This plus a away team + lots of spins sounds like a ~40 million shot. I know I’ve gotten that uncomboed final shot on DTD with away team spinner up to 20 mill.
I don’t much care for ST, but is there a mode I should be diving into level 3 on instead of going for Maru? I almost never make it to the mini wizard so it’s not a valid tournament strategy for those of us in B division. Currently I mostly just shoot the middle all day and luck into Klingon eventually.
I would focus on getting away team modes for Destroy the Drill and Prime Directive, as both can be quite lucrative.
DtD away team modes makes the spinner quite valuable. PD makes the orbits divert into the top lanes and the top lanes give good value. Both can be 10-15M or more if played well.
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I would suggest working a good stack and checking your own results. Maybe try Nero or Prime Directive with a multiball and Away Team. You can start Away Team after starting the multiball. Starting Maru gives you quite a few free points plus multiball even if you limp through two or three modes.
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Space Jump: make one shot, Away Team counts one shot, final shot counts one shot - that’s bronze. Hitting the Vengeance shot also bumps your achievement to the next medal - silver. This is the way.
Save the Enterprise II and III are not timed. You must make the required number of shots to get out of these modes.
I tried that in Pinball Arcade. The status screen shows 1 silver, 0 bronze.
Did you try it?
I’ll try it out. I would be interested to know if it registers the bronze when you reach Kobayashi Maru…
Save the Enterprise is another really good GAT. It also makes the “spinner” (technically the left orbit) quite valuable. Combo that up the warp ramp for huge points. 30M+ is doable.
Two notes: Modes do not end when gold is achieved, only when the timer is up or the number of required shots has been met. You will always earn a bronze medal for each mode completed. Discuss.
Not true. For example start Nero but make zero mode shots and have the timer expire. (You can’t just trap up) Then hit the away team to start the next mission. Mode is complete and status will show zero medals.
Are you required to at least achieve bronze to finish level 2 & 3 modes? I did reach KM with only four bronze medals, so that’s solved for me.
Some notes and examples
All scores here are in 1000s. I just can’t stand writing “k” all over the place.
The scoring system in this game is very complicated. I focus on things I haven’t seen described elsewhere, in particular the Galactic Away Team modes. This is a very important part of the game.
Disclaimer. I have used Pinball Arcade for my observations, and I sure hope they use version 1.62. Otherwise I could be making a fool of myself now. EDIT: Farsight has confirmed they are using 1.61, but the readme file from Stern doesn’t list anything as fixed in version 1.62, of all the things mentioned here.
Mission mode basics
First and last: ALL mode shots increase the value of ALL later mode shots throughout the game.
But how much? Let’s do this step by step with examples.
“Shot” means any of the 7 major shots when flashing in the mode color.
Base value, Mode progress, Ball progress and Game progress
Example 1: You start Prime Directive (PD) and make a shot, it is worth 100. This is the Base value of any Level 1 shot.
Example 2: You start PD and make two shots. Shot #2 is 145. Think of this as 100 + 30 + 10 + 5. The 100 is the base value for any Level 1 shot. The 30 will affect all mode shots for the rest of the mode, so let’s call that “Mode progress” from shot #1. The 10 will affect all mode shots for the rest of the ball, so let’s call that “Ball progress” from shot #1, and the 5 is Game progress from shot #1.
Example 3: You start PD, make a shot and drain the ball. In ball 2, PD continues and you make mode shot #2. It is worth 135. That is 100 base value, 30 in Mode progress from shot #1 and 5 in Game progress from shot #1. You don’t have any Ball progress.
Example 4: You start PD, make shot #1, and fool around until it times out, start another mode, let’s say Nero, and make a shot. That is worth 115. That is 100 in Base value, 10 in Ball progress and 5 in Game progress. You don’t have any Mode progress.
Example 5: After example 4, you make another mode shot (in Nero) you get 160. That is 100 base value, 10 for Ball progress for each of the previous two shots, 5 in Game progress for each of the previous shots, and 30 for Mode progress from the first shot in Nero. 100 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 30 = 160.
So far, all the Level 1 modes works the same except for what shots are lit at various points, which is outside the scope of this text.
Doublers
Doublers are obviously very important. Most of them can be stacked.
Any mode shot can be doubled in a number of ways. First, it can be a shot that flashes in two colors instead of one. In Level 1 modes, this only happens in the Final shot, i.e. after the mode has timed out and probably called out “only one target left”, and it means 4x the value of any other shot ending the mode. At Level 2 and 3 it is different.
