I believe hitting the ramps does building damage as well. So I start with Gigan that makes you hit ramps to kill him and does building damage at the same time to get to multiball.

I need to play this mode more. I suck at the ramps. Oh and the left spinner. I’m like 1/10 success rate on the left spinner. Haha

Hilarious you still had to compare the two. Just resist the urge!

The right ramp feeds the right flipper. It allows you to loop the ramps if you want.

I agree 1000%...

i am either dead on, and can rip all three and defeat ebirah pretty quickly, but if i am off, and i can tell as soon as the ball leaves the scoop, i waaaaayyy off and cant hit any of them. one of my many love/hate relationships with this pin. but still a freaking blast!!

Yeah but if you're not combo-ing the ramps, you're missing at least 50%-60% of the scoring opportunity for the mode. I think it works out to getting something like 2x-3x more for the combo shots vs repeating one ramp.

You light another battle after defeating a monster by switching city and then hitting both ramps again.

If you got halfway through beating the monster, I believe you can switch city and start another battle immediately at the same time, without re-ramping, as battle is already lit. I wonder if that is a glitch or mistake that might change though... Seems to me like if you choose to change city and not continue the current battle you should have to re-light a battle in the new city, same as if you finished the previous battle, but maybe that is intentional.

Remember you can only play one battle per city. Make sure you change the city before starting another tier 1 battle.

i just wish i could hit that left ramp consistently. too many shots banging around after the bridge, so it's not making it up the ramp

Agree on starting with gigan. In addition to stacking with damaging the building, doing ramps will get you going on fighter jets.
.Because those rounds can be quite valuable (and even moreso the second and third time around) when done quickly and completed fully (just like gigan) I'll sometimes just ramp out until starting jets, then try to finish it as quickly as possible, and then start gigan after and do the same ramping out for him.

Reason for separating is because if you stack them you can't focus on maximizing both at the same time, eventually finishing both but at lower scores. Of course, this strategy adds additional shots so it's riskier than combining. Having 2x playfield going during either setup is pretty great.

After ball Lock feature is lit. Start Gigan! It than feeds the left flipper and you can complete that battle rather quickly by repetitively hitting right ramp!
After that I change cities and Shoot left ramp than right ramp and start Megalon, than multiball! Its easy to shoot lit shots on ramps etc.... rather than spinners with multiball in my opinion. Than Im into second level Battles. All pretty much using only One building multiball! I am getting over a Billion every game now with this strategy!

This works on Premium/LE Not sure about pro

Not possible on the pro. Ramps always feed the same flippers. No looping of ramps possible.

Must be crushing those few modes you play to be getting a billion every game. Impressive.

Do you guys have this extra divited metal in the shooter lane? The ball off the plunge seems to catch air at times and wedge under mecas arm. Seems like it's covering a square cutout. Did stern just cover a mistake and now there is a edge for the ball to hit and lift?

20211213_173548 (resized).jpg

Yes I do - I found my shooter problems were from a shooter rod was not hitting the ball squarly. I had to move a washer to the outside of the left screw to shift the shooter rod over so it would not hit the right side of the ball all the time. I also cleaned all the factory gunk off the rod so it wasn't so crunchy.

If anyone is having some issues with right ramp reject drains...I took a clear rubber dot about the size of a dime and put it on the right inside part of the ramp a few inches up. It is pretty flat but is raised enough that it redirects the ball towards the left to avoid drains down the middle.

IMG_4627 (resized).jpg

Ramp spam with Gigan is one that has been mentioned. I like trying to get an ally early. Bring Rodan into a kaiju battle or a multi ball. 2x playfield scoring for 60 seconds is really nice.

While this is true & the RT ramp is easier to hit repeatedly to defeat Gigan, if you use this strategy it will be for less points.

