That's all that's in there, so that's it for sure.

If you do the ball will wear through it very quickly, and make a nasty looking mess of it. It's actually very easy to cut out the circle around the magnet once it's placed, just be careful not to stab or catch the blade on the pf finish.

Good question...over here they use round mylar dots for covering the magnet and the sourrounding area so Ted's question is more than valid

At Aurich's encouragement I paid significant attention to the bottom octave of the Alien sound package. To this end I added a Daytona Audio sub to my studio. You can't adjust what you can't hear. There are a lot of moments when something dives down that dives down a little further with a Sub Woofer.

I have a background as a rock musician and know how to 'rock'.

I hope this is working for everybody.

ddt

Great news, Andrew promised 5 of the first 10 games were shipping to us this week. Been some delays, glad to hear he has games shipping!

The sounds on this game are amazing.... immersive is how I can best describe

Are all the new games out there running .97 code?

what a ball drop??

ohhh i figured it out..... just had to put my pinhead hat on....

The front of the game would look so much better if all those carriage bolts were black. Just sayin' !

tumblr_m02axlkcXA1qfyusqo1_1280 (resized).jpg

If you look at the wear on the shadow magnet I'd imagine the Mylar would be gone in a week on alien

I just want my LE, being a paid in full fella I'm hoping this summer.

a few tips for guys getting their games, stuff Ive had to tweak:
-First of course mylar on the airlock, also on mother in front of the invert ramp and an bit in the shooter lane
-some switch tweaks as nessisary
-game plays great at 6.8 degrees
-check the tightness of all the screws for the flipper mechs Ive had a few fall out, and am missing a few.
-check level of the screen and mag, again a screw fell out of my screen, no big deal but if I wasnt checking it would have been
-all but one flipper mech EOS switches were stuck closed, no big deal
-plastic washers replaced as so:
PFM_0331 (resized).JPG
-right orbit guide needed to be bent back, the end was sticking out and when you hit the left orbit it would nail the end and slow it down (yes I managed to accidentally break a plastic while adjusting, hopefully Highway can sell me another ):z2 (resized).jpg

-also, the chestburster shot, hard shot, you may need to adjust the guide to hit it properly, however my switch is not clearing the shot eg. here I am pushing the button and it is not clearing (still flashing), it registers on the switch matrix test as right lane target which sounds correct? Or does it clear with pop bumper hits etc?
z3 (resized).jpg
z4 (resized).jpg

Hopefully my Xeno head comes soon, but so far a really great game, great sounds give it a great ambiance - the game reminds me of playing IJ-TPA for some reason but better, great theme integration and shots and sound and art. I have great plans for future powder coat, and do want to put some beacons on. Thanks guys for all the hard work you put into this game!
z5 (resized).jpg

I am definitely in for protecting my game, and will mylar all other areas mentioned... but covering the whole playfield screen seems a little over the top... I mean i will if there is known issues with that part of the game... but i really do think it would interfere with the clarity of the screen.
has anyone that has an aliens or a full throttle not done it and regret it? or done it and no regretted it?

As I stated, I did it. No clarity issues(with game off you could "maybe" tell, but on a lit screen no way). You will, however, have clarity issues after a ball rolls over it a few thousand times without protection, hence the mylar. To each his own. I did the same thing on my Congo and it's worked out great. If the game is going on location I would 100% do it. If your screen looses a screw and dips a little and it gets 100 plays on it before you notice you'll be bummed.

Sounds like the Heighway factory could use some lock washers and Loctite on those machine screws under the pf. They are awesome for re-use over the long-term, but not as snug against loosening via vibration.

Alien owners will want to pick some up: https://www.amazon.com/Loctite-37418-Strength-Threadlocker-6-milliliter/dp/B000FIXQXK

I think early adopters would be doing everyone a HUGE service by starting a new thread for...

ALIEN: RECOMMENDED TWEAKS, ADJUSTMENTS & UPGRADES

These helpful hints/photos are going to get buried in this thread, and I think it would be awesome to have all these tweaks listed in one thread.

Thanks in advance

Also does Heighway include a manual for their games, or does the diagnostic menus on the LCD basically make that obsolete now? The old manuals are nice for parts lists, diagrams, etc. Hoping they include one.

Basically I'd like to know a specific list of all the rubber sizes used in the game, in case I swap out.

No manual in mine,not even sure where to do my code update when I get it.

there isnt a manual for full throttle yet, so i wouldn't expect much on that front.

this is pinside.... you have to sift throu any thread..

ok I know i will to excited to remember what to check, so thanks to all the posts on here, i made a check list for myself. and i will follow before i play a game.

Under Playfield
Check all connections
Check tightness of all screw (flipper mechs and screen)
Check levelness of the screen
Check levelness of the Magnet
Check EOS switches – make sure they are open and set properly

MYLAR
on the airlock scoop
also on mother in front of the invert ramp
and an bit in the shooter lane
around the magnet
ball drops
full playfield screen ( or mylar a frame around the screen if you choose not the whole thing)

Playfield
Check Right orbit guide for proper operation (end could be stuck out – causing the ball to hit it when fed from left orbit)
Replace plastic washers with proper metal washers
Check guide on chest burster shot

Software
Ensure code is up to date

Set Pitch
Game pitch to 6.8 Degrees

Play the fricken thing!!

