Well boys, I joined the club tonight courtesy of an amazing wife, for my 40th bday. She got me a Premium BK!

It’s 2:30 am now and I started messing with it at 9 pm. Haven’t played a game yet, lol.

The game came with 0.94 so it took me a while to go get a USB and download, unzip, install. Worked fine with a 64GB SanDisk 3.0 drive formatted to FAT32.

Some questions/comments/complaints:

- Is there really no “auto” ball save setting?! I LOVE that feature on my AC⚡️DC. Instead of being a fixed number of seconds for a ball save, it analyzes how the game is going and adjusts for you. For example, if the ball is bouncing all over after you launch it, ping ponging on the slings, etc, then dumps down an outlane without you ever touching a flipper, you’ll get a new ball. In BK, all I see are pure timed settings for ball save!

- holy crap that fan in the backbox us loud as hell and annoying.

- the speech seems WAY loud to me compared to the music. So far I have the speech attenuation at +30 and it’s helping a bit, I think. Music is at 0.

- I took the glass off and opened it all up to check for issues. Only notable thing I found so far is that somehow the CN9 board connection was MANGLED from the factory. I carefully unmangled all the pins with the machine off. That’s where my speaker lights will plug in, so hopefully I fixed it enough.

- that Mylar protector that came in the bag doesn’t look particularly fun to apply

- mods on the way: shaker, FF speaker kit, speaker lights, gray and orange titan flipper rubbers, orange start button, orange flipper buttons, orange plastic protectors, “wood” flipper-top decals, the lockdown bar graphic (makes me appreciate my AC⚡️DC metal lockdown bar accent)

Ugh, there’s that fan again. Maybe tomorrow I have to order that quiet fan mod. It’s almost louder than my Raven helicopter attract!!

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Got a few games in. So much fun with the 6 ball multiball.

My only gripe is that I’d say about 40-50% of the time on a SOLID right flipper shot up the flail lane, the ball “rejects” when it hits the scoop where it should go onto the upper field, and rockets back down (often draining SDTM). Seems unfair and not right. I saw SR’s post about checking for screws sticking up, but I don’t see or feel any doing that.

Thanks for the info and experience. I dunno...seems like something isn’t quite right. I mean, my right flipper shots are SLAMMING up there. Plenty of force. To me it almost seems like the ball knicks or spins into something from having tTOO much force maybe? Or there’s just something it’s hitting that I haven’t seen yet. I played with the glass off for a half hour and manually tossed the ball up the ramp but couldn’t conclude anything. I’ll explore some more when I have time and it isn’t 4am lol

Well, after playing for serval hours:

- Really love this game. So many nice details, and the visuals on the field are really impressive as far as the lighting, knight, etc. So happy I went with a Premium. Played both on location and felt a little thin on the Pro. Loving the Super Skill shot and catapult multiball, and maybe most of all, Last Chance. What an awesome mode that is so unique.

- my concern about the flail ramp shot rejecting a lot has decreased a bit. Maybe something broke-in, or I don’t know what, but now it feels like only 10-20% of the solid right flipper shots get wrongly rejected back down that ramp by the U shaped loop up top.

- regarding the physical playfield, I am only noticing a few dimples from air balls. My AC⚡️DC had hundreds of dimples after the first night. Wonder if it’s just different play physics or if the play fields differ that much in hardness?

- love the speed of this game. And while certainly shots are brutal, I do feel like it’s no where near the mean-ness of AC⚡️DC, and I had much longer average ball times on BK than I can manage on AC⚡️DC.

- still can’t believe there is no “auto” option for the ball save like AC⚡️DC has (and I presume other Sterns). Maybe hope for this in a code update, or do new Sterns not allow this?

- just FYI, so far I’ve managed 148M, and in that game I achieved KNIGHT, but then my ball immediately drained, so I still haven’t gotten to see retro mode yet!!

