Howdy Pin Pilots !
I recently acquired a lovely condition Stern Avatar and for the life of me can’t seem to light the game up. I have got to Final Battle once (fluffed it) but just cannot seem to post decent scores on the game.
Even when I stack Amp and Link multiballs it seems a struggle to get beyond 30 million.
What should I be shooting to get better scores ?
Always be X-in’ the link shot
Criss cross, never stack
Play Link multi until your arms fall off
Not even stack Seeds into Link Multiball ?
The big points earlier in the game is the super jackpot on link multi ball, which can be 20m if it is doubled.
Have fun playing it!
Its a fairly shallow game when you try to min/max.
There is absolutely no reason to ever shoot seeds unless you are trying for final battle which is a fools errand anyway. Seeds is throwaway points.
It’s link all day and It’s all about the link supers. at 2X, The super sequence is worth 18M. Never practical in application, but it can be worth up to 27M at 3X.
The only other viable scoring strat imo, is 2X banshee looping 2 balls in the ramp. But its way harder to do that right than grind link imo.
My strategy is always
Lock a ball in Link, and then get Valk and Banshee running, then start Link. Not uncommon to have a Valk score over 30mil.
It also means that as you are shooting the ramp, you’re likely to be completing Bond to help complete Navi, on the left hand side.
By shooting the loops, you’re also on the way to completing more X multipliers. Always aim to choose Link as your first shot multiplied.
Use Link mb to help set-up Amp mb, but don’t bother starting it, and vice versa.
During either mb pay attention to completing bond to complete Navi shots.
Final battle should not be a primary aim, until you are only 1 or 2 inserts from reaching it. Then I would focus on timing out modes and ensuring the centre standup has a multiplier on it.
Having a decent FB will kill all other strategies
Thanks guys. Day off work tomorrow so will be having a go on it. 
One of the reasons it’s not a good idea to bring any other “modes” into Link and Amp is that for the Eywa award, “Extend Time” on the mode takes precedence over “Add-a-ball” for the MB. Nothing sucks more than you hit Eywa to resurrect your mb, and it awards “Extend Time” on Bomber Battle or Seeds instead. Also note that in tourney mode, the first Eywa award during Link mb is not add-a-ball, however, it is the first award during Amp mb. So the ultimate sequence to get to the double-double Link is to start Link. collect Eywa as soon as possible so you can hopefully reload it for the Link add-a-ball. Drop the visor for Amp, and prime it. If you make it through to the double-double, then great, otherwise, you can then stack Amp in to keep Link going with a new ball saver. And you know the next Eywa award will be an add-a-ball, too. By then, you should be very close to the Super on Link and getting to the Link double-double is “The Thing”, so it’s absolutely good value to extend that mb, if necessary with Amp.You can only get one double-double during an entire Link - it’s victory laps from then on, but a double-double Amp super is nothing to sneeze at either, and you can do those over and over in the same mb.
If you just want to play for fun and get to Final Battle, everything is trivial to light except for the Navi light, so concentrate on finishing your Navi characters and getting Navi MB lit and then qualify the other shots. Once you’re ready to go, play Navi MB last (that way, if you drain before it starts, you can reload everything else again relatively easily). Don’t double drain out of Navi MB at the end (lol) and then play the Final Battle “skillful drain”-fest… And remember that it’s not just about completing “levels” in Final Battle, it’s about finishing the switch hits, and then super skillfully draining the remaining balls out the outlanes for the Unobtanium awards before starting the next level…
As always, ymmv.
cheers
@Smack847 gets the rule suggestion credit for this one all those years ago. It’s so much fun trying to “up and out” your cradle separation when I’m consistently doing that anyway during normal play 
It’s certainly a rare rule. And great risk-reward to do the cradle separation “up and out” followed by a one timer to the center stand-up, especially with its shot doubler active. Some time, it would be fun to pull it off with perfect timing when the 3x shot cycles to the stand-up.
Great stuff guys. Thank you kindly. Now just the simple task of making it happen ! 
When working your lanes up top for shot multipliers keep in mind they do not stack. So when you complete the lanes and the pops continue to send the ball back up the lanes, try to get just two out of the three lanes. When the ball (FINALLY) comes back out of the pops, shoot your shot to double(link priority) then send the ball back up to the lanes and you only need one lane to light shot multipliers again. Same exact strategy on Transformers. Now if only it was that easy on Aerosmith…
Can you clarify this? In final battle, if you go out the outlane with unobtainium lit it increases your final battle jackpot collect?
Yup! This is one of my favorite rules in the game, too.
Here’s how it works:
Also worth noting - during Final Battle, the ramp and the orbits score 5 switch hits instead of just one each. If you want to light the Jackpot quickly, shoot those orbits - you’ll be getting hits from the spinner, bumpers, and the orbit itself.
Also: both outlanes start lit, but once you claim one of them, you can toggle which outlane is lit by flipping.
And here is a video of me from Sunday getting there for the first time (since learning how the scoring actually works, but forgetting some specifics along the way). https://www.twitch.tv/videos/522203242?t=49m35s
If you’re confused about why values are doubled, it’s because I entered Final Battle with the center shot X lit…though it’s not really clear that that is the case while watching the video. (I also had the shot X lit on Amp Suit, but the insert is never lit solidly during Final Battle. I guess it just gets ignored.)