% Period 4: July 2003 to Oct. 2003
% Creating my own strategies
% (diary entries by Bernard Doria)

[04 Oct 2003, 14:44 PDT]
The anger

I changed my standard of success, and it's making me more
frustrated. I thought the 5-successes-before-5-failures was
arbitrary, so I wanted to find some sort of mathematical
base for my standard. I chose this: keep playing until I am
90% confident I will clear a stage (or parts of a stage) at
least 50% of the time. What this means is this: if I were
to sit down and play a stage for a large number of times,
at least half the time, I would clear the stage (call this
the event); if I were to do this over and over, 90% of the
time the event will happen. My success level is low because
I only want to have a good foundation of the second round
stages and my confidence level is low so that I don't have
to play a million games just to be more confident.

But my reasoning for choosing these levels isn't the
important part. From these levels, I've created a new
standard of success: 4 successes before 2 failures. It's
more frustrating, because now I have a smaller margin of
error to succeed. But if it makes me more confident, then
I'll try to deal with it.

Another frustrating thing: my strategies are starting to
solidify, which means I'm running out of ideas,
particularly in 2-5 with those two large tanks that each
leave behind six gold bars. The large tank on one side, the
drones arriving one-by-one on the other. Here's how I deal
with them: fire a drill at the tank about when the drones
begin to appear, then run over to the drones and pick them
off. The problem is to fire the drill such that (1) when I
run over to the drone side, I maximize the distance between
myself and the leading drone (if it's too close, I may not
be able to see its return bullet and die) and (2) I must
release the drill as late as possible so that the tanks are
destroyed when I want them to be.

I have found no better way to compromise between these two
goals than to tighten my timing. It sucks because I don't
want to depend on my reactive skills to get through a
situation. But I found no better alternative.

Another general thing I just thought about: can I have a
flexible bomb distribution? My current bombing distribution
is rigid, because I believe this: bombs should only be used
to take out the toughest situations in the game. But the
way I define a tough situation is broad. Here is a boss and
it's firing a tough pattern at me. And here are some drones
that fire return bullets at me. Who caused the death: the
boss or the drones. And more often, it's the drones' fault.
But I bomb when I see a tough pattern from the boss,
without any regard to how the drones have affected the
pattern.

I've also realized that at any point, drones can either add
noise to the boss's pattern without making it significantly
more difficult or clog key holes in the pattern. One point
corresponds to either the former or the latter, rarely
both. This means that if I include these drones to define a
tough situation, then I can have more bombing points
without allocating any more precious bombs. The problem is
finding these points and memorizing all of them. That's a
pain.

So first, I want to lay down the foundations for clearing
the second round. Then I'll figure out how to manage my
bombs.

[03 Oct 2003, 12:10 PDT]
To 2-6!

Yesterday, I cleared 2-5 in Strikers 1945. And in each of
my three plays, I've cleared the first round with three
lives and six bombs in stock, so I know I'm being more
consistent (or just lucky or that I can use four bombs even
for emergency evasion or that 1-8 is easy--so many
factors). But there are still plenty of ways to improve my
performance.

One. First play, I nearly cleared 2-5, too. Clawed my way
up to 2-4 Russia in one life again. Died somewhere, rushed
to collect the power-ups--died again. I wasn't lucky this
time. I still don't know how to recover my death because
(1) I want to use my bombs as planned and not for
emergencies like recovering and (2) I expect to go through
the second round in one life so I have no clue what to do
when I die. How can I solve this? I can think of three.

Risky: run for the power-ups even though they are going up
and hope to return to a comfortable position. It's
dangerous because I have to weave up and down through
bullet streams. Sure, the bullets are slower, but there may
be unfamiliar bullet patters that I don't know how to dodge
and if they were familiar, I would be at an awkward
position to dodge them. Conservative: Bomb, grab the
power-ups, bomb. But then I would have no bombs and I would
be right back where I started from. Middle-of-the-road:
Continue to play as if nothing happened and wait for a good
opportunity to grab the power-ups. But that still means I
have to dodge unfamiliar patterns and it may take too long
to find the opportunity. Plus I have to gather enough
courage to take the opportunity. Plus I don't know whether
I'll have to use bombs. I can't choose a good alternative!
Maybe I should think of an experiment later.

The second problem. I'm always underpowered when I reach
2-5, and there is no one enemy that holds a power-up. Just
the missiles, but I have to destroy all of them to grab the
power-ups. I usually don't destroy them all even in 1-5 and
there are return bullets in 2-5 (although they can all just
be aimed). So what can I do? Use the drill on one side and
use my speed to catch the rest of the missiles. The first
time I planned on using the drill is way into the middle of
the stage, so I can use one at the beginning, no problem.
How about those drones after? If the drill lasts long
enough, it could destroy the drones on one side and then I
could destroy those on the other side. Let the drill do
double duty like in Strikers 1945 II.

Actually, I haven't been fully utilizing the drill. I could
use it to blow up the rocket's boosters in 1-6 (and 2-6) to
end the drone battle early. I haven't thought about what's
the threat here: the dormant rocket or those drones? My
search vulcan aims at the rocket and since I can't catch
all of the drones, I have to deal with all of their
bullets. And in 2-6, I don't want to deal with their return
bullets up close, when I can finally catch them. But is
this really true? I don't know. I'll play through 2-6 along
with the rest of the second round stages.

So anyway, for my best performance ever (my third play),
I've used up more bombs than I should in 2-1 Japan and 2-2
Russia. I've died to the boss's final form in 2-2 Russia
and I've died to the trains in 2-3 Germany because I've ran
out of bombs in both. How did I recover? Maybe it was luck
because after each of these two situations, there were no
threats for a while. So that allowed me to keep going.
(Perhaps all my bombing points have idle situations after,
where nothing's going on.) Maybe all of my deaths were like
that. Die where I was supposed to, recover easily. 

I still don't believe in my strategies for the second
round. Even though I have a plan, I can get nervous and
mess up. So I just keep playing and playing and playing
until I come up with a good plan. That's the most important
thing right now. Recovering from death, eh, I'll do that
later when I have the time.

[30 Sep 2003, 02:03 PDT]
Before and after

Once I finished last morning's diary entry, I went outside.
And all of a sudden, I felt re-energized. Hey, I can play
after all. Interesting what a little walk can do to me. As
much as I like to sit in front of the computer or in a
cubicle all day, it drains me of my energy. And a little
walk is just what I needed. To the arcade, then!

Round 1. One thing I noticed is, wow, the bullets are slow
all of a sudden. I've been playing in the second round for
so long that these first round bullets are so--boring. But
to keep things interesting, I still have to make tight
squeezes even early into the game. I don't have a perfect
plan down, yet.

I don't remember all of the plan I had days ago, but I
thought my honed dodging skilled will do. That came
crashing down in 1-6, when I let the boss go haywire.
Placed the drill too far to the right of the boss's nose or
whatever that long thing is (the drill wouldn't hit the
boss entirely). I played carelessly from then on. In 1-7,
the lower-right mid-boss showed up and killed me with its
two-way curtain. And for the scorpion boss's second form, I
released an extra drill that destroyed its left claw too
soon. Lights out. Game over.

Once I die in the first round, I don't give a crap about my
game anymore. And I do weird things.

Round 2. I was careless early on, so I used a few emergency
bombs early into the game. But I got my act together and
cleared the first round with all my bombs. Now for the true
test, the second round! First was the airplane stage. And I
met my goal: use three bombs in the appropriate places, and
that's it.

But I died in 2-2 Germany. It's the drones before the boss.
Two bullets converging to a point--let's try to squeeze
through them! Whoops, bad idea. Crashed. Three bombs gone.
But all wasn't lost. I recovered my power-ups and I was
back in business without using bombs. Very risky, but I was
glad it turned out okay.

2-4 Russia, then. Died twice here. Overused the bomb. Why?
Maybe I was catching up to those power-ups but I was at an
awkward position this time, maybe I trapped myself to a
corner, maybe I'm just plain stupid. I used more bombs here
than usual, but I managed to clear the stage.

I need a policy for recovering from death. Dodge stuff,
wait for the power-ups to return down, bomb, collect, and
hope for the best. Sometimes, I don't follow this because I
want to use the drill right away, before I bomb. But I'm
unsure how successful I am taking these risks.

So I'm in 2-5. Here I am dodging everything. Wow, I think I
can clear this. But then it hit me: I have no bombs! I
forgot to pack one for SAMSON! So this be my grave then.
Once I reached SAMSON, I couldn't make the cutback and I
died. So it was.

Round 3, blah, death-death-death-death, who cares.

Round 4, late afternoon. Same thing. Now I've started in
2-1 Germany. But this time, I used two extra bombs. One on
the train, with the turrets that appear late. I've
conditioned myself to do this: wait until one of the large
tanks fires a large bullet and then let loose the bomb. I
would expect one turret to remain; there were three firing
all sorts of bullets. I couldn't deal with it, so off goes
another bomb. Thing is, I did the same in Round 2. I never
learn. The other bomb, I used on the boss, because I still
don't understand the boss's patterns. But I'm still on my
first life and I took it all the way to 2-4...

2-4 Russia. Died twice here. I've been using too many of
them for emergencies. But I had one reserve life and maybe
a bomb going into 2-5.

So I'm in 2-5, dodging bullets again. But I always kill
that large tank on the left too early. Later on, there
would be little tanks on the left side firing an
un-crossable stream of bullets. And drones continue to
appear on the right. Kill off those tanks, and hope the
search vulcan reach those drones. Of course, the vulcan
refuses to reach them until they're at the bottom of the
screen. I can't see the return bullets from there! And sure
enough, I crashed into a bullet.

But I could've suppressed those little tanks! Just kill the
large tank late so that the little tanks won't show up. The
little tanks are the threat, not the large tank, not the
drones. It all goes back to how I destroy those front
barricades early into the stage. Destroy them quickly,
drill the large tank, run over to the right to kill the
drones. Why do I fear these enemies when it's the little
tanks I should fear. Next time, I'll remember.

But here I am. One bomb for SAMSON. Use it, drill the right
side, focus on the core. The problem is my Shot Level's at
2. Not 4. So the core will aim these fast bullets at me and
I would run all over the screen. And I shot those damned
blue drones. And they fired return bullets. And I died.
Dammit.

But the thing I took away from this experience yesterday
was that all that second round practice helped! I made it
two 2-5 twice, once with an extra life. I'm making progress
here, but I want to clear 2-5 right now. I still need to
tighten my attack plans. And I don't feel like creating any
more intermediate goals--they're turning into expectations.
I don't feel like expecting anything, not when I have other
stuff to do. I just want to see the 2-5 boss's ROBO form
again.

