I've been reading up on GB as I placed an order for a Premium, and ordered Cliffy's shooter lane protectors after my GoT got a little shooter lane wear even with just mylar alone. This seems like a design flaw -- the ball comes out of the trough hard and at an angle that bashes it right into the groove of the lane (on my GoT, I'm assuming the same on GB). I would think either ejecting softer, or hitting the black rail (easy to protect, letting the ball 'fall' into the lane) would be less damaging given the surface area -- seems inevitable after carefully watching the way the ball ejects that the clear will chip/wear in the lane where the ball lands.

For those who've installed Cliffy protects and specifically the one that goes under the black side rail to protect the far edge of the lane, any pics of how you've stalled it? I know you have to unscrew the rail from the playfield, but seems like you'd want the metal edge of the protector to be right along the edge of lane groove to protect it.

I see it as a flaw of the games, both with GoT and GB. The way the ball is shot into the lane is done with such force the ball impacts exactly where you see the damage, instead of more gentlay 'falling' into the lane. It just looks bad, not a big deal. Also, very easy to prevent by getting the right Cliffy and/or Mylar there. I think GB now has a setting to reduce the power?

Is it annoying? Sure. Stern can do better... but, this is minor compared to the ghosting and other playfield issues.

Really? Not sure what the cost is of the colored captive balls, but if you can get NIB for ~6800 delivered, I'd go new. While you can hope stern takes care of you as second owner, they might not particularly if a play field swap is needed.

Of course, the big advantage is they are still backordered, so it's a good time to sell.

This seems to be the standard approach. I think better would be if Stern will willing to cross ship, so you can take it out, put it back in with one shot. Don't get me wrong, of course I'd prefer the white glove approach. But given that this will likely double the cost, their approach seems reasonable to me.

Got my GB Premium today! Playfield date: Nov 3. Looks good so far. Put cliffy on the shooter lane, and air ball protector.

I put about 5 games on it -- should've taken detailed pics out of the box and spent more time examining everything before playing. Still getting some airballs, and I could've sworn I saw a chunk of plastic go flying after a nasty airball. But, I can't find anything anywhere, and without knowing the playfield better, I'm at a loss. I must've imagined it. If anyone has some nice playfield pics from a few angles, please post 'em, so I can look at them. The only thing I notice is this post (near center, just right of the ramp) seems kind of empty, but can't find any evidence of broken parts.

Other observations:
- Came with 1.05.
- Slimer seems fine, no dragging.
- Got one ball stuck in subway -- what's the consensus on fixing that? I checked underneath and the lineup looks good of the ramp/plastic.

Thanks!

gb1 (resized).jpg

Just had a kick-ass game. Not sure I'll pull this off again anytime soon, but once you start dialing in the shots, the points really add up!

6FE1A4E9-1DBB-44EC-97F5-EDF6F182BCF3 (resized).JPG

I had my Cliffy shooter lane protectors installed day 1, just did the outhole and tried the drop targets, but it won't fit. I've seen them on other machines so I'm guessing just enough tolerances on build. Debating options: leave it for now, when wear becomes obvious, sand the drop hole a bit to widen and install Cliffy; or, sand down drop target a little. Could also do Mylar, but even that would be a tight fit. Any one else do anything for the drops?

I ordered in early/mid October, took delivery last Friday, about 6 weeks. I guess it might depend on how many machines/cancellations your dealer has, but that's a bad situation.

I thought I watched a video a long time ago (may be making this up, I dunno, but sounds good) that the lights flash when active, but if they are lit solidly they are 'haunted' and will do weird things.

Overall I really like the light/sound effect because otherwise, it may seem too quiet...

Possibly, but there are times it is supposed to be on all the time ... I don't think it ever will be at the start of the game.

I got the LSOG one and it's been good. However, I've observed two effects that drive me crazy. The primary is ball hop over the wire, which this solves and I think what most people observe. The second is that the ball bounces off the inner guide and/or has enough spin that it goes to the outlane. I guess you could argue that's by design, whereas the ball hops over the wire guides are just ridiculous.

I got a set of Titans and looking over the playfield, it looks like the right side will be a bear to do. Anyone replace the rubbers yet? Seems that the right ramp, subway exit ramp (from under the playfield?), and storage facility, then hex posts, will need to be removed to remove the large plastic.

Great ... Any tips for that right side plastic? Or is it just brute force disassembly of everything?

I would love to see this option, too, or at least a setting to attenuate. It is annoying.

