Quoted from Flipstream:Officially a part of the club! My Premium arrived on Friday (Thanks Ken!) with a build stamp of Oct 13th. Some notes relating to various themes/issues from this post:
First, the playfield looks amazing. The print quality itself looks great (For non-screened), there is no post pooling, and I can't see any spots where rails or the apron are digging into the clear. There is some really minor dimpling after 40 games or so, but very acceptable and what I would expect. In other words, the dimples are significantly shallower than my JP table. The clear isn't very thick, but not as thin as JP where I can see and feel every insert and layered print edge. Time will tell if the A:IQ playfield ends up with really bad grain issues like my JP.
No loose arms on the subway mechanism. Maybe with a recent build date, my table has a subway mech without early weld issues.
No issues with the ball falling off of any of the ramps, although I've had a few cringe inducing air balls clip the glass.
I initially dropped the subway hold time to 500ms, and I've only had one instance of two balls getting stuck in the second subway stop that required a ball search. After a few search cycles the subway balls moved, the sensors picked up the ball movement, held one ball on the last stop, and released one to the VUK as expected (2 player game and I only had one lock). After the .92 update that always moves balls out of the first spot and raising the hold speed back up to 600ms, the flow through the subway is noticeably smoother than the 1 second default and no further traversal issues.
I had to tighten one of the disc leveling screws since the front edge of the assembly was slightly raised above the playfield. So far, this seems to be the only physical tweaking I've needed to do. A huge improvement over all I needed to do for JP, for sure.
Swapped out the coil stops with replacements from Marco Specialties instead of Pinball Life this time. I'm not going to even bother testing the stock Stern stops, so this could be optional.
The game has the posts in the easiest position. The outlanes are hungry and the gaps already feel huge, so I don't recommend moving the posts unless you have crazy high skills (Or you really want a challenge).
Speaking of drains, inner loop rejects off the upper flipper really want to head straight out the left outlane. I have to do a fairly moderate nudge when the ball is just above the Hawkeye target which gives just enough for the ball to clip the post near the drop targets above the outlane. SDTM drains out of the pop area are also pretty annoying since the ball isn't close enough to any of the posts to nudge and force some lateral movement. It's the only way I've had house balls so far.
The last one, and the most significant to me, is that coil fade on the bottom flippers is <b>horrendous</b>, and a major complaint. After about an hour and a half of play, it becomes extremely difficult to make it up ramps with the left flipper and next to impossible with the right. This makes sense since almost everything returns to the right flipper, although I haven't looked at any audits yet to confirm the flip count bias. The lower flippers are still running at the stock 255 setting in the menu. I ordered the flipper mech mounted coil fans from Pin Monk, and I'm debating on dropping the flipper power to see if that reduces heat fatigue and doesn't prohibit shots. If anyone has some numbers they've been happy with I'd appreciate the starting point. Otherwise I'll experiment a bit and see what I come up with.
For those on the fence between the Pro and Premium, I played a dozen or so games on a Pro at Next Level and now own a Premium, so I will offer my thoughts and opinions on the Prem/LE additions:
First, the Marvel ramp has a noticeably positive impact on gameplay. It's very fun to shoot, and I haven't had a problem with ramp rejects until the flippers start to fade (see above). Even then, the ball almost always makes it up to the opto at least, and I still get credit for the shot with the ball coming back about middle left flipper. In general, my theory after only playing the Pro turned out to be true, and the safer return to the right flipper for the Marvel and Ant Man shots is a benefit for ball control.
For the subway it's a neat addition and helpful to see how many portal locks you have for the next gem mode, although I liked the color coordinated gem mode start lighting effects in .91 a bit more than the rainbow effects with .92. Regarding concerns about the subway stops breaking flow, it really doesn't in my opinion. The only place there is a pause in the action while the subway is moving balls into the VUK is at the start of a mode when the animations play. For the Pro, you have the same animation wait, except the ball sits on a post above the upper flipper instead. The bigger difference is the Prem/LE portal lock balls are fed into the VUK with a safer ball feed guaranteed to the right flipper, while the Pro uses autolaunched balls, which may or may not make it all the way up the back ramp to the right flipper.
Regarding the VUK, there is a slight delay at times waiting for the kickout, but I'd say pretty close to the same amount of time it takes for the ball to work its way down and into the inlane on the Pro after hitting the target. This table doesn't have a full fan layout or shoot like AfM or MB, so I don't feel a big break in flow from the subway/VUK. Plus, now I can actually take my eyes off the table and see what the mystery award and ramp counts are, instead of having to watch for potential Marvel and Ant Man returns clipping the right sling or bouncing out of the inlane.