Lightning Storm Fish Game Guide: Vortexes & Drill Crabs

Master the Lightning Storm fish game at Game Vault 999 — how Lightning Chains, Vortexes, and Drill Crabs clear schools, and which special pays best per bullet.

If you already know Lightning Roulette, forget all of it — the Lightning Storm fish game is a completely different title that just shares a name. It's a fish-shooting table where three special targets, the Lightning Chain, the Vortex, and the Drill Crab, each wipe out schools in totally different ways. This guide breaks down how each one behaves and which special to prioritize for the best points-per-bullet on Game Vault 999.

Lightning Storm Is a Fish Table, Not a Roulette Wheel

First, the confusion everyone hits: Lightning Storm and Lightning Roulette are unrelated. Lightning Roulette is a live table game with random multiplier numbers. Lightning Storm is a fish-shooting arcade title in the Game Vault 999 fish tables lineup, sitting alongside Ocean King, Crab King, and Dragon Vault. The 'lightning' here refers to its signature Lightning Chain mechanic, not a wheel. If you came for roulette multiplier tips, wrong guide — but if you want to clear fish schools efficiently, keep reading.

The Three Special Targets at a Glance

Lightning Storm's identity is built around three special creatures that don't behave like ordinary fish. Ordinary fish die one at a time. These three trigger chain, area, or line effects that catch multiple fish from a single connection, and knowing what each costs to trigger is the entire skill ceiling of this game.

How the Lightning Chain Works

The Lightning Chain is the headline mechanic. When you catch it, electricity jumps from fish to fish across the whole screen, and every fish the arc touches is caught and paid out. The key detail: you collect the point value of each fish in the chain, not just the Chain creature itself. So the Chain is worth almost nothing on an empty screen and enormous on a packed one, and because the arc favors clusters it rewards densely populated zones over scattered stragglers.

What Vortexes Do in Lightning Storm

Vortexes are the area-of-effect option. When you catch a Vortex, it drops a spinning whirlpool that lingers for a few seconds and pulls surrounding fish into its center, catching them as they're sucked in. Unlike the Lightning Chain, which fires once and resolves instantly, the Vortex keeps working over its lifespan, so fish that swim into the radius after it forms still get pulled. That makes placement matter more than timing. Aim it at a corner where a school is bunching up or a spawn lane where new fish enter, and it harvests continuously instead of catching one snapshot.

Should You Shoot the Drill Crab First?

The Drill Crab is the most misunderstood special. Catching it fires a drill beam in a straight line, catching every fish the beam passes through. Because it's a line effect, it's feast or famine: aimed across a tight stream of fish it can out-earn both other specials, but fired across empty water it's a near-total waste. So the answer to 'should I shoot it first' is no — don't shoot on sight. Trigger it only when fish are already lined up along the drill's path. It rewards a read of fish movement, not reflexes.

Which Special Pays Best Per Bullet?

This is the question that actually matters, and the honest answer is: it depends on the screen state, which is why the game has three specials. There's no universal winner, only a right tool for each board. Match the special to the fish layout and your points-per-bullet climbs; ignore it and even the strongest special underperforms.

A Repeatable Lightning Storm Routine

1. Open Lightning Storm from the fish tables menu and start on the lowest bullet value to learn the spawn rhythm
2. Spend most shots on medium fish for steady income while you wait
3. Watch for a special target (Chain, Vortex, or Drill Crab) to enter the screen
4. Read the board before triggering — is it crowded, clustered, or lined up
5. Trigger the Chain on crowded boards, the Vortex on clustered boards, the Drill Crab on lined-up boards
6. If the board is sparse, hold the special and keep farming until a wave arrives
7. Set a session loss limit before you start and stop when you reach it

Catching the Lightning Fish (the Bonus Target)

Beyond the three specials, Lightning Storm occasionally spawns a high-value Lightning Fish — a rare, fast target worth far more than the common school but harder to bring down. Like any boss-tier fish, it's a poor solo project on a small bullet size because it can escape before you land enough hits. The smarter play is to bump up your bullet value briefly when it appears, or focus fire alongside other players at the table so shared damage lands the catch before it swims off. Chasing it with tiny bullets just drains credits.

Bankroll and Bullet Sizing

Lightning Storm's chain effects make it tempting to fire fast and constantly, which burns through credits faster than a standard slot. Keep single-bullet cost near 1 percent of your session bankroll so you have enough shots to wait for the right screen states. Set a stop-loss at half your starting balance, and if you double up, withdraw part of it. New to the format? Start with the broader fish table fundamentals before a specials-heavy title like this one. Keep it fun — set limits on the responsible gaming page, play 21+ only, and if play stops feeling like entertainment, call the National Council on Problem Gambling at 1-800-GAMBLER.