There's no incentive at all. Add a ball for all those risky shots? Utterly not worth it. Once I get Extra Ball I stop really shooting for it, except for the fact that it's just fun.

One thing I really want to see is cumulative jackpots for Klingon mb. There should be a base jackpot value that can be increased throughout the game, and one option is to increase the jackpot with every Warp ramp, and possibly also through the pops (yes, borrowing from STTNG). I also agree on Warp 9.9 multiball, and I want it to last as long as you have >1 balls in play, and NOT be "shoot everything twice and finish." I'm not big on how all the multiball modes have a fixed ending and a fixed scoring potential. If you get on a roll, keep it going! Another option is to use combos to keep the multiball mode going after you're down to 1 ball.
As for Tier 1 modes, it should not play the end of mode quotes when you drain. Also, I'd like the speech redone so it's just quick callouts and not these long narratives.

Okay, what about this for Vengeance 2? It's a two ball multiball, and you have to lock one ball in the Vengeance to light a ramp shot. When you hit the lit ramp shot the Vengeance uses the magnet to spit the ball back at you, and you have to relock a ball back in there to light the second ramp shot. Make all 8 shots to beat the ship and light victory laps. Obviously more points for making the lit ramp shot on a combo.

So it still plays more like a single ball mode like it is now, you still have to shoot for the Vengeance like now, and it still spits the back for you to have to wrangle control back from, but it's a little more interesting. Drain either ball and mode ends.

Agreed. Not only does it hit the repetition issue I mentioned earlier, but you just drained, you shouldn't get 'rewarded' with a quote, you didn't earn any going any further.

Not sure if I agree with that. The think we have enough Vengeance modes as it is.

I hope that they concentrate on the main modes, especially the level 1 modes.

I want to quickly say, without having a ST, but just in general; Work can be good, sometimes! It just needs to be done right, and I feel with the limited experience with ST I have, and the comments in this thread and general concensus it hasn't been done completely right in ST.

Borrowing some previous ideas here, for Tier 1 modes, if you make enough shots before the time limit, the multi-colored final shot should light (and maybe blink to differentiate from an expired timer) and if you hit it, you immediately start the mode 2. And, you get big points for doing this, and it also changes the first jackpot in Kobayashi Maru which as of now the first jackpot per arrow is paltry (so it's more like an artifact award in, cough, STTNG). Similarly , if you finish the mode 2 shots in one try, you immediately move on to mode 3. This could save a lot of shots to those annoying side shots, give more continuity for the storyline, and give a big incentive for finishing any of the modes in one ball. Now to make this work, you have to change the start of next ball to not automatically be in the mode you've already started, otherwise you're now forced to finish a level 2 or 3 mode and you may want to go back to level 1. So now you always have a choice on ball launch as to which mode you wan to start or continue. Again this is a grace award that saves you from hitting the side shots.

Yep. So what you do to not totally punish you for draining and losing all hope for a "fast finish" is to extend the mode timer by a second (or some amount) with each combo. So you're down to 10 seconds but you want to get the "fast finish" award, better combo like crazy and you can still pull it off. Also, Black Hole can be "add a shot" for a limit of one extra shot at any given time, and it resets the current combo timer.

I shouldn't have said a lot of work to get a ball added at warp 9.9.. i find myself getting scope locked just shooting warp ramps cuz it's such a satisfying shot, I was thinking warp 9.91,9.92 and just let it count on forever, but really I like the idea of a stacking multiball. The add a ball is cool, reminds me of the TFTC skull cracking.. maybe even make the multiball mode like that, where after 9.9 you can add balls from each warp ramp for so many seconds.

I'm hoping for some over the top jackpot calls! Gotta love MM and LOTR for their jackpot calls!

KLIIINGON JYYAAAACKPOTTT!!!! isn't over the top?

Steve Ritchie's High Speed from 1986 had a side-shot to the ramp that triggers a jackpot. It is the single most exciting shot in the game. This is an old idea that has been copied, but it still works!

