Flight 2000
Stern Electronics, 1980Going to revamp Flight 2000 in the near future by rewriting its software - popular opinion already stands that relocking balls during multiball to no avail is no fun.
Open to suggestions as to anything else that would be nice to add to the game. I suspect already people will request the popular spinner counters 
Man I loved ripping that spinner!!
Moved the pin along to someone new, but reallly liked the pin. Good luck with new code!
-Raise the possible bonus to 19k instead of 10k
-if you’re going to make a shot spot a letter, like the lock shot, make it optional with a dip switch setting. I enjoyed this feature for a while with different code, but I prefer having to shoot the whole field instead of reducing the game to 1 major shot.
-have the walker unload the balls before each game. There’s some strategy to launching the ball to collect the top 4 letters. When you start a game with 2 balls locked, you lose the ability to skillfully plunge.
Multiball needs some objective beyond the same scoring as normal. If you're going from scratch I'd recommend that doing the count down awards a jackpot (or lights jackpot on the lock)
Spot letter shot somewhere (the center target already has that light, right?) would be good. It sucks on F2K trying to collect those inner inlanes (not a problem on Gamatron tho!). Maybe should have to light it somehow (complete count down, any order?) so it doesn't just get spammed
Quoted from chubtoad13:-Raise the possible bonus to 19k instead of 10k
Needs to be even higher 
How about 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 ?
Quoted from dothedoo:Lane change, top and bottom.
I don’t think there should be a lane change in this game. It doesn’t make sense to collect a letter by rolling over a switch on a different letter.
Quoted from zacaj:Spot letter shot somewhere (the center target already has that light, right?) would be good. It sucks on F2K trying to collect those inner inlanes (not a problem on Gamatron tho!). Maybe should have to light it somehow (complete count down, any order?) so it doesn't just get spammed
I like the idea of a Spot Letter shot that isn’t easily repeatable.
3 balls in play = 3x PF
2 balls in play = 2x PF
Balls shot to lock while in MB are released. Scores how ever many points should be awarded off number of letters collected times the PF multiplier. Once you collect all letters it then starts locking balls again even in MB. Risk vs reward now in MB.
Maybe something challenging to get double bonus. Let it max at 19k as above stated but get a double bonus function. Maybe sweeping the targets in 1 shot one time for first double bonus. 2 times for second, etc.
All I can think of right now without changing the feel of the game to much. Good luck!
Quoted from chubtoad13:I don’t think there should be a lane change in this game. It doesn’t make sense to collect a letter by rolling over a switch on a different letter.
Then why does any game have lane change? I’m fine with a different means of spotting letters too.
F2K is by no means an easy game. How many pins have you been able to get multiball on ball one? Maybe even multiple times. How many games of F2K have you played and never got multiball?
I really like F2K - I actually was playing it on Pinball Arcade today and got a new high with 3,570,610. 
The original ruleset favors completing the MB once to light specials and some additional scoring, but then it peters out after that and you're left just shooting the spinner instead of exploring the table further. So my focus would be on expanding the role of MB beyond the one-time lights. The alphabet lanes are the essence of the original ruleset and I wouldn't mess with them, rather, I would focus on making them stay in the role of being the main bottleneck, because they keep your eyes moving around the table looking for more opportunities. It's a great treasure-hunt type of gameplay. Adding too much emphasis elsewhere in the playfield is either going to make it a single shot game(spinner/drops/center) or too wild(anything around the pops).
One thing I would do, though, rather than lane changes, is to spot the last letter, once it's down to the final one, by hitting the center stand-up target. What usually happens when it's a struggle to finish BLASTOFF is that there is one annoyingly difficult lane that just can't be hit, but it's a different one every time. It's good to have an alternative available to smooth things out, and there's some precedent for this in the existing stand-up targets at the top of the playfield and the way the center target works after starting MB.
Other ideas for scoring:
A bonus collect jackpot and light show for 5 hits on the center stand-up target during MB - a good reuse of the 5-4-3-2-1 voice countdown in a different form and it makes hitting that target feel more "final" than the current thing, where you can just hit it once by chance and get your special. If not challenging enough, make it a hurry-up too.
