Hello all, proud owner of a JP Premium. Had it for about a month, but finally have given it the time it deserves. Bought it at the same time as a JJ POTC, and somehow got dragged into mastering (to the best of my amateur skills would allow) it first. So moving over to JP, it is a totally different play style, much faster and initially didn't seem as deep, but as I get further into it, could be wrong about that assessment.

My first comment is that I got my high score before I had any idea what the rules were, just stacking multi-balls and keeping balls from draining. Building back up to that score (360M, which I know isn't great) setting and completing modes (paddocks), and know that eventually that will get me much further along.

That said, the game is driving me nuts with fast outlane drains that I can't seem to figure out what sort of nudge will save me. Maybe it's just pinball (and that's a fair answer, I'll still play!), but would love to hear that there is a nudging strategy for those outlanes. It's like the inlane post is higher, so once it gets past that, pretty much hosed a good majority of the time.

The other odd thing that has been happening, ever few plunges, the ball sticks/hangs in the little loop above the right inlane where the ball comes down. Im thinking it might just be one of the balls in the rotation, either magnetized or possibly even a little bigger? Assuming magnetized because it never happened before.

Anyway, would love to have any pointers to strategy guides or videos or comments on what will allow me to get the best scoring (did determine that the control room modes are good and big points), finally hit a smart missile and that was pretty huge, and made it about halfway up the map. The videos that I found are just about the rules more or less, not strategies to score well.

Back at it!

Thanks all

Great advice thank you!

It’s really great, but feels like slow motion (widebody) after playing Jurassic Park. Rules are very deep, so the learning curve is pretty steep, to me it would be a terrible game for location where you’d have to pay to learn. There are so many variations of gameplay that it really does keep you coming back wanting more. I’m still learning but took a break for some JP. If I had to choose to keep one (at this point in time), I’d lean towards pirates. For the first week i owned both, I liked JP better (Much easier to pickup and play and make cool things happen) and almost forced myself to play Pirates. But when I got hooked, it was all over. If you played NES, I’d compare JP to Super Mario Brothers, and POTC to,Zelda. Both amazing, but in their own ways. As I started this thread off with, I haven’t really figured out JP (like always knowing where my next shot has to go without looking around) so my opinion could obviously change as I do.

Hope this helps!

That was great advice about chilling on the upper flipper. I still have not mastered the tower or upper loop, so I get a bunch of bounce backs, creating lateral motion towards those outlanes. Tried leaving it alone, and just got my high score, 460M. Baby steps....

I’m back on team tower, got better at hitting it more regularly.

Is there any sort of award for the longest possible ball without touching any sort of switch, only bouncing off of and between rubber? I feel like I may have won it tonight. Maybe just the game of pinball, maybe just being off by a hair on timing, but this game sometimes feels like it needs to break in a little, almost too tight. Just had a ton of what in basketball you call rim-f'd, and pool you'd call pocket-f'd, what looks like a perfect shot bounces between rubber 50 times before being rejected back at me. Not sure what you say in pinball! I'm learning to just turn off the machine and walk away. Some days I've got it (feel like I can't miss), but not tonight, so here I am typing about it!!

Mine also drops on the left flipper. I feel like mines right at 6.5°, but I keep seeing a lot about 6.8. Worth giving a try adding 3/10 of a degree?

I love it, it's fun to play, probably my favorite theme, and fits well into my collection. I've struggled trying to accel/improve with this game, so tried just about everything, and I've played a lot (3-4 hours at a time). Started per the instructions at 6.5 degree playfield angle, went to 7 degrees, as that was the general consensus here (made the control room and helicopter shots easier, but increased the SDTM and high speed sling to out-lane drains), and then dropped back to 6.8 (another recommendation here), and it works best for me (I think!) But I just can't figure out how to improve, and I brick so many damn shots. My high score is in the neighborhood of 600M, and I can get a few hundred million and 3-4 paddocks (past the T-rex a couple times) in most games, but my big games all come from keeping multi-balls alive, which is quite the challenge (and fun) with 5-6 out there! I usually try to work quickly on the CHAOS, T-Rex is an easy one, and Raptor usually comes from Smart Missile or later in the game. Play the control room modes as they become available and when I have the ball cradled on the right flipper. But the only consistent "flow" in this game for me are really fast drains, usually in the out lanes, propelled my the slingshots (like watching the slingshots play a separate game when they get going), and it's not a very friendly nudge out-lane post. I just can't improve it seems. All of my other games, the more I play, the better I get, doesn't seem so with this game. Maybe I'm missing something?

Stern hard post rubbers = super fast drains. Would switching out the rubbers on this playfield let me sleep better at night after an evening of high blood pressure caused by super fast drains? Any suggestions/links on the brand? The out lanes in this game are making it hard for me to continue calling myself a Christian after some of the things coming out of my mouth.

