I have an LE on order, and I am VERY excited! Seriously hoping to be in the first batch.

I commissioned a local artist to whip this little guy up. He's keeping things under control on my couch!

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That is the best news I've heard all week!

Last i heard they had shuffled things around a bit, but it was still going to be a two-part run. Your version is much better!

I read that post a little differently. I read it as 150 SEs, then 1000 LEs, but he also refers to a second batch of 1000 games after a first batch of 500. He also refers to taking a break from AFMr to build MMR. I don't necessarily see that as meaning the break will or won't happen "between batches" (IE: 150 SEs and 350 LEs in "Batch 1", then MMR, then 650 LEs and 350 SEs/Standards in "Batch 2". It could just mean that no SEs or Standards will be built until all the LEs are done, and 250 MMRs get built in there somewhere.

Like I said, I like your reading better. That's what I get for doing psycholinguistics in graduate school! lol!

That's it! Ticket in hand, just waiting for the next group to go in.

I don't have mine yet, but I've been lucky enough to play on two different SEs on location.

It may be because every original I've ever played has been pretty thoroughly worn, but the remakes both felt REALLY good. Lots of nice power in the flippers, and maybe it was just all the fresh rubber, but it sure seemed to be well-balanced and smooth. In particular, the shaker motor integration was amazing: made the game feel almost like a thrill ride.

Like I said, I've never had the luck to play a HUO game that had been well taken care of, so maybe i was just experiencing the same feeling one gets when you drive the brand new model of the car you've been driving for the last few years, and everything feels awesome just because it has zero wear. In any case, I'm glad I decided to go for the remake rather than hunt around for a nice original.

While I'm waiting to hear something, I'm trying to accurately plan my basement entry strategy. I've got a relatively narrow door, and I'm trying to figure out if I'll need to remove the backbox to the game down the stairs.

Any chance one of you lucky new owners might be willing to put a tape measure on that backbox? Of course, I don't expect you to interrupt a play session, but maybe when you're taking a beer break?

I've scoured the PDF of the manual, and while there are dimensions for the backglass, there's nothing in there that I could find about the actual cabinet.

Thanks!

And my door is 29 inches at the narrowest point, in like Flynn!

Thank you!

That is one seriously impressive row!

Do I see some Moto Glass custom toppers?

Finally in the club! LE 186 made it home!

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No flipper delay here either, although I did break a spring on one side, so the reset was slow. (BTW, BIG "Thank you!!!" to Lloyd for helping me with a quick field fix while I wait for a new spring!)

Setup update:

Got ol' 186 out of the box and into the basement.

I removed the backbox to get it through the narrow basement door, which turned out to be extremely easy: 1 wood screw holding in the big cable sheath (be careful putting it back in), 1 ethernet connector, a couple of Molex connectors (for the speakers), and a bunch of PCB connectors.

I think I got them all in the attached pic. In any case, the majority of the connectors are in two large bundles that join into the big sheath, and they held their shape well enough that it only took a few glances at the pictures I took to make sure everything was back where it belonged.

I shoved everything into the main cabinet, and removed the sleeve nuts from the inside of the cab so I could remove the carriage bolts that hold the backbox on. Be careful: there is a small plastic spacer/washer between the backbox flange and the cabinet side. Getting that thing back into place was the hardest part of the whole adventure.

Naturally, replacing everything is the reverse of taking it apart.

Once it was set up, I put in a set of new balls from Marco's, as I have heard nothing good about balls that come with games. Maybe these are fine, but I had the new ones, and it's under five bucks.

After messing around a bit, I settled on 7.4 degrees, which seemed to give a nice balance. It was fast, and the game seemed to flow really well.

3 days and 290 plays later (new game!), I noticed some dust in an in-lane, so i decided to clean the playfield and give it a coat of wax.

Holy smokes! At 7.4 degrees with new wax, this thing just FLIES! I may actually shallow it out a bit, we'll see how the regular crowd reacts to it.

Over the course of four days, I have to say, I was really surprised at how much "settling in" the game has done. At first, it seemed like there were a few rattles here and there in some of the mechs, but everything seems to be on a trajectory toward being more solid and stable.

