Elite Gunships belong to two groups of special gunship enemies, which are singly exclusive to Stage 12 and Stage B3. They are succeeding variations of Heavy Helicopter Gunships and each similarly possess different powerful armaments along with durable armors.
Appearance[]
Elite Gunships slightly resemble Heavy Gunships, including the pulsating red light atop their vertical stabilizers, but with black paint job and feature many glowing lights. The two variations have noticeable differences.
Type I[]
Identical to type III Heavy Gunship in shape. Its weapon, instead of a gatling turret, features two long curved plates that house a glowing cyan light. On each side of the fuselage are three stripes of cyan light.
Type II[]
A transverse-rotor design, i.e. with two fixed side wings that have a rotor at each tip. It has two pairs of horizontal stabilizers, bringing the total to four. The weapon is a gatling turret in a fixed straight direction of the aircraft, glowing with blue light. On each side of the fuselage are three stripes of deep blue light, with a long red light at the front edge of each wing.
Behavior[]
General[]
Type I and II Elite Gunships are exclusive to Stage 12 and Stage B3, respectively.
Elite Gunships descend from the top edge of the screen and engage when in view, retreating to either side off-screen after a duration of time if the player fails to destroy them in time.
Each variant has a slight difference in flight pattern:
- Type I Elite Gunship sways moderately and always faces straight downward.
- Type II Elite Gunship stays relatively stationary, rotating itself and aiming its weapon at the player's Plane to attack.
When damaged, a red health bar appears nearby along with the remaining health displayed as percentage, disappearing after the armament is left intact for a while. Different variations are destroyed in different ways:
- Against a type I Elite Gunship, the first destruction disarms the weapon but the aircraft remains in flight. To completely destroy a Heavy Gunship, the player must destroy both the weapon and the aircraft itself; a disarmed Elite Gunship will still ruin any active Chain Bonus when it retreats off-screen.
- On the contrary, type II Elite Gunships share the same hit point as their weapons. Therefore, they are completely destroyed in one obliteration.
Unlike Helicopter Gunships, Elite Gunships cannot be collided with; the Plane simply flies past them.
Armament[]
There are two Elite Gunship variants with different weapon systems, each with different degrees of projectiles, patterns, damage and fire rate. Similar to most enemies, their health, fire rate and damage increase along with higher difficulty levels.
As tracking enemies, both types of Elite Gunships can be distracted by decoys deployed by the Holo Granny Technician, including the slow projectiles of type I Elite Gunships, which home toward active decoys instead.
These projectiles only damage the Plane (and phase through other enemies) and cannot be destroyed by its projectiles and Laser power-up. However, it can be absorbed by Energy Shields, destroyed by Mega Bombs and Iron Clad's Main Weapon Supercharge shockwaves, and slowed by Slo Mo Chan's ability.
Type I[]
Shoot a singular dark cyan projectile, three times per volley at the Plane's direction before a long reload. Initially discharged at a very high speed, these projectiles quicky decelerate then begin to follow the Plane at a slow speed with decent accuracy, dealing high damage to it when in contact and despawning after a while. When slowing down, the projectiles produce expanding hexagonal rings, which aid the player in distinguishing them.
Type II[]
Shoot a stream of seven thin blue projectiles at the player's Plane that travel at moderate speed and each dealing low damage, reloading at a consistent medium rate. When destroyed, the aircraft leaves behind two successive rings of twelve lingering radial projectiles (24 in total, signified by a high-pitched ringing sound), which swiftly race out in all directions after a short delay and deal high damage on impact with the Plane.
Strategy[]
- Against type I Elite Gunship, tried to destroy them as fast as possible by bursting them down using Main Weapon Supercharge or Laser power-up. Allowing multiple of them to appear at the same time, especially in number of three and across the entire screen, can cause their homing projectiles to quickly accumulate and swarm the Plane in multiple directions.
- Keep your distance with active type I Elite Gunships, as the fast speed at which the projectiles are initially launched make it nigh impossible to avoid them up close. Keeping distance can also help you react better to the projectiles and plan your next move to evade them.
- As type II Elite Gunships only require one obliteration, memorize their appearing spots and promptly unleash high firepower at said location as they appear in order to quickly remove them from battle.
- After shortly destroying a type II Elite Gunships, avoid immediately flying too close to their previous location to collect dropped Stars and risking being hit by multiple high-damaging projectiles up close. Instead, stay at a distance and predict their flight paths to avoid them, even slowing down the gameplay on mobile versions of the game if you are getting hit often.
Trivia[]
In mobile versions of the game, type II Elite Gunships which are partially off-screen will fails to release radial projectiles upon destruction.