What rubber did you get, I was thinking maybe ordering Titan stuff, just getting a full set so I can replace all rings and posts and so on when the time comes in the future, plus I hate it when shipping is more than the items that I order...

There trick for more points seems to be the Stein multipliers with easy modes like bumper cars or food frenzy plus the Stein that allows for more time in a tent. Got a couple of millions that way.

Never thought about it that the Multiball is not easily reachable, but you are right and seems is uncommon when I think about it.
On my machine TENT is lit for the first ball (wonder if that is a setting) and more often than not the ball makes its way into the tent scoop for a lot of players, and starting a mode. But you are right, it is not obvious for somebody just walking up.

Once you learn that, the machine has definitely this "one more game" quality. Had people over last night and we ended up playing it for 5 hours because there is so much to do in the game. And you should hear the screams when you get to the barrel Multiball, people get really excited!

Thank you, I was really hoping you would say Titan because that one is available in light blue going along with the colors of the Bavarian flag. I know I'm childish, but it's a new toy for me and I'm like a 5 year old.

Just played to see if I can reproduce your issues and I can't. I'm on the latest software, I had a beta Software in the machine out of the box that had lots of bugs which version was close enough to the official one so I didn't notice at first. Check if you have latest software.

It definitely doesn't take 5 seconds for me, might not be instant but there is not that long if a delay for me. Also I can move the TAP lights freely and nice the unlit ones below where the ball is about to drop through.

Hey @rosh,
#oktoberfest plays awesome, but if I had to ask for one thing, it would be actually the capability to add custom music for tent modes. As cool as the included music track is, I would love to be able to add songs myself and then either have the pinball machine pick from it randomly in a tent mode or allow to associate specific songs to specific tents. As somebody who has been going actually to Oktoberfest and Plärrer while living in Germany I would love to pack some custom songs in there reminding me of years when I was younger

Possibly it could be implemented in a way that when you plug in a USB stick it pulls files of a specific name e.g. TentXX.wav/.mp3 where XX element of [01-14] in and overwrites the music for that tent until you overwrite it again or clear it in the service menu to reset it. Of course, no DRM, only up to a certain size and so on to make that easier for you guys. This would work similar to the welcome message picture. I don't know how much storage space you have available still to see if that is feasible, and I also don't know how complicated this would be to implement - obviously, if that would drain considerable development resources, then I rather keep you guys working on the play code itself.

Prost!

Fully agree, especially since I suck at pinball in general and at Multiball specifically. I get typically 10 seconds of riveting chaos until the drain protector runs out.

There is nothing greater then the Multiball starting at this machine, everybody gets super excited. The presentation is just on point.

Before, DI was my favorite machine but this is even better and DI won last year best in several categories I believe. Obviously, I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but the game is just so versatile and has this "one more game" quality!

I remember the first one, that may have even made it onto a Bravo Hits CD. I think they vanished as quick as they rose...

I probably would put DJ Ötzi, Schürzenjäger, Hermes House Band and Mickie Krause or something like that in. Stuff you hear in the evening in the tents from the party bands.

rosh I do realize this is solely interesting for home users and probably no operator would touch that at all. Was just an idea.

I am actually in the software industry, and I would bet that feature if quoted - even if trivial to implement within an afternoon by a developer - would be at least several thousands of dollars, and then they would still likely make a loss on it. If non-trivial then the cost will go up quite a bit, to a point where it becomes totally non-feasible.
People don't realize the cost of QA and maintenance that is associated with this sort of stuff. Plus it drains resources from somewhere else. Being not a huge company that has slack built into the process due to management overhead, I bet they have very tight schedules and need to make the absolute most out of the resources available.

This is why I so much appreciate the quality of the game and the willingness to interface with us customers! You guys did something magical here, and I'm keen to see where you'll be going in the future!

Ferret & rosh maybe one day I can come visit you guys (once you are moved of course) - I would love to see the tools and tool chains that you guys are using!

