HSC Season 6 Week 20: Buck Rogers

[Ze_ro]

Important Note: This weeks competition is over and no further scores will be accepted.

 

It's the 25th century. You are Buck Rogers fighting the battle of Planet Zoom. This is a race against death. Your ultimate and most powerful enemy is the deadly MOTHER SHIP!

 

 

Game Information

• Game Name: Buck Rogers
• Released By: Sega, 1983
• Left Difficulty: N/A
• Right Difficulty: N/A
• Game Mode: Game 1
• Chosen By: Mister VCS

Post your scores right here in this thread, and I will add them to the list. Remember to play the game with the recommended game mode and difficulty settings as shown above so that your scores will be consistent with everyone elses. The deadline for posting scores is Wednesday January 21st at 1:00 AM (CST).

 

Current High Scores 1,000,000 (Kurt_Woloch) [+11] 1,000,000 (toymailman) [+11] 1,000,000 (darthkur) [+11] 842,516 (Mister VCS) [+10] 812,573 (IHATETHEBEARS) [+9] 766,172 (aftermac) [+8] 765,132 (Impaler_26) [+7] 712,038 (Deteacher) [+6] 564,693 (shadow460) [+5] 338,084 (DtY) [+4] 305,847 (Shannon) [+3] 277,797 (doctorclu) [+2] 216,900 (jjd) [+1] 72,897 (LarcenTyler) [+1] Best Tips Kurt_Woloch [+2] Challenges None yet TwinGalaxies Top 3 No scores for this game (Game 1, Difficulty B)

Current Standings toymailman [192] Deteacher [187] aftermac [137] darthkur [118] DarthCalvin [117] jjd [83] Kurt_Woloch [82] Impaler_26 [76] Hornpipe2 [55] SpiceWare [52] the 5th ghost [47] Mister VCS [44] LarcenTyler [34] Nathan Strum [30] shadow460 [27] Jess Ragan [26] Zoyx [22] Spector [20] Omegamatrix [19] ClassicGMR [18] iangamer [14] LoneWolfSeth [12] homerwannabee [11] midnight magicman [11] Random Terrain [10] maf [9] vdub_bobby [9] missioncontrol [8] SeaGtGruff [8] chuckwalla [7] LS_Dracon [7] LaserHawk3000 [7] phaxda [5] DtY [4] Shannon [4] vintagegamecrazy [4] rheffera [2] ratfink [2] Yar76 [1] Artlover [1]

 

Scoring Points in Buck Rogers

• Alien Saucer - 300 points
• Space Hopper - 300 points
• Electron Post - 500 points
• Mother Ship - 20,000 points
• Every 50,000 points you receive an additional fightership plus a full time line.

 

Hints and Tips

• Fly as fast as you can without crashing. You receive added points for added speed.
• Saucers are more easy to hit as they fly past from behind.
• Enemies appear in waves in your battle with the Mother Ship. Try to determine the rhythm of the waves.
• Don't be reckless - your fightership steers with super-sensitive response.
• Over-steering will cause you to collide with Electron Posts, Alien Saucers or Space Hoppers.

