MAME ROW #51 - Time Pilot

caver01

@andershp Ha ha ha, well, you know what I am going to do tonight!

AndersHP

@caver01 Hehe.. Yeah let's get a little competition going. I'll probably have to start defending right away..

But there's also a MAME ROW to attend. So many games, so little time :)

caver01

@andershp Our scores would put us in the Top 30 high scores of all time on this game--according to Twin Galaxies official records. These are obtained on actual game hardware, refereed, but still, I'd say we are doing OK.

AndersHP

@caver01 Wow that's pretty cool! But what about dipswitch settings, are they according to Twin Galaxies, you think?

caver01

@andershp we should double-check, but it says they use the factory default. I would be surprised if that is not a match to the mame default.

caver01

@andershp I could not catch you tonight. Best I could do is 128600 which is still a handsome score. But I did get to see the saucers!

AndersHP

@caver01 Well my new post in the other topic might annoy you then - but I posted my strategy :)

caver01

@andershp Thanks. :-<

meleu

You guys are doing a nice job on Time Pilot!

By the way, my kid is still trying to prove his superiority over me. Here is his last hi-score: 127100 (he reached the flying saucers stage).

@caver01 said in MAME ROW #51 - Time Pilot:

@andershp BZZZZZZZ! Missed the deadline I think. Disqualified. Ha ha ha. Nicely done.

Oh! This post made me realize that we (me and @obsidianspider ) missed an important part of the MAME ROW "rules" text when we updated it:

Feel free to post your hi-score (or any content about the game) anytime you want on the previous rounds topics

UDb23

@meleu said in MAME ROW #51 - Time Pilot:

By the way, @UDb23 made an overlay for this game six months ago.

2 Overlays available, for Konami and Atari versions, in the Overlay Repo.

alt text

VictimRLSH

Time Pilot was a go-to game when I had few quarters left as I knew how to 'cheat' at the game. At my peak I could clear a million with the simple trick of NOT shooting the boss blimp in the first round and simply continuing to kill biplanes. It also worked on the 2nd round by not killing the boss bomber and just shooting zeroes. In both cases you would not get any more parachutes or bonus bombers, but you could farm formation bonuses.

Nowhere near where I used to be, today I'll just have to do with beating you guys. :P

Hints:

'Waggle' the stick and lay down a spread of fire in ONE general direction. Don't change direction unless you have to, this cuts down on running into both planes and enemy fire. Don't circle back to chase that last plane in the squadron, your chances of getting hit traveling in a different direction than your blanket of fire are much higher.

Attack bosses and bonus bombers from behind. These take a lot of fire to kill, and if you are heading directly towards them, stand a good chance of running into it.

In the helicopter round, you WILL have to change direction eventually to avoid homing missiles, but don't turn around directly into the path of the missile to try and shoot them. Do a complete 180 and fly right beside the missile and it will fly off the screen behind you, they corner very poorly.

In the jet fighter round, the jets are slightly faster than you, but have the same clumsy missiles the choppers do. Like their missiles, they corner poorly so you can fly right past them as you turn around as well and find targets ahead of you to lay your fire pattern into.

The UFOs appear to move more randomly and are a bit faster than you as well. Even though they corner sharper than the jets, they only turn at set intervals, so move away from ones that are close to you at right angles from them until they get far enough away to shoot without running into.

On all rounds, but particularly the first two, don't kill all the planes right away even if you are not 'cheating' like I do. Collect bonus points from parachutes, squadrons, and in the 2nd round bonus bombers. Only shoot the planes in your path of fire and squadrons (just remember not to chase the stragglers). This will allow you to collect the maximum point bonuses before killing the boss. The points stack up quick here, extra lives are more common here than many other games. The very highest scores I got came from stocking up on lives in the first two rounds by not shooting the bosses, then clearing the later rounds with the extra lives, and repeating once it looped back to the biplane round.

AndersHP

@VictimRLSH
Nice job there! Please also visit the Arcade Classics Time Pilot thread.

I'll have to try topping this hiscore - watch this space :-)