The spinners and the snake you relight by banging the closed jaw are both good differences in the premium, IMHO

I absolutely love my premium, but the snake head does reject a lot of balls. I don't recall any of the pro's I have played doing that.

How does it reject shots? You mean shots that don't make it all the way in? I call those "missed shots"

Hmm - that's too bad. I put the captive ball on my LE and its smooth as silk. Never had an airball from that shot.

Nah the snake mouth does tend to bounce out a lot of direct shots unless you tweak it a bit. I put some washers under the playfield to lower the snake mech by like a millimeter or so - and just that small change makes all the difference. The snake shots gobble right up and are very satisfying.

I added fangs and a tongue decal but haven't tweaked a thing. Solid shots stay in, weak ones that don't clear the tongue dribble out. I don't recall ever having a solid shot bounce back out even one time.

True, but on a pro those weak shots fall in.

Exactly. I shared that tip with smassa a few years ago. He said it made a big difference. Sounds like he probably shared it with a few other folks

A direct clean shot will almost always stay in the snake. What I see mostly is when you graze it off the captive ball to bank it in, it will go all the way into the snake head and bounce out. But that shot does work, but only about 25-50% of the time.

Here's a pretty good show of the new code on a premium. 486 million point game including a 231 million Fade to Black:

Good one

Great video. Super sticky flipper rubbers on there. Loved seeing the doubled ciu play

The captive ball isnt about being seen. It's about the way the shot works. It's pretty cool and fun to aim the captive ball ricochet into the snake or even up the left ramp. These are pretty easy intentional shots off the captive ball (at least into the snake). These things are few and far between with the block.

If you get air balls due to the magnet, I would adjust the magnet to be more level. Another option is to use the captive ball style where the ball is on a stick rather than the stern captive ball. That can be raised slightly by putting a couple washers on the ball before poking through the playfield. This would raise the center point to avoid air balls.

What adjustments do you guys make to the game? I'm looking at possibly making it easier to get to the CIU modes. I also don't seem to make it to blackend very often either. It would be nice to one day see eotl, but I doubt I'll get 4 CIU in one game.

You can adjust the number of items needed for each CIU and the picks needed for Blackened. You could also adjust the number of balls per game or set extra ball tiers. You could move the outlane posts in to decrease drains.

Set it up so you enjoy it-there's lots to see in the game

I tried to change the number of CIUs needed, but can't figure out which adjustment it is. Any idea?

It's the series of choices that say something like "Hits to Snake for CIU, Hits to Coffin for CIU" ...something like that, sorry the game's not nearby at the moment - but you'll see that each one has a factory setting of "15". Those are the ones to change.

Thanks!

Debating changing it to 10, but might throw off the entire balance of the game.

Try it, if you don't like it, change it back. IMO, it balances it quite well. It doesn't make CIU a gimme, but it makes them more common - which I think is important considering those are really the game's "modes" in a multiball heavy game.

Does 93 mb sound correct for file size

I think when I updated it was more like 136

It's 98.4MB

I prefer to make the extra ball rewards slightly easier, instead of easing the CIU rules. Lyman designed them that way for a reason, so I don't like to mess with any programmer's original intention. I keep the scoring rules default.

But if you ease the EB rewards, you still have to make the required shots plus the scoop shot to get the ball. So there's still skill involved in getting them, and there's no guarantee. And I set the max EB reward at 5 per game.

I lowered the replay EB reward from 20M to fixed at 10M, blown piston EB from 10 to 5, light EB special reward at 2 collected picks instead of 3, and coffin hit EB reward from 50 to 25.

With that said, I still have never made it to End of the Line. And my scoring rules are exactly as Lyman intended. The Extra balls are there for the taking if I can make my shots. Just gives me a better chance of getting to the wizard mode.

Technically you need 5 CIU to get to EoL.

I've said that to Tuna also and only use regular rubber on my games since trying them out and watching Tuna put up 500 Mil on mine Super bands are extra grippy.

Lord Lyman blessed us with 8 billion option settings. Had Lord Lyman wanted you to only play one specific way, he would not have given you free will over the settings. Is Lord Lyman testing us? Am I sinning by changing settings!?!?! Am I destined to pinball hell (EMs for eternity ) !?!?!

I tried to install the code today and I keep getting error 3 code. Sometimes it stops when it's most of the way through 1/2 and somtimes half way through 2/2. Not sure what's going on. Any ideas would be very welcome.

great stuff... Bye bye high scores and hello pinball browser.... Again

Try a different USB drive? Transfer speed or other variables may be in play.

First let it do a verification first. That will tell you if it's the USB drive or not. Otherwise you may have a bad flash sector and be screwed. I'd see what number it stops on. I have a board that always dies at 73mb. Has to go in for repair.

In addition make sure the usb drive is formatted in Fat32 not NTFS. I have seen some weird errors with NTFS formatted drives, not always but does happen.

Our league machine is set to 5 each, scores and ball times still fine. Don't be afraid to change them and try it out. Going back is simple.

Have people found new mystery special awards?

Thanks I'll try this on Monday when I get back

Hi all,
I updated the code in my machine but realized something must have changed from the previous code (1.70) for extra ball defaults. I never changed my machine defaults before and with the new update, I havent seen an extra ball. To be honest, I dont know how I was getting eta balls before? would have been the easiest setting as I ve seen new players get it lit in a game. Any help apprecaited!

most likely it is extra balls from hitting the coffin captive ball shot that you are referring to, i have not done the code update so i cant tell you if there are changes there but i do know mine started at two hits to get extra ball lit and has slowly creeped up from there to i believe it is 13 hits now to lite extra ball. i assume this is due to game setting and extra balls awarded vs. games played similar to the match percentage settings

Ah, thanks for that. Thats most likely it. I'll check and see what the new default it.. (maybe I'm not hitting it enough). Ive probably only played 30 games on the new code.

So I'm trying to update code and every time I insert a USB drive the machine starts resetting over and over. I've tried multiple USB drives. Anybody know why this is happening?

If anyone is willing, I am not good at tech stuff and wanted to swap 3 songs on the new code. PM if you'd be willing to swap the songs out for me.

FYI I talked with Lyman at pinburgh about using the arrow RGB inserts to indicate when the spinners are lit for 100k and he is going to do it.

Great
...there go all my high scores again!

Cheap USB drives? Formatted NTFS instead of FAT?

no, I picked up a few new sandisk drives different sizes and speeds. All formatted FAT, tried from both mac and pc
Need to call Stern back on it, maybe nobody else had the issue

So another update is coming? Sweet!

If anybody can talk to Lyman if possible Tron pro is missing callouts for super spinners, super pops and double scoring which the LE has.

It's hard enough to tell as is with the tiny time bars.

image_(resized).jpeg

Sandisk has a serious problem with counterfeits that do weird things. Did you try any other brands?

I seem to recall someone had a similar issue and it was because an e-prom had a bent leg.

Rob

Should have asked about ACDC code too while you were at it...

Rob

no, I'll try that