Played a dozen or so games on a Pro this weekend and bought my Premium ticket into the club this weekend, table delivery will be around December. Apparently I missed the first batch of Premiums, so it will be out of the second batch Stern is sending to my distributor.

Yep, that was my post on the long running playfield issue thread that picture came from. It kinda looked like it broke the way it came apart on the ball hit, but it actually came unscrewed. The nylon lock nut and washer landed on the apron, the post sleeve came to a stop by the Thor captured ball, and a washer was left neatly behind over the post hole in the spinning disc.

Talking with the person making the repair, it was reportedly the second time that post came off in two days of being on the floor with near constant play. The screw comes up from underneath the playfield and disc with the washer, post sleeve, and nylon nut on top. I suppose you could flip the screw and put the nut on the underside, although I'd be a bit concerned about the teeth on the lock washer digging in and destroying the plastic on the underside of the disc. They were going to swap the nylon nut and lock washer for a regular metal nut with some Loctite as a next step to see how it holds, IIRC.

The biggest repair issue is that it's a pain to get around the mounting bracket to put a Phillips screwdriver on the screw. You have to use a right angle screwdriver to avoid disassembling everything. It's supposedly even harder on the Prem/LE due to the lift mechanism further getting in the way. I've got a picture of the Pro assembly that shows the mounting bracket. It's a bit dark to see the rounded funnel shape of the bottom of the disc and the flattened spot where the screwhead sits. Hopefully Stern comes out with a replacement that will hold up a bit better soon, like the upper flipper post on JP.

AIQ also seems to have a similar issue as JP; a full plunge has a harder time making it around the orbit to the ramp that feeds the right inlane. I'd recommend ordering an orange plunger spring to give the plunger a bit more oomph, and a set of three coil stop replacements (Because Stern).

Disc and plunger issues aside, it's a really fun shooter and it will be interesting to see how the rules continue to develop. None of the shots feel tight except the right ramp from the right flipper which is optional.

Played the same table and I agree with everything you said. I like that there is not only a simple release out of the Avengers tower/mag-lock plus accelerated launches for the Hawkeye shot.

No clue, presumably this would be the best way to get at it if it's possible. Unless you swap the screw direction, it's the Phillips screwhead that's hard to get to, though, not the hex nut. Stock assembly method would need an offset/right angle Phillips similar to this:

https://www.harborfreight.com/8-piece-right-angle-screwdriver-92630.html

Pro pictures from table@Next Level

PXL_20200927_215214088 (resized).jpg

PXL_20200927_215219015 (resized).jpg

PXL_20200927_215222840 (resized).jpg

PXL_20200927_215225941 (resized).jpg

PXL_20200927_215228861 (resized).jpg

PXL_20200927_215231544 (resized).jpg

PXL_20200927_233343419 (resized).jpg

I didn't think to look for shooting lane chipping, sorry. The table was busy enough I didn't want to hold things up inspecting and taking a ton of pictures, and kept proper social distancing when others were playing.

I didn't see any chipping, pooling, or CC graining. There is the normal dimpling for a location table, and it looked shallower than the dimples on my JP. Getting up close to the art you can tell it's printed and not screened, but no streaky print issues and it looks great standing at play height. Sample size of one Pro table, though. YMMV.

And there's only one post not two like TOTAN's lamp or B66's bat cave, so you run a big risk of the top disc breaking loose and bad things happening as it gets flung around. I also had a few airballs in that general area.

I saw only the weight of a pinball push the post and turn the disc. I'm curious if the mechanism is going to need any special care and feeding, like a dry grease treatment after a period of time to keep it that easy to turn.

Talking to my distributor, they said they will put in an initial order for, say, 20 Premiums. Stern comes back and tells them they will ship 10 from the first batch and 10 from the second batch. Conjecture on my part, although I suspect different distributors get preference/bigger first batch allotments based on total table sales. I imagine LEs are handled the same way.

My distributor told me December for my Premium and it's out of a second batch. Apparently I missed the bus for the first batch, but with the loose spin disc posts and potential chipping, I'm OK to wait for more of the kinks to get sorted out.

Not a Pro owner, but had the same play experience on a Pro. The one way gate out of the Captain Marvel lane dumps directly into the right orbit/Black Panther guide.

PXL_20200927_215222840 (resized).jpg

A bump was enough to get the ball past the right sling most of the time, but this and the Ant Man lane return are two big reasons I opted for a Premium.

They did. Stern raised pricing again and AIQ Premiums are $7,799 MSRP.

external-content.duckduckgo.com (resized).jpg

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.

For the Marvel shot, it's a 30 spins to 1 ramp hit ratio.

Most of the time, but ramp rejects only hitting the opto won't award the lit shot, so you can complete it on the Pro even with slower spins compared to no progress on the Prem/LE with rejected ramp shots.

Yep, it's my only geometry complaint for the table. I can see it coming and feels like there's not much I can do about it without tilting. I thought the drop on Hot Wheels was bad, I take it back now. Keeps us on our toes, I guess. Seems Elwin likes to throw one of these in on his tables now.

