Awesome!

The gentlemen that maintains his machines on location here use a sheared off post from an old game, wrapped it with some foam, and installed it in the same spot but this seems to be better and I will pass the photos along.

There have been a bunch of coil fan designs, this one is my favorite:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/3d-printing-sharing-thread-lets-better-the-hobby/page/43#post-6914766

So I got my game Thursday, setup and working. Figure I give my 3-day weekend review.

My initial impression on day 1 (Thursday) was this game is awesome. I mean, it’s NIB, what NIB game Isn’t awesome (don’t answer that lol). Friday night + Saturday morning rolled around, approx 25 or so plays in, and I was a little miffed in total regret, what did I buy? How is this game a top 20? All the things people complain about this game was echoing in my head and seemed true. It was boring, the direction of rules was non-intuitive, and I was about ready to put it on the chopping block. Complete buyers remorse.

That Saturday as I moped around spending some quality family time, I took a peek here and there at the rules on tilt forums. That night things really started to click, and holy shit did it click. By Sunday, I was hooked and couldn’t stop playing - pissed my wife off for sure lol. The shots, combos, rules, strategies, it’s all coming together in a big way. The sound effects and light show in the game is intense, The soulless complaints no longer make sense, I was engulfed in the avengers universe and just want to keep peeling the onion.

The initial rules on the surface are quite easy. The gems, computer grid, and direction of rules in the latter stages of the game is where it gets confusing - not even complex, just confusing. This is a very fun layout on multiball, good thing too, cause this game is heavy on the multiball - not a bad thing, but cracks me up how GNR gets a bad wrap for being multiball heavy and modern sterns like this fly pass the radar in that regards. All in all, this game is hitting on all cylinders at the moment - I am in the honeymoon phase, but 75 games in, just wanted to post my experience. Hoping this game has legs long term.

Had it about 2 weeks or so now. Love it, but sometimes frustrates the crap out of me. When you're beating Proxima or Corvus (the harder of the bosses IMO) to death, and they have a sliver of life and you have all yours - and then you get that random bounce and drain.... ARGGGHHHH it seems so wrong and stupid. I mean what's the real equivalent of this? Captain America slips on a banana peel?

But I think I've spotted a bug in this newest code version - has anyone else noticed that you can get level up / get to Level 1 etc with some characters sometimes and when you get the Soul Gem true-up point bonus, it only tallies up those characters "collected".

Has this happened to any of you?

If you drain, all Avengers that are collected or higher become collected so that you lose all the bonus. But the shots to move to L1 remain the same as the shots to the next level they were progressing to. So if say BW was L1 and was 1 shot from L2 and you drain, BW is now collected but 1 shot from L1.

How is it heavy on the multiball? You have 2 ball Thor and then 3 ball Iron Man, and then nothing until Black Order (if you even get there). Most casual players will only probably get to Thor anyways

Ball locks make every gem mode a multi-ball.

I find that multiball is sometimes a strategic negative. When you have to hit specific shots, having Iron Man multiball going on can make that quite difficult. When possible, I try to go into boss gem battles with the locks ready for multiball if I can though. If multiball is on while I'm ending a boss battle, it makes it much harder for that nightmare scenario I described in my prior post "When you're beating Proxima or Corvus (the harder of the bosses IMO) to death, and they have a sliver of life and you have all yours - and then you get that random bounce and drain..."

Just a quick update. Stern returned my email immediately regarding the flippers going dead issue. They thought there might be a short in one of the light mods I installed and asked me to unplug them all. So I did. Great news, the flippers haven’t gone dead in 4 games. Now I just have to figure out what mod is causing short. I’m starting to plug things in again slowly.

I bent mine forward as much as I could but I was still getting airballs from time to time. Ever since I made this deflector I’ve had zero airballs.

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Any thoughts on this issue I’m having with 2 LEDs staying green when they should be off?

I wanted to close this issue out. It appears one of the alligator clips on a light mod was to close to the socket itself and causing a short. Once I changed to another socket everything started working as it should.

And thats why we always advise against using alligator clips! Just solder it on

I've had a few requests for more info and a write up on how I do my DIY flipper coil fans. I'm hoping to have something put together this weekend or next and will post a link in a few groups of the machines that I have done it on.

Bet ya can't beat this:

avengers soul gem 267m (resized).jpg

That's not a Soul Gem Jackpot, that's the Soul Gem Quest. 267,750,000.