[29 Sep 2003, 10:25 PDT]
I've got the blues

I'm weary right now. I'm not in the mood to play Strikers
1945. Maybe I should take a nap. But it's been so long
since I've played in the arcade. Maybe I'll give it a go.

I've learned quite a bit last night. I have 2-Japan almost
down. I forgot my one troubling point: the third
battleship? the big one? those damned blue drones during
the boss battle? But there's only one. 2-5, I just need to
make sure I can see the bullets clearly and that's that.
The color pallete is so muddy, I can barely see a thing.

2-Germany. The boss. The aimed bullets from the turrets
always get me. But it reminds me of those large planes in
2-Japan. Both those planes and these turrets fire in
bursts. So zig-zag! Massage the stick from one diagonal
direction to its opposite. As long as I'm aware there will
always be aimed bullets, I should always outrun them ahead
of time. Now the second form. Without the blue drones,
there is a pattern to the boss. The large balls fire in a
predictable pattern but the small bullet spreads (usually
in a 1-2-2 formation) are aimed. How should I lead them?
Set 1, to the left; set 2, right; set 3, stay in the right;
set 4, dive into it; and set 5, go outside. If those damned
blue drones clog the way, let loose a bomb and pray that
they don't strike again. As for the second cycle, good
luck.

2-United States. I decided that I should use a bomb on the
turrets in the beginning of the stage, not when the Flying
Pancake Support Attackers (FPSAs) arrive. For the FPSAs, I
should move to the left, let the lower FPSA fire its
spiral, move to the right, spiral, left, spiral-spiral,
right. And the lower FPSA should be destroyed. Then move to
the left and pray that the damned blue drones don't catch
me again. The rest I know already.

2-Russia. I decided that I should save one bomb for the
stage trip, not for the boss's final form. I wanted to let
the bomb icon float until the boss's third form, but it
goes away by its first form. I don't know where to place
the bomb--just save it for emergency evasion, in case those
damned blue drones clutter up the screen. 

I don't know if I remember what I did in the first round.
I've been focusing my efforts on the second round recently.
Ah well, that's why the arcade's there: bring myself back
up to speed.

I expect to clear 1-8 with all my lives and 6 bombs intact.
The goal is to clear 2-1 with whatever upper limits I
imposed in each stage. Meanwhile, I still need to get a
good strategy going for the second round. But right now,
I'm sleepy. Maybe I should take a nap instead, play in the
late afternoon for a bit. I have so much crap to do today.

[27 Sep 2003, 18:36 PDT]
Imperfect practice makes perfect?

I have encountered two problems with my practice method:
how should I split up the stage once I identified the
problem part and how should I deal with those damn drones
that appear randomly during boss battles?

I said last time that I should split the stages into two
but I didn't know how to split it. Let's say the problem is
the Germany boss's first form. Here's how I split that
stage. Play from the beginning to the first form. And play
the second form alone. But what happens if I find the
boss's first form a problem again? How do I split that?

I guess it confirms that I have a big problem with the
boss's first form, and I should figure out how to deal with
the situation. Move away from the split-join methodology
and just focus on that area. Once I've formulated a good
strategy, return to the split-join methodology to test it.
The trouble is that I don't have a formal method for
analyzing and diagnosing the problem. I just think of a
solution, try it out, think of another solution, try it
out, and continue until I found a good solution. Perhaps
this is the quickest way to find it but I wonder if it's
the best.

Also, what happens if one problem part interacts with
another problem part? Right before the boss's first form, I
also had trouble dealing with the green downward drones.
Maybe I would shoot them and wander my way into one of
their return bullets. But what I've stumbled upon is this:
my position (left side or right side) after the drone zone
affects how well I do in the boss's first form. Once I
recognized this dependency, I should join the two and never
split them.

Another thing. Once I split a stage into two, which part
should I work on first? The hardest part, I suppose. That
way, I can keep splitting that section until the component
parts are easy and then join them up. But what if the two
hardest parts aren't adjacent to each other? Just keep
playing until you can find two adjacent ones.

There's so many things wrong with this split-join
methodology, but that's because I've just thought of it.
It's just not the quick fix I wanted it to be.

Now about those blue drones during boss battles. In
Germany, I wanted to split the boss's second form into two
parts, because I would die to certain patterns. Or do I?
Who caused the death: the boss or the drones? The problem
is that the drones arrive randomly. Sometimes, the drones
would arrive and fire bullets at nowhere; sometimes, they
would arrive and fire at a particular safe spot. But those
drones are a source of variability.

Of course, I should use a bomb to kill them off. But let's
say I can use only one bomb on the German boss's second
form. Sometimes, I could be unlucky and have those damn
drones clog up safe paths twice. How can I learn anything
from practice the boss fights if the scene isn't the same
each time? I don't know. Leave it up to fate.

So today, I'll try to fix up this methodology. I'll also
play each stage for 15 minutes. I would rather have a basic
understanding of each second round stage than a deep
understanding of a few. I don't have the time for
everything.

[26 Sep 2003, 22:16 PDT]
Proposition for practicing in the second round

Ever since Wednesday morning, I had no chance to play
Strikers 1945. I was so busy working with my work groups
for two classes (IEOR 153 and IEOR 171). Okay, and eating
lunch and falling asleep in the library. Well, that takes
up all my time. No time to play. But I didn't have much
practice for the second round anyway. Let's get tons of
experience for it now. Randorama's been playing for several
hours at a time. I'll try to do the same tonight.

Tonight, I'll make sure the bomb distribution I have works.
Here's what I'm going to do. For each stage, I will play
from the beginning. If I clear the stage without dying or
using a bomb for emergency evasion, call it a success;
otherwise, call it a failure. If I have 5 successes before
5 failures, consider my plan good enough and move on to a
different stage. Otherwise, split the stage where I have
died the most. If I can't decide on this place, keep
playing until I do. Repeat the above: if I fail in one
part, split again; if I succeed in both parts, mend the
two. Repeat.

This is probably more efficient than my Gunbird 2 practice
strategy, where I would split each stage into six or seven
parts and then mend two together until I can complete the
stage. And successes were decided on some weird system.
Perhaps I am being too lenient on what an overall success
is (5 successes before 5 failures), but I need to visit
other stages with the time that I have.

Stage order? Easiest to toughest. Japan, 2-5, Germany,
United States, and then Russia. I am focusing on each
stage, essentially. But how about the interaction among
these stages? My mood could be different when I leave one
stage and enter another. But I don't think these
interactions are strong, so splitting up the second round
into its component stages is good enough.

Otherwise, what can be done? Stick a save state after 1-8
and say, randomize the next four stages, please? Hah. Maybe
if I play through the entire game at least 24 times to get
the 24 possible stage orders in the second round. And then
whip out some random number generator to pick the stage
order. But that's inefficient.

I feel weary already. I should start now and tough it out.

[24 Sep 2003, 09:47 PDT]
One life (again)

After playing nine games of Strikers 1945 and dying a
handful of times in the second round and thinking about
those deaths, I'm aiming to clear 2-5 in one life. My goal
is to clear it even with deaths, but I would have to be
lucky to recover from death. Without lots of luck, there's
no way I can recover full power between deaths. After
dying, the worst that can happen is this: I bomb, grab the
power ups, maybe release a drill, bomb again, and get back
in position. And I would run out of bombs before the next
bombing point. Repeat three times and walk away unhappy.
It's Gunbird 2 all over again.

I had 15 bombing points. I should only have 11. To simplify
the problem, I checked with stgclub.com's site for the
bombing points I should keep. The rest is screwing around
with the game to see if there's a different way to approach
a situation. I remember two points that I killed off.

In Japan, the boss's final form is easy. The only problems
are those freakin' drones. They scare me into unleashing
drill after drill. And the boss gets mad before the drill
leaves the screen, so I can't finish it off quick enough.
Instead, why not do what I always did in the first round.
Drill it once, hurt it until it turns red, and drill
again--not just drill, drill, drill until it dies. The only
thing that's different is that I have to wait longer to
drill again, since I'm not shooting all the time to make
the boss red. Once I recognized this difference, the boss
is easy. I just have to be patient.

And in the U.S., I realized that the return bullets from
those planes at the beginning were aimed. All single, aimed
bullets. These planes are different than those blue drones
that fire all sorts of return bullets. All I have to do is
guide them slowly and use the entire screen. None of this
random zipping all over the screen. The only problem are
those turrets: they aim improperly and they force me to cut
back from the lower-right section of the screen.

It took me longer than expected to figure out which bombing
points I should remove, but I found them. So here's the new
bombing distribution: Japan, 1; Germany, 2; United States,
3; Russia, 4; and 2-5, 1 for good old SAMSON.

Maybe I should have smaller goals. Clear 2-1 without dying
and using at most one to four bombs, depending on the
stage. Even if the stage that's chosen is random, I think
setting an upper limit for the bombs I can use normalizes
the difficulty among stages. So there.

[22 Sep 2003, 10:13 PDT]
Tune up

Yesterday, I corrected some of the faults in my Strikers
1945 attack plan, but just for stages 1-6, 1-7, and 1-8.
There are two notable things I've changed in my strategy in
1-8.

Red guy. Okay, start the drill late, probably after the guy
fires off the third spread. And the drill should be at the
bottom of the screen and to the left as usual. So why late
and not early? And why low and not high? Because I can go
under the boss and help the drill pop those orbs quickly,
before they mess things up. Plus, when the guy idles a bit,
I can finish it off before it resumes firing its orbs. But
the drill must stay on screen long enough to destroy all
those orbs. So there.

And now, my most hated attack, the 44333333-whatever spread
attack. All this time, I've been outrunning it without
knowing what the result would be. My motions are too
varied. I'll start somewhere around the lower-left section
of the screen and I'll begin dodging whenever I feel the
boss is going to attack and I'll probably move up or down
to stay away from the border of the attack. Whatever. Too
much variability.

There was another way that worked before, that I was too
afraid to use as a part of my attack plan. Stand still in
the lower-left section, let the 44 part of the attack pass
through me, and tap to the left to dodge the
333333-whatever part. And there's plenty of time to tap.

Why does it work? I'm at the lower left, the boss is at the
center. Lots of distance between it and me. That's enough
room for the boss to fire the entire stream of spread
waves--they would be all aimed at one spot. I can dodge all
of the 3-ways in one motion. And there's plenty of time
because that's just how the attack goes. I dunno.