On AC⚡️DC you can set it to “auto” instead of a specific time. It’s so much better. As an example, maybe the ball launches, bounces off the pops for 6 seconds, comes down and bounces from one sling to another for 5 seconds, then fires back up into another area and bounces around, then comes down the center and drains. 25 seconds went by and you didn’t touch a flipper and pretty much got screwed. AC⚡️DC on Auto would realize you did nothing to mess up and make a bad shot, so it would do a ball save. Similarly, maybe the ball is fired and goes right down to the flippers. You hammer away, hitting it off some close drop targets 5 or 6 times, then it drains to an outlane. It would NOT give your ball back in that case. Basically, it sense how your ball is going and accordingly adjusts a proper ball save. Never have I felt that it was too short or too generous, it works incredibly well.

No, I’m not seeing anything. It’s just that BK has no “auto” option in the Ball Save setting menu. Just “no ball save” or time specific selections 5-15 seconds. AC⚡️DC has all of those as well as “auto”.

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Odd technical question for you guys. Considered posting in a general tech forum but in case it’s oddly specific to BKSOR, I wanted to ask here

Messing with the settings again, I noticed it showed me a “TECHNICIAN ALERT: Left Flipper EOS switch”. I googled this a bit and learned that the EOS is the switch that changes the flipper button from the high voltage of the initial press, to low voltage when you hold the flipper.

Sure enough when I went into the menu for Diagnostic->Switch Menu->Switch alerts, then cycled through til I got to Left Flipper EOS, it showed OUT OF SERVICE when I selected it. I was simply able to change the setting to IN SERVICE. Now the “Technician Alert” is gone.

For what it’s worth, I checked the right flipper EOS and that is set to In Service.

Is this really odd? I assume that BKSOW isn’t supposed to have the left flipper EOS set to Out of Service?

Well, thank you for making me double check. I think it is NOT CORRECT! Look at the permanent space between the two contacts, when the flipper isn’t pressed.

You think they’d test these things. I’d imagine this is not a healthy problem to have, as its messing with low and high voltage.

Also a WARNING for you guys with premiums and LE’s. CHECK YOUR CATAPULT PLASTIC little black screws. I played a Premium at the arcade before I bought mine, and while playing it, both screws came out and the plastic went flying. Now MINE just dropped the darn right screw and I can’t find the stupid thing anywhere. This is only after about 20 games. I’d advise everyone to remove and dab some blue locktite on them and reinstall before it’s too late.

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Got the EOS fixed up like a charm.

While hunting for my missing tiny black catapult plastic screw (can NOT find it anywhere), I found this random loose screw in the cabinet bottom. It was totally missing from the apron/catch. Ugh.

Another question. Anyone apply the playfield protector sheet that Stern included in the bag? I’m tempted to do it but it looks like a huge pain where the one part curves under the shield and back by the VUK.
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Never found the catapult screw. FYI, they are 4 size screws, coarse thread, pan head. Had to spray it black. Locktite is your friend.

Spelled out knight for the first time tonight. Even hit the drop target that had KNIGHT MODE blinking at it. Then of course draino. GuessI also would have had to hit that same shot again and get the castle VUK. Some day I’ll get it.

Put the shaker motor, Flipper Fidelity, and speaker lights all on now. The shaker motor helped me out by rattling free my lost catapult screw! Bonus!

Not overly thrilled with the FF speakers. I can hear good amounts of bass if I lean down or walk away from the cabinet, but it’s a bit flat and tinny while playing. Set everything to their recommendations except I put some bass back into the backbox speakers. It was just way too sharp and thin. Needs more tweaking I think.

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Rule/bug question. Today I had a situation where the machine went fairly dark (ie like some special mode or something) and just the lightning bolt in front of the shield was blinking green. However, the shield was down. I smacked it numerous times and it did nothing. No shot anywhere on the game seems to change the situation.

It seemed almost like a bug, since it was just blinking at the shield but it wouldn’t lift. I did repeatedly hit the lock (mini shield) target to the right of the shield and it did nothing (as expected since no light was flashing for it).

Once the ball drained, the machine came more to life and seemed to be normal and have lots of shots available to do stuff.

Was I in some sort of odd mode, or is this likely a bug that needs addressing?

I did notice the red looked nice lol. Anyway, hopefully Steve/Tim/stern reads this, or maybe we should submit the official bug via email?

Anyone have Flipper Fidelity and sound settings they’re happy with?