Progress a super multiplier, which multiplies on top of the regular one, for completing the launch sequence, so that repeatedly going from MB to launch will give you the biggest bonus. Then ending MB by accident is not a "gotcha" - you're still progressing in the game even if you missed an opportunity for jackpot.
Add a hurry-up for the countdown drop targets: instead of a fixed score each time you progress in the sequence, it adds progressive score but also starts counting down a 15 second reset timer, so if you fire away to do your 5-4-3-2-1 and survive, the risk/reward balances out.
Quoted from Triplefox:hurry-up
^^^ this.
I agree with raising the bonus total and unloading the ball walker. The 2 or 3 x scoring during multiball would be cool.
I do not own the game (just yet), but have studied it.
What's missing:
Needed:
* Something more fun to do during multiball (2x, 3x and/or more accomplishments)
* Hurry ups
Nice to have:
* bonus carryover
* bonus collect
I think this discussion is great, and I want to hear the owners debate this out. I am confident we can agree on 3-5 tweaks that will make this game really shine. Excited!
-mof
I think no relocks during multiball makes sense, just keep it cycling the ball walkers if a ball is in there. Always gets me mad when I drain the moment after I relock during multibal and its ball over.
for multiball maybe make the bonus X stand up a jackpot when the WOW is lit, which happens after multiball starts. I have mine set to novelty play so it awards points on WOWs, its kind of like a jackpot, but scores only like 35k.
2x or 3x score during multiball might be good too. flash the 2 and 3 countdown lamp or the 2 and 3 bonus X lamp to indicate pf multiplier is active.
Quoted from barakandl:I think no relocks during multiball makes sense, just keep it cycling the ball walkers if a ball is in there. Always gets me mad when I drain the moment after I relock during multibal and its ball over
Yes! I hate when i start multiball and in the frenzy i lock two balls right away. Then i gotta repeat the whole thing on one ball. Disable locks until two drain.
And should be one million bonus points just for achieving multiball.
re: Lane change
Almost always someone makes it a point to ask for Lane Change whenever I ask about adding/changing rules.... here are my thoughts on lane change:
If the game ruleset is designed around it, yes, by all means it makes sense. In the case of F2k, it would make it way too easy to complete BLAST OFF. Unless something were added like it resets the letter if it wasn't already lit, penalizing you if you weren't paying attention. Spotting the letter like the older romset mod did also made it a bit easy, but I agree that something should be done to spot letters.
For multiplied scoring I plan on indicating that using the displays. On Firepower7 I blit the multiplier with the ball in play display and would probably do something similar on flight, or use the other player displays like WMS did (although that will depend on how much free space I can wrangle).
For Multiball, it's going to go something like this: You start multiball, it sets a flag. The only thing that clears that multiball flag is all the balls draining in the drain, not relocked etc. The flag will remain set, and the walker and ball maze will be controlled by that flag.
I like the idea of the timed drops resetting.
How about the idea for the bonus ladder being like quicksilvers where your bonus is 10k+9k+8k, etc. but the bonus doesn't just build a step at a time, it builds depending on the letters BLASTOFF (so there's 8 ) and then 2 additional shots from something else (ball locks?) to get you up to 10k? That's a potential 55k in bonus times your multiplier. (825k with 15x). By necessity, the bonus would have to carry over from ball to ball.... but reset the multiplier so it doesn't become a runaway for the first person to ramp up their bonus.
How about a lane change that the player doesn't control? I.e. moves around with pop, spinner, or slingshot hits? That way, if there's some shot that's eluding you, you have some kind of chance. That sounds like something that could be turned on and off with a dip switch.
Quoted from slochar:How about a lane change that the player doesn't control? I.e. moves around with pop, spinner, or slingshot hits? That way, if there's some shot that's eluding you, you have some kind of chance. That sounds like something that could be turned on and off with a dip switch.
