Thanks for posting that. I was away at dinner.
We just played about 10 to 15 games tonight and had the Nero lockup happen twice.
We could never make it happen in single player game. ( At least not yet ).
Both times it happened in Two or Three player games with everyone playing Nero mode only.
We thought we had it down to Klingon Multiball During Nero 2, because both times the lockup occurred right after Multiball. But then we could never repeat the problem. I am determined to figure it out but it looks like it will take some time.

Dang that sucks. There are definitely some bugs with nero missions. I notice sometimes the Klingon multiball intro sounds don't work if I had played nero 3 prior to starting it.

The nero 3 --> DTD I stack is fun. Just did it for 35M. That same game I completed 17/18 missions. So close to 5year mission!

I have my warp extra ball award set to 7 warps.

So it seems like the bug is tied to multiplayer games then, is that right? That would explain why I haven't noticed it. 90% of the time I play single player.

That would seem to be the case.
I will figure it out. But so far every time is has happened in a multiplayer game.

Yesterday I played a lot of single player games and only did Nero. I completed Nero2 many times but never saw the bug. At times, I had Klingon multiball or Vengeance modes running and everything worked correctly. It would probably be a lot easier to test the bug with the glass off. As a programmer myself, I can tell you that knowing the exact steps to duplicate a bug is vital.

Totally agree dot

correct me if i'm wrong (i did not check the setup), but the pinball increase itself the warp shoot if we're doing to much EB !?

after 10 days we've got the pin here, and reset to the factory settings, EB was enabled after 3 warp, now we need 7...

Yes, it has a dynamic setting, that will change. I am assuming it changes on whether you hit the EB.
This can also be set up for your extra ball @ "x" score. The score could be 25million, if that is reached, the next game the extra ball would be at a higher score. Or you can just set it statically.

ok, sounds as it was going...
and than, with no doubt, we're making TO MUCH extra balls !!! (lol)

well, not kidding, now we need 9 warps to light EB !!!

and my son did found this software bug : in a multiplayer game, tilting when changing player (Steve is saying "player ...") result to a ... black hole

nothing happend, no ball in shooterlane, no reaction/ball search, nothing, all is dead, except tilting again will than move OK to next player !

That may not be a bug. It is possible to tilt out the other player if the tilt bob is still active after the tilt finishes and the machine is bumped. I've seen this on other games and once in a tournament environment. Believe someone called it a rage tilt and the player was DQed for the match

Had the nero lock up bug yesterday. I was playing nero 2 and started klingon multiball. After I thought I had finished nero during KMB. When MB was over Nero was still on the DMD but no lit shots.

The other day I also just completed Vengence multiball, had 2 other balls in play the ball was locked under the vengence, drop target up, and it was shaking. When it released the ball the flippers just went dead and it drained all the balls so no victory lap. Once all the balls were drained it kicked it into the shooter lane and everything was working fine.

Im not sure what mode was running while starting this. Or if it was even a bug. Maybe some other issue?

Hasnt happened since.

Anyone else?

yes but no (you're right of course), i did not explain correctly (not always easy in a foreign language) , i know what you have explained, i also already did it...

in the ST case, the next player is not "as tilted", the player score is flashing, waiting the ball to be played, but than as explained above, nothing happend, no new ball, no sound, absolute no reaction at all

i redo this bug alone, just uses my 2 warnings than let ball drain, bonus count, "steve" talks + shake > all was blocked the same...

not sure if other recent STERN do this (should try)

PS : here's the video...

This sounds like the through switches. Happens on every stern at some point. Just need to reseat them and all should be good. Could be an issue but that's what it sounds like to me.

Now that's an interesting one. Almost like it's trying to tilt out but it doesn't. You should recreate the whole thing on video and send stern an e-mail with that and a link to the video so they fix it on the next update (if they aren't already aware of it). I'd also be curious if it happens on 3 ball or if it's specific to a 5 ball game.

Was the Nero 2 bug in Single Player game?
I have not had time to deduce what series of events causes this but I have yet to have it happen in single player. But I strongly believe Klingon Multiball is the trigger. Problem is I can't make it happen every time yet.

Playing Vengance Battle 2 lastnight, and heard the same call out three times back to back after making shots to defeat the Vengance. What a buzz kill..... It's time to polish this machine to it's potential Stern!

You are a murderer!........You are a murderer!.......You are a murderer!

