Omega

Omega (stylized as [Omega]) is the Boss of Stage 13, the final Boss in the main sequence of Stages in the game. It also appears as the "fail" Boss in the Prologue Stage, and is one of four Sky Force Bosses operated by a powerful and mysterious sentient AI.

Omega
Description
Stage Appearance	Prologue Stage 13
Armaments	Omega Drones 2x Gatling Cannons 4x Laser Turrets 2x Missile Launchers 4x Weapon Engines 4x Laser Cannons

Appearance

Omega takes the form of a gigantic, heavily-armed and futuristic flying drone which is presumably a reconstruction of the Arachnotron Boss from Sky Force Anniversary and/or basis of a Boss's design from Aces of the Luftwaffe: Squadron. This Boss is uniquely known for being controlled by a sentient AI instead of Scarlet Mantis or General Mantis, though Scarlet appears to be in control of it in the Prologue Stage.

The square-shaped drone is made of many armor plates, its most visible features including the glowing protected Core in the middle, which can either face the player's Plane directly or rotate slowly when triggered to attack, as well as the four engines in the corners of the Boss which have blue lights while inactive and a face in the front of the Boss, with eyes that glow yellow occasionally and two exhaust vents that act as nostrils.

Armaments

1st Phase

1st Phase Attack Gatling Autocannon

2x Gatling Cannons

• Fires long barrages of high-speed weak railgun projectiles. Once they are ignited, Omega slowly rotates itself to try and aim at the Plane. Before the projectiles are released, the cannons themselves emit a loud and high-pitched whining sound. This parallels Arachnotron's third phase attack.

4x Laser Turrets

• Each fire short but sweet bursts of green laser streams directly at the player's Plane. The turrets cannot rotate while firing their beams. They can only be torn down after the Gatling autocannons are destroyed (there is a force field that guards them from damage). Laser power-ups are often dropped upon their destruction.

Laser Beam Cannon

• After blowing away the Gatling cannons, the front laser cannon of Omega will begin to charge up. When the laser turrets are cast out, the AI will announce a message "Laser is charged" and the laser cannon will turn on, discharging a wide laser beam capable of heavy damage and penetration of Energy Shields. At this point, the laser cannon cannot be destroyed.
• The laser beam can be swept across the screen due to the lack of travel time. Omega then attempts to destroy the Plane by rotating at great homing abilities, but decelerating as the Plane is closer to the beam.

• This attack parallels Arachnotron's final battle phase.

2nd Phase

2nd Phase Attack Missile Launcher

2x Missile Launchers

• Mounted in front of Omega's rear engines. Each launcher releases a long volley of fast, high-accuracy tracking missiles. They retract after each volley for a few seconds, then an escalating beeping cue accompanying a high-pitched whine signals the launch of the next volley.

• The higher the Difficulty mode, the shorter the time taken for the launchers to recharge.

3rd Phase

3rd Phase Attack

4x Weaponized Engines

Rounding up the four corners of Omega are the four futuristic-looking electric engines that power the gargantuan fighter drone. As one of the most sophisticated Bosses, Omega's engines are equipped with high-tech weapon systems. Below is each of the weapon systems featured on the four engines.

Rear-left Engine

• Fires relentless waves of slow bullets in a radial circular pattern. The slow projectile speed can combine with the fast rate of fire to create a tight field of bullets if the engine is left intact long enough.
• This engine is the first to engage and it attacks on its own. After disabling this engine's weapon system, Omega will rotate itself and bring the remaining three engines into view to attack.

Rear-right & Front-left Engines

• Fire purple bullets in triple-ringed clusters and converge by falling toward the bottom of the screen. Any bullets that have just been discharged after destroying the engine will instead disappear.
• The clustered bullet waves repeat seven times before a brief pause occurs.

Front-right Engine

• Fires a radial wave of blue bullets akin to the other two engines but with a longer delay, which converge toward the player's position instead as clusters.

In the Prologue Stage, the front two engines shoot out waves of bullet swarms similar to Radial Cannons, but do not deal any damage to the Plane.

4th Phase

4x Laser Cannon

Mounted between Omega's engines. They are presumably the strongest weapon systems in the game, enough to instantly tear your Plane apart and shatter any active Energy Shield. During this segment, Omega will continuously rotate round and round. As a result, players need to move their Plane in a circular pattern along as the engaging lasers well up around them and reach a very long range, further than the edge of the screen.

• The cannons activate their laser beams in an anticlockwise pattern, starting with the one at the front. Keep an eye on that laser to know where to move to and take out the laser with the lowest health, usually during the short pause after each time the lasers fire, or when Omega starts rotating in the opposite direction
• After five rounds of each laser firing, Omega switches its rotation direction, giving an opportunity to shoot the cannons in point-blank.
• When the armors of the laser cannons are cast out, the respective cannons remain active, but their beam's width is significantly reduced.
• To "destroy" the cannons, the player need to cast out the generators behind Omega's engines.
• The central core of Omega becomes vulnerable to damage only once all four lasers are cast out. Note that the electric field shrouding it zaps the Plane and deals continuous damage unless it has an active Energy Shield, a feature that discourages the player from approaching the core and further protects it from damage.

