Get ready to embark on an awe-inspiring adventure through your music collection transformed into a breathtaking galaxy of marvels. Prepare yourself for an exhilarating twin stick shooter that places music at its core. Brace yourself for a remarkable journey where each of your songs will unleash a distinct wave of excitement, synchronized to the rhythm. For valuable insights and expert guidance on achieving high scores in this thrilling expedition, consult our comprehensive Beat Hazard 3 Score (Pro Tips) guide.
Beat Hazard 3 Score Guide (Pro Tips)
Welcome to our Beat Hazard 3 Score Guide (Pro Tips). Score is a result of two things; the value of the object you kill, and your multiplier value at the time you kill it.
I don’t have the hard coded values of anything (like I did for BH2), but I just assume that the larger it looks the more it’s worth. So fodder ships are probably worth the least while bosses are worth the most. Importantly, missiles and other spawned objects are worth points.
And multipliers are very important. You start at x1. That’s not a lot. You can increase your multiplier by using Dare Devil bonuses which give you +5 for every ~8 consecutive seconds you aren’t shooting (I think the time varies with song intensity/tempo). There are also Survivor bonuses which gives a +2 just for staying alive for ~30 consecutive seconds (time might vary). And most obviously, there are multiplier drops when objects are killed (they come in +1, +5, and +10).
There is also multiplier decay. At around x450 you hit a soft multiplier cap. Every x seconds you lose a multiplier. The more you have the quicker you lose.
A very useful mechanic to know about is the drop queue. Drops (pow, col, +X, ammo) are sprinkled across the timeline. When you pass a certain drop’s location in time they are allowed to drop from enemies you kill. The same song (with the same metadata) will always spawn the same drops at the same time.
And finally, something I run into very rarely, is the ship cap. I don’t know how it works exactly, but if you keep too many ships alive you can block a boss from spawning. This can be good for very difficult bosses on very long tracks. But it’s usually just losing out on a lot of points.
My Setup
I’m hyper focused on optimizing my strengths so I haven’t really tried what I don’t use. Please experiment with your strengths and let me know what you find out!
When scoring, I run crazy thief. High pickup force allows me freedom of positioning while still getting all the valuable pickups.
- I run Cascade Bomb 0 | 6 | 8 | 8.
- 0 Density because the other stats are more important.
- 6 Damage because this is mainly my cleanup tool (explained later) but the other stats are more important.
- 8 Shield Duration because being shielded in any way is really useful.
- 8 Pickup Rate because more is good (I might lower this on lower difficulties to get more multipliers).
- I run EMP Virus 8 | 0 | 0 | 8.
- 8 Size because when I use this I want to remove all the shields.
- 0 Speed so I can preemptively activate it. It’s more preference.
- 0 Duration because I don’t want to stop missile shooters and spawners.
- 8 Pickup Rate because more is good (I might lower this on lower difficulties to get more multipliers).
- I run Reflect Shield 0 | 8 | 0 | 8.
- 0 Size because I want to protect myself, not deal damage.
- 8 Duration so I can protect myself longer
- 0 Damage because I don’t want to deal damage
- 8 Pickup Rate because more is good (I might lower this on lower difficulties to get more multipliers).
[Edit]
- Some settings if you’re interested.
- Music – 3 (timing cues)
- SFX – 10 (perk weapon audio cues)
- Graphics – Low (for more fps? maybe?)
- Motion Blur – Nope
- Screen Shots – Nope (used to cause me fps hiccups on BH2. I don’t need it)
- Screen Shake – Nope
- HUD – Full (But I should learn to run on reduced or none)
1600×900 Windowed
Early Game
Now to build on that foundational knowledge.
At the start of the track it is a good idea to dare devil for as long as you can. You could start shooting immediately, but then you’re only getting x1 for those ships. If you dare devil even once, you get x6 for those same ships. And it’s often very doable to get 3 dare devils so be patient!
Some tips: Right trigger (right mouse?) to fold your ship into a smaller hitbox. Fodder photons always shoot at where you are so you can trick them into shooting off into nowhere. There can only be so many fodder missiles on screen at once (depending on difficulty) and they have a large turning radius so lead them in circles. Asteroids. Watch out.
Now, breaking (or, how you make your first kills) is very important because of pow/col drops. You start the game at 2 out of 5 pows and cols. That means you only need 3 of each to max out. Once you’re maxed the game will replace pow/cols with multipliers (or ammo). But if you kill a bunch of enemies without picking up their drops, it’s very easy to get way more pow/cols than you need. Those are drops that could have been multipliers! So what I do is use a reflect shield and run into a small batch of fodder ships so I immediately pick up whatever they drop. Alternatively, you can just get real close to pick things up.
Mid Game
Now you’re in the mid game. This bit varies the most with spawnset so I’ll try to cover everything.
Lasers
There are lasers that aim to kill. Depending on the density of other problems you can try to dodge them or remove their source.
There are lasers that aim to contain. I can basically ignore these. I’m a crazy thief and don’t need to move much.
