I'm assuming the hole value stays the same between players? So p1 drains with 55k lit, p2 has 55k lit as well? If so, that would be dead easy to fix. Would just change the code to give the same lamps for every player at ball start instead of leaving some and resetting others.

If the hole value changes via switches on the playfield, it's not truly random, it's sort of under your control.

I forget what the right target does but I think over the years people have swapped wires from the right target to the center target, and added a gate back to the shooter lane to try and nerf that repeatable shot. What would you have the right target do instead?

There's a ton of Bally games from around that era that just build too much on one shot (eight ball champ, grand slam, likely others) which negates any other shots on the playfield being worth shooting for. (Medusa with neptune's cove, as well)

Doesn't it continue to build until all the lamps are lit? Maybe just let it light the top lamp and that's it?

From what I remember of KoS was that if you actually drop the card hands, you will get a MONSTER bonus.... but that's riskier than whatever people are doing with the right target. Are you able to test revisions? (i.e. do you have a rom burner, basically)

Nothing like doing stuff out of order! I do the same thing, and it gives me motivation to actually get the machine running.

Well, here's the changes you need to make to rom U6 to make the eject hole always start on the same value:

Comparing files cpu_u6.716 and ORG\CPU_U6.716
0000022E: 1E 13
0000022F: 34 0A
00000634: BD 00
00000635: 12 00
00000636: 74 00
00000637: 7E 00
00000638: 13 00
00000639: 0A 00
0000063A: ED 00

The number to the left of the colon is the offset into rom u6. The number directly to the right is the 'new' value, and the number all the way to the right is the original value.

what it's doing:

offset 22e is part of a jump instruction (originally jmp $130a, short delay), that occurs at the start of every ball after everything has been set up, ball launched etc.

the instruction changes to jmp $1e34, which is the first empty byte in the rom at the end.

offset 634 is location $1e34 once the rom loads, previously blank. Here's what the bytes do:

bd 12 74 jsr $1274 - this routine resets the counter for the top saucer and sets the light. This code is already present in the game, but normally only gets called when the value rolls over from 1-2-3-4-5 to 6, to reset it back to 1. Bally was well known in this era for using this type of counter, and since Stingray (and pinball, which uses the exact same rom) was ripped off directly from bally (not sure which game, but likely freedom), it does the same thing.

7e 13 0a jmp $130a - this instruction should look familiar, as it's the one that we replaced to get to this routine.

$ed - this is the rom checksum correction for the new routine that's been added.

Edit your u6 with your eprom burner software or something like frhed (a free hex editor), burn onto a new eprom (2716 or 2732 if you double up the rom/have your board jumpered differently) and every ball will start with whatever the default value is (it's not 55k!) - it's 5k and probably lights some other feature on the playfield, not sure what. The picture below is what pinmame debug looks like when testing/writing these mods....
pasted_image (resized).png

If you look at the full size picture, you can see some lit dots in a grid.... these represent lamps, solenoids, and switches.

So it increments itself when you hit it? Yeah, that sounds like you should have to do something else to increment it. Maybe not the drops because you could get it to high values relatively easy early on since the hands you have to complete are 'short'. The 3's targets are they particularly dangerous?

A really mean setting would be complete all the hands to advance it..... ha! Isn't there a spot card lane somewhere on the playfield?

Anything would be better than hit, bounce, hit, bounce, hit, bounce.....

I like the spinner pitch bending on blackout.

IIRC in the code it implies that the left 5 standups were drops originally, as it 'resets' them when you have them all completed (i.e. a solenoid fires)