All the 7 major shots have a red insert that flashes when a combo is open. The ramps and orbits each open up a particular set of combos for 4 seconds. The red insert will flash for 3 seconds, and then there is a 1 second grace period. Any comboed shot is doubled!
It is possible to make a red combo insert be lit all the time by completing all three levels of any particular mode. For instance, completing Nero III lights up the red insert at the left orbit. All mode shots at the left orbit will be doubled as if they were comboed, throughout the game. However, if you actually combo into a permanently lit shot, you do NOT get it doubled again. Never mind it’s flashing. All other combinations of doublers stack.
All 7 major shots except the Vengeance ship can be permanently lit this way, each corresponding to a specific Level 3 mission.
Double scoring, which is started at warp 9.1 and warp 9.9, doubles ANY score you make for a minute. It is actually more like 66 seconds, because it takes 6 seconds for the timer to start. There is really no exception to this. ALL scores are doubled. But if you drain, double scoring stops, so bonus count is not affected.
Medals in Level 1 modes
Example 6: You start Prime Directive and make 3 mode shots without doublers. Shot #1 is 100, shot #2 is 145, and shot #3 is 190 + a Bronze medal. The medal immediately gives you another 250, and will somewhat increase all future bonus counts and also affects mini wizard modes.
Example 7: As in example 6, but the shots are Alpha ramp, Beta ramp and Left scoop, making both shots #2 and #3 combo shots. Shot #2 is 290 = 145 x 2. Shot #3 is 380 = 190 x 2, and the immediate 250 for the Bronze medal is also doubled to 500.
Silver medals work the same, given at shot #6, the immediate value is 450. Doublers apply.
Gold medals work the same, given at shot #9, the immediate value is 1000 (i.e. 1M). Doublers apply.
In the rest of this text, doublers will not be mentioned but apply everywhere.
In Space Jump with Galactic Away Team, there are special rules for medals. Details later.
The immediate value of medals increase the more you get of each kind.
Timer in Level 1 modes
The timer starts at 30 and counts down. It begins with a pause for a few seconds.
If there is no game switch triggered for about 5 seconds, the timer pauses. Before this rule was introduced, a good strategy was to just time out all Level 1 modes and then play Kobiyashi Maru, making the game very boring and unsuited for competition. This was a serious mistake. I believe this is why the machine still isn’t as popular as it deserves in its current code.
At every 3 shots, the timer is paused for 4 seconds. This coincides with the medals but doesn’t end there.
At shot #9 the timer is put at 1 second, which means there is 5 seconds left, since it also pauses 4 seconds.
In Destroy The Drill, you get another hint when the timer is running out. The arrows flash faster, and then even faster. Of some reason this doesn’t happen in other Level 1 modes. I am pretty sure the intention was to have this behavior in all modes.
The first Black Hole award during a Level 1 mode adds 20 seconds to the timer. The only Black Hole award that could take precedence over this, is if you are in a multiball, then you get Add-a-ball as usual (only once per multiball).
Full Level 1 mode sequence with/without Galactic Away Team
All Level 1 modes have special GAT modes, and it is important to understand how these work. The mode progresses as follows:
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Mode starts.
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You make one or more normal (pre-GAT) shots. The first shot lights up start-GAT under the upper flipper. If you drain in this phase, the mode continues in the next ball, with the timer as it was at drain.
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Either the timer ends, or you make the start-GAT shot, under the upper flipper. If you make it, it counts as a pre-GAT shot, adds 20 seconds to the timer, and the mode will be quite different until the timer ends. You are now shooting In-GAT shots, which are different and score different. If you drain in this phase, the mode completes.
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The timer ends. All 7 major shots are lit up to complete the mode. One or two shots will be lit with two flashing colors and count 4x the others. The Galactic Away Team is also lit, but now it is too late to actually bring in the Away Team, instead you complete the mode and mostly you get to start another.
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You either make any of those shots or drain. Both ways, the mode is completed.
Some modes deviate a little from the above, we will get back to that.
Scoring in Level 1 with Galactic Away Team
Here is where it gets really complicated. You may not want to dive into the details here, but you need to understand what I call “Dual Team Collaboration”: Every pre-GAT shot, including the start-GAT shot increases the value of In-GAT shots dramatically.