I didn't go through the second round stages. I took a long,
long nap afterwards. So how about today? These dodging
strategies are new and I doubt I could execute them
properly in the arcade. I wanted to bomb the red guy and
the big boss isntead. After all, I think I need only 15
bombs to clear 2-5. Bring back the remaining 2 to the first
round. Feel safe.

But let's not rush here! I shouldn't expect to clear 2-5
this afternoon. If I die in the first round, who cares,
write it off as bad luck. But if I run out of bombs in the
second round, then I wasted my time. Let's be patient.
Let's make sure I have the first round down, use these
tricks I've made to make the first round easier. Let's
start now!

[20 Sep 2003, 23:56 PDT]
The random stage gauntlet

Today, I wasted the day playing through the second round in
Strikers 1945. My goal is to clear 2-5. I can use up to 17
bombs in the second round to accomplish this. And I came up
with 15: 2 bombs for the easy Japanese sea stage, 3 for the
U.S. airport, 4 for the German town, 5 bombs for the rough
Russian mountain boss (The boss alone! The stage trip is
all right, though), and the final one for SAMSON. That's
it. The rest, I'll use to recover from death.

So there, I have a bomb distribution (although I don't
remember precisely where I'm going to put all the bombs).
The thing that disturbs me is that when I die, how am I
supposed to recover--especially from bosses? I've set aside
two or three for this but is it enough? In usual play, I'm
used to a set strategy at maximum power. But what happens
when I die? The boss keeps firing and moving around. Sure,
they cycle through their patterns, but drones may dive in
unexpectedly or safe spots may be no longer safe or
whatever else. So I want to clear 2-5 preferably with only
one life. Or at least get to 2-5 in one life (I'll explain
why 2-5 is surprisingly easy later).

So I'm not sure if I want to make this a one-life thing.
It's not like in Strikers 1945 II where if I die, I can
chuck a bomb. And the bomb will stay there for a while.
Meanwhile, I can grab two power-ups and boom! back in
business. But in Strikers 1945, no. The power-ups love to
run away. And I can't just charge a drill and go. No. I
have to bomb. Grab the Ps. Probably be out of position
again so bomb. And then hope to live with the little power
that I have.

So I'm still grappling whether 1945 is easier than 1945 II.

But why am I grappling in the first place? Because beyond
the random stage gauntlet in Strikers 1945, the stages
aren't that much harder. I took a tour of the rest of the
game. In 2-5, the green spinning enemies fire return
bullets but they're not swooping down all at once. Probably
a few a second. Not many return bullets to deal with. And
when those large tanks appear, those return bullets are
nothing. Sure, I have to dance around inside 2-ways and
whatnot, but I have plenty of space to do that. Easy. And
after SAMSON, the boss is easy. The armored form is the
same as last time (only the drones fire return bullets) and
as for the final form, the arms fire fast 3-way spreads,
but the spread is so wide that I can sit in the middle and
tap left and right. It would've been easier than in 1-5 if
it weren't for the meddling drones!

And when I get to 2-6, the stage is essentially the same
things! Some enemies have simple return bullets. And the
boss brought along some of those round disks from 1-8.
Okay, so they fire aimed bullets and when they're killed,
they return bullets, too. So I can't sit around safe spots.
But there are no new patterns to deal with here, not even a
change in pattern order, not even a change in speed. Just
can't stay the usual safe spots.

Similarly in 2-7. Okay, the mid-bosses are harder, but
aside from the return bullets and the flying medium
machines firing some extra spread bullets and the boss
brining along some friends again, there's nothing new.

2-8. Just more bullets. Densely packed but just as slow as
in 1-8. And the mid-boss fires the same set of bullets! The
red guy changes a few patterns, but nothing devastating.
And the final boss has some new tricks (3-ways instead of
2-ways, more spreads, a fast-firing final form) but really,
there's nothing to this.

I think there's some chance I can clear the game. I'm just
concerned what would happen if I'm underpowered. So yeah,
this is a dilemma: for now, should I burn through all my
lives to clear 2-5 or just go on one life until 2-5 and
bomb the rest? It means I'll have six fewer bombs, and I'm
not sure which bombs to give up.

[17 Sep 2003, 15:52 PDT]
Lucky

And so I struck down the final boss in Strikers 1945 and I
walked away without dying--and with 6 bombs in stock. I
finally did it. Well, the result was good, but the
performance that took me there was far from perfect.

But let's discuss about the game before this one, because I
nearly had it. It was a better performance. Nothing went
wrong--I bombed the points I was supposed to bomb. And then
I had 6 bombs going into the first mid-boss in 1-8, the big
shell crab. And I destroyed it. And as a force of habit, I
collected the bomb. When I had 6 bombs. I was upset.
Whoops, I collected the bomb for a worthless 10,000 points.

But I had something up my sleeve. I think I can destroy the
red guy without using a bomb. I can salvage this game! So I
dodged its simple spreads, placed the drill to the left of
it. But I didn't chase the orb released on the right in
time. And I died. All that effort I put into preparing for
this--gone.

But things weren't going so well in my last game. I messed
up doing with the arms in 1-6. I think the drill I released
for the nose cone kept going and going and I was waiting to
recharge. But then I couldn't get the recharge in time so I
had to dodge quickly. But it was too late, and I didn't
want to be inside the spreads at such an awkward position.

And the boss in 1-6. I think I released the drill too soon.
The second wave of satellites when I was supposed to
release it on the third. So I made the boss mad too early.
And I was cornered, so I used a bomb. Four bombs going into
1-7. I thought I lost it again. But I knew two things: I
may be lucky and not face the overskirt mid-boss in 1-7 and
I still know how to dodge the red guy in 1-8.

So here we go. 1-7 mid-boss. It was that overskirt boss
again! NOT AGAIN! Okay, maybe it won't do that 2-way net
attack. But when it reappeared, it was on the left side
again. I guessed this was the place where it would do that
net attack. But I knew something. The two-way spread
narrows to a point where the last two bullets can be
treated as one--the gap is so small. That means I should
dodge at the last moment, before I get crushed. But I
didn't know what the last moment one. So as the net
narrowed, I looked for those final bullets. And when I saw
them, I rushed over to the left. And I escaped! Horray!

Another unlucky thing: that scorpion boss appeared. But I
destroyed it too. Ah well.

Now, the red guy in 1-8. This time, I kept in mind that I
have to destroy the red orb on the right quickly. I let the
drill go and then I sped over to the right to chase after
the orb. And I destroyed it. And the drill destroyed the
other orbs. Then the boss stopped firing orbs. Then two
more. And I dodged it all. One thing I need to keep in mind
for next time: the orbs fire a 3-2 spread attack. I'm used
to zipping in and out of these 3-2s, but when I'm in a
panic, I would move left-left and maybe correct myself by
moving right. I should calm down and just zip in and out.
And I'm done. I was lucky to dodge those orbs.

It was simple from here. I dodged the 443333-whatever
spread (nearly held my breath). And boom, it was gone. The
end and all over. I cleared the round without dying and
with 6 bombs in stock. Now I can go ahead and play through
the second round. And I should still brush up on the first,
too. This play may just be a fluke, even if it indicates
I'm ready to move on.

And I better practice! Once I saw the U.S.S.R. stage in
2-1, bombs away! Return bullets? Bomb. Fast bullets? Bomb.
I want to feel safe and I want to die happily, die without
any bombs in stock. And the way to do this is to waste them
all even if I had some reasonable chance to survive. 7
bombs wasted in 2-1 and I still died to the boss's final
form. So embarassing.

Okay, so I still have to get my strategy tuned up in the
first round. It's now about being consistent. I thought I
would never clear the first round without dying and with 6
bombs in stock, but now I have to do this every time. At
least I know how to salvage my game if I mess up a little.
Anyway, I have to construct a bomb distrubtion for the
second round so I don't bomb bomb bomb 2-1. That would be
wasteful!

[15 Sep 2003, 18:09 PDT]
2-5

Today, I only played two games of Strikers 1945 today, but
they were good ones. I cleared the first round without
dying and with three bombs in stock (the three wasted were
the following: one in 1-7 boss sattelite, where when I was
supposed to move to the left corner but I moved to the
right, and the other two were that 4433333-whatever attack
that I can never pin down. Twice! I still need to figure
that out.) So I took a break. Then the next game.

I was pretty lucky. I think the U.S. airport stage came up
as 1-1 or 1-2. And everything went well (decided to use the
surplus bomb on the purple guys that always scare me). And
then my run fell apart when I met the 1-7 midboss.

Yes, it was that doll overskirt thingy. The lower right
mid-boss. I hated it. I would delpoy the usual drill on the
left side, where it would be attacked. the problem is, the
boss disappears and reappears whereever it pleases. And if
I tried to rush to it like last time, I would get cornered
and die. So I stood still on the right and it appeared on
the left. No problem.

Unless it does that 2-way net attack. Which it did. I could
never dodge this pattern. Off goes a bomb. Then I thought,
okay, it's not going to do it again, right? Here I am
miserably shooting away at it. I forgot where it appeared
again.

And it did it again, that 2-way net attack. So I gave in
and used a bomb. And there goes my chances of getting those
six precious bombs for the second round.

But even if I did succeed, I would've lost it anyway. I
used a bomb on the only 443333-whatever spread attack that
appeared. I never did get the hang of that attack today. I
don't know what's wrong. I'll figure it out tonight.

So yeah, I cleared the first round without dying and with
only 4 bombs. But it didn't end there. This was just the
beginning of a wild ride.

Now, 2-1. I forgot what it was. Okay, I think I remember
and it was the German town. I forgot whether I died in 2-1
German town or 2-2 U.S. airport. But it helps to have four
bombs going in! Hop over to 2-3 russian mountains. I could
never clear this stage. Never. So much to my surprise, I
managed to clear the cutback zone (the boss, 3rd form)
although I died anyway (see, I'm never good at cutbacks!).
But I went on anyway.

And I died again to those mines. I never realized they
would keep firing. In 1-4, those mines just fire once
downward and that's it. In the second round, they just keep
firing. And I didn't see it until I ran into their bullets.
Ah well. And the boss's final form, well, I let it
self-destruct. I was too afraid to kill anything. I bombed
the boss's suicide attack.

So no lives, no bombs. 2-4 Japanese sea. And I kept dodging
and dodging and dodging. Those turrets on the battleships?
I just stood in the center and weaved. Those three large
planes that appeared. I just let go of a drill up the
middle and hoped the flanking planes never touched me. And
then the end? Just dodge. Don't shoot those green guys. I
remember they killed me the last time with their return
bullets, so I didn't make the same mistake again.