I had that one three times in a row once. Lame.

just played KB3. shoot 8 shots. Timer counting down No arrow inserts flashing? hit all shots & no points, it was like I was playing before I had started a mission, after 30 seconds some arrow inserts lit up, made the shot then no next shot?????

will think of it ... or someone else can do it

+1, with that same sentence

yes

So now there's a documented scoring exploit for PD3. Make sure you don't miss it!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-trek-prime-directive-3-vs-rest-of-the-game

Rob

Yup:
In a nutshell here is the narrative for KME's discovery: Basically get the L3 doublers for left ramp,left orbit,right ramp, and right orbit, play KM, play EM and then PD3 throws off something like 16M a shot (make sure you hit the multi-colored arrows which are the highest value). Make sure not to finish PD3 just play it over and over again, since all shots are re-lit. Now with older software the doublers aren't held from ball to ball, but I think PD3 will build, but just slower as you keep starting it over and over again.

Actually if I were to play it in a tourney I would only try to get the left ramp doubler (Klingon) and just rely on combos to double the other multicolor shots.

Not to mention that KB3's ridiculously long timer makes completing KB3 a breeze.

KME: nice vid. It wasn't just your PD3 with absurd mode shot scores. Even your later level 1 mode shots seemed to have a starting base value of >1M instead of the typical paltry 100K range. What drives them up?

The 2 & 3 levels boost the base value higher. Always try to go 3 deep off the bat

Yes it was in a single player game.

Nero 2 was running and started klingon multiball.

Im wondering if it has to do with how many shots are left on nero 2 when KMB starts.
Or if any mini wizard modes are running as well. Super spinner, super ramps, super pops?

One other thing that not many people mention is that tournanent mode is completely missing now in the adjustments settings menu since 1.5.

So the tournament button is useless.

This is high on my list to try out.
Just have not had the time I would like to devote to it yet.

I think ST is probably going to need at least 2 more updates. 1 as initial bug fix and feature completion and then another to tidy up what was missed in the first one. Somehow I just can't see them getting it all 100% with just one update - there's just too much to fix.

Rob

(it will be interesting to see how PD3 builds on the restarts without playing KM and EA and also without getting the L3 doublers. It probably builds but just more slowly than if you do the above)

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nice trick, easy is something else, as you still have to "master" the pin, keeps balls in play, and finally not complet PD3...

just tried few minutes ago, directly gone to PD3 without doing nothing else, than award points were much less than you of course, not more than 2.5M i think for the super-insert, did the mode 6 or 7 (???) times, and then it ended while i completed it (not intentionaly lol) in a multiball

327M

PS : just read about SJ...

well, the time to wrote some words here, my son wanna re-take his 1st place, i've explained him the trick and directly to 284M...

than, its nice, but its not ! without a new corrected code, gameplay will become boring i think :/

Not sure if this bug has been mentioned... Had KB2 or 3 running stacked w Vengeance 1. Killed the Vengeance, and had both KB (red) and victory (white) shots blinking at the now-open Vengeance shot, but all shots in there simply kicked back out with no acknowledgement, points or sounds for the rest of the Vengeance multiball. Ending multiball reset the droptarget and Klingon shots started being recognized again.

OK. I'm curious. Any link to post?

its on the "trick" page, and than here it is : SJ seems to work as PD, than if you finish PD3 by "accident", you can continue with SJ3 (i still not try)

...

playing only PD3, we than scores in the last 4 games : 327, 284, 241 & 291M...
free game is now at 300M
and we need warp 9.2 to light EB !!! my hi is 27, what about yours ?

I'm on the fence about whether I like timers on any tier 2 or 3 mission. It's just a cheap way to make a mission more difficult. Right now there's no audible difference between failing or completing a mission because the sound callout is the same. That should be fixed. I'm also thinking as long as the timers remain on tier 3 missions and the shot count resets, those particular missions can be abused to some degree.

It will be interesting to see how Stern addresses this.

Rob

From: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-trek-prime-directive-3-vs-rest-of-the-game

I would like to emphasize that PD3 is obviously your first choice as KME so thoroughly and excellently shows on youtube. But, like ripleYYY wrote, if you accidentally complete PD3, or just haven't made good progress on it on last ball compared to SJ levels, then SJ3 is not an unreasonable alternate. I think the right orbit is the first multi-colored shot on SJ3 (twice uni-colored flashing shot value) and then you have to hit a shot on the opposite side of the playfield (left ramp IIRC ?) if you want to get the combo doubled,multicolored doubled shot. Actually that is why it's great to have a couple L3 doublers done like NERO and Klingon. That way you are in no hurry on SJ3 for a combo doubler since the needed multi-colored shot is also statically doubled for the duration of the game.

