Tempest high scores

RetrOmatic

New member

Donor 2011
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
2,148
Reaction score
265
Location
Melbourne, victoria, Australia
I have a Tempest now, very happy!, i am slowly getting better at it and thought i'd post some of my first highscores up, talk tactics and stuff.

I'm starting from novice ONLY, free man every 20,000, is this normal pre set? i think so.

Yesterdays highscore was stage12 46,575
 
Last edited:
Check out this thread for some really good tips, as well as a gameplay video I made a while back:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=238630&referrerid=33168

Thanks so much for this! , you make it look easy. The interesting part is your firing technique, i mainly hold down, but know i will change to manual shoot more often. Also hiding in the corners DEFINATELY helps to no end, when it gets that busy, your dead meat going out in the middle.

Thanks Man.
 
Hi Paul

Nice work, and true dedication getting to AU mate from the US

Bloody customs!

Great to talk the other day :)

Enjoy your Tempest
 
Last edited:
Hi Paul

Nice work, and true dedication getting to AU mate from the US

Bloody customs!

Great to talk the other date :)

Enjoy your Tempest

Thanks Dez! , yes it's great to be playing old games again, Tempest is such a brilliant game, i really LOVE color XY games, they were the MASTERS of creating basic color, extremely hard game play. My Gravitar neckboard should be in very soon, then i can have these 2 cabs side by side! Hopefully i can save some $$ up to get a few more sent over, also hopefully in a container this time, going splits with some crew for the finance.
 
Thanks Dez! , yes it's great to be playing old games again, Tempest is such a brilliant game, i really LOVE color XY games, they were the MASTERS of creating basic color, extremely hard game play. My Gravitar neckboard should be in very soon, then i can have these 2 cabs side by side! Hopefully i can save some $$ up to get a few more sent over, also hopefully in a container this time, going splits with some crew for the finance.

Good idea mate :)
 
A few other thoughts. I have learned to move and shoot, creating a spray of one or two shots in many adjacent lanes so as to clear out enemies over a wide swath. It is VERY helpful when you get into higher color levels as it creates a buffer zone that is relatively enemy-free so that you can catch your breath and consider (quickly) your next moves and timing.

And ALWAYS, I hold my shot button down as I am pulled down a through a tube to the next level- just to be sure that an overlooked short spike waiting to skewer me is vanquished. I've just lost too many lives to something as stupid as that!

Tyler
 
A few other thoughts. I have learned to move and shoot, creating a spray of one or two shots in many adjacent lanes so as to clear out enemies over a wide swath. It is VERY helpful when you get into higher color levels as it creates a buffer zone that is relatively enemy-free so that you can catch your breath and consider (quickly) your next moves and timing.

I'd love to see this technique. I find that moving around too much on the later red/yellow levels is pretty risky, since you're likely to hit spikes with your shot but end up in a lane with a Pulsar.

One I find helpful on the blue/red levels is a quick spray at a tanker while moving from its lane to the lane on the right, then back to the lane to its left. The pulsars pop out on the adjacent lanes, and this kills all three enemies.
 
I'd love to see this technique. I find that moving around too much on the later red/yellow levels is pretty risky, since you're likely to hit spikes with your shot but end up in a lane with a Pulsar.

One I find helpful on the blue/red levels is a quick spray at a tanker while moving from its lane to the lane on the right, then back to the lane to its left. The pulsars pop out on the adjacent lanes, and this kills all three enemies.

Hi ieuer,
I do not have a vid showing it- I just hold the fire button down as I move my shooter across 6-8 lanes one way or another. Of course, in pulsar and fuseball situations, the timing of the spray move is critical! I have been able to clear 4-5 fuseballs and 2 or 3 tankers, flippers, and pulsars in one sweep. Try it- after a few experiences in blue levels, you're ready for the bigtime.

Incidentally, I find that continuous movement in yellow and above is crucial because fuseballs are tracking you and it is way too easy (for me) to get caught with flippers and pulsars approaching from both sides and trapping me with a fuseball just mocking me from below... waiting to make its move. I have made it into the mid-cyan levels with my techniques. Still cannot crack into the elusive invisible/black and green levels (though I have played in the a couple of times using "non-traditional" techniques). My top score is 675,349.

Tyler
 
Last edited:
I have a Tempest now, very happy!, i am slowly getting better at it and thought i'd post some of my first highscores up, talk tactics and stuff.

I'm starting from novice ONLY, free man every 20,000, is this normal pre set? i think so.

Yesterdays highscore was stage12 46,575


TG settings are Hard, Three Blasters, Free one every 20,000. WR is around 1.7 Million I believe.

First off congratulations on the Tempest. This game is nuts and I will never sell mine. I will eat out of a garbage can before I get rid of that thing. To me this game and Robotron are my favs because they are so exciting to play.

Basically here is some of my strategy.

Blue Levels - You can waste them for fun because it's easy but also practice killing flippers as they come around. You have to master this skill.I rarely just hold the button down because once you fire off a string of shots you don't get anymore until they hit something or go to the end. Tap tap tap. Keep it steady. I can tap out three or four and move here and there and stay alive pretty easily but I always got a steady stream.

