Stupid question: Are the left flippers supposed to be staged ‘backwards’? I finally got around to playing, and feel kinda violated after losing two balls when the lower flipper dropped before the upper flipper on my first game.
That must be an issue with that particular machine. I’ve played 4 and they have all staged normally.
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They did the flipper button switches different than any past Stern I’ve seen.
In the past, it’s two stacked switches…normally open. As you press in, the first closes, and then it continues inward, closing the second.
For Iron Maiden, the thing that the button activates is actually between two switches…one of which is closed and the other is open. So as you press in, it opens the first switch, and then closes the second.
So…depending on how those switches are adjusted, it’s definitely possible that they could be reverse staging. This wasn’t possible with the stacked normally open switches.
7 Likes
Thanks for the info. That would explain why we have two at our location and one stages great and the other staging is near impossible.
The first time I noticed the flipper buttons I was like WTF is going on there? Looked closer and thought OMG, this is brilliant. It’s far easier to stage flippers with it IMO and feels more linear… for anyone not finding the staging working well, it should be a very simple switch adjustment to fix.
Is anyone else having trouble with their balls launching reliably? I get a wide range of misses to the orbit with both the plunger and auto-launch. The plunger launch seemed to improve with a silver spring and some break in time (though I do get the odd smash the post by the X target on a full plunge) but the auto-launch is still missing both low and high with regularity so my attempts to adjust the launch lane haven’t provided any improvements. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it stage all three balls for Trooper properly.
Yes. Have not tried to figure out why, but very inconsistent. Some time I will see 3 perfect trooper starts in a row, then it will brick out for the next 5 launches. Both manual and automation seem inconsistent.
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Have you played with the pitch of the game at all? I’ve noticed the 3 different games i’ve played on location have varying levels of steepness - the shallowest one has the best plunge/auto plunge trajectory. It’s also the easiest (and most fun) to crush loops on.
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Yeah, I do have mine pitched steeper. I’ll maybe try lowering it a bit but so far I’ve liked the balance between looping and modes/multiballs this way. Also, with Doctor Who next to it at the arcade, not sure I want to make it a loop crusher game, even though one of my favorite things in the world, and the thing that got me hooked on pinball in the first place, is crushing those loops.
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Are you talking about adjusting the bend on the right guide rail where the ball exits the shooter lane, or other changes?
That’s weird, the autolaunch should be fairly consistent within a half inch or so. Make sure it isn’t grazing the upper right flipper upon leaving shooter lane. You can also bend the left side wire guides in closer to assure it is riding the ball guide and not rattling.
I’ve tried adjusting the guide rail a bit in both directions and at the same time tinkered with various auto-launch coil strength settings but with the ball going both low and high out of the shooter lane. I got it slightly better doing this but still nowhere near what I would call reliable. The plunger is a lot better but I did have to move the shooter to be a bit more centered than it was out of the box.
My hunch is the auto-launch bracket isn’t hitting the ball perfectly square so it sometimes bounces a bit up the lane and comes out with some randomness. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any way to adjust this so I’ll try the left side wire guides to see if that helps. I’m 99% sure it’s not hitting the upper flipper on the way out but now that I say that with some confidence, I’ll probably be wrong.
Can someone please shed some more light on the debounce setting? I believe default is 1000. If I want the game to play tighter and have a more sensitive tilt, do I raise or lower this setting?
Lower. 1000 is the mileseconds before it will register a second connect for the ring and plumbob. For my tournament I put it at ~700, which felt fair for the player base. I’m a big fan of the “one good move” policy regarding tilt settings.
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Possible bug. Was playing on location Sunday and ended ball 3. Bonus counted down and it went to game over. I put in another credit and hit the start button. Ball launched to the shooter lane and as I was plunging I noticed I was back in ball 3 (like a buy in) but I also still had a credit. I had no collected an extra ball and the game looked to be clearly in the game over routine.
Could have been a fluke but I figured I’d post it in case someone else has seen it.
Question: Does each lock for trooper MB need to be qualified? It seems like during some games once qualified you can lock all three, game I just had I locked one and then seemingly had to qualify the next one.
Sweeping the drops gives 2x awards, so you can light 2 locks with one shot. Not sure how you got three qualified at once, maybe a sweep plus another completion afterward to stack the 3rd?
Okay, that makes more sense. I assumed it was like AFM and that first TMB you qualify all 3 locks first time and then subsequent TMB were one lock at a time. Started Cyborg without starting Trooper.
On factory settings the first time you complete “light lock” it gives you all 3 locks. Subsequent multiballs require you to complete the drop targets every time.
It gives you the lit award plus the next award, not 2 of the same award. So if trooper lock is lit you will get the trooper lock plus a bonus X advance.
10 Likes
In that case I’m definelty seeing a bug with the Trooper locks.