Here are the details:
You already know about normal base value, mode progress, ball progress and game progress. They all apply to In-GAT shots.
The In-GAT shots themselves generate 75 in Mode progress, and 0 in Ball and Game progress.
All Pre-GAT shots, including the Start-GAT shot, generate 155-380 for each In-GAT shot. For Prime Directive and Space Jump it’s 155, for the others it’s more. Details later.
Example 8: You start Prime Directive and make 4 shots, and then the Galactic Away Team shot under the upper flipper. This light up the orbits and the top lanes as In-GAT shots. The ball auto-plunges and will enter a top lane, which will be the 6th shot of the mission, to the value of 950. Those 950 are: Base value 100, Mode progress 155 for each of the 5 first shots, Ball progress 10 for each of the first 5 shots, Game progress 5 for each of the first 5 shots. 100 + 155 x5 + 10 x5 + 5 x5 = 100 + 775 + 50 + 25 = 950. It also gives you a Silver Medal as usual for the 6th shot.
Example 9: After example 8, the ball bounces back up through another flashing lane, this is the 7th shot and worth 1025. That is 950 just as before, and additional Mode progress 75 from shot #6 (the first top lane).
Example 10: You start Prime Directive and make 9 shots. The timer jumps down to 1 second and you suddenly get in a hurry to start GAT, but you miss and the mode times out. It looks and sounds successful, but scorewise you pretty much failed.
Example 11: You start Prime Directive and make 8 shots fast. The timer is at 12 seconds. You make the 9th shot into the Galactic Away Team. Now, two timer rules apply: It is the 9th shot so the timer jumps down to 1 second, but it’s also the Start-GAT shot, so 20 seconds are added. IN THAT ORDER. Now there is plenty of time to make it through the top lanes and orbits many times. The first one is worth 1630, which is 100 base value and then Mode progress 155 x9, Ball progress 10 x9 and then Game progress 5 x9. Total 100 + 1395 + 90 + 45 = 1630.
Example 12: After example 11 you collect a Black Hole award. 20 more seconds in this great mode.
Example 13: After example 12, you start a multiball and shoot the orbits as much as you can. Remember every 3rd mode shot also pauses the timer for 4 seconds. Think about it.
The “Dual Team Collaboration” extra score of 155 is just for Prime Directive and Space Jump. For Klingon Battle it’s 180, for Destroy The Drill its 230, for Nero it’s 255, and for Save the Enterprise it’s 380.
The principle seems to be a higher number the more difficult the In-GAT shots are. In Save The Enterprise GAT mode, only the left orbit and the warp ramp are lit. If you are good with the warp ramp, this could be incredible.
The In-GAT shots each increase the value of the Final shot with 30 (just standard Mode progress), but gives no Ball progress or Game progress.
In Space Jump with Galactic Away Team, there are special rules. The Start-GAT shot lights only Vengeance for a 4x score. As soon as you hit it, the mode ends, and you get a medal. If the 4x Vengeance shot is the 3rd, 4th or 5th shot, you get a Silver medal. If the 4x Vengeance shot is the 6th, 7th or 8th shot, you get a Gold medal. This is almost certainly not intended by the programmers. If the 4x Vengeance shot is the #3 shot, you get ONLY the Silver medal, NO bronze medal. If the 4x Vengeance shot is the 6th shot you get only a Gold medal and a Bronze medal (from shot #3), but NO Silver medal. Another bug can occur if the Start-GAT is the 9th shot, the shots flash as if GAT was not entered for first shot. I would love to work with Q/A at Stern, btw.
Note that the “Dual Team Collaboration” rule affect your total score by the number of shots made up to and including the Start-GAT shot, TIMES the number of In-GAT shots. For instance, in Save the Enterprise make the GAT shot as the #9 shot in the mode, and then start working the left orbit and the Warp ramp. Let’s say you manage 5 In-GAT shots. That scores, 9 x 5 x 380k = 17.1M just in “Dual Team Collaboration”. But then we haven’t considered comboing, so it’s more. And the warp ramp might also reach Double Scoring in the process. You get it.
Level 1 Final shot, details
When the timer ends, the machine calls out “only one target left” or something of that nature. All 7 major shots are lit, as well as GAT under the upper flipper.
For most modes, one of the shots will be flashing in two colors, and is worth 4x. Two exceptions: For Nero, the 4x shot is the Black Hole. For Save the Enterprise, BOTH orbits are lit for 4x.