The one exception is that there is a bit of rattle on the playfield glass. I'm going to try the electrical tape trick and see how that works.

afmr-backbox removal connectors (resized).jpg

I have to admit, I'm not sure what a Beer Seal is. Would you please elaborate? I'd love to do what you did. It seems small words would be appropriate.

Oh, Ok, I get it now! That makes total sense, I'm sure mine wasn't adjusted either. I'll give it a shot, as the lockbar kind of feels a bit high anyway.

I have definitely witnessed the escaping glass. It's a little alarming at first, to be sure.

Thanks much!

Aaaaaaand... That did it! Thanks again!

Another great tip! I hadn't even really noticed the droop, and I admit, it was a bit daunting doing the adjustment for the first time. Like most "just do it" experiences, though, the learning was enough to overcome the scary, and now I feel like I'm going to be messing with it quite a lot, 'cause I'm sure I'll be looking super closely all the time to see if they're even a fraction of a degree apart from each other.

It's a great improvement!

If you figure something out, please let me know!

On a related topic, my drop bank stopped dropping. During normal play, it would register hits, but never drop.

It failed the startup test, as well as the motor test (test 19).

Motor test failing
Startup test report

I lifted the playfield and wiggled some stuff, and got it back for a while. Sadly it was only a temporary solution. Since I've got a fancy new warranty, I figured I'd open a ticket, not expecting that I would get a response before Monday morning. Whatever they're paying @LTG, it isn't enough. On a Sunday night, I got a response back about 10 minutes after submitting the ticket, suggesting I completely re-seat the connector for the down switch:

It's the lower connector in this picture:
2017-09-10 19.35.09 (resized).jpg

One of the crimp connections to one of the sockets felt a bit loose compared to the other ones, but a full disconnect-and-reconnect seemed to do the trick.

If it happens again, I'll replace that crimp connection.

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As always, a big "Thank You!" to Lloyd!

If you mean Tournament Mode, I tried it out. Every SOL award was 50,000,000 points. Every single one.

I didn't like it.

It may well be that I just didn't get far enough for anything else to show up, but that's all I ever got.

Same thing happened to me on the evening of day 2. Since this is my first non-EM pin, my spares drawer is pretty bare. Lloyd sent me an awesome tutorial on how to bend a new hook in the part of the spring that was left, and that got me through until the replacement showed up.

Me too. There have been a couple of sessions where I have set a new personal best, and then minutes later discovered just how low it is possible to score.

A near miss on just about any shot seems to lead to a warp-speed drain, and there appear to be magnets in the outlanes.

My high score is just over 8B, and I've accomplished all the goals, just not in the same game.

On the other hand, making progress is SO satisfying!

Once again, Lloyd is Da Man.

I can't imagine he buys a lot of his own adult beverages these days.

Another LE in black here. I'd say mine is on the "glossy" end of the "semi-gloss" spectrum. I went this way simply because I ordered an Alien LE in green, and in my modest collection, that's a lot of green.

Honestly, I probably should have gone the other way, since the Alien green seems to be lot lighter and brighter than the Martian Green, and there's a lot more of it on Alien. That said, the black looks gorgeous on AFM.

Question for y'all...

This has happened once in a while, but just now happened about six times in a row:

The force field is down, the callouts indicate that the saucer is one shot from being destroyed. A shot goes right up the middle and disappears... And I get awarded a lock. Twice just now I managed to actually get awarded the multiball for three successive shots to the saucer. Before I open a ticket, is this normal behavior?

Cool, thanks! I'll check it out.

Found the solution!

Thanks to @bigd1979's suggestion, I looked at the underside of the lock/saucer subway, and found that the trough switch had lost a screw, and therefore wasn't registering, thus confusing the game as to where the ball had come from. I found the screw in the speaker cone, and replaced it.
Missing screw
The trick is that there is an adjustment on this switch, and I found it needed to be in the "tightest" configuration, where it was most sensitive.
2017-09-23 21.25.00 (resized).jpg
It looks like all is now well. Hopefully this will help if anyone in the future experiences the same symptoms.

Yup.
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One of my best friends' brother in-law is a famous graphic designer. My friend commissioned him to make me a custom logo for my arcade as a Christmas present a while back.

Me neither.

Yeah, the impression I've gotten is that CGC isn't letting the dealers discount.

