If you do the 6 qualifiers, a blue lit drop will roam across the playfield. If you shoot it you will qualify extra ball.

If your qualifier is "spotted" for you at the beginning of the ball, then it doesn't count towards the extra ball. You will have to do the mode for that qualifier and then requalify it.

I have my mode settings on hard, so that a qualifier is never spotted, and thus qualifying all modes always starts the roaming drop.

So did this feature actually make it into the game? Some folks were complaining about how linear the game was before the update.

My understanding is you must complete each qualifier Before starting the next mode. Then the treasure hunt starts. I think after completing treasure hunt the extra ball lights.

I am also confused on this. Haha

Will need Ted to confirm. But I thought you got the revolving drop target that will light extraball shots IF you enable all qualifiers on a single ball.

I'm not 100% sure either, but I thought the real issue was that on "normal" settings, the qualifiers are auto spotted, and that means that you haven't done it yourself. Set the mode start to hardest, then do the 6 qualifiers and I think it will work.

Each time you lose a ball on normal settings you get a new qualifier spotted and that just makes getting the "qualifier extra ball" harder.

When I say spotted, I mean that when you start your game, one is already done for you. You need to clear it and reshoot that one.

Killing Smaug...is progression saved?
I believed it did but now I am not sure.

Yes

Yes. I find I make a lot more Arkenstone modes when I just concentrate on completing a lot of modes. Totally different game, especially when you have a lot completed and completing a mode makes getting to BOFA a lot easier.

Are the arkenstone mode champs only stored until machine is powered off? I became the “Into the fire” champ and then when I turned the machine on again later, Thorin was back to being the champ. This is on 2.96 code.

Is it just me or has the latest update (and even before, frankly) cemented TH as the GOAT? Pinball is all about creating a world under glass, and this machine just sucks me in like few others ever have.

Red Estes posted on the job forum. I'm guessing he's back? Fully charged and ready to jump back into middle earth...

Same issue, got Into the Fire champ on Sunday. Turned the game on this morning and it's showing as "Thorin". Will post to googlegroups.

Are you Thorin?

Joe Katz and I are squeezing time in when we can to work on the last few changes for Hobbit, but there are some other games that are demanding our attentions right now. We didn't get an update out this week like I wanted. I would prefer to hammer through the remaining changes at this point, rather than cut another interim version.

--Ted (Who did dress up as "Red" one Halloween many years ago.)

Adjust the switch gap. Make it less sensitive.

Nope. Just hold the mech up so that it’s above the playfield. You can get to the switch easily there.

Could you post some pictures please, I'm about to join the hobbit brotherhood so would appreciate any thing to check out that could cause issues...cheers

This was posted in another thread as well, but should the small LCD screen ever go black and reseating cabling doesn't help, it may just be a case of bad soldering:

http://www.popbumper.no/2018/07/25/hobbit-display-issues/

This is a known issue discussed earlier in this thread. One solution is to use washers to move the mech away from the playfield to create space for the wires.

I realized I was still running old code and needed to do a full install of 2.0 in order to get to 2.96. At the end of the image write to the USB stick I got the following error...has anybody seen this? I ran Unetbootin again and got the error a second time...

error message (resized).JPG

Apologize if this has been already covered in another post but I have a Hobbit Smaug Gold Edition and I was viewing the Audits and noticed there was a discrepancy between "Games Started" vs "Games Played". "Games Started" was 55 greater than "Games Played". I'm assuming this means a game was started and never finished, but I can't recall ever starting 55 games without completing the game. Seems excessive. Could anyone explain how these counters work? Did I really start 55 games without finishing them? Thank you in advance.

Try hitting yes or yes to all.

LTG : )

I just had to do this last night, after a repair to the spider which had one wire cut and the other ripped off its solder joint from the stress of being pulled (original wires assembled were too short for this intended usage. beast pop up would try pull the wires and move the wire bundles themselves to try to stretch every time it popped up). I placed the washer on top of the clear plastic beast ball-protector-thingie so that the washer would catch the curved metal slider to keep it from pinching the new wires I had to solder in agains the clear plastic. there are a couple pictures here in this thread.

Thanks, it worked. I did the delta after that and I'm now running 2.96. Man, it's awesome! Played 3 times and beat Into the Fire in 2 of those games...

That’s pinball. You can try superbands on the flippers to help slow the ball down, or You can adjust the flippers so they sit higher at rest, thus travel higher to allow trapping easier.

However, this adjustment will change the shot geometry.

