Curious about the SD card in Sterns. I assumed the code was copied to a hard drive or SSD drive housed with the CPU. Are these SD cards used as the game's primary/working source for game code?

Yes, the SD card is where the code resides. It's partitioned like a hard drive and us kind of a (very) poor-man's ssd, I guess. There's no hard drive or SSD in Stern Spike2 machines.

At Target just get one that's class 10 and with the biggest number in the "U" icon you can find. That's the sustained write speed. I think these are all 1 (10mb/s) or 3 (30mb/s).

That's surprising, and definitely good to know. Thanks!

Got this one and downloaded file. But when I right click on it there is no extract all prompt in the window. The extract all on the tool bar is shaded and not available.

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Did you format the SD card first? Fat32

Open with winzip (first option on that list), then extract the files to your hard drive, then copy them to the SD card.

Success. Thanks so much for your help.

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Just set up my premium today and the drop targets don't go up during a game, but they work in test mode. Anyone else experience this?

Reset them up. then go into switch test mode and drop them one at a time and see if it's registering that they dropped. I'm thinking no.

Awesome. And you now have a much more reliable SD card in there now, to boot!

Yeah, hopefully the next update can be done with a usb stick. Kind of disappointing that stern used a basically cheap on clearance sd card on an $8000 game to save
maybe a dollar or two.

Oh, the whole ADATA SD card likely cost them $1-$2ish wholesale (seconds?) in quantity.

Why not try doing an install of 0.94 again with USB stick and see if it will recognize it. You can install over the one you have on the SD and you can always re-image the SD if something goes wrong. That way you'll know if there's a physical warranty problem with your USB jacks.

From STERN OF THE UNION ADDRESS – DECEMBER 2020:

Avengers: Infinity Quest – For all Avengers owners, please make sure you are up to date with the most current code version (v0.94.0) released last week. Be on the lookout for a new code update later this month.

I haven’t even upgraded from .93 to .94 yet, think I might just wait for the double jump to .95 can’t wait!

The newest Loser Kid Podcast had Keith Elwin on and they asked about what all the trophies were about. He couldn’t say other than it is building to something new coming someday. Online trophies???

Just found out my Premium won't be in until maybe the last week of December. Anyone else in the same boat and waiting?

I keep doing this lol. I'm still on .91 and every time they drop a code, I get lazy and then I hear the next ones coming. So I wait again

Hopefully they add Thanos back in (and possibly more instances of battling him) as I have completed all 6 gem quests twice now (collecting 4 is my best at this point) and attempted a 7th, but nothing happened in 0.94 code.

I have a buddy that ordered a Premium from Flip N Out and he threw down a deposit the first week AIQ was launched. He still hasn't received his machine and was quoted mid-Novemner. Stern must be super backed up.

If you have a Premium/LE, the newer code helps with some of the ball staging issues in the gem portal.

I’ve never had an issue updating luckily, gone smoothly every time.

I also ordered a Premium from Zach at Flip n Out on the day after release. Paid in full. He told me in late October that I was in the first release and I received my game in California in early November - second release was scheduled for December. Lots of orders to work through. Great game!

Yeah, nothing registers. There's no lights on on the board so something's wrong somewhere. I emailed Stern, hopefully I'll hear back soon.

Those switches that sense the target state are optos, so check the connector on the target board and also CN11 on the node 8 board to make sure they're both fully connected.

If that doesn't do it, you can swap node 8 and node 9 (and change the dip switches so they know they're now the opposite board) and see if that solves it. If it does, your node 8 board is likely bad.

they already contribute to stuff like extra balls

Found it. A single wire was loose on the CN11 plug. They're registering now.

We finished our Avengers hologram topper. It comes with over 40 videos here are 8 of them. You can pick the ones you want playing, and it will loop through those. These look 10 times better in live then on a video. This should get listed here and on our website later today.

Thay doesnt sound very good when we already got our premiums in Canada a month ago.

Trying out some yellow flippers - the white ones weren’t “wowing” me...

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This is my story with Zach and Flip n Out as well. Paid in full, and received the game in November. He and Nicole are a class act.

Yeah I’m not sure what the delay is. You’d think they could crank out pins to meet demand. Always amazes me when new products come out in the gaming industry and there’s not enough to go around. Frustrating to say the least.

No issues with my machine, so I don't mind waiting.

Tough to keep the line running full-tilt (ha) through pandemic conditions. Changes to procedures due to distance/mask requirements, employee illnesses, pandemic impact on their suppliers, shipping, etc. On the other side you have cabin fever increasing demand. I'm sure they are making games as fast as they can.

