Is there a setting to allow the volume control on the coinbox to control the volume of the game without headphones?

I don't see why the beasts need to be disabled if you are in beast multiball and have Smaug ready to go keep hitting the green action button to postpone the multiball until beast is over. If you can't avaoid the beasts in Smaug multiball I believe you can hit the action button after a super jackpot to stop beast. Can someone confirm that?

I've played it both ways.
I like them separate now.
Makes it a better more directed game.

Otherwise it's harder to finish one or the other mode and harder to concentrate on killing Smaug.

This is correct. Not sure why they didn't separate them as a default. I mean, when you have a mode, Smaug and Beast running, what's the point? It's just chaos, trying to keep the ball alive with no other goal. Fun once or twice but this game is such a good adventure it's best played when you know what to do to advance the quest.

Not sure if I played a part in getting the option added, but myself and a few others really campaigned for having the ability to separate Smaug and Beast MB. I was hoping they would do the same with starting modes during Smaug, but the postpone option is the best you have - honestly it's nearly impossible to stop a mode from starting when things get hectic. That said feels great as it to be honest!

Double post

Is there a setting to prevent you progressing to the next wizard mode until you have finished the current one.
I’d really like to finish one of the wizard modes, but usually get to the 4th level of ITF and then drain. If I then qualify for another wizard mode I’m then onto BE without completing ITF.

I wish there was a setting that would not allow another player to be added after you plunge the second ball

WOZ is the same.
In reserve ball play you can add players pretty much any time.

It's an interesting feature.

If one player has tons of extra balls in a 4 player game, so as to not hog the game, players who finished early can be re-added to play more.

On the down side, if you accidentally hit the start button it adds an unwanted player.

The feature could be refined a bit.

The slow press is already being used on the slow restart.

A double press would be hard to control.

Maybe use slow press to add players, but at the expense of disabling slow restart.

It's a hard choice.

For now I just avoid hitting the start button as I use the slow restart all the time.

No, but there should be. And there should be a nice reward for doing it to make you consider playing the mode again to completion instead of moving on. You should also be able to choose any of the mini wizard modes instead of playing them in order. This has been my only wish for this game since I got it.

I like it the way it is and wouldnt change it.

Though it would be interesting to complete the mode, you would have to always complete the mode to progress.

This would make the game boring.

I like to see and sample the other modes better than never seeing them.

However I would like a super wizard mode to happen if you did actually complete all 3 modes.

That's not what I'm saying. I want the choice to play ITF, BE, or BOFA in any order I want. And if I get close to finishing one, then make me decide to either play it again for a reward if I complete it or move on to another one. This would only add more variety.

I think you’d have to be a super human pinball player for a setting like that to make sense. The option for it would be cool but I’d bet very few people would take advantage of that setting long term. I can barely get to the second multi ball consistently on three balls

I want to clarify that I don't want to see a setting that prevents you from progressing. I just want the option to play in any order and decide to play it again if there's a large enough reward to complete it.

I see.

User selectable wizard modes.

Cool idea but probably a hard sell to the asset holders.

Would not flow with the story line.

The regular modes can be played out of order, so I don't see why the mini wizard modes have to be played in order

I think selecting the ark mode would be a cool idea - but in some ways it rewards good players to see BE and BFA. We already get control of the modes we start

I’ve seen people say they have got to play the wizard modes more than once. Do they cycle around again, if you can last that long? And if they do, do they continue from where you left off, like Smaug MB does?

You can get to the wizard modes fairly quickly.

I've done them twice on a 3 ball game.

And had a fairly low score.

Wowlio! I finally joined the super lube club. Now the erebor progress map looks like a cartoon when I hit the spinners! Eventually I’ll probably change the difficulty but for now I’m enjoying the advantage. Thanks for the great tip!

Well, the mouth on my Black Arrow SMAUG seems to have bit the dust. I emailed JJP support and was advised to try replacing the servo motor. The only question that I ask is does anybody know the model/maker of the servo motor or where to buy one? JJP advised buying one on the secondary market as they charge $30 for the part and mention that you can find it cheaper elsewhere. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Just joined the club and have a quick question.