And the battleship, the big one. I killed it. Probably
bombed it when there were two planes. And then the final
form. It's just like 1-4, only it's faster. Plus I need to
be aware of the drone bullets. Then, I made the boss mad.
The drill was out in nowhere land. So I frantically dodged
from one side to the other. The boss didn't die. I think I
was charging a drill though. So I jumped over to the other
side. Drill's away and then--the boss died.

I've cleared 2-4. I did it! Now I don't need to say, oh I
cleared 2-3, but it was the three easy stages. I cleared
all the random stages. All of them. But I'm glad the last
stage turned out the be the easiest.

Sometimes, you just need a little luck to get thorugh
anything.

And in 2-5. Well, I hated return bullets so I barely shot
anything. I lived for quite a while, too, until the left
tank and the right side drones and the return bullets. I
think I got cornered and finally died. I was just
paralyzed. I couldn't kill a thing. I know I should kill
stuff, but I just couldn't. I turned into a chicken. But
that's just inexperience talking and my fear of return
bullets.

But I cleared 2-4! It was another one of those goals I had
in the back of my mind and I cleared the sucker anyway.
With fewer bombs than I wanted. What's going on here?

I can think of three things. I wrote about guiding shells
earlier. I said something that's a great alternative to the
cutback. Zigzagging. Leading a clump of bullets one
direction, jetting to the other side to guide another clump
of bullets. I think that's how I took care of the return
bullets and the bullets. I just zigzagged. No fear. Zig.
Look for opening. Zag. I create larger openings this way.
And that helps in the second loop. Glad aphrodite reminded
me of it.

The second is, well, I paying more attention to bullet
behaviors. I mean, I never practiced any of the second
round stages. I never did. I just noticed these things and
played as I went along and bomb whatever gets in my way,
that's all. Maybe it just works in Strikers 1945, where the
second loop isn't really all that different from the first
loop--just return bullets and enemies. It's not like a new
game like 1945 II.

What was the third thing I was thinking of. I forgot. So
let's make one up. Umm. I was lucky?

So I have to make a decision. Should I just give up chasing
this silly dream of clearing the first round without dying
and with 6 bombs? Or should I chase it anyway. And the one
thing that made me choose the latter is this. Well, the
stgclub.com guide always mentions at the end of each stage
the number of bombs I should have. Usually, it would be 6
bombs. So I'll keep trying.

But I've learned something now. The red guy in 1-8. Maybe I
can defeat it without using a bomb after all. I stumbled
upon something. I would use the drill just to the left of
it. And that would kill the left orb. And I would kill the
right orb. There. No problem. But i'm not sure about the
next orbs it would fire. But the thing is if I have 5 bombs
going into this maybe there is a shining hope! Maybe I can
clear it with 6 bombs. I would obviously be more convenient
to dodge the guy with a bomb, but if I can do without, then
I can salvage my game.

I guess I owe it to salvaging my game. Usually it's just me
saying meh, just die to the 44333-whatever spread attack.
Then you'll know what you did wrong. But I knew I did it
wrong anyway. So why suffer? I started a new chart. Note
which bombs I would use unintentionally. So just stick it
that error log instead. Continue with my game. It may be a
waste of time after or maybe something else good is going
to come out of it. And now I understand that with my skills
and lots of luck. I can turn the impossible situtation into
something possible.

So yeah, I'll still keep pursing my ultimate goal. Clear
the first round without dying and with 6 bombs. Then I'll
try out the second round. But not the other way around.
Let's not let one good outcome allow me to get ahead of
myself here. It's a good result, yes, but I can do better.
I can't rest on my laurels now. I must keep going. That 2-5
is going to disappear from the arcade when I return
tomorrow. No one cares. Just me. I'll keep going until I
can beat that game.

[13 Sep 2003, 23:48 PDT]
Outrun. Outsmart. Outlive.

I played some Strikers 1945 last night. I wanted to find
better strategies for my first deaths in the arcade.
Tonight, I'll take care of the rest of the deaths in which
I had maximum power, where rank should be close to what I
would experience if I had never died.

And I was reminded of two things from last night's
experience. The first is realizing that yes, I can cross a
stream of bullets. Go to the 1-5 boss, second form. I
destroyed the middle turret but I still have to face the
two arms firing fixed three-way spreads directed downward.
The boss core fires two fast, aimed bullets every second or
so and drones fire their aimed bullets every so often.

What I would usually do is hang around the left side of the
left spread. With bullets all over the screen, I must make
small dodges, so if I sit near the corner here, then I can
dodge those aimed bullets. But the space is so small. If
the boss's bullets and the drones' bullets follow each
other, then that's one long stream of aimed bullets. I have
to swing to the left edge of the screen, and it's difficult
to dodge anything there.

I tried a different solution. Weave in and out of the
spread. If the left arm fires its spread, stay inside the
spread; if there's no spread, run to the middle and take
care of the boss itself (but beware of the right arm!).
This way, I had plenty of room to dodge all sorts of aimed
bullets. But I remembered crashing into an aimed bullet
once, probably because I was too busy running all over the
place. This strategy has too much variability!

I found a better way to handle this attack. You see, the
middle stream of the spread is slow. Despite this, I
treated this stream as a solid line that I cannot cross.
That's why I was only hanging out on the left side of the
spread. But I underestimated my abilities. I have plenty of
time to cross this stream comfortably. So a good solution
would be to weave in and out of the stream. Instantly, I've
doubled the amount of room I have to maneuver.

The other thing I learned is that I can take advantage of
everything I know about a pattern, not just one particular
pattern. Take the 1-6 nose cone. Of course, I don't die
here--I use a bomb--but I wanted to screw around with this
guy's pattern. Now, it fires a 2-way spread whose opening
is aimed. I could just stand still, but the drones from the
sides would relentlessly fire their bullets--the Bf-109
couldn't kill them in time. I would run out of space to run
and die.

There was another thing I neglected about this pattern: I
can also outrun the spread. I was just afraid that if I
keep running away from it, eventually I would run out of
room and die. But if I stand still at the right time, I can
still take advantage of the aimed opening.

Why not combine the two strategies? Start at the left edge
to destroy the drones there, then move to the right to
destroy the drones there. Outrun the second pattern from
the nose cone, and then stand still. The rest of its
patterns pass through me, and the nose cone would die
eventually.

Outrunning spreads also works for the rocket's arms before
the boss. I knew I could outrun it but I didn't know where.
I thought I would run into some cluster of small bullets.
But there is some space on the edge of the screen where
there are no small bullets. I could just run over there.
Drill the enemies, call it a day.

But now this means I don't know where to place the second
bomb now that I learned how to outrun the spreads. Maybe I
should place it at one of the random stages (either the
U.S. airport or the German town) to feel safe. Or at 1-6,
with the purple disks flying about. I'm always afraid to
run into their bullets.

[11 Sep 2003, 10:32 PDT]
The awakening

This morning, I woke up early. I felt refreshed, so I
decided to play some Strikers 1945! That's when I've
realized that I don't need to fight with my sleeping
habits. I would struggle to stay awake but then I succumb
to napping--for hours. This happened each school night. I
can't be a night person when I live as a morning person. So
why fight it? Sleep early, wake up early refreshed, go
play. Now, this means I'll only have two hours to play, but
I think it'll be a more productive two hours than playing
half-awake for seven hours or so. And it's better than
nothing.

So what did I do this morning? On Tuesday, I realized
something. I want to bomb out the 7th boss. Any of them.
But then I would've used up my two surplus bombs already,
and the third would not stay on screen for the boss battle.
So I must learn to dodge any of the 7th bosses' bullets. I
only know how to deal with the jet boss (although I
improved upon my attack strategy for it anyway). Now for
the other two.

The satellite box's second form. It has fixed patterns (the
shower), but I didn't know where the bullets would land.
And then I would forget the follow-up attack: two tight,
aimed cross patterns. So the first thing is to learn where
the showers' safe spots were. First shower, left side;
second, left side but not the lower-left corner; third,
lower-left corner; fourth, somewhere above the bottom of
the screen; and finally, be at the center to finish off the
boss. Now for the drills, two of them: one, at the left
side before the boss fires its first shower and two,
somewhere in the middle after the boss fires its fourth
shower. And then pray that the drill destroys the boss in
time.

Now for the scorpion's second form. If I destroy one of its
claws, all hell breaks loose. The other claw would keep
firing, but now the boss gets pissed and fires off its own
patterns, so I have to deal with both. Never good. I've
stumbled on a way to suppress the boss's madness before:
never let loose a drill--just keep firing at the boss's
shell. But how do I endure its simple patterns?

The boss fires this set of patterns: (1) three quick
three-way spreads, then (2) a fixed 2-3 from one claw, and
then (3) a fixed 2-3 from both claws (the safe attack is at
the bottom center of the screen). Every third set, the boss
would fire (1) late so the third spread mixes in with
(2)--I get confused here and die. Why the confusion?
Sometimes I would be inside the attack, sometimes outside.

So I looked at the boss's behavior. I have hit pay dirt. It
would move in one direction (left or right, chosen at
random). Then it would dash in the opposite direction. Now,
I don't want to be caught inside (2). So I would keep
moving in the boss's initial direction to move away from
(2). There, outside the pattern. Then I would return to the
bottom center for (3). Repeat for four sets, then use a
drill on the fifth to finish off the boss. Yes, those
stupid search vulcans can kill off one of those claws by
then, so I want to destroy the boss just after this
happens.

So there. No more bomb. Now I have one more dilemma. Where
do I place the 3rd bomb, the one that would've been for the
7th boss? Two places I can think of: 1-34 German town and
the 1-7 midboss from the lower-right hatch. Now, these
events occur randomly. But the German town has a
probability of 1/2 to appear in 1-3 or 1-4 and the hated
1-7 midboss, a probability of 1/3. The expected value of
the number of events occurring is less than one. This means
in the long run, I expect to use less than one bomb. So
I'll just pray that at most, one of these events occur.

Off to the arcade, then.

[09 Sep 2003, 10:54 PDT]
The Bf-109 pilot strikes

I played a bunch of Strikers 1945 games yesterday. Usually,
I would play two games and go home. But now that I've
decided that I should play at around high noon, when that
idiot Crazy Guy won't show up, I have more time to play.
Plus, the more I play, the more chances I get to win. Just
keep playing and playing and playing...

And on my fifth try, I had my best performance ever. With
some luck, I cleared the first round without dying and I
made it to 2-3. 