Just like any other shot, the Final shot can still be doubled by combo, but it’s tricky because you need the timer to end between the preparing shot and the final shot.
If you want to try that, it could be useful to know that when the timer changes from “2” to “1”, there is either 1.0 seconds or 2.0 seconds left until it changes to “Final shot”.
There is a peculiar (as in buggy) difference between the level 1 modes. When you play Destroy The Drill, Nero or Space Jump, the timer ends exactly when it reaches 0. But in Prime Directive, Save The Enterprise and Klingon Battle you the timer goes from “1” to “0” before it ends, i.e. the timer ends 2.0 seconds after it began to show “1”. This difference between modes doesn’t make any sense and it is most certainly bugs in the code. On top of that, for Save The Enterprise, it never shows “Final Shot” on the display, just a “0”. As a memoration rule, the modes with the extra second are the ones with fundamental computer colors, RGB: Red (Klingon battle), Green (Save The Enterprise), Blue (Prime Directive).
If you want to combo the Final Shot, you also need to consider the extra 4 seconds the timer pauses if the preparing shot is the 3rd, 6th, etc. shot.
The Final shot brings standard (pre-GAT) Ball progress 10, and Game progress 5. Mode progress is irrelevant.
Level 1 Final shot, more details
If there is no GAT played, the value of the final shot is just what the next normal shot would have been, except there is some extra in Klingon Battle and Destroy the Drill.
If you play GAT, the In-GAT shots add 30 to the final shot, as mentioned before.
Special rule for Klingon Battle: there is an extra 25 for every previous shot made in that mode. This is so little it doesn’t make sense to have an extra rule for it. But it’s there. I think there is a bug here because sometimes it is doubled to 50, and it is not synched to the combo doubler. This detail is mysterious.
Special rule for Destroy the Drill: Now we are not talking pity points. For every previous shot during Destroy the Drill, you get an extra 60-160 points in the final shot. How much depends on how many of the major shots that were lit when the shot was made. If only 2 were lit, it is 160. Then it reduces with 20 for every lit shot: If 3 were lit, it is 140, If 4 were lit, it is 120. If 5 were lit, it is 100. If 6 were lit, it is 80. If all 7 were lit, it is 60. This is also true for In-GAT shots, but since during GAT only 2 shots are lit, they always give 160 extra for the Final shot.
Those figures are of course for the single color flashing shots, so its 4x that for ending Destroy the Drill at the left scoop.
Example 14: You start Destroy the Drill and make 2 fast shots in the warp ramp and then nothing until the timer gets to 1 seconds. Then you shoot the Beta ramp (which by now is lit), the timer ends and you combo into the scoop. That final shot scores 4440, which is 100 base value, 30 x3 Mode progress, 10 x3 Ball progress, 5 x3 Game progress, and then 120 extra for the first shot up the warp ramp (4 shots were lit), 140 extra for the second warp ramp shot (3 shots were lit) and 60 extra for the third shot (all 7 shots were lit). Total 100 + 90 + 30 + 15 + 120 + 140 + 60 = 555. The scoop is the 4x shot in Destroy the Drill, and 2x for comboing it. 555 x4 x2 = 4440. Simple as that.
To remember from this section: Final shot is higher in Destroy the Drill than in other modes. Forget the rest.
Some more things
As we have seen, the Start-GAT shot should in most cases be the 9th shot, no less, no more. It doesn’t make sense to start GAT right away, unless you just want to get it over-with and proceed to mini wizard.
You should be familiar with the medal callouts. Bronze is a 2-tone sound, Silver and Gold are different 3-tone sounds.
As in most games, it is possible and suitable to stack modes with multiballs. With Klingon Multiball it could make sense to just bring a mode into it, and then aim only for the KM jackpots. Klingon Multiball can and should give significant points. Some of the Level 1 modes fit well with multiball, some fit worse. The worst is Klingon Battle, simply because of the color, KM and KB are both red. Prime Directive on the other hand fits very well with multiball. One reason for this, is it is very easy to know how many shots you have made. PD starts with all 7 major shots lit. Any shot you make unlights that shot, but the 5th relights all shots. This means it basically counts the shots for you. After 5 shots (1 relight), make 3 more shots (4 will still be flashing blue), the 9th should be under the upper flipper (Start-GAT). Then feed all balls up the orbits, which are not orbits now – both top gates are closed. This is the way to play PD with or without multiball.
