I respect that, and I also respect your right to just straight up not like SW. If you don't like the bonus multiplier mechanic (and you care about your scores, which I think you do) then you're probably just never going to enjoy the game all that much. At least you played it a number of times before reaching a final judgment, which is more than many people commenting negatively on the game bothered to do.

At the same time, I can see why people would really like it. I can understand that side, which is why it's bumming me out that I can't click with it so far. But hey, games I thought much less of ended up being stuff I liked, so there's hope.

I swear to God, I want to wrap my game up, drive it out to Kaysville, set it up in your house and have you play a few games, then slap the back of your head and say, "What the f**k is WRONG with you???"

But yeah...I respect your right to be wrong.

Any news on a code drop to fix the Fork Ramp Controller Board bricking issue?

They told me “soon”
Whatever that means

They're still trying to sell SW Premiums. I'm sure this will be a high priority as far as their coding resources go.

Couldn't agree more!
I had a bunch of non-pinheads around 2 weekends ago ostensibly to watch the Bathurst V8 car race (think NASCAR on steroids, a 1000km race around an iconic mountain track!!) with pizza and pinball as an added bonus
Anyway I had SWLE set up pretty easy so pretty much anyone could at least get a multiball etc and they loved it.
Lots of positive comments on the lights, sound etc.
Got a little hazy towards the end of the day but 7 hrs of watching/playing/drinking will do that to you...ha!

It’s just his nature. I haven’t seen him say that he likes any game ever. I think he actually hates pinball.

Can you say glass half empty?

Wait, so you're saying that you can backhand the Death Star shot? I figured the gate was to prevent it. Mine must need an adjustment then. Its just a matter of making the sure its not bent and swings smoothly right?

You can, but not when the ball is resting. You can absolutely do it if the ball is moving from right to left towards the left flipper...if the angle is just right you can backhand it up there. I've done it a few times. And what swinging gate are you talking about that would prevent that?

I can backhand mine from the catch, its not easy but its pretty doable and I am average at best.

Yeah, but I suck.

Left flipper for me. Haven't had a drain from the jump ramp since leveling.

Hey, I’m your neighbor not so far away. My son and I, it’s all we play now (SWLE); and I think you know I have some good games. If you really want it to grow on you, and I guarantee it will, come down and play mine sometime. I want to play some of your games anyway

Left, as I recall.

I backhand the Death Star ramp all the time with the ball resting, and sometimes even rolling (depending on roll speed).

Rob

interesting ... on my machine I can backhand (resting) and get to the ramp consistently but it never seems to have the power to make it up the ramp.

Same here

I’ve made the left flipper backhand shot from rest too, maybe only 20% of the time though. Unfortunately, that’s probably as often as I’m successful with the right flipper hitting the Death Star shot too.

Well I was really bummed about the bm66 code so I just ordered a st premium,I quess I don't care about code as much as I thought,sorry guys, I am sure i will love it ,I understand cointaker has a new shaker that is much more like a stern that is what I have comming with my game anybody have any experience with the new shaker from ct,there old red tremor was just not for me,any other mods that are recommended ,I have mirrors blades the led bezel and the colored plastic protectors

Sorry, I was referring to the pro version. It has a gate over the death star shot. Not sure why but it definitely hangs up shots coming from the left flipper.

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Ugh. My ramp forks just started sticking up a little and trapping the ball, seems like it just happens during a hurry up. I have about 50 plays with update 0.92. Do I keep playing? Wait for another update?

Mine Premium doing that with 0.92 as well. I quit playing until Stern comes out with new code (or until I get clear advice from Stern that it's OK for me to revert to 0.89). Hope they get this fixed quickly, I want to play!

same. they put 89 back. thinking going back.

I posted these pics in another thread. 1st is original, 2nd is new. Notice center right the burn on the board. That's the 9D board.

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There were at least 6 of them at Expo, and I wasn't interested enough to fire up a game on any of them. Looks like same old same old.

Sweet Jesus. No fuses. Spike 2 is

Spike 2 is WHAT? Jeez...don't leave me hangin'!!!

