFO caverns; that is where I would run out of fuel.

 

I was perplexed myself as I thought for certain my score results/experience, if anything, would have been reversed. Not sure if it is a feature in the game, and can't believe it is a change in my technique, as there is really not much you can do to vary it in that section of the game.

 

I don't believe it played any part, but I did get out of the routine of constantly hitting both buttons under the tall buildings section just prior to the base when I was playing Hard. Under Normal, I was still mashing away for both. When playing Hard, it was missiles only, as needed, for the fuel tanks that do appear and then I would stop firing.

 

Highly doubt that any impact on fuel tank depletion, but it is the only thing I can think of that was significantly different between the two settings in my performance. Honestly, that too was more of dumb luck/fatigue than anything else. I played both nearly back to back to keep 'in the zone', and was thinking of a way to give my fingers (somewhat of) a break.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Well, no matter how you did it, kudos to you Trebor! Those are some seriously ridiculous scores that I don't think I'll ever be able to beat no matter how long I practice.

 

I hope it didn't sound as if I was questioning the legitimacy of your scores, I was just trying to figure out how on Earth you pulled them off since I could never get to Round 6 on either difficulty setting in the dozens of hours I spent trying to master this game. After seeing your scores I did ask Bob DeCrescenzo if it was possible to complete Rounds 4 and onward without having to burn a life from running out of fuel in the 6th area at the end of each round to find out if I had just been doing something wrong all this time and he said "it should be possible but you most likely have to hit *every* fuel tank.", so it looks like you're just one heck of a good shot!

Edited October 29, 2017 by Jin

[Trebor]

...I hope it didn't sound as if I was questioning the legitimacy of your scores, I was just trying to figure out how on Earth you pulled them off since I could never get to Round 6 on either difficulty setting in the dozens of hours I spent trying to master this game...

 

It's more like you sound like me when I play my wife at NES Tetris.

No matter how much time I'd put into practicing the game, she would (will) beat me every time...LOL.