Installed the Flipping Fantastic Big 10” kit and initially set it to his recommended sound settings. To me, it felt supper tinny and “thin” out of the backbox with very little noticeable bass from the cabinet.

All of the “grunt” from Steve/BK’s voice disappeared as all the bass was filtered out of the backbox speakers, but the frequency of the vocals also gets filtered out from the cabinet sub. It was very sharp and crisp but not thick and full, of that makes sense.

Played with a few settings and put the cabinet sub back to 240 hz which allowed me to perceive noticeably more bass. Also took the backbox bass from 0 to +6 to stop it from being so cuttingly thin.

Overall still not thrilled. One thing I noticed is that I hear/feel very little bass from the cabinet while playing, but if I step a few feet away from the machine, the bass is a lot stronger. Naturally poor acoustics and speaker positioning in the game causes that, I suppose.

Definitely agree on the “top loop”. Annoying to bang that shot out 4-5 times in a row and have it give you 0

Another quality control thing for people to check.

Kept looking through the rule guide for why the black knight target only counted one out of every two or three hits, but couldn’t find anything.

Finally looked up close and sure enough, the target was mounted so that the right side was jammed into the post rubber just to the right of it. So the target could only physically register if you happened to hit it hard and way on the left side.

Corrected the target and much better now! It actually counts when I hit it.

Before and after pics

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As a follow up, played a BK on location (and beat my home high score on the first game..DOH), and that machine ALSO had the target issue. Seems like a definite theme!

Had a ball get stuck up behind the shield. The ball finder did nothing to help. This was a glass-off situation and reset my game (oddly it launched two balls at the same time after the ball finder failed)

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thanks. I’ll be sure to check this, too. I do feel like a lot of times I hit that target and it hasn’t registered. Maybe that’s why.

I’m surprised you could move it via those two screws above it, at all. I’d think it would be the screws mounting the target from below, like most targets.

I’m imagining this is a huge pain to access the below ones though, since this is on the upper playfield?

Think my mods are all set for now until something else fun comes along. Have not installed the quiet fan yet since it involved more than I had hoped, after reading the instructions.

Unseen are flipper Fidelity 10” kit and shaker

Speaker lights
Orange plastics
Orange flipper buttons
Yellow start button
“Wooden” flipper toppers with gray bands (going for a catapult look) on the two main
Lightning bolt and orange band on the upper
Lockdown bar accent addition
Printed cards
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They are. I think the orange looks fantastic on this machine, which is why I went with them. Shame that shipping is so crazy to Canada.

FYI their part (although “from stern”) is totally missing the new hole for the post. You have to estimate where it goes and drill it yourself. Also it doesn’t have the washers you need to prevent it from cracking when you torque it down. Luckily I had them handy. I also got the drill location almost spot on so mine is working decently.

I just called them directly and they sent it with no issues. Figured I’d get the real deal since I had to drill the PBL part myself.

This would be the same SR that put F bombs and other profanity deep into AC⚡️DC code lol

What are the AC⚡️DC homage ones?

Ah cool, thanks. I had assumed SR did that in all his games

Anyone really make it to King’s Ransom? I’ve had several really solid games but never get past the K of the second round of KNIGHT. A) by that point you’ve probably had one or two Triple Knights, meaning you have to hit the light lock multiple times to open each shield. B) the second time around you don’t get any spotted letters, so it’s that much harder to complete KNIGHT.

Also, unless I’m missing various other ways you can get numerous letters, realistically, to get 10 letters (4 on the first time and 6 on the second since they aren’t spotted), you’re also going to get to Black Castle.

Yeah, not sure what could be done but something would be nice. Your experience puts it into perspective.

Hmm, wonder which of my Wizard Modes I’ll never see more, AC⚡️DC or BKSOR!? Lol

Exactly the way I feel regarding Retro (1 KNIGHT) being the right amount of challenge (granted it’s two letters spotted)

Can we not post videos to this forum? Got retro KNIGHT mode tonight and the ball just sat in the VUK and it played the fantastic retro music with the “WAR HURRY UP” screen stuck up there. Shook it. Mashed it. Nothing helped. Finally after two minutes it decided to flash the proper black knight retro screen up and eject the VUK. Ugh.

