I think you'll disagree about integration once you get it working. It's kind of important from a rules perspective in for example... Crane multiball. The way itgrabs the ball and throws it at you and has to be bashed to finish the mode are pretty important. Also the Cat Burglar mode it holds the ball until you complete enough of the mode and then it turns it into a 2-ball multiball. I'll grant you that one is more of a "cool effect" than really super-integrated into the mode, but it's a great way to start the multiball part of the mode.

My crane worked long enough for me to experience how it integrates. You don't need to play either police or crane multiballs to finish the game and collect all the gems, for example. They're gimmicks for people who miss their shots regularly enough to hit those targets or collect the cash on the screen.

You can complete cat burglar without the ball on the crane as well and still get two balls via a VUK once you get to phase 2.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. No game I've played has *every* mode all tied into the final wizard mode like that. Just from my collection, Monster Bash doesn't require Mosh Pit multiball to qualify Monsters of Rock, Halloween doesn't require the Judith/Tombstone mode to get to the final wizard mode, Godzilla has like 10 multiballs that aren't required for the final wizard mode. Anyway, the fact that you can complete modes and the game without the crane aren't a demonstration of how the crane "isn't required" so much as a testament to Multimorphic's being responsible with their code so the game isn't a paperweight if there's an issue. The game is playable, but most certainly less fun without the crane. Same as any game where a mech isn't working -

I wasn't really referring any of those other games or wizard modes, and I agree that the BFH is fun, but that has nothing to do with the mech. And if you want to go down that road, I can point out why you have to do all those things on Godzilla if you really want to have a rules dissertation discussion. Again, not the point. You're welcome to your opinion and I provided a dissenting one, I don't see the issue.

We got back from TPF late Sunday evening and started Monday morning with a group meeting with our Heist assembly and QA folks about the issues people were discussing here last weekend. Sorry I couldn't engage more online. When we're at a show, I spend every minute I can in the booth. The show closes late, and then we're back in the booth early to clean and tweak anything needing attention.

Each time I saw the new post count on these threads, I was hoping there'd be a good discussion about Final Resistance and experiences with Scott, Bowen, and the rest of the Multimorphic team at the show. Given the excitement people expressed for the games at the show and the growing enthusiasm for the P3 in general, I was disappointed to see it mostly being about issues with recent Heist shipments. Definitely a weekend of highs and lows!

The feedback at the show by people playing Final Resistance was absolutely incredible. Existing P3 owners seemed to love it, as did fans of more traditional pinball games. The use of mostly static imagery and inserts on the playfield LCD seemed to connect with a bunch of people who had previously ignored the platform. The venue was loud, but it was fun to watch people playing FR and jamming out to the Scott's music (the speaker tubes on the P3 focus the sound towards the player), and reactions to the cannon and yagov firing balls back at the player were entertaining... every time. Ball times were generally low... it's a fast game with the ball rebounding back at you quickly. So the line moved quickly and still stayed full the entire show.

Thank you to everybody who came out and chatted with us at the show. My favorite part is always catching up with all of you.

I hope I've built a solid reputation of honesty and ethics. We're far from a perfect company, and we have many areas where we can improve, but the one thing you need not question is whether or not what I say is true. Everybody probably knows by now that my background is engineering, not sales/marketing. Facts and logic drive me, and hearing other business owners lie to customers to save face drives me nuts, especially when it works!

Appreciate the sentiment, but our packing materials need to handle some amount of abuse in shipping. While Ace Ventura-like handling should result in a warranty claim, ignoring the "This way up" box labels and shipping a package upside down with something heavy on top of it shouldn't result in significant damage. That it has recently is our fault, and we're looking into what changed.

After a long period of very few shipping issues with Heist, we've had two separate batches of issues recently:

1) A couple of weeks ago, a few people received Heists with servo linkages being disconnected. We fully understand why, and we've addressed this. We use loc-tite in assembly, but if a QA person found and fixed a problem, they weren't always re-adding loc-tite to the new or replaced screw. So it would test fine and then rattle loose in shipping. They now know better.

