Time Pilot (Arcade) - RetroAchievements/guides GitHub Wiki

This guide will help you earn achievements for the arcade classic, Time Pilot. The key to success is understanding enemy patterns, managing screen clutter, and knowing when to farm points versus when to push forward.

Default DIP Switch Settings

Unless an achievement specifies otherwise, all challenges should be attempted using the default DIP switch settings. This ensures a consistent experience that matches the arcade's original difficulty. The correct settings are:

  • Lives: 3
  • Bonus Life: 10,000 / 50,000 points
  • Difficulty: 4

Stage Achievements

On each level, once you've cleared enough regular enemies, a mother ship will appear. Defeating this mother ship is the key to advancing your flight through time. It will spawn after you've destroyed 56 regular enemies, but this can be delayed if there are too many enemies on the screen. There is a scale at the bottom of the screen that lets you know when you've killed enough of the enemy.

It takes 8 hits to kill the mother ship. However, if it goes off-screen with fewer than 5 hit points, it will replenish its health to 5 when it reappears.

There are a total of 5 distinct stages after which the game will loop and increase the difficulty.

Badge Title Description Points
Age of the Biplane Complete the A.D. 1910 stage on default settings. 3
Age of the Monoplane Complete the A.D. 1940 stage on default settings. 3
Age of the Helicopter Complete the A.D. 1970 stage on default settings. 5
Age of the Jet Plane Complete the A.D. 1982 stage on default settings. 10
Age of the UFO Complete the A.D. 2001 stage on default settings. 25
Perfect First Flight Complete the first stage without getting hit on default or higher difficulty. 5
Immortal Pilot Complete stages 1 to 4 without getting hit on default or higher difficulty. 25
Back to the... Flying Saucers Complete stages 1 to 9 on default settings. 25

Parachute Rescue Challenges

If you're new to the game, these challenges are a great place to start. You can't use your firepower, so you'll need to focus on dodging enemies and learning their patterns.

These are the only achievements that let you start with 255 lives. While dying will reset your current progress, you can retry the challenge from the beginning, making it much more forgiving.

Badge Title Description Points
Carnegie Hero Medal Rescue 3 parachutes from 1910 in a single life, without opening fire, on default or higher difficulty. 3
Navy and Marine Corps Medal Rescue 3 parachutes from 1940 in a single life, without opening fire, on default or higher difficulty. 5
Silver Lifesaving Medal Rescue 3 parachutes from 1970 in a single life, without opening fire, on default or higher difficulty. 10
Gold Lifesaving Medal Rescue 3 parachutes from 1982 in a single life, without opening fire, on default or higher difficulty. 10

Formation Killing Challenges

Formations appear at specific times, usually right after a parachute. The game plays a distinct sound effect to let you know a formation is about to appear. You then have about 3.5 seconds to destroy all the planes in the formation to earn a 2,000-point bonus. If you fail to kill all of them in time, you won't get the bonus, and they won't count toward the achievement.

Keep in mind that if there are too many enemies on the screen, a formation might not spawn. You also need to be careful not to kill the required number of enemies for the level, as this will trigger the mother ship to spawn. Formations rarely appear once the mother ship is on screen, which could lock you out of the achievement.

Badge Title Description Points
Monoplane Formation Breaker Destroy 4 monoplane formations from 1910 in a single game, on default settings. 5
Biplane Squadron Crusher Destroy 4 biplane formations from 1940 in a single game, on default settings. 5
Helicopter Group Purger Destroy 4 helicopter formations from 1970 in a single game, on default settings. 10
Jet Plane Flight Terminator Destroy 4 jet plane formations from 1982 in a single game, on default settings. 10

Special Enemy Challenges

For these challenges, the most important thing is to survive and not advance to the next level before you've destroyed all the special enemies needed for the achievement.

  • Bombs are dropped by biplanes in the A.D. 1910 stage.
  • Bombers fly horizontally across the screen in A.D. 1940. They require more than one shot to take down.
  • Homing Missiles are fired by helicopters and jet planes in the A.D. 1970 and A.D. 1980 stages. It can be hard to destroy 50 missiles in a single stage, but they all add up to your total. Shoot as many as you can in each stage to work toward the goal.
Badge Title Description Points
Bomb Disposal Expert Destroy 10 bombs from 1910 in a single game, on default settings. 5
Bomber Barrage Destroy 5 mid-size bombers from 1940 in a single game, on default settings. 5
Missile Annihilator Destroy 50 homing missiles in a single game, on default settings. 5

Point Challenges

You can use the game's mechanics to your advantage to farm for points. Since you won't advance to the next stage until you kill the mother ship, you can prolong the earlier levels where it's easier to survive.

A good strategy is to avoid killing the mother ship. The mother ship will replenish its hit points when it goes off-screen, so you can easily avoid taking it down and instead hunt for smaller planes and parachutes for points.

Another strategy is to collect parachutes and avoid shooting down too many planes. This will delay the mother ship from spawning. You get up to 5,000 points per parachute collected, which can add up quickly.

If your goal is to master the game, don't focus on these point challenges alone. You'll likely reach 200,000 points while going for the "Back to the... Flying Saucers" achievement anyway.

Badge Title Description Points
Ace Cadet Achieve a score of 100,000 points on default settings. 5
Master Pilot Achieve a score of 200,000 points on default settings. 10