Sorry, just realized that this morning and was processing it while you posted!

Here’s the video with description.

Not sure if it was just too much going on that I caused the code to freak out, or if it’s a physical bug or what. I was having Node 9 overcurrent protection but removing and replacing bulbs seems to have cured it for me, so I don’t believe it’s that.

Just FYI, when I was getting red Upper GI overcurrent errors, not only would the upper red lights obviously go out, but also the flame panel and then more mysteriously the shield would act up and not raise when it should be (ie Lock was lit). I don’t understand how that was impacted by node 9 upper GI (CN15) at all.

ANYWAY, check out this oddity

Another heads up and suggestion for preventative maintenance...playing last night and a tiny unpainted round head screw appeared on the center of the play field. Killed the game so it didn’t drop down into the ball return.

Took a good 15 minutes of scouring the field for where the heck this one could have come from and finally found it. It was one of the four screws (two per side) that hold the opto boards for the catapult loader trough! The front two are completely covered by the decorative plastic (ironically one of those is what also fell off on my machine and another I played, when the screws holding that vibrated out). The back two can be seen if you pull the play field out a bit and just look from behind. That’s where I noticed a very tiny threaded hole and a hole in the opto board that looked suspicious.

Took off the plastic over the catapult and sure enough there were the identical screws still in place in the other three spots. I removed all the others and applied loctite and replaced. I’m sure it is only a matter if and not when all those little screws were going to come out. Suggest others do the same.

first post a picture of it

Oh wow. This has been exactly my problem for weeks. Please call Pat in tech support at stern and talk to him tomorrow. Make sure to get him and not another tech. He will know about this as I’ve had about 50 emails and a couple hours on the phone about it.

Next step we are trying is to replace ALL upper GI bulbs but I have my doubts that it’ll fix it.

Mine fails anywhere between 5 and 60 minutes. 90% of the time the red upper GI goes out and the shield fails. 9% of the time the lights just flash but they don’t fail, but the shield does fail. 1% of the time the white upper GI will fail along with the shield.

Like you said, a new game, or even a new ball will fix the shield temporarily. Also holding the ball in a cradle in one flipper for 30 seconds and hitting the other flipper will reset the shield node signal.

I’ve found that when the GIs fail, it does store and Overcurrent protection. This can be seen under Tech Alerts in the service menu, and also under the Node bus test on Node 9 (it flashes to tell you there’s a problem). When you run the test, it flashes the lights and clears the problem. Obviously you need to pull the 48v safety switch when you open the cabinet door to be able to see the Overcurrent error.

For what it’s worth I already swapped node 8 and node 9 boards and it didn’t do anything to help. So it’s not a node board issue.

I don’t have the replacement bulbs yet but my distributor is coming over tomorrow to try and see the issue and see if he can fix anything.

FYI I started a thread about this under the tech forum for modern games, too.

Please report back with what you find out from stern and what path you’re taking.

So frustrating as it’s really ruining the fun of this awesome game for me.

FYI I had my top catapult plastic crack right where the balls flip up and into the trough. Seems likely to happen given the whipping impact right there.

Called stern and was told to email a picture and my info. Never heard back after I sent it yesterday. I assume they’ll send me a new one but it could be a continued issue in the future.

Thanks for the update. Went bulb by bulb with my tech/Distro yesterday and we didn’t find anything. Right now I have CN15 on node 9 disconnected (cn15 controls the upper GIs. There are 6 wires on it. 2 for the red 2 for the white and 2 unused). It has not errored out after an hour of play, which I suspected would be the case.

Assuming that continues, my next step is to just pull the red GI pins out of CN15 and plug it back in. I suspect it still won’t error. Then I will clip the pins back in and replace all of the upper GI bulbs and retest. If it goes back to failing, it means meticulously digging in wire by wire and it’s going to suck lol.

So a third person now.

Please call Pat at Stern tech support. They need to know that this isn’t an isolated issue.

John1210, also. I know you have your distributor to work with, but Pat needs to be made aware, as the head tech.

