I agree with what you are saying in principle, but unfortunately I must tell you that you are both wrong with regards to the clones of Shootout.(posted 9328 days ago)It is currently too easy to leech because you get a bonus life every 50 K (at 20k and 70k, meaning 20k, 70k, 120k, 170k, 220k, etc. for some strange reason) If the bonus life is moved from 20k, 70k to just 70k, you have to leech 100k in one round to get your bonus life (after the initial 70K, that is, and the max amount you can score in stage 1 (the pre-roller coaster stage) is 15K). Only 11-12 roller coasters come per cycle in Stage 2, and only about 10 of these are consistently hittable (the other two come just as you are being shot at from the man in the booth protected on the left side of the screen). Of these 10, on a good-timing day I can hit 8, so I can leech about 80K plus maybe 10k in points for the level=90k total. And that's with an optimum run on the level, which is by no means easy.
Now, if all we do is change difficulty to medium, I guarantee you that I can hit that coaster 5 times per level with little practice. At hard I can't, but by hard the game is already ridiculously difficult. This is a game with very little middle ground.
Unfortunately, I think the only solution will be to leave the settings at easy, change the bonus to 70K, and set the starting men to 1. Leeching on stage 2 therefore becomes nearly impossible. As you could make one bonus man (70K) having leeched about 5 coasters, and POSSIBLY another at 170K, but doing so would cost you one man, and there is no way in hell you would make it to 270K from 170K on one man. In other words, if you fail to hit the coaster all 10 times, you are forced to advance in the game, because you will be out of lives. If you can hit the coaster 10 times in one stage, you damn well deserve to keep leeching--and I guarantee you not even a great player will, the coaster is just too tricky a target to hit every time.
So my recommendation for TG settings on all three sets is 1 starting man, bonus at 70K, easy difficulty (as the difficulty level rises during the game anyways. With the approval of the community I will submit these settings as the official ones to Mark Longridge, who I have already discussed the matter with.
If anyone wishes to respond to this, besides QRS, I will ask that you please play the game so that you know exactly what you're talking about. No offense, but after playing it at these settings you'll rapidly see what I mean.
Sincerely, Q.T.Quazar