Thank you Dan!
I burned through all my PTO with the move this year, so it will have to wait until next spring at least unfortunately. By then you will likely have already revealed your 3rd game and I might get to see it.

First of all pinballslave I want to apologize if I have offended you. After reading my comment I can definitely see that you feel "backstabbed" but that was not my intention. I wanted just to point out that in my own experience offering money for a feature in software is typically futile because the actual cost of a feature is multiples higher than what people are typically willing to pay or think it costs to realize.

The reason why, I clearly didn't describe sufficiently enough. Exactly for the reason that most people think "how much can a few developer hours cost": No, I doubt that rosh or Ferret make 1000$ / hour (if you do, let me know, I'm gonna apply for a job at API today!).
The majority of cost is incurred after coding has finished. For every hour / feature coded you have to assume multiples of that for QA testing. You add documentation to that. And now, by far the larges cost is actually incurred by the support department for it and maintenance, as you have to keep maintaining this feature along with everything else as newer versions for the software go out. Paying the developer for the initial development is honestly the smallest part of that and that by a fair margin. People don't realize that, and how could they - they are not in that business - so, from the outside it certainly doesn't look that way.

EDIT ---
I didn't even mention planning of the feature yet, that takes also time. Typically done by Business Analysts or somebody wearing that hat in a smaller company is the planning of what and how the feature should work from a functional standpoint. After that a developer will take those specs and turn them into technical tasks - agile development anyone? -, while potentially going forth and back with the BA. There will be many hours spent before actually one line of code is written.
EDIT END ---

Now if you add in limited resources - nobody has an unlimited supply of developers, QA, and support people - you have to weigh every features benefits against other things you could be doing instead.

My intention with that post earlier was to point out that offering money is likely to be not fruitful in light of how software development works, and before we create the proverbial s***storm of "They got even offered money and are not willing to do it".

The longer I thought about my request the more I realized that it probably is not going to be done for reasons mentioned. And I apologize to API, because this discussion was certainly not my intention. Especially after Ferret gave a little bit deeper analysis above it becomes clear that the feature is non-trivial to implement and the associated dangers and cost seem to outweigh benefits for now. Maybe they will add something like this in one of their next games, but backporting this feature for Oktoberfest seems not really feasible.

I regret asking for it now, because I should have made that connection before I wrote this, especially being in that profession myself.

I want one! Where do I sign up for one?

Tempting - I'll send you a check. Don't cash until after delivery though.

I don't remember if this was on the to do list, thinking about it or already implemented but I recall reading about a banked shot from Prost stand-ups to the bar door should open it immediately, and I tried it out and it didn't open the bar door for me. Prost wasn't fully lit at that point.

Also what does the percentage for the extra ball at 500k do? I don't mean the matching at the end of the game. Does that mean when you reach 500k only x% of times the extra ball gets awarded? I understand how the dynamic increase stuff works but just wondering about the % there.

Would a full plunge always go in the bar? 1/3 of the time it goes in, 1/3 it doesn't and the last third it goes in after banking from the duck standup.

I'm referring to the "replay percentage" section in the manual which is different from the match type settings and handles on the default setting the award of extra balls when you hit certain scores.

I tend to always go for the Stein since I feel like they are so valuable, I don't think I tried ever any of the other ones.

Regarding the banked shot, I have to experiment with it then. Is it the plate in front of the bar that triggers it it is there another switch in the bar door itself and you have to hit it hard enough?

I do hear every now and then the knock on wood sound from the bar door but as often as I hit it, it should open more often I think, it is rarely ever open.

Ah, I saw it in the manual - yes, I'm the one dude who actually went through the manual (at least partially...)
No worries if it is actually not in the game. I like how it works now.

I waxed the playfield, and I bet there is a coat of wax on there preventing it from closing the circuit. That is a really cool design, so no pressure plates can go bad or anything! Sorry, my bad for this. What would you recommend for "de-waxing" that plate making sure that I don't hurt anything else?