The game was really kicking my butt. Lots of airballs and warp speed SDTM drains. So I played with the flipper strength, as a number of owners have advised, and it's much better now. I'm actually hitting al my shots with a LOT more accuracy. It seems also like the ball doesn't pick up as much spin as it did with the flipper strength set higher.

A weird thing, though: at one point I set the strength to MIN at one point, just to see, and the right flipper didn't move AT ALL. I figure that can't be right. Any suggestions as to what I can look for?

What you have just experienced is what I like to call "Attack From Mars".

The same thing happened to me today, although it was 4.5B on ball one, then about 4.6B final score. I also didn't get too close to RTU.

Seriously, though, thank you for sharing, I'm glad it's not JUST me!

I had the same issue. Lloyd is right, you need to look at the switch on the subway. I posted some pics of the offender in post 804 in this thread.

Hope this helps!

Also, For what it's worth, after a few hundred plays, my game has almost entirely settled down. I had a few gremlins at first, but they seem to have gotten bored and moved on. Hopefully this will happen for you as well.

Hi all -

Just reporting on a small issue that's come up.

I just installed PIC 2.0 into my LE, and I honestly can't remember if it was doing this before or not, but my speaker lights are now only showing various shades of green in interactive mode, and interestingly, won't turn off when I select "Off" in the menu.

I've opened a ticket (Hi, Lloyd!), and will report the outcome back here.

Here is a quick video showing the problem:

I know. It was a coincidence. I just wasn't sure if it was happening before I was messing around in the backbox.

That was step one. I'm starting to think I've got a bad board.

I'll make sure to let everyone know how this works out.

I was in a very early batch of LEs, and 2000 plays in, I've had VERY few issues, mainly involving things vibrating loose in shipping and some minor setup issues. It's kind of depressing to see how upset people are getting, justifiably or not. I'm hoping this ends up being a (small) success story to add to the mix.

Oh, man!

So, here's what I have to say:

1) Got a new board from CGC. Fixed the speaker LED/Undercab lighting issue. I have all the colors now. On the down side, I lost all of my high scores and all of my settings. No worries, I can fix all that.

2) Got the green Titan kit. I'll post pics when I get it installed. I kind of think the gitd might have been the better move.

3) No fob with LE 186, which was a pre-order, delivered in August of 2017. I am now sad...

That's all for now...

One more in the chorus: I pre-ordered LE 186, and have had a couple of relatively minor issues. Most of them were things lke prematurely broken flipper return springs, and adjustment issues. Most recently, I had to get a replacement board due to some funky lighting action. In all cases, CGC, Arturo and Lloyd were all great.

I can't see any issues with my playfield, and I'm not going to get out my magnifying glass to make sure.

I am really happy with my game, but also disturbed at what appears to be CGC's response to more major issues.

I'm still looking forward to the next announcement, and actually kind of hoping it's a title I am a little less excited about. My budget could use a year off after AFM and Alien, and I'd also like to see how CGC evolves with regard to their support policies on the next round.

Ah, yes, the shot that, more than any other has caused me to "just walk away"...

This works well most of the time at keeping it out of the outlane, but I often find it dumps it into the right sling. Often the results are the same.

The solution, of course, is to just make the shot in the first place!

Congrats! Still hunting for that particular white whale, myself.

Ooooooh, that looks nice!

Thinking about a couple of mods for LE #186, I'd love to hear what peoples' experience has been:

1) Invisiglass - Seems like a pretty nice upgrade.

2) Pingraffix Powerblades. I like the design, and feel like they really fit in with the existing artwork. The tough part is that the mirror blades in the LE are already pretty cool. What I'm not completely clear on is if the mirror blades need to be removed first, or if the Powerblades go on over the top (minus the bolt heads, of course). If the mirror blades are removed, are they a standard size and shape? If I pull the trigger, I may want to keep them around and install them into another game down the road.

Thanks!

Sounds like you might need to open a ticket. Set below 3, mine is at a very comfortable late-night volume. The sounds of the coils are much louder than the sound effects at that point. Above 6 and stuff in the room starts rattling.

Good point. If you manage to find a topper for sale on the secondary market, make sure to get the topper board as well, since it's not in the plywood box the topper comes in, it's bolted into the backbox.

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You mean so far? Pretty sure they're still cranking them out. If they've stopped for a break, I suspect they will start up again as demand dictates. That's how it happened with #MM.