Worst case, we need to press for new machines. It is absurd to expect owners to waste countless hours chasing a gremlin on a brand new $8k machine

Unfortunately I don’t know that what you’re seeing is very promising. When mine fails, it will half the time not impact the GI and half the time it does. I would be genuinely shocked if recoding it fixes this issue since it is voltage/current related. To me, that solution is the equivalent of a computer tech asking you to restart the thing and see if it fixes it. Except here you get the bonus of losing all your high scores, too.

I was pretty confident that with CN15 on 9 disconnected, I was not going to ever have the error (played a good 2 hours). So I plugged it back in last night (with all pins still in the plug, just for fun). Played about an hour and no errors yet. I’m sure just typing this will jinx that and it’ll do it next game lol.

I’ll keep you guys posted. I bet more people will pile on soon with this, above and beyond the 3 we have already.

95% sure that’s an opto board screw from
Inside the catapult. Take off the outer plastic (four screws on top) of the catapult and look on the front and back of it. Should be two screws in each board. Bet you’re missing one. If so, remove all the rest, Loctite and replace all 4.

It’s a major part of the game that it really would be missing something without. Not only is it a really fun skill shot, but of course the catapult Multiball, and also the shield target counts as a monster hit. Also 6 ball multiball is crazy fun.

But, you gain a combo shot (hopefully an official combo shot in future code) that is one of the best I’ve experienced. Main knight ramp to the upper flipper, into the catapult ramp for a lock.

Personally, I wouldn’t be opposed to a code change that allows only one monster mode “hit” on the upper PF target, rather than unlimited. I find it more fun to go after the lit lower monster shots rather than constantly going up top, but it is arguably easier to do that, like you said. Limiting the upper shield to one hit would ensure the real lower shots get used most of the time.

can you elaborate on the capacitor for CN6? Was this his idea? Stern’s instruction?

After checking all of the upper red GI bulbs and sockets the other week, I went a good 50+ games with no issues. Thought maybe something was just touching or not seated correctly and messing with each bulb and socket might have fixed it. Then last night I got the red upper GI failure and shield failure. Argh! So frustrating.

This problem, as you well know, is such a pain to diagnose because you can go days and days and many games before it happens again. Very tough to troubleshoot. I wouldn’t count the capacitor addition as a success just yet, until you get a week or more of plenty of games on it. Crossing fingers for you, though.

I’m going to replace all the upper red GI bulbs and see if that helps.

So I have had a second top plastic for the catapult crack. This is a few hours after replacing the first one that cracked. Very frustrating. Especially considering that the top and side plastics are riveted together from the factory, and it was a huge pain to replace it since stern mailed me only the top and not the two pieces assembled.

I made 100% sure not to over tighten any of the four screws. In fact I stopped the instant I felt the screws slow down.

This is going to be a real issue as the cracks grow and the plastic gets more brittle and crumbles apart.

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So no one else has cracked the catapult upper plastic? (Walk around to the side...cracks are almost invisible from playing position). I’ve cracked two now. Seems like a design issue.

And by the way, to replace it is a huge pain in the butt. Involves drilling out digits and getting creative with the brackets to use screws that don’t interfere with the opto boards. Not a quick job.

Interesting. I first thought it was over tightening on my part. Frankly, plastics and screws were falling out left and right on mine (including the freaking opto board screw underneath the catapult plastic), so I had to loctite and resecure most every screw I have access to.

Anyway, after the top Catapult plastic cracked once and I made the huge effort to replace it by drilling the rivets, etc, I made VERY sure to just barely barely snug those top four screws. Sure enough, cracked again.

I’ve wondered whether washers underneath would also help, in addition to the top ones? Also curious if tiny rubber washers would help below the “Star” washer that’s on there from the factory (it’s the kind that “grabs” and helps the screws not back out).

Still no word back from stern after over 10 days.

Very interesting. Glad it has seemed to work!
Mind PM’ing me the details of the distributor, name of a contact there etc?

When I contacted stern and asked them about a cap solution, they shot it down and said that was only for a certain few older games.

I’m sure this will jinx it now, but I did go through and replace all red upper GI bulbs (a solid hour+ job), and so far for about a week I’ve been ok.

