We’re talking about the left saucer kick out, not the scoop.

GNR just needs the hood adjusted (bent).

The use of those micro switches is worrisome...

Not sure how they are wired up, but maybe leaf switches can be swapped in?

I was thinking the same thing

This is obviously going to be an issue. Stand up targets take a beating and with this many present, I could see it being a huge PITA. Is PB aware of this and hopefully doing something about it?

Me too.

Wait...they used micro switches on the targets?? That just sounds like a bad idea...but..I suppose since they are 'behind' and never directly hit maybe it is fine? does anyone else do that?

So that's the Pinball Brothers quality assurance!
Same issues we already had with the HW-ALIEN and PB is not in a position to turn this off in advance?
Even better high-tech switches that work even crappier!
In Germany we often say: "Less is more", but this machine seems to be busted in many ways.

I’m not sure you can jump to conclusions off a handful of first run games.

This is unacceptable, but what can we expect... production in Italy, as cheap as possible.

What matters is how a company responds. This is the problem with the internet... people want what they want and they want it now. Unfortunately, that’s not how the real world works. You have to give organizations a chance to respond. Changes don’t happen at the drop of a hat... and you can’t make blanket assumptions off a sample size of, what, 6 (?) early in manufacturing.

Could it ultimately end up being a shit-fest of engineering? Yes. Can you call it now? No.

They are obviously aware of the issue. Let’s give them a chance to remedy.

In my opinion they had their chance to make a big theme even bigger and famous - but they failed in many ways.
PB haven't done their homework and the customer pays the price again.
If the community hadn't fixed the many problems on the HW-ALIEN ahead of time, the PB would be even worse than it currently is - that's what it looks like!
I'm not impressed about the results.

Great to see these pins getting delivered!

Have you handled/inspected one of the new machines?

OG Alien owner tries to discredit PB version - shock/horror.

Dont be so dramatic. Let's see how the switches hold up and how their technical support respond.

I've always found microswitches to be rock solid and reliable while leaf-switches... not so much. With leaf switches I've had many cases I've had to bend them into place and adjust them... So I'm not sure why people are badmouthing microswitches here. In 25 years, I've never seen a microswitch failure except one case where a defective microswitch was delivered to me new. Not seeing the problem here. Maybe someone can explain?

Averell I appreciate everything you have done on the OG Alien - you have been a huge source of information in the main Alien thread and I really value your opinion. However I think you’re being overly dramatic here. Let’s wait and see how PB responds before claiming they “failed in many ways”.

From what I understand, these combo RGB led/micro switch boards were used in the OG for the Xeno, chestburster, and recharge standup targets. These are all lit and larger than the weapon targets. In the remake they’ve decided to use those same boards for the weapon targets rather than leaf switches, even though they don’t need to be lit. My feedback to them has been that I’m concerned about the durability of these, given that 3 of 5 of mine didn’t work. I think part of it is the narrower target face has to be perfectly aligned with the board, whereas the larger targets don’t require perfect alignment. I’m still waiting to hear back from them on a solution.

Outside of the switches the remake is awesome and improves on the original in many ways. I’m willing to cut them some slack here and give them a chance to show they listen to feedback.

https://www.pinballbrothers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/216-01-03-00_Target_LED_15x25mm_V01.pdf
https://www.pinballbrothers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/216-01-04-00_Target_LED_25x25mm_V01.pdf

How often are those micro switches being hit head on with a full speed pinball? I think that is what they are not designed for. See the PDFs I linked above.

Micro switches get flaky and fail all the time. I've had to replace at least one on most 90s games I've owned

OK, we will see...

Are you sure that production would be lotsa better if it was from China ?

Now, concerning "as cheap as possible", if you're having a look to how cables routing are done (and other assembly), materials in use (majorly inox, full RGB, plastics ...) you should admit that it's not objective !

Ok the machine is not yet 100% perfect now, but bashing Italy for free and saying that PB is just trying to make a high profit machine is just not Fair !

I think your words are beyond offensive..pedretti’s gaming it's just an assembler, of established quality .... but I understand that you may prefer a Chinese one.

Ready.

0510211112a~2 (resized).jpg

There are trade offs to both, but I wouldn't say they get flaky and fail all the time. I have ones in Streetfighter games that have taken 100,000+ hard hits that still work great. When they are flaky on pins, it's often not the switch that's failed, it's the metal tab that's gotten bent or the screws have loosened and it needs to be readjusted, much like with leaf-switches. IMHO, leaf-switches last longer, but need more adjustments more often to keep them working right. Microswitches tend to need a lot less adjustment/maintenance, but when they do fail, they need replacing. Neither seem like a make it or break it deal.

