I think I also saw this happen where it skipped a bronze and went straight to a silver. Could this be because I was awarded the bronze, but before the graphic showed, I had made the required number of shots to get a silver also? maybe that would make the game just show the silver medal award screen?
1 Like
Also if you have 2x scoring going into Kobayashi it doubles the medal awards - finally got to KM yesterday on the new code at PHOF
1 Like
anyone know if the combo doubler also doubles the KM medal award? I had the doubler running from the warp ramp and thought for good measure I would combo off of the left ramp to start KM, just in caseā¦ ended up with exactly 60M on the KM start.
Sounds like it does. How complete was your medal collection? For comparison I started KM without comboing for ~35 million with full bronze (10Mil), 4 silver (18ish), and 1 gold (~7ish).
I want to see how much damage can be done with Vengeance 3:
Tweaked - Vengeance III now has two parts. You first shoot the vengeance X times. Then, in Vengeance Sudden Death, the drop target will come up. If you hit down then shoot in you will receive 10% of your score.
yeah I donāt know, I lost track of the points being awarded, I was really excited, but I had 4-5 bronze, a complete set of silver, and 4 golds going in. Having more silver than bronze makes me question my memory of the events, but the DMD said 60M with various LOUD NOISES accompanying it. Iāll note that I didnāt shoot for the Away Team shot at all when I played out the modes. Thankfully, the operator forgot to turn off extra balls after he put the code update in so I could get the warp ramp going.
that game is so much better now for me, I would loathe playing it before with the mode selection screen always being meh.
and yeah Vengeance 3 can award 20% or 40% if you have the other doublers active. Vengeance 2 seems to be about the same as beforeā¦
Seems draining with 2x running doubles the bonus.
4 Likes
How is the spinner scoring in the new code? They mentioned in the patch notes that spelling TREK is more valuable now; Iām wondering how significant this is and how it interacts with galactic/super spinnerā¦
Spinner can get significant as you keep spelling TREK. It starts at a sub 10K value. Spelling TREK raising the value by about 5K-8K(?) each time. Iāve had base spinner values up to 64K per spin.
Iāve also had DTD Galactic Spinner values at 75K+ per spin (plus the shot itself being 2M, 3M. 4M. 5M)
Iāve seen Super Spinner values at 115K+ per spin.
Not sure if the spinner values stack on top of each other when all these spinner features are active.
Is there a list of the warp ramp awards?
Besides the basic points (250K, 500K, 1M, 1M, 1Mā¦), warp 9.1 is 2x playfield for X seconds (60 by default in v1.6), warp 9.9 is 2x playfield for X seconds AND add-a-ball. And there may be an extra ball that can either be at a fixed warp or percentaged.
Whatās the alternate award for the extra ball, 3M?
I went to find out some more details about the spinner. The spinner base value caps at 68k per spin. It does not stack with Galactic Spinner (75k) or Super Spinner (115k), I checked this by spinning one spin with the glass off.
I thought it would be fun to come up with a strategy focusing on building the spinner and playing modes that fits well with shooting the left loop to see if it can be a viable strategy for points.
Lets say you go for Nero 3 to double the left loop and then lite Super Spinner by playing Save the Enterprise and DTD. Lets say that you manage to play the strategy perfectly. The doubler together with a maxed spinner base value gives around 1.2M per spinner shot on my machine. Of course, with the doubler lit there is no need to combo the left loop for 2X, a lot less stressful. A side benefit of completing Nero 3 is that you now have only two more modes to lite Super Spinner. Play Save the Enterprise (with Away Team this is also a left loop mode) and then go for DTD, shooting only left loop (besides from the Away Team shot to lite Galactic Spinner at 75k). Since left loop is 2X you would get around 1.5M per shot plus the value of the mode shot itself. The mode shot value increases for every mode shot youāve made during other modes. Starting DTD as mode number five (three Neros and one Save the Enterprise), I would say your mode shot base value is now around 2.5M, and 2X that is 5M. Increasing with every shot. Eight more shots to the left loop to get the bronze, silver and gold medal (something like 1M, 2M, 4M). Plus the last shot to the left saucer, which by the way has the biggest multiplier of any mode final shot as far as I can tell (also based on the number of mode shots youve made so far). The final shot value should be around 7M at this point. This would add up to around 55M for the mode shots alone plus 7M for the medals, plus 7M for the final shot, plus the spinner values which should be around 15M, totalling at 84M for the DTD mode alone =)
If we estimate that the total value of all the previous four modes was 80M, you would now have a total of 164M.