Like High Speed's ramp shot, the Star Trek Warp ramp is the most exciting shot on the table. It deserves a big payoff! I like some of the ideas about increasing millions on the Warp ramp after achieving a key goal.

For example, during Kobayashi Maru, light the Warp ramp for increasing millions with a progressive jackpot payoff at 3 consecutive shots or 5 non-consecutive shots.

Yeah, Warp Combo Jackpots would be the shit!

And you only have 30 seconds to hit warp ramp jackpot. That will get your palms sweaty.

My biggest issue with my ST Pro is adjusting the warp ramp to make it feed somewhat consistently. It is all over the place no matter how I adjust it or the pitch of the game. Half of the time the ball is bouncing around it jumps the flipper or hops into the shooter lane. I think the highest I have ever seen on my game is warp 8.

I found this is easiest solved by slowing the ball down as it exits the warp ramp. A piece of cloth side sticky back Velcro at the right wall of the warp ramp exit did this for me. Now the ball comes out smoothly and drops so it can be hit by upper flipper again.

just something little , but maybe "Kllllinnngon Multiballllll " callout at the beginning would be nice too. Has to be in the same voice as the real deep sounding klingon jackpot callout thats in there.

Have you checked the two wood screws at the entrance to the ramp? Loose ramp screws can cause problems. Don't overtighten them if they are loose. Just snug them.

I'm sure that works, but the whole idea of that ramp is to get the ball going faster and faster (until it's out of control). Big rewards with big risk. By slowing it down, you're essentially making the game easier. Maybe as a last resort.

I don't agree that the goal of that ramp is to loop faster and faster (like shadow loop). The ball needs to come out of the ramp controlled in order to be hittable . Otherwise (on some games) it hits the plastic and bounces out badly and cannot be looped at al. If it was intended to be faster and faster, I think Steve would have done something to smoothen its exit up. I've played a few games they didn't need anything and the ball flowed around this ramp perfectly. The Velcro idea is only for those that have issues. I had ramp exit issues and the Velcro made it operate more like the machine that exited the ramp smoothly.

If some games play smooth and some don't, and the ramp is meant to be adjusted, why would you not just do that? Sticking Velcro on it seems drastic.

Every game plays a little different. On my game I could not get an adjustment of the ramp exit that would ever be consistent. So I stuck a bit of Velcro. It was such a drastic move. It took maybe 10 seconds to apply and would take the same to remove lol. Let's all gang up on the guy that a a working solution. You wouldn't want that. Leave the game playing clunky.

You are welcome to come and try to adjust mine.

He did. He added the adjustment screw. Screw being the key word. The better you have it adjusted, the more out of control it will be when you finally miss. It's the ultimate sucker shot. Extremely valuable and fun as hell, but it's a sucker shot. He knew that no one would be able to loop it forever and that once you miss, the ball would be out of control. That's what he was going for. (thanks, and you suck Steve d

I'm sure not all ramps were mounted equally. If mine didn't feed right, I think I'd start looking at other examples to see if any mounting points (like the entrance screws I mentioned above) or the adjusting screw is mounted slightly different. The back panel also could be cut differently. Often there's an art line or something nearby you can go by for a post, or you can take pics and compare later at home. Find one that's smooth out of the box, then compare it to yours.

I really like the idea of adding the Warp Multiball when reaching 9.9, I think that 20-40 seconds of 2X Playfield when reaching warp 9 would be nice. Good to start it during a multiball. As we all know more difficult to hit warp ramp when 3-4 balls are flying around.

I've glanced thru this thread. There seems to be some cleanup needed on a couple of things if these rules continue forward and remains unchanged.

If you drain on some modes prior to making the final shot, you can change missions. On some missions, this is not the case and you need to plunge and then hit the final shot to light the Away Team or Mission Start inserts.

The same is true in some cases if you drain with Away Team or Mission Start flashing. Sometimes you need to plunge, sometimes you can change the mission after a drain.

