Yes, the game takes 6 balls and the display will let you know if a ball is missing or not. During the test that allows you to clear all balls, be sure to push in the white buttons on the left just inside the coin door as this kills the high power voltage to the coils. Borg multiball is 3 ball. final Frontier wizard mode is 6 ball. There are balls staged in the subway as well as the trough.

When you have 1 too many balls in the game, it will kick another ball out into the trough. And, by the way, STTNG is the most finicky pin you can ever own. It's my favorite, but is a challenge to keep running 100%. And, yes, moving it around can cause issues with any pin. It's 24 years old!

Remove balls when you transport a game. Sucks to hear.

Since it was transported with the balls left in. It is possible the 6th ball is in it. And something else is causing it to be stuck somewhere.
Check for bulbs, washers, old rubbers etc that were possibly left inside the cab. And are now stuck somewhere.

I bet that's your issue.
Never expect to be able to just turn on a pin and play that has just been transported.
And never leave the balls in a machine then move it.

When you do the T- 18 make sure you close your coin door

You need to push the white buttons on the side. inside the coindoor to run on the voltage to the coils. Or close the coindoor while the test is running.

Screenshot_20170917-191416 (resized).png

I had one with a broken upkick top, there was a ball hiding in there.

If you added 1 extra it now thinks that all 6 balls are there but you actually have 7 in it. Which is why it's fireing 2 out to the shooter lane. All the switches that are supposed to be activated are. So it thinks it didn't fire the first ball out.

ST fires 2 balls out to load the cannons.
2 balls are always staged below the playfield in the cannon vuks. So that there is no delay while playing the game.

Empty all the balls from the machine. Power it off. Lift the playfield check in the bottom of the cabinet and under the playfield and habitrails for anything stuck or the 7th ball.

Then if you don't find anything go into switch edge test and see if any switches are stuck. Making it think there is a ball somewhere.

Then power it back off. Drop the 6 balls in the drain. And turn back on. It should fire two out to under the playfield.

the sixth ball was in it all along, probably staged in the subway somewhere. when you added the 7th, that's when it was kicking two out into the shooter lane.

when the game starts up, it stages balls in two or three locations in the subway. that may be the "going berserk" behavior you observed. it's putting balls in the subway on purpose.

the other behavior you describe -- kicking an additional ball into play during your ball -- is usually due to dirty optos or bad solder on the optos.

1. take off the glass.

2. go into the menu, select Tests, and select T.18 - Clear Out Balls.

3. close the coin door, so that the solenoids have power.

4. grab the balls as it kicks them out -- there may be one in each cannon as well.

5. count them.

there are three VUKs on the playfield. i think it can store balls at all three of these locations as well as the ball trough.

Just to remove delay in your game when playing. So that when you lock a ball elsewhere
It can kick one out right away. Otherwise you would be constantly waiting during a game for it to kickout somewhere.

This is what's going on.... Directly from the pinball database:

There are three cellar holes in the upper half of the playfield. They lead to three VUKs below the playfield that will kick the ball up to the left habitrail or to either of the two cannons on top of the slingshots. To reduce the time it would take for a ball to fall into a cellar hole, roll down under the playfield to a VUK, and resurface back into play, a patented below-the-playfield multiple ball delivery system was developed. In this system, other balls are already positioned below the playfield, one in each of the three VUKs. As soon as the playfield ball falls into a cellar hole, the corresponding VUK kicks its ball into play. The playfield ball then rolls down to remain in the newly-vacated VUK. Game play is continuous, and time has been saved.

Patent #5,350,174 [BELOW THE PLAYFIELD BALL DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR A PINBALL GAME] filed October 28, 1993. Granted September 27, 1994 to Ritchie et al. Assignee is Williams Electronic Games, Inc.

No, this is incorrect; three would be staged in the VUK's and 3 would be in the trough. STTNG has 3 VUKs and each one will be preloaded

Your matrix should look like this after the balls are all loaded

Normal Matrix (resized).png

the balls are staged at all three VUKs. one for each cannon, and one for the left VUK that feeds the left flipper.

I'm pretty sure it's a setting as to whether you want the balls staged or not. I'd have to get my manual out to be sure but I think that's right.

Dave