Thanks for the quick response, PROST!

How much force are the stand-ups ideally designed to have them triggered? Typically, floaty deflections don't trigger my outlanes or the Oktoberfest stand-ups. They need at least the force of a direct hit from the slings or a pretty bouncy/lively deflection.

Apparently I was smart enough not to wax the metal plate. If the ball hammers against it I don't get the sound but if it is not as quick then it works, so I guess it's the air ball thing but it's ok, it seems to work as intended.

Just played for an hour - the game makes me smile everytime I play it, and I play it every evening when I come home from work. I wish just I wouldn't be so bad at pinball I haven't even beaten all modes yet individually not even talking about reaching Flippermeister.
There is so much to do on this machine. I want to reach food coma and Stein slinging next.

I'm like a 5 year old and get really excited wenn the rollercoaster Multiball starts.

When that happens, is there 1 or 2 balls in the beer barrel?

I think with every software revision it gets more stable. I heard today in a podcast that both Houdini and Oktoberfest are getting another update in the nearish future. Since it was a podcast who knows if it's true. I figure they are all working on the new game right now to get that ready. Really Keen to see what it is going to be!

I'm envious that you have both. Which of the two do you like better?

Ha - as a programmer you have probably heard that song:
99 little bugs in the code.
99 little bugs in the code.
Take one down, patch it around.

127 little bugs in the code...

OOOOOH, can't wait for that, that's a nice Xmas present!

Thanks for the insight! I can't really afford another game right now, so I would have to let Oktoberfest go for the new one and I'm not ready to do that yet, not by a long shot. Unless I really must have the new game on release day, do or die, I'm gonna probably hold on to Oktoberfest at least until towards the end of 2020. Maybe I win the lottery in the meantime

Did any of you install cliffys?
I haven't found anything for Oktoberfest on the website.
I guess there is a generic one for the shooter Lane, but I don't know if that fits and quite honestly how to install it if it does.

I love the knocker, anybody got the Shaker?

Nice, just found out I'm gonna get one for Christmas!

Nice scores! I had one game with 12M but most games are below 1M for me. I have to practice flipper skills and learn nudging. I lose a lot of balls through outlane drains.

I'll have to look if mine does that too, but I don't recall seeing it blinking when I press the flipper button so far.

I had the same question regarding the drivers. Apparently they interfered with the rollercoaster ramp. I can see that the cars are really close and when a ball goes through mine it touches one of the cars ever so slightly - there is no room. So I don't think it is coming.

I love the game, can't wait to see what you guys are doing in the upcoming code release! I put over 500 games on it in a month according to the counter. At this point I know all of Inga's taunts by heart unfortunately. I finally should get to actually practice flipper skills.

Getting also the Shaker for Christmas from my in-laws. My family is awesome!

Happy holidays to everybody!

I put red rubber from Marco onto the upper flipper and it seems to be easier. But I still have days when I can't hit it. Other days I seem I can't miss it. Unfortunately the latter ones are rare

How sensitive have you guys set your outlane save targets? I almost never get any and am debating if I should make them more sensitive.

When you replace the next time flipper rubber, instead of using super bands use a softer rubber compound - I would argue that is not really jury rigging. I understand people do stuff like that all the time to make the game play more to their liking. I needed to get replacements and ordered that and it seems to work for me.

I'm curious how software can change difficulty of a shot though, since that is a physical function of geometry in terms of angle, speed and force. The latter one you can already change with the coil strength adjustments. I had to back down coil strength by one on my upper flipper anyway, because otherwise the ball would hop off the rail on the way from the plastic to the barrel if you got a super clean shot. I found non magnet staged shots have a better chance actually - not when they are screaming around, but when they have a little bit more momentum then from the magnet hold resting spot.

That's a cool idea!
In Adams family though it has switches above and below the goal so it knows if it flipped too early or too late and learns. We don't have that learning feedback possibility here, so short of just giving you a virtual lock at x% of the time I don't know if it would work. But I like the way you are thinking!