I like that. Kind of like Quicksilver's extra ball feature. It just seems there's always one letter up top that I can never seem to get.
I have a few random ideas.
* There should be a target that qualifies a letter. I suggest the two upper targets in the bumper area. It's very frustrating trying to "aim" for an inlane. It could also be the center stand-up in the 1-5 bank.
* Spinners need more scoring. The right bank is super hard on mine to knock down to progress the value. There should be a "something" that qualifies a flashing inlane, when the inlane is flashing, it will light the corresponding spinner max value for a few seconds. This of course needs to be balanced with the right bank etc. I'm thinking dropping the bank adds a multiplier or something. Bottom line, get those spinners valuable!
* We should figure out how to have more fun with the lock traversal. Having either "blast" or "off" should qualify a 2-ball multiball or something.
* 3x and 2x scoring for the the amount of balls in play during multiball?
* Bonus built beyond 9k? Flashing bonus means double bonus?
I'll be back with more ideas...
Quoted from slochar:re: Lane change
Wasn't like TAF the first machine with MPU controlled flippers? How will you register flips for the lane change?
Quoted from dri:Wasn't like TAF the first machine with MPU controlled flippers? How will you register flips for the lane change?
Firepower was first lane change. Coincidentally the same year as f2k.
But, yes we can’t use the flippers here I think. Spinner Should work, that’d be fun.
Quoted from Phat_Jay:Firepower was first lane change. Coincidentally the same year as f2k.
Educate me here a little bit, wasn't lane changes (and high score initials) done by having switch sandwiches prior to TAF?
Quoted from slochar:How about a lane change that the player doesn't control? I.e. moves around with pop, spinner, or slingshot hits? That way, if there's some shot that's eluding you, you have some kind of chance. That sounds like something that could be turned on and off with a dip switch.
I like this. Reminds me of hunting for the "random" elusive lit Star Specials when playing Stern Stars.
Fun & challenging.
Quoted from dri:Educate me here a little bit, wasn't lane changes (and high score initials) done by having switch sandwiches prior to TAF?
Williams used lane change a LOT. So much so that it made some of their games with this feature too easy.
Classic Stern never used lane change (AFAIK)
9 times out of 10, the hardest letter to obtain is that "O" in the right flipper feed lane.
Most times have to resort to shatzing it and even then, takes many frustrating tries. Every other letter is more easily achievable. The left flipper feed lane "B" can be spotted by throwing the ball into the pops.
Quoted from dri:I have a few random ideas.
* Spinners need more scoring. The right bank is super hard on mine to knock down to progress the value. There should be a "something" that qualifies a flashing inlane, when the inlane is flashing, it will light the corresponding spinner max value for a few seconds. This of course needs to be balanced with the right bank etc. I'm thinking dropping the bank adds a multiplier or something. Bottom line, get those spinners valuable!
* We should figure out how to have more fun with the lock traversal. Having either "blast" or "off" should qualify a 2-ball multiball or something.
* 3x and 2x scoring for the the amount of balls in play during multiball?
I'll be back with more ideas...
Inlane spinner combo and 'blast' two ball sound cool!
How about, if you combo the left inlane to right spinner, it automatically increases the spinner value one step (same as completing the drops)?
I've owned this game for almost 30 years. I have mine set to very liberal rules. Bonus multiplier carries over ball to ball, side spinner keeps increased values, specials lite extra ball, not credits, you can accumulate up to 5 extra balls - even with all of that, I have only rolled this game over once and a 5 million+ point game is rare.
Some of the settings make this game hard to beat and frustrating, but setting it more liberally makes it more fun, especially for weaker players, IMO.
The only thing that I would change is to make the "O" easier to get. Set the top right target to give you the "O" instead of them both giving you the "B".
This was my first and still my favorite game.
I too have owned this game for nearly 30 years and have similar liberal settings on this tough game.
I found it is a must have to have that right spinner value carry over from ball to ball.
Liberal settings as well...and I agree the ‘O’ is the hardest to get, no real way of attacking it. A shot off the drops can come down at enough angle to roll up the right flipper and hit the ‘O’ from below. An alternate way to achieve it that still requires skill to earn it would be nice.