4th phase attack

As seen in the first phase of the battle, only the front laser cannon is used to aim at the player's plane to destroy it.

Core Drone

Located in the central core of Omega. If the player moves the Plane near it, it glows red and after a while, deploys to engage as a secondary target. Once deployed, the Drone does not retreat and has an obscene amount of health, assuming its presence for the rest of the fight. Once destroying the Drone, a copy of it reappears in the core which is activated likewise. A random type of Drone out of three will be summoned as below.

• Type A - Slow movement speed, fires slow radial spreads of bullets, similar to Omega's rear left engine.
• Type B - Moderate movement speed, summons small AA Mines (similar to those found on Stage 9).
• Type C - Swift movement speed, fires a high-speed Energized Railgun Shell. The only type that directly fires at the Plane.
  

  Type A

  

  Type B

  

  Type C

The Drones often randomly hover above one of Omega's engines, picking a different engine to move to in a very rigid trajectory after a while.

The Drone is only active from the Hard Difficulty onwards. Destroying it does not count towards any Medal requirements and neither extra Stars nor scores are given.

Combat Routine

Appearance in Stage 13

Special Cutscene

Omega is first seen launching itself into the battle, where its hangar doors open and it takes off, played in a special cutscene which can be skipped by tapping the screen. The fight then begins.

1st Phase

The Gatling cannons rev up, whine loudly and begin to spin and fire. Target the barrel-shaped cannon on the right as it is the first to deploy for a little more damage. Once you see the barrels starting to spin, swoop away before their projectiles fly out. After the first wave, use a Main Weapon Supercharge if available to quickly tear the cannons down before they fire again. If you so happen to still have any saved Energy Shields at this point, do use one of them to protect your Plane from the projectiles and save an opportunity for attacking in point-blank, and destroy the barrels. After the Gatling cannons fire their first wave, the four laser turrets will engage. Be cautious if the Gatling cannons are still intact then, since there would be limited space for maneuvering.

Destroying both Gatling cannons shatters a shield protecting the laser turrets at the back, making them vulnerable to damage. While destroying the turrets, fly towards the opposite side of Omega's facing and steer clear of where they point. Since they cannot change aiming direction while aiming and fire almost at once, you can dodge all of them at once by swiftly moving your Plane from left to right side and vice versa every time the turrets prepare to fire, while alternating between damaging both sides.

Laser Cannon

Once you destroy the Gatling cannons, Omega will open up its front laser cannon which begins to charge up. After destroying the four laser turrets, the AI controlling Omega will announce that the laser is now ready to fire, and quickly swoop away to hide from range of the cannon, but beware of the Core Drone. The laser can even force your Plane to the top corners of the screen, but staying near the laser beam will cause Omega's rotation to slow down.

Staying close to Omega's laser causes its rotation speed to slow down.

2nd Phase

After a pause, the two missile launchers come out from their housing places, and fire their first barrage of guided missiles. For the best evasion when you do not have Energy Shields to allow safe point-blank attacking, fly towards the corner of the screen, then move your Plane across a circumference as slowly as possible, leading the missiles away. Once the launchers retract, charge up your MWS module if necessary and shoot them down in point-blank.

3rd Phase

After another pause, the four engines extend outwards, their lights changing color to signal the ignition of their weapon systems. Omega will first rotate to allow the rear-left engine to face you directly, and that engine first engages you alone with slow moving bullets shot out in a radial pattern. After disabling that engine's weapon system, Omega rotates again, this time to allow the other three engines to attack. Be aware that the bullets left over by the previous engine might pose an extra threat. The front-left and rear-right engines on the left and right of the screen fire randomly-clustering bullets, which as mentioned above repeat seven times before a pause is seen. The front-right engine at the bottom will shoot out bullets that have advanced tracking technology, flying directly towards your Plane after clustering together. As such, the best technique during this phase would be to focus on this engine before going on to cast out the other two.

4th Phase

After all the weapon systems on Omega's engines are disabled, the final segment of the battle begins, where the core shrouds itself in an electric field that relentlessly damages your Plane upon contact, and the four laser cannons hidden between the engines will engage. There is a five to six second opportunity for point-blank attacking before the lasers fire for the first time. It is easiest to shoot the cannons down one by one. When the lasers fire, set your Plane in a gap and hide between by rotating along with Omega. The laser cannons shoot in an anticlockwise pattern, starting with the one at the front. The laser cannons themselves are durable enough such that they continue firing after the generators that power them behind the engines are stripped off, though the beam size is narrowed.

Keep following Omega's rotation pattern unless you have Energy Shields to absorb the electric field's damage. Tase Mebro technician also does well with its Tesla Coil (and slightly outranges the core despite being the same thing), freeing the worries of having to save Energy Shield charges for point-blank attacking of the core.

