Strategies[edit]
Some people often experience difficulties with the game especially on advanced missions, while this may seem normal, what you could do to help make advanced missions easier to deal with is to stop being too greedy about destroying aliens, an example is if you can't destroy the said alien because say it is going to hit you with its shots or it is about to go off screen, leave it alone instead of still trying to destroy it as you may get hit by other shots, Armor Plates are extremely valuable and while they are common enough, they may not immediately appear when you run out of hitpoints so you must dodge well, always aim for the most dangerous aliens first like Razers, Phantoms, and Demolishers, when they are gone you can go ahead and aim for Transports to get some extra power-ups.
If you are aiming for some extra score, one thing you could do is during the start of Missions 2 - 10, when you have no extra weapons yet, feel free to catch the No extra weapon (Skull) power-up as this will give you 200 points without any penalties since you don't have an extra weapon in the first place, if you feel confident enough that you can upgrade your weapon as soon as possible, then you can try catching a Decrease weapon grade power-up for extra 200 points as well, don't forget the Bonus score power-up as this gives 200 score without any penalties at all, but don't grab it when it is too risky, and finally the Aliens-to-coins power-up also finishes the level for you along with extra score.
If you want to get out of levels as soon as you can, prioritize 3 power-ups: Level skip (Warp), Aliens-to-coins, and Nuke, these power-ups will help you skip levels as soon as possible, with Level skip (Warp) having a slight caveat that your ship could still get hit while it is flying off the screen, so you have to take this power-up on a safe space.
Techniques[edit]
Here are some techniques a player can choose to learn to help improve their experience and skill in the game, these are not required for casual gameplay but it should help make the difficulty of the game to be more manageable.
- Shot prediction - This technique involves making your shots more accurate by improving your prediction as to where your shot will hit, this technique is applicable to moving enemies, allowing your shots to hit more accurately, to do this, while the enemy is moving around the screen sideways, you aren't supposed to fire directly on from bottom as this will make your shot miss, instead, fire your shot a little more to whatever direction the enemy is going, for example if its going to the left, fire your shot just a few more ahead of the direction on where the enemy is going, this is also combined with other techniques here as well, and this is also applicable to special weapons that don't have an auto-aim.
- Shot reset/refresh - A technique which involves making your shot available to be fired again as soon as your shot has been fired, also combined with shot prediction and rapid fire, to do this, you have to make sure that your shot will at least hit an enemy, once your shot has successfully hit an enemy or destroy, this will make your shot available to be fired again, as long as your shot won't miss, you can keep firing as fast as you can, if your shot however misses a target and doesn't hit anything, your next shot will be available once your previous shot has already left the screen, for the case of Alien Sky and Four shot, if the primary double shot doesn't hit anything but the spread or side shots hit something, your shot won't be refreshed or reset, however if your primary double shot does hit something then shot refresh/reset will take effect.
- Rapid fire - With the first technique mentioned, this will be further augmented when the enemy you are firing is closer to your ship, if that so happens, this will make you fire even faster as long as your shot hits a target, with this in mind, you can hold your fire button and fire fast, even faster when the target is closer with more consecutive hits, take note that this and shot reset/refresh doesn't need to destroy a target, as long as it hits something, you will be able to do this as many times as you like.