Hard mode of course. The linchpin was the second-to-last shot, on Captain Marvel, at 5x from Binary hurryups and holding the Reality Gem. 1,750,000 base value, x10 for hard mode, x5 for Binary, x2 for Reality Gem, comes to 175,000,000.

You know how Rush teases you with the "100x scoring" that's never awarded? Avengers actually has that, for this one shot. 10 x 5 x 2 multipliers on this shot = 100x.

The only ways to beat that 267M would be more remaining flips, or more level-2 avengers to double some of the early shots for a few million more, or Space Gem shenanigans (start with Reality on Widow to double that shot, then move it to Capt Marvel.)

This happened on the second loop of the game - after battling Thanos, complete all avengers again (a fourth time total) and you play Soul Gem again. It would be quite a task to get Binarys up to x5 before playing Soul Gem the first time.

avengers binary 196m (resized).jpg

Also got this Binary champion - different game, same setup, x5 for Binary and x2 for Reality Gem. The first shot was 16m and the second was 180m. I'm not quite sure what the math was there - I think it was 8M base doubled by L2 Black Widow, then 9M base x2 (for being the second shot of the hurryup) x5 (Binary) x2 (Reality Gem).

Great Scores! AIQ is so much FUN!

Looks like I have gotten the exact same score for Soul Gem! I think the same setup as well... after already defeating Thanos and a boosted Captain Marvel.
(I'm not sure how to place the pics inline between the text here on Pinside)

I have broken 200M a few times for the Binary Champion!

Here's a video of my best recorded Hard mode Soul Gem with 27 Flips to spare.

IMG_1083 (resized).JPGIMG_1085 (resized).JPG

Here's my 'cleanest' recorded Soul Gem quest (And a little lucky )... regular mode with No Mind Gems... 76 Flips to spare!

Do you guys make it to battle thanos often? I’m finding this game isn’t as hard as I thought it would be; in fact the rules are becoming quite easy to follow (still need to learn computer grid stuff). I don’t think it being easy is a bad thing, just means I get to set it up harder

Can someone else take a picture of where the ball launch blends into the black panther ramp up close. I think my piece of metal that kinda blends the 2 ramps together is bent incorrectly as it sticks out and often the auto launch bounces of that piece . Thanks in advance guys

Thanks bud

Fairly often...

I can still have a bad game of course, but I do find I have a 'good game' on AIQ more often than not.

I find AIQ is one of those games I can 'get in the zone' on more so than a lot of other pins. I love the shots and flow and once I understood the basics of the rules and then from there learned the intricacies and nuances, I just got better and better.

I do tend to play my newest game in my lineup the most, which currently is Godzilla, so haven't been playing AIQ as much lately. Last weekend I played a game on AIQ and it wasn't going great as I was on my last ball at just over 100 million... and I was thinking, "Dang, I've gotten rusty", and then I got my groove going and ended up ending just before Battle Thanos with a little over 2 Billion. Of course I did get some Extra Balls along the way.

Just got my premium today (decidedto pull the trigger as I liked it so much on location). The shots all combo so well together with each other. Such a fun fun game to play, and yet each game plays differently. Super pleased to be in the club.

I feel like Battle Thanos is a reasonable goal to aim for on a pretty good game. The additional challenge is getting Trophy Mania and if that is too easy, enable the Hard Trophy setting and then do it.

It’s less about getting to the end, and more about maximizing your gem quests or whatever they are called.

Kinda like how In GNR the multiball modes build the album level, complete combos for portal locks, each lock increases the gem mode multiplier. Of course, the more locks you go for the riskier. I try and have at least one portal lock before starting the gem quest.

I've gotten there about 8 times in about 400 games total. Half with all six gems for the auto-win, half battling him normally.

Portal locks are absolutely the most important thing you can do to make the game less hard. Get at least one for every quest, unless Thor or Iron Man MB is ready to go instead. Although it's even better to stack a portal MB into Iron Man or Thor. More balls at once makes for a self-sustaining effect, where you're likely to get one or both add-a-balls, which refreshes the ball saver each time, plus also more random bashes of the drop targets to keep making progress there.

I also found that it's more important to collect Avengers than to play the gem quests. Battle Royale is always the longer task than the gems. I've never yet had a gem quest still left over after playing BR. If you're close to an Avengers Assembled mode, go for the shots to finish that over the next gem quest. It's always better to clear out and reset the Avengers, so that you can make progress towards the next set with whatever you're doing next.

