Tyrian Shop and Energy
Between two levels of the campaign you land in a shop. What you buy there decides how long you survive and how fast things die.
Equipment pages
Ships
18 hulls and their armor.
OPEN →Weapons
46 front and rear guns, level by level.
OPEN →Sidekicks
32 side weapons and companion ships.
OPEN →Shields
Strength and recharge cost.
OPEN →Generators
The energy behind every shot.
OPEN →Specials
Extra weapons found in levels.
OPEN →Recommended loadouts
What to buy in each episode, worked out from these tables.
OPEN →The shop menu
| Entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Data | Read the data cubes picked up in the previous level (up to four). |
| Ship Specs | The specification sheet of your current ship. |
| Upgrade Ship | Ship, Front Gun, Rear Gun, Shield, Generator, Left and Right Sidekick. |
| Options | Load Game and Save Game. |
| Start Level | Choose the next destination on an animated map, then fly. |
| Quit Game | Back to the title screen, after confirmation. |
Buying and selling
- In Upgrade Ship, the item under the cursor is fitted live so you can see it, with its price. In the gun categories your guns fire in the demo area on the left.
- Enter chooses and Done pays. The item you owned is sold back at its value, so a swap only costs the difference. Esc cancels and refunds.
- Items you cannot afford are skipped.
- Each shop only sells a selection: the equipment pages list the episodes whose shops offer each item.
Weapon power levels
Front and rear guns have power levels, up to 11 for most of them. On a gun, Right raises the power level and Left lowers it, with the cost shown per level. Each level costs more than the last: if a gun's price is P, the second level costs P, the third 3 × P, the fourth 6 × P, and so on (1, 3, 6, 10, 15… times the price). Selling a gun refunds its price plus every level you paid for. The Weapons page gives every level's cost and damage.
Some rear guns have two firing modes; switch between them in flight with the change-fire key (Enter by default), or with / in the shop.
Energy: generator, guns and shield
Your generator fills a single energy reserve, up to 900 units. Each frame it adds its output (10 for the Standard MR-9, 50 for the Gravitron Pulse-Wave). Every time a gun fires, its power use is taken from that reserve; if there is not enough, the gun waits. The shield refills one point every 15 frames while the reserve holds more than its recharge cost, which it then pays.
In practice: big guns on a small generator fire slower than their tables say, and a strong shield on a weak generator recharges slowly in a heavy fight. In Arcade and two-player games the reserve is always full.
Shield and armor
Hits drain the shield first and then the armor. The shield recharges during a level; armor does not, except through repair pickups. Your ship sets your armor (see Ships); the shield you buy sets its strength.
Specials
Specials are not sold in the shop, in the original either: they are picked up during levels. See Specials.
Saving
Save from the shop: Options → Save Game, pick a slot (1 to 10), type a name and confirm. Slot 11, LAST LEVEL, is written automatically before every level. More on the Saves and files page.