Deep cuts of semi-useful pinball knowledge

I got this award during Pinburgh playoffs one year. Sure would have preferred the lit million shot instead!

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I donā€™t check tilt forums often but whenever I do thereā€™s a backlog of awesome reading on this thread to look forward to. Still going years later. Thanks all!

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Not ā€œdeepā€ but always worth considering - on Rush, if you land a ball behind the upper right flipper, you get another skill shot chance. This means you can activate ball save during multiball and you can use it to manually send balls to the upper flipper.

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Thereā€™s definitely the opportunity for an ā€œinfinite ball save exploitā€ if youā€™re consistent enough with hitting the under flipper shot (and the scoop always gives ball save on kickout too).

But you seem to be saying that if you preempt the autoplunge with a short plunge, you can get skill shots during multiball? Iā€™ve not noticed that but maybe i havenā€™t tried to hard to short plunge during multiball

Iā€™m not sure how well-known this strategy is but itā€™s something Iā€™ve done on a few games, so I might as well bring it up. On games that send balls to the plunger at the start of multiball, I tend to plunge the balls manually before the auto-plunge kicks in so I can set up more worthwhile shots. Some good examples of this:

  • Monopoly - send the ball to the upper flipper from the plunger instead of letting the auto-plunge kick in to score your first jackpot / double jackpot.
  • Iron Maiden - if there are shots I want to shoot as soon as possible, Iā€™ll short-plunge instead of letting the ball go all the way around the loop.
  • Wonka - feed the upper right flipper and shoot Camera ramp for double jackpots.
  • Rush - feed the upper flipper at the start of One Little Victory to light the super jackpots easier.

I do that on Godzilla Pro for a very specific situation:

  • Play Titanosaurus and hit the first two Power Line targets (on either side of the building). This leaves only that annoying one next to the right ramp.
  • Start building multiball, which holds a ball on the magnet.
  • DO NOT let the auto-plunger feed balls to the magnet. Short plunge the balls so they hit one of the switches near the pop.
  • This will drop the single ball off the magnet, giving you a best-possible shot opportunity at that annoying right Power Line target.
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Beating the autoplunge is very useful on TNA as well ā€“ quickly short plunge to safely get the ball to a flipper, or dial in the plunge to the rollovers to easily max out your reactor.

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Being in Sabretooth on Deadpool and plunging to the pops, and needing the top rollovers for Hadrons during Orb in Guardians, are two games I do that move frequently on as well.

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Stern Star Trek:

It seems that the ā€œpops stop the timersā€ rule applies to multiball ball saves, notably Vengeance Multiball. I like to exploit this by playing Prime Directive w/ Away Team, where all youā€™re aiming for is the top rollover lanes. Just let the balls keep plunging up there, and let them drain when they roll out. As long as the balls donā€™t hit lower playfield switches, they ball save will keep going (I hold up the left flipper to help the balls drain). Then once Prime Directive is complete, you can start playing the multiball normally.

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Note: It occurs to me that the aforementioned exploit may only be possible on my Star Trek because one of the upper gates doesnā€™t work (the coil for which is specific to this game, and not available to purchase anywhere at the moment). But if you have your top-lane plunge dialed in, you can go about it that way.

Have you checked with Andrew at ABP, he makes the coils.

I have not. Is ABP Absolute Pinball?

No, this is the coil manufacturer who makes them for everyone. Andrew Barney runs it. Contact him, heā€™d know if it is available, or if there are the correct cores to make it. Or if the core is fine he might be able to rewind it, but I donā€™t know about that part for sure.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=apb%20enterprises
sales@apbenterprises.com
I let him know you might contact him. Heā€™ll keep an eye out for a message.

i believe pinball resource makes their own coils?

I donā€™t know. I know they have stock of coils but I donā€™t know if its NOS or if they have a winder.

I hate to ruin a tasty beneficial malfunction, but it looks like the coil is available at the link below. Not sure if Iā€™ve bought from that site, but itā€™s been around a while.

Thanks for the help fellas!

When pressing start and adding players to Blackout, the game will make a series of ā€œpewā€ numbers based on the number of times start was pressed:

1 player - 1 pew
2 players - 2 pews
3 players - 3 pews
4 players - 4 pews

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Not useful knowledge, but Blackout is awesome

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Two more deep cuts for AIQ:

For Black Order Multiball, the rules for the mode kick in the instant the ball enters the portal. If the spinner is still spinning, the switch hits count for lighting Hulkā€™s jackpot and raising the value. If you get a good rip that cleanly falls through the bumpers into the portal quickly, you can start BOMB with the jackpot value already increased by a couple hundred thousand and Hulk already progressed by ~20 spins. (This is on the Premium; I guess itā€™s also possible on the Pro if you shoot Cap at high speed and then instantly one-time the return from Hulk up the gauntlet ramp to start BOMB.)

For Battle Royale, itā€™s possible to lose the mode by your last avenger taking damage while the second ball from Wasp is in play. If this happens, the game transitions back to single-ball play even while both balls are still on the playfield! (This can happen other ways, like if you death save an outlane drain while a ball saver is active [on many games], but itā€™s odd that AIQ actually builds one case into its rules.)

Itā€™s even possible to combine these - youā€™d have to end Battle Royale in that state, then progress all the way around through Soul Gem again to get BOMB ready again, while keeping both balls in play and not starting any other multiballs (youā€™d have to collect Thor and Iron Man via the grid or Mystery.) If you did, then you could start BOMB and rip the spinner at the same time - in fact you could play quite a bit with a ball in play during BOMBā€™s lengthy intro.