Don’t think so. Tough outlanes, once it’s over there it seems to be gone regardless of the adjustable post position. The inside lane post is just too much higher than the outside one.

Second T-Rex mode, mine is only catching the ball about 33% of the time when I hit the ramp and when he misses, it’s often SDTM. The first T-Rex mode (multiball) doesn’t have to catch so it starts fine 100% when I hit the ramp (sometimes catches, sometimes doesn’t).

So is this standard behavior or should it catch every time I hit the ramp in the 2nd and 3rd modes?

Maybe his head position is not properly calibrated? I feel like when he does catch it it’s when I hit the right side of the ramp.

Thanks!

This game is maddening with its tight shots and frustrating drains. That said I‘Ve been drawn back to it over and over putting time in, and have materially improved, got the the raptor paddock several times , caught a t-Rex a few times, scored over 700M, etc

What are the stackable scenarios that will add up points the fastest? I had a really big one tonight when I stacked the t-Rex Chase with chaos multi ball. I’ve started trying to strategize getting multi balls For either a really hard paddock, or to stack with one of the other modes. Am I thinking about this the right way a) for best score and b)for completing modes? For completing modes, any suggestions on the path of least resistance to the visitor center? Up the left side, up the right side?

I feel like after playing JP at a mediocre level for any period of time, i can go to MM or AFM and feel like a pro!

Wow, these scores are hard to imagine, and I guess I owe this game an apology, with the difficulty of keeping a ball alive (I guess due to all my bricked shots), makes it hard to believe that the ruleset in this game could be so deep. I'm certainly not a pro, but I guess I need to practice my shots so that I can more deeply explore the ruleset. I've gotten to about 50% on the smart missile shot, and I always defaulted to raptor multi ball or extra ball. I guess if in a tougher paddock, would be much better to clear the paddock.

I hardly knew what the pterandon attack was, other than it looked like it would crack the glass on my LCD every now and then. So 4 times starts the mode, then don't collect it, just build the multiplayer? Where does it show the multiplier, and when would I want to collect the reward (at what multiplier)? Obviously after seeing a 6Bn score from the pterandon, it's a good way to build up points, so need to learn.

Thanks all

Interestingly same here. Accidentally chose it with smart missile, and hit. Big points and lots of Newman.

I installed my shooter lane cliffy on the outside, but when I had it apart couldn’t figure out the circled bolts. How do they come out? Pic attached

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Cliffies are great.

I went with the Sterns, and like the way they look in the machine.

You should be able to hit it Without a big run-up, check to see if a screw head is sticking up and disrupting the ramp. I had to dremil mine down a bit.

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You should be able to hit it just fine, check and see if there is a screw head sticking up at the bottom of the ramp, I had to use a Dremel tool to flatten mine some. It was disrupting the shot

Can’t imagine going back to not having PinStadiums on this pin.

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After what feels like 6 months (got my premium in March) of blood, sweat, and a lot of induced yelling at family members in the vicinity, I finally got to the visitor center (first time) via way of raptors and got to 1.26b (previous high score around $800M). Feels good, this game sure makes you work for it, and is unforgiving as can be for a mediocre player.

I hit the raptors about 5-6 times in the Visitor Center before draining, and then my 3rd ball went back to normal and in typical great game fashion, drained the millisecond the ball save went out (for a whopping $300k or so, probably would have scored more if I shot the ball and walked away). The final ball though after the visitor center, was back to normal with no MAP arrows. Does that mean I beat the game, or took my shot at the visitor center, didn't win it, and I'm basically done (except maybe T-Rex modes, which I should have started)? Never thought I'd have to worry about post-visitor center rules, lol.

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Does the Stern topper work on a Premium? Does it come with a control board or is the Premium already compatible, says it adds a game mode? Pretty lame looking for $600.

After finally reaching the visitor center, been toying around with the the other aspects of the game:

T-REX modes - started 3 of them, multiball, chase, and rampage. Then the Jeep flips didn’t do anything to advance this any more. What needs to happen between the 3rd T-REX mode and Museum Madness?

Thanks!

I’d just take the one off the right post and take it to Home Depot to find a copy of it. Or just order a pinball screw/washer kit (I believe either titan or pinball life have a good one) and one of those in the kit will fit. Either 6-32 or 8-32 machine screw, probably 1/2-1”.

Both are really hard. I own both (premium JP and LE AIQ) and like Jurassic Park better and believe it rewards higher skilled play more, also harder and more frustrating. Marginally harder than AIQ, materially harder than any other game I own/like to play. Outlanes are just brutal and the ball goes there when you miss a shot. AIQ won during the honeymoon period and I still love it, but between the two I like JP better, and a good game/score feels really great! I do think they are close enough to go with the theme you prefer.

