Git Gud! A Guide to Score Maximization (Work in Progress)

Overview

No muss, no fuss. I’m here to help you achieve your maximum score potential. This guide assumes you’ve already mastered the basics to Beat Hazard and tackles advanced topics such as optimum reflection tactics, perk loadouts, kill order for mobs, and more. The focus is 100% on score, so if you’re looking for the basic stuff such as maneuvering and survival, this isn’t the place for you (yet).

Why should I listen to you?

Here are some of my accomplishments in Beat Hazard (all ranks are Worldwide as of this writing):

Top 1000 in Highest Total Score
Top 800 in 3-4 minute tracks
Top 800 in 4-5 minute tracks
Top 400 in 6-7 minute tracks
Top 600 in 7+ minute tracks; and no, I didn’t use a 45-minute song for this.
Top 350 in Survival Mode, both Time and Score

Everything in this guide is what I’ve discovered on my own, so don’t be afraid to consult other guides as well — it’s likely I’ve missed something, somewhere!

Before the Game — Perk Loadout

The following loadout is what I personally use and would recommend to any veteran seeking high scores. If you don’t have Gimme More Perks or any of the following maxed, then what are you doing on this guide? Go max your perks!

I Don’t Die — Because of the massive multiplier penalty for dying, our runs are zero-death by default. This perk gives us occasional x15 multipliers just for doing what we planned to do anyway.
Multiplier Rain — Trust me, they add up. For < 3 minute tracks, I can see forgoing this and picking POW POW POW instead, but I still prefer as many multipliers as I can handle.
Score Booster — Note that it stacks well with our actual multipliers.
Spawn More Multipliers — More multipliers, more points. It’s that simple.
Goodie Bag — A boost at the beginning of the game that, unlike POW POW POW or Pump Up the Volume, also can give us consumables and multipliers! Yes please. It also makes the occasional death on long runs a little less painful, though we’re hoping not to need Goodie Bag for that.
Micro Missiles — Boss killer extraordinaires. Their AI targets the more annoying mobs first, which is good when we need to focus on beating back the hordes of normal ships (70% of Suicidal on any track, basically)
Midget Power — Suicidal difficulty makes things get hectic awfully quickly. It’s better to release more missiles in fewer keystrokes than vice versa, which is why we pick this over More Micro Missiles
Reflect Shield — The best perk in the game, hands down. Invincibility plus turning enemy homing shots into micro missiles is a sure way to my heart and my scoreboard. Reflect shields are critical to any strong score on a track.
Extra Reflect Shield — We’re going to chew through these things FAST. Get as many as you can to start.
Stay Hidden — The longer your shield lasts, the more time you have to reposition or headbutt missiles. 1 more second may not sounds like a lot, but it’s often the difference between life and death.

The Ultra Beam sucks since we plan on having a perpetual Beat Hazard and it actually has less spread than the normal Beat Hazard shot.

“But Arjuna, I thought we wanted as many multipliers as possible? Why aren’t we using Chart Topper or The Devil Pays Well?” A good question!

Chart Topper is strong for very short tracks (3 min or less) but scales very poorly beyond that. Any of our other multiplier perks will easily net us 30x or more throughout the run, more than making up for the early boost Chart Topper gives us.
We are NEVER getting the Daredevil multiplier on Suicidal. There are just too many enemies at all times, and even when it’s just meteors, we want to crack them open for consumables ASAP.
EDIT: I’ve had a few excellent players inform me that a Daredevil-focused route can pay off on some tracks. I won’t be discussing it here until I’ve tried it myself and thus can speak intelligently on it. For now, shy away from this until you’re used to playing on Suicidal on the more traditional way outlined in this guide.

Suicidal — A Road Map

To get top scores, we have to play Suicidal. It’s named that for a reason. It’s brutally punishing with a ridiculous amount of enemies and very little time to breathe. It will test your reflexes, decision-making, and aim like nothing else.

And boy do the points rack up if you survive.

The nice thing about having so many enemies is that you get so many multipliers and consumables dropped, but we’ll get to that later. Here are some things you’ll need to know about survival on Suicidal difficulty:

Optimize your startup. As usual, the start of the game will consist of meteors. Focus on blowing up as many large ones as possible! They don’t give you many points, but they have a good chance to drop multipliers and power-ups (small meteors never drop anything). Besides, points are worthless in the start of the game. Note that startup is much shorter in Suicidal.
Put your back to the wall. When swarms of small enemies fly in, find a side of the screen that’s safe stay near it. It’s much easier to take down and dodge enemies in a 140-degree cone than those surrounding you.
Stream the red shots. There will be way more red shots than any other difficulty. They’re always aimed directly at you (except bosses). See their angle of approach and dodge by as little as possible (aka “streaming”). That way new shots won’t cut off your escape route.
Mines are obnoxious on Suicidal. Shoot them down if far away, but feel free to burn a reflect if you’re surrounded. Destroy any generators ASAP.
Much better to miss a few pickups than die. However, if a reflect consumable has dropped, go ahead and use a reflect to get it if you need to. It’s basically a free invincibiltiy period then.
Pop it, don’t drop it! Better to reflect and not need than the opposite.
Superbombs are precious You’ll usually get a maxmium of 4 on most tracks, so make them count. They’re better at decimating swarms than at taking down big dudes or bosses. The closer you are to the center, the more mobs you’ll usually hit.
Keep your cursor close Keeping your cursor close to your ship makes switching your angle of attack easier.
Save your missiles for the big guys Micro missiles aren’t great at handling swarms, but their homing capabilities make them perfect to destroy high-value targets as you cut through the cannon fodder.

Kill Order: What to Shoot and When

Coming soon!

Optimum Reflection — Get the Most from Your Shield