I also found that Power Gem is the most important gem to have and do first, since it makes the most progress towards collecting Avengers, and to getting level 2 Avengers for the trophies towards Trophy Mania. Get it before Soul Gem so you can carry over one avenger then, then change gems to help collect another one, who then gets carried over after Black Order MB. I like to put it on Hulk first, since he'll get enough spinner spins eventually to reach level 2, then change it to Panther to get carried over after Black Order MB, since his shot is the least likely to make progress from random activity.

I still wouldn't call the game easy by any means, but it's incredibly skill-rewarding, both for strategic planning and physical execution. All the extra balls do soften the difficulty significantly. There's a self-sustaining effect there too: get the first couple EBs (target completions and 8 trophies) and that will make you last longer to the rest of the EBs (computer grid, 12 Marvel ramps, 50 combos, second Hawkeye Challenge.)

I still hate Thanos Attacks and just work around it: select the Soul Gem on purpose and just time it out to avoid losing a ball, counting on reclaiming the Soul Gem in Black Order MB or BR. This plan does give up any Soul Gem Jackpots, but that's tolerable.

The scoring is all about getting to the end. It's a billion if you get all six gems, or still 400M or so from the battle itself plus super victory laps. And Battle Royale, Computer Frenzy, and Trophy Mania all each score in the hundreds of millions too. The points from the gem quests are peanuts compared to that. Portal locks are critical for making each quest a multiball, not really directly for the points.

The quest multiplier does matter if you're chasing replays on location or trying to top someone else in a tournament, but if you're chasing high scores on a home game, the end modes are the only way to get up into multiple billions.

That's amazing! I did say I bet ya couldn't *beat* mine

First drag it into the box to upload, then there will be an "insert into post" button at the bottom left of that area. It will insert some bracketed text that will be converted into displaying the image.

Haha, that's true! I was looking at the pics of various scores on my phone at work and I'm like "No way! Exact same score!"

Thanks! I'll give it a try next time!

Sounds like our approaches and strategies are very similar.

And I'm also never "happy" to get to Thanos Attacks! Sometimes I'm setting up the next gem quest, have a couple balls locked, Iron Man/Thor multiball at the ready and then I forget and it's Thanos Attacks... Damn it!

I just have a hard time bringing myself to trap up and purposely lose a gem.

The few times I've tried to see if I could maximize that strategy, I would purposely lose Reality gem since it's generally the easiest gem to win and one of the highest scoring quests.

On the other side, if you have several gems and can win Thanos Attacks, it can be pretty lucrative and pump you up! Super Victory laps can also get big, especially with a boosted Captain Marvel! Same for regular victory laps after a successful gem quest with portal lock multiball still going.

I've searched but can't quite find what i'm looking for. maybe one of yall can help me.

At the end of Battle Royale, should I get basically a power cut to where I can't stop the ball drain? At the end of the stand alone challenge mode, it makes sense. But in game it does it also and that is really annoying.

If you win Battle Royale, yes, the flippers cut and drain the ball. You will get a new ball served to the shooter lane after the victory animations. You don't lose a ball.

If you lose Battle Royale, there is no cut, the game immediately switches back to normal play.

Node board fried pop bumper coil fried

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Yikes! That sucks.

Yeah first stern to break down on me im bummed but sht happens hopefully ill have her up and running by next week parts already orderd

So had my best game to date last night. Beat Thanos with 6 gems in the bank. Made it to computer frenzy (though I choked and didn’t last long), and also got trophy mania. I did get like 5 extra balls lol, I may tone those down in the settings. The highlight was my 9 yo son walking in to watch me just as I was blowing it up; he had me literally ROFL’ing when I got 6 balls in play and he yells, “The Legend of Bobby Alls is real!!” (It’s our inside joke character we created, ie code word for B.Alls. Lol!

Strategy talk; my gameplan was reality gem on computer grid most the game (in effort to get computer grid frenzy), but swapped it back and forth with the power gem. Plan executed surprisingly well!

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I've had a few requests to make a new topic post on my DIY flipper coil fans... finally got around to starting it:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/diy-pinball-flipper-coil-fans

ah, Thank you! the couple times I've won in game I had extra balls and wasn't able to tell if I was getting robbed by a glitch or not.

The one yesterday, I also thought it glitched on me because I had the 6 gems (first time at this point in game without having lost one to Thanos). Then it skipped the Thanos Battle and all of a sudden I had an extra billion points. Was about to just reset my scores in my machine before I decided to double check all this.

I honestly wish there was still a Thanos battle and not just skipping it for the billion. Kind of felt like it cheapened my score.

