verified on a few different peoples machines that there is some distortion coming from the cabinet speaker output. Seems like it may not be limited to Star Wars, but is a base system code update that was made to Spike II games a while back, and so far we've found it to come from a batman 66, and Aerosmith. have not confirmed any other games at this point as we have not tested. I have rolled back to version .91 to confirm the distortion does not exist on that code version, and see it reappear when upgrading to the latest versions.

Also, I believe it may have been introduced in version 1.01 for Star Wars, but i do not have any earlier versions other than .91 to confirm. It is very subtle distortion, will be more noticeable depending on your ears and what you have your volume levels set to.

Gotcha. Just sounds like a normal $5 craptastic speaker to me Some distortion

The SPIKE system is 2.1 not 2.0, so the cabinet speaker is a completely separate sound track!

Right, regardless... the sound coming from there is slightly distorted, it didn't use to be this way. Perhaps related to mixing to mono. I think this may have been introduced when they added the features for adjusting the cabinet and backbox speakers bass/treble separately. I had originally noticed this issue on my own game back about a month ago and I thought perhaps it was an issue developing with my board. I swapped in another Spike II CPU board and the problem persisted. I had also ruled out issues with the speaker itself. This then got me thinking it was potentially a design flaw with Spike II on that cabinet speaker channel... but I now believe it to be code related. I had sent an email to Stern software support, but had not heard back. Figured i'd mention here to confirm others notice this. Its not a show stopper by any means, just an observation I made.

I noticed the cabinet speaker sounded awful, interesting it's an actual issue, i just assumed it was a crappy speaker. I hooked up an external sub anyways.

I've also never really listened to what the back of a speaker sounds like to be honest.

My cab speaker is distorted before I even launch the ball.

My speakers sound fantastic. But they are Fillper Fidelity.

It's not a problem with the speaker, its a problem with the audio coming off the Spike II CPU Board. However, a better speaker geared to optimizing lower frequencies will probably exhibit less of this distortion problem.

Have you tried listening to it with headphones? It sounds really good and in stereo. but ill check for this distortion next time. I know with my backbox speakers they were pressing up against the speaker grille causing distortion and very poor quality sound output, you may want to check to make sure that's not the problem either.

I noticed now for months that there are tines when the ball is going slow around the hyperloop and many times cant even make it around the full 4 times. When i test the hyperloop in the testing mode the balls start slow for 10 seconds and then start whizzing around very fast. I will let the hyperloop run in test mode for a minute or two and it will run perfectly and the balls will go very fast. After doing that, the game will play great until i shut it off and play it the next day. It almost seems like the hyperloop has to warm up. Any explanation for this?

The issue with the distortion or 'clipping' of audio from the mono cabinet speaker is what I believe to be something that Stern was handling correctly pre 1.01 code where they added the ability to independently control levels on the backbox and cabinet speakers, along with bass/treble, and now ohm ratings with the very latest 1.04 version. In audio engineering, there is something called 'Pan Law' which deals with mixing a stereo signal down to mono. Essentially before a stereo track is mixed down to be presented in a mono application (such as the single cabinet speaker), each channel should have a gain reduction of -3dB to make it balance out properly and not introduce clipping. This is something I wrestle with all the time when we are filming and two people are wearing their own microphones, but sometimes each person's microphone picks up the other person. Rather than present each person in their own left or right channel, we mix down to mono and it often introduces some interesting clipping because we forgot to do the gain reduction before the mix.

The opposite is true as well. If you take a mono track and mix it up to stereo, it will be about 6dB too low because of Pan Law.

Stern simply needs to go back and examine what happened to the audio processing code that was handling this previously. I can see a call to a routine getting missed if they were doing all this plumbing to add the new system features. Again, this is likely a problem on all Spike II games that got these audio level adjustments earlier this year.

Sorry. No explanation. Mine doesn’t do this. Sounds like a bad magnet in the hyperloop.

Lighted Magnetic Hinge Cover. I have to say i’m impressed with this mod

5DA6BD96-D7B5-49CF-9FD9-551256198679 (resized).jpeg

Nice dvda!
I finally put powerbladz on. They are a bit to washed out for me. The awesome gi. Lighting that stern did on this game affects this mod a bit to much.
I really think this is SR best game he designed. And Dwight’s code is also his best so far. This is my current fav game.

Hi Bart
You can always lower your GI settings down a bit. We do this all the time here.
Glad to see you got them going though!
Did you know they won best of show at the Texas Pinball festival?

Hey guys wondering if someone can point me in the right direction. Is the quickest way to defeat the death star to use R2D2, do the endor bunker mission, then do battle over endor? I think then I only have like 10-20 seconds to hit the death star? Is this right? very hard!

Battle over Endor is the easiest way to defeat the Death Star. You have until multiball ends to complete it.
There are a couple tricks to help you make multiball last longer.

1. During battle over Endor hit the FORCE targets to activate an add a ball. You can add the ball anytime you want by holding the button on the apron down for about 2 seconds.
Wait until you drain and hold the button to keep MB going.

