'The Martian' Mark Watney quote

Listed my LV for $11,500 (what I paid for it). Great game, but my kids say we need more machines other than pinball in the game room. Let me know if anyone is interested (194 plays and no issues).

Tell your kids that they will understand when theyre older

Haha! My buddy told me the exact same thing! But what started out as the “Family Game Room” has slowly turned into the “Daddy Game Room” and they called me out for it.

Well same author at least. Heh

yes, it’s very easy to remove the alien head with the two screws…the lower jaw is way harder to get too

Did the clearcoat on the head today. Just needs some polish once dry. Also added my 3d printed Cheyenne.

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looks good, How many coats did you do? I did 4 coats and didn’t polish mine.

Did also do 4 coats but maybe different paint. Used high gloss clear, had that laying around.

nice, let us know what you use to polish after it dries

The ship looks awesome! How did you mount it? Also you need to paint that bugger up

Mine still hasn't booted once. They are sending a new controller box.

I have about 100 games on mine zero issues. My EHOH out of the box didn't work and took about 3 weeks for Stern to get me parts for it to work.

Get one!!!!

Can someone confirm the trajectory of a loop shot to the left orbit, returning through the right orbit. Mine is hitting the tip of the left flipper. Sort of cool meaning you can chain a right orbit straight away. But also very dangerous. In all my other pins a left orbit shot returns to right flipper not left flipper. Can someone tell me if I need to adjust?

I had the exact same experience. It took 3 weeks and Stern finally paying a tech before my NIB EHOH was playable.

I had the same worries as you reading thtough the owners thread here thinking Alien would be a game plagued by issus out of the box. I contemplated canceling my order several times waiting this year but glad I didn't.

My SV has had zero issues for the first 3 weeks of play. It is a unique, fun game with great theme integration. If you want one, I'd order. Chances are you are going to have to wait for several months, though.

My experience is that even if you do have issues, once you resolve them (replace whatever part is bad, etc...), that issue will not come back. If the game is working, it stays working.

I had the game straight up shut down on me during gameplay last night. Has anyone else experienced this?

I’m on the most recent code.

It should go to the right flipper, if it’s going to the left you need to adjust the right ball guide and make sure it isn’t hitting target 5 on the way through .

There are a couple known software issues that can cause a reboot on hang in rare cases. We're looking forward to 2.9, which should fix these issues.

Yep. Target 5. Thanks!!!!

Yes same happened to me last night on a reasonably good scoring game. Apparently it's a bug with the 2.8 code and supposed to be fixed with 2.9 when they release it.

Buy one only if you're prepared to fiddle a lot (hours) with various hardware and software issues. You might be lucky and have minimal or no problems for sometime, but just be prepared. This machine is not a particularly solid build in hardware or software. The QA on it is poor both with it's assembly and third party sourced components. Some of it's engineering isn't great either. It's saving grace is PB's support and it's Alien theme.

The ship is mounted via a steel wire. Just drilled a smal hole in the underside and attached the wire with a screw, the ship is airbrusched dark green with silver accents but that just does not show in the dark environment of space.

Andrea told me that 3.0 should be out this week or next...

Hope they also code the lighted targets, still strange that not all are coded while the led is there.

I'll be happy when they get the Xenomorph ball grab to work 100% of the time...seems when my machine was new it would routinely grab the ball, now nearly never...except may a floater here and there.

Id love that as well but i am not sure that can be done.. a good rocket shot off the flipper to xeno has like no chance to be grabbed.. it happens so fast, so much kinetic energy and inirtia at play... easy shots, ricochet shots almost always grab for me. Not sure what they can do on it... but would love that for sure.

I understand your point however, it sure seems my Twilight zone orbit magnets are able to catch a fast shot from either flipper...can they be that much different?

TZ has ball guides on both sides ensuring the ball travels right over the magnet triggered with an opto. This relies on the timing between xeno switch hit and magnet. There is more “free” space around this magnet than any other I can think of.

...makes sense.

My wife is really wanting one open egg from the LV to have one that's different in the SV. Willing to pay a reasonable price for one open egg (or pay to swap). The after market ones don't look like the same color.

aftermarket open eggs from backalley creations are exact color match.. well at least mine was.

I wanted a NIB so bad and finally made an offer on a low play used one. I think maybe it was the right decision. Really looking forward to it I should have it next week

Good to know. The ones we saw at TPF were obviously not the right color, so maybe they changed something.

i think cointaker has them too.

This site has all the available Alien parts

https://www.free-play.se/en/playfield-parts/figurines/alien-egg-1.html

My game has been freezing. Twice when the ball entered the shooter lane, once when the ball went into the scoop. Totally unresponsive, no ball search and the coin door buttons do not work. Tried re-seating everything. Any bright ideas out there?

I would do this and then update to 2.7 ..

https://pinballbrothers.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/80000843825--how-to-rebuild-machine-alien-2-2

I have an early SV and still running fine with 2.4. I’m not changing code even if they do release 3.0. If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.

those apron cards with the metal/pseudo metal are awesome. Anyone selling those or have the file?

Get one if you love being frustrated. Game has major issues yet to be sorted out. Software has random resets and lockups. It can be rage inducing.

Upgrading from an SV to an LV and listed it in case anyone here wants to jump the line. (and is fairly local)

Had a request from ChipScott - here are some pics of the trough-shim that I cut out for my game, which eliminated issues with balls getting stuck in the trough / ball-counting. As you can see I had thin plastic to work with so went with two layers. The important parts are 1) cut out a 'v' in the end for the plunger, and 2) make it slightly longer than the trough so it bends up sticks out the end. Its very easy to add/remove through the coin-door entrance..

A note on balls flying out of the Right ramp; I finally tried my own advice and can confirm a small piece of foam tape works to keep the ball in the wire ramp after shooting the right reverso ramp - I would suggest a very narrow (1/4"-1/8") piece of foam, and also very thin (1/16"-1/8"). I also slight reshaped the whole wireform and warped it slightly so it is more like a 'banked curve', works much better now
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would this not work as well https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-16809

Awesome ideas. Thanks for posting these pics!

Well, I'll be damned, the back of my trough is sealed up, lol.
I like the idea of having a plastic layer in there as magnetized balls in the trough can definitely cause an issue in this game (as it can in other games as well with magnets).
But, I suppose in this case it looks like I'm going to have to apply it from a top down approach (as opposed to from the back, as usual and above).

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I've definitely used that shim before in other games, but my guess is that it'll probably be too thick for the height of this particular trough. I might be wrong and others may want to chime in, but as that's probably the case, I really like mitchzizzle 's ultra thin shim idea here.