Do you have the plastics installed in post #2036 (first photo)? It sounds like you do. Make sure all 4 screws are there holding those plastics in place. If a bottom one is missing the ball will slip out pretty easily.

Ok.. help me decide. Not sure if I need to jump ship or not. We have a beautiful butter cab CE ultraman.. my wife likes Michael.. should I swap out for a Halloween? Anyone play both? I know code is early.. thoughts?

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I would just keep what you have!

I prefer the Halloween layout. Haha. OK I’m done.

Happy Wife Happy Life. Do whatever it takes to keep her interested in Pinball.

The hedge "multib all" insert has been fixed. What a great company.

Here's hoping we don't regret NOT going butter. Timeline still about 2 weeks from invoice and payment to shipping?

That’s great about the insert but what does it look like now lol, as long as the cab is clean and decals are put on correctly it will be fine. Butter is wasted in a line up anyway but nice to have you don’t mind paying for it.

Looks like you are out of room.

Are you a bigger fan of the Ultraman theme than she is of the Halloween theme? If one of you are a big fan of either theme, I would say that's your answer. In my book, Halloween is a huge treat to anyone that is a fan of the film. It nails the theme integration, mood, and feel perfectly. Of course I think Ultraman does the same for it's theme, so really it comes down to which one your family is a bigger fan of.

I had an occurrence where I completed House Attack, completed 2 modes and was in my 3rd, and started Hedge MB. I'm not sure if I got all of the shots in my 3rd mode, but once Hedge ended, nothing was lit except combos on the loops. I went into the scoop, but nothing happened. I played Judith MB and when that ended, only the combos were lit. Wanted to post, as it's possibly a bug.

I thought that was a bug as well, but I believe it's intentional. You raise the three drop targets by hitting combos.

Meaning, you start and finish a mode. The center drops don't automatically raise *unless* you hit a certain number of combos. The combo amount goes up after each completed mode. I think I've missed this because my ball times have been shit and the center drops raise with each new ball, but I had a decent game last night with multiple completed modes. I was only able to raise the center drops by hitting combos.

Anyway, I'm sure there's someone smarter than me who can confirm.

Halloween #207 & #208 shipped today for those keeping track

Terrific news. Can anyone advise whyat the latest options email that went out is? Thank you.

I forgot to mention the drops were down. Ok, what you said makes sense as I haven't gotten that far mode wise. Maybe that's what it was.

Awesome! I’m CE#317. Wondering if I’m a couple months or more out yet.

I moved up to #439; starting to feel more real, hearing 200s are shipping.

#219 has shipped. I should have it in a few days.

Must not be building them sequentially then... I'm at #217 and while I have been asked about butter/no butter, I was told late Jan/early Feb (which is perfectly okay just presenting the facts before I get attacked again for not being "patient enough")...

Jeff

Thanks Mad_Dog_Coin_op for your response: Both plastics are secure as per post #2036. With this potential cause eliminated I did a thorough inspection of the pf and believe I found the culprit. There is a thin, clear plastic shield with a single mount on the right side of the metal center ramp that is easily deflected (see pic #1 where wood stick shows deflection). Since this is not visible during play I opted for a quick fix applying a small plexi reinforcement to the exterior of the metal ramp wall, bracing the thin plastic shield (see pic#2). Time comes when I need to remove the upper pf's I likely made a more permanent, professional adjustment. Hope this helps other HW owners down the road.

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I'm sorry, but those zip ties holding all the strip lights in place looks really tacky and not what I would expect to see in a $10k machine.

I like to sit on a barstool when playing and I'm hoping my lower position (vs. standing) doesn't result in me being blinded by those LEDs.

Before you all give me a hard time, I'm #251 and am (im)patiently waiting for mine.

Hey John C. no hard time here. I had taken the top shield over the led strips while trying to address the ball jail-break. With the top shield in place I never really see the led strip how it's fastened. While running, the led show is quite entertaining. From what I've read on this thread, led strips are not the most reliable so easy on/easy off probably makes sense. Just my 2... Before you know it, you'll be enjoying your game, bar stool and all!

every modern pinball machine is held together with zip ties.

And washers…

I don't think gender really matters in this statement. Getting my husband hooked on pinball has been great for my marriage. Star Trek TNG and Godzilla are more his things his thing than mine, but it meant it was an IP he was interested in playing. The result was him playing enough to actually want to compete.

You can barely see them. The LEDs have adhesive, but the zip ties add stability. You can always remove them if they bother you, maybe 15 seconds of effort tops.

^^ This. Hell, the wiring on my TZ is zip-tied to the plastic ramp on the right side. Sometimes, you just gotta do that.
That being said, I do like stability of components, and the wiring on that TZ ramp is super tight. Are the LED light strings that are zip-tied tight and stable, or wobbly? If they're wobbly, then that's bad.