The Manual
As always, you really should read the manual. In case you don't have the manual, AtariAge has a typed copy available online. Here are the hints it provides:
Kurt_Woloch
Actually, the manual here is wrong on many counts: - The time line doesn't FLASH red, it only TURNS red when you have only 1/4 of your energy left. - The rounds of battle are divided differently than described in the manual: You have two goals to meet. The first goal is flying through a certain number of electron posts. While you do this, you first have no enemies to shoot, then saucers, and then hoppers get added. However, this all happens while you're still on your way to your target number. The second target is shooting a certain number of saucers in space. If only one saucer is left, the mothership will come out instead. - They talk about five skill levels in the game. I don't know what they mean by a skill level, though... there are (supposedly) 15 levels with *some* rounds each, but where are the skill levels? - The mother ship is worth 40,000 points, not 20,000 as described in the manual. - Every 50,000 points you do receive an extra ship, but NO full time line. You only receive a full time line after you defeated the mother ship, or if the level gets restarted because you ran out of time. Some of those errors may come from the writers of the manual not taking into account what's different in the 2600 version compared to other versions. In the C-64 version, for instance, there ARE multiple rounds on the ground where you have to meet a target in each round. However, in that version, hitting saucers and hoppers on the ground also counts towards your goal, which is not the case in the 2600 version. The arcade version seems to be another different thing, since it contains some stages not present in any home version. Just played it for a comparison... the arcade version contains 8 "sectors" (which are the "rounds" in the 2600 version) per round (which are "levels" in the 2600 version), some of them play in space, some play on the planet surface, and some play in a sort of tunnel. The timer bar gets refilled at the start of each sector, but when it counts down to zero, the sector simply ends, and you don't lose anything... if, however, you make your target before the time runs out, you get a bonus for the time you left over. I think Sega settled for a simpler round structure for their home versions, which got further simplified on the 2600 version. Sadly, there's a portion of luck involved in this game too. The collision detection doesn't seem to work too well... sometimes, especially in later rounds, you suddenly lose a ship although you didn't touch anything. Contrary to that, you sometimes get hit from behind by oncoming saucers or the mothership. However, sometimes the saucers fly right through you without harming you, but not always. I didn't manage to find out if there's a pattern to this. I noticed something about the space battles... if you keep your ship close to the middle, you won't get hit from behind by the saucers or the mothership, since they either come out on the left, flying a curve to the right, or vice-versa (they always fly in the same path, by the way... only sometimes from left to right, and sometimes from right to left, so the path is mirrored). At later rounds (from Level 7 or so on) it might be better to fly slower and not make the level every time than to fly faster and make a lot of errors, i.e. lose a lot of ships. If you fly slowly, you'll still be able to make about 30000 points or more for each level that gets repeated, so with a 60% chance, you'll win back the ship you lost by not making the level. You should also try to make as few mistakes as possible in earlier levels where you still have ample time to meet your goal in order to win a lot of extra ships which you can use in later level for a lot of level repetitions and, thus, added points. Another thing I found out is that when two enemies (saucers or hoppers) are beside each other (which happens from Level 9 on), it's not very safe to try to pass through between them. You should better try to eliminate one of the two in order to make enough room, or fly around the whole group. Here are some last tips... I now found out that what I said about the unsafety of flying in between a 2-enemy group only applies to certain groups where the two enemies are closer together than the posts normally are. Also I found out how you can make some nice extra points: - When you've passed the last post on the ground, the screen flashes for a few seconds before you enter space. During that time, you are invincible, but you still can fly through posts and hit additional saucers and hoppers. You should also accelerate to full speed while this is happening. - When you've shot the mothership, the game will take a few seconds to add up the 40,000 points you get for it. While that happens, you also should accelerate to full speed, since that will give you a few hundred points more as you still get additional points for flying fast while the bonus gets added up. Also I found out some more bugs... some work in favor of the player, and some don't. First, the counter which counts down the saucers you still have to hit sometimes counts a saucer twice (but you still only get the points for it once). Then you'll maybe notice that if a level gets repeated, you get a bit more time to make it than the first time around. This is because the time line already gets refilled the moment the mothership is hit, and the time it takes to add the 40,000 points is already deducted from the time line. However, if the level gets repeated, the time line starts out full right at the start of it.
toymailman
I see no benefit to ending a level as soon as possible. There doesn't seem to be any bonus awarded for the time still remaining. Therefore, before you destroy the mothership I would recommend just flying around at top speed until you are well into the "red zone". You will earn a few extra thousand per level doing this. I can routinely exceed 200k when entering level 4 (almost 210k once).

 

--Zero

[Lauren Tyler]

72,897

 

I never really saw Buck Rogers, but I'll always be partial to his parody, Duck Dodgers!

[Impaler_26]

First Try:

 

83,543

[aftermac]

72,897

 

I never really saw Buck Rogers, but I'll always be partial to his parody, Duck Dodgers!

 

LOL! At first glance that's exactly what I thought we were playing!

[Impaler_26]

What a quirky game! But i kinda like it...

 

518,378

[DtY]

148'734

Playing 3d Atari 2600 games is always fun, always amazes me how someone manages to do that with the severe limitations of the system

[edit] New score further down

Edited January 16, 2009 by DtY

[IHATETHEBEARS]

I may actually try my hand at it this week. Back in the day I was able to get 936,000 on this. I wonder what I could do today.

 

An underrated game if you ask me.

[toymailman]

Not a bad game, but I haven't figured out how to avoid the ships when they're comming up behind you yet. That is how I usually lose a life. The ships appear and crash into me before I can even try and dodge.

 

436,842

[IHATETHEBEARS]

733,103 - First time I played a full game of it in over 20 years. I'm not the best at taking pics of the TV. But you can see it ok.

 

[IHATETHEBEARS]

Slight improvement.

 

770,054

 

[toymailman]

Fantastic score! Also, it looks like you joined the forums exactly 2 years after me.

[jjd]

Not a bad game at all.

 

216900

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK, here's my best so far... 710203.

 

Actually, the manual here is wrong on many counts:

 

- The time line doesn't FLASH red, it only TURNS red when you have only 1/4 of your energy left.

- The rounds of battle are divided differently than described in the manual: You have two goals to meet. The first goal is flying through a certain number of electron posts. While you do this, you first have no enemies to shoot, then saucers, and then hoppers get added. However, this all happens while you're still on your way to your target number. The second target is shooting a certain number of saucers in space. If only one saucer is left, the mothership will come out instead.

- They talk about five skill levels in the game. I don't know what they mean by a skill level, though... there are (supposedly) 15 levels with *some* rounds each, but where are the skill levels?

- The mother ship is worth 40,000 points, not 20,000 as described in the manual.

- Every 50,000 points you do receive an extra ship, but NO full time line. You only receive a full time line after you defeated the mother ship, or if the level gets restarted because you ran out of time.

