Mantis Portal Protector went in super easy and I am glad to have it. The edge of my portal was starting to lose some clearcoating.

Highly endorsed. Like the Crystal Mod. Simply belongs there.

Does the Mantis Portal Protector require additional drilling or does it use existing holes?

There are 2 additional screws, but they are small/shallow enough that you can drive them without having to pre-drill. No alignment problems with the original 2 screws on mine.

Done

I just tried testing this another dozen times and can't get it to fail as described. So "How to reproduce" wasn't really accurate. Yes, I know it can still pop up - no, I don't know what causes it (because I can't make it happen on purpose).

Tested this; can't replicate. The purple went away on the ship shots as intended. It was still flashing red for jackpot shots, but not purple.

How do you make the pop bumper more sensitive, so that it activates when the ball touches it. Mine only goes off when it actually gets hit decently.

Is it just the switch, or is there more to it?

Since you have a new game, it's mainly the switch (assuming nothing else is wonky). If your pop ring screws are loose or have too many washers like mine did, that could cause some malfunction. Here is a useful video I found with Google...hope it helps.

Mine was the same way. Pretty dead on arrival. I adjusted the leaf switch to narrow the gap and that helped some. I also removed two of the three washers that were above the yoke and finagled the switch so that the skirt stem (the part that makes contact with the plastic spoon) was dead nuts center. I also adjusted the switch again to get that gap hair trigger thin.

Now anytime the ball even looks at the pop bumper that thing will send that bitch flying across the playfield. It took a couple of tries and maybe 30 minutes worth of fiddling around but it was worth it. Probably a good idea to adjust the switches on the sling too, as you could drive an SUV between the gap that was on mine from out of the box.

Yeah, I have tried to reproduce several times with the glass off to no avail. When this shows up again, what kind of data would be helpful to collect? Do you have debug builds that log game state and switch changes?

Check the gap on the right flipper button switches. I had to tweak mine but has been fine since.

Yes had it here as well. No ball search. Ended up power cycling the game to get the ball out of the scoop. Was a corker of a game I was on too :3

The three washers thing is a bad buzz. TNA had the same altered assembly. All it facilitates is your bumper mech falling apart eventually, some cases much sooner than later. Mine took about 50 games from unboxing. Removed washers from bottom of cab and ditched 2 from each leg of the pop ring, put back only one under each nut... all good.

No.

My game is currently sitting off with three balls in the scoop from multiball. The game never tried to ball search, and I did not tilt it. I stopped the game by entering the menu and went to switch test, and the switch was showing closed. (?!)

I also was having drains not register occasionally , but I figured out that the third trough switch was poorly soldered, as just poking at the wires made it register. I would think if the fourth switch is closed, there must be four balls in there regardless of what the third switch shows.

I also had my recent HSTD of 162M tainted by the subsequent realization that the sling wasn't working, the wires had broken off from the switch lug during the game. This after I had wires break off the upper flipper coil a while back. Maybe I should reflow every damn solder joint under the pf?

As mr Completist suggests, check the right flipper button switch stack.

Check the top switch in the stack for gap, and contact pressure (contact deflection).

Note, the short blade at the very top of the stack needs to not only contact, but also noticeably travel. As seen in the clip.

Wire broke from scoop coil?

No, it ejected when I finally rebooted. Actually, only two balls made it out, the third didn't finally eject until I pressed start. I don't mean to criticize, but it seems like lots of sanity checks routinely performed on other games to compensate for what seem like obvious switch "malfunctions" are absent on R&M. Of course, without access to the source code I have no idea whether this is true. Which adds to the frustration, to be honest, being a coder myself.

So if springs solve the flipper issues, will Spooky send out new springs with the new bushings when available?

Pinball code is so straight forward and easy. I must be a complete moron.

The last time I put somebody in the beta because they said “this has happened to me twice now” so they could get the debug logs when it happened again; never had it happen again. I’d love to see it on a stream so I could see what’s going on at the time, even better I’d love “Do this, then this, then error” type directions to re-create it; because I’ve tried and tried and have yet to see it.

I know it’s happening (because enough varied people have reported it) but the cause must be really specific.

Lighter spring help quite a bit!

Is there any possibility something changes between beta code and release code that could enable the bug? . Might be a clue, just thinking. I'm not a programing guy.

I think we had a vid somewhere in which it happens. If I can find it I'll upload it.

The only difference is the logging level. If you can find the video that would be great!

That to me actually backs up the stack being the issue. With the inside of the cabinet warming up over the hour of play it could have moved from barely connecting to not touching. Once it cooled down from not being played it would come back in contact.

Can do that when you're talking feather-line contact. Actually the inconsistency kinda makes it likely, to my thought. If the adjustment is so that the contacts only just barely touch when you press the button all the way in, the flipper might work most of the time, or not at all, or sometimes flutter.