My apologies for posting this in the bugs thread as I had promised to only post bugs here and I broke my promise. This isn't a bug, but an example of what happens when a programmer who is not a world class player like Lyman or Keefer does the coding. Personally, I love the exploit and hope this feature does not get "corrected", it actually makes the game a lot funner to set up the L3 doublers on the left ramp and right ramp, timing out the L1 modes on the remaining, and then going to town on PD3.

as often with softwares (...), almost we, the players/users, we're finding the bugs they leave in the code...

than yes, lets hope they will react, as with no doubt STERN did read what we're saying here
and for sure, these "smalls" probs have to be corrected... (sry SR, else it kills the overall gameplay)

(PS : i was too quick yesterday : free game is now at 150 & 300M)

and again, now 423M & 28 warps...

but for sure, balance has to be made between building first big jackpots and X2 inserts, and only than going to PD3, in fact not easy at all, as i've surelly played +30 minutes (didnt checked) and i'm even not at the 1/2 of what SB did score !!! the last inserts i've seen were at 1.6M (3.2)

than yes, the trick is easy to undertsand and use, but scoring 1B points is another story
tribute to you SB, its insane for sure

I've always felt that the prime directive missions (all 3) were the weakest of all the missions as far as creativity and polish. Hopefully they're addressed in the next update. My guess is they'll put a dramatic reduction in points for the second, third, etc... Times played.

Playing tonight and shot away team on SJ1. I don't remember it telling me away team was lit, but it certainly didn't tell me what galactic mode I had when I shot the away team. The insert was lit too...

Rob

I hit a couple bugs while playing Prime Directive (1, 2 and 3) last night. On PD 2 and 3, if Vengeance battle is lit and the mode times out - if you drain the ball it does not restart the mode - you are forced to hit one of the two mode change shots on your next ball. Contrast this to when Vengeance battle is not lit - draining when the mode change shots are lit will change the mode (easy mode change setting).

Also on PD 2, I had maybe 10 seconds left in the mode when the ball drained. Next ball started, and I still only had 10 seconds to play that mode before it timed out. On PD 2, shouldn't the timer reset on a new ball?

Also - it only happened a couple times - but I'd finish PD1 and hit the away team shot, then the ball would auto launch and I would not get the opportunity to select a mode. It started DTD against my will.

Well, since Stern is working on the ST code now, I thought I would post my thoughts about that. I really hope they have evaluated the feedback here as to what could be done to make the game better. My #1 concern is that with the last update, they really didn't polish the existing code and instead just added on top of it.

Here is hoping they nail it out of the park with the next update...

Rob

Do you have any further information, or just their general statement that someone posted in another thread that they are working on it?

I'm just going by the statement Steve Ritchie made on facebook which had been mentioned in another post.

Rob

We need some adjustment for the coil strength on the upper flipper. Mine has already bent the posts next to the warp ramp and I'm replacing the rubbers on the posts monthly. The airballs are pretty bad with the bent posts and I am ordering more from Pinballife. I'm thinking about using the larger diameter posts with the 1" rubber bumpers if the new ones get bent again quickly. 004.JPG003.JPG

Get the superband minipost rubbers. That will at least stop those post rubbers from shredding. It is an absolute necessity for ST.

I got the superband minipost rubbers a few months back (in a nice blue). They are MUCH better than the standard, however, it will not completely stop them from shredding. I've had to replace a couple already.

I'm not sure about the Vengeance battle lit part but quite often I am not able to select a new mode after a drain at the end of a previous mode (one shot left). The blue start mission inserts are lit but I have to launch the ball and then hit either shot to start a new mode. I hate that.

Another similar bug is when the game seems to be stuck with nothing lit except the Vengeance. I think it was after starting a Vengeance mode then draining between without a regular mode running. Once you go through the Vengeance mode then you can start another mode. That has only happened once or twice, though. I don't know the rules in detail so maybe there was more to it.

Neither are bugs. If you start a ball and it doesn't let you select a mission, it's because Vengeance is ready.
In the second case, Vengeance 3 requires you to finish before selecting a new mission.

Okay but I have had the start mission lit when launching a ball.