The reason the jackpot was fixed was for tournament play. It's unfair to build up a solar value just to have another player cash it in. This is for tournaments only though and I can see where you're coming from.

The factory way never bothered me much because I would pretty much collect solar value every game so it was always around 150,000 or so. Most of the points in Pin*Bot are in the skill shot anyway. My strategy was to keep locking balls to increase the vortex multiplier. Also important to stack extra balls so the multiplier carries over ball to ball.

That is a cool change! However, its kinda sacreligious due to the current standards set by this game in both pinball tournaments and leagues!

Great idea for maybe home gameroom use ONLY.

-Aaron
Iowa Pinball Club

single player tournaments? Didn't even know such a thing exsisted. That's no fun.

When we get together to have a few games on Pinbot (novice to average skill levels) the solar value gets really high! It doesn't get hit very often but it turns out great for us. It's almost as if there's a side game on who's gonna get it eventually... I for one, love the feature just as it is.
The mod sounds cool for tournament play or if the guys get a bit serious about the scores...

I got my all time high scores when this used to build for a long time. I can hit it quite a bit now, and don't really consider myself that great a player.

I'd expect with people interested enough to play in tournaments, the Solar Value shot would never get a chance to grow much. It actually makes it a *cool* thing for tournament play to me, because its a neat wildcard for the next player to get if someone misses it.

Having the jackpot build within that game only is best imo. Don’t want another player sniping your built up jackpot value? Then don’t choke. Same with lock stealing games. Give me all the lock stealing games.

Locking the jackpot value at 100k for all players makes this game one of the most boring games ever made.

Makes you never want to shoot the jackpot that's for sure. I'd rather go 2x energy value then if you have that really high you can get a million during 2x scoring.... but I'd probably do something 'safe' like try and get vortexes 2x instead.

Think you are reading this wrong. It doesn't lock the jackpot. It still builds the jackpot with each ramp shot but resets it per "game". So if playing a 4 player game the jackpot will still build up through everyone's play. Other players can still steal the jackpot from each other. It just resets to 300,000 on next game not next player in same game.
Makes it more of a timed progressive jackpot. Think it evens out the scoring a bit.

""""This modified version will make the initial Solar Value be 300,000 and each time you start a game it is re-initialized at 300,000 again. You can still increase the Solar Value during each ramp shot like normal as described above. But, the Solar Value is not carried from game to game not next ball. Note, if you start a 2-4 player game, the Solar Value is carried throughout those games.
I feel my "fix" is the perfect balance between making the Solar Value something valuable to strive for, keeping the enjoyment of increasing it during gameplay, and preventing the outrageous imbalance it can cause if no one has collected it for a while when it is finally scored."""""

Anyone happen to have these ROMS for sale? I don't have the ability to burn ROMs.

This is exactly how I understand it. I think you misunderstood my post. Haha

Ahh, Yes you are correct. LOL. I was thinking to myself (why wouldn't anyone like this hack it's the best of both worlds)
I have the one that locked it at 100,000 and you are correct. It's no fun.

Im wondering the exact same thing.

Thank you very much