Hi All,

I've had a Defender for about 10 years, just recently got it running. I had a new cabinet made, sent the pf out to Brian at HSA (fantastic job), and rebuilt the boards myself. This game was in my booth at Pintastic New England, perhaps some of you got to play it. It has a strange issue. When there is a ball in the lockup area and the current ball drains, the game ejects the ball from the lockup, but also serves a ball to the shooter lane. This seems wrong to me. Can any of you fine Defender owners confirm this behavior? I have gone through all the diagnostics (Including the very cool extended solenoid test), and all coils and switches are working properly and in the right place. I have checked all the wiring several times, and the expander relay checks out, too.

Thanks a bunch!
Allan
Ardvark Pinball Repair

My strategy is to go for warp. It's the coolest feature! I do this by focusing on the top lanes during the early waves. The top lanes advance the orange bonus multiplier. When it reaches 10X, warp is lit at the top left standup target. You have to drop the two pods first. When the ball is in the top lanes, you have to keep using lane change while guessing which lane the pop bumpers might push the ball into. I don't try for multiball, but when it happens, I use it to mash the drop targets and get to later waves. There is no objective in multiball and no scoring multiplier.

To open the right-hand gate, complete both waves of swarmers. This is easy to do with a smart bomb if both pods have already been opened (targets dropped).

There are 15 landers per wave. Keep track of them while playing. Don't just slam the smart bomb on a drain. If all the landers aren't out yet, then you have to start the wave over on the next ball, and you've wasted the smart bomb.

My best game so far is around 4.4 Million. I warped twice and got to wave 23. At that level, the drop targets and baiters are in constant motion. It sounds like 6 games, all doing ball search, all at once.

The problem with my game turned out to be the solenoid selector relay. I replaced it with a different style one that I stole off of an old Laser War playfield, works great now.

I love this game, but I do seem to hit the wall when the game thinks I have had enough. Lots of scores in the 2M - 3M range. Even more scores under 1M.

Allan

The humanoid multiplier (orange) is advanced by the top lanes. The bonus multiplier (green) is advanced by completing waves.