#198 scheduled to be delivered Friday. Just in time for my 4 day weekend.

I don’t get how people who have a later game get shooter rods on their game before the earlier buyers. The people who got games without them should have had all these shipped to them before any got on the machines on the line. How are you installing and shipping a full pinball game faster to someone then shipping me my shooter rod ?

They told me my shooter(s) would ship two Mondays ago but I have not received it yet (#88)

They don't have a shooter-rod-shipping-person on staff. Someone has to stop doing their regular job for a while each day to ship some of the backlog. They'll get to you eventually.

That’s not an excuse …. The fact that they have staff to build someone else’s game and didn’t get my shooter rod on my machine before shipping to me isn’t my fault. I paid before everyone else and deserve a complete game. If that means someone stops building games for a day and processes 100 shooter rods then that’s what happens. I used to own an e-commerce company and may warehouse crew of 3 received packages all day and still shipped out 600 packages. We are talking 100 shooter rods. Shouldn’t have taken more then a day.

You should call the cops.

Spooky's refunded a game for less... if you're THAT bent out of shape, send them a PM...

Technically you are wrong here. That is absolutely an excuse.

And frankly, if you did run an e-commerce outfit, you should know better than to piss and moan in public rather than call and be polite about your request. Spooky has the best CS in the biz and I can only imagine the problem here is with your approach.

I had my shooter rod in about a week for my UM after I reached out. Absolutely #1 in customer service. You can contact them, get your shooter rod, then apologize to everyone for being a fun sucker..

I can definitely understand the need to get things delivered asap, but you just have to have a little extra patience, and consider the priorities given to certain things. I think building peoples machines and shipping working games out to people is probably a much higher priority right now than a minor cosmetic component on an already fully working game.

Remember, Spooky aren't a huge company like Stern (at least not yet), so I think you do have to cut them a little bit of slack over things like this - I'm pretty damn sure they will all be working their socks off at the moment.

Naah.. 3 fit perfect in that room. 4 works fine.. and the butter cab had to be on the end. I can fit at least 3 more in my office with my cyberball 2072..

My priority is getting what I paid for …. Yes I reached out and yes they responded. But I shouldn’t have had to. When I ran an E-commerce company and a customers product was back ordered they didn’t need to call me to get me to ship it. When it came in it went out to the oldest customers first not to the newest like spooky has done.

While this may be a hobby for you it’s a business for spooky and they make money. Stop giving them free passes because they are nice and trying. That’s good of them but they need to step up and should have done this sooner.

I put a sticky note on my lunch bag. I'll see if we can get one shipped out tomorrow. I know they have been making them the past few days.

No idea what number 1 at customer service means. If you build a good product you don’t need customer service. And every stern game I have bought came complete. Every time I had an issue with a stern in 1 day I had a replacement part sent by them. Never had stern send me an le and tell me it’s missing parts and will ship to me later but to get them later I should reach out and have patience because they have other customers.

You can sit here and say how great spooky is yes they are nice and yes they are responsive. That’s a minimum to be a decent company. Doing that doesn’t make them amazing it means they are doing their part …. You paid them for a product and for them to stand behind it. They do and so do plenty of other companies. If they didn’t they would be jjp….

What are you trying to say?

They are standing behind it. You seem like a pretty unreasonable customer, knowing it was a shooter rod that was being shipped later.

How do you like the rest of the pin?

Wow...have you seen Stern's backorder list

Been waiting for my paid for Zepplin topper for 10 months

Be happy you have a game with a shooter rod. The knife will come.

I bought a NIB stranger things from a top distributor and it had a stripped out flipper. Stern never did send me another one per the dist request. The distributor told me they are very slow at sending stuff out. The dist finally sent me one from them, not Stern. Stern took 1 year to send me the UV kit to complete my game. 6 months to send the topper . So let's not make claims about complete games from other manufacturers. But I do agree that an email updating me regarding my "backorder CE shooterS" would give me warm and fuzzies. Same goes for stern who never updated me on anything. I have just given up on expecting that communication style from anyone, anywhere, long ago.

Why is everyone attacking llushka85? I didn't read anything unreasonable, he just said he thought he should not have to email, they should be emailing him updates instead on his backorder. That's his opinion on how to operate. Spooky has always encouraged feedback/duscussion. What's the big deal?

He just seems to be making a big deal about a shooter rod, not one thing about that keeps him from playing his game to the fullest.

Exemplary customer service! This is one of the many reasons we love Spooky.

Best thing for you is to never order a spooky pin again.

You'll be missed, I'm sure.

This game is fun even on this early code. I'm a little bummed at the quality with the janky decals and my apron is bent as well, BUT, Spooky is mailing s new set of decals and a replacement apron (once supply is there) and I can't really be terribly mad at that. I can play it just fine until the apron shows up and I'd rather some other folks get complete games ahead of my replacement. I'll enjoy it just fine in the meantime