Explain how you optimize your star power.

[MLafer]

This is mostly for people like Maximus or Echelar...who have all of the best scores in the lower difficulties. (And yes, this is motivated by the fact that I posted about my #1 score in the accomplishments thread and then Maximus went and beat it the next day by over 1,000...and now i can't break his score)

While it's fun to discuss a star power strategy for each individual song, it seems you guys have a pretty steady method of determining an optimal SP path through every song. It would be fantastic if you could share that with the rest of the board.
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[MLafer]

This is mostly for people like Maximus or Echelar...who have all of the best scores in the lower difficulties. (And yes, this is motivated by the fact that I posted about my #1 score in the accomplishments thread and then Maximus went and beat it the next day by over 1,000...and now i can't break his score)

While it's fun to discuss a star power strategy for each individual song, it seems you guys have a pretty steady method of determining an optimal SP path through every song. It would be fantastic if you could share that with the rest of the board.
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[trofl]

If I can add to this a specific question... what's better to use it on? A string of lots of single notes or decent-length held chords?
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"Science. It works, bitches."
And what's the harm in ignoring it?

[trofl]

If I can add to this a specific question... what's better to use it on? A string of lots of single notes or decent-length held chords?
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"Science. It works, bitches."
And what's the harm in ignoring it?

[Genga]

i use my star power when I know theres a load of notes coming up to press, seems I still cant catch Maximus though :P
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ScoreHero's First Ever Mascot!

[Genga]

i use my star power when I know theres a load of notes coming up to press, seems I still cant catch Maximus though :P
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ScoreHero's First Ever Mascot!

[Echelar]

I have to go out for a few hours now, but I'll make a lengthy post when I come back this afternoon.

[Echelar]

I have to go out for a few hours now, but I'll make a lengthy post when I come back this afternoon.

[Genga]

where can you find the note charts?
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ScoreHero's First Ever Mascot!

[Genga]

where can you find the note charts?
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ScoreHero's First Ever Mascot!

[MaximusDM]

In awe that my name is being thrown around like I am good. I am just pretty much the only guy who has looked at the note charts on easy and I know that if someone else just took the time my scores could easily be matched, if not beaten.

And this could be applied to Echelar as well but instead he chose Medium to persue; I will catch him eventually. -_- Because he didn't grow lazy once he was number one and went for everything to get his name across the board. I just went to 1 after seeing that Jsn hadn't posted a score since a very long time ago before the note charts had come out so I knew there was alot of room for improvement.

The topic for the explaination of the score system is here.

Notecharts are here.

You just gotta sit down and find the star powers in the song and find when the best place to activate them is by counting notes and measures. The biggest part is when you are missing the star powers because this can deduct thousands of points from your final score. Some songs even have star powers toward the end where you have no choice but to miss because you need those notes as x8 so it can be tricky; especially when dealing with holds and when to whammy and when not to whammy.

And then the hit box of the notes CAN be abused as seen on Infected; Easy.

I am loosing by 7,000 points because he was able to abuse the system and hit a note before it actually comes up and start whammying immediately. I tried several times but I could not pull it off.
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[MaximusDM]

In awe that my name is being thrown around like I am good. I am just pretty much the only guy who has looked at the note charts on easy and I know that if someone else just took the time my scores could easily be matched, if not beaten.

And this could be applied to Echelar as well but instead he chose Medium to persue; I will catch him eventually. -_- Because he didn't grow lazy once he was number one and went for everything to get his name across the board. I just went to 1 after seeing that Jsn hadn't posted a score since a very long time ago before the note charts had come out so I knew there was alot of room for improvement.

The topic for the explaination of the score system is here.

Notecharts are here.

You just gotta sit down and find the star powers in the song and find when the best place to activate them is by counting notes and measures. The biggest part is when you are missing the star powers because this can deduct thousands of points from your final score. Some songs even have star powers toward the end where you have no choice but to miss because you need those notes as x8 so it can be tricky; especially when dealing with holds and when to whammy and when not to whammy.

And then the hit box of the notes CAN be abused as seen on Infected; Easy.

I am loosing by 7,000 points because he was able to abuse the system and hit a note before it actually comes up and start whammying immediately. I tried several times but I could not pull it off.
_________________

[Echelar]

As Maximus said, we aren't 1st because we're better players ... we just put more time into looking at the charts. Someone could easily come along and take most of my medium 1sts.

So here's some things you need to consider when mapping a SP path.

1. As mentioned above, holds give you the value of the note every 2 beats. So a chord held for 2 beats is the same value as 2 chords.
2. Whammying star power will give you the value of another SP every 7.5 beats. Keep an eye out for SPs that are exactly 7.5 beats long, as you can actually get a half meter from them if you're fast.
3. If you're good with timing, you can get an extra note during SP if you activate slightly later than the first note's true position, and play that first note really late.
4. SP lasts 4 measures for half a meter, 8 for a full meter.

So what I'd suggest for a procedure is this:

1. Check out the note chart and take note as to where all the SP combos are.
2. Take a look at each section of the song and note which sections are the densest in notes (i.e. best places to use sp).
3. Start from the beginning and mentally look through the song, keeping in mind your SP. For instance, after you have two combos, see where you could potentially use it. Consider getting 3 and using it. It can be pretty hard to figure a good path for some songs. Try to plan out your initial path so it lands where the notes are densest ... and take note if you skip an SP somewhere along the way. Try not to end with a 1/4 bar of SP, though this isn't a rule.
4. Go back through and see if there's a way to shift things around to either use a missing SP, or land your use in denser notes. This is where things get tricky. Usually there's a few places in the song that are obvious as to where to use SP, and a few trouble areas. Usually I come up with two options for a section and then count notes to see which is better.


