Has anyone figured out the blimp spawning? I've seen it once and never since, even though I've beaten my scores several times over and am around 10k now. The "see a blimp" unlock came out sometime after seeing the first blimp so now it's unfulfilled and so many unlocks are stuck at "destroy a blimp" with no way to do it. I've seen laser planes once.

I'm running in to the exact same thing, my high score sits at 17.9k but I've only had one once, I was prepared for it as I had the nuke body equipped but that wasn't enough to take it out anyway. I'm just getting frustrated now. I haven't ran into any laser planes yet.

I spawned a blimp wicked early on, not much of a high score, but I did survive for a bit longer than usual, so there's that...?

Or at least I think it was a blimp. Someone came on screen and mentioned a "screen-filling thing" or something like that, and before I could even catch a glimpse, I blew up. Argh, but hey, it's something to look forward to later. It seems kinda random!

I'm not sure if that's really a mission flow issue, though. I think it's planned out that you have this "kill a blimp" or "encounter a blimp" barrier so for once, you just do as Reggie would do and "play! the game!" for a while, going for score attacks. THEN you get the blimp stuff, and then SFMT's around the corner.

It seems you may just need to last long enough for it to spawn. Might be a point or kill count, I dunno. I've gotten close to killing it once. Other times I couldn't get up there before Ace's overwhelmed me. Almost up to 200 games. 15.9k which I got early in my career.

@sammann31415: It's become a mission flow issuer for me because I encountered a blimp once within maybe the first 2 hours and then found not once in a whole 4 straight hours of playing afterwards, with no real means to progress without one.

I'm testing the theory at the moment, but I think it appears after killing Battleships. Last run I killed 2 Battleships and within 15 seconds, the Blimp appeared. If that theory proves to be true, then I'm going to wager that the laser planes appear after killing a sub. Although I'm not sure what makes a sub appear...
These are all just theories, don't take my word for it!

If you're talking about the giant thing that hangs down from the clouds, it seems to consistently spawn when i score around 9000 points.

I've had it spawn a few times and it usually spawned after I took out 2-3 battleships (reguardless of point value)

Still no blimp kill. I've killed zero subs and Laser Ace comes out in two's and three's. I wonder if killing Ace's triggers them.

Oh man I can't get a single laser ace to spawn. How many aces you think it takes to get one to show?

Apparently I killed a blimp, but I don't recall even seeing it, I probably had the nuke body. My high score is like 13,900 I think. I'm terrible at killing the battleships and usually die going after them, but I do recall seeing the laser jet after taking out a sub once I think. makes sense that it shows up after taking out a battleship or two tho.

Does nuke even work on blimp? Nuke deaths wouldn't trigger a battleship kill count on at least one mission.

@bigd145: The nuke works on the blimp, that's how I got it down.

@bigd145: i think nuke cancels the multiplier ,so the "Kill X on Max" missions don't work with the nuke body if that's what you're talking about. also i don't think the nuke body works at all on the blimp unless you have to soften it up beforehand, i don't know.

That may have been the original problem then. Okay. This should make the first big gun "kill blimp" more doable.

I'm not exactly sure what triggers the blimp to spawn, although I suspect it's time? If you try to not kill anything, the difficulty still increases (I think) I've gotten the blimp to spawn many times, and only destroyed it once. It was actually pretty easy if you have melee. The hard part is surviving long enough with melee for it to spawn. I just stayed inside the blimp and the blimp cant shoot you, you just gotta worry about outside bullets.

After you destroy it, you unlock SFMT mode, which is super crazy difficult (The description says to play this when the kids are in bed) In this mode you get an extra mission for each of the parts and after completing it you get a "Victory" label for the part. One of the missions for the nuke in SFMT mode is to "kill 3 blimps after death" So yes you definitely can destroy one with the nuke (I have with the nuke btw, the blimp spawns right away in SFMT mode, in fact I think everything spawns in the beginning, making the challenge to just reach the top with the nuke without dying)

... FREAKING FUN GAME.

So, if you browse your local files, and go to data/res, you'll find 2 files (standard and SFMT) that reveal all on the spawning (the .json files can be opened in Notepad). Basically, each kill ups the difficulty by a set number of points, and each time it rises the spawn behaviour is changed. Blimp appears at difficulty 600, which is the maximum, and submarines can spawn at 480. Note, can; spawning is random, with a percentage chance value of rare spawns in that file (1 in 8 Ace spawns are Laser Ace, and there's a 1 in 3 chance that when Aces spawn a submarine will as well). It also states that at least 1 submarine has to die for Ace Marines (yeah, no idea what that is) to spawn.

Oh, and by the way - in that folder is also a series of files that cover each part's behaviour - speed and damage, etc - and modifying it is reflected in game. Just, y'know, make sure you save the original under a new name first to revert in case of crashes.

@flufflogic: Mind freaking blown, man. I won't tamper with values, but it's amazing to know that stuff.

Ace Marines? Could be the laser Ace. Or the super secret experimental enemy?

@bigd145: i know that the "classified no.1" is the ace laser but now i have to kill the classified no.2 which i think is the ace marine and i wanna say it's a boat that's a mix between a submarine and a battleship, i'll know for sure when i get around to hunting it down next.

@flufflogic: Playing on Vita so I can't edit/view those values (wouldn't edit if I could, anyway) but that is some vital information. Thanks for digging that up.

@flufflogic: You said that blimp spawns at difficulty 600 and that each kill ups the amount of difficulty by a set amount of points. I'd imagine than killing a ship gets you more points than just another plane. Do you know how many points each one nets you? If my assumption is correct then destroying ships and subs and aces will get the blimp to appear faster. Also does having a high combo up change the amount of "difficulty points" you get?

I would open up the files if I could, but like others, I too am playing this on Vita (feels much at home on a handheld)

There are two types of submarine. One has guns on the deck like a battleship. I see that early in the round. Doesn't seem like an Ace.

I have beaten the game in normal mode and SFMT, here is my workflow :

- Weapon : Canon / Body : Armor / Engine : Superboost

- I start of by killing little boats and dodging fire from the little planes, until I have killed 3 or four boats, or when there are plenty of planes chasing me, enough to reach the Max combo. this is possible to achieve in less than a minute.

- In Max! I try to hit more and more targets, and usually as soon as I get Max! either the Battleships or the Laser Ace appears. the battleships take 3 hits from the Canon to explode, and their fire pattern is easily dodged, they will always try to hit where you are heading, rather than where you are right now. so when there is no fire coming from them I fake running in some direction, and as soon as I do that I turn toward it and hit it with the canon and do it again from an other side.

- if you kill one or two battleships, and/or an ace or two, after you've just made a Max! combo, you usually get more than 10K, and makes it easy for a Blimp to appear.

Regard this problem: when you are not a blimp mission killing 2 battleships seems to make it spawn. When you are on a battleship mission it seems to be post-10k and then wait.