congrats on your new game! welcome to the club!
STTNG is a wonderful game, but it is a little on the high-maintenance side. the most common problem is dirty optos resulting in weird behavior, such as balls getting lost, modes starting unexpectedly, or erroneous multiballs. clean the opto sensors with a little windex on a q-tip and that usually solves it.
as for mods, you can go as crazy as you want. here's a list of stuff you can look into:
- side mirrors *
- custom ships (people like to replace the stock ones with the Hallmark ornament versions, and rig them to light up)
- domed cannon lights
- laser sights on the cannons
- custom painted borg ship
- LED OCD* and GI OCD *
- ColorDMD *
- translucent rubbers
- Superbands
- Pin Butts
- Pin Gulp *
- Cliffy protectors *
* = highly recommended!