2) Some playfields in the batch of Heists received late last week suffered a lot more shipping damage than normal. Based on pics and such from each customer, it looks like the foams were installed and used properly. Every box showed varying degrees of damage. The suspicion is that they were all handled roughly by one person either when picked up or at the local depot. One had a couple of crushed corners. Another looks to have an indent on one whole face, suggesting it road face down with something heavy on top of it. Others had varying degrees of creases and dents. In most of these cases, good packing material should have kept the playfield safe. That's on us, and we're looking into why the material didn't hold up / do its job and what we need to change.

It pains me more than I can express that the discussion this week is more about quality and shipping issues than the amazing new game we just released. That said, nobody will enjoy any new game if we can't build and ship it reliably... so now that we're back from TPF, you know what's high on our priority list... making sure help everybody get their games running (or shipped back so we can repair them here) and getting the game kit packing problems identified so we can resolve them too.

<catching up on the latest posts>

As for the crane being well integrated into the rules... that's debatable. The crane actually represents a bunch of different things in the game. It's a construction crane in crane MB. It's a hoist in Cat Burglar. It's a detonator in DemoMan. It's a helicopter in Wheelman-BFH. As those things in those modes, it's pretty well integrated. It's also super cool and delivers more action closer to the player than most things in most games... P3 or not.

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.com

Yeah, it’s very integrated as you get further in the game. I assume folks that have the thoughts it’s not havent gotten very deep into the game. The one mode mr big was trying to block my shots with it. It wasn’t Until I started getting deeper into the code the more I thought how amazing the crane was. Way better than slimmer or batman 66

I've literally played through the whole game in my first day of ownership, so it's not a position of ignorance. Opinions are opinions and I've already said my opinion comes from the depth of the rules related to the mech and not the gimmicks around it. I agree with Gerry that all of those are awesome features and never said they weren't...they help create the world you're playing in, something else I noted in my original post. We can feel free to move on.

I’m personally really, really enjoying reading your posts so gosh darn it I hope you don’t move on too fast.

Great post Gerry. I will say that the static lower playfield is really helping me bridge the gap from traditional pinball to the P3. And this is coming from someone that thinks virtual pinball (played with NO actual physical elements) is actually a decent complement to real pinball so I was half way to P3 anyways. I just prefer a more grounded look to flippers floating over full motion video in the bottom third.

Dang, first day and you’ve played all the jewel heists and the Wizard mode? Even saving my progression, it took some time to see and complete the wizard mode.

I *STILL* can't finish the wizard mode, even with save states! (granted, Weird Al is currently camping out in my P3, but still!)

Heist is currently in my machine and Heist is *awesome*! It is simple to pick up, but there is so much more game there than you might first expect. goldpins is the mastermind who implemented all those rules. Is it mastermind or hacker? I guess it depends if he's figured out a way to code games by spinner rips...

Just threw heist back in yesterday... DANG. so much harder than I always remember. When you start a person, then try to finish and get a mcguffin it is SO HARD to hit shots lol.

I find the shots to be quite easy comparatively, which I think lends to some of the ease with the game in general. I still haven't collected all of the jewels in one game (haven't gotten the 5 person Heist finished yet in a game with the others done) but have completed the others and collected all the macguffins and finished BFH in one game.

I did turn up the code difficulty after that to make it more difficult to start modes, do jailbreaks, etc, just to prolong the game a bit.

For BFH having all the macguffins is such a help. You can generally ignore the dangerous stuff in the middle of the playfield and just take controlled shots most of the time.

I still enjoy the game with the harder difficulty in place though, I just haven't been able to play it for a few weeks.