A practical example: Cowboys from hell / medium.
Chart

1. Map out star powers (usually I don't actually do this graphically, but it's easier to illustrate). -> Link

2. Densest part is obviously the repeated chords.

3. Just going through the first part of the song, there are some obvious large gaps that are ideal for SP. After the first 5 SPs, you could fit a full meter. After the next one, you can fit a half meter. And so it goes. I mapped out a very simple usage for the first part of the song, only trying to hit the gaps and densest notes.

Path 1

However, we're fairly wasteful with our SP, getting 4 and wasting 1 in most cases. So, let's try some trickery to clean it up. I'd like to get one more SP use in the chord section. The best place I see to fit it in easily is before the first run of red notes. So, to do that, I need to have the previous two SPs, which shifts my first use back.

Path 2

We've made use of one more star power combo in this path, but is it better? Our first use isn't all in the chord section anymore, so we need to see if the trade-off was worth it.

The last two SP uses were the same in both paths, so forget about them.

Path 1: 8 measures of the chord section during SP (first use only)
Path 2: 3.5 + 3.5 = 7 measures of chord section during SP
Also, path 2 has 2.5 measures of the opening riff and .5 measures of lead-in to the RRRRR part during SP. So, we just need to compare the differences to see what we gained or lost.

1 measure of the chord section = 14 - 18 notes depending on which section. If we need to figure out what # it is exactly, we'll do that later.

The 2.5 measures of opening riff in path 2 = 20 notes. We're already ahead. The .5 measures of lead-in to the red notes is 5 notes (not counting a squeeze).

So, with this modification, we gained 7-11 notes during SP, which is 1400-2200 points.

I'm by no means claiming that this path is the absolute best, but maybe this little example helped you see how totally batshit insane I am about plotting paths.
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[Echelar]

As Maximus said, we aren't 1st because we're better players ... we just put more time into looking at the charts. Someone could easily come along and take most of my medium 1sts.

So here's some things you need to consider when mapping a SP path.

1. As mentioned above, holds give you the value of the note every 2 beats. So a chord held for 2 beats is the same value as 2 chords.
2. Whammying star power will give you the value of another SP every 7.5 beats. Keep an eye out for SPs that are exactly 7.5 beats long, as you can actually get a half meter from them if you're fast.
3. If you're good with timing, you can get an extra note during SP if you activate slightly later than the first note's true position, and play that first note really late.
4. SP lasts 4 measures for half a meter, 8 for a full meter.

So what I'd suggest for a procedure is this:

1. Check out the note chart and take note as to where all the SP combos are.
2. Take a look at each section of the song and note which sections are the densest in notes (i.e. best places to use sp).
3. Start from the beginning and mentally look through the song, keeping in mind your SP. For instance, after you have two combos, see where you could potentially use it. Consider getting 3 and using it. It can be pretty hard to figure a good path for some songs. Try to plan out your initial path so it lands where the notes are densest ... and take note if you skip an SP somewhere along the way. Try not to end with a 1/4 bar of SP, though this isn't a rule.
4. Go back through and see if there's a way to shift things around to either use a missing SP, or land your use in denser notes. This is where things get tricky. Usually there's a few places in the song that are obvious as to where to use SP, and a few trouble areas. Usually I come up with two options for a section and then count notes to see which is better.


A practical example: Cowboys from hell / medium.
Chart

1. Map out star powers (usually I don't actually do this graphically, but it's easier to illustrate). -> Link

2. Densest part is obviously the repeated chords.

3. Just going through the first part of the song, there are some obvious large gaps that are ideal for SP. After the first 5 SPs, you could fit a full meter. After the next one, you can fit a half meter. And so it goes. I mapped out a very simple usage for the first part of the song, only trying to hit the gaps and densest notes.

Path 1

However, we're fairly wasteful with our SP, getting 4 and wasting 1 in most cases. So, let's try some trickery to clean it up. I'd like to get one more SP use in the chord section. The best place I see to fit it in easily is before the first run of red notes. So, to do that, I need to have the previous two SPs, which shifts my first use back.

Path 2

We've made use of one more star power combo in this path, but is it better? Our first use isn't all in the chord section anymore, so we need to see if the trade-off was worth it.

The last two SP uses were the same in both paths, so forget about them.

Path 1: 8 measures of the chord section during SP (first use only)
Path 2: 3.5 + 3.5 = 7 measures of chord section during SP
Also, path 2 has 2.5 measures of the opening riff and .5 measures of lead-in to the RRRRR part during SP. So, we just need to compare the differences to see what we gained or lost.

1 measure of the chord section = 14 - 18 notes depending on which section. If we need to figure out what # it is exactly, we'll do that later.

The 2.5 measures of opening riff in path 2 = 20 notes. We're already ahead. The .5 measures of lead-in to the red notes is 5 notes (not counting a squeeze).

So, with this modification, we gained 7-11 notes during SP, which is 1400-2200 points.

I'm by no means claiming that this path is the absolute best, but maybe this little example helped you see how totally batshit insane I am about plotting paths.
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