I didn't stick to my bomb distrubution. I used a bomb
somewhere in the first half--what stage was it, I forgot.
Then I blew up Samson as usual. 1-6, that rocket's nose
cone. But when I battled 1-6's boss, I decided to take a
chance. I've already wasted a bomb in the first half, I
know how to drill this boss properly, I still have a chance
to salvage my game, so let's rock! 

It turned out to be easy. I killed the boss before it fired
off its fireworks.

Then at 1-7. The game decided to choose the floating
sattelite box as the boss. Great. I must waste a bomb here.
There's one attack where the boss would spew some pattern
of fast bullets. I've yet to decipher the pattern, so I
bombed it. I hate this boss.

And it 1-8, I bombed out the red guy. So going into the
final boss, I have 5 bombs remaining. I thought, hey, let's
practice parrying the boss's attacks. I can't meet my goal
anyway, so let's make this a productive experiment. But
hey, this is the first time I've been here with 3 lives and
5 bombs. And I'm tired. Let's just burn the boss. Grill it.
I don't care. So I wiped out the boss with my 5 bombs for
an easy but exhilirating victory. I cleared the round
without dying.

Oh, but it doesn't end yet. The next stage was the Japanese
sea. The easiest one of them all. Barely any return bullets
here. I nearly cleared the stage without dying too, but I
ran into a bunch of bullets at the last moment, just when
the boss died. I think I didn't have my drill ready or
something, since the boss's madness mode was longer than
what I'm used to.

Like I said, you have to learn the boss's rhythm so that
you know when to use the drill. But in the second round,
there are new distractions: the return bullets from the
enemy drones and the faster bullets from the boss. The only
plan I had going into the boss was to kill it quickly, just
keep drilling it. But when the boss turned mad, I had no
drill to finish it off.

Then I cleared the German town, dying once to some
unfamiliar pattern. This time, I decided not to destroy the
last two heavy tanks near the end. If I destroyed either
tank, then six small tanks appear from the side to create a
bigger mess. So I decided to suppress that. Just stay in
the middle and let the tanks keep firing downwards.

I finally died twice in the Russian mountains. First, just
before the boss and second, during the boss's second
form--I wandered into a bullet when I was trying to dodge
something else. So anyway, what did I learn from all this?

Yes, the Bf-109 is the easiest ship to use. The drill does
kill things quickly even if I'm underpowered (how else
would I have cleared 2-2 and some of 2-3?). And if there
are no big enemies around, the search bullets can clear
those drones easily. After all, return bullets are slower
than the drones that carry them, so it's good that I can
kill these drones early.

This experience also shows that even without much practice,
I can still get through parts of the second round. But this
brings up something. Should I clear the first round with 3
lives and 6 bombs in stock? Or should I just move on to the
second round, make some progress. I'm not sure that I need
all those 12 bombs.

And third, now I can say that I've cleared the first round
in one life. I can now focus on doing it again, but with 6
bombs in stock. See, when I saw that I only had 5 bombs
going into the final boss, I knew I couldn't meet my goal.
But I have other feats that I want to accomplish. Lesser
feats. Now I can focus on achieving the greater feat.

Still, if I have 5 bombs going into the final boss again,
I'll probably want to use just 4 of them. But if I have 6,
that's when I'm going to take the risk.

I didn't practice last night because I was too tired, and
as usual, I slept through the entire night when I only
wanted to take a 30-minute nap. Ah well, I'm incurably
tired and I'm incurably hungry.

(One more thing. On my third game, the game decided to
reset itself. Although it did so after I died, I'm scared
that it would do so when I have a good game going on. Maybe
this is just an anomaly...)

[07 Sep 2003, 17:25 PDT]
Awesome power

I've played Strikers 1945 for one or two hours last night.
I've tested the Bf-109 through stages 1-5, 1-6, and 1-8.
The first half and 1-7 are too hard to experiment with all
those random stages and mid-bosses and bosses popping up.
And besides, I expected to place the four bombs in 1-5,
1-6, and 1-8 alone.

And that's what happened. One bomb for Samson in 1-5, two
in 1-6, and one in 1-8. It's horrible. Plus, I don't know
whether I'll also end up using bombs in 1-7 or even in 1-3
or 1-4. Anyway, what have I decided upon right now?

1-5. Obvious. I couldn't handle Samson as usual, but I can
use just one bomb against it instead of two. I'm not sure
what I did, but here goes. I should be in the middle-left
part of the screen. Release the drill when I hear the boss
music. That drill should destroy the parts on the left
side. Draw the bullets very slowly to the right side.
Cutting back to the left side is difficult, so I use a
bomb. By now, the drill should be available again, so
release it on the right side. The rest is easy.

Next, 1-6. The rocket's head capsule. The P-38 can get
through this scene without any problems, but I had a harsh
time doing the same with the Bf-109. I want to destroy the
drones before their third volley of bullets hit me, but the
search bullets are busy hitting the capsule. I don't know
what to do yet, so I'll play it safe and use a bomb here. I
have dodged this pattern before by running all over the
screen, but I'm uncomfortable doing that. Maybe later.

Next, 1-6's boss. I have to plan this one carefully. Take
out the left side of the boss with the drill and then parry
it out. Weaken the core but don't drill it in. If I pummel
the core too soon, I'll have to deal with mad bullets from
the core and other bullets from the right side. No good.
But if I drill it when it's weak (when the boss fires its
fourth set of drones), then it would die before it fires
anything threatening. Why am I using a bomb here? Maybe to
be safe from the mad bullets.

Finally, the red guy in 1-8, the one before the boss. I can
never dodge that attack and I should have a full bomb stock
by the time I get here. I have to remember one thing: let
the bomb icon swim for a while. Even if I'm aware of the
10,000 point bonus that I don't want, I always have an
instinctive fear that the bomb icon will run away from me.
So I must collect it. Here, just calm down, fire off the
drill when the red guy moves to the left, bomb, collect the
bomb icon, and finish off the mid-boss.

So that's what it looks like right now. But what about the
1-34 U.S. airport and 1-7? I would probably end up using
bombs in these stages too. Let's think about it. I have no
choice but to bomb Samson and the red guy. I might want to
give up those bombs in 1-6. One for the U.S. airport boss
and the other for whatever happens in 1-7. I'll try these
things out tonight.

But now that I learned how to use the drill formation
properly, I think I can meet my goal with the Bf-109. The
drill formation was hard to manage at first because I had
no clue where to put it. With the P-38's parallel
formation, I can just fire and forget. But now that I
thought about where to put those drills, I have the power
to sever the bosses' limbs more quickly than I would with
the P-38.

And the Bf-109's bomb? Well, it's only purpose is to wipe
the bullets away. But as long as I'm drilling something
while the bomb's off, then I can still be on the offensive.

[06 Sep 2003, 01:30 PDT]
The Bf-109

Two credits of Strikers 1945 a day, every day, and for
three days. Then I go home at night, eat for a while, and
sleep because I would be too damn tired to do anything. And
today, I toyed around with educational games about supply
chain management. And I'm tired again, but I'll try to play
tonight, anyway. Regardless, look at the mess I've created
for myself! That aside...

I haven't thoroughly tested the Bf-109 in all of the
stages, but on Thursday, I realized that I should switch to
this plane. On my first credit, I've cleared the first
round dying only once. I forgot where I died--I might ran
out of bombs at either 1-5's Samson or 1-6's boss. And I'm
not sure whether I had a bomb to use on 1-8's boss.

But I did outrun the 1-8 boss's 44333333-whatever spread
attack twice. I started my sweep closer to the boss,
because I remembered that this worked before. And it did,
indeed! I thought the spread arc didn't increase much near
the bottom of the screen, so I wanted to give myself plenty
of room to react. But it turns out that the arc is indeed
smaller the higher I go, so I stayed away from the bottom
of the screen. Even if the attack's fast, be brave, stick
near the boss, and go. It's better to gain a chance at
living than to guarantee yourself death.

Okay, so it was just on that play that convinced me to
switch to the Bf-109. The next play, I only made it up to
1-6, so there's some work to be done. I don't know where to
place the drill formation, and perhaps I magically stumbled
upon the correct positions when I cleared the first round.
I have to think about where to place the drill more. How
long the drill formation last depends on how high I am on
the screen. If I release the drill at the bottom of the
screen, it would stay on screen forever. If it destroys the
enemy too early, I would be left with my wimpy pea shot
while the drill fires at nothing. That's no good.

So why the Bf-109 and not the P-51? The P-51 is like making
a trade-off. I am trading offensive power for defensive
power when I release the shield formation. And if I have
one little power-up, then that shield is small anyway. What
can such a little shield do? Barely anything! Plus, I'm
killing nothing, so once that itty bitty shield's gone,
then I'm dead again. Bomb-bomb-die.

But with the Bf-109, I still have a chance to live. Even
with one drill, I can still kill off an enemy--eliminate a
source of bullets, not just eating its bullets. This has
been my global strategy for shooting games, isn't it:
destroy all threats before they become problems. The enemy
is the greater threat, not the bullets. So kill the enemy!

So already, I'm back to where I left off. I cleared the
first round with only one death. Now I can continue to
clear the first round without dying and with a maximum bomb
stock.

The thing that worries me is Samson. The Bf-109's bomb is
so weak, it takes two bombs for Samson to die. At least,
that's what I'm doing right now. So I need to work on that.

So how should I distribute my bombs this time? Derive it
from my P-38 bombing strategy? After all, I only need to
place four bombs, and I'm done. But if I carelessly blow
two bombs against Samson, then I have only two more for the
rest of the game when I want three. So instead, should I go
through tedious trials through the game to formulate a new
strategy? Maybe I should create a better procedure so that
the trials I run aren't tedious. But lazy me is too tired
to think of anything. Maybe another night.

[31 Aug 2003, 18:57 PDT]
P-38, P-51, or Bf-109?

Something was nagging me as I was carrying out my
experiment with Strikers 1945 two days ago. Will the P-38
be a good performer in the second round? I've glanced over
a Hong Kong guide on clearing both rounds. It mentions that
the P-51 and the Bf-109 are the easiest planes to use in
the second round. I shrugged it off. I had a hard time
controlling either plane, and I wasn't going to make the
switch.

I didn't really trust the guide at first. After all, I'm
doing so well with the P-38. I can clear the first round
with it. And unlike my transition from Valpiro to Alucard
in Gunbird 2, I need to throw away my P-38 strategy to use
the other planes. 

But I thought about it more, and now, I'm starting to
question the P-38's performance. The big problem with the
plane is that the strength of its charge formation depends
largely on its shot power. If it's at level 1, then you can
only eke out one option. But if you're at level 4, you can
cause all sorts of destruction. The problem is, if I die in
the second round, how will I catch up when there's all
sorts of enemies zinging about the screen? It'll turn into
a game of die-bomb-bomb-die-bomb-bomb-die-bomb-bomb-die.
That would be loads of fun.

