The same exact thing happened in two local tournaments (Mesa, AZ) in September on Star Trek Pro. I was a player in both games. I wonder if this is a bug in the software or maybe a switch problem common to Star Trek games.
First scenario, four player game, P2 tilts ball 3 hard as it drains. Display highlights P3’s score, but flippers are dead and there’s no ball in the shooter lane. Nobody was sure what to do and after a couple minutes someone shook the machine, then it kicked a ball into the shooter lane, but the display moved to P4. I think (but not sure now) it may have displayed a danger when it was shaken before it switched from P3 to P4 and kicked the ball out for P4. I was P4 and played on and P3 got a compensation ball (and of course got 4th because he lost all progress to his multiballs).
Second scenario (if I can remember the details correctly), four player game, I was P3. P2 tilts ball 1 hard as it drains. It seemed like the TILT on the screen turned off for a split second, then said TILT again. Flippers dead, no ball in shooter lane, P3’s score is bold (00). The operator of the game was actually P2, so he opened the coin door (after discussion with the TD) and manually loaded a ball into the shooter lane to see if this would somehow fix the issue, like maybe the game lost track of the balls. The game auto-launched it like it was clearing a ball after a tilt. Flippers were still dead. Once the ball drained, the displayed moved to P4 and the game played as normal. I was given a compensation ball at the end.
So it seems very odd that both of these and the original post scenario happened specifically after a P2 tilt. Could this be a software bug that should be reported to Stern?
Could this ever be considered a “tilt thru”, or are these never supposed to ever happen on modern Sterns? In other words, does the next player’s turn not officially start until the ball is in the shooter lane, so the previous player can’t be blamed for anything that happens until then?