On the Prem/LE, in every tournament I have played it, one of the players suddenly on drain get this second chance feature where it counts down from 25 and you have unlimited ball plunges to lock 3 balls for multiball. How is this triggered, is it possible to shoot something and then knowing you have that on drain? ie it can be part of a strategy?
In any case, can you please disable this in tournament / competition mode? Especially if its random or not possible to actively achieve having this ready on drain. Right now it feels really random and unbalanced in tournament play, why should one player get this and not the other.
To clarify, Last Chance is changed in āInstall Competitionā install or by manually changing the āLast Chance Enabledā adjustment, and is not affected by the āCompetition Modeā adjustment, is that right?
Youre right, it is disabled by the adjustment, which is set in competition install. Competition mode adjustment does not affect it right now.
From the PREMIUM/LE v0.97 change notes:
Added LAST CHANCE feature
To Qualify Last Chance:
Player must be on their last ball in play.
Player cannot have played a Catapult Multiball.
Player must drain down the left outlane with no ball save lit OR
Player must drain down the right outlane and press the magna-save button
before the ball drains.
Timed Mode where the goal is to re-lock balls in the Catapult Lock.
Lower Flippers are Disabled.
Player gets unlimited balls served for the duration of the mode.
Player controls the launching of balls into play.
Completing RAGE lanes adds time and builds jackpot base.
Shooting the Light Locks target adds time and builds jackpot base.
Player must lock 3 balls in the Catapult Lock to start SUPER MULTIBALL.
Time remaining gets added to the jackpot base.
If the player cannot lock 3 balls, their game ends.
You can send me a DM or an email to bug.report@sternpinball.com with feedback. I have not heard very much about this feature in competitions, and I think that is because many locations have pros.
It says players must lock 3 balls to start Super MB,am I correct in saying that balls locked during normal play already count towards this?
I.e. if youāve already locked 2 balls in normal play, but havenāt started Catapult Mb, you will only need to lock 1 further to start Super Mb.
Yes. The display will tell you how many more locks you need to start Super MB when you are in Last Chance MB. Itās based on the number the player has locked during the game, not how many are physically in the device.
@timballs Is there ever a legitimate case where the shield lock is activated (green Light Lock at the little shield stand up has been hit so the green Lock light pointing at the big knight shield is lit), but the shield is down, blocking the ball?
This has happened to me a handful of times. It feels like a bug, and when the ball drains, the shield instantly opens up (and the Lock arrow still remains lit the same as before).
FYI I did submit this as a potential bug to the stern email address a bit ago, but wanted to see if Iām just missing something.
Any thought or ability to add āAutoā as an option for the ball save timer, rather than just set amounts of seconds?
Iām sure you know what I mean, but if not, talk to Lyman/Steve and see how they did it in ACā”ļøDC.
Itās a lot more enjoyable and fair to have the machine realize that, even though the ball drained in 18 seconds, it just kicked around off bumpers and slings for that whole time on its own and you didnāt even use a flipper.
Not Tim but I donāt think the shield should be down if lock is lit. The pro I played had a droopy shield and Iāve heard others have had the same problem. The shield wouldnāt go up far enough. You could still make a lock shot, but the ball would scrape the bottom of the shield. The operator eventually tightened it and it hasnāt had a problem since.
If yours is dropping enough to block the ball occasionally, it likely needs tightening. Seems like I saw somewhere that the shaft has Allen screw(s) that need tightening. Is this your game, or a location game?
So Iāve been able to replicate completing Deep Freeze with just one shot. If you charge up the sword, start Deep Freeze, drain (doesnāt seem to matter if you hit a shot or not), the next successful shot will complete the mode. You can complete the mode with one shot by starting the sword, draining and then hitting any shot afterwards. I was able to complete Deep Freeze with only a score of 1.6 million.
Does anyone know if this is the correct behavior or a bug? @timballs? Happy to throw a video together of what Iām seeing. This is on code 1.0 on my Pro.
i once had something similar happen to me ā the ball save light was lit, the ball went out the outlane, it even did the āball savedā animation, but never launched a ball, and immediately counted up my bonus.
regarding the shield being down when lock is lit ā i see this on mine at home. itās not drooping, and it doesnāt appear to be a mechanical issue.
it seems to go down when i cradle up for more than a few seconds.
for example if i have the ball cradled on my right flipper, after a few seconds, the shield goes down. since i usually want to backhand the ball into there, i simply flip my left flipper, which causes the shield to open back up, then hit the desired backhand shot with the cradled right flipper.
Interesting. Have you seen your lights flash briefly? I believe mine is upper GI error based. Sometimes wonāt trip an overcurrent and still causes the shield to be down when it should be up. Holding the flipper and then hitting the other one will fix it like you said. When the GIs go out, it wonāt fix them though.