Per Tiltforums Gigan rules:

"Shoot the eight ramp shots in total. Ramp shots award 1 million + 500k per shot, and making an alternating ramp in combo is worth 2x (multiplier does not increase with longer combos like Maiden’s Icarus ramp mode did, and looping one ramp does not count as a combo)"

Little subtleties in Elwin code as usual There are other modes like Super Train Loops, where hitting consecutive alternating ramps (without any other switch hits) scores huge points. So developing the skill to hit these alternating ramps over & over will pay off for good players.

That is the same strategy I take, and why I commented the Premium/LE adds to gameplay.

You do lose out on combo values being higher, but you gain easily beating Gigan.

Left ramp and left spinner are tough shots for me. Don't even mention the right scoop so close to the pop bumper! Also, can't tell you how many times the ball fires out of the scoop, I try to catch it with the left flipper bat and it goes directly to the left outline..... monster wins and the Xilians take over the world all due to my sucky play!

I usually start by lighting lock to lower the building. As part of lighting lock I hit the right ramp a few times to get 3 jets on the right inlane. Then I start Gigan and loop the right ramp for the battle. Jets ends up running at the same time so hitting the right ramp gets you both a jets shot and a Gigan shot.

I try to not start GZ multiball until I'm done with Gigan though. Instead I try to finish Gigan, then move cities to start Titanosaurus and start GZ MB in that battle since the MB action helps with hitting the 3rd target and the Maser cannon. If I haven't hit the 3rd target in the MB then I use Angirus to try again or use the Heat Ray to clear the shot.

After Titanosaurus an ally is lit, so if you can hit the scoop to start 2x and get a Level II battle started then there's a chance for some pretty good points. Lol, it's all easier said than done though. Such a fun game!!!!

So I bought into the hype about a month ago (been a while since I gave stern a look)and went and put some time on a pro. I loved it even know it was set up horrible and was not fun bc of that....However I cld tell it wld b great set up correctly. I cld c it had a amazing layout and just overall execution for early code was really good. So i set out to buy one which proved basically impossible unless wanted to pay super inflated prices for a le.....which I almost did but held off. I decided I wanted all the toys /mechs as the game was special and wanted to experience everything. So few days before Thanksgiving I started calling all of sterns distros focusing on the smaller not so know ones bc i knew the big ones had a huge waiting list going to the end of 2022. Well I wasn't having much luck and the list got shorter and shorter . Was down to the final few when I possibly found one that had a extra premium . Well I sent payment on Dec 6 and received it yesterday. What a amazing pin and it's definitely probably my favorite stern so far..... just a killer layout what nice toys/mechs and great theme integration even on such early code....can't wait to c where it goes but it's allready very good. Here's my premium...build date nov 16 cabinet date nov 13 and playfield date nov 11. 20211213_163803 (resized).jpg
20211214_130027 (resized).jpg

When the ball fires our of the scoop let it dead bounce over. It usually has enough strength to dead bounce to the right flipper and let it dead bounce again back to the left for an easy cradle.

Or drop catch out of there. Very repeatable.

Yeah, I tweaked my scoop kickout power down a bit. That makes a dead bounce to the right flipper super-reliable for me. It's still going to fast to cradle up, but it does set you up for most of the upper and left shots.

Congrats Stern you made a very friendly dino that my 2.5yr old gal enjoys playing with!

DE3A7116-23D2-4231-B4F9-7DC3E1695578 (resized).jpeg

I suck at drop catches but that is a great way to practice

Yeah. It’s very consistent and you get tons of practice each game.

If you finish the first battle (in Tokyo), you need to change the City, then shoot 2 ramps to light the next Battle in your new City. But if you don't complete that 1st Battle, then your next Battle seems to be lit at the scoop immediately. Further, you can only play 1 Tier 1 in Tokyo but you can play a Tier1 and a Tier2 in the other 3 Cities.

Shout out to Steve at Pinball Refinery for hooking up my premium with this powder coat job near identical to the LE.

Swapping out to red flipper buttons, adding Wizblades, Flaming speaker panels and tesla towers but lawd she getting pretty.