After several rounds, Omega switches its spinning direction, and the laser cannons take another five to six second pause before firing again. Once more, follow the direction of the spinning pattern once the lasers engage after another free shooting duration. Professional players who know this part well can actually use the Octopus Plane, making full use of the missile overcharge MWS feature and rapidly take down all the four laser cannons together. Laser power-ups and The Classic Plane with the Laser Whip weapon work well also, since two cannons can be taken down in one shot in a single powerful beam.

The central core remains protected from damage until all four cannons are shot down. After destroying it, you can obliterate the rest of Omega and clear the battle.

Appearance in Prologue Stage

In the Prologue Stage, Scarlet is in control of Omega instead of the AI and the only way to finish is to have your Plane destroyed. For as long as you can hold on, you can try shooting at the front engines of the giant drone until Scarlet engages the front laser beam cannon. Unfortunately you can only fly up to the corner of the screen just letting the space between you and the beam cram more and more until you are destroyed.

Difficulty

Omega Trophy

Omega is a somewhat easy boss to beat, albeit tediously long on occasion. In higher Difficulty levels, the Core Drone is activated if it catches the player abusing any bypass tactics, making it more challenging as there is an additional target to engage, making it harder to focus on the main battle itself. Note that the armaments can easily have their destruction delayed, giving the Plane an opportunity to regenerate health using Card 19.

Certain Planes can make the Boss rather challenging at times. The Gladius is quintessential, as despite the short firepower range it is dangerously vulnerable to the weapons, especially against the missile launchers and the four outer engines' attacks, since its supreme firepower allows most armaments to be destroyed in one or two Main Weapon Supercharge bursts. As always, the Ace of Spades and Limp Berserker are both destroyed in one hit in exchange for their other useful traits, making them unideal.

Important: There is a rather dangerous PC-exclusive bug that occurs when fighting Omega. If the game lags at the wrong moment while the Boss is turning to use the four engines, one of the engaging engines could be lost off-screen, making it impossible to be damaged. This softlocks the fight, and is largely uncontrollable. The player may reset the Stage, either by destroying their Plane or returning to the menu. Ironically, having a better device makes the bug less likely to happen.

Trivia

• The voice of the mystery AI controlling Omega and the secret Boss from Sky Force Anniversary, Arachnotron, has several dialogue quotes as heard from both games. Most of them are heard when destroying part of the Boss's armor while some others are heard during various parts of the Stage.
  • Jamming communication.
  • Omega unit ready to deploy. (Before Omega gets deployed)
  • Release the Arachnotron. (When the Arachnotron is launched)
  • Module Offline.
  • Shield Generators Online.
  • Lowest common denominator.
  • Charging laser. (Signals the start of the laser charge in both Bosses)
  • Laser is charged. (When the laser is ready to fire - Omega's laser turrets destroyed)
  • Laser available. (When the laser is ready to fire - Arachnotron version)
  • Weapon system disconnected. (When taking down Omega's missile launchers)
  • The machine does not feel pain.
  • You can't hurt the machine.
  • No! (When Omega is obliterated sometimes)
  • Argh! (After Omega's third phase armor is destroyed)
  • Don't touch that.
  • Division by zero. (Before Omega's laser cannons fire)
  • You have defeated a machine. More will follow. (When the Arachnotron is obliterated)

Omega being deployed

• Omega, similar to Nasty Owl from Sky Force Anniversary as the final known Boss in the game, features a cutscene that rolls while showing its entrance.

• This is one of two Bosses to "survive" the obliteration segment (The other being Quattropus), where its engines restart and it escapes the battlefield, regardless of the intensity of final damage inflicted on it. This leads to the end of the Stage and end-game credits roll, where Omega is seen slowly flying upward into the air.

• Arachnotron, the secret Boss from Sky Force Anniversary, is presumably an old construction of Omega, with the same mystery AI taking control (notable for it having the same robotic voice, but with a different facial look). Both Bosses are known for their powerful laser cannons and weapon systems.

• Omega's laser cannon beams, which are capable of shattering an Energy Shield, are uniquely bright red in color, unlike others such as the laser beams from the Laser Drones which are typically blue, making the formers the only non-blue lasers capable of doing so.

• The aforementioned phase of the Boss can act as a reminder of the HG-2000 Boss from Aces of the Luftwaffe: Squadron, which is a similarly designed drone that also is equipped with lasers, except that their cannons fire in different and more various patterns.

• A side view of Omega can be seen along with an aircraft flying towards it on the Energy Shield Dispenser Bonus Card, and its undercarriage can be seen through its trophy and some stock images of the game.

• After defeating Omega for the first time, the Nightmare Difficulty mode is subsequently unlocked for all Stages cleared with all Medals acquired on Normal, Hard and Insane.

Omega shown in the Energy Shield Dispenser Bonus Card

Omega and Arachnotron