Now the Super Spinner is lit and you could just shoot the spinner for 2.5M per shot until its gone. However, by now the mode shots are worth way more than that with the 2X in the left loop, so the spinner is more like extra sugar on top.
The 2X Kobayashi strategy is probably better, but its still fun to try something different =)
4 Likes
OK, so I went and actually played out the strategy for real. I ended up with 140M when completing DTD and lighting Super Spinner (I had estimated 164M). Before starting DTD I had 100M from the previous modes (Nero 1-3 and Save the Enterprise). I failed to put the final shot in the left saucer for 6-7M and got some other shot instead. Totalling 40M for DTD. I overestimated the mode shot base value when starting DTD, it was more like 1.5M instead of 2.5M.
So, I skimmed this topic for highlights. Very good thread and I love this game. Iāve been stopping and playing Start Trek Pro on my way home from work a few days a week and am progressing towards getting to the captainās chair mode nicely. I completed all 6 missions one time and I think I remember the captainās chair lighting but I did not start it. Yesterday, I was able to complete 5 missions. Baby steps I guessā¦ Anyways, when I am playing in a tournament setting, is there a certain mission that is recommended for max scoring? I heard on a podcast something about prime directive being a good one because of the away team lighting up or something? I recall playing and seeing the away team lit but not to end the mode but I do not recall which mode was active. What is this all about?
āCaptainās Chairā actually refers to the Super Ramps, Super Pops, and Super Spinner features that you get for completing three modes in a row.
If you complete all 6 modes on a level, you will qualify a wizard mode: either Kobayashi Maru, Enterprise Amok, or 5 Year Mission. You will certainly know if you start one of these.
All the level 1 modes light the Away Team shot after youāve made a lit shot or two. Shooting the lit Away Team will start a āGalactic modeā, many of which have significantly different goals than the original mode, and may be more lucrative.
Hard to suggest a specific mode for tournament play, since there are a lot of ways to play this game (go find Keith Elwinās YouTube videos on it to really get your mind blown), but if you just want a basic opening gambit, try starting with Destroy the Drill, collect a shot or two, shoot the lit Away Team, and then pound the left orbit. You should be able to get a quick 15M out of the mode.
(Everything Iāve said here assumes that the game youāre playing has reasonably recent code ā I think 1.4 or newer. Older code was quite a bit different.)
2 Likes
Ok thanks for the info. I practiced the spinner strategy cited a post or 3 back and failed miserably. I get into trouble when a missed away team shot sends the ball flying cross playfield ugh. So anyways, pilot error I know.
One observation: i was able to time out all levels of nero. So I think this means the code is old, right?
The easiest way to tell is I think on the newest code, youāll hear the announcer say the actual names of the modes. On the old code it wouldnāt do that.
If thatās not a good enough indicator, away team should be lit after 3 shots on the old code, and only 1 shot on the most recent code.
If no away team is lit at all during a mode, then itās old OLD code
Not necessarily; I believe itās an operator adjustment whether to pause the timers when the ball is trapped.
I donāt think thatās right, either. Itās called out mode names when selecting modes for a LONG time.
As always, the easiest way to find out is simply to power-cycle the game, itāll show the code revision on the display. v1.6.1 is current.
If you can time out the modes, odds are the machine youāre playing it on was obtained at or near launch and has never been updated at all. Itās a real bummer, as most of the strategies mentioned make use of additional rules as the gameās been updated, but a good chunk of the Star Trek machines out in public Iāve played on do not get updated.
Iāve never owned a Stern machine, so I never looked into it, but is it difficult to find these updates, and are owners of these machines notified of them? Iād imagine that, otherwise, an operator who isnāt into pinball, and just has these out there to make money, might not know about the updates or consider it not worth the trouble.
Another question: The Star Trek I was playing today was still on the code where you just time out Level 1 missions with no Away Team lit at all (and there are no medals, obviously), but on Level 2 missions, there is no counter in the corner of how many shots you need left to complete it. I was never able to complete any of them no matter how many shots I made. What does this mean? What version was this? I remember when it first came out, Level 2 missions had a counter in the corner beginning with some absurd amount (I believe 65535, which is 2^16 - 1).