Welcome! I'd honestly be surprised if there were any leagues up in Killeen but there is a group here in Austin that holds tournaments fairly regular. The group is Bat City Pinball.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BatCityPinball/
Website: https://batcitypinball.weebly.com/

Seems like they're having a tournament tomorrow at Buffalo Billiards downtown tomorrow. I haven't been to any of their events yet but I really should go sometime.

My brother play_pinball just finished shopping out a STTNG so if you have questions while shopping it out he might be able to help. One of the wiring harnesses to the cannon on his game has a break in the wire so we're waiting for that to arrive and get swapped out so that we can actually put some games on it. He actually ordered a spare set of harnesses so if yours needs replacing you might be able to buy that off him. If the wiring harnesses for the cannons haven't been replaced yet odds are they need replacing. They're apparently very prone to failure.

As some general advice when shopping something out I can't stress enough to take lots and lots of pictures. And after you think you've taken enough and you will have no problems getting that piece back together once you take it off... take some more pictures. You don't want to be sitting there trying to put your game back together going "How did I not get a picture of this?! How does this go back on!?"

If you need help with anything feel free to message me. I typically do my own board repair though I'm no expert.

I was just thinking about this but I had the completely opposite thought of you though. I would have said RGP was typically more welcoming. But my memory isn't all that great and I stopped following RGP probably around 2007 or so.

Why was it canceled?

I forgot to mention pinballz but i can't really suggest it anymore even if they finally decide to get the games into decent shape since they decided to jack the prices way up. Though you can still get the old pricing on most things for now using quarters until they finally move all the machines to card readers. Can't use quarters on any of the new games though. Those already have card readers.

STTNG can be kind of a beast. At least repair wise. I'm sure shopping it out isn't much easier. Don't stress about it though as there's plenty of people around the area who can help you out. Just might cost you some play time on your black knight though.

You'll need a rom burner or know someone who has one who can burn the rom for you for STTNG. I've got a burner and I may even have spare EEPROMs of the right size for STTNG but I'd have to check.

I'd say you have a decent chance at being on the latest version though if you haven't checked.

Looks like someone has already replaced the connector but they did a really poor job of soldering the header. I doubt the poor soldering job is the cause of it blowing fuses though.

It would be a lot longer than 15 minutes for me with a solderpult. I'm kinda slow doing board work. But I just got a new toy in the mail yesterday. Ordered a Hakko 301. I have a Aoyue soldering, desoldering, hot air station and the desoldering on on it *kinda* worked. But not as well as I'd have liked. Hoping the Hakko 301 is better. I'm sure it is (it was certainly more expensive).