We were kind of speaking to this in the Discord group. I also having seen much of the game, think it would be incredible to add some leaderboard and achievements to track at the end of the game. Having only the highscores listed is really limiting and kinda diminishes your pursuit of other goals. There are so many things they could track as achievements in this game.

Most armored cars robbed in one game
Most Crane cash in one game
Longest Combo
Most crane hits in sidejob
Most loop hoots in crane sidejob
Most jewels in a single game
fastest time for ruby heist
Fastest time to earn all 5 characters
Largest Crane Multiball score
.....Police Multiball score...
and more and more and more

This, for me, would add alot of longevity and competition to the players in my home. Sometimes you have a great game and blow up the score and the no one in the house or friends group is going to chase it, but they can get other achievements and get there name on the board in other ways.

I hope we can add that in the future.

I don't have any of the mini-games, but for I don't recall much video action happening around/under the flippers and slings.

Maybe the scrolling cityscape in Heist...

- Mark

I think this is another episode of "Gerry Can't Win": I never said anything about it, but I remember thinking that the amount of stuff being tracked in Lexi was a bit much. They trimmed it back for Heist, and some folks want more.

- Mark

Well, Gerry reached out and offered to pay for shipping on my NIB Heist module that had numerous issues to have it shipped back to Multimorphic, fixed and returned so I shipped it out yesterday. Thanks Gerry!

Put Weird Al back in to enjoy some games.

Had some issues with my Camera lock not lining up properly to accept balls that TJ helped me through.

I plugged Weird Al back in this morning and the Hampster lock stopped working half way through a game. Took it apart and discovered the 3-d printed part there was broken controlling it. I have requested a new part and have it hot glued together in the mean time so can sort of play it. I noticed some cracks in the 3-d printed parts connected to the servos and went ahead and requested a few replacement. Multimorphic support is great but I'm worried about the long term viability of this game if these are breaking after less than 200 plays. Still planning on bringing it to Allentown freeplay even if it's duck-taped together by then as its a great game.

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Does anyone know if the side rails are WPC? I know the lockdown bar is. I’m thinking about chroming the side rails, legs, and lockdown bar.

This morning, after giving yesterday's hot glue repair of 3d printed plastic parts enough time to dry (while I wait on replacements) I got in a game of Weird Al, or at least I tried to. My right orbit is now not registering balls so I can't complete most modes. On top of that, it appears to be registering balls in test but not in the game so I'm not sure where to start. Ticket uploaded to Multimorphic support now that their website is back up.

Edited as their support website is now back up and running.

Not sure why the site was down, but appears to be up now.

Regardless, the orbit likely has at least two switches to register the orbit shot in game (start orbit/complete orbit -maybe a center switch to ensure it's still on the right path). Make sure you are testing both/all switches in path.

TPF APPRECIATION POST!

I was at TPF and spent most of my time at the P3 booth. Played all the game and I was on the Sorcerer's Apprentice game for a long time. After ball 3, I would look behind to see if anyone was waiting, if not, start another game. If that's not good etiquette forgive me, it was my first TPF.

It was so cool to see everyone that I have seen on streams in person and ask all the questions. At first I was too intimidated to talk to Gerry, so I bothered B.J. and T.J. and they were super nice and helpful.
Later I was in line to play a game (I think Pulp Fiction) and noticed a guy in a P3 shirt and had a really nice long conversation, later found out it was Colin. LOL.
Finally did talk to Gerry at length (I wasn't really intimidated, but more of a "oh, he's the main guy and probably too busy to talk to me" inside my head). He was super nice and long story short, I came home with a t-shirt and a deposit on a new pin. Something I had NO INTENTION of doing, but playing is proof and I am super excited to see what comes in the future.

That's actually perfect show etiquette. As long as no one is in line behind you, play away!

Later,
EV

Bummer, hopefully it’s a quick fix. I am down to one open ticket…knock on wood. Hoping mine is quick too. The original fix wasn’t the answer

I hope it's quick too. When I get another working module in I should be able to play the other while waiting for parts when the one breaks. I'm still trying to bring mine to the Allentown Pinball show. Weird Al really is a great game worth sharing when its working.

