Been awhile since I had a really good game on Stranger Things. Last night I managed to finish Send it Back! I'm pretty sure that was the first time I have finished it, and might have been the first time there since the latest update (I don't remember the sweet map bonus last time I was there), so I was finally able to put in SiB initials. Went on to finish the last mode before Light the Fire, but tilted my last ball trying to save a SDTM drain before I could start it. Bummer. It's been awhile since I got to either of them, much less both. I was still quite a ways from Final Showdown as I only had 3 demogorgan modes done and 1 demodog, but man it felt good to get deep into the game again.

Such an awesome game. Really pulls you in and gets the blood pumping. Love it! I really do not understand when people say this is a shallow or simple game. He doesn't get enough credit, but Lonnie absolutely knocked the code out of the park on this one. 25(?) unique and substantial modes, every one feels different, and the way it all builds logically to bigger and bigger events is awesome. Sure it doesn't have the super deep or complex strategy like some, but there sure isn't a shortage of different fun things to do.

After checking closely I think you are right about this. The nicks in the hard plastic sleeves are little lines and not standard ball wear you would see with age. It will be interesting to see if the softer pinball life ones damage quicker due to this or not.

Only got there once so far - the mini wizard modes of SiB and LtF. For some reason that one time I managed to finish both. I was in a groove. However I imploded on stage 2 on Final Showdown. Sucks cause I play the challenge mode once in a while and usually finish it or do really well.

I think that rounding off the corners of the outside drop downs should solve this.
I will do this when am replacing the rubbers

I went ahead and rounded mine off a bit. Just used an X-Acto knife and took the corner off. In my inspection of everything I noticed dimples under the ramp flap lol. That ball must have been hitting it super hard

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I swapped out my flipper rubbers for Titans last night, and it plays pretty differently. It seems easier to make some shots, but my drop-catch game is totally off now. I think the extra grippiness is the reason for that; I may go back to the stock rubbers.

I’m experimenting with the playfield angle and flipper strength now. Appreciate cleland and others who shared what worked best for them.

I noticed the same with Titans. The pinball life ones are much better so far for me and play more like the standard flipper rubbers. The slings and other ones though are a lot bouncier but that will change as they get older.

I've kept my flipper power at full strength for both. Dial in the demo for that and get the fans. This is not a game you want less power on lol

Could you spam pinside more with your push buttons??? WTF?

Here's the simple truth on how I got that score:

I have no idea!

That score is from 1 month ago today. It was exactly two weeks after I got the pin! To be honest, when I got to Final Showdown, I had very mixed thoughts going through my mind. Initially very excited about getting to the wizard mode, but also thinking "shoot, I'm to the wizard mode 2 weeks into ownership, this game is too easy." Things blew up so fast and the game was still so new to me that I didn't even have a chance to soak it all in and have an understanding of exactly what I did to get there. Pretty crazy.

So fast forward 4 weeks later, and I can tell you that the game is NOT "too easy" and that I really have not got close to getting back to Final Showdown again. I have got to Total Isolation 2 a few times since then, but that's about it. I do have several scores in the 1.5 to 1.7 billion range. More often than not, the game actually kicks my ass.

I really think that this was one of those games where it can work to your advantage when you don't know that much about the rules. I think I was more inclined to just take things as they came to me instead of going after specific things, which often means that you will keep the ball in play longer. A very similar thing happened to me when I got my DP. Wizard mode in the first week....only to be seen again a few times in the 2 years to follow!

RobT I’m totally the same way. I can blow up a game without knowing how I did it, but as soon as I learn all of the rules I’m screwed because I’m not focused on just keeping the ball in play. I know you’ve had IM and TWD in the past - would you say STH is in the same league as them in terms of challenge? I’m having Iron Man flashbacks right now, and it’s not just the borrowed sounds making me feel that way.

So....Who else is excited about Eddy's next pin, Mandalorian? (Not sure if Eddy is confirmed for that pin)

Does anyone know how to adjust that mystery up post? The mech design is not in the manual and it's very different from the standard up posts like the left ramp ball lock. I don't see any way to adjust it other than to shim it. Mine is hitting the ball about 20% of the time as well.