Anyone know what determines the number of hits needed to chase slimer away? Seems like it's either 2 or 3 (not including unregistered hits of course). Doesn't seem to be time based.

Ok, got all of them replaced. Right side easy as you mentioned. Actually all was pretty straightforward, except the two around the slimer pole to the right of the left ramp. For those, I loosened the ramp under the playfield to get a little wiggle room, then worked them right over slimer. Obviously the smaller one (a 1" I believe) was tight but carefully worked them over slimer. Installed the side blades ... when I did this on GoT, I removed the playfield, but left it in for GB. Very easy, glad I left it in!

Ok, I think it's registering some hits twice. It doesn't seem like it because I will only get one arrow that is slimed, but sometimes it is definitely 2 hits even without the ecto.

Not that it's that_ important, but decided to tinker with slimer to see if it's a physical problem or software, or what the logic was. I took the glass off and played a few 'manual' games, triggering slimer manually. I verified slimer was registering ok, so I'm pretty sure there are no double hits going on. He seems to require a good, strong shot to register, no dragging, etc.

What I found:

1) Sometimes, slimer will need 3 shots, and after each hit an arrow will be 'slimed' as expected. After the 3rd shot, he's chased away.
2) Occasionally, the physical slimer will move away to the off position after the second hit, and slimer will be in the ecto goggles for the third shot (DMD still says 'chase slimer away'). Making the ecto shot completes the mode.
3) About half the time, slimer will be chased away after only 2 hits. After the second hit, 2 arrows are slimed (I'd think 3 would be if he was double registering). No slimer in ecto, though sometimes there are other ghosts.

So, slimer seems to be working right as a switch, but unsure why it's only 2 hits sometimes. Might be intentional in software, a bug, or other issue. Just figured I'd post to see if anyone else is inclined to test.

I'd need to look at my machine to get it, but I'd think the gate would be to keep ball grounded for right orbits, but then prevent left orbits or the ball dropping down the right side when it's intended for the pops? Without the gate you might get a lot fewer balls in the pops and down the right side?

Take this as 1 person's experience.

In short, I think they and/or possibly mylar around the Scoleri drops, are essential. I ordered the complete Cliffy kit before I got my GB. I installed everything but left the Scoleri protectors off as I didn't think it was essential in HUO and frankly, wasn't big on the look. After about 300 plays (just this past weekend) I noticed minor chipping on the back side of the drop of the left target. Immediately, I installed the protectors.

Now, I'm not sure if the chipping was from the target (very tight), or airballs hitting the ledge (unlikely), but naturally don't want it to get any worse. I had to sand down the drop target a bit to get the cliffy to fit. My PF, btw, is one of the newer ones, so no other problems (ie, ghosting, etc.) with it.

I can't say for sure if they negatively impact gameplay. I'd have to rig a camera to know for sure -- the problem is, the ball moves so fast and often has so much spin, it's hard to tell if the airball off the ramp was because the cliffy gave the ball a little lift, or if the ball ran over one of the edges -- although the target is tight front/back, there's a gap on either side. So, for now, I'd say no, but anything is possible.

I let my distributor know about the problem just in case it becomes something worse. I may still put mylar around the sides/front. I really don't think it's a playfield issue, although, I've played pros on location that have many thousands of plays and no sign of issues with them, so go figure. I think the speed of the game and airballs are a bad combo, so anything you can do to protect weak spots the better.

I think this is possible... the bigger flaw, I think, is that gap on either side of the drop target itself. The gap is aligned between the ramp and the right flipper, so if shot just right so the ball rolls over the gap area, it's going to get airborn.

I decided to look closely at this as I had to work on the machine. At 240fps, I was able to capture on my phone a pretty good airball that went straight over the target toward the ramp and got airborn, hit the ramp, and bounced out on the playfield. It did seem that the Cliffy was the cause in this case. I'm going to tinker with the height of the drop target and pitch to make to a bit smoother.

Out of curiosity how did you align it left/right? Was thinking I could just enlarge the holes on the metal frame to slide it a bit over.

Also, leveling with the cliffy seems to have helped tremendously. I really want to keep the cliffy on there since there were signs of wear already.

Challenge for me is/was balancing how to align, since the cliffy raises the level a bit and hard to make it level with the pf and clffy without tilting the target (which I may do with a little styrene shim). I think Silverball's comment on leveling with the cliffy will help, or at the very least, splitting the difference. Definitely agree on keeping the cliffy on there!

Supposed to be that way. Remember, it's a feature that simulates him sliming things. Apparently, though, no one told Stern that, as a ghost, he could pass through things.