So in short, play better. Haha

Yep or different rubbers. Or different alignment of the flippers or leveling of the game. Or they have worn coil stops that allow the flipper to travel too high.

Imo, you should never be able to trap from an inlane feed.

Agree - not get the ball to rest of the flipper by just lifting the flipper. If you attempt to do that it should roll up and then cross over to the other flipper. To rest it on the returning inlane flipper you will need to tap the ball a bit to get it to stop - or go straight up - and the back down on the inlane flipper. If the ball enters the inlane slowly (slower than normal) you may have no problem getting it to rest on the flipper.

Just depends...knowing when you can or can't rest the ball on the flipper - and adjust as needed - is the skill aspect of the game.

As I have not (yet) got help from JJP support, I turn to you fellow Pinsiders for any educated guesses.

My Hobbit fails to boot(v2.01), all of a sudden. After switching power on, nothing on the big screen(no signal) and quick blue flash on smaller one. No Linux boot, but both screens do get power. After checking more closely from under the hood, all fuse LEDs are on(the only blinking one is I/O-boards labeled as CPU), computer fan is running, so my reasoning is that it's not an power nor a fuse issue.

The last time (less than a month ago) game worked just fine and it has not been moved an inch. Personnally I suspect the CR2032 on motherboard. I just wonder can the battery really deplete in just over two years (Born on date is 6/24/2016)?

Anyone? But more importantly, how to get the game to boot again??? I wonder does it matter now, whether I change new battery with power off(/on), since most likely, the BIOS settings(whatever they may be) is lost.

Any comments greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

@arcade4all, I would reinstall your code fresh and go from there. Then, once that is working, you can run the delta update to 2.96.

No. No way. Even if the battery depletes, you can still boot the computer. The battery is for retaining the motherboard BIOS settings.

I would diagnose this just like a regular computer. Crack the case open and unplug the hard drive and all other things, except the main monitor cable.

The idea is that a bare motherboard (without a hard drive or anything) still outputs its boot sequence on its main screen. If you're not getting anything, it's the motherboard.

If there's nothing on the main screen, that's problem number one. Even with bad Hobbit code, something should display on the main screen (I think).

EDIT: When I say "I think", I mean that all modern motherboards' BIOS display something on the main screen regardless of what's connected to them (as long as the main screen is connected, that is).

Technically, this isn't 100% true. A computer power supply provides power "rails" for dedicated 12v, 5v etc. It's possible that the computer power supply is failing on one of these.

(you could try a power supply from a working computer to rule this out too, even though it's less likely to be the culprit)

Try reseating the ram, CPU and all connectors on the mainboard.

If that doesn't work I would suspect the power supply or a power connector.

It looks like the computer has failed its power on self test or POST.

You can pull the mainboard and boot it outside the game to test it.

Just plug in a ATX power supply keyboard and monitor to the mainboard on a piece of cardboard or carpet on a table or countertop.

Short the power pins on the front panel section of the mainboard briefly with a paperclip or small screwdriver.

You dont even have to be super careful when jumpering this as the computer in unpowered at this point.

If it boots then the problem is not the computer, its the power supply or hard drive.

Possibly even the USB doftware dongle.

Maybe it's just me...but is anybody else concerned about the lack of available parts for The Hobbit on Jersey Jack's site? They've been sold out of some parts for a few years now. I'm mostly concerned about the one of kind parts like the metal ramps, the book monitor assembly, Smaug assembly, all 4 beast popup assemblies...the big ticket mechanical items that can fail or be beaten to a pulp...

I wouldn't worry about it at this point ... unless you need something right away. Jack told me a couple of weeks ago that they will be doing another run of the TH Black Arrows later this year. Currently their facility is packed with parts and Jack was grumbling a bit that he didn't like having millions of dollars worth of parts just sitting in the building being stored (per say). Some shelves were literally stacked to the ceiling - probably mostly waiting for the JJPOTC production to ramp up. I'm guessing that once those parts start to clear out, they will start to order TH parts for the next run of those. DI is being produced on their mini production line currently. Guessing that once they catch up on those later this fall that TH will go back on that line - pure speculation there. All that being said, if you want some specific unique and more expensive "spare" parts because of your concern, I'd let them know (send Jen or Frank an email) so that they can order a few more extras for the next TH run. Just my suggestion.

Should we all be doing this?

I wouldn't worry about TH parts personally. They will being ordering another batch of them.

Sure. But ordering parts for another build run is different than ordering parts for longevity and support, no?

He's right, parts have been out-of-stock on the web site for a long time.

So yes, concern is there as far as long time planning and support?