I like the neos, has all the colors and the diffusers so you don’t get the striping or light dots. Fusions are super cool, but a lot going on.

Welcome to Elwin games. Don’t lose control of the ball, not a good game for that!

I like the topper, glad I bought it.

Agreed the picture above isn’t how I’d set it. You can set colors (green’ish in this game) and much dimmer. JP benefited big with properly set PinStadiums, no loss of ambiance and you can very easily track the ball. My game room is dark, so totally necessary, or maybe I’m just blind lol. Big fan. Don’t judge based off that picture. Attached is my machine, maybe set a little bright and I don’t have neos so you can see the light reflection in these photos but not from the player position.

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I believe Titan silicone will change the play dynamic of this already really fast game. While I love titan and have them on all of my WPC and JJP machines (and flippers), this game has really active slings (many times slings to outlines). I’d put them on your slings and give it a shot before changing out all your rubber. Unless you already have and know what you’re getting into. My 2 cents!

I like Cliffy’s post rubbers when I don’t use Titans.

I just took Titans off of my Tron and just ordered standard rubbers from Gameroom Guys. I’m sure Marcos has a lot as well. I actually rarely use anything other than Titans so I’m not an expert on what else there is!

I always want to play the pin as it was designed to play, which is why I don’t dial my JP slings way down (even though they often enrage me!)

My buddy just had a beautiful JP LE delivered and it got damaged during shipping, right rear leg folded a bit and damaged right side cab decal. Big bummer, but everything is fixable. Does Stern still have the decals available? Just call tech support? He already did this, so hopefully they will respond, if not, is anybody making these aftermarket?

Thanks!

On a pallet, I don’t think they read the big X and sign that says “DO NOT TRUCK THIS SIDE”, as I’ve seen the guys even with a hand pallet jack, go in on the wrong side. Ugh. I’ve shipped and received 20-30 and have seen one problem (my friend’s JP), cross your fingers!

Low bounce is 1mm thinner in width, so if we’re counting, that middle drain is 2mm wider! I like the low bounce feel, but have gone back to titan standards, especially on this game, no need to make it more difficult!

It is hard. Will make you a better player though (on all machines).

It’s hard. Hit your shots (easier said than done!), not saying I can.

Helped me to focus on it (don’t play other pins), almost have to relearn it after playing other easier pins.

I got 1.4b on my old premium, traded it for an LE and struggling hard!

Are you set at 7 degrees with drooping flippers? (Makes the C/control room and S/helicopter shots easier)

I currently have and prefer green to orange. I’ve had orange before. Personal preference only.

Hi all, what are the flat (round top) bolts that go through the playfield right next to the trough eject and have a 5/16 nut on the bottom (that might hold the auto plunge bracket). They have little flanges on the top that keep it from rotating when screwing on the nut? Have to tap out from the bottom. Was installing the trough/shooter lane cliffy and broke one. I can get a pic but hopefully the description works.

I know it’s a pretty standard issue on the shooter lane ramp, but wanted to ask, does this look correct? I’ve circled an area that I thought I fixed. Initially, I was getting rejects up the shooter lane ramp, but that flap that is circled was in front (not tucked in behind). It was not secure anywhere and flapping around and with slow-mo video, that’s what seemed to be causing rejects up the ramp. So I tucked it back behind the ramp (how it is now) where I thought it belonged. I’m about 80% success up the ramp now on the auto launch. I’d sure, like to get to 100% though, and thought I’d start by seeing if how it is now is how it’s supposed to be.

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Interesting and thank you! When mine was on the outside, it was flapping around and disrupting the ball. Maybe it was bent out. Is there something that is meant to hold it back so it's not flopping around? It would seem to make sense so the ball isn't hitting that edge.

Thank you, I'm trying the washer under the left fork trick as well to try to level.

EDIT - that washer under the left fork changed everything. works perfect now.

slap/nudge the flipper its closest to. can usually nudge your way out of this situation, plenty of time to prepare as it's slowly coming off the "shelves".

I’d say when it’s in flipper range, choose the side that it’s closest to, and slap it so that the flipper activates at the same time as the nudge (from the slap) goes in that direction. Should be able to get enough rubber on it to keep it alive. All depends on the tilt settings as well, if no tilt just manhandle the machine over! The slap method seems to minimize the tilting as it’s quick. I’m not a pro by any means but nudging just comes with experience. I didn’t realize how much I did it it until I tried to play with a sprained wrist, hardly possible.

It’s not instant gratification, but I usually choose +5 rescues (carries more points throughout the game, maybe in bonus, as I understand), and then extra ball the next time.

Interesting stuck ball.

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