I have a Smaug SE and the audio seems to be lacking bass and I’m hearing cracking/clipping in mid to high range even at moderate volumes. When I’ve played at location the general sound quality has been amazing, with nice bass, etc.

Is there a crossover, amp, etc that I can adjust? Should I check cables?

(To be clear, audio is coming through all speakers, it just doesn’t sound as good as I’m used to...)

Search this thread. There is at least one mentioned and instructions to install.

LTG : )

Can't they tell you the maker and the model number at jjp . I would just spend the $30 and get it off them at least you know it will be right

I believe Hobby King sells the servo for $8. I would check and recheck all the connections before I would replace the servo. Make sure the connection is good where it goes in the main computer (big metal box). I thought my servo was dead but it ended up just being a loose connection.

Shout out to Lermods. This back glass LED mod simply looks awesome, like this should have come out the factory this way. While it offers the option to get fancy with settings for flashing and speed of flashing, I find that distracting so I chose solid constant on.

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Well, I let the game sit on for several more hours and went to start a game. No sound at all. So I restarted it and now it sounds amazing. So I suppose I have a bad connection or bad/flaky audio amp/board.

Incidentally...damn I love the sound package on this game.

If you want to hear it at it's full potential connect a subwoofer to it .

Looks nice. At one point was going to order these for all my JJP's, but on pictures it looks like it is almost too bright compared to the upper part of the backglass. Seems to create a bit of an abrupt transition. In person, does this look seemless, or does it look like two levels of brightness?

On the short list, for sure

Thanks, glad you like it!

It is supplied with a dimmer so you can tone it down.

Just had one of my best games ever not score wise but I was going for there and back again played 28 modes and completed Ratagast Gandalf and Bilbo modes this game just keeps getting better and better , love it

The brightness of the mod is in line with the brightness of the top half. I believe what you are seeing is the stark contrast in color not actual light. The yellowish green of the sides and bottom VS a light blue on top. The picture was taken with flash off and is very realistic. It does absolutely appear seamless. If you look at the instructions by LER, the picture shows the led's on the side mounted high on the sides. I chose to "split the difference" which helped the mod blend nice with the top section and coincidentally helps throw more light at the bottom corners.

screaminr, you played 28 of 31 modes and didn’t get a high score? Unless timing them out I don’t feel the game is that imbalanced. So what did you do for the actual high points then

You're right I was timing out the modes , my Goblin isn't working properly at the moment so my goal was to see how many modes I could get and possibly get to there and back again . The only thing I went for every now and then was smaug multiball to qualify a few modes , and I ended up with a million points . It's great how there are so many things to do and different ways to play it , always keeps me coming back for more

I've played them all, but Hobbit is still my favorite JJP.

New to the game. New SE Gold, two weeks old.

Two questions:

1) The headphone jack seems to do nothing. I have tried it with the little toggle up and down. I plug in my iPhone (Shure buds) and nothing comes through the buds. I've tried pushing the three switches on the coin door module, no joy. The sound continues through the speaker. What am I doing wrong? Setting somewhere else?

2) Is there an "easy" way to figure out the flow of this game? I have the chart and have read the manual, it seems VERY confusing how to get from point A to B and beyond. Outside of Multiball, I would have no "decent" scores. I've managed to get 500K+, but only with 3 MB's. There has to be a better way to conquer this. I fly a 20MM jet and it's very electronic. I master this stuff well, but the difference I'm seeing is that my jet has just one function on 1,000's of systems. This thing seems to have 1,000's of forks in 1,000 roads...Anybody up for a tutor?

For sound, does it light up? If yes we know its plugged in and no need to chase the USB cable. You can mute the headphones. If theres an orange light lit on the panel its muted. Unite with lower right button.
If it's not lit up the USB cable is loose/unplugged from the interface board on the coin door or from the PC itself.
For the scoring aspect I scored just shy of 4mil with 16 modes. Completed 6 of them. I dont worry about scoring, I worry about staying alive, starting modes and enabling the 3 wizard modes and that's where you get the big points from. There's a ton of ways to milk more points but the money shots are the wizard modes.

