Stern’s new Star Trek is a little like Star Trek TNG Jr. Loop the Warp ramp if you dare.
Or, just watch Keith Elwin destroy the game here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJx2sPi4r30
It’s even got the same “feature” of timing out modes to advance progress ala ST:TNG 
Jack Benson from Stern made a pretty in-depth description of Star Trek scoring on @sk8ball’s Facebook page, which I reproduce here with absolutely no permission. Sounds like they’re going to adjust the scoring accordingly in an upcoming release, so this strategy probably won’t last long.
"So Keith Elwin has just done a GREAT demonstration of the most recent scoring changes to Star Trek. With each mode shot you make, each subsequent mode shot will have a higher value. Equation looks something like this:
s_b = # mission shots made that ball
s_g = # mission shots made that game
score = # points for a mission shot
score = 30ks_b + 10ks_g + 150k
So the more shots you’ve made without draining… the higher your mission scores will be!
Now here’s something else that isn’t on the rule sheet:
When a level 1 mission shot is made ->
s_b = s_b + 1
When a level 2 mission shot is made ->
s_b = s_b + 2
When a level 3 mission shot is made ->
s_b = s_b + 3 (!!!)
The above also applies to s_g (shots made that game). What this means is that you can build your mission shot scores more quickly by shooting shots in level 3 missions. Then when you return to level 1 missions, you will notice much larger scores (see Keiths 70M space jump).
PDIII should keep track of the number of shots you have made so that it cannot be played over and over. Obviously, right now it can be exploited. In Keith’s case, he was hitting level 3 shots which were significantly boosting all future mission shots AND he had doublers on just about every shot in the game AND he was hitting shots in combos. This led to some, how should we say, INSANE SCORING"
Nice info. This also explains, I think, why I felt timeout mania was the way to go for round #1. Basically all your values are increasing twice as much at level 2 than level 1. You can’t timeout level 2, so might as well play it. Even if you could, though, the increase in scoring from level 2->level 3 is 50% more as opposed to 100% more. Much less reason to ignore level 2 than level 1. I didn’t know the details as to why, but I definitely knew 2 expos ago level 2 made much more sense to flip at.
Semi-moot now anyway since everyone will just go the Elwin route.
Or, more likely, the game will rarely be used for competitive play until or unless it is rebalanced.
I don’t pretend to be a top echelon player, but anyway… it seems like at least Destroy the Drill 1 + Galactic is worth playing rather than timing out. Whether intentional or not, its scoring tends to be significantly higher than other tier 1 modes.
Long time listener . . . first time poster!
Can’t wait to play PD3 all day at the Illinois SCS . . . assuming an update isn’t out in the next 2 weeks.
I’m with Keefer. When you’re getting paid off more for the same shots during later levels, might as well take that risk later.
It may be back to Level 2 Super Ramps as the biggest scoring opportunity if the PD3 shot continuation is fixed, but much will depend on if they take Level 1 off of timers altogether, or whatever decisions they end up making.
Personally I’d like to see them pull down the scoring in levels 2 and 3 to make them less lucrative, and as such make level 1 more worth playing.
Goldeneye style? Everything keeps getting lower in point values?
No I meant it is still worth more, just not as much more as now.
Goldeneye had values that got less in value as they went along? I don’t remember that.
All the modes worked that way, yeah. Shoot ramp for 20M! Shoot ramp for 15M! Shoot ramp for 10M! Yeah!
It was pretty much the opposite of Game Design 101.
IIRC there was supposed to be a rom or adjustment that made it “normal” but I don’t know if that ever happened.
For me, I’d rather just see your performance in level 1 have a greater impact on the shot values in levels 2 and 3. I was sitting here trying to think what would happen if they reversed the s_b/s_g increments that Jack described, so that level 1 shots would count +3 and level 3 shots would count +1… could be interesting, level 1 modes would basically turn into timed events to boost the value of the rest of the game… but I’m fairly sure this approach would just create new exploits.
That reminds me a little of Sega Lost World, where once you finished something it became mostly worthless. I kind of liked that conceptually, though it ended up giving people some really low scores at times.
Didn’t Lost World also have the problem that if you didn’t finish a feature, that feature was actually harder to complete next time you tried, resulting in a game that essentially became impossible to finish?
Back on topic: do Klingon Multiball values also need to be adjusted?
The flaw, besides those mentioned, is Keith timed out pD3, On restart, full # of shots , full timer -# shots became infinite - 17 other modes retain shots made- the “pd3 infinite shots bug” is the code fix needed. I don’t mind the 123 levels being with more points bc the skill level goes from any shot to finish, to specific shots / less time to finish - seems balanced. The pd3 bug reduces scores to a one shot game, crippling the use in tournaments.
I thought none of the level 3 modes saved your progress. Is that not the case (i.e. some do)?
Kef, I stand corrected. except KB3. I just tried something on software 1.5 - KB saves shots but has a never ending timer (it starts at 240 & resets to 90 when it countdown reaches 4 sec - I watched it four times, too boring to watch more!).
Can someone explain when you’re in a mode and the shots are lit for the mode, why sometimes one shot is blinking another color?
Never figured that out.
If you hit the two-color shot, it’s worth more than the others (2x, I believe)… combos still apply, so if you hit the two-color shot as part of a combo, it can be quite lucrative.
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