I've never had to bump a machine so much to avoid the outlanes. I love the layout and shots on this machine, but the loop ramp and those outlane drains are such a pain.

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Pretty good start to my pinball playing day with one game each on Deadpool and AIQ!

Neither anywhere near my high scores, but always fun to break a billion on each. Taking a quick break and then on to Godzilla!
awesome1 AIQ Deadpool 6-5-2022 (resized).jpg

My average score on AIQ is a little inflated I guess because I had already had the game for over a year before Insider Connected was released... so my learning curve games are not included. Still haven't beaten my highest score on either since I put IC on both.
awesome1 AIQ Insider Connected 6-5-2022 (resized).jpg

To add to this, use a 5/16 wrench to get the bottom nuts off the gauntlet bracket and find something to set the backboard on.

Posting a quick update for AIQ owners, Dr. Strange Disc mod is now back in stock for any who are interested in getting one. Apologize to those who had placed an order and had to wait a few days before I shipped.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1341-precision-pinball-prod/05285-dr-strange-disc-mod-kit

Thanks!

My apologies for not knowing what these items are called. I have scoured the forum for anyone else having this issue, but not sure what words to search for. I have a new AIQ Limited. Right out of the box, the ball that travels under the playfield and is ejected to the right carrier comes out so hard that is bounces back below the playing field and the cycle continues. Whatever motor mechanism that launches the ball from below the playing field to the metal ball carrier on the right side (when the yellow LED flashes) randomly will bounce back and forth, up to 8 times before it stays on the metal guide and falls to the right flipper, or flies somewhere else on the playing field. I have never seen an AIQ machine to do this and I have played a few. I can try to load a video of it, but essentially it looks like the ball is being ejected so hard that is bounces back below, launches again, and back below, over and over. Sometimes it never does it, other times its a few times before it sticks above. Sometimes it comes out so hard it launches rogue onto the playing field. I can't figure out where the issue is. I estimate over 50% of the time the ball does not travel to the right flipper as intended. Thanks for any advice. Photo attached of what area I am talking about.

AIQ (resized).jpg

That's a 'Vertical Up Kicker' of VUK for short. The ball travels under the playfield in the 'Subway'

But wow, haven't heard of that one. I'm wondering if the wrong coil was installed from the factory? Unless there is aenu setting for that coil strength that would be where I would look first

If not then a bad node is suspected and you should contact Stern.

I had that issue with mine i Turned down the power for the vuk coil. I had to play around with the power settings to find what power to get it to work properly

I’d first try turning down the power to the VUK. Go into menu/ADJ/GAME and go to Feature Adjustment #214 (Subway VUK Power) and turn it down. Try turning it down until it works. If you can’t get it to work by turning down the power then maybe post a video. Could be that the next thing to try would be adjusting the alignment of the wireform.

Hey guys back again with an update for my flipper power loss issue. Stern still does not have an idea but I have at least got to a repeatable section of the game when it happens.

The latest instructions from stern were to remove the pinstadium, so I unhooked it and unplugged it but it is still physically in position. And disconnect CN15 from Node 8 which disables the lower GI on the playfield. I have both of these performed on the video below.

The flippers still die every game during the startup thanos cutscene. And they die every time I hit the extra ball animation but it seems to be for longer during a thor multiball.

I responded to stern tonight letting them know their ideas didn't work but I am wondering if anyone else on here has any ideas of what to try next.

Previously, my flippers were dying when my Pinstadium UV flashers were plugged into the Hulk flasher. Once I changed flashers to the tower, it fixed the problem. Let me know if this works for you. If so, we should pass it up the chain.

Yes i just physically disconnected the UV flasher and Green Orion connection and the flipper power loss has been resoved in both instances.

I figured that if the pinstadium was unplugged and not using power the connection wouldnt matter. but it seems that it does.

I wonder if it will work if I leave the green connected to the hulk flasher and just move the UV to the tower like you suggested.

I am going to give it a shot.

Thanks a ton for your suggestion.

*EDIT*

Everything does work with the UV and RED connected to the tower and the Green still connected to the HULK

These were the recommended connection locations from the Pinstadium forum. It seems they should update their recommendations to make sure nobody connects the UV flasher to the hulk flasher. I feel like a total jackwagon bringing this up to Stern when it was a Mod induced fault all along.

Thanks again for your suggestion. Now i cant blame the flipper power loss as a reason for my poor game performance lol

Anyone interested in a (new) Playfield protector and (new) set of Plastic protectors for Avengers Premium? $75 shipped (contiguous US only). PM me if interested. Thanks!