20211214_165912 (resized).jpg

20211214_165944 (resized).jpg

20211214_170014 (resized).jpg

Do you mean riveted?

So that shooter lane has changed from the older inverted "V" style? ( https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/535-8145-00 )

Qualifying or finishing the tier 1 then changing cities to get to tier 2 is solid strategy, and focus on collecting both extra balls helps!

C387311E-78A5-4226-9B21-9C0D04DB039E (resized).jpeg

This is true if you get far enough in the tier 1 to qualify the tier 2.

Rulesheet:
http://tiltforums.com/t/stern-godzilla-rulesheet/7210

Yeah, this is definitely my go-to strategy - though one note is it's pretty easy to earn an ally from both the 4th Gigan ramp hit, and the 5th Jet at around the same time, which results in you losing the second ally if you didn't collect the first before hand.

So you need to make a point to stop and pivot to shooting the scoop to collect the first ally, then go back and earn the second and collect whenever convenient. That breaks my rhythm of combo-ing ramps and often causes me to drain trying to cash in the first ally at the scoop, lol.

I'm excited to see the code mature - right now switching cities from Tokyo as soon as half way completing the first battle seems to be key to scoring. Apparently there will be reasons to stay and complete all 4 main goals (Tanks MB, Battle, Bridge MB, Tesla Strike) in each city eventually.

I know I regularly get two allies at a time, but didn't realize I won't if I qualify both before cashing in the first. Thanks for the clarification.

I like battling monsters and so have been reticent to moving on from a non-completed one before switching cities. That said, if there is greater incentive to switch than to stay with the current code, I'll try pivoting to this and see how it goes. I do look forward to when there is greater incentive for fully beating kaijus.

Yeah, I get hung up on wanting to restart and complete the battles - but the goal in switching as soon as possible is to quickly reach the tier 2 battles, specifically the vs Ghidorah and Gigan mode I believe, can be huge scoring. I cashed out that mode for 200+ million a couple times, and that could have been done way better...

Check out IE Pinball's GZ video on You Tube if interested - Karl DeAngelo goes over this basic strategy, again stressing it'll probably change soon with code updates...

Sooo... I came up with a solution to my "plunger at rest still too far from the resting ball in the shooter lane" issue... Had a friend that used a cutting wheel to help me trim both ends of the barrel spring down to a total length of 1.5cm (that was the length my particular machine needed). For the first time on mine, the plunger works as intended... Unorthodox, but it's what it took to get it to work. Cheers!

20211214_205841 (resized).jpg

So this guy showed up today.

E0A66FC3-8633-4D3F-85DD-55CD55D863A4 (resized).jpeg

It’s weird. My scoop kicks out to the very tip of the left flipper pretty much regardless of the kickout power setting. Almost impossible to drop catch. I have to dead bounce it to the right flipper. I wonder if the scoop can be moved or adjusted to aim more towards middle of the flipper? Looking at it from underneath the playfield i couldn’t figure it out.

Pretty disappointed that I'm still waiting on my premium with no real eta. Was originally told I was last order in the initial run.

Then told that the distributors allocation was just short by one. Mine. Now its been expected "anytime now" for about two months. I know times are a bit crazy now for parts supply, labor, shipping etc, but a bummer all the same.

I know some people have been waiting far longer for some Stern backorders, but starting to wonder how long I want to hold out before just canceling.

Ok my premium came with .80 code and apparently .81 is the newest??....so I hooked it up to my wifi but it says no new code available and it's up to date? So then I tried to do it the old way and it won't find it on the drive? It been long time since I've updated a stern ...how do I put it on the drive ? Thanks in advance

Isn't it generally accepted now that they're done with GZ Prem and Pro production until at least March '22, potentially even closer to summer? There is a thread here on Stern delays and protection schedule with the latest accepted and rumored info over the last couple months: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-is-on-the-line-at-stern-pinball-delays

Ya, I figured as much after I didn't get it in late October early November as originally expected.