Progress so far I have the original game codebase compiling, and am searching for ways to crunch down its footprint. This will definitely be a challenge as the space saving techniques previously used on Meteor and 9 ball are not saving space here since most of the code is pretty optimized already. I suppose I could toss everything out except the OS and really rewrite the entire thing, but I don't want to change the gameplay that much.
I probably will have to make some decisions on options instead to cut since those decision trees do take up a lot of space... maybe I can combine some of those.
A lot of the suggestions so far won't take up too much space but the stock space available is less than 10 bytes, so something will have to go!
One of the tempting things everytime I start one of these projects is to dump out the startup sequence - it's relatively long, and homeowners certainly keep track of if their games work correctly or not so might not need the LED flash startup. You can always put another chip in if needed to diagnose MPU board issues. I tried meteor once without any tests for an 'instant on' experience like WMS games and I hated it! I suppose it's just something you'd have to get used to.
Maybe I'll take a run at rewriting all the diagnostics instead, they're a little convoluted too, because of the 'burn in' test aspect where everything is cycling - there's some savings there.
I'm sure not everyone would want to either mod their mpu200's to take a larger chip or use a weebly that would want to use this software so now my work's cut out for me.
Oh, and the other thing that's going to get added is a proper knocker, in place of the coin lockout that no one ever uses in home use (and stern themselves abandoned a couple games later).
Take out the display test, burn in and every self check except the rom, imo.
Simplify the coin logic to just 1 coin, 2 coin, and free play, applied to all chutes? Remove audits?
Or could you just rearrange so that all of that stuff is on the extra rom space a weebly has, but original board users can use a stripped down version?
Quoted from zacaj:Take out the display test, burn in and every self check except the rom, imo.
Simplify the coin logic to just 1 coin, 2 coin, and free play, applied to all chutes? Remove audits?
Or could you just rearrange so that all of that stuff is on the extra rom space a weebly has, but original board users can use a stripped down version?
Yeah, I thought about making the stock stuff just for the weebly board. Audits don't really take up a lot space other than occupying ram, the routines are short. Coin logic would save some.
Let's see what I can do re: crunching first, I might be able to get what I need I don't think I'll need too much for the suggestions. At least there's 3-4 open timers available for the timed functions.
Following. And stupid question: how do I install a new ruleset? In most cases I'm using the Alltek board (or RD for Williams). I have several machines that have been mentioned here. Firepower, Meteor, Flight 2000...
I think this is one of the short comings of the Alltek. You just get what is preprogrammed in the board.
The weebly is great as it offers future expansion and room for rule modding etc.
I like using the original Stern MPU 200 as you can burn your own roms for it. But the weebly is a great option as you can essentially customize it the same way.
Quoted from dyopp21:Following. And stupid question: how do I install a new ruleset? In most cases I'm using the Alltek board (or RD for Williams). I have several machines that have been mentioned here. Firepower, Meteor, Flight 2000...
Unfortuantely the Alltek board is locked down, you're stuck with what is on it. (And I've heard rumors that he's against modifying his image to include other revisions.)
The NVRAM, barakandl 's board, freakin' ROCKS, and I highly recommend it. It CAN be switched out to run one of these custom ROMsets, PLUS give folks like
slochar here extra space to add code and not be limited by the 4x 2716 address space!
Quoted from Coyote:Unfortuantely the Alltek board is locked down, you're stuck with what is on it. (And I've heard rumors that he's against modifying his image to include other revisions.)
The NVRAM, barakandl 's board, freakin' ROCKS, and I highly recommend it. It CAN be switched out to run one of these custom ROMsets, PLUS give folks like slochar here extra space to add code and not be limited by the 4x 2716 address space!
Coincidentally, the last boards I purchased for a Bally resto were the NVRAM.WEEBLY board set. I haven't installed them yet but I will most likely make the switch to his boards going forward anyway. Flight 2000 is pretty far down the list of stuff in line to be restored. Probably at least a dozen in front of it currently.