Red Levels - Every board has a sweet spot. That spot is where flipper must turn the highest number of degrees. Basically where it takes it longer to flip. I stay right there and keep the lane clear by slowing down my firing. Just tap tap tap and when the flipper comes I tap fast and then go back to my steady tap. There are a few boards that have no advantageous angles. You just have to kill them as they come but find a place to hover. Save you Super Zapper as long as you can. Sometimes if too many flippers are coming I will use it then but generally I try to hold onto it.

Yellow Levels - So you got this far and you decide to park it like the red levels but that doesn't work because of the fuseballs. What I do here is I keep the lane open and listen to the hum of the pulsars. Between the sound of the pulsar and when the fuseballs drops down I dart out and kill the fuseballs. You have to either get back to that clear lane and or get to another and quickly mow down everything in it in case you clear the board. It is like the red except I have the best spot and a secondary spot.

You can hit 200k like this in a short time. Keep your spinner clean and oiled or greased or whatever but keep it in tip top shape.
 
Ahhh...Tempest tips. This subject comes up every so often...always happy to contribute.

Background for me: Tempest was MY game BITD. It was my mission to get the highest scores possible at every location I could find one. My eventual high score was about 1.8 million on factory settings. My average game these days takes me to the 1.2-1.3 million :) .

Here are some the basic tips I would give for some of the things that players have trouble with:

1. Pulsars: All pulsars "pulse" at the same time. You will only die when you cross a lane with the pulsar below it in full "pulse" mode. "Pulse" mode is identifiable when a given pulsar is in full "accordian" or "ziz-zag" style (as opposed to straight), and is also accompanied by a bass-like sound. So to get them, you just wait until they are all in non-"pulse" mode, and then swoop in with your shooter and kill as many as you can. Note that pulsars can kill you when they shoot you and/or land on you as well (less common).

2. Flippers: What to do when the flippers reach the circumference/edge of a figure: Just wait for the flipper to flip to the lane immediately adjacent to your shooter, and then fire (with as few bullets as possible). That's it. As you improve, you can find space on the enclosed figures when 2 flippers are approaching from opposite directions where they will reach your shooter simultaneously, and then fire and you'll get them both! On non-enclosed figures, pick a side and let the flippers come to you.

3. Other flipper strategies: For some figures, observe the angles at which the flippers reach you after they reach the figure's edge. Let's use the "Star" figure as an example. If a flipper is headed your way, choose a side of this figure to sit your shooter at whereby the flipper must flip more than 180 degrees before landing on your shooter versus a side where this angle would be less than 180 degrees. The more time you have before the flipper lands you, the more time you have to kill it. This also works wonderfully on the figure that is shaped like an infinity symbol (the last shape before entering the next color). I always do as much damage as I can from the left side of this figure as the flippers must travel almost a full 360 degrees before killing you so you have much more time to kill him first. You do have to master the reverse motion for this side however :D .

4. Do you know what your tanker will split into? Look in the circular center of any given tanker on the later levels. If you see a line in there, this tanker will split into 2 pulsars on adjacent lanes when hit. If you see a squiggly shape in there, it will split into 2 fuseballs that will likely travel up the adjacent lanes and kill you if you don't move fast. If the center of the tanker is otherwise empty, it will split into the usual 2 flippers. Learn to spot these clues as it will help immensely on the later levels, particular from the yellow levels onward.

5. Watch the motion of the flippers as they travel up a given figure. This motion is very "figure-dependent." What I mean is that on some figures (such as the circle), the flippers travel straight up the figure and do not deviate into other lanes. On the square, they proceed in a circular motion up the figure (changing lanes all of the way). On the 4th figure (kind of looks like a peanut), they travel outward and then inward as they make there way to the edge. These motions are very good to know by heart as it will help you to know how best to spread your firepower.

6. Save your superzapper! Always, always, always save your superzapper until a given figure is nearly completed! You can tell if you are almost done with a figure by observing the tiny red dots at the bottom of the tube...when most of these are gone, you're almost done. If you use your zapper too early, you risk being surrounded by bad guys towards the end of a given figure, particularly fuseballs that will kill you and you'll have no way to get them. You can lose several shooters very quickly in this way if you're not careful. Also don't forget that you have a second zapper per figure that will get one enemy only. This is VERY critical in later levels when there is just one fuseball left that will track you down very quickly while you're waiting for the rest of his "friends" to finish their journey up the tube so you can jet to the next level. The second zapper will almost always take out this last fuseball.

7. Killing fuseballs: Learn the timing motions of the fuseballs. They move up and down the tube continuously. In the later levels, they will usually move right to the edge when they first appear, sit there for a second or so, and then move back down. So you just first assume they will go right to the edge when they appear and move out of the way, and then swoop in to kill them when they move back down. It will take practice, but once you have this timing down, it will be easier to kill them en masse.

Really I should post a video of gameplay in action one of these days... :)

Hope some of the above makes sense...and I do hope that some of the younger generation will be able to master this game as we earlier generation players had so much fun doing BITD :D

Jon
 
Back
Top Bottom