I's bet the microswitches that Pedretti uses, as well as the ones Stern, Spooky and JJP use, are all made in China. So this debate seems silly.

I can't say I've ever had to replace any micro switches on any of my old machines, ever, aside from one that was completely missing on a Xenon. These were routed games as well.

The only game to really even give me issues with the switches is R&M.

*knocks on wood*

So who knows...but I will say that Xeno switch needs addressed ( which it sounds like they are working on?).

I’m talking about of those who assemble them, not of switches, or Chinese potatoes.

Hi for those who don't care about dialogs you can see a "living" machine on a french review :
Enjoy

#pinball-brothers-alien-standard

Thanks!!

NP
Just for info, mine is somekind of pre-release so, as it's a french video you may not understand it.

So this is you and your machine? Great video, very professionally done and some nice playing skills as well

... just need one of my kids to interpret for me

Good news: I heard back from PB and they tell me that the factory has redesigned the weapon target switches and will be sending me new ones. No idea what the redesign involves, but I’m sure they don’t want to be replacing these multiple times so I’m hopeful they will get it right the first time. I’d be happy if they were just leaf switches.

Yeah hopefully they are just leaf switches.

I'm really excited that PB is finally putting these games out. As an OG owner twice before in the past, I'll say that I always enjoyed this game (and had regrets selling both times) and I'm stoked for all the folks that are going to get a chance to play this game. I would definitely own this game a third time, it's just that good.

I was just checking out the video above (for just a minute, and I look forward to seeing the whole thing soon), but one thing I noticed that is definitely different compared to the OG is the depth of the scoop. In that video you can see the ball in there. This is a definite change, as the OG scoop is/was much deeper. You would never be able to see a ball from the playfield view. I think this is an improvement for the better as it was not unusual at times (in both OG versions that I had owned in the past) to get balls stuck in that deeper scoop (especially when multiple balls would go in during mb).

I look forward to seeing more posts and reviews of this machine. It's so great to have an open and active business/company working with this machine, and it appears as though they are timely in there customer support responses. Awesome.

From the players perspective, you definitely can’t see the ball in there.

I hope they are making these changes to the new games being built before sending the container full. There has been no communication on the shipment so if they are changing things up I have no problem waiting.

Nice. How I mean is that the scoop in the OG, no kidding is probably about 5 in deep, if not more. This depth was beyond being able to see the ball from topside view point. With the OG scoop, there were not uncommon issues with the ball having a difficult time being ejected out reliably due to both the width of the scoop as well as its depth (balls didn't have a clear direction out, and it was not uncommon for balls to rattle out from the scoop and as a result not get ejected (just rattle in the scoop). This was especially problematic when there was multiple balls in the scoop as they had a tendency to stack left to right (not perfectly stacked on top of each other) enhancing this problem. This issue was even further compounded with another problem associated with the OG xeno mech trough that fed into that scoop (at about the midway point). This side opening in that scoop would thus allow for additional erratic behavior of the poorly stacked ball(s) being ejected out (catching on the opening edge(s) of that xeno trough opening) causing even further problems with reliable ball injection. Averell ended up creating a fairly elegant solution to that with a custom PETG insert into the end of the xeno trough to allow that deeper scoop to have a more uniform "side wall" on the xeno trough side.

There were problems with the OG scoop right off the bat. I believe that before Heighway stopped being a company, in the later OG builds they had created a plastic insert into the scoop to try and address some of the above issues, although it was not a durable fix, although it was helpful. So, I think it's good that they (PB) made this scoop less deep, and I hope that some of the problems encountered on the OG are addressed in this newer build. It will be very interesting to hear more reports. I'm certainly enjoying everybody's experiences thus far, and again it's really nice to hear what timely customer service people are getting. I think that's really great. I would be interested to see the underside of the playfield a bit more

Yeah I saw zero issues with this scoop. Feeds were great and consistent.

That's awesome. I tell you, in both of the games I had and definitely in other reports on the OG thread as well, issues with that scoop were really a pain in the butt. It could really bummer a good time. It's awesome to hear that there's really no significant reported issues with the scoop thus far. I think one gentleman had an issue briefly I read recently, but it sounds like it was a easy fix and no issues moving forward. That's awesome.