Definitely. Magnasave massive shaking is awesome along with all the other monster fights and knight battle hits etc.

It comes in the bag with the manual and plastics and all.

yours is missing the white nylon piece? I thought some were missing a washer, not that whole piece. It’s there to prevent the ball from possibly sticking behind the flipper. Brilliant little design

Looks very nice!

I have both. Completely different games and they don’t step on each other’s toes.

Hard to compare since they’re so different. AC⚡️DC is tough to beat for a total package and amazingly deep code. BK is tough to best for action and clear objectives.

FYI, knock on wood, replacing EVERY upper GI bulb solved my error and she issues with node board 8. Either was a bad bulb or a whacky wire that got “fixed” by jostling things around changing bulbs.

Anyway, I ended up not needing the capacitor, at least after a solid month of testing.

All new bulbs.

You threw out Cliffies?!

I think that’s a really good game. Funny, I got 475m soon after I got my Premium and really didn’t know what I was doing. Just bashing around to keep the balls alive. Now that I “know” what I should be doing (Cannon MB...load the catapult during it for X bonuses, triple knight MB, and monster fighting), my really good games are around 200m.

Twice now I have gotten to the LAST monster and beaten it. Then, with the “finishing” shots against the flail/knight target/shield, I end up draining. Tough when you need 5 to progress after beating that last monster. In fact, what happened to me one of those times was EXACTLY what happened to Deadflip here at 2:21:30 into this clip. LAST shot to access Black Castle and it drained off the flail. My reaction was basically identical too, but louder lol.

I have never spelled knight twice. Closest I got was 9 letters (missing the T for the second spelling).

the ones on the ramp are flat head, to lay flush.

Most of the plastics ones don’t have a star lock washer in them, since having to tighten it down enough to use that style washer would not bode well for the plastic.

I’ll take a look around on mine and see if I have any ideas. I know I’ve taken off at least one of them like that, in some work I was doing.

Ok, went over my machine and here’s where I see that type of screen that you have loose. There may be a couple more I just can’t see. Hope this helps.

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You’re welcome. The post after mine reminded me that I did forget the two that attach the knight’s shield, but your screw looks shorter than those two, so I doubt it’s one of them.

Saw on Cliffy’s page that a BKSOR protector kit is “in development”. Anyone know if any of his shooter lane protectors would fit? I’d like to get the lane protected ASAP. Not as much concerned about the VUKs and whatnot, but the lane gets hammered given the number of multiballs, last chance, etc etc.

Anyway I didn’t see a generic Stern Spike shooter lane protector on his page.

thanks. Sent him an email. Did you install the full pack? If so how bad are the others besides shooter lane to install? It was not pleasant on my AC⚡️DC lol

wow, that’s crazy. Sure would think it would be related to the missing screw since I don’t see how that could just start out of nowhere. That’s a shame. I know it’s frustrating not finding that screw missing either. Unfortunately it may be from “under” or “in” something. I had a random tiny screw show up on mine and it ended up being under the plastics for the catapult, and it was one of the opto board screws...not good!

Not sure what’s up with this machine, but I’ve had to go through and loc-tite a TON on it, and I’ve had 3-4 screws randomly show up on the playfield. I’ve owned my AC⚡️DC vault for a year longer and NEVER had a single loose screw or anything on it. And both machines have shakers.

number 37, but maybe he put it back in? Can’t see the second screw behind the ramp rail.

Doesn’t seem likely for any real content additions like monsters or modes, which isn’t shocking but also a bit of a shame.

There IS still hope for the Premium/LE to get some upper playfield goodness though, since these are only Pro notes!

That’s in there already. You can turn it on in the settings.

How is Black Castle not a dramatic end for beating them? Not to mention BK Retro and BK2000 Retro that come along with gaining the letters from beating them.

Couldn’t disagree more, having played hundreds of games on it. Most intense machine I’ve ever played and it is crazy trying to beat each successive monster.

Exactly. That’s why I’m still a fan of the DMD. Good enough pins mean any normal player isn’t looking at the screen except when a multiball is loading or a ball is drained. Make the games good, not the screen.