2. Before you start Battle over Endor, get close to TIE fighter MB. These can be stacked together to give you more time, and balls, to blow up the Death Star.

Hope that helps, good luck.

Where, exactly, are these tips, tricks and basically rules of the game published? It seems to be an elusive bit of info.

Thx joe I’ll try it

Dont know about actual SW sound problems.

The cab speaker is garbage, I swap all my sterns to this one - sounds 1000% better in spike and sam machines (and upgrade the high pass caps on sam games):

https://www.parts-express.com/sw830-pp-8-poly-cone-woofer-with-foam-surround-4-ohm--299-2176

I’ve learned them from watching friends and playing the game.

That add a ball is available for all the final multiballs, you’ll know when you have it because the button on the apron will flash a different color (maybe organge? I can’t recall)

Also, TIE fighter MB can be stacked with any of the other MBs.

Anybody where to turn down the g.i.
Thanks

http://www.tiltforums.com/t/star-wars-stern-rulesheet/2812

I had printed this off but seems to be quite out of date, FYI.

It’s a wiki so it can be updated by anyone. Last updated March 2018. Looks pretty complete.

For an inexpensive audio upgrade for any Spike game I recommend the Kicker 41DSC4 4" speakers for the back box ($25 or so on ebay) and the Pyle PLPW8D 8" sub for the cab ($15 from Amazon). The key feature on the back box speakers is to have flush mount tweeters and these Kickers do the trick. I used to use Pioneer for William's games but their tweeter protrudes so won't work here.

My escape gate is not working properly. Last time this happened i just tightened the screw and it worked fine. This time no such luck. Any ideas?

It seems mostly up to date, what do you think is wrong? I added a few things I knew offhand. The main thing seems to be that it's still missing the hyperspace MB rules, which noone seems to have figured out for sure yet... Also I think it's missing a Hoth mode, but I can't find that cool diagram of all the modes someone posted last month

Stern also published this video. Hyperspace is in here at 1:25.

Here's the post:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-star-wars-clubmay-the-force-be-with-you/page/99#post-4436431

How about a detailed description of what the problem is...?

The gate will open to set the escape but after the ball is saved, the gate will not close back up right away. As the flippers are hit the gAte closes in small increments. It seems like it isnt allowed to move freely.

Two possibilities:
1. The gate rod is tight against the play field and cannot move freely

Or

2. When you re tightened the screw last tinge you did so with not enough spring tension on the gate, so there's not enough force to close the gate at once.

Fixing that is rather easy, theoretically, BUT doing it at the right spring tension requires patience, multiple attempts and the right attitude to get right. This is because you need to hold the gate against the spring force while OPEN, in the right way that it will be in the right spot when closed, and at the same time at the right distance to the play field. It's aggravatingly annoying because you need to look at both sides of the play field at the same time and need three hands to hold everything still and a forth to tighten the screw while doing it. That's why a bunch of people here have given up. One dude even removed the gate altogether, lol.

For some reason my star wars goes into verify and took 24 minutes to boot up....has anyone seen this? It only started long boot up after the latest update.

did you leave USB plugged in by chance?

My deathstar won't open.

Because I suck and choke everytime I need to make that tight friggin shot!

Mine was froze when the screw was too tight. It was binding up, so make sure you don't have it too tight.

I'll have to look again, i read through it all and i know some of it didn't match up, but i can't remember what. I'm running the latest code, which may have a slight impact.

Thanks for the recommendation, will have to check those out!

Yep, and I haven't had a problem with it since.

So I will start off by saying I am not a newbie and I cannot stand when I hear someone saying “oh it’s the greatest game ever ‘ because the first thought to me is it’s the honeymoon phase or they’re just still learning pinball period. having said that. I have to say I think this is the most fun I’ve had with the pinball machine to date and that says a lot I’m not sure how much is the theme. But The shots feel very exciting and satisfying I feel like I am going through the movies and at the end of each movie the multi balls just top it off. Sure I was one of the people who was terribly upset when I first saw the pics of this game I was expecting so much like
‘that’s never been done before” from a toy and design standpoint having said that gameplay and design even though it’s not the newest ideas ,it’s designed from existing perfection it is what makes the difference of this pin. Dwight’s code is very sharp not sure if he’s done anything like this before ?
Anyway sorry the rest won’t ever see what I see. Because they will never give it the 20-30 tries that it requires b4 u get it! Take care

Well played

Man, if I were on your continent, I'd come and fix it for you! This brings me close to tears :b

It stopped working in the middle of a tournament so we took it off as we couldn’t fix it in 15 minutes and to be honest, I just have not got around to fixing it. I’m sure I will one day.

GOT. Honestly can’t wait till his next game...

Yeah the scoring elements are from GOT and then you have other pieces like the pop slots from W? D.

GOT and Ghostbusters have pop slot awards.

And GB takes it one further with pop slot punishments - the Scoleri Brothers "award"!

Of course, it started with W? D though