Furthermore, the only reason why I picked the P-38 is
because the P-38 Arcadia record holder got the best score
among all the planes. The reason why is that once you're at
full power, you can have missiles and options firing all
over the place. What happens if you're underpowered? You're
helpless. It seems that you must beat the game in one life
or die trying. Plus, I don't play for score, so what am I
doing with a score whore?

I think I understand why the guide's author picked the P-51
and the Bf-109. The shot power has little effect on the
charge weapon. Sure, they're more powerful when the shot
power's at its maximum, but if I'm underpowered, they still
serve their functions adequately. If my shot power's at
level 1, The P-51's shield formation can still eat bullets
and the Bf-109's drill formation can still damage large
enemies (whereas one P-38 option only tickles them).

I still had lingering doubts about the author's
suggestions, so I took a tour of the entire game with the
P-51. Use those save states, run through the entire game.
Indeed, I have to close in on enemies more--the P-51 is
weak if it dawdles at the bottom of the screen. But I guess
if I practice with it more, I would feel comfortable. What
amazed me more was the shield formation's effectiveness.
Sometimes, I can wipe out patterns that would otherwise
scare me or force me to use a bomb, and still kill the
enemy on time. And if it didn't kill the enemy on time, at
least I'll be left with easy patterns.

But I could say the same thing about the Focke Wulf's
plasma mine in Strikers 1945 II. So what makes the P-51's
shield formation more effective? It's all in the game. In
1945, large enemies (including bosses) know just a few
patterns (sometimes, just one), and they cycle through
these patterns quickly. Then it only becomes an endurance
test. How many times can you dodge this attack before you
explode? In Strikers 1945 II, large enemies know all sorts
of attacks, but you can kill them before they fire anything
difficult. It's easier to preemptively strike them than to
wipe out one of their patterns and deal with another hard
one after.

I chose the P-38 because I liked how it could destroy
enemies quickly. But sometimes, the patterns are easy
enough that I can parry them all day. If I choose any other
plane, I have to parry them one or two times more than I
would with the P-38. I think I can endure that.

With the P-51, I just have to endure more, find some good
uses for the wheel of death, and I will be back to clearing
first rounds again. Plus I can deal some damage with the
P-51 if I bomb. While the bomb goes off, close in on the
enemy and hammer it with everything I have. The enemy may
not be dead like the P-38's bomb, but it's certainly dying
and I can endure a few more bullets before it dies.

But I still have lingering doubts. I have to create a new
strategy, after all. Where should I bomb? When should I
charge my weapon? It's not instantaneous like the P-38's.
And how about the Bf-109? Can it perform any better? Sure,
it has a piss poor bomb, but now that I've learned more
about the game, can I handle it now? I'll have to take a
tour with the Bf-109, too.

[26 Aug 2003, 13:44 PDT]
Realizing the errors of my ways

Yesterday, I almost completed my goal: to clear the first
round of Strikers 1945 without dying. Almost! I tried to
squeeze one of the final boss's patterns through the edge
of the screen, but I crashed into a bullet. It was supposed
to be an easy pattern, but I blew it. No bomb distribution
would save me from stupidity.

And then I got home, and I was too tired to do anyting.
Then I fell asleep.

I need to remind myself: get to work! It doesn't take much
energy to get my lazy ass on the computer and type a bunch
of bullshit about shmups. I could even save revising
whatever I wrote for later. When I come home from school at
around 8:30 P.M., I should either do schoolwork or do
something for shmups until midnight. Then I can fall flat
on the bed. It's not like any extra rest is going to do me
any good. 4.5 hours of sleep is optimal.

And I can't read anything on the BART train. Once I start
reading, I get dizzy and I feel like barfing. And taking a
good nap is so hard to do. I need something better to do
during this idle time.

But first, let me extend my point about salvaging my game,
because that's what I did in the best performance I ever
had. As part of my bomb distribution, I rank how difficult
the pattern would be to dodge. When I decide to reduce the
number of bombs I use, I could kill off the easiest bombing
points. But I forgot one thing. If I've used more bombs
than usual--say, I'm short one bomb--then I can take a
calculated risk and try to dodge the easiest of the
remaining bombing points. But that means I have to memorize
how I've ranked the bombing points and learn to recognize
immediately when I have a bomb shortage. That's something I
need to learn later.

The thing I've thought about today is the error log. Log
all defects in my play. For now, the only defects I can
easily record are deaths. If I die, something's obviously
wrong, but I don't give enough time to think about my
deaths. I just keep playing. So I should write the data
down and when I'm bored--say, riding the BART train--then I
can think about it.

I can even present the data to other people so when they're
bored, they can suggest where my problems are. Hehehe...

I want to collect as much data as I can, though. I want to
note near-misses and times when I was nervous, for example.
But there's a cost. I can only pay attention to so much in
the game. Now, what should I concentrate upon: playing the
game or gathering data? Obviously, I'm far from being the
perfect shooting game player, so I can pay some attention
to gathering data, but how much is too much? Recording
deaths will do, for now.

I've been thinking about using hypnosis. We engage in
hypnosis all the time, but some of us don't use it as a
tool to improve ourselves. But how should I apply hypnosis
to this problem. This is too radical of a thing to deal
with, though, but I'll keep noodling around with the idea.

Anyway, what should I include in my error log? The stages
where I died. How I died. How many bombs I had left. What
my shot power was. And--I dunno--that's enough to think
about.

[24 Aug 2003, 22:30 PDT]
Rekindling an aborted vision

Well, I blew a week's vacation of playing a bunch of random
games: role-playing games, turn-based strategy games, a few
shooting games. A mix of things. I guess I'm all burnt out
of Strikers 1945. But I'm going to start a new semester at
U.C. Berkeley, so I may as well stop wasting time. It's
time for me to change.

I'm getting more interested in my field of study,
industrial engineering. After reading many articles on
engineers finding creative solutions to big problems, I
would like to do the same. Notice how creative my solutions
are in some of the problems I've faced in shooting games.
But I would like to continue playing shooting games
rigorously. Many times, I've given up my academic vision to
play games, but I'm always left worrying about my
education. So it's time for me to cut the crap. Stop giving
into temptations too much and focus on what I want the
most: a decent education with time to play shooting games.
If Randorama can do it, so can I.

For shooting games, I should stick to a few rules. I know I
should stick to a plan, but what happens if all doesn't go
according to plan? If I can no longer meet my goal for a
game, I should experiment. But what if I can salvage my
game? I remember one game where I had one bomb coming into
the final boss's first form. I thought, I should use this
bomb on the second form, where I'm sure I will die. And so
I frantically dodged the boss's first form, but just when
the boss was about to change forms, the bullets squished me
in. I could just hang on tight and hope all the bullets
will pass through me, but instead, I chucked a bomb. Sure
enough, I died to that 44333333-whatever spread. Instead of
letting chance play itself out, I took the sure thing. Live
now, die later.

So here's a rule. If I have fewer bombs than what I'm
supposed to have, use the bombs where I'm more likely to
die. In parts where I have a chance to live, just deal with
the pattern. Either I'll live or I'll die, but I'll have no
regrets either way.

Another rule is: don't dance around near the gold. I've
held steadfast to this rule in Strikers 1945 II, but I
couldn't do it in Strikers 1945. Here's the enemy doing
nothing over there--why not steal a few pieces of gold?
I've been getting easy gold so much that it has been
ingrained into my timing.

I was lucky one time. In my latest game, the game chose
stage 1-1 as the Gunbird train stage. Immediately, I went
mad and decided to collect gold. And I did well, too. I
died only once in the first round, and I traveled far into
2-1 (although it wasn't the easy Japanese sea stage so I
lost the rest of my lives in 2-1). But I racked up just
over a million points and I was pleased.

I guess I have to make these excursions to re-focus on my
goal. With Giga Wing 2, I was always so close to clearing
the game with the Stork, but I always had score on my mind.
So I changed to the Albatross, and cleared the game on my
first try. Now I can re-focus on getting a high score. It's
a similar situation here. I think I've reached my scoring
potential. Now go back and clear the game without losing a
life. Move on.

. . .

After I've watched X-Play's review of Mobile Light Force 2,
I was horrified. The review reminded of all the commonplace
excuses the clueless fool would say about shooting games.
The patterns are impossible to dodge! There's too many
bullets! Only if you're a shooting game god, you can beat
this game! And if you have god-like skills, it'll only take
you 30 minutes to beat it! And the review never mentioned
anything about scraping bullets.

I'm angry. It rekindled my interest to start helping people
become competent in shooting games.

I had thought out such a competency program, but I didn't
bother to carry it out. People had so many different goals,
and the only way I can teach a group of people is if they
have the same goal. I've been wondering how I should change
this program so I can accommodate different goals. And I
couldn't think of anything.

So I should start by doing things for myself. Ignore other
people's goals. I want to be a more efficient player. I
will show what I have thought up so far, and people will
help me make my methods more efficient or create new
methods. Maybe I can bring people to a common goal this
way. Or maybe I can at least help people.

Here's what I was thinking. I love to talk about bombs. I
should lay out rigorously how I distribute bombs. Then I
should tell people how I solve complex patterns.
Essentially, I do so by breaking them into its components
first, so why not create a bank of common patterns in
shooting games.

From this, I hope I can make the most of my free time. This
will probably be another aborted vision if I let my old,
lazy habits sink in again. But if I can't change myself
now, when will I ever be changed and achieve sustained
success?

I'm taking a course about the design of human work systems
and organizations. Part of the course seems to be
discussing about good leadership. As an industrial engineer
to-be, I can come up with creative solutions, but I need to
be a good leader so that people will carry out my solution.
I hope the course will also help me lead shooting game
players to their fullest potential. It must begin now or
I'll have to piss myself over another X-Play-like review.

[13 Aug 2003, 11:47 PDT]
Be attitude for gains

While I was struggling with the 1-2 German boss in Strikers
1945, some git tried to insert a coin into the machine. I
panicked and brushed him aside, but he made me lose a life.
He pissed me off, but I maintained my cool. After I
finished playing, I found him slapping and mashing those
buttons on Street Fighter Alpha 3.

Crazy Guy has returned. I never wanted to see that idiot
again. That pisser.

So I left the arcade for about 30 minutes, and then I
returned. Good, that bastard hasn't returned. So I played.
My next two plays were the usual screw-ups. All I remember
is that I died in 1-2 U.S.S.R. because I sat like a lame
duck waiting for the boss to kill me with its fast 3-4
spread pattern. I can never predict correctly when it will
fire that pattern.