There's an inductive switch under the playfield just below the standup target in that lane. On older software, it required inductive switch -> standup target in quick succession to award the Chestburster lane shot. On newer software (probably what you have), there's an operator adjustment, "Chestburster Lane Diff.", that can be Easy or Hard. If set Hard, it follows the original behavior, needs inductive -> standup in quick succession. If set Easy, it only requires the inductive switch, and the standup is basically unused. I made this change because I was seeing on streams, as well as my own game, that many shots to that lane were just making it to the standup target without enough oomph to fully trigger the standup, and thus not registering. Frustrating for what's already a hard shot. So the Easy setting makes it, well, easier. The flip side of the Easy setting -- some may even consider this a benefit -- is that sometimes the pop bumper can kick the ball over the inductive switch and award the shot. Personally I consider that an acceptable tradeoff, but that's why I made it an adjustment, so owners can select the behavior that feels right to them.

All this means that you should also use Switch Edges to verify the inductive switch in that lane.

New

That's awesome thanks, Ill be putting this one on easy lol, I thought there could be an inductive switch so tried the ball but didn't realize it would need both in order.

What would have been slightly better in terms of inserts would have been to have the airlock 2 shot have a 2nd chestburster light rather than another hugger insert. Give a guy some options - plus when trying to work towards the save newt you have to make the mother shot to get either of those shots and its a hugger shot already.

I thought it wasn't registering my shot all the time.
Now I know why,thanks I'll change my setting to.

Pingod uses 'easy' settings! Might as well leave the glass off while you're at it Dan!

Can you provide a medium setting? That makes it need two inductive switch hits in X time. In other words a shot up the lane but without enough oompf shoul go over tHe switch then back down the switch?

This would eliminate the freebie from the pops, but allow a shoot kwith almost the oompf to still count.

Not sure of the distance between inductive and top of lane to standup if this is possible. Just a thought

There is a cliffy that has been designed for the scoop now.

If you look back over the evolution of this game (somewhere in this 13,000 message thread) you'll see that originally, the Chestburster lane had a controllable drop target and a magnet, and there was to be some trickery to make it sometimes appear that the ball was bursting through a chest (the target). Those devices were only in that one lane, thus the single location/insert for the Chestburster shot and insert.

Misc. non-obvious rules trivia: when Facehugger is the currently lit Lifecycle shot, the points awarded for the shot are multiplied by the Vent number... i.e. Vent 1/Mother = 1x points, Vent 2 = 2x points, Vent 3 = 3x points.

That's an interesting idea. Sure, I can experiment with adding that as an option, thanks for the thought.

From cliffy protectors? Or from heighway?

Where can I get it?

Where do you get Mylar big enough for the screen? I wonder too what shape the scoop Mylar should be cut to?

TAP Plastics or an equivalent type of store.

correct. there is good mylar, and not so good shitty mylar..

Are regulars or Le's machines shipping or both?

Regs only afaik

So the standard models can also come with the beacons? I guess so...

Yeah if you pay some extra monies

gonna put some roman glass lovin' in ? you could drive there and pick it up almost...

btw, the machine looks beautiful, grats.

I bought a big roll off of ebay and just cut pieces to fit whatever.

Andrew, any new youtube videos showing the factory planned? It would be great to see the assembly lines again and how things have changed since the last vid (hopefully). I enjoyed seeing the equipment and factory a couple months ago. Pretty much why i ordered a LE. It is really interesting to me and likely the community seeing the progress.

For Alien owners, does the code is deep? How much Multiballs, mini or normal Wizard modes and normals modes?
Thx

I have an old piece of mylar i have been cutting up over the years... can someone tell me the size of the screen, so i know if i have enough..

To credit Ferret stellar work with the games code/lighting, watching the intro to self destruct you almost don't even need the beacons the lighting effects he has programmed are "that" good!

Does this mean that it will be added at the shop or extra? Will there be a package to address the MYLAR requirements and other useful items? Just makes it easier, I like easier.

Each movie represented (Alien and Aliens) has 4 regular modes + 1 mini-wizard mode. The mini-wizard modes start as single-ball but convert to multiballs if you get to a certain point.

There are 4 "normal" multiballs, plus 1 final wizard mode which is also a multiball.

People may choose to tally all that in slightly different ways (is the final wizard mode a "mode" or a "multiball" or both or other?), but regardless, there's quite a lot to do.

I am still feeling like this is all a dream that Alien Pinball is coming... and with every delay, I feel the dream is becoming more of one. Checking my email each hour hoping one comes from Andrew saying it's on it's way... fingers crossed the recent one saying it would be "2 weeks" isn't just more of that dream.

Interesting thanks for the info, found out why that shot felt impossible - it was, the eddy sensor underneith was nfg, i swapped it with one from the right outlane for now so it should register. Also looking there, there are two positions for eddy sensors on the board up the chestburster shot, the lower is empty, and the higher right by the target is the one that wasnt working, is that correct or should the lower have one as well?