I replaced my subway walker assembly for the ball getting stuck in the subway situation... worked for a day and a half-- thinking it was a miracle that it was a hardware issue when it seemed so much like a software issue. Now, I'm back with the same issue where I have to disable the subway. How many of you are still seeing this problem with balls getting stuck (primarily after a portal lock or multiple players)? You peaked my interest that it still may be a software issue. Thoughts?

It could be an issue with aligning the forks in the center channel of the plastic so they don’t slightly bind or get blocked. I had the same issues on mine when I first got it, but after figuring out good alignment of the forks it’s been absolutely 100% reliable. I immediately went from frequent stuck fork & stuck ball issues to absolutely zero.

If the forks are not in the right alignment they can get stuck or bind enough to cause an issue. If alignment is only slightly off it’ll be an occasional problem. If alignment is off by more then the problems will be more frequent. It’s pretty easy to adjust the alignment since the screw mounts of the mech are open ended to allow for adjustment, so I really think it’s worth trying to see if changing alignment can fix it for you if you haven’t already tried it. Here’s the way I’ve found on mine that gets it set up to be reliable:

You’ll want to loosen the mounting screws of the metal mech housing and then from the right side of the machine look down the ball lock tunnel through the opening in the VUK. Align the forks so you can use your hand to pull the plunger on the mech so all forks come up through the channel in the plastic. When I did it the first time I found these two things resulted in good alignment and 100% reliability for me:

1) Make sure the two forks that come up with the plunger don’t even slightly bind even once when you pull rapidly many (5-10) times on the plunger. If there’s even a slight catch or snag then it means the alignment for those two forks isn’t quite right.

2) Make sure that when you look down the channel you see a little bit of space between the three forks that are usually up and the bottom edge (as you’re looking at it with the playfield up) of the center channel in the plastic. I found that if one of those three forks is up against an edge of the plastic then it will likely get stuck when you start playing.

I’ve taken it off and put it back on twice now and both times I found that when my alignment met those two conditions it worked 100%. The 2nd time I took it off was to file a taper at the end of the channel, and I got alignment correct on the first try that time by remembering those two keys from the first time I did it. I play the game a lot just about every night, so if it was a software issue I’d think I would have encountered at least one instance of trouble with it in the past month, but since aligning it about a month ago it’s been zero trouble for me.

It could be that there’s an issue with the lever connected to your plunger being loose or bent, or that your forks themselves are bent a bit and need to be straightened so they don’t get blocked. But either way I think it’s worth looking down the tunnel through the VUK and trying to align it the way I described to help figure out what’s causing your issue. Just an idea though. Hope it helps.

Good advice. It is pretty easy to check and adjust alignment of the subway mech. I took mine apart to add additional lighting and noted it's alignment before hand and made sure the forks were centered and working when re-installing.

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I just noticed that even a good shot at hulk spinner would count only 5 to 10 spins, not more. I'm pretty sure it was reaching 20 to 30 spins before.
How many do you usually get? Is it normal to get so few?

Since adjusting mine I can get hulk in 2 good rips (about 40 per). Examine your spinner carefully, if the switch leaf is too low it might not be registering every spin....that’s what mine was doing before I adjusted it.

Thanks, will do

wow. thats a bummer man! Well pinball companies know how we love to fix their mistakes...

In the club for a while now but finally getting around posting a pic. This game is so awesome! It's complicated yet easy to play. Everyone in the house can enjoy it, including all experience levels. I haven't had any quality issues ...so good job Stern. The game design and code are great (kudos to Keith, Ray and the whole dev team)! Thanks to KingPinGames for the best customer support!

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I'm in the club for the next 3 months. A couple of questions...

Is there any good rules videos out there? I was watching the DeadFlip rules exploration, but it was just a bit too long for me to actually comprehend anything.

Also, does anyone find the outlanes super brutal? So many times it comes off the slings right into the outlane to drain.

outlanes are very tough. A lot like tmnt imo.

I recommend #1 IFPA and game coder stream to learn about the game the right way https://www.twitch.tv/raydaypinball or he has AIQ playlist on Youtube as well, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLadgE29juoiSN7mfLjQRKmj6njLAQvQ-2

just joined the club. How do you make that subway move faster underneath...? Ball goes from gate to gate after portal lock. I want it to just go right through.

Thanks

Just played this last night man what a cracking game! Keith has made all shots feel SUPER satisfying and the code is very nice too. I was slightly put off by some of the RAYDAY streams as there were just the “thing” you could do to blow up the game. It seeing past that it’s such a nice shooter I’m sure everyone is super happy with their games now on the lookout for one

Thanks!

Just joined the club! I played a few games before going back to work, but it plays FAST and I have no idea what I'm doing. . Time to read up on the rules!

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Yeah it kinda walks the ball through the subway.
Are you running the new code .94?
I think it moves the ball through there much better with the latest code.

AIQ Toppers incoming.