Stern is a little too, um, sensitive to feedback for that group to work out well in the long term.

Ecto Goggles might be a code bug, but have you been hitting the right ramp during play? Sometimes you get a false flag if you've played a lot of games without hitting a certain shot. Try manually hitting the switch with your finger a few times in a game with the glass off or just play a few games where you do nothing but hit that shot and see if it clears the ramp switch error.

Center post mods make me and baby Slimer cry.

Using crutches won't make you better. The "play better" response is snarky and kind of annoying, but in all honesty, pinball is more fun if you learn how to play better.

Lots of issues out of the box. I'm very frustrated. The switches on the game are pure trash. PKE switches are bad. E didn't work out of the box, fixed it, and the P stopped registering 5 games later. Left ramp switch doesn't trigger most times, and I've adjusted it twice already. Pop exit switch didn't work out of the box.

Also had to lower a Scoleri target that wasn't flush with the playfield, my one way gate would get stuck up and stay. My right scoop was bent down and I had to bend it up. The ball wouldn't fit.

I also had the game lose the ball when locking a ball, collecting a super and starting We Got One on the same shot. After 3 ball searches it kicked out a new ball.

I have to say, I'm really frustrated with the cheap as dirt switches. My Tron, Spider-Man, AC/DC, and Iron Man all have much higher quality components. Stern is really cheapening these games down as much as they can, and it shows.

I've got it about 90% of the way there. The game is so fun. I can't wait to have it fully reliable.

While I've had my share of issues, I've got lucky with zero Scoleri issues or airballs, no ball launch off the ramp, and everything is smooth.

I've got an issue that must be a code bug. Slimer will often leave after two hits. His mode is active, but he's over the city and you can't complete it. It carries over from ball to ball as well.

The other Slimer issue is that when he drags across the captive ball bracket, he registers a hit. If he's out at the start of your ball, you don't even need to plunge and he'll register his 3 hits eventually and that's that.

They'll need to work on Slimer in the next code release.

Not always. When he is, that's the finishing shot, right? But on mine, he won't go away if you make the shot even when he is there.

Here's a pic of the Slimer bug. It happens almost every time he comes down. He leaves before the 3rd hit and you can't finish the mode. There's now way to deal with it other than to start a new game and hope it doesn't happen the next time or play around it (which sucks). It continues to play the "Chase Slimer Away" music from ball to ball, but ending the mode is impossible.

slimer-bug_(resized).jpg

I have the most recent code, but I haven't tried a re-install.

Well, I'm ready to call this one a lemon.

Ecto Goggles don't work. I'm realizing that they haven't worked, and that's why I can't finish the Slimer mode when he leaves, because a shot doesn't clear the Ecto Goggles. I thought it was just that, because other ghosts were disappearing on a made shot, but only when it hits the orbit switch, not the optos.

The optos are so misaligned that I can't get them to line up. Below is a pic. I can't it straight on, but you can still tell it's WAY off center, and the opposite side is dead center. They're so far off that even taking off the bracket underneath, shimming it every way to China and back, you just can't get the optos to line up.

optos_(resized).jpg

So, add that to the massive list of issues I've had, and I'm just completely frustrated with this. If my game was checked before it went out, I'd be extremely surprised. There's just too much out of adjustment and dodgy crap with it that I think the testers must have leapfrogged the game.

I sent an email to Stern, and I'll check with my distributor tomorrow. Here's hoping it's a smooth process.

Edit: well, I couldn't just sleep on it, so I gave it another go. Found a cold solder joint on the opto board. Fixed that up and they worked in test. Finally found a combination of screw tightness and cardboard shims to line the optos up, and we're back in business. I fixed up the rest of my switch issues as well.

Best of all...with the opto fix, Chase Slimer Away now ends properly. As of right now, I'm at 100% operational for the first time. It's been A LOT of work since Friday, but I just played a handful of games with everything firing and it was amazing. Can't wait for after work tomorrow to really sink into it.

It's not how it's supposed to be, but they will loosen up with time.

I'd look into the alternate springs, but I bought some out of curiosity and found them too long. For me, they're not usable on my LE. I'll attach a pic.

My targets are now quite reliable. I played this morning before work and dropped them both with forehand shots. You get safer action off of a backhand, but you can drop them either way on my game.

