I am pleased to announce the release of ALIEN 1.3 BETA software!

This BETA release is a collection of bug fixes and minor additions that I have added to the game code on my own time after the production run ended. Pinball Brothers had NO involvement in the development or testing of these changes, and cannot provide you with support or warranty (and neither can I). After much discussion, they have agreed to let me release this to the public.

Use at your own risk. A few other people have been running this code too, without any issues as far as I am aware. But it has not seen widespread use. If you find issues with it, please let me know directly and post to this thread; however, I cannot promise that I can fix anything else at this point. I'll do my best to answer any questions you might have.

The link to download is available here: https://oddchange.com/alien/
***EDIT January 13 2021: this link has been removed; software updates will be moving to the Pinball Brothers website. I will not be hosting these images myself anymore.***

Here is the changelog:

Changes since version 1.2:

- Fixed a bug in the slingshot drivers that caused them to fire slightly later
than they should have.
- Beacons will not restart every time the coin door is opened in attract mode.
- Lowered the maximum time that flippers are pulsed strongly when the EOS switch
is not working.
- Upper flipper EOS switches are now utilized (if present); previously, they
were ignored. This should keep those flipper coils cooler.
- Lamp flicker prevention code now accounts for upper flipper usage. Previously
some LED glitching could be seen sometimes near the raised upper flippers.
- When the shooter coil has trouble launching the ball, don't call the
display/speech effects on every single attempt.
- Improved handling of coil adjustments for very short coil pulses. In some
cases, the adjustments were not having any effect.
- Add adjustment "AMODE BEACON" (default: YES). When set to NO, the beacons
will not spin during attract mode. They will remain functional during
gameplay.
- Add adjustment "SWAP L. SLING/FLIPPER COIL" (default: NO), for owners who
wish to rewire their games by swapping the coil numbers for the left
slingshot and the left flipper. This eliminates the buzzing noise from the
left flipper when held.
- Hide the Buyin Limit adjustment, if Buyin Price is set to OFF.
- Fixed display bug where changes to ball up/player up in the "modify game"
menu were not shown correctly after resuming the game.
- Fixed a bug where test mode would time out and return to attract mode
prematurely in some cases.
- When entering test mode, announce if the xeno or magnet has been disabled
by adjustment.
- Fixed a display bug where a score event might not be reflected on the display
immediately.
- Fixed a bug with Ambush Multiball in tournament/competition mode, which made
it unlikely that the leftmost quadrant would ever be lit for jackpot.
- Fixed a lamp bug with Combat Drop. If the mode timed out during the target
phase, the standup inserts would remain blue for the rest of the ball, instead
of reverting back to their normal yellow color. This works as expected now.
- Airlock display now turned off during mode start animations, where it
previously continued to indicate "shoot here" to start the mode.
- Changed the two hurryup scenes, Tunnel Hunt and Acid Burn, so that they do
not last as long. When the hurryup value is increased, the value at which
the mode ends is now also increased (unless it is the result of an "add time"
award).
- When Save Newt multiball was re-qualified at the same time that All Out War
was already qualified, a shot to the xenomorph would start both multiballs
together. This has been changed to start All Out War only.
- When a scene was running and Sentry Guns was qualified, the left eject arrow
would flash for the scene shot, but not indicate that multiball was ready.
Now, the arrow prioritizes the multiball indicator over the mode.
- When the ball drained just after completing a Lifecycle, its display effect
would have to finish before bonus would count up, which could take a long
time. This video is now truncated early when the ball ends.
- Cancel all callouts when attract mode ends (either by entering test mode or
starting a game), and at the start of each ball. Before, it was possible for
some irrelevant speech to occur.
- Fixed bug during tilt which would occasionally leave some of the playfield
LEDs on when they should have been off (typically the standup target inserts).
- Fixed priority of tilt warning, which could cause tilt lamp effect not to run
if tilt occurred too quickly after the previous warning.
- Fixed buy-in button lamp sometimes not indicating that weapon change was
permitted (i.e. it would be off even though weapon change was allowed).
- Weapon change is now also permitted while the ball is in the shooter lane.
- Fixed a bug where a particular weapon had been earned, but could never be
selected when cycling through the awards with the buy-in button.
- Prevent weapon collect when pressing launch and there is a ball at/recently
at the shooter lane.
- Improved the Smart Gun logic to tend to start Hypersleep Multiball when only
one more lock is needed. This was always intended, but a bug prevented it
from actually happening.
- The lamp effect for All Out War being qualified won't run now if it can't be
started (e.g. due to another multiball running).
- Center magnet now grabs the ball briefly at the start of All Out War.
- During All Out War, GI near the flippers is now kept on.
- Deferred the detection of all the multiballs being completed until after a
multiball ends, not when a new multiball is started. When the column is
complete, the inserts now strobe slowly, until All Out War has been played.
Previously, when the last multiball was started, the insert column
would clear, which was slightly confusing.
- Changed the layout of multi-player scores on the dashboard to be more
traditional, with the player up score in a larger font, and the scores
arranged consistently.
- When pressing the right flipper button while a ball is at the shooter to
see the game status, the message block that normally cycles game hints
was stuck at "Launch Ball". This now cycles as it does during game play.
This now offers a way to see how many xenomorph shots are needed for
Ambush multiball before launching a ball.
- Add new light shows for pop bumpers during scenes which use them.
- Added a 15 second ball saver when entering the multiball phases of
Self Destruct or Loader Battle.

I'm just doing a few more tests and setting up a site to host the download. It won't be much longer.

There were no changes to the IO board firmware in this update. It will work with either the 0.8 or 0.9 firmware that is already out there.

If the IO board isn't connected properly over USB, it can't update it. Can you explain in more detail what you are seeing?

Yes. If 1.2 was working for you, then 1.3 will work as well.

The code is now available for download:

http://oddchange.com/alien/

There is an option to update in the Tests/IO Boards menu. If you have 1.2 installed, you already have the 0.9 IO firmware on the CPU, but it does not get automatically installed to the IO boards unless you run this test.

0.9 contained only a few changes. The major change was to the way that flipper coils are pulsed to try to avoid the dreaded flicker of the nearby LEDs. If you are not experiencing severe flicker, then I recommend not updating. In the end, it didn't work as well as I had hoped.

I also recommend NOT updating the cabinet IO board at all. If the update fails for whatever reason, you won't be able to process coin door buttons anymore so you'll be stuck. There's no need to put 0.9 there as it doesn't add anything.