I think all 1000 LEs are spoken for, or at least in the hands of distributors.

It's genuine all right. It's a call back to TAF, which has a "Dirty Pool" callout around the bookcase. AFM also has an animation for it. It just flashes "DIRTY POOL" a couple of times, but it's there.

I have an LE in black, and I went with green Titans, thinking there was a lot of red and warm colors on the game so the green would pop.

I now actually think the right choice would have either been red or glow-in-the-dark. The glowy ones are the typical glow-in-the-dark color in normal light, which actually looks really cool on the game.

If you go red, you won't go wrong.

I'm pretty sure the wiring connectors are different. A clever owner with a well-stocked spares box could make it happen, I'm sure.

I would strongly suggest the Cliffy treatment for the Mothership and force field. After about 4,000 plays, the only spot I saw noticeable wear was on the Mothership hole, and the plywood there had gotten pretty soft. Did the factory start putting a protector on there? Mine didn't come with one, but my LE was from an early batch, as far as I can tell. As for the force field, the Cliffy actually looks quite natural, and blends in with the art nicely. As an added bonus: prior to putting in the Cliffy, I would occasionally have a ball stick in the groove where the target bank had dropped. It happened enough that I had a standard practice to get it loose. With the Cliffy, that behavior has been reduced by about 90%.

So far, the SOL hole is looking good, but I've got the Cliffy waiting in the wings (by "wings" I mean the coin box) for the day when I can see wear.

Otherwise, the setup is pretty painless, and for most folks it's fine out of the box: just clean the oil off of the balls and have at.

Some people (me included) find the flipper droop to be a bit weird, and then there is the eternal outlane struggle.

You've got a great game on the way, have fun with it!

I set them so the tops of the bats are in-line with the flipper ball guides. It was a change of MAYBE three degrees, but now that I say it, that seems like a lot. It feels way better to me, though. The only drawback I've found is that when I play on location, it takes me a while to adjust.

Who am I kidding, I look like a complete idiot, since everyone I'm with knows I own one!

Those look beautiful! If my LE didn't already have mirror blades, I'd be going for those. Do you have some video of the animation?

Beautiful!

Permission granted, welcome aboard! You're gonna have a great time!

In my experience, post passing can vary depending on the design of the game, flipper angle, material and age of the rubber parts, etc.

Indeed I am.

My experience with Cliff is that he is a supremely nice guy, makes a wonderful product, and is a one-man show. He bends every single bit of sheet metal himself. You'll get a great product, but it will require patience. It will absolutely be worth the wait!

Congrats! I've been wistfully glaring at TEX for about a year and a half as well, but I suspect it will be a while longer before I can match your accomplishment!

My LE did. That's all I can offer.

Yes, indeed it was! Welcome to the club!

After several months, I finally completed a bunch of construction in my basement, and was able to level my LE, re-set the flippers back to the factory angle, and close up the outlanes.

For the first time, I managed to get all six of the blue lights lit and was aiming for the SOL scoop to start RTU when I drained the last ball. So close, and yet... So close...

Mine didn't. I had to order a key fob.

That sounds like a ball search.

It truly was the least I could do.

Nice work, looks great!

Back in the early days there were a few games that went out with the pin un-cut.

To make the cut, I would use a small pair of diagonal cutters and snip it as close to the base as I could get.

Mine was in the box for about a year and half before I could get my game into its permanent location.

It adds a lot more to the gameplay than I thought it would, and that Martian looming over everything is definitely a major presence on my pin row.

Personally, my "floor" is destroying the first 2 saucers. That usually means I've hit around 2 billion, and I won't be mad at myself.

A "decent" game is around 4-5 billion.

A "good" game is 8-10 billion.

A "breakout" game is anything above 10 billion. At the moment, it takes about 11-12 to get on the leaderboard.

My PB is 17 billion. I managed to light RTU, then got so excited and distracted by that blue insert next to the SOL scoop that I promptly drained my last ball after horribly misreading a dead bounce, so TEX is still The Man on my machine.

Exactly this. I suspect that once I'm reliably Ruling the Universe, the game is still gonna be in my collection. I'm sure it's gonna feel like it's letting me win just enough to keep me from getting too confident.