I lost nearly all of my motivation. Last Monday night, I
kept making stupid mistakes. I was uncomfortable with the
game so much that I looked forward to studying in the
upcoming semester than to playing this game.

Fourth play, then. I still have plenty of time to kill. I
had a good stash of bombs coming into 1-6. I planned two
bombs here, but with my run of bad luck, I wanted to use an
extra bomb on those purple guys. Just to feel comfortable.
But I knew that if I used a bomb here, I'll run out in the
home stretch, and I'll die. If I die here, so what, blame
it on bad fate. But if I succeed, good.

And I nudged my way through those purple guys without any
problem. I wanted to use an extra bomb somewhere in 1-8,
too, but no, I stuck to my plan and I met the final boss
with all of my lives and a few bombs.

I never understand why I can't dodge the boss's
443333-whatever attack in the arcade. I could dodge it with
some success at home, but never in the arcade. Is Happ's
Joystick responding poorly to my command? Am I too soft
with the joystick? Am I failing to respond to some signal
in the bullet pattern? Do I position myself poorly? I don't
know. I haven't played through this pattern at home last
night, either. So I still have to bomb the sucker twice.
Boo hoo.

So that's where I died the first time. Final form, then. I
tried to catch up to those powerups, but they kept running
away from me. So I let them go and waited for the boss to
fire some fast pattern. I let loose a bomb, but I still
couldn't reach those powerups. I waited again. I let loose
another bomb. And those friggin' powerups still ran away.
This is it, I thought. My weak-ass Level 0 pea-shooter
against the Great One. Either I'm going to die to some fast
attack or if the boss decides to self-detonate, wreck me
with its kamikaze bullets. It turned red, but that only
lifted my hopes up a little. But then it died. To a
pea-shooter. I couldn't believe I did it with a freakin'
pea-shooter. I was relieved. I cleared the first round with
two lives in reserve.

2-1, sea stage. Two lives, no bombs. Even if I cleared this
stage, this is arguably the easiest, so the victory has
little meaning. But hey, I wanted to do this once. I have
two lives to burn, after all. I turned into a madman. See a
bullet? Smack that joystick over to the left. Make a mad
dash over! Don't shoot! I didn't know what to do, but I met
the boss, anyway.

The only way I could defeat the sea boss is to make sure no
bullet touched any of the safe zones. But with return
bullets flying all over the place, all I could do was bomb
my way into victory. I ventured far into 2-2
Germany--nothing but tanks and big planes--but the drones
killed me again.

I eventually realized that all I'm playing is a probability
game. For each difficult scene, there's a probability that
I'm going to live. I have plenty of difficult scenes to
consider. Multiply all the probabilities together, and I
would probably have one small but significant number. 

But all it takes is one victory to make me happy. Then how
many failures must I endure to get there? I nearly broke
down yesterday, because I suffered too many failures. But
hey, if I have nothing better to do, all I want to do is
keep going. And there will be one day where I will be
successful. 

But if I want to succeed, I must take risks. I can't sit
back and bomb places that I should dodge. I'll end up
facing greater dangers up ahead and I won't have the bombs
to deal with them. I must stick to the plan. And if I die
early, I must stick to my plan anyway, so that I'm
comfortable following it. Everyone knows that I can clear
the first round--there's no reason for me to give up and
just clear it every time I touch the game.

I've made that mistake with Giga Wing 2. Whenever I fail to
meet a certain scoring checkpoint, I become conservative
and play with my usual tactics. And for what--so that
people can see me clear the game again? That was foolish of
me. Rob took more risks. And he eventually beat my score.
Now it's my turn to take risks.

[06 Aug 2003, 16:52 PDT]
The P-38 Ace Pilot strikes

I have cleared the first round of Strikers 1945. Twice,
too. And the first victory was in the most unlikely of
situations.

The arcade has many leased arcade cabinats and today, some
maintenance guy walks around and dumps the tokens in these
bags. I knew Strikers 1945 was a leased game, but he
skilled over it because a girl was playing it. When she
finished playing and entered her initials, she turned out
to be VIV whom I've seen in the high score charts every
time I go to the arcade in the late afternoon. And I caught
her playing Crisis Zone, too.

A girl with glasses. That got my hormones running.

Anyway, after she played and left the arcade, I jumped in.
I don't know why--maybe I wanted to show off the
maintenance guy how good of a Strikers 1945 player I am.
The last time I saw him, I did a shit job in Gunbird 2,
blowing my game in 1-4 when I should be ending it at around
1-6 or so.

But just as I was about to start, he asked me to take out
the tokens. Whoops, I've already started. But I couldn't
let the helpless P-38 die like that. So I arched over way
on the left side and let the guy dump the tokens. I never
died but I controlled the P-38 erratically. As some form of
apology, he gave me two credits. But I was well aware he
was going to dump those tokens very soon, and I jumped the
gun anyway. What was I thinking? Now this will be in the
back of my head.

I forgot what I did after. I had two failed attempts going
into this third credit, and I'll probably mangle with my
memories. I think I entered the final stage with two lives
as usual. I thought, could this be the credit? It all
started so awkwardly and now this? Maybe it was because the
maintenance guy gave me two credits that put me in such a
good mood.

Last boss, then. I dodged the first form all right. Whew.
Then the big crab. Of course, I'm shaky with Happ's
joystick so I couldn't run through the 443333333-whatever
attack and I died. It took me two bombs to blow the crab
up. Final form, then. No bombs, one life. I think I crashed
into a bullet somewhere and I'm down to two bombs and no
lives. But I wasted them anyway, and now I have two of my
little guys tickling the boss. And the boss was shoting
bullets all over the place. I thought, this was it, another
wasted credit.

And poof, it decided to die. I was so relieved.

Then the game chose the next stage as the evil, evil sky
stage. I shot at the little buggers and they fired return
bullets! Fearing for my life, I stopped shooting and ran
around like a madman. And I died anyway. Ah well, it had to
end somewhere.

But I turned an awkward start into a fine finish. I
completed the round! But hey, I have two credits. I may be
a little tired and shaky, but I don't want to leave these
credits to some credit feeder. May as well let these
credits count.

Fourth play, then. I think I died late into 1-6. I probably
forgot to do something. So two lives into 1-7. And I
cleared that all right. 1-8 again. And now the boss. Umm, I
forgot what happened. All I can remember is seeing one
little reserve craft when I cleared the round again. That
came out of nowhere.

And then the game gave me that stupid sky stage again. Here
I go, running into planes, circling all over the place. I
thought I succeed circling around those roof turrets, but
they kept firing! At the bottom of the screen! They just
kept going and going! Not fair!

It reminds me of Battle Garrega. Even when the enemy's at
the bottom of the screen, it'll keep firing. I don't mind
screwing around with rank, but this! Ahhhhh no...

But somehow, I managed to see the ugly boss. And my 1-4
strategy still worked! Of course, one part of my strategy
is to bomb the double balls that the robo boss fires. But I
had no bombs, and I died to them. So much for clearing 2-1.

Fifth play. I was tired and I forgot stuff. I had enough
for today, so I left the arcade. No one saw me play, but
that's okay. I made this show for me.

Now what. The second round. I want to clear 2-4. I can't
just say, horray, I cleared 2-1 and the game chose some
easy stage (Japanese sea?). But if I can clear all four
random stages, that's good enough. That means I need to
redistribute my bombs to the second round.

I think I'll have up to 20 bombs for the second round. I
can enter the round with a maximum of six bombs and three
lives, plus I have the eight bombs each stage of the second
round. Now, since I don't value the 10,000-point bonus for
collecting surplus bombs, I can use up to four bombs in the
first round and still have twenty available in the second.

In Strikers 1945 II, it was just one. But here, it's four.
I'm not sure whether to feel good or shaky. On one hand,
the first round in this game is harder than those in any
other Psikyo game, so I want to blow it up. But that means
I have fewer bombs going into the second round. But that's
how the numbers go, and I'll just have to deal with it.

[05 Aug 2003, 15:51 PDT]
Troubles in the U.S.

As usual, I did little for Strikers 1945 over the weekend.
All I did was fiddle around with my bomb distribution. I
spent the rest of my time revisiting RPGs I've rented five
years ago or so.

I can never convince myself that RPGs are a waste of time.
If I ever get stuck, I look in a FAQ and I get perfect
information. There goes the excitement of discovering
things. Why do I keep playing them? Maybe because my hands
don't cramp up in an hour--I don't know.

Anyway, I'm stuck. 16 bombs, 3 for grabbing powerups after
dying because the P-38's so slow to get them. That leaves
me with 13. I distributed them all, and I have yet to clear
the game. So I tried to prune those bombing spots. I looked
to the first half of the game, again. This time, I don't
mind giving up two bombs there.

Sea stage in Japan. Just don't shoot the drones when the
boss changes into its robo form, and the second wave of
drones won't appear for quite a while. If this wave appears
too soon, their aimed bullets like to whack me out of
position. Town stage in Germany. For the boss's robo form,
I can go inside the left arm's two-way spread and get out
of it easily. Mountain stage in U.S.S.R. I can dodge the
boss's last form easily.

Now, the sky stage in the U.S. Oh, it's all a mess. I can
yank out one bombing point from each random stage except
this one. Really, there are three tricky points.

First point: the two Flying Pancake support fighters. With
their spreads and spiraling bullets and their little
friends shooting bullets from below, it's chaos. I have no
clue how to lead anything away from me.

Second point: the boss's first form. I want to lead the
aimed-bullet stream away from me, but it's so long that I
end up cornered. I have to make a cutback somewhere, and
everyone knows how much I hate cutbacks.

Third point: the robo boss's two rows of red balls. One's
an odd-numbered spread, the next, even-numbered. But both
are close to each other and quick, so it's almost like
dodging a very tight pattern. Because I have a turtle of a
ship, it's hard to make a quick left-right or right-left
maneuver.

I will pray that I can get through the first point
unschated. But the second and third points? I must bomb
both of them. I can't really dodge either attack with any
consistency. So I must use three bombs in the first half of
the game; I hoped for just two.

I like my bomb distribution for the second half. It takes
me all the way to C.A.N.Y. But I only have one bomb to
stick in there, and I doubt it will be enough. Where should
I put it? The first form? Two-ways from either side, plus a
fixed and then an aimed spread from the crab. There's no
way to carve a pattern out of this. Maybe this is it. How
about the second form? I'm still unfamiliar with the bigger
crab's claw attacks, and out-dodging the 4433333-whatever
attack makes me sweat too much. And the third form? I have
little experience with it.