Yeh, it’s awesome. I got my upper flipper for it on Saturday so actually got to play it a lot of games with the kids. I’m still waiting for that wire form that comes across. They unfortunately didn’t send me either with the module but the upper flipper is more important than the wire form as it still rolled to the right side off the upper playfield just not controlled obviously

Really a great game…probably one of my favs so far

As an update, got a note back from Multimorphic. Looks like its a software issue at the moment. Unlike with other companies, I can play a game tonight, send in logs from the machine when the issue occurs, and let them take a look a what the issue is. Still disappointed its broken again, but no other company can troubleshoot like Multimorphic.

Looks like I'll be getting replacement parts under warranty. Hopefully my hot glue fix works until then.

Wireform is neat and makes it much easier to get all the snacks you need for bologna mode. As to the upper flipper. Yeah it's needed for the hampster lock, but I think you can do most features without it. The only thing you can't 100% complete (to my knowledge) without it is the Amish Paradise mode or the drink from the firehose ball save.

If anyone is looking for just a Weird Al module (LE version), I'm picking up another P3 and don't need the extra module. Pm me if interested. I should have it Thursday and will list it in the Marketplace if its still available.

OK, as a card-carrying member of the "Waiting for my machine and module" club, I honestly do not understand your viewpoint, here. It's not that I don't understand what you're saying, sir; it's that I can't grasp why someone buying a brand-spanking-new *anything at all* wouldn't expect said thing to be plug-and-play, working flawlessly. If I buy a brand new car, refrigerator, computer, can of soup, ANYTHING AT ALL: if I'm buying it brand new, I expect said thing to arrive to me in fully working, absolutely pristine, ready-to-work shape, in all facets.

It's not like I've negotiated a lower price and I'm cutting corners, here. I expect a level of quality control to be, yes: very, very high. Immaculate. 100%. Now, obviously, when there's apparent shipping damage, that expectation is not going to be realistic, but then, the appearance of the thing would be kind of a giveaway, now wouldn't it? Life is unkind, and it's not necessarily the fault of the manufacturer that a shipping company plowed a fork from a forklift through the shipping box. Having said that, it *is* incumbent upon them to make said shipping container relatively stable and able to support said product during a routine shipping process. If the box of said new product doesn't appear to have been through the war, why shouldn't the buyer expect said product to be basically flawless, more or less?

I *do* expect my brand new machine to be plug in, set up, and start playing, more or less. Within reason, that needs to be what they're providing.

While I understand your expectation; you must not be in the hobby long.
Rarely does ANY game come 100% working; All require adjustments and maybe some parts from the vendor to get to 100%.
Doesn't make it right; but your expectations seem a little skewed from reality. Maybe this isn't the hobby for you.

If I'm not mistaken, Boagman is an old timer from the RGP days.

…and that’s what any ethical company strives for. Thing is, pinball isn’t a can of soup. It’s a multifaceted kinetic machine mounted in a plywood box filled with hundreds of connected wires and many delicate hand-tooled and tightened moving parts… without big corporate budgets and automation running behind the scenes.

Expecting a Lexus level of turnkey reliability from day one from a specialized boutique product just because “it’s new” is unrealistic at best. Unless, of course, you’d prefer to pay a larger multiple of the purchase price… which the market currently will not support.

“A pinball owner is a pinball maintainer.”

Yes, even new ones.

Adjustments are completely different than a game that is basically unplayable due to major issues. I’ve bought probably 30 nib in my pinball life and know many people who have bought way more. Rarely is there any that are unplayable. There has been a few here in the past couple weeks that are unplayable from multimorphic. Spooky had similar issues over the years but it’s been less. Stern and jjp there is even less noise of unplayable pin at a much higher volume . It’s definitely something they need to make sure doesn’t get out of hand with the new growth. I love my P3 and will continue to support them through the growth

I found this post while searching P3 freight, P3 shipping, etc. I scrolled down a page or so from this post and didn't see an answer from anyone in the US. To the international folks who chimed in, my condolences!

