Vectrex Tournament: Vector War XII (29th Oct - 5th Nov 2022)

[fruktodlaren]

So, what was the trick to score in HeadsUp?

My strategy for Spike gets Squished was to always with no exceptions move in the opposite direction to how the maze was moving. That minimise the risk of accidental squishing when the maze suddenly change direction.

As someone else (forgot who) already pointed out, you can gain new nukes in Solar Quest by rescuing survived pilots instead of shooting them. A rescued pilot scores you 1000 instead of only 250 for shooting them.

My strategy in Starhawk was to only always shoot just the three highest scoring targets, the rocket, the trench runner and the wierd sounding ship that changes your aim if shot. It is not worth the time it takes to aim at and shoot the other targets. They score too little in comparison to the top three. Seeing as you get time extended every 10k, it really pays off to only shoot the top three scoring targets.

What was your strategies in your best scoring games?

[Chainsaw]

Nov 6, 2022 3:38:05 GMT -5 fruktodlaren said:

So, what was the trick to score in HeadsUp?

My strategy for Spike gets Squished was to always with no exceptions move in the opposite direction to how the maze was moving. That minimise the risk of accidental squishing when the maze suddenly change direction.

As someone else (forgot who) already pointed out, you can gain new nukes in Solar Quest by rescuing survived pilots instead of shooting them. A rescued pilot scores you 1000 instead of only 250 for shooting them.

My strategy in Starhawk was to only always shoot just the three highest scoring targets, the rocket, the trench runner and the wierd sounding ship that changes your aim if shot. It is not worth the time it takes to aim at and shoot the other targets. They score too little in comparison to the top three. Seeing as you get time extended every 10k, it really pays off to only shoot the top three scoring targets.

What was your strategies in your best scoring games?

I also tried this in Spike gets Squished, but I anyway was to slow in faster levels. Otherwise, I didn't found a lot of time to learn more tactics / gaining speed in Spike gets Squished.

In Solar Quest the rescued pilots / survivors also give you 1000 points each, more than shooting the enemy ships. So I always try picking up every single enemy in the first 2 or 3 phases, as long as the enemy ships don't trace you too fast. And in later phases I just shoot everything. Also some survivors just miss the sun in rare cases, and drift around in space. In later phases, I try to not collect or shoot these survivors, because every survivor on the screen is one enemy less on the screen. (After collecting or shooting a survivor, a new enemy ship spawns.)

Star Hawk: I have the same strategy, but as I mentioned before, later it is sometimes more difficult to hit the enemies. It seems it is also easier to hit them, as soon as they spawn on the screen and are small / more far away.

Armor Attack: In later levels, when the 3 enemy tanks get faster (and the sound als gets faster) I shot only two of them, and avoid the third one, and concentrate to shoot the helicopter that appears always again (without shooting the enemy tanks.)  And if the helicopter attacks me from the right side of the screen, I try to stay at the left wall of any building, that the helicopter has not much space to hit me with his rockets. He can hit me sometimes anyway, but the chances are small. Or if the helicopter attacks fast, it is also always good to move the own vehicle, if you stand around, the helicopter hits you easy.  Difficult to explain this with text. But it is not the same like in the original Armor Attack, where it seems to have a bug with a nearly safe place (?) I didn't know this at all.

Hyper Chase and Asteroid Belt: No tips / tactics from my side: But I learned to only play them, if you are not tired because they need very fast reactions and full concentration. A lot of fast Vectrex games need full concentration, but this week I was always tired and the mistakes that I made in Hyper Chase and Asteroid Belt were frustrating.
 

[nexus6]

Thanks to hcmffm and all the others who make the VW happen!
Even if I was only able to play for a short time due to the screen failure, it was great fun.

[mozie]

I too would love to know the secret to heads up! To achieve those incredible scores, I actually had a dream about Asteroid Belt last night that I got to 15000 and there was a secret message and the game crashed 🤣🤣 that was how much it was in my head

[VectorX]

As usual, "tip your bartender" i. e. Helmut by giving him Vec rep for all the work he's done for the Tournament, especially since the "Preparations" thread was never locked (always has been in all the years we've done this) and he went above and beyond this year with accepting a last minute prize or two, he worked with at least TWO developers to do a hacked version of Armor Attack and the mini-game of Asteroid Belt to be used for this and made the complicated rules for Heads Up, among other point or two I'm probably forgetting.

[toppsikrett]

I'd also like to thank all the homebrew programmers for their great games
and of course Helmut hcmffm for preparing and organizing the VW again.

Congratulations to the winners mozie Chainsaw and fruktodlaren you really deserved the wins with incredible scores.