There is one like this already in the game. If you get the left inlane it lights the half pipe on the right getting back to the left flipper and you can keep shooting it for progressively higher scores until you miss.

I believe I have seen that before in the coil adjustment setting, let me know if you can't find it, then I'll fire mine up and look for it.

What's off though is that yours falls all the way back and registers as a lost ball. I would expect it to fall on top of the follow-up ball and trigger the jam switch instead it trying to kick it out again.

First time I'm hearing about it, what is it?

Cool, I'm excited for that!

In the meantime, it is way easier to hit the barrel shot when the ball is not captured by the magnet before.

When it is served up by the magnet I almost never hit, but when it comes at a decent but not screaming pace down the orbit I have a pretty decent success rate, like one out of 4 (remember I'm bad at pinball)

I thought we were talking about the flipper rubber, not a different coil stop. Sorry, my bad.

Cool, I'll text Zach.

Awesome, thank you Josh! Other manufacturers can learn from you guys when it comes to customer service!

There is a service bulletin on the API website under The Menu > Support > Resources and then on the Oktoberfest Tab. There is a PDF with pictures and explanation.

It's called lockdown bar spacer installation or something along the lines. You stick the tabs under the sides of the lockdown bar so it centers the bar across the machine. Got them too, but my machine has them already installed from the factory.

That's odd, that you have problems reaching them. When I write them, I get answers within a few hours, typically even at night and in weekends, as they don't seem to sleep at all, lol.

I got the new longer coil stop this week and finally got around to install it yesterday. My wife and me put now some games on it with the new coil stop and wanted to give a review.

Beforehand, it was pretty much impossible on my game to make the shot if the ball was trapped up by the magnet. If the ball was coming down from a full orbit shot then the shot was barely makable but I had even to adjust that, because on the regular coil strength setting it would hop off the rail on the way to the barrel. So reducing the power made that more stable but even more difficult. Adding red rubber helped to reduce the spin so it would hop off the rail less often.

New coil stop enter the scene: the geometry of the shot is perfect now. If you have the timing down, it makes it now from any situation - both resting and from orbit. It shoots the ball into the barrel with authority! Any of you who have practiced this shot under the difficult previous circumstances as a result will nail it now pretty much every time. Make no mistake, it's still not a trivial shot - my wife didn't play the machine before a lot and she can make the shot only every now and then, but now it is a function of timing and skill and not of luck and circumstance.

Good players will dial that shot in quickly. This improvement is a game changer in the truest sense of the word: now lock stealing will become in a multiplayer game a real part of the strategy and not just a low percentage incidental occurrence. Think TNA and so on.

I absolutely love the change, it elevates the game to it's full potential. Thanks API for keeping at it and making the game even better. It has already changed my strategy, because now I'm thinking about the Stein that increases beer barrel Multiball jackpots and stacking that with food frenzy.

Little tip: shooting the barrel will spot you a PROST letter, so if you have 4 lit, just shoot it in: it will spot you the 5th to light the lock and lock the ball.

There is a Membrane Switch in there, that recognizes when a ball is sitting on it. I had the same problem and am beta testing a solution with Josh right now. Very promising! In the meantime what helped for me was cleaning that membrane. The accumulated grime was causing it for me, but obviously it will start showing up after a while again. Or get with Barry / Josh before you clean it to see if they want you in the beta test for it.

I texted my distributor Zach from flip n out pinball. He said that he'll send it out as soon as he gets it and I got it in Wednesday I think. ZMeny is awesome!

API is sending them out through the distributors, contact yours.

I think they are in full force working on their 3rd game and at the same time doing new software for Houdini and Oktoberfest. All this While juggling the move to a new facility... I think currently for them the days would need to be 40 hours long if they want to sleep for a couple hours..

It's SW / Firmware, it works really well, at least on my machine. The guys at API are really awesome - if in doubt contact their support!

