Beam, Charge and Bomber ship types

[TrevHead]

Most of the players seem to use the Gunner ship, which is obvious given how overpowered it is. Anyway I decided to create this thread in a effort to get players to try out the other 3 ships that are less about focused shooting and more about dodging and strategic positioning

Im still playing with the beam ship myself as I havnt gotten a lot of serious playtime with the game due to trying to get rid of slowdown issues with the last boss as well as been buzy IRL (something I plan on making up for this week now the game is running more smoothly)

What ild really like to hear from is Charge and Bomber players, some gameplay vids would be nice. Just dont forget to include the ship type in the video title due to all those Gunner / Beam shmup vids already on YT

[mustchoosename]

I prefer beam to gunner. Yes, I can see that gunner is technically better in every way if you can skillfully aim the beam right, but I can't. The beam is nice and simple, letting you focus entirely on dodging instead of worrying about repositioning your weapon in time to kill everything. Plus, the beam absolutely destroys bosses, which really helps for perfecting stage two's boss for divine gauntlet runs, which I'm currently working on.

[Kaphei]

I use Charge. My story is actually quite interesting; I started with Beam (obviously) and as soon as I unlocked Gunner there was no stopping me. Then I decided to unlock the fourth ship (Bomber) before the third thinking that it would be really powerful. I tried it and liked it, but I kept using Gunner. So I get to Croatoa and the unthinkable happens: I couldn't beat with Gunner. After getting my ♥♥♥ served to me so many times I decide to buy the third one... and things have never been the same.

So yeah, consider me a Charge fanboy. It's the only ship I ever use now.

[Tulipopa]

Here is a quite typical bomber gameplay video of the last stage on legendary difficulty.
Made by 7_foot_saliva.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T_J1vVhmvU

Personally I play with bomber because it's the most fun. I haven't really tried making high-scores with it (though I'm sure it wouldn't be that much harder). I only use the other ships, if I can't beat it with bomber (judgment difficulty mainly, but then again I don't beat judgment with other ships either).

[Corvi]

well, the run still looked very hard. you suceeded by learning a lot of paths, to stay at the top of the screen and patterns, because bomber is unable to kill the boss fast enough. beam and gunner just shoot him away before it gets difficult.

[Veracity]

Nice topic idea. A couple of things that have been mentioned elsewhere, but are perhaps worth collecting here:

Some people seem to perceive the fact beam's secondary slows you down as an unambiguous negative. It's really not - it makes twitching through tight gaps easier.

Beam's secondary fire has an aura effect that inflicts damage through 360 degrees, albeit at very short range. You won't crash into small fry while the beam's on, because the aura damage will blow them up before they touch your hitbox. This is straight out of the *pachis, which are the obvious inspiration for the fire mode, but use it for any survival challenge and you'd probably stumble on it, anyway.

Charge's secondary can fire through walls. Usually irrelevant, but an obvious help on stage five.

[TrevHead]

BTW I wonder if its possible to keep your vaunt running all the way through the boss fight? The gunner and the beam dont have the DPS but what about the bomber or the charge? (has anyone compared the DPS of the charge compared to the gunner / beam? which kills the bosses quickest with as much shot squared at the boss as possible?)

[7foot_sativa]

I play bomber because it feels cool to mow down everything really quickly with total control. The other ships rely on accuracy, positioning, etc. That's what I like about the bomber, it doesn't play like that, you get to go all out and rush everything, there's no hiding on one spot, you go everywhere.

Sure I could use any basic shot from any ship to one shot kill all the level one turtles and mostly everything else that is small and numerous, but it is far more satisfying to run them down, getting close and personal. Like an acrobatic killer :D

Not sure what exactly you wanted to be said OP, so I hope this works for you.

[Tulipopa]

Bomber is better suited for co-op, because you can take risks a lot more often.
When you die, the other player(s) just have to stay alive or pick up a revive.

[7foot_sativa]

If the bomber player wasn't skilled then they would need a back up like that, but so would any ship with an unskilled player. When I played with a friend of mine, I was picking up most of the revives and bringing them back more than they'd bring me back. We only had to use continues when I died and they had too much trouble getting a revive. So it's not really a co-op thing, but I found whenever I have played co-op, I was the one carrying the team.

Although it's all analysis about the bomber and other things, it comes down to who's using the ships in the end.

[30hourweekpls]

Controlling the gunner was not as easy as I thought it would be. I was really good at playing a similar style in Gradius V with the Type-2 ship, which used rotating cannons like the Gunner, but that's a horizontal shmup (among many other huge differences, lol). But I mean, a lot of this depends on what input device you use, and right now I think the best one I have available is a silver edition X360 pad. I may have more luck with the gunner if I try it with other input devices. I've seen the vids of people tearing up the scorebar with it, though.

Right now, hilariously enough, I'm having the most luck with the Charger. I know I'm missing out on points by not having a spreadshot to destroy all the popcorn enemies that fly by, but the charge shot is incredibly good at destroying the large ships which are crucial for keeping the vaunt meter healthy. Sometimes even the beam isn't strong enough to take them down soon enough, partially because it takes a second to stretch out across the screen (unlike Cave games), and it's not like I can be firing the spreadshot at the same time (at least afaik).

[ChimmyChanga]

I've two questions here about ship types:

Bomber: How are you supposed to play this? I don't see the point of it, I can't make it useful... Exploding bullets? Enemies are never in a long time (if they -were-, they wont be by the time i have a line of bullets since the bullets dont go through the first enemy.). I feel like I'm missing something.

Gunner: Is there a way to aim it without moving the ship?