Looking to make the rules of Gottlieb Orbit more “Super” by making that upper gate Collect Bonus rather than just scoring 3000 points.
Anyone know if that’s possible, and the best way to make that happen . . . jumper something to something?
Once you max out the bonus on the EM, the game is kind of a slog. Being able to have that cash-out and then start building your bonus back up again would go a long way in stretching out the gameplay.
You’d have to maybe add a switch to the gate that would trigger the bonus reel. I’m not sure if that’s viable, though, since usually counting down bonus is one of the last parts in the stepper moving to a new ball. I just finished restoring an Orbit and I thought the same thing. It’s just not as fun as Super Orbit but I love the look of the game as Orbit more.
I am not an expert but here goes:
The gate relay needs to be modified. It already starts the motor but only holds it for one cycle and the impulse (Probably confused with a non gottlieb term) pulses the 1k relay 3 times.
So this switch which was once pulsed the 1k relay should be switched to the bonus step down. And you need another switch on the bonus unit that marks the 0 position to release the gate relay when it’s done.
This assumes the step down pulses the 1 k relay. This may need to be added in.
Ideally this isn’t a great place for this since it does not hold the ball captive. The player could easily plunge the ball while it was counting down.
This was my initial thought as well, the problem will be having the ball in play while it’s counting, even if one could figure out what was necessary to cause the bonus to start collecting without ending the ball in play. Which leads me to wondering… doesn’t the bonus unit, when it reaches the end of the count, trigger the trough coil to kick the ball toward the shooter lane and over the switch that advances the player unit? If so, one would have to get the bonus unit to always stop before 0 (leaving 1k lit, then tripping the gate relay to release) but only when activated by the gate. I have an Orbit but no schematics to reference unfortunately.
If the game isn’t already high tapped, do that, set it steeper and see if that makes it hard enough to keep max bonus an earned reward vs. a given. FWIW, I operated mine like this for a bit and it was uncommon to see scores over 50k on 5 ball games but our league isn’t exactly lighting the rankings on fire either.
I assume the trough coil is driven by the 0 position on the bonus unit and the trough switch so in this case it wouldn’t attempt to kick a ball. Likewise I don’t think it will try and increment the player since the outhole relay was never energized.
I am making a metric shitton of assumtpions here. With an Orbit to play with, some jumpers and a few extra switches it would be fun to try.
I poked around a bit… the bonus only counts as long as there is a ball physically holding the trough switch closed. Once the bonus unit reaches the zero position, the trough kicker trips and send the ball to the shooter lane, tripping the player advance unit as it passes over. I think you’d need an extra relay that was tripped and held when the gate switch changes states (it’s make/break) and then let go by the bonus unit at zero switch. I don’t think this could be accomplished with switches alone. Happy to be wrong though.
That’s not an issue. The player unit only advances when the ball actually traverses the “downhill” side of the trough. The outhole can kick as many times as it needs to.
I’m generally skeptical about doing this modification, though. My principal reason might surprise you. I’ve played Orbit and Outer Space (it’s 2-player version) many hundreds of times, and once in awhile, you can make a high-power shot through the spinner that continues through the gate and then continues UP the runway and around the top arch! The spinnner is still spinning furiously, you get the 3000, and it feels great because it’s so hard to do (YMMV). I think you really need to hold the ball in a kickout hole to run down the bonus.
One more thought, in case you still want to do this: consider a speed-count bonus, as implemented in Fast Draw and Quick Draw. You could count an entire double bonus (30K) in five cycles of the motor.
…David Marston