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The UFO (aka Flying Saucer or Mystery Ship) is a ship that will randomly pop up. If a player hits it, they will receive a random number of either 50, 100, 150, 200, or 300 points. It is present in almost every Space Invaders game, official or otherwise.

Appearance[]

The UFO highly resembles flying saucers seen in much of science fiction. While other beings from the first game are often represented as mostly flat in 3D depictions, the UFO is often disk-shaped. The holes in the sprite are often seen as lights. Its appearance varies from game to game.

Ufo concept art (website) 3d ufo

Score Calculation[]

In the original Space Invaders (and Space Invaders Deluxe) the game has a series of 16 numbers used to determine how many points the player gets after shooting the UFO. The 'pointer' increments every time the player shoots, looping back around after the 15th value has been reached, leading the 16th value to go unused. However, the full list goes as follows: 100, 50, 50, 100, 150, 100, 100, 50, 300, 100, 100, 100, 50, 150, 100, and 50 (which goes unused).

A popular method of abusing this to gain 300 points from every UFO is to shoot 22 times, then shoot the UFO for the 23rd shot, and then shooting the UFO every 15th shot afterward (as that is the length of the loop).

Other characteristics/Other games[]

In the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders, the saucer is called the Command Alien Ship. It has a set point value of 200 points, except for some game variations where it is only worth 100 points.

In Space Invaders Part II, UFOs after level 2 can deploy new Squid Invaders. A new UFO variation is also introduced, the Blinking UFO.

In Space Invaders Infinity Gene, the UFO appears commonly and drops a neuron when destroyed. In a few stages (most notably 1-3, Subspecies,) UFOs can send out a force field that blocks bullets.

In Space Invaders Extreme, UFOs gain different abilities depending on color, like cyan being able to deploy new invaders like Part II, or blue saucers firing lasers. A new variant that initiates a Round is present.

A UFO is the player character in Space Invaders Get Even. Enemies will occasionally reference the original scoring exploit by stating (erroneously) that they can earn extra points every eighth and 23rd hit on the ship.

Bootlegs and Inspired Games[]

In Cosmic Monsters, the saucer hides behind a hangar. If the player does not shoot it quickly enough after it leaves the hangar, then it will explode and add an entire row of monsters to their formation.

In Space Fever Color, the ship will turn into a smaller, faster-moving vehicle that is worth several hundred more points if shot. It usually flees in the opposite direction from where the first saucer came from.

In Astro Battles, the original saucer and a smaller, different-shaped one appear, as well as Gorf robots. (Note: this is from the original arcade version of Gorf; the Atari 2600 version did not have any saucers during this mini-game.)

In the More Invaders! game on the All Good Things Vectrex cart, the saucer will shoot at the player. This also happens on the Space Invaders Duel PC game, but if the saucer's shot hits a bunker then it makes a large explosion, scattering debris everywhere.

In the Cartoonic Space Invaders game there is a same sprite which it only flies from right to left which is true. When hit, the scream is played followed by the sound of a police siren. This is also true.

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