Today Tachyon Project made its way to PlayStation Store. When I was asked if I could write an article that included some tips and tricks for the game I jumped right in — tips can highlight the gameplay depth you can find in Tachyon Project, which is what differentiates it from other games of the genre. So, let’s go for it!
Attack is the Best Form of Defense
In Tachyon Project your health is the time left. Destroying enemies increases the time left. Thus, most of the time, the best way to get out of a tricky situation is to be particularly aggressive.
Obliterating a few enemies may give you those extra seconds you need to breath and find your place on the screen and face the next bunch of attackers.
In these situations, if you have enough time left (using secondary weapons consumes time) I’d recommend using an explosion or a mine to destroy a bunch of enemy ships and get away.
Live in the Shadows
In stealth levels (the ones that are darker and you only see clearly in a small area around you), staying hidden is key to success. Enemies will go towards the last position you were revealed which is marked with a shadow of your ship. You reveal yourself only when shooting or when a special enemy detects you — there are radars and seekers that will do that.
Again, explosions and mines are useful here. You can stay hidden while the ships clump towards your last visible position, then get closer and release an explosion taking out a bunch of them.
In non-stealth levels you can do a similar strategy using the decoy. When a decoy is active enemies will go towards it and will ignore you. Again you can use it with an explosion, the mine, or the turret to great effect.
Take a Break… If You Need It
With certain enemies (particularly certain bosses) freezing or slowing down time is really useful since you can move normally while it’s in effect, positioning yourself in the right places or making the most of a hole in the enemy defenses.
Adapt to the Challenge
Different levels contain different types of challenges, configuring your ship to adapt to that challenge may make the difference between life and death. Allow yourself to experiment a bit with different weapons and perks and decide what fits best to the situation at hand.
I’d recommend that you normally leave the extra time perk on in story levels, but if you’re having a hard time with a wave you can always change that perk after a few tries (when you already start with a lot of time) for a more useful one. Getting that extra damage or extra speed for that single wave could help a lot. And remember you can always return to the extra time perk if you get killed in a following wave.
Experiment
Don’t disregard a weapon just because you don’t like it the first time. Try combinations of weapons that make sense to you. For instance, the laser or the shotgun may be a bit slow, but with the extra shooting speed you may have a blast with them. The bomb launcher may feel a bit clumsy and imprecise, but if you add the heat seeking perk it may become deadly. Experimenting with different weapons and configurations is part of the fun!
Oh, and please, give the Frenzy secondary weapon a go, it’s a blast and it may help you fill the screen with bullets and explosions.
Well, that’s it for the time being. Thanks for reading so far and I hope these tips are useful. Please let me know what you think in the comments below and feel free to ask any questions, I’ll do my best to answer promptly.
Shotgun-laser makes me think of Yu Yu Hakusho for some reason. The combinations overall though remind me of Gunstar Heroes. It really makes me curious if you could laser with heatseak and have a Chase/Laser like in that game.
Looks dope. Cross-buy with PS VIta coming soon?
Hi SlientNova,
You can’t merge heatseek and laser. Well, you can but it will do nothing. We thought that doing it may be a bit to OP :)
@Eduardo
Haha. I get the feeling you guys have played Gunstar Heroes. Chase (enemy follower) with Laser was extremely broken. So I imagine heat-seek plus laser would be rather crazy.
Hey SilentNova,
We actually haven’t played Gunstar Heroes (I’ve written it down to take a look at some point though), instead, the laser weapon is heavily inspired by the lasers in Raptor: Call of Shadows, which my favourite shmup of all times :)
Raptor: Call of the Shadows is good. Later Raiden series games seemed to mimic some of the weapons from that game. Gunstar Heroes really is not a shmup, but you might have fun with it too. The weapon combining just reminded me of it.
Definitely have to check this out though.