Since paulbaptiste asked, and I'm asking, it must be a FAQ, at least among people named Paul otherwise I would just ask this question via pm: paulbaptiste I see you got your P3 with Weird Al a few weeks back, do you mind sharing what you were charged for shipping from TX to IL?

Anyone else in the US want to comment what your shipping charges were?

I paid $650 for the game to ship. I ordered a Weird Al and three modules. I have since received one playfield via UPS and was not charged for that shipment. I’m guessing the remaining 2 modules will be the same.

There was a seminar on pinball shipping at TPF. https://shipmypinball.com/

I paid a little over $600 in shipping for Weird Al and the main P3 cab (Also ordered Heist and Cannon at the same time). When Heist shipped last month, I did not get charged and today I got a UPS notice for the Cannon Lagoon shipping with no additional shipping charges as well. Considering how much beef those three shipments are, that seems very reasonable.

In Maryland here. I can't find the line item invoice but I want to say it was between 600 and 800 to have the Base Weird Al LE, Heist, and CCr shipped here. I'm still waiting on CCr, and the Heist I received got shipped back to them due to shipping damages after opening, but I have not been charged extra for shipping on anything outside the original order. That includes parts under warranty and return shipping of damaged items. They've been great about it.

I would say that you are incorrect on that point. To your credit, though, I'll say this: I've only ever bought one NIB machine before (WPT by Stern, and yes: 100% right out of the box, though I eventually had to do the drop target fix recommended in the service bulletin, naturally). While I'm old/wise enough to know better than to honestly expect perfection, it should be absolutely strived for, and not just shoulder-shrugged away, especially when we're talking about the kind of money that we are.

There's another expectation I have regarding this purchase, too, though: when I did my research for this purchase, part of it involved going to a fellow Pinsider's house locally, who owns/ed one, along with every available module up through Heist (at that time...I do not know if he's purchased more since then, or if he's sold it completely). His machine was one of the first ones, if I remember correctly, and I basically put it through the wringer when I visited. We changed modules. We pulled the glass. We pulled the flipper assembly. We opened up the machine for service. You get the gist...I didn't do a glossy, pie-in-the-sky, rose-colored-glasses-wearing fluff job...I put the entire thing through its paces, and did not just merely play Heist and fall in love.

No, I was *very* much taken with said Pinsider's take on the build quality of his P3, and I'll quote him here: "It's built like a brick shit house."

And it *was*. It was a bad boy of rock-and-roll to these eyes, ears and hands. I could comfortably and pretty confidently use the phrase "possibly over-engineered". I was suitably im-freaking-pressed by how well that machine and those modules were put together, inside and out. It worked fantastically, and it *feels* like it could withstand a hurricane. As well, it was honestly pretty hard to think about how one could do damage to it IF ONE WAS ABLE TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AS WRITTEN!!!!

So, when I see stuff like this, and hear others pipe up with "Nothing ever works straight out of the box...", I honestly have to wonder why that is. To me, it does not seem like an unrealistic expectation, based on the research I did. If anything, that attitude completely excuses laziness and mediocrity. I should hope that my faith (not to mention my financial investment) in Gerry & Co. will not come to be seen as unwarranted. But yes: I'm expecting a pretty clean experience with this purchase, and do not see why I should have to change that expectation.

I want my new, shiny, boxed thing to work perfectly. That doesn't seem to me to be unrealistic.

Correct. But in his favor, this is only my second NIB purchase.

The base P3 is built like a tank... not like Galactic Tank Force, but everything is physically overbuilt and modular. I'm convinced the wood they are using is thicker. The inner brace on mine was physically damaged in shipping, but something weird had to have happened in shipping for that to occur. The part that lifts out is pretty much a welded steel frame with modular replaceable parts in it.