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My Smaug also stopped working. Ended up being the grub screws holding the Smaug assembly to the motor shaft loosened and the whole thing bottomed out. Had to take out the whole assembly out and take it apart just to get to the grub screw. Once tightened I put blue lock tite on it.

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Plug the headphone in all the way.

Firmly until it bottoms out.
It snaps in all the way to the end, no gap showing.

They are very tight when new

Male sure the tiny switch on the little PC board on the inside of the coin door in the upper left corner is on enable.

Blue locktite on everything these days.

Headset problem fixed. The Ethernet black wire was plugged into the door just fine, but dead ended next to the cpu box. I took the cover off and saw that the cpu for sound had a pigtail that went to a through jack adjacent to the Ethernet cable. Pugged it into the jack and had instant sound from the buds. Thanks for the walk through on that.

Has anyone put the master sound control mod on the coin door? Is it major surgery?

I noted after fixing the headphone jack issue that even with the buds plugged in, the sound still comes from the main speaker. I assume that if you had a master volume control, you could turn down the volume of the pin, but still enjoy the buds???

Thanks again.

The lower button on the 3 external coin door buttons mutes the speakers but leaves the headphones on.

I have the external volume control buttons and really like them.

It's about a 15 min install and very easy.

Pinballinreno:

Thanks. Could you post a link to the mod you bought? Thanks.

Pinnovators, its the official external volume control. Its really perfect:

http://www.pinnovators.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=57

they made the sound cards for the WOZ and other things.

I have one on my WOZ, Hobbit and AFMrLE.

They are the best.

I finally beat Smaug after ~40 games. Took the second Smaug MB to do it. The only regret I have about this mode is unless you're lucky enough to be able to glance up quickly and get lucky enough to see the "arrow" being "delivered", it feels like luck is used more than skill. Almost makes me wish they'd inserted a ball drain, then ejected one ball which I feel better replicates the movie as it was ONE arrow not many. What would've been really cool is while the ball drain happens, the video clip of Bard appears playing the clip of when he tells his son, "You look at me" and a BLACK ball appears in play which then you could focus on killing Smaug and it would be more skill than luck. They could still program in the one ball feature and movie clip though
I digress. Anyway I have to say that was no where as easy as destroying the ring like on LOTR. Now that I've played this enough I fell like I can better understand some of the previous comments in this thread and others. One that sticks out is, "TH is just multi ball after multi ball". To a degree I guess? But having multiple balls going and forcing a person to remember "flipper position" in order to make shots because you sure as hell can't take your eyes off the flippers is super freaking challenging. It certainly makes TH different from anything I've played. Especially trying to hit those damn holes while watching is hard enough as it is let alone flipper position! HS is just south of 4 million, 19 modes started, 7 finished and haven't been able to fire off battle of 5 armies "yet" and I am king of every category except TABA which to me is another Valinor which is something else I've yet to accomplish. The day I do my LOTR is getting traded off. lol

The one thing I really despise about the design is ball hop due to the angle of the bottom of ramp. I think a kit with longer screws and a plastic wedge placed underneath the ramp to smooth the ball travel out would be the ticket.

I think you may need the ramp flap upgrade. Are the flaps starting to curl?

No ball hop on my game.

It did before I replaced the ramp flaps.

Check your ramp flaps, lower the flipper power a little.
Check your pitch is at 7.1 or 7.2 degrees.

Had a good game today. I originally was going to concentrate on TABA but as you can see I got side tracked. 21 modes played, killed Smaug and got a new GC score since I updated and had a great time doing it.

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First off, if you haven't turned off Smaug MB running simultaneously with Beast MB, turn it off in settings. Cuts down on continuous MB chaos. Not sure why it isn't a default setting, tbh.

Secondly, killing Smaug is always difficult and I'm glad it is. One of the best payoffs in pinball history. The first time I killed him I had no idea how I did it. After awhile you learn the queues. You try and wait for the "load the windlance" callout and then keep one ball on each flipper. Shoot the windlance ramp with the left flipper while taking aim at the missing drop target with the right flipper. Shoot the right flipper to kill him. Still very difficult but much more controllable.