I just checked my old emails.. I messaged Tommy @ Nitro about ordering an Alien on Nov 28/2016. i think they only received a few and I never did get one. (did play it tho!) I'd LOVE to finally get this pin.. maybe 5yrs to the day I'll try again!

Thanks, yep, this is my machine.
I'm not the "main" guy in the video, a friend who's working for a French Pinball channel (RB Flip France) did the video, thanks for him

I'm about trying to do the conversion, will post about it if i manage to do something "clean".

Maybe this would help ? https://www.pinballbrothers.com/alien/alien-docs/
Then go to Mechanisms

Nice. Yes, to me this is a MUCH better scoop design compared to the OG.
On the OG scoop design, imagine the xeno trough spilling into the scoop and having that ball fall down further into the depths of the scoop ( ~3 balls worth of depth from that xeno trough opening ). Believe me, it led to some not infrequent ball rattling in that scoop and problems with reliable ball ejection. Especially during multi-ball when more than one ball would make it into the scoop, heaven forbid there's three balls in the scoop on the OG....
Yes, this is a much shallower scoop with a much more straightforward design. I like it. Thank you for posting that link.

With pleasure, that’s what a board is meant for, no ?

BlackFlag Thanks for the awesome video. I watched the whole thing last night despite not understanding a word. I also had no idea that Alf was a cat.

I notice that your MUTHUR lane kick out is very smooth and it seems like the coil is much lower powered than mine is. I have been trying to adjust mine under the playfield and it is still not a consistent smooth feed to the upper left flipper. Did you make any adjustments to yours or has it always been that way? I tried lowering the coil strength to -25% but it still is coming out much stronger than yours. I am planning on taking a slow mo video to analyze further, but seeing your video almost makes me think my coil is too strong.

Do you have any problems with the up posts by the pop bumpers? In Derelict Ship mode I think that both orbits should get stopped and dropped into the pops but mine does not do that all the time. They do work fine in test mode.

TinyBlackDog Many thanks to you !!
Hell no, ALF is not a cat, ALF eats cats !! That's the reason why we asked him a hand to find Jonesy :p

The video is (unfortunately) impossible to translate as plenty of dumb references to french movies, culture and so pop all the way, all the time !
The only "serious" things that should make sense for non french people are the explanation of the rules as missions comes up, the overall rating from my friend Julien who made the video, and the thanks mentions to the french distributor (France Flipper) and my friend Cato Paus Skrede (PB lead programmer) for his help and patience

Concerning my MUTHUR lane kick, it used to be much powered until a screw became really lose and fell into the cab. Since i re-tight everything it became smoother. Maybe your have not a perfect alignement between coil and plunger ? and with coil power it blocks until a sudden release when a certain spot is reached ?? ... or mine is too underpowered ?

Now, heres the other adjustments done on my machine :
Right + Left Flip = +10%
Upper Right Flip = +25% (as the Hypersleep ramp is pain to climb!)
Upper left Flip = Factory default to avoid drop targets destruction.
Lowered the kicker to -5% as sometimes the ball pulls out like hurricane.

Now, concerning the up posts by the bumpers, we have the same feeling here. It seems they don't always come out but not easy to check while playing.
I bet on a code issue for that.

My main issues are/been :
Random Xeno initialization scheme
Random Xeno work : sometimes i feel like the xeno and the magnet are not working synchronioulsy
Lock 1 (opto) in Hypersleep chamber not perfectly aligned, now Opto 1 is fine but move to opto 3 (certainly after after re-assemblig the ramp)
Sometimes a ball step between reserve and shooting lane, due to the small plastic part which preserve the playfield but just shaking smoothly the machine pull the ball either back inside or in the lane.
And rarely randomly either the machine don't notice the (last) ball is drained or on the opposite consider you've lost the last ball then shut down flip and ... "You failed" ! :p

I had to lower my left flipper the ball would fly through the horseshoe and miss the return rail.

Loved the video. This is the best video that's been done so far and I really appreciate it. Will there be more videos in the future? Is there any chance your friends speak English? I would love the hear what you guys think about the game.

Thanks a lot for my friend Julien and RB Flip France!!!
I’m gonna report the RBFlip crew about your desire to get an English spoken video, i’m not a crew member, just the pinball owner ...
May be in between Julien could step into this post and add his feedback in a written way ?
Thanks again for your kind feedback