Personally, I’d like to defeat him once. LOL

I think I’m a pretty decent player. Couple hundred games on it. Farthest I’ve gotten is the last monster “reset” (the bunch of shots you need to move on to the next thing). And that was with two extra balls. Sadly I don’t see that it’s feasible for me to really fight him much less beat him once.

The orange ones look amazing on this playfield. Matches perfectly.

Added Standard Adjustment "ALLOW LEFT+START TO END GAME". Values are:
"NEVER", "FREE PLAY ONLY", and "ALWAYS". Default value is "NEVER".
During an active game, if the the LEFT FLIPPER+START BUTTONs are held for
two seconds, the game will be ended

Whelp, officially no mention of code in the January stern of the union. Not good.

Glad I’m clearly not the only one who feels like WAR is a trap and instant death lol.

Anyway, hard to believe the default settings on the new code will make it even tougher to beat monsters. I think most will be changing the setting to Easy, to keep it the same as things are today.

Just thinking out loud. Maybe one idea for another small multiball would be a 2-ball for filling the rage sword and then hitting the Power center target during a monster mode?

Thanks. Yeah just a two ball so nothing crazy, but it would help get those new increased monster hits, and not drain instantly on a WAR if you happen to have it going during the monster mode, and both would contribute to those valuable KNIGHT letters.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? Sorry I’m not picturing what you mean happens here. To me, when there is a Multiball, the left drop always is up (drops and instantly fires back up), so the saucer is inaccessible during the multiball.

Had a freakishly good game going today (two TKCs, three CMBs, and retro black knight). Was fighting the final monster before black castle, on ball three. That power Target was flashing it’s beautiful blue at me, so I figured sure, why not make this last monster quick and easy!? So, I nailed that target...boom, SDTM. Bye bye.

Thanks. For some reason I didn’t think you had to manually collect supers in retro. Maybe because the drop is down and I keep collecting them (and ending them) without realizing. When I get retro, I basically concentrate on spinner->knight target to keep activating the high jackpots.

Guys, they said the code would be out in time for Christmas*, ok? Enough is enough.

*Christmas 2022

You’re right. They only make formal announcements over orange records.

FINALLY got black castle mode today! Figured I’d fire it up for one quick game...40 minutes and 543M points later, I finally got to that mode! Loved the music for it too. Completed the first segment with the three center shots, then drained after a couple of the second segment. Seems pretty brutal to have to go through ALL the monsters again completely just to go at it again.

I was also one shot away from retro 2000 mode, so that’s a bummer. Had the second round of KNIGHT all lit when my 6th ball drained. Never had 3 extra balls before, either.

Anyone find any video of black castle mode? I’ve popped through all of the dead flip videos and some others but haven’t seen anyone get it. Now that I’ve “achieved“ it, I want to see it better and I won’t feel like it’s a spoiler for me.

On a related note, that one dead flip video cracked me up where he got to the final monster “clear” shots and drained two separate times. Basically last shot or two away from castle mode.

Thanks. I also want to see someone beat it. A) like the song as far as I’ve heard it (I only lasted about 2X longer than you did there) and B) curious what type of points it’s worth.

There’s one guy who posts scores in the billion+ range on here for the Premium (he’s the only one ahead of me...but with like 18 scores), so maybe he’s beating black castle and it’s worth like 300M+

Funny. Exact same with me. Finally got there yesterday and drained after those three shots.

Tempted to go glass off now so I can enjoy that awesome song again and admire the purple-ness lol

No. You start over. It’s a flaw in the game IMHO to have it be that arduous to get there and then have one single ball for 20 (I think?) precision shots with no multiball or ball save, or you have to completely start over.

yeah it’s sort of crazy. At a minimum the game should continue battling the night in black castle mode if you have more balls left. That said, I bet the number of people who make it that far and have balls remaining are few and far between. I know I got three extra balls in my one successful journey there, and it was on that sixth ball that I activated it and then drained.

Apparently, the new code will make it even HARDER to make it to castle mode, which also seems ridiculous. It adds two more shots to each monster in the default setting. Seems like it’ll almost be mandatory to go in and change it to Easy.