Apparently pi side hates poop emojis? So in the Halloween spirit....

Spike 2 is

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What’s the 9D board? Is that related to the fork ramp? I’m at work so I can’t reference my machine.

I got an email yesterday from my distributor telling buyers to not install code .92, but said .89 and .91 were OK. Has that changed, should we be rolling back to just .89? At this point I may just wait until they have an official fix...

Yeah, I think that's the board for the fork. and the problem with the fork burning out...

The 9D board gives the fork ramp motor power. I've heard others with .91 still having fork ramp failures...so, as much as it hurts, .89 is the safest for the premium/LE fo now. I can't help but think Stern is scrambling to fix this, as failure on this theme would be epic.

I have .91 and it's been flawless so far. I'm really enjoying the video mode as well as the light saber dual (especially the lighting and effects).

I had .91 on my machine, but had decided to turn it off and not play. I doubt much changed between .91 and .92 so would think .91 could have the problem too.

I've gone back to .89. I did a full upgrade with verification and it all seemed to work out. It's now running .89 and I'm back to having a blast.

How do you get notifications about this sort of thing? Is it just up to the distributors to contact every person they sold too? Does Stern send out alerts via email to everyone? I just find this sort of thing completely unacceptable in 2017. You cheap less than $100 consumer electronic device has wifi, notifications and software updates. How can a pin of this value be so behind the times.

That quote would make an awesome t-shirt.

Ouch

Whatever blew up, it's going back to Stern for testing. Hopefully, they get to the bottom of the problem soon.

Or group/album name.

Basically you find out here, or your distributor should contact you after Stern does an official announcement. Basically same way you found out about the code update. Stern has not officially announced anything yet which means they probably don't have an exact answer yet. I for one specifically emailed them and asked them to put .89 back up so I could go back to it and play while waiting to just be safe.

As for why a pin doesn't have the wifi, auto updates, etc. To put it simply, it's expensive to do and not necessary for a low run commercial piece of equipment where techs usually do the maintenance. They'll only make thousands of these (probably not even 10,000). Those small $100 products that have those features are selling millions of units to the mass public so the cost gets spread around easily. They also don't do many software updates...

If nothing else, at least we've got an answer to your question about why Stern wouldn't want to open source their software. If they can destroy boards with official software releases, no need to give everyone else a shot at it.

That is a completely different argument. I can write software that will melt the PC I am typing on. My point was the liability angle is not valid. There a plenty of reasons a company does not want to open their source. I just personally think with the state of Sterns code it would probable be beneficial to them if they did. They clearly need all the help they can get.

Also this whole its expensive angle is not valid. Software development has proven many times over to be very profitable and cost effective. That is why everyone does it, its saves a bunch of money to be able to update a product post ship.

Sure. You'd have to first disable the cooling fans. I'd go for disabling the CPU fan first, then compute shtuff a lot until it overheats. But most modern BIOSes will cut the power to the board when that happens.

So really, can you melt a PC?

Yes I could easily modify this PC and fuck it up. I can modify the firmware in my car and I have done that and melted the motor. The point is neither the PC nor the car manufacturer have any liability if I do it. Can we just get back on the point of software and that Stern needs some help. If they are not going to make the investment opening up to the community would be very beneficial. Maybe not complete open source but even something similar to Color DMD would be a massive improvement.

OK, now this deserves a thumbs-up! I'd love to have seen the look on your wife's face when she heard the news.

Fine. Back to the point. Making a software framework accessible to "the public" requires a lot of effort. I write code for a living and if I had to make my code clear and useable for you, I'd have to package it very differently. You'd have to write your main engine to accept "mods" via accessible public classes. Know what I mean?

Sort of like how we clean our houses before we have guests...

I do the same thing for a living and know exactly what you mean I deal with this shit everyday. Stern is way behind the times and I stand by they should be doing anything and everything they can to improve. None of this is that expensive or complicated.

My wife wasn't pleased of the hassle of being temporarily a one car family but it was no big deal. I guess she takes the good with the bad. She knows the part of me that does stupid shit like that is the same part that makes me able to do my job and support the family.

Well said. Cheers!