Quoted from slochar:Progress so far I have the original game codebase compiling, and am searching for ways to crunch down its footprint. This will definitely be a challenge as the space saving techniques previously used on Meteor and 9 ball are not saving space here since most of the code is pretty optimized already. I suppose I could toss everything out except the OS and really rewrite the entire thing, but I don't want to change the gameplay that much.
I probably will have to make some decisions on options instead to cut since those decision trees do take up a lot of space... maybe I can combine some of those.
A lot of the suggestions so far won't take up too much space but the stock space available is less than 10 bytes, so something will have to go!
One of the tempting things everytime I start one of these projects is to dump out the startup sequence - it's relatively long, and homeowners certainly keep track of if their games work correctly or not so might not need the LED flash startup. You can always put another chip in if needed to diagnose MPU board issues. I tried meteor once without any tests for an 'instant on' experience like WMS games and I hated it! I suppose it's just something you'd have to get used to.
Maybe I'll take a run at rewriting all the diagnostics instead, they're a little convoluted too, because of the 'burn in' test aspect where everything is cycling - there's some savings there.
I'm sure not everyone would want to either mod their mpu200's to take a larger chip or use a weebly that would want to use this software so now my work's cut out for me.
If there isn't ample room left in the stock rom size I'd suggest just developing for the weebly board. Anyone who wants this would probably be fine with springing for a replacement/upgraded MPU. I know I would.
I have an Alltek board in my F2K at the moment but I have a spare Weebly I can use for this. I can also get a ROM burner when the time comes to with test and feedback. Please advise on what burner and ROM sets to acquire.
Quoted from dri:I have an Alltek board in my F2K at the moment but I have a spare Weebly I can use for this. I can also get a ROM burner when the time comes to with test and feedback. Please advise on what burner and ROM sets to acquire.
You need to do some image juggling - it's not as real simple as joining the images together as is it makin' a 2764. Weebly's give the full address range to the EPROM, so you need to arrange the locations of the chips inline with the expected addresses.
Once I get the site up to host the modded ROMs, I'll have Weebly-compatible ones posted.
Quoted from zacaj:Random thought: would one of the 2764 adapter boards work on an alltek?
It should if you modify it with the info from my page:
https://sites.google.com/site/allentownpinball/romblaster
The seigecraft adapter plugs into the cpu socket so should intercept anything in the rom address range, but I'm not sure if the custom address decoder on the Alltek would interfere (it shouldn't).
Quoted from dri:I have an Alltek board in my F2K at the moment but I have a spare Weebly I can use for this. I can also get a ROM burner when the time comes to with test and feedback. Please advise on what burner and ROM sets to acquire.
I use Minipro TL866CS, apparently discontinued and the replacement II version doesn't go up to 21v for programming older 2732 type chips. However, if you have a weebly board for this purpose, the extra socket is a 512 and either the 866cs or 866II would work if you got those chips. I just ordered 30 of these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JVJCZYG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00
Based on Andrew's recommendation, as you would be able to skip buying a UV eraser since these are the eletronically eraseable version of the 512. I haven't received them yet but I'm sure they will be fine.
If you get the mini pro, it forces you to do an upgrade on the firmware when you first start it up - it will seemingly be frozen, DON'T UNPLUG IT. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so, then restart and it will be fine. Here is a review of the minipro which tilted me towards picking it up:
Quoted from pinball_ric:If there isn't ample room left in the stock rom size I'd suggest just developing for the weebly board. Anyone who wants this would probably be fine with springing for a replacement/upgraded MPU. I know I would.
Well, part of the reason I even do this type of mod is the challenge of getting it to fit in the original space. Getting people to install rom mods is actually pretty difficult for some reason, and any bar to entry like having to buy a new board would make that even more difficult. I treat it like the demoscene for old computers, trying to wring the most performance and efficiency as I can out of it. For instance, in the 9ball project, I've saved more than enough room to implement the newer style Oliver ruleset in the stock romspace, just by more efficiently re-writing some routines. The savings available in Flight are minimal since the programmer used more efficient coding to begin with, but I still have some tricks up my sleeve to implement. Best of all, I don't have to depend on beta testers for this game like 9 ball since I own an f2k.
