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!

depends on the game, but for STTNG in particular, I think the side mirrors look awesome.

mirrorLeft.jpg

mirrorRight.jpg

it's a weird time for pinball! the last decade has seen a dramatic rise, but nobody knows what the future holds price-wise for 90s Williams titles! My advice would be to look at them as incredibly fun luxury toys that have the perk of generally holding their value, or at least not losing much. I would not count on them going up in value significantly, or use them as an investment strategy. just my advice / opinion.

Having said that, STTNG has as good a chance of holding its value as any, though, for a variety of reasons: parts are available, the game is one of the most advanced for its time, the theme is extraordinarily well-done (full cast custom callouts! Patrick Stewart shouting "All hands prepare for multiball!") and relatively popular (there are some real "WTF" themes out there), it's a classic Steve Ritchie design, and it's very popular with pinheads and non-pinheads alike.

STTNG is a game that will always be desirable, but it's not immune to whatever direction the overall pinball market takes in the next few years.