A rivets strategy question

[NWnike]

Okay, so I was having good first level for me. I managed 9300 on barrels which is my 2nd best ever. Typically, when I have a good barrel board the firefoxes spread out and I can't get them all on the left side. However, this time the board was going well, 4 smashes with the bottom hammer and I got up top with with 3000 on the bonus. I was pressing, had 4 fires top left, 1 fire bottom center, and still had the top hammer.

My question is: In a situation like this, do you point press for most of the clock and then try to get smashes at the end, or just keep pressing. I went down at 900, got the hammer, got ZERO smashes because they would come down, move left, and go right back up the ladder. I ended up with 17,300 and I did get a few jumps in after the hammer but I know I would have been over 19,000 if I had just stayed. What is the play here?

[Lyriell]

My personal way is to point press till about 600 bonus and then go down and grab the hanmer.

All you need on average is two smashes and you're probably close to even.  On thr later levels you'll ptobably even have them respawn on the right hand side and possibly smash them again.

Someone will know better than me though.

[Barra]

This is a classic case of consistency vs. potential

Jumping it out will, in most cases, yield you more points.
 
Climbing down and grabbing the hammer most of the time will yield you less, but there's always that potential of getting 5 or 6 smashes
If there's 500 on the clock on L1, jumping it out will net approx 1300 points. This means 2 smashes minimum just to make up for those points, but more often than not you'll need 3 or 4

Personally I always grab the hammer in search of the 6x800

[SithOfSpades]

Here is a good thread on top hammer vs. leeching on the rivets: https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=1491.0. I usually leave to go get the hammer with 400 left on the timer on levels 1 and 2. I up it to 600 for everything else. This comes mostly from a simplification of Jry's spreadsheet targeting 3ish smashes.

[NWnike]

So I gave this some more thought and read that other thread (thanks Sith). It is hard to pass up the opportunity for big points like Barra was talking about but on levels 1 & 2 the firefoxes move slower, especially level 1,I feel this makes it  less likely they will come to you combined with the slower timer giving you more jumps for points. In most cases I'm gonna jump it out until level 3 and after and then go for points.