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So excited to finally join this club. Just bought my distributors last pro and it will be here on friday. Does anyone in here have any leads on pro uv kit. My distributor has me down for one in the next couple weeks but told me to reach out on here just in case stern drops the ball again and pushes them back farther.

Pro Tip (no pun intended): Do not get the pro UV kit...get the premium one. Free metal apron upgrade! Toss a couple LEDs of your choice under the apron to light up the windows (if you want) and you're golden. It's like a double mod for the price of one.

Ok let me know how that works!

As for the post, someone here clip the spring a bit, it seemed to work for him. The reason being that it comes up a hair slower.

I presume the spring will weaken over time.

Thank you didnt know they where interchangeable

Oh man, I wish I’d thought of that. Oh well, too late now I think. I don’t want to reset my wait

I "cheated". I cut off a little bit of that compression spring. My thought being that it would be slightly weaker and therefore cause the up-post to rise every so slightly slower. I rarely have it hit the ball now. Out of 20 ball ejects from there, I might get one that was touched by the post.

Another mod that I made which I love is that I swapped the pop bumper white spoons with WMS spoons. The WMS spoons are more shallow, so you can adjust the pop bumper switches to be super sensitive. So now shots into the pops, cause a bit more action.

New to pinside (just acquired Stranger Things Premium a few weeks ago). At 45 years old, this is my first pinball machine since I was young (had a '67 Bally "The Wiggler" in our home when I was a teen). Needless to say, this game is awesome.

I would love to get some feedback from some of you more experienced players in regards to what in-game options you've changed from the default setup. I'd like to feel like I have it set up in a way that I can measure my scores against what I see posted. Not sure if certain adjustments would be considered standard vs cheating in some way (adding time, balls, etc.). If this has already been discussed in depth, please just direct me to the right page/post. Thanks!!

Just opened the Premium today and put it beside its friends... My last Stern NIB was ACDC Prem...couldn’t figure out these new fangled lockdown bars...or better yet, didn’t know where the power switch was! Lol. I must be an old 44! All my CGC and other games was front right underneath...thought Stern forgot to put it on! Doh!!
Time to start installing all the mods I’ve picked up!

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Except BIB first Extra Ball. I have that set to 10 on mine; I think others have it at 12. “Auto” is too variable.

I’m not as interested in comparing scores as I am in getting to the wizard modes, so I’ve gimped my game just a little bit:

- 4 hits to kill Demogorgon (not 5)
- extra ball at 7 drawings (not 11)
- outlane posts in the middle (not top)

My justifications (to myself):

* If I’m not killing the DG in 1-3 shots already, either I haven’t got my game dialed in right, or the flippers are fading. I don’t want my guests saying “fucking die already!”.
* If you’ve collected 7 drawings, you’re doing pretty damned well and you deserve something.
* Brian said middle for the outlane posts, and the right outlane is brutal enough.

I promise not to post my scores here.

Please do post your scores here. If you post an incredible score, people can ask you what your setup is in detail.

Mine is completely stock *except* I have the posts in the middle and like you I have EB set at 10 BIB shots (I agree, the auto feature was driving me crazy, I need to know how many shots it's going to take, and it should not vary from game to game).

All my games are setup with specials and replays award extra ball, no extra ball limit, and 4 levels of replay (auto adjusting).

Thanks guys, great to get a feel for what others are doing with those settings. I figured that most would likely be kept somewhere close to stock with a little variation one way or the other. Really appreciate all the valuable input on this thread!

Oh and I moved the outlane posts to the tightest setting instead of wide open. Normally I'd go for middle setting but wanted my gf to get a chance to learn the game.

I was surprised to see that you can earn Burn It Backs during multiball (at least I think I saw this). Given that, and the “gimme” BIBs from the saucer, maybe 20 BIB for extra ball does make more sense.

Unrelated, I really like this game at 6.5 degrees and full flipper strength. I may change these once I install PinMonk’s fans, which I decided are a must-have mod.

As you’d expect, there’s a metric ton of fan art for STH, ranging from bad to awesome. I’ve found a lot of good stuff on DeviantArt (www.deviantart.com), which I keep forgetting about. Here are a few of the better ones. I like the one of Max for a “credits” card to replace the score card. Gotta get my color printer working again.