No mention of the code whatsoever. Gonna be a while. Also love how the link they put for the topper leads to a blank white page. Seems about fitting. Lol

Next month they’ll put a link to new code but it’ll go to a rickroll video

just a tip if you haven’t done this already, go through all your plastics and little black screws. Many will likely be loose. Also lock tite them. Don’t forget to open up the catapult plastics and lock tite the little screws holding in the opto boards. Those really suck when they come out and get lost in the playfield.

The pro needs an upper playfield like the original BK had.

I kid, I kid.

Well said. Yeah that flail ramp -> catapult combo shot is even better than nailing that bell in AC⚡️DC. So rewarding feeling and even sounding. The metal ramp and then Ca-THUNK...into the catapult

Comes off super easy. Few screws/nuts that are pretty clear once you prop the field up.

Crap, I was hoping it was just a different selection of songs from Ian. Shame they didn’t enable a jukebox mode like AC⚡️DC. That black castle song is so great but oh so tough to get to and hear lol.

The super collection change seems crazy. Wonder what prompted that? I guess the buildup of the jackpot changed too, right? I think, before, we had to hit the knight target to activate and then the left drop target to boost?

The sound settings seem really in depth now. Would be nice if the big speaker vendors like flipper Fidelity and pinball pro would publish ideal settings for the new EQ and/or sound settings.

Then again, personally I found the FF recommended settings flat and tinny on my BKSOR so I had to bump the bass way up on most settings to get it more “full”.

Setting 110, I believe. One or the other.

I get the impression that the change was more so due to the Pro because of the clunky manner of activating the super jackpot cash in. I agree, in the Prem/LE it really makes things an unfortunate gamble that takes things out of your hands if you need to save the ball. The left drop and then left VUK was at least all skill.

Scoring seem nerfed overall to anyone else? Just played two stellar games in a row and got nowhere near a high score.

Last game I had:

- 4 catapult MB
- 2 TK MB
- retro MB
- 2 WAR hurry ups
- 5 monsters beat
- 2 extra balls

Only 304M. Feels like that would have been high 400’s if not 500 on the last code.

In positive news, the knight letters seem a little easier to get. Only got 9 letters in 300 games prior, and tonight got 10 (yet missed that shot to see BK2000 for the first time).

Other thoughts:

- alternate music is nice to have. Not nearly the adrenaline burst of the real music but it’s decent and a fun change for a little bit.

- I THINK I like the new lower standard sling kick strength setting a little better? Less frantic firing back and forth between them.

- I set my backpedaling to infrequent but he wimped out pretty quickly lol

True lol. It was about the second or third monster where he asked to have a beer.

Quick clarification question on Retro Multiball (the first KNIGHT one). When you’re activating supers by hitting the spinner and then the center target...all those points earned are instant, right? You don’t need to activate the super jackpot (now the magnasave right return lane) to earn them, right? It’s just a black screen with a retro logo and score, so I figured it was instant and not points you have to unlock through the super jackpot, right?

that was a good game! So many balls that always drain down the left outlane on mine...but I think I spy some posts set to narrow the lanes if I zoom in on the video! Lol still a great game though. Saved a lot of center drains.

Ok, I give up. What does the skeleton knight guy say when you hit the super skill shot? I’ve listened about 20 times and still can’t make it out. “What did someone do with my chair!?”

Just noticed tonight that my catapult looks odd. I think the very weak welds may have let loose, as the metal bits look improperly separated. It flops around a bit. Still seems to work but I don’t know that it’s right. I imagine this will be an unpleasant conversation with Stern since this won’t be cheap, and this is on a 5 month old machine.

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I did finally hear that last night. I think what threw me off is the “impeded” speech. I think he is saying “hey, who dropped big ball on butcher!?”

Maybe Butcher is the one who smashed the welds on my catapult!

I assume it isn’t the lock pin retracting and resetting?

My only thought is if it’s the lock pin, maybe an opto is messed up and the game things there is a ball still in the catapult? It ejects all the balls when the game ends, so if it’s thinking there’s one in there, it might keep activating that pin.

One way to test it a bit would be to unplug one or both optos up there. I’m guessing unplugging they main harness clip up at the catapult on the right side would stop the sound, but it’s one way to guarantee it’s the catapult making the noise.