I was happy to find at least twice a bit of free time to play for vector war,
so i am happy to have qualified - did'nt dare to hope to win it :-D

[50tbrd]

Happy to see so many people participate this year but even happier to see that everyone qualified.

[VectorX]

^Yeah, that was another amazing note!

[Vorkosigan]

Nov 6, 2022 3:38:05 GMT -5 fruktodlaren said:

So, what was the trick to score in HeadsUp?




Here comes the HeadsUp trick:
Right after each kick-off you have to pass the ball straight ahead of you. When your player leaves the right side of the screen (that's scrolling to the left) that player emerges again from the left side and gets it's own pass in front of your opponents goal. Now you have to get around the goalkeeper and run with the ball over the goal line to score. In Game 2 and 3 there's a different behaviour of the goalkeeper so it depends a bit on the angle of approaching the goalkeeper.

Just give it a try and see, if my explanation is sufficient.

Maybe Peer has got an additional advice as he beat me either by talent and/or by better nerves. 😅 Cause, if there's a moment of unawareness, your opponent will eventually get the ball after kick off or when you are not successful to get around the goalkeeper and then you have to hunt the opponent player down and that costs you the best score.

Anyway, I'm more than happy to have reached again the fourth rank in my second Vector War after my debut in last year. And to get that cool prize donated by Brett. 😃 So, apparently after getting the beer last year special prices shall be my main goal.😆

Congratulations to you, Tony, for making third place. I wasn't able to beat your Spike gets Squished or your VeCaves scores although I was so close behind with VeCaves... 😭 I spent a lot of time with that, it's such a great game and in my opinion unbelievable relaxing, if you are not competing for the highscore. 😂

[hcmffm]

I'm very happy to read that you had joy and fun and even "watering eyes" during the Vector War - and not just sweat. This is what this Vector War is mainly for. Thank you all for your feedback, accolade, and acknowledment towards game developers, other players, and me - this is much appreciated.

Already, there are quite some feedback and statements from many people. In this Vector War we had several new participants which is always a good thing. edmondsfarm, stonehaven, @machampion, and ronnicorn: What is your impression of this Vector War? Any surprises or special experiences on your side? Is there something that can be improved from your point of view?

How things continue...
Winners #1-#3 will be contacted by me and asked to choose a prize. Prize lottery is likely to happen next week-end. Please make sure to revisit the Vectorgaming forum, again - it would be a pitty if you had won a prize and didn't realize.

[VectorX]

^I can contact them if you don't hear anything from them after a while.

[fruktodlaren]

Since I will be sending out two of the prizes, I will not go into hibernation anytime soon.
Len and Moyu (and myself too for that matter) looks forward to the random prize drawing. It is one of the highlights of the aftermath of the war.

[Malban]

Thank you Helmut for the organization and the huge amount of time invested.

I didn't take the time it needed this year - hopefully next year there is another VW and I can take more time to do more gaming.

Nearly 30 people participated this year - that is not a bad number comparing with other years.

Regardless - the Vector War was (more than) mentioned on FB with a user number exceeding 5000 by now - it makes me wonder why the group has more than 100 participants.

Thanks again for everything!

Cheers

Malban

[Vorkosigan]

Nov 6, 2022 15:44:45 GMT -5 Vorkosigan said:

Anyway, I'm more than happy to have reached again the fourth rank in my second Vector War after my debut in last year. And to get that cool prize donated by Brett. 😃 So, apparently after getting the beer last year special prices shall be my main goal.😆


That part of my comment above wasn't meant to be showing off or something. In the prize list following the link of the Mini playable Vectrex there has been mentioned it as prize for the 4th rank. So maybe, I got that wrong. I don't want to appear brazenly, impertinent or something worse.

The main fun about Vector War is to get extra motivated by the competition itself to aim for the highest possible scores, I think.

[hcmffm]

Nov 6, 2022 16:22:57 GMT -5 VectorX said:

^I can contact them if you don't hear anything from them after a while.

Thank you for your offer, Darryl, but please don't contact them. Feedback must remain voluntary.

Nov 6, 2022 19:03:36 GMT -5 Malban said:

... Regardless - the Vector War was (more than) mentioned on FB with a user number exceeding 5000 by now - it makes me wonder why the group has more than 100 participants.

This makes me wonder, too. I appreciate the FB group because you can reach many people. But basically it's a comfortable, quick, and shallow talking while real dedication and activity other than "Sale", "Looking for", "See what I have" is from a bunch of people there, only. That's my impression and as written before I do appreciate the existence of the FB group. But this cosy Vectorgaming forum has its advantages, too.