Today's another day of spamming the top 10 with my name.
The weather's getting cooler so I think I'll be able to get
in some much-needed practice tonight. 

[30 Jul 2003, 12:24 PDT]
It's all in the bomb

In one game of Strikers 1945 yesterday, I went beyond the
final boss's first attack! I lost five bombs by running
blindly into a bullet in 1-4 U.S., though. So I have yet to
realize how far my bomb distribution can take me.

Now, about the Bf-109. When I tested it, I only used it
through the first half of the game and I liked what I saw.
Then I entered into the second half and I realized how
poorly it performed. Sure, I can destroy stuff quickly, but
not quick enough before the enemy fires some crazy
patterns. And if I use a bomb on the enemy, it wouldn't die
so I have to use another bomb. The bomb's only a bullet
clearing weapon, not a real offensive one like the P-38's.

I don't like the Bf-109, anymore. I have entered 1-7 with
it a few times, but I doubt I'll get there consistently
with it. I don't want to touch the Zero or the Spitfire,
either. So I'll stick with the P-38 and hope that I can get
by with my dodging skills.

Last night, I only played Ogre Battle. I guess I feared I
would wreck my hands again playing Strikers 1945 for hours
and I was tired anyway, so I needed something more
relaxing. I should stop making up excuses and just go for
it. Even a couple of minutes with Strikers 1945 helps.

[29 Jul 2003, 11:31 PDT]
Double Play

I only played a little bit yesterday (I've been playing
Ogre Battle before then) but I think I've learned plenty.

I realized that it's so difficult to recover from death.
When I die, the power-ups like to go up, and the slow P-38
can't reach them before it loses its invincibility. So I
have to use a bomb not only to make up for lost time
damaging the enemy, but also to collect to silly Ps. I set
aside three bombs for that. Now I had to eliminate a few
bombing spots.

I realized that I couldn't do it on the first half. I
couldn't change the worst case: on 1-3, use up to two bombs
and on 1-4, three bombs. I had to take out a bombing spot
on all four random stages if I want to lower the maximum
number of bombs I would use in the first half. So I looked
into the second half. Start at 1-5, see where I could stop
dying.

Eventually, I entered 1-8. I was shocked to see the game at
full rank by the time I reached the giant crab. There was
one pattern on which I was stuck. An aimed five-way spread
of large bullets, then a twin wave of fast bullets whose
opening is aimed, and some scattering bullets whose opening
is also aimed. The best I could do is sidestep the first
attack and try to stand still for the second and third. But
either I would move too little and get smacked by a large
bullets or move too long and run into the fast wave.
There's little delay between the first two attacks. I hate
it.

And the final boss is a bitch, particularly the first form.
Well, I don't want to talk about it. The bullets move so
quickly, so bleh.

I wanted to change planes. The P-38 is so slow and it
couldn't destroy boss parts as quickly as I wanted to.
Sure, it's great for scoring. The little missiles can take
care of the little guys. A wide charge shot for covering a
part of the screen. Overall, a strong fighter. But it's not
enough. I need something stronger.

So I checked with my list of Gamest and Arcadia high
scores. I chose the P-38 because someone earned the best
score with it. So now, let's try the plane with the
second-best score. The Shinden. But it takes so long to
charge its charge weapon and I don't know where to place
it, anyway. It's too tricky to use. I don't want to deal
with it.

Next, the P-51. After a few tries, I thought, yeah, this is
it, this is the plane. I can defeat enemies at point-blank
range and use my chrage weapon as a replacement for the the
bomb. It reeks of the Focke Wulf in 1945 II. It sucks. I
have to engage the enemy up front all the time? Forget
that.

So it's onto the good old Bf-109. It's a little faster than
the P-38 and is like the Hayate. I didn't like its search
vulcan, since it likes to stick to the larger enemies
instead of hunting down the little guys--it's stupid. But
its charge shot can rip a hole in the enemy really quickly.
Even if it takes a while for it to leave the screen when I
don't need it, at least I can tweak the timing or finish
off the boss or whatever. I have more control of my chrage
weapon than the Shinden and the P-51.

I grew to like the Bf-109 again. If I use the charge shot
effectively, it can destroy large enemies quicker than what
the P-38 can do. But how can I tell if the charge shot is
better in certain situations? Without the charge shot, the
Bf-109 is terribly weak. It likes to tickle the large
enemies with the search vulcan, after all.

Why not practice with both planes? I don't want to let go
of the P-38 because I may want to score well with it
sometime. But I want to clear the game somehow, and I think
I have a better chance to do so with the Bf-109. So I'll
use the P-38 and destroy the large enemies as usual, and
see if the Bf-109 can destroy them quicker. That way, I can
convince myself that I'm using the Bf-109's charge shot
effectively while experimenting with the P-38. Sure my
progress may be slowed by toying around with both planes,
but at least I won't be stuck.

[24 Jul 2003, 13:03 PDT]
Bad decisions, bad outcomes

Yesterday was bad. I've made a few mistakes in 1-1 and 1-2,
and I'm still struggling with the bosses. Here in Strikers
1945 boss land, the bullets don't come from a single
course. They come from different parts and it all becomes a
blurry mishmash. Even in 1945 II's fortress boss, I know
what the first couple of seconds of battle looks like and
the battle's over by then. Here in 1945, they're all firing
simple patterns, but I can't pin down what order and
frequency they're all firing at. It's one confusing mess.

The only way I can deal with this is to see the bullets and
dodge. I react. I can't anticipate what's going to happen
and move out of the way. I have to dodge, I have to react
as soon as I see bullets. It troubles me.

Well, enough trying to be creative. I know who I'm not. I
can't create my own strategy and stick to it. Maybe I'm not
paying attention. After all, I don't care about 1945 as
much as I do about 1945 II. I improve on other people's
strategies. I see what they do and try to adapt their
strategies.

See, the great thing about shooting games is that people
have different goals. Some want to score high, others want
to survive easily. And there are some anywhere in between.
Maybe I'll save my bombs, maybe not. Maybe I'll collect
some 2000-point gold, maybe not. It's not like everyone has
a common goal, and there's one surefire way to get there.

So I watch WRX's replay. And when he started playing, he
didn't shake up the train stage with guns blazing. What
the--I knew that he know something that I didn't know. And
behold! there was. Somehow, by not shooting for a while, he
triggered a secret train that appeared on the lower-left
corner. And that train contains 6 powerups. Get powered up
right away and get some bonus points, all for doing a
simple thing: not shooting. Later, I found out he hovered
above some tree, like he was triggering some Gunbird 2
gemhead. It was so incredible that I discussed it with my
fellow chatters on #shmups.

Then I fell asleep. It was a cool night, and I got no
playing done anyway. The only new thing I learned is that
trick. I don't like to make test runs at the arcade. I
value my credit too much. I can't stand it anymore. I'll
probably go to the arcade anyway, blow a few credits, watch
a few newbies play. But other than that, I'll wait until
the weekend to make those test runs.

[23 Jul 2003, 13:58 PDT]
Bad decisions, good outcomes

Yesterday was a good day. I managed to break into 1-8 in
Strikers 1945. I broke one of my rules on distributing
bombs, though. I stuck with my bombing points as usual, and
it got me all the way to the 1-6 boss. One life remaining,
a score between 590,000 and 600,000. I collected some
2000-point gold early on, so I can get that extend.

The boss crushed me with its opening attack. Now, no more
lives and two bombs. My score between 590,000 and 600,000.
I wanted that extend. I just bombed the hell out of the
boss, and hoped for the best. Then after some dodging,
poof! it was gone, and I got the extend.

Now 1-7. I couldn't believe how easy this stage was. Okay,
so I died to the midboss, but I expected a mauling. I kept
pressing on and on and I met the boss. And I used my
intuitive senses on bullet patterns to outwit it. It's
amazing.

Then the big crab totalled me in 1-8. No biggie--I wouldn't
have known what to do anyway. My good fortune had to end
somewhere.

It's strange how playing in the arcade made me forget that
I'm just making test runs. I wanted to make this game
count. I inserted my 25 cents into this machine, and I
wasn't going to waste it on a boss that separates me from
that extend. Somehow, I knew the boss was going to kill me,
and I didn't want that.

These things happen all the time. Bad decisions, good
outcomes. At least I realize that 1-7 isn't as hard as I
thought, that I must continue to collect 2000-point gold to
grab the extend earlier, and that I can enter into 1-8. All
I have to do now is find a more systematic, comfortable way
of getting there.

I tried playing when I came home from the arcade, but it
was too hot, so I didn't get any new bombing spots down. I
doubt I will do it tonight, either. Even though I don't
have a complete bomb distribution, I'll just play in the
arcade. I'm comfortable there, anyway.

[22 Jul 2003, 00:11 PDT]
Bombing the arcade again

Okay, enough screwing around. I want to play Strikers 1945
(I) this afternoon, but I need to get a bomb distribution
going. Otherwise, I won't feel inclined to play. After all,
the bomb distribution is what can make or break my game.

I don't want to play 1945, actually. I don't like the game
as much as 1945 II. But I've grown to value the arcade
experience so much that I can't help but play it
rigorously. At least if the university arcade decides to
take away 1945 I, Castro Valley Golfland has it, too.

Anyway, I've noticed what many Japanese strategy guides
have done. They provide some sort of bomb distribution--it
was always given to me. But now, I have to create my own.
I've toyed around with my method of distributing bombs
during my break from 1945 II, though.

Early in my break, I played Sengoku Ace. Here's how I
distributed those bombs. I have a goal: clear a certain
stage. Figure out the number of bombs available to me. Now
figure out where to place those bombs. Run through the game
without using bombs and note where I died. Regardless how
stupid the death was, always bomb that point in subsequent
runs. Repeat until I've used up all of my available bombs.
If I didn't clear my goal, find which bombing points are
easy to dodge and learn how to dodge them. Then find other
bombing points as usual.

In two days and two nights, I have cleared Sengoku Ace's
first round. Sure the game's easy, but I would imagine it
would take me weeks, not days, to clear it. Maybe it's
because Tengai was a powerful character, but with my
intuition on how bullet patterns workd and my bombing plan,
I pulled through. I couldn't believe it. It was then I
realized how powerful my method of distributing bombs was.
It's so simple, and I think it's the fastest way to clear
many shooting games.

So I'll do the same with 1945 I. I have used this method on
the game before, writing down my bombing points, but I
threw my notes away. So I'll create a new one. And as time
goes on, I'll keep revising it.