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These are fun too.

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This game can be a handful for sure. Going thru a bit of an annoyed state with it. Trying to get the left and right orbits dialed in and it is not easy. The right orbit rail on mine doesn't move at all so there really is no adjustment available for the rail. Only physical adjustment I can make is small variations on the one way gate coming out of the ball launch. That leaves me with left-right level but changing that undoes the left orbit adjustment to not hit the sling. There is more wiggle room on the left rail but not enough to really change where it is hitting the sling.

Hey at least I have the left kicker going all the way around the orbit from time to time now. Never could get that in the past lol.

It's one of those things where you have the machine playing the way you know it for months and then screw with it and it feels all wrong. I just wanted to get rid of having to nudge the machine coming out of the mystery and make the right orbit a bit easier for newbies to the game but feel like I've gone and screwed it all up lol.

I'll get at it tomorrow and hopefully sort all this out.

I had to resort to sacrilege to get that right rail, uhhh, right. Mine also had little to no play. No matter what I did, the ball would hit the top of the right sling. Adding a larger rubber ring like Chuck did would cause every ball to get diverted way over to the left. So I grabbed the end of the rail with large pliers and pulled it outwards (to the left) ever so slightly. Took me 1-2 tries (including backing it off a bit) to get it right. Still isn't 100%, but at least the majority of the right orbit exits now come to the right flipper. If the ball comes down controlled (meaning it hugs the rail), I am good. It is the ones that come out of the pops a little uncontrolled that will hit the top of the right sling. But now, it is the exception rather than the rule.

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I am not sure I am following the issue with the left rail, maybe post some pics.
With that said, I had to move my ball guide as far out as it could possibly go or it would hit the sling.. It is really annoying as this is a very important shot of the game and it needs to feed the flipper consistently or it ruins the flow of the game.
The other issue I encounter is that the ball guide would move over time and go back, so it would start feeding the sling again... I solved that by adding a washer underneath the purple post (behind the ball guide), the washer then contacts the ball guide and it prevents it from moving back...

I also added washers under the ball guides where it is screwed down into the PF, I had to do this to elevate the guides and that added a few degrees at the back that smoothed the burn it back orbit (it was bouncing off the guide a lot before I did this)... but you might not need to do this.

Here is a picture of what it looks like, as you can see, the purple post has actually not one but 2 #10 flat washers, I had to use two because the guide was elevated by the other washers under the supporting screws. It works great and it the guide now is locked in, the ball guide can't move back anymore because everything is interlocked together now. The #10 washer was the perfect size.

Don't give up, this is a really really really fun game once it is dialled in! I made it to Total Isolation MB twice today and it was a blast.

I had the opposite problem. My left lane guiderail was too far to the right, so a large percentage of the balls that came down that side would go SDTM. Then I also had the issue of the up-post binding (the one under the Demogorgon....and the one that isn't in the manual...WTF Stern???) against the PF and not "retracting" upwards. So balls that would enter under the Demogorgon would just roll right out (because the post was stuck in the down position). When I fixed that (by rotating that coil assembly and drilling new holes), I then had the issue of that coil not staying down long enough and it would kick the ball on the way out and cause it to come down erratically. To fix that I had to cut a bit off of the compression spring.

Again, I've said this earlier. This game's quality control was total crap. It took me a month to get most of the issues ironed out and I have years of experience tearing down pins to the bare PF. What the heck is a typical owner supposed to do?

I hope Mandolorian has better QC because I'd love another Eddy. I've owned both a Shadow and a MM in the past. Both were fantastic as is Stranger Things.

Yesterday, I added the speaker upgrade to 5.25 and the speaker light kit with frame.

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My best score to date. I was one mode shy of getting to Total Isolation 2.

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Merely that I am a wizard - Mithrandir is an ancient and lesser known name for the wizard "Gandalf" from Lord of the Rings...

If you’re having problems with the orbit feeds to the flippers, please include the playfield angle in your post. Mine is fine at 6.5 degrees, but any steeper and I