Edit: Pics of the springs I got. The shorter one is the original.
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20160715_222005_(resized).jpg

Haha, yeah. Looks like I'm on coil. I just quickly looked, but since I've not had issues with the drops, I didn't look deeper.

I'll take Overly Cheap Components for the Sake of Tiny Margin Increases for $100, Alex.

I'm getting lots of phantom hits on Slimer. Time to poke around.

It's the newest style of Slimer. It just started with the phantom hits. Apparently no version is foolproof.

Modes do stay active on the LE.

I've had my share of issues, but the only one I share with you is the 4th one. I've had to adjust that switch a handful of times and I really wish that they had used a gate switch there. Sorry you've had troubles, I know how frustrating they can be, especially for such an otherwise amazing game.

Edit: Does anybody else have issues with their one way gate getting caught up on the Ecto Goggles and staying up? I have had to bend mine down a little to make it consistently clear, but you don't get as good of an angle with it that way, and it makes for more drains out of the right side.

Give the Scoleri Brothers time. Mine drop every time now. I often get both in one shot.

This might be foolish of me, but I assume that Stern lets playfields cure before installation.

I second setting your coils to soft. It makes the game play a lot better. Turn up your magna slings a little bit too. They become way more responsive.

I'm going to see if I can replace the left ramp's switch with a gate switch. It might not be as pretty, but I think it would be more reliable.

Nudge when it's on the middle guide, don't wait for the outer guide or it's already too late. I don't drain out the outlanes that often, and I have mine open. I just started treating the outer inlane as a drain and I quickly started improving on saves.

After about 3 hours of play on 1.12 I've found some problems.

- Ball will sit in the scoop or fail to eject a new ball at times when you make a lock shot during a mode. Eventually it will kick out a ball, but after a few ball searches. It's not switch related, it's code.
- After a drain and the bonus, sometimes it continues mode music and shows animations for a second or two.
- Magna slings are weak. They're noticeably less active than before. Many pulses fail to move the ball much.

Those look perfect.

I've never had that be an issue on my game, but when I get my replacement playfield, I plan on putting one in as a precaution. Man, when I swap my playfield out, it's going to get absolutely bogged down in protective crap. I'm not going through this again. Airball protectors, extra Cliffy protectors, protectors for protectors...GIVE ME YOUR METAL AND PLASTIC ARMORS.

I'm pretty annoyed. After having my playfield replaced, my game simply plays worse. The right orbit used to be 100% reliable on my game before swapping the playfield out, now it commonly fails to make it around. It really disrupts things, and I'm quite bugged about it.

Since I never had the problem before, I've not looked into the fixes out there. What are people doing to improve the reliability of the right orbit shot? This is on a GBLE, by the way.

I've traded ghosting for a TERRIBLE left scoop (never had an issue there before), a bad right orbit, and a host of other issues I've been fixing. Frustrating.

Awesome. I'll pull the mylar up. Thanks, guys.

I don't know. That never happened on my old playfield but it's happening on the new playfield for me now too. Can't just be the spring, because I'm using the same one as before.

Yeah, it's one of the documented bugs that really needs to be cleaned up.

The problem must be mechanical, because aside from taps on the button to make a flipper slightly flutter, you can't really make a coil fire partially or hold in a partial plunge. Maybe your flipper shafts are too low and there is a bit of drag going on. Try loosening the flippers, raising them just a touch, and tightening them back up. Adjust your flipper switch contacts so they contact cleanly and release cleanly.

And do they uniformly stick, or does it sometimes happen with one and not the other? If it's uniform, then it might actually be an electrical/electronic issue, but it seems super weird. If it's not so uniform, it's probably mechanical in nature.

I have noticed that trying to flutter your flipper, especially in the up position, is really hard and unreliable in Ghostbusters. I've drained quite a few times expecting to tap pass the ball across only to have it roll off and drain.

Something is wrong then. If it's not doing anything in switch test, there's an issue. It's also used in the Gozer the Gozerian mode. You can't complete the mode without it. There is also a Gozer hurry up.

Widen it, but still keep it very close. You don't want a mostly dead pop either.

See if it will push back into the connector, otherwise you're going to have to crimp on a new terminal pin. Pinball Life has them: http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=496

It might go back in and be ok.