Quoted from rosh:Congratulations!! Enjoy.
There is no knocker, we have talked about, and it is certainly possible, we will later offer a kit to add one. We have put that on the back burner for now as we have higher priorities, as I am sure you can understand. My guess is we will revisit it in a month or two. Things like the knocker and shaker start off in the BOM, but end up getting removed based on other items we feel have greater value. For example, the themed spot lights, do we do those or a knocker -- which creates more value? I'm not saying that was the specific tradeoff, but in general those are the kind of discussions we have. At one point we were going with an 8 ball trough, since I wanted 7 balls in the machine, but that was going to cost a significant amount more then a six ball, so I would have to have been willing to give up something else of substance, so, clear choice was I'll get by with six balls (which believe it nor created quite the headache for me when we made the change).
Joe is going out there today to take care of it. He wants to give the whole machine a good look over, since it now has close to 2000 plays on it.
Tight shots, it is all in your head. Backhanding the right inner loop is actually quite easy. If flippers set correctly, you can typically also backhand the ramp. What I find hard is hitting the ramp after the milkcan loop to increase the playfield multiplier. It is not that the ramp shot is that hard, it is the 'panic/pressure' of needing to hit it right then that makes me miss it, typically badly, but again, all in the head, since there are times I can hit that ramp three, four times in a row. Pinball really is a very mental game.
I'll look at adding an option for a short ball save on the scoop when not in MB. Joe and I were talking about that not long ago. This is typically the kind of thing where I rib him about software having to compensate for his "design flaws". Needless to say he gets way more opportunities to rib me about software stuff.
No match yet, pretty sure I know what I am going to do, just have many higher priority items.
Super Skill is the magic target on the left side. There is an expanded skill shot in the works, not hugely different, per se, but will require more skill to earn items of greater interest/value, including a new feature for the stage. Right now I have it pencilled in for the March release. BTW, current skill shot gets harder on each ball, if you make it.
Seen the catapult throw into the box thousands of times and it never gets old.
Replay scores are probably at defaults, and those probably need to be re-evaluted based on the data we have collected. Other defaults might also changed based on data we have collected. Some of the locations have been great in sending over logs and stats for me to review, and in some cases I have recommended changes to their settings based on what I am seeing.
Speaking of locations sharing data, for any operators following this thread, here are some key metrics from three of the half dozen or more locations with machines.
Games: 1867, Avg Game Time: 3:38, Avg Score: 76156 ($1/game)
Games: 2142, Avg Game Time: 2:47, Avg Score: 53525 (entry fee games on free play)
Games: 1522, Avg Game Time: 2:54, Avg Score: 76120 ($1/game, 3 for $2)
Awesome communication!!