 

Some of those errors may come from the writers of the manual not taking into account what's different in the 2600 version compared to other versions. In the C-64 version, for instance, there ARE multiple rounds on the ground where you have to meet a target in each round. However, in that version, hitting saucers and hoppers on the ground also counts towards your goal, which is not the case in the 2600 version. The arcade version seems to be another different thing, since it contains some stages not present in any home version. Just played it for a comparison... the arcade version contains 8 "sectors" (which are the "rounds" in the 2600 version) per round (which are "levels" in the 2600 version), some of them play in space, some play on the planet surface, and some play in a sort of tunnel. The timer bar gets refilled at the start of each sector, but when it counts down to zero, the sector simply ends, and you don't lose anything... if, however, you make your target before the time runs out, you get a bonus for the time you left over. I think Sega settled for a simpler round structure for their home versions, which got further simplified on the 2600 version.

 

Sadly, there's a portion of luck involved in this game too. The collision detection doesn't seem to work too well... sometimes, especially in later rounds, you suddenly lose a ship although you didn't touch anything. Contrary to that, you sometimes get hit from behind by oncoming saucers or the mothership. However, sometimes the saucers fly right through you without harming you, but not always. I didn't manage to find out if there's a pattern to this.

 

The farthest I came was Round 10, which actually appears as "ROUND 8C" in the game. I don't know if this is an emulator-related bug (I use Stella again).

Edited January 15, 2009 by Kurt_Woloch

[DtY]

Improved my score,

338'084

Wave six

[aftermac]

337,917

 

Definitely gonna improve this, but here's what I've got for tonight.

 

[IHATETHEBEARS]

Fantastic score! Also, it looks like you joined the forums exactly 2 years after me.

 

Thanks. And you're right - two years to the day.

 

I played a third game tonight and got a little higher.

 

821,573

 

[shadow460]

419,259

[darthkur]

458,968

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK. Got a little higher today as well... 741548.

 

Meanwhile I noticed something about the space battles... if you keep your ship close to the middle, you won't get hit from behind by the saucers or the mothership, since they either come out on the left, flying a curve to the right, or vice-versa (they always fly in the same path, by the way... only sometimes from left to right, and sometimes from right to left, so the path is mirrored)

[Impaler_26]

765,132

[aftermac]

521,863

 

You guys are putting up some great scores!

 

[toymailman]

Made it to Level 12! Level 10 seems to be the only wierd level. What's with the 8C??

 

831,014

[Kurt_Woloch]

Another improvement... 811977.

 

At later rounds (from Level 7 or so on) it might be better to fly slower and not make the level every time than to fly faster and make a lot of errors, i.e. lose a lot of ships. If you fly slowly, you'll still be able to make about 30000 points or more for each level that gets repeated, so with a 60% chance, you'll win back the ship you lost by not making the level. You should also try to make as few mistakes as possible in earlier levels where you still have ample time to meet your goal in order to win a lot of extra ships which you can use in later level for a lot of level repetitions and, thus, added points.

Another thing I found out is that when two enemies (saucers or hoppers) are beside each other (which happens from Level 9 on), it's not very safe to try to pass through between them. You should better try to eliminate one of the two in order to make enough room, or fly around the whole group.

[toymailman]

I forgot to add that I whole-heartedly concur with the bad collision detection in the game. Its not as bad as Planet Patrol, but still seems "buggy" at times. Too bad, as I am really enjoying the game, but get frustrated when my ship blows up for no apparent reason.

 

Also, as a small tip, I see no benefit to ending a level as soon as possible. There doesn't seem to be any bonus awarded for the time still remaining. Therefore, before you destroy the mothership I would recommend just flying around at top speed until you are well into the "red zone". You will earn a few extra thousand per level doing this. I can routinely exceed 200k when entering level 4 (almost 210k once).

 

If I had the skills to hack/modify the game I would give it better collision detection and add a bonus for any remaining time IMO. This very slight tweek to the code and the game would get some serious playtime from me.

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK. this is my last entry for this week... because... I ROLLED IT!!!

 

Here are 2 screenshots... one taken shortly before the rolling, at 999475, with the game still in progress, the other one at the end of the game, at a score of 1021011, with the score displayed as 021011, but in YELLOW instead of white. Also, there are 2 vertical bars on the title screen which aren't there normally as far as I know.

 

 

I think I played this for over 6 hours today.

 

Here are some last tips... I now found out that what I said about the unsafety of flying in between a 2-enemy group only applies to certain groups where the two enemies are closer together than the posts normally are.

Also I found out how you can make some nice extra points:

 

- When you've passed the last post on the ground, the screen flashes for a few seconds before you enter space. During that time, you are invincible, but you still can fly through posts and hit additional saucers and hoppers. You should also accelerate to full speed while this is happening.

- When you've shot the mothership, the game will take a few seconds to add up the 40,000 points you get for it. While that happens, you also should accelerate to full speed, since that will give you a few hundred points more as you still get additional points for flying fast while the bonus gets added up.

 

Also I found out some more bugs... some work in favor of the player, and some don't. First, the counter which counts down the saucers you still have to hit sometimes counts a saucer twice (but you still only get the points for it once).

Then you'll maybe notice that if a level gets repeated, you get a bit more time to make it than the first time around. This is because the time line already gets refilled the moment the mothership is hit, and the time it takes to add the 40,000 points is already deducted from the time line. However, if the level gets repeated, the time line starts out full right at the start of it.