I feel that these should be consistent across the game.

Also, the Skill Shot rules may need to be cleaned up. It seems there are times that I can hit multiple targets and the skill shot is still active and times that it seems if I hit one target and then the skill shot ends.

I'll have to pull the glass and play around with these things to properly document them.

My observation is that the first mode is made easy, so a drain upon completing the first mode allows the player to go ahead with the next mode. The subsequent modes demand hitting the "away team" or "start mission".

So I'm not sure if this is what you meant or not, but it would be cool if you literally had to hold the button down, and it played some powering up noise and drained the weapon inserts one at a time, with a cool color fade on the Prem/LE as each one drained, and you had to hold it down the entire time to activate it. If you released it early it would just spring back to full.

This would prevent you from accidentally triggering it when you really just wanted a Vengeance hit, but also make it harder to activate because you'd have to manage the ball and one hand on the button for a few seconds.

Yeah, it would be awesome during multiball, because it would be a lot harder to just cradle a single ball on one flipper and use your other hand to activate. We'd see tournament players busting out the Chin Charge™.

It's like a flying shooter ala 1942 or DonPachi etc, where you hold down the fire button to charge up a super shot.

You know, alternately, what if you held down the button to charge it UP, not drain it down, and then the more you pre-fill the inserts the faster it is to charge up. Like you have to turn all the inserts from yellow to blue (you could do some flashing lights for the Pro instead of colors) and if an insert is empty you have to charge it to turn it yellow, then blue. So if you have the inserts half filled already you have to hold it down long enough to charge the second half yellow, then they all charge up to blue (or flashing). When the bar is fully charged blue (or flashing on Pro) you could release it for something (and clear all the inserts). Not sure what for yet.

But if they didn't want to change the Captain's Chair it could still work as an idea for just using at any point during the game. Maybe with a cool down so you can't spam it. But some kind of VIP pass function, where you're trying to using it at strategic moments, and it would reward you for filling your shot meter up, because the higher you have it filled the easier to use it is. Then you have to decide do you use your shots to take hits on the Vengeance, or do you hoard them for faster super shot charging?

I am loving the ideas around the punch-it button, including what happens when you have acquired a full torpedo set. Is there some big nuclear-ish weapon in either of the Star Trek movies that might be an option once you fill up all the torpedoes?

To me, a machine should always capitalize on what makes it unique. The punch-it button, the Warp ramp, and the center target are relatively unique and thus need to be involved in some big payoff.

My first idea was to be able to tell WHAT BALL we are currently playing. This dove tails into...

If I get "Extra Ball", and during the same ball get ANOTHER "Extra Ball", then I should have TWO extra balls. Not so.
Though I didn't know this until I got to ball 3, which I thought was ball 2, because the DMD rarely ever shows which damn ball I'm playing. With the extra balls, shoot again, and mission changes it's pertinent information to know the ball count. COME ON STERN!

Sounds silly, but many times I'll think I'm on ball 2, only to find out...no... you were on ball 3. Then I'm yelling "what about that extra ball!". LOL. Loving the game.

Ok. Figured this out.

If you drain on the final shot, you can change the mode UNLESS a Vengeance mode is ready to start.. Then you have to plunge and hit Away Team or Mission Start to change modes.

First, I really enjoy ST and how it shoots. But I agree it has SOOOO much more potential. I love a bunch of these ideas, namely a Warp MB, Klingon SJP increase, and creating more distinction between modes.

To put my additional input as succinctly as possible, the biggest shortcoming to ST right now is lack of breadth to gameplay and scoring options. This borrows from a phrase Keefer has used in the past to describe the key characteristics of gameplay/code (breadth, depth, length). "Breadth" = multiple play progression and scoring avenues available at any given time. Essentially, different avenues to play the game at any given moment. Having different choices of which ST missions to choose aren't really different avenues because the sequence doesn't impact each other outside of Super Modes.