Btw, don't scrub that membrane with steel wool or something. I used microfiber cloth and Novus 1 when cleaning it, and didn't press down on it hard.

I'm out and about for the remainder of the day - if nobody posts here, remind me via pm tomorrow and I'll take pictures tomorrow evening for you.

I actually left it at 1 or 2 below default, which I had to adjust it before to barely make the shot while at the same time not hopping off the wire form. Now, because the geometry is lined up better, even at the reduced power it smacks it into the barrel with speed!

Absolutely, no problem. I haven't tried to make the bar entrance yet though. That was barely possible before for me, so I have to look for that, but the newton ball is easily reachable.

My distributor sent me an extra. If you can't get yours through your distributor, I'll send you my extra one. Let me bang the drum here for Zach a little: had nothing but awesome experience with Flip N Out pinball.

If you play with other people, lock stealing actually becomes a real concern! It's really awesome - haven't played it yet in multiplayer since I have the new coil stop since I was busy and couldn't play as much as I wanted, but once I get back to it, it will be a real different strategy. Instead of always going for it, I'll wait until I have a suitable mode and multipliers lined up.

On my machine it wasn't makable from magnet trapped ball because I had to reduce the coil strength, otherwise shots full orbit would hop off the rail. Now I can make it from both situations.

Are you at LAX? I can bring you one and when you get yours just give me one back. How does that sound?

Write Josh an email and see if you can get into the beta test for the new software. It fixed it for me and was working really well. Had similar problems before.

They came in the same envelope. Would be odd if they are different. Unless I just grabbed by sheer luck the one that was meant for the upper flipper when I installed it, and this is for the lower one maybe just as a goodie... I didn't have any trouble installing mine at all, and there is definitely a difference in play now, so it is doing what it was supposed to be doing. I never compared them, I just assumed they are the same.

Only if it got stuck!

I had to readjust my pops every now and then to keep them lively. Used some thin cardboard between the contacts of the switch to clean them and that little tool from pinball life to bend the leaf so they were just not touching. Since the ball tends to come at a very low pace and the table is relatively flat, the leaves needed to almost touch to keep the pops nice and responsive. Seemed to always be the left and the bottom one for me - don't think I had to ever adjust the right one.

Make sure, the machine is not too upright. It's supposed to be lower than a Stern and you need the side to side action from the slings for the cork screw stand-ups.
Adjust the sling power if necessary, so they don't produce just drainbows.
Also, for the upper flipper there is an alternative coil stop that changes the angle of the flipper and makes the barrel shot significantly easier. I got it through my distributor for free.

Are the colors correct when in lamp test mode? Could be that they are wired up wrong.

I had one for over a year:
1. I tended to use a backhand for 95% scoop success rate, rather easy shot actually

2. No idea

3. Had 1300 or so games on it, once the out of box issues were solved it worked well. The contact switch in the beer barrel needs to be cleaned every few hundred games. That was the weakest point that i know of. Build quality is pretty high otherwise.

4. The rules for just having fun are simple. Light tent letters over the in and out Lanes, hit the scoop and enjoy the mode, which is as simple as shooting the blinking lights. If you want to blow the score up then you can get very deep strategy wise, which keeps it fresh for a long time. Play simple or play deep, your choice.

Oh and I forgot to mention, that there is an insane amount of modes available, so even if you don't want to study rules, you can chose from so many different ones right of the bat, it's going to be fun for a long time. And they do all feel different because they make use of different features of the game.

This is the only game that I know that has such breadth and depth at the same time.

Explanation:
Breadth, you can play different modes without going deep into the game right in the beginning. Examples are dad rock themes usually where you can pick the mode at the beginning of the ball. On the opposing side, for example if you are not that good on machines like JP you play the same few paddocks over and over because they is initially no breadth of choice.
Depth: Very many strategic options and after playing for aa long time in a single game you still get new things to see. AIQ is an example there, many rules for strategy forming, or also LotR where to get to Valinor you have to play very long and get deep into the game.