Completed my R-Type Delta gallery. The beginning of stage 3 is hard with the R-9.

Now I have to decide what to do next--keep playing on Hard until I get the 1000 Delta Weapon note, or try a no force or a no powerup game?

I think the obvious choice is to get the Delta Weapon note before going for a no-force game, since you can't use the Delta without a force. I've got something like 860 Delta uses so far, and about 88 hours on the clock.

I forgot to mention a weird glitch that happened the other day. I was playing on Hard with the R-13, and was just about to go under the mech's back foot on stage 3. I fired the Delta Weapon, but nothing happened. I noticed my guage was still depleting, though. Then it stopped at 53%.