The module is also fairly well built, with the electric servos and 3d printed parts being the only suspect parts. My servos have been solid, and look to be user replaceable and a faily common part so long term I'm not too worried about those. There are a few 3d printed parts under the playfield, particularly the parts controlling the ramps that seem to be touch point moving parts. Once of my parts broke (a replacement is in the mail) and the other has cracks. It appears I can just glue them back together and they work fine, so thats at least repairable.

There are a lot of optos in this and I've had 1 for sure, possibly 2 go bad in the module itself. I think one was bad from the factory and I received and installed a replacement, and the other one which is preventing right orbit shots from registering is currently being troubleshot. We thought it was software at first but it has been narrowed down to an opto and I'm working with support to get that fixed/replaced.

What’s the typical response time for issues people are seeing? At first it was tpf why there were delays in responding but now it’s not any better. It’s been since Friday since their last reply but all last week I barely got a response. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the wonderful folks on discord to help me through all these issues and me spending numerous hours working on it I would never be as close as I am to figuring it out

To be clear, you're talking about the fuse-blowing issue on the old CCR playfield you bought used, right? To isolate a bad circuit or device on a playfield, if there isn't an obvious issue with a specific device, you can disconnect all devices on the bank and make sure things power up without blowing the fuse. Then reconnect each device one by one until you encounter the problem again. Then you'll know which device is the offending one. Could be a pinched or disconnected wire, a shorted coil, or something else that's easy to figure out once the device is isolated.

If you'd rather send it back to us for repairs, that's fine too. Since the playfield is more than two years old, it's no longer under warranty, but we'd handle the labor for free and just ask you to cover shipping and any new parts required.

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.com

Hi, yes, the used one. We isolated to the inlane pop up coil. It won’t blow a fuse until that’s plugged in. I put the new coil in and it blew the fuse still. That was my question back is what do I do now the new coil didn’t solve it? From what I am reading my next step would be to look at the wires to and from the coil to see if there is a pinched or exposed wire. It’s not a board issue and I don’t need to look at that? Just the wires, correct?

Did you swap in another board to rule out the PD-16? If the FET is blown, it'll activate the coil immediately upon 48V turning on but only when the device is connected, and that'll blow the fuse. All driver boards in the P3 and P3 games are the same. You can swap one in from a different playfield and see if the problem remains the same or changes. Just always double-check the dipswitches when swapping, and make sure they're set to whatever the board being replaced is set to (most playfields have them set identically, but occasionally a playfield will set dipswitch 8 on, depending on how it's used).

- Gerry
https://www.multimorphic.com

Nope but I will. That’s easy enough. I’ll snag the one from heist! That was my original thought but didn’t want to do it if it would be an issue

I switched the boards and it all worked!

So it must of been a board issue. I updated the ticket and asked TJ if there is a way to fix my bad one. Otherwise, I’ll just order a new one. The good news is we now have weird Al 100 percent and CCR so the family with have options over Easter while we wait for the board.

Thanks!

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That would be me!

I'm glad your joining the P3 Team.

With the engineering and process changes that I'm aware of (and many more I'm not aware of), I'm sure your P3 will be even better built than mine.

I hope your machine is delivered in the condition you expect. If it's not please understand that not all shipping damage is visible from the outside. Ex: A hard drop from a fork-lift.

- Mark

P.S. To follow-up on the new car analogy someone used above. One advantage cars have over pins is local dealerships who receive, inspect and repair the car before handing it over to the customer.

Glad to hear this! What I'm confused about is how this even happened in shipping. Did something get disconnected/reconnected?

Not sure, could have been the bad coil or he said if I disconnected the harness while on. I don’t remember doing that but who knows I guess. there was a wire disconnected from shipping. It was for the targets so I’d doubt that was it