Additional Findings (WIP)

* I had assumed that higher difficulties would only raise the AI's skill, making them survive longer and extend runs, but the truth seems to be more complicated. My route for True Meteo, for instance, is MUCH faster at the highest difficulty than on Easy, but in my usual Any Route path, Jeljel takes twice as long or more to beat on the highest difficulty, ruining the entire run. The AI will die much faster with full columns on high difficulty, just like you will, but it's much more capable on certain planets. The Easy route for any category should probably be different from the Brutally Hard one. Lots more testing is needed here.

* The "Clear the screen of Meteos!" mission in Multi Star Trip is bugged: you will sometimes not be given credit for clearing the screen. It seems to happen when enemies send you burnt meteos right as you do it. Keep an eye out for a quick white flash; if you don't see one, you'll have to clear the screen again. Luckily...

* Failing a mission in Multi Star Trip doesn't prevent you from facing True Meteo, as long as you can still reach it after getting kicked down to a lower route.

* Regarding Clean Air Club vs. Hot & Chillies in Multi Star Trip: my guess is that Clean Air Club has a lower average time, but if you're lucky enough to get Dawndus on Hot & Chillies (the less common of the two), it can be faster. One would think that the fewer planets in a grouping the better, since it means fewer AI to kill, but the narrow board on Freaze makes its AI pretty dang tenacious.

Beginner Tips

A lot of the strategy in this game is a big question mark to me, but here are some tips for absolute beginners. I'll try to update this as I learn more.


* Rule #1 is to keep the speeder held down as much as possible. The more blocks that end up on your screen, the more you can push onto your opponents' screens, and the faster they'll die. On most stages, you should be able to practice to the point where you can keep it down 100% of the time. You should even keep it held down when you have full columns threatening to kill you -- I haven't noticed it decreasing the amount of time you have to clear.

* A technique tip: when I see a cluster of three same-color blocks only one space away from a match, it's often more reliable --especially when trying to combo in midair -- to swipe through the column in the opposite direction (right) rather than select the one block and moving it one space (left).

https://i.imgur.com/mMgyvyX.png

* As far as I can tell, each column has its own timer that starts counting down when it reaches the top of the screen and isn't part of a live combo, and resets when it either becomes part of a combo or is partially or fully cleared. Having multiple blinking columns is harder to deal with, but you don't have less time before you die. This is important because:

* AIs seem to play actual games of Meteos on their screens, abiding by the same rules as players' games. This means that the fastest (albeit least consistent) way to defeat them is to launch exactly enough meteos to top off a single one of their columns and hope they aren't able to deal with it in time. Overkill -- filling multiple AI columns or their entire screen -- is more consistent but bleeds time. As a corollary:

* Each single-opponent stage has its own distributions of time of screen clear vs. kill probability. The one I'm most familiar with, for example, is Geolyte, the first stage of Branch Star Trip. I know that if I clear the screen at 27 seconds into the split, it gives me about a 30% chance of killing, but I can wait until 30 seconds to improve my chances to ~60%. Watch your opponent's screen to get a sense of how vulnerable they are, and use that to inform the time at which you clear. Keep in mind that their columns currently in the air will take longer to kill them even if you manage to ground them with a screen clear; you will have to wait for the combo to end and then for the kill. If you're up against multiple planets and one has a bunch of meteos in mid-air, maybe launch at the other one.

* This might go without saying, but some planets are better for speedrunning purposes than others. Beginner-friendly planets like Yooj are easy for you to play, sure, but they're also easy for the AI to play. Gimmicky planets (e.g. Gravitas and Forte) are usually the fastest to die, as well as planets with few columns (e.g. Firim, Freaze), planets with low death timers (also Firim) and planets where you can easily screw yourself over if you're not careful (Hevendor).

* In Multi Star Trip, with multiple opponents, you should usually focus your attack on one at a time by tapping their indicators on the left side of the screen. The one that tends to survive the longest will be your bottleneck to advancing, so focus them down. The ones I'm somewhat confident about are Oleana in H2O Planetaries, Gigagush in Dimensional, and Bavoom in Clean Air Club. I'd have to test more to determine others, or even if it's sometimes optimal to spread your attacks.

* DeSmuME is an accurate emulator, and it runs fine, but it's not at all responsive feeling. Input delay on the touchscreen (not to mention using a mouse instead of a stylus) will slow you down quite a bit. Playing on an actual device will be a lot nicer if you can figure out a decent recording setup.

* Ultimately, this game has a lot of RNG. Some stages are more consistent than others, and though some of the RNG can be mitigated with solid play and a close eye on the AI, you're mostly counting on the AI to play poorly. Sometimes it will, spectacularly so! Sometimes it will inexplicably clear a full screen in a matter of seconds. Good luck!

More findings in Multi Star Trip - True Meteo Speedrun

Here is what I have found in Multi Star Trip (feel free to correct me if there is any inaccuracy) :

- For H2O planetaries (Geolyte and Oleana), the rule is the same : push as much as you can to give big doses of burnt Meteos to the opponents, one by one.

- Both following branches are fine to follow. The best is to ensure you avoid Mechatropoloids (Grannest and Megadom). As both are easy to play, they also can doom you in Brutally Hard. Moreover, doing a Clear Screen in Megadom is near impossible if you do not do it properly, and you would have to succeed the mission in Bubblies (Starrii, Vubble and Florias) to possibly have a chance to face True Meteo.

- A special rule is given to all top groups and Bubblies in Brutally Hard : the amount of Meteos you send to the opponents is ridiculously high, compared to what they send you. For instance, even if you send around 30 of them, you can fill a whole screen of one opponent. So make sure to carefully ensure you you have done the Mission before.

- For Earth lovers (Forte, Anasaze and Cavious), both Forte and Anasaze work the same : once you get all of the Meteos, do a vertical ignition to send everything back to space. For Cavious, if you can, go both ways and center to do one full block. Also, make sure the Touch Screen lights when you do a Screen Clear, as caeonosphere stated.

- Bubblies and Dimensionals (Thirnova, Gravitas and Gigagush) work the same. Pile everything you can of the needed kind. You need a success if you go for Bubblies.

- Hot and Chillies (Freaze and Dawndus) work the same too, but Dawndus gives more time to chain the Meteos. For Freaze, chain as much as you can, as it is a 7-column long planet. You can permit yourself to do a 3 and a 4 ignition, then join them.

- For Clean Air Club (Yooj, Brabbit and Bavoom), you often will be given the worst planet to do the mission (send 75 Meteos in one go), which is Yooj. Bavoom and Brabbit have gimmicks to achieve the mission, so if you do not wish to face the 3 with Yooj, just annihilate yourself to be given a chance to do it with another planet. You can start with a 3 or 4-column wide ignition. For Brabbit, push the accelerator once all 9 columns are under an ignition. And chain as much as needed. For Bavoom, it is almost the same, but you need to stack a lot more. But for Yooj, you need to prepare two 5-column wide ignitions that you join with the remaining column. Then stack as much as you can before launching all the ignitions. Normally, that should be enough to send 75 in one go.

- The Rare Cultures (Globin, Lastar and Suburbion) are easier to eliminate due to the special rule, same for Hevendor Realm and True Meteo.

And I think that is all I have found.

Name	Author
Additional Findings (WIP)	caeonosphere 4 years ago
Beginner Tips	caeonosphere 6 years ago
More findings in Multi Star Trip - True Meteo Speedrun	Deleted 4 years ago