The button travel end might not always settle exactly the same. Not using as much force after dinner might be a reason for contact to not quite get there. With some use the leaf may have been borderline contact but working at the start, but with the stack now bedded or settled in a little from use, it's ended up only just barely contacting.

Yep worthwhile to check it out first.

Odd to hear TNA had the same issue. Hopefully people are letting Spooky know of issues like this. They know about mine since my R&M pop ring broke after a few hundred games or so (and they had PBL send me a new one, which had 2 washers on each side). If they knew about the TNA pop washer issue, you'd think they would stop adding 3 washers!

I thought I had this brilliant idea about the scoop problem - so I rigged up a way I could 'stick' the switch down after a ball went in. I shot a scoop to start a mode, held the switch, the game kicked out to start gameplay (switch still closed) I threw a ball back in (switch still closed) .. waited .. ball search. Nope! Failed to fail again.

FWIW - The Scoop issue (as described) has happened on my machine 3-4 times. No idea of the what/where/why of it...but it is a repeatable fault.

I don't doubt that it's a thing that happens (as I've said like 9 times now) - I just can't figure out the circumstances that trigger the stupid thing.

Anybody (including you, guitarded ) that hits this stupid problem and is interested in running a debug build and sending me logs to try to help root it out, send me a PM.

Whatever is causing it, it is rare. I have had it happen only twice in over 1300 games now. Both times was while multiball was stacked on a mode however. Not that this is an answer, but possibly a clue.

Similar experience with me...out of 500 games total...it has happened just one time. It happened to be during a multiball stacked on a mode as well.

Yeah, the multiball + mode thing is the common thread - and I've tested it every way I can think of with that stack. "What if (this set of events), what if (that set of events)" - haven't ever managed to create the problem. I keep throwing in extra checks/tests to try to prevent what MIGHT be the problem; but so far haven't hit it swinging blindly.

It's interesting, I've never had a ball search happen on its own EXCEPT if I hit start before the balls have landed in the trough from the locks. It's been a month or so though since I've had the trough not eject the balls.

Might be something I experiment with.

Something fun...one of the best features of the game is the custom call-outs by Justin Roiland. Does anyone have any favorites? The ones that I enjoy most require the swearing to be on full blast.

1 - I can't remember which mode, maybe it's Pirates of the Pancreas where Rick just curses you out for not hitting the shots fast enough. F-ing POS Morty, etc.

2 - At the end of a game, one of the call outs where he says you can get the keys to the "Jessica's Kingdom" and he's laughing his way through the line...that one always gets me

3 - My favorite might be the call out to start multiball sometimes. Disgusting multi balls everywhere...I find it so funny that it distracts me too much, and my battle mode score suffers. Yes...that is why my score is bad...not my skills, but Justin Roiland making me laugh, that must be it.

Eric, I had a thought. Will PM you directly to keep the thread noise down.

2nd this issue. Ball search doesn't happen during play but only when trying to start a game and the balls aren't in the trough yet. I've let the machine sit for up to 15 minutes without touching a flipper but the game never goes into search. I've just shut the machine down and located the stuck ball. I've had this happen with balls stuck in multiple locations.

The tilt callout where Rick totally reams you a new one is my favorite call out ever. “Lionman or whatever” is in the team photo as well.

I like them, but for some reason find the Scary Terry callouts to be the funniest. Except for a few REALLY bad Rick spank downs. The plumbus/tilt stuff comes to mind.

My favorite call out is when you drain your last ball and Morty says “Awe! I wanted to go to boob world!” And Rick responds “Well, we can’t. You Fucked Up!”

Yes how can I forget. Drained...like a B***H

I damn near died when I got the "LOOOOOOSEEERRRRRRRRR" callout.

Yup. Drained...like a bitch always cracks me up.

Callouts are the best hands-down. Awesome integration of the theme.

If you're looking for new content, play as far into Pirates as you can get. Every shot has a unique callout.

The lack of an insult for someone scoring 0 on Ball 1 has always shocked and disappointed me.

I'd volunteer to send in logs, but there is no way I could upload anything I captured E. I'm a luddite with (essentially) dial-up speeds.

Or when you lose a ball with the ball save on...."Hiding in the ball trough, bitch?" I laughed hard at that one. There is another that doesn't come up often; if you manage to get a 5-ball multiball, the game has to reload the portal. There is a great Rick callout when this happens

I used to restart new games before the match sequences finished (since they are non-skippable), but I realized I was missing far too many awesome end of game comments. I have since turned the match off so I get to enjoy them after every game. Seeing the look on my wife's face from hearing "That....was f***ing aweful" was priceless haha.

I also like the call out of Rick when you start the game and it has to eject a ball out of a scoop to get the proper number in the trough “Excuse me while I adjust my balls!”

Is there any better way to start a game of pinball other than having Rick say "Let's roll mother#$%&*!"?