Quoted from Coyote:Unfortunately the Alltek board is locked down, you're stuck with what is on it. (And I've heard rumors that he's against modifying his image to include other revisions.)
The NVRAM, barakandl 's board, freakin' ROCKS, and I highly recommend it. It CAN be switched out to run one of these custom ROMsets, PLUS give folks like slochar here extra space to add code and not be limited by the 4x 2716 address space!
The Alltek image has space in it to add romsets the format isn't that hard to figure out there's a spreadsheet floating around that listed out what's in there and you can tell from the pattern of dips where each will end up. The issue is that Alltek apparently will not honor their lifetime warranty if you modify the board in anyway (fair enough). I don't think he's against putting custom romsets, etc. in his product, since there are some there already, I just think he wants his ship to steer the way it's going, kind of automatically, and he can just collect the $$$ from the product. That's fine if that's his model, but eventually it's going to be chipped away and he'll have to change or leave. If you ask even avid hobbyists "what replacement board would you recommend" I'd say almost 80% of them would just say Alltek, even though Andrew/weebly's has the same boards available, cheaper. Funny how in the Williams Areans, Rottendog gets all the business, being the cheapest, but in the Bally/Stern world, it's all Alltek (probably because he was first to market with an all in one).
Quoted from dyopp21:Following. And stupid question: how do I install a new ruleset? In most cases I'm using the Alltek board (or RD for Williams). I have several machines that have been mentioned here. Firepower, Meteor, Flight 2000...
You burn a new eprom for the game with the new code, which Coyote will be setting up a website to host. AFAIK Rottendog boards for Williams don't even use the STOCK williams software, there's a slight mod to it for some reason. I never looked into it, every project I've bought with a RD in it I sell the board since my purpose is to do the modifications and that board is useless to me. See the other answer above for the Alltek issues.
I am slowly converting all my games over to the weebly board just for the convenience of the 512 socket. So far, there are 2 games that will use the expanded ram/rom capabilities of it, Stars rewritten with a mashup of sternmpu200 and wms pinbol style coding, and Black Hole with the same OS (that's a major long term work in progress as you can imagine.... a bally board in a gottlieb machine).
All of the game suggestions in this thread would be child's play to stick in the weebly as it sits but that encourages sloppy programming practices. By tightening up code on Meteor for instance I saved almost 1/4 of the stock romspace for the mods, and 9 ball so far I've saved about 200 bytes (which is coming from a full rom, so 200 bytes is very significant).
Quoted from slochar:Based on Andrew's recommendation, as you would be able to skip buying a UV eraser since these are the eletronically eraseable version of the 512. I haven't received them yet but I'm sure they will be fine.
I've been using them in my GQ-4X without issue. Nice and quick. And they work in the Weebly board, too.
Quoted from slochar:The issue is that Alltek apparently will not honor their lifetime warranty if you modify the board in anyway (fair enough). I don't think he's against putting custom romsets, etc. in his product, since there are some there already, I just think he wants his ship to steer the way it's going, kind of automatically, and he can just collect the $$$ from the product.
Good to know, I stand corrected. The commented I heard (a while ago now) was different.
When Dave at Alltek went to surface mount I beta tested one of his boards for him in all the stern mpu200 games since I had all but 2 of them at the time. He indicated that the rom was getting full, so didn't have space for all the stern free play roms and he was going to release a special edition of the board with just stern stuff on it. I tried to talk him out of that (I think successfully since it never came out) as it would just sow confusion... which alltek is in there? I gave him a suggestion on how to implement freeplay on all games and also how to save space in his eprom but thus far neither have been implemented. I really think he just wants the project to run on automatic. I think he's making a pretty penny with it as it is since he is the top of mind replacement board.
I liken it to the older tried and true people buy Allteks, and the 'cool kids' buy the Weebly boards.
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