If you happen to time out Space Jump GAT mode, the probable bugs mentioned earlier doesn’t matter for “Final Shot”. The behavior is normal, i.e. the Vengeance shot (still 4x) or any other shot will, if it is the 3rd shot in the mode, give a Bronze medal, etc.
Modeless multiball
It is possible to have multiple balls in play without actually have any multiball MODE active. This happens if you reach Warp 9.9 without already playing a multiball mode. It also happens if you complete Kobiyashi Maru multiball. It is theoretically possible to have all 4 balls in play without any multiball mode.
If you shoot Start Mission when you are in modeless multiball, either in the left scoop or under the upper flipper, it wouldn’t make sense to choose mode with the flipper buttons, so the machine will pick a mode for you. It seems to be the one that it otherwise would have defaulted to.
Klingon Multiball and the Vengeance modes
When you are in Klingon multiball, you cannot start any Vengeance mode.
In Vengeance mode #1, Vengeance Multiball, you cannot lock balls or start Klingon Multiball. Actually, no multiball modes can be stacked anywhere in this game (warp ball doesn’t count as a mode).
In Vengeance mode #2, Vengeance Scoring, you can lock balls and start Klingon Multiball. It might be a good idea if Extra Ball award is an actual extra ball.
In Vengeance mode #3, Vengeance Battle, you can lock balls and start Klingon Multiball, BUT Vengeance Battle will be paused until Klingon Multiball has ended, so they don’t really stack.
Vengeance mode ready, and Mission mode start
At the start of a ball, if a Vengeance mode is ready, and no Mission mode is running already, you will not get to choose a mission mode. But if you shoot the Left scoop or under the upper flipper, you can. This means it is a very bad idea to thoughtlessly fire away on the lock bar button when you drain. You can do it on the last ball or course, but the points will be very small. Otherwise, keep the photon torpedoes to the next ball.
Just strange
Restarting Prime Directive II after it ended with DRAIN the previous time, doesn’t reset the timer to 30 seconds. It continues from where it was.
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Great scoring breakdown, though I generally don’t pay much attention to the finer minutiae of scoring. I do disagree about putting off starting GAT. The shots are far more valuable (75K spins in Destroy the Drill!), and you will want the maximum amount of time to take advantage. Also, several of the flashing final shots are only doubled (Prime Directive, Space Jump, and Nero). I believe the medal adjustment for GAT in Space Jump was very intentional as you only have one shot left to shoot, though I’m not sure why you would not also collect the lower medal on the 3rd or 6th shot. I would be curious to know how one might attempt to combo through each mode.
Can you choose not to continue Prime Directive II? I’m guessing that because it’s a timed mode, you are locked in until the timer runs out.
As for Destroy the Drill GAT, you are probably right, the spinner might be more important.
I encountered something strange in my stream today… is the super jackpot just not programmed in Enterprise Amok? It looked like the goal was to try and hit all shots before hitting too many switches… I finally did this and then the game just locked on, all lights solid and no super jackpot 
New to the forum (and can’t figure out how to make a new post…am I that dumb?) and wondering if anyone here has any insight on a scoring question and this seemed like the best place to put it? Finally was able to get a ST Pro and have been messing with the various scoring strategies and approaches to the game.
One thing I haven’t been able to nail down yet is if one of the captian’s chair awards is more valuable or has more scoring potential than the other. Probably a loaded question since often times it’s running with a mode going, but is there any consensus on which has more possible points assuming you complete the whole thing? Maybe in a no other mode running/all things equal environment? Just curious!
I would assume Super Ramps has the most point potential because the shots are each subject to being doubled via a combo. I would also guess that without this doubling, the point potential for each Super award would be roughly the same.
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First, I believe that @stevevt is correct.
Second, for maximum points, the other aspect is to get two Super (Captain’s Chair) modes at once by completing two triangle three-in-a-rows by saving the shared “point” of the triangle as the fifth mode you play.
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Thanks! That makes sense. I was assuming (hoping) they would all be pretty balanced, but the double scoring on the ramps seems logical to have more potential. I would still be super curious to know what the base value is all things equal ha. I will have to try and watch the display and do the math.
I’ve heard this, and I don’t understand the logic here. The Super modes all carry over ball to ball, so you’re going to collect the points for them regardless. The only potential effort saving I can imagine is having spinner and pops at the same time so you’re scoring both with one shot to the left orbit (sometimes).