Photons (large plasmas, point photons, photon beams)
Red photons come in large plasmas and point photons. They kill you. So don’t get hit.
Green photons come in all three types and disable your weapons. If the screen is full of missiles and asteroids, these are as bad as red photons. Otherwise, see if you can dare devil through these.
Blue photons come in all three types and slow you down. In most situations they don’t matter. If the screen is a mess anyways I will usually tank the blues and shield whatever comes after.
Missiles
Shielded missiles are a challenge that don’t really reward you much. You probably don’t need to farm these ships.
All other missiles are fantastic. Take special care to keep their ships around. Even the fodder ones. If they get too dense for your dps, you can use cascade bombs and run into them. or if you’re in a corner and no one’s around you can emp. Don’t reflect shield because those missiles will go kill things you don’t want to kill. Unless you do want to kill. Then reflected missiles are a great source of dps.
Spores
There are green spores and blue spores (I think?). They move slowly and the biggest issue is keeping their fragile ships alive.
Tractor Beams
There are red ones that push you and blue ones that pull you and green ones that disable your weapons. You actually don’t collide with the blue tractor ships. But watch out for anything near them or behind them. Most of these are usually too far to affect me, but green ones I try to kill quickly.
Octos (and minis)
Mini octos are pretty rare. I only remember seeing them in survival mode. But they seem deadly. Kill them quickly.
Big octos are great. They spawn with a huge omnidirectional shield and they will slowly drift to the center of the screen. This helps keep everything alive. That’s a good thing.
Snakes (and minis)
Mini snakes (and mini octos?) will explode small asteroids on landing. Kind of like bosses but without the warning. This can mess up some early game breaking, but it’s inconsequential in the mid game.
All snakes are great because their bodies block your projectiles. Use them to protect the enemy ships from your beams, reflected projectiles, and emergency cascade bombs. Big snakes are easy to keep an eye on and kite, but watch out for mini snakes coming in from the edges.
Boss Ships
These are basically an amalgamation of all the types of ships above. They can also spawn fodder ships. Farm those.
General Advice
- Kill projectiles not ships. Projectiles are an endless source of points and the ships will be worth more later.
- If there’s a ship that’s forcing me to shield on cooldown I’ll try to surgically remove it. Usually by running into them with a reflect shield or cascade bomb.
- Stay on the edges, about 1 ship away if you can.
- “Spin to Win”. This is where I continuously shoot in a spiral around me, keeping a dense layer of beams near me where I need protection and a sparse mist further out where I don’t actually want to do damage. If you play on mouse… ask RHM for help.
- Make things easy and use a Crazy Thief ship. This allows you a lot more freedom in positioning and dodging because multipliers come to you.
- If you really hate CT (or really love another manufacturer) be prepared to reset a lot. It’s absolutely necessary to risk everything for multipliers.
- If you have less than x400 it’s probably worth it to spend perk weapons to get hard to reach multipliers.
- When you use perk weapons, have a purpose and choose a weapon that keeps collateral damage low. This usually means Cascade Bomb > Reflect Shield > EMP for me.
- But you also don’t want to run out of any one perk weapon in the mid game. You need options. So think ahead and plan a little.
- Probably the second most important thing for score (after farming) is planning. Once you play a track a few times, you will know what to expect. You can save on resources or position better or dare devil longer. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re doing it. But it helps to realize so you can make informed decisions in the moment.
Late Game
This is usually the last 30 seconds of a track (or less depending on how much is going on). You now have the most multiplier you’ve had this game (or close to it if you’ve hit decay point). It’s time to cash in all those points.
Timing is very important. This is probably the second most failed part of my runs (a far second to early dare devil routing, but a second). If you start too early you miss out on precious seconds of farming, at this point worth (low) millions of points. If you start too late you leave ships or bosses alive, worth (low) tens of millions.
Throughout the song, I’ve been trying to identify which ship is doing what. Now I cascade bomb in the middle of nowhere and ram into those laser and photon ships. I could also reflect shield if I’m low on bombs, but I want to be precise in what I kill and reflections are anything but. Next I use cascade bombs on the bosses. Their shapes are sometimes hard to dps down with beams. And finally I can reflect shield the missile ships, ramming them if the timing is tight.
That’s the ideal order anyways. I almost never get that.
Another factor that might change my plans is multiplier stacking. I will try to time a boss kill with picking up a large multiplier boost (from pickups and survivor bonus). Even though the decay keeps my average at x470, good timing means I might get x490+ for a boss kill. You can do this with other ships as well.
Sometimes ships will fly in at the last second. I will race to their spawn point indicator and preemptively emp, shield, bomb, whatever I have left and sometimes I get those last points. Or, if nothing big is flying in, try running into fodder ships or shoot off into space and hope to hit some asteroids. But the game’s not over till the end screen so don’t stop shooting!
We hope this guide will help visionary people unlock the secrets of this great game. Or come up with great ideas to improve it! Like bringing back 10k. Or proper balanced unlimited difficulty scaling. We need this.
