Fun with HS Getaway bugs: has anyone seen this before?
In Redline Mania. Ball-save is long gone. 3 balls in play, with no progress. Finally Hits the initial Jackpot, then drains a ball while jackpot ball is still in the Hideout. Suddenly, all balls are coming back, and there’s a new long ball-save.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/518813501?t=4474s
Hard to say exactly what’s going on in that video, but many times I’ve seen RLM jump into regular multiball after collecting a jackpot. Pretty annoying when you think you’re going to get more 100M supers and suddenly they’re only 25M regular jacks.
It’s always something with that game.
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Further reading: Known bugs? - #2 by keefer
Specifically:
Edit to add: I didn’t watch all the video, but this is the most likely explanation.
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While we’re talking quirks and oddities - it seems like the expected value of Speed Bonuses are 60% higher in countries that use KPH instead of MPH. 
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Bingo! I think that’s exactly what happened. Thanks for the link to your prior post. I had searched for “redline” in that Known bugs? thread, but didn’t think to search for “RLM,” and I should have searched for “Getaway” in that thread.
I’m sure we’ll see more footage of that bug again at another European tourney. Getaway seems to show up a TON in their events and finals. Admittedly, it’s a fun game to play in competition – if it weren’t for all the bugs. 
Borås is running the mod 
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Is there a thread on here that has a list of links to all your various modded ROMs, for easy search access if/when we encounter a modded ROM at an event, or want to consider the features before burning/installing on our own pins?
For some of the mods, I maintain this page for overview.
Download for details or search individual post.
Apart from a few, all mods show version id at boot up/menu for reference.
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If you watch the whole Getaway match, this happens on player 1 too. I believe Dwights intentions were to have multiball jackpot start over once you got two super jackpots on the same multiball. Another bug I noticed in the vid was the free ride animation and “don’t move” call out during multiball. We used the Soren rom on my Getaway for state with no issues.
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I have not heard an explaination from the original designers on whether the L-3 to L-5 changes for the multiball restart was intentional. Or semi-intentional, meaning a change was wanted but how it turned out was not the best solution or with new bugs.
But I would like to say, that the game advertising a jackpot/super, and not awarding it, is a bug. Likewise, deminishing a SJP from 100M to 50M on same multi.
It is correct, that with the fix of this software mod, the SJP is progressive and (as I remember it) open ended. So it can get into silly-streeet points. But at least it is well deserved from strong playing.
I believe it goes like this: SJP is 50M +25M for each collect across all SJPs in both MB and RLM. With an additional 50M if in RLM. The # loops to light it goes up 10 for each collect. But caps at 50.
Ron Hallett recently alerted me, that a player at one of his gigs was robbed from a Red line mania. He drained and was at gear 1 with no RLM available on next ball.
If someone is able to confirm this or reproduce it, I will be curious to know. Else I will right this one off as bad RAM or other issue local to that game.
This can happen if you shoot the redline mania shot and during the animation and loops the ball flies off into the drain.
Perhaps he had it lit, and a phantom switch triggered “starting” it as he drained?
Oh, thanks a lot. Been looking for an excuse to open this masterpiece game up once again.
The start mode switch is an opto. You bet.
Interesting. Good point. Went back and watched it. P1 puts his 3rd trip to the ball lock mech very early in RLM, while RLM ball-save is still running, so it’s not very obvious. But… to one of @keefer ‘s points: does P1’s next trip to the hideout Jackpot shot give him the RLM 100m SJP or the initial Regular MB initial JP of 25m? He lights it via 20 charger loops, but never hits it.
When P1 drains out of RLM / multiball “stack,” he’s given the last chance opportunity to collect a jackpot. This Last Chance is only provided for regular MB and not RLM, correct? Which makes sense, because his regular MB started after his initial RLM JP shot, so the game logic thinks the player hasn’t yet scored a JP during his MB.
And when P1 nails the last chance JP, it is indeed only 25M and not the RLM SJP of 100m.
Haven’t watched, but next trip should be a jackpot if mb restarted.
Regarding rlm sjp value: rlm only augments the value to 100m, so after any 2 supers, the value is the same for either multiball. There is no known limit to the sjp value. I have witnessed at least 275m.
Edit to add: I’m 99% sure the rlm super doesn’t get demoted after a restart.
Regarding mb restart: earlier on, ROMs’ convoluted and mismatching logic would cause balls that were shot into the lockup when lock was lit to not actually lock. The “fix” was to force any ball arrival in the lockup to count as a lock. The further bug was that this was allowed to happen during multiball. Hence, the restart bug in l5.
Happy to announce that I have cracked the Secret mania bug. You are gonna love this one. Strictly I should say, cracked some bugs.
First let me explain the trafic lights in Secret mania (rev. L-5). They are designed to be a way of lighting the extra ball. Make all nine shots before timeout.
As the indicators are to be reused for a different purpose, their state at mode-start is copied to a backup and then reset. And at mode-end, their state is restored.
Great. Expect for two minor issues…
If you tilt during Secret mania, the trafic lights are not restored.
And the bug players are mostly experiencing. The mode is activated by two fast in succession pull of the gear lever during the 3-cars DMD sequence. The catch is, that for any of these fast-in-succession pulls, the prep Secret mania procedure is run. But only for the first run, are the trafic lights state backed up correctly. After this, the backup is overwritten by the now new state of all nine indicators being off.
So if you really want to. Stick with two hits and you’ll be fine.
The best software fix is to remove this sub-feature from Secret mania.
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Interesting stuff.
I’ll have to find out which ROM I’ve been playing on location, but I recently activated Secret Mania with only one movement of the lever. I locked ball 2 where that shot also completed a gear. Moved the lever ONE time to shift immediately after locking and noticed the playfield lights changed drastically. With the ball still in the shooter lane I wanted to see how many red lights I needed for lock 3, but they were all out, along with lots of other inserts. At this point I knew something weird happened, launched the ball and sure enough, Secret Mania.
I apologized to my group, played on and thankfully nothing got weird for the rest of the game.
It sounds like the bug would definitely destroy the current player’s traffic light state, but how does the damage bleed into other players’ states? @Shep mentioned his ball 1 SM resulted in the ramp being stuck up the entire game for all players, so not only is it corrupting their data as well, it appears to do so in an unrecoverable manner.
@jdelz, did you get to start your multiball?
Yeah, I bounced around through most of SM trying to get control, then managed to trap up until it was over. Needed 1 more red light at that point, so I hit the saucer then the upper loop to start multiball. Only one more player was after me for their ball 3 which didn’t seem to be affected.
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Yes, completing all nine trafik lights in Secret mania lights the EB. It works, I had misunderstood it was suppose to be awarded right away.
I am pretty sure, that apart from what I described a few posts back, Secret mania is working in L-5. I’d love to hear reports indicating otherwise. But L-5 only, please. Secret mania is rumoured to indeed be worse in some of the earlier code revs.