Placing a gem on the Vision and Marvel shots have fixed effects since you can't level up either of the two Avengers.

I've experimented with some of the power settings to address a few issues I've had. My table is level side-to-side, but I'm intentionally leaving out my pitch degree because I'd like to find a good baseline that works regardless of pitch if possible. My goal is minimum viable power settings with consistent success:

Trough eject to 175 - Help avoid lane chipping. No reason to blast the ball eject into the right shooter lane plate, this seems to get the job done with no second eject attempts required.

Both lower flipper strengths to 248 - Trying to avoid or reduce flipper fade after long play times. I used the three ramps as a litmus test and this setting seems to work well for me. At 245 the right flipper struggled to make the left (Black Widow) ramp, and the left flipper had almost no slack on the cleanliness of any ramp shots. 248 seems to be past the point of struggle for both flippers.

Auto-launch power to 250 - Auto-launched balls always fell short of the back ramp and dumped into the pop area. It's counter-intuitive, although lowering the power I get very consistent launches that go all the way around to the right flipper now. I believe at 255 the ball loses too much momentum hitting the rail below the gauntlet (And occasionally airballing off the launch ramp into the gauntlet) to make it up the back ramp.

Reduce subway traversal delay to 600 ms - This is purely patience driven to speed up and smooth out the subway's pacing. I may have an upgraded subway mechanism, so this setting may not work for everyone. I tried 500 ms, although I had one instance where two balls ended up in the second lock position. This was before installing .92, so I may experiment with faster speeds again.

More like a cross between JP and B66, IMO.

The main strategy I'm playing with is getting the Mind gem readied on an L1 Black Widow before starting Soul Gem. Having an L1 Mind gem for the Soul Gem quest makes it significantly easier. Thought is to use the gem to clear the first right orbit shot right out of the VUK, the Vision standups, and the Marvel ramp. Not sure that the Ant Man spot will actually help during Soul Gem, at best it's burning one flip to save one flip, and the gem takes care of the unreachable/problematic shots based on flipper returns.

Continuing min/maxing, I'm liking Time (Orange) on the Vision targets since it provides an improved passive bonus without having to collect or level Avengers, Power (Red) on Marvel since it doubles ramp hit productivity, and neither gem needs recharging. Reality (Yellow) for Hulk since it's a shot multiplier on a spinner, Space (Purple) on Black Panther to give more ball return time when shifting gems, and Soul (Green) on Captain America, mostly because it's the only placement left and not something that needs to be shot very often so it doesn't need to be super accessible.

Can you use the service outlet? It's in the lower right of the backbox with the main power supply.

Space Gem on L1 Hulk, and Mind Gem on L1 Captain America. Start Soul Gem with action button lit for Mind gem three charges, then immediately burn all three uses of the Mind gem as the ball leaves the VUK before it gets to the right flipper. Hit the Hulk shot (one flip), use the Space gem to move the gems one to the left, use the mind gem three more times. Hope for a lucky bounce to the right flipper out of the pops and finish the mode with the last tower shot (two total flips).

You can't put the Mind gem on an L2 Avenger or it turns into a super clear and only has one charge and only clears one Soul Gem shot.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but try turning down the auto-launch solenoid power in the settings to 245-250 and see if that helps. I found that at full power, the ball was slamming into the back rail (Or sometimes the gauntlet) and losing too much momentum to make it up the back ramp.

There's LEDs on the playfield where the subway is on the Prem/LE models that should light up to show the number of virtual locks.

Tower is a Super Skill Shot, here is the breakdown:

*SPOILER ALERT*

Skill Shot: Short plunge into pops, gives points and a short ball save time bonus (+4s?)

Super Skill Shot: Full plunge to right flipper and hit tower. Awards Mystery light and ball save time bonus (+6s?)

Secret Skill Shot: Short plunge the ball to fall through the inner loop to the right and not into pops. Qualifies portal lock (Have to hit ramp/subway) and ball save time bonus (+8s?)

Secret Skill Shot 2: (New in .94) Full plunge to right flipper and hit the drop target for blinking square. Awards the square and +10s ball save

Marked the times I'm not sure of, but that's the breakdown.

This can happen:
PXL_20201121_201501110 (resized).jpg

I installed the ramp clip tdiddy makes on my machine tonight and played a quick test game. I can definitively say that the clip makes an incredible difference in how the ramp shoots. Very smooth ball travel now with zero rattling or clunked shots back out of the ramp. I highly recommend the clip for any Prem/LE owner frustrated due to CM ramp rejects. It really makes that big of an improvement, to the point the CM ramp shot now seems easier than a post-pass to the right flipper.

Might need a new spring, but make sure the plunger tip is aligned to the middle of the ball in the lane. I also recommend turning the autoplunger power down to 248-250. It's counter-intuitive, but at full power the ball hits the guide rail too hard under the gauntlet and loses too much momentum to make it up the back ramp.