Currently, at any given time we have:
A) Start/play a mission mode.
B) Qualify/start Vengeance MB/mode -- able to stack on top of a running mission. (but the second two levels aren't worth the risk/reward)
C) Qualify/start Klingon MB -- able to stack on top of a running mission.
D*) Shoot warp ramps to qualify an EB (hopefully set to good points in tourney setting) and get Warp 9.9 add-a-ball (lame reward for the performance & risk required).
That's it!! Sorry, but in their current implementation, spinner and pops don't count.
* Warp Ramp is currently only worth it for the EB.
BOTTOM LINE: to me, ST has a "breadth" of only 3 options, and the Vengeance Option isn't all that valid for levels 2 and 3 except to get back to another Vengeance MB. This creates a VERY narrow game.
- Super Modes (ramps, spinner, pops) do lay over the top of all of this, but it takes a bit to get there, and they really represent a combination of depth from the missions with some breadth. So I'll call it a 3+.
- Kobayashi, Enterprise Amok, etc are mini-wizard modes and represent "depth" -- not breadth.

Let's contrast it with, say, STNNG, which has:
A) Start/play a mission mode. (whose missions have a distinct -- and sometimes multiple -- rewards in artifacts. Not just points. Further, the modes are much more distinct from one another)
B) Quality/start Neutral Zone MB/mode.
C) Qualify/start Borg MB.
D) Shoot warp ramp combos for Warp Levels that grant you meaningful rewards that lay over the top of other PF/game features. And a Warp Factor 9 mode that is fun and thrilling.
E) 5Millon/10Million, etc combo shots.
F) Qualify/play shuttle video mode.
G) Advance in rank.
H) I'm sure I'm missing some more here...

Much of ST's breadth problems could be solved with:
- giving meaningful gameplay rewards to Warp Ramp to justify going for it.
- distinction between modes in terms of the shot focus, while keeping the reward mechanisms for hitting combos (because hitting combos is where this pin really shines)
- some side-modes or specific shot rewards (such as a Combo MB that started once you have combo'd each shot a certain # of times, or perhaps advancing in Rank, or Combo hurry-ups) that are eligible during any single ball play, and possibly multiball play.

One item to add to ST's depth and strategy associated with Super Modes:
- Have the points scored in a second/third level mission count toward the first level Super Ramps/Spinner/Pops. This would add a cool element of scoring strategy to play some of the second/third level missions prior to gaining your 1st level 3-in-a-row, and thus, breaks the single lane highway to Kobayashi as a standard sequence to score big points.

Stern/Steve/Tanio: Thanks for reading these and at least considering some of the ideas we've presented. I look forward to ST taking the next leap in terms of gameplay quality!

^ What Snailman said!

Hey awesome Stern people, if you're reading this, would you please consider adding a ball save to the kickback on the Prem/LE? Ala phantom flips on Monster Bash? Mine works great, but every once in a while it just doesn't fire, and that 1 out of 20 times or whatever is so frustrating, because you don't nudge thinking the game's got your back, and then you lose your ball. If on those rare occasions the game just kicked out a new one up into the pops I'd be totally happy.

I'm sorry, but that's a bit of a crock. Many of us send very polite, responsible and earnest emails directly to Stern about the software and our suggestions, and we get <edited>in return. Many of us have posted without hate on Pinside ad-infinitum about code wants and needs...and we've gotten <edited> in return.

Regardless, I think its great that SR and team are actually considering these suggestions. I sure wish certain coders/designers were. But give it 6 months Steve. If STLE code doesn't have its shit together there will be plenty of "hate"...because people don't like playing unfinished games that cost $7,000....and then, when they ask the company about it, get...<edit> in return.

_{Post edited by moderator: Vulgarity please don't go on a rant like that in the future.}

chill son, let the king get it done.

That was kind of a "dick" reply.

It's the truth. Deal with it.

Can we keep this thread positive and just ignore anyone who's trying to stir up shit?

This ^^^^^

Great post and some great ideas in there. Its nice to know that SR is reading this stuff too.