Shockwave: general tips by David Liu

text by David R. Liu <davidliu@case.ai.mit.edu>

I almost think Shockwave should get an FAQ...

It's a little on the tough side...but the missions get SO much better in terms of enemy graphics, terrain graphics, enemy and terrain variety, weapons, and mission creativity as you progress through the game up to the 10th level on the moon (!) that I thought perhaps posting a Shockwave tips list might help some netfolks get farther in this excellent title.

BTW, all this info was obtained from playing at the Wingman (default) difficulty; not all may apply if you are on Cadet or Ace difficulty.

General Tips

Remember that each refueling bay is good for usually TWO refuels. On occasion, the fuel drone gives you only one refuel, and occasionally you get three. So the strategy I use is to hunt for a fuel depot, check my red bar, and if I still have 15% strength or so, I kill everything I can within the vicinity of the fuel depot. Then I fuel up and leave. If I'm lower than 15% coming into the bay, I fuel immediately, then kill everything (with LASERS, not missiles which are harder to get on refuel), then FUEL AGAIN.
Several fuel bays are HIDDEN from radar. There are two in LA, I believe, that are cloaked. In mission 6 (Utah/Monument Valley), there is one on the left side of your path at the second excavator site, then later on your right side.
The amount of fuel you get from refueling seems to be negatively correlated with the amount of DAMAGE (civilian and building damage) you do. If you are reckless (or if you just don't like the way a building looks and blow it to smithereens) then you are likely to be shortchanged the next time you fuel.
The swarm aliens RUN OUT OF GAS. That is, you can lure them into chasing you, then do a U-turn, and use afterburners. They'll just perish trying to chase you. Simple. No ammo wasted. Each swarm has one mother alien which is an immobile sphere, and takes about 13 laser hits to kill.
Up to mission 4, it is conceivable that you can destroy every alien you ever see on radar. Around mission 5 and on, this becomes impossible. So the new strategy is to listen carefully to your specific instructions, take out exactly what you need to kill (and surrounding threats which pose an immediate danger), then GET OUT and move to the next waypoint. Sure it's wussy and chicken-hearted...but you DO want to see levels 10 and 11 (the secret Milk Run level), right? :) Fortunately, fewer of the mission objectives in the later levels are "Kill Every Alien in the Area" as was true in Los Angeles (mission 3).

Notes on specific levels

Level 3: You can actually complete ALL your objectives and pass the mission even if you blow up a prison. I've tried the experiment (not on purpose...) Just be sure to get all the power cells.

Level 4: The 5 big big guns you meet just before the end are really annoying. They are arranged like this:

2 4 1 3 5 Take out 3 first, with guns only if possible, then 5 with guns, then 4 with missiles, then afterburn down the right side of the corridor. To kill each gun, approach it from outside it's range, shoot guns or missiles for no more than 2 seconds once your gunsight turns red, then pull a quick U-turn and escape with burners. Repeat.

Level 5: The lava pit has three really annoying buggers inside. I've never bothered killing the REALLY FAST two green dot mobile ground guns. The red dot in the center of the lava pit, however, i always kill. So destroying all three is not necessary to completing the mission, een though ICE implies this.

Level 6: The only thing ICE cares about besides killing the final boss is to destroy all the excavators. Each excavator takes one LONG LONG stream of lasers, or one NUKE and about 5 seconds of lasers, or TWO NUKES and about 1 second of lasers. Even though ICE tells you not to trash the city as you kill the last boss (who is easy since he has a pea shooter for a weapon), you CAN get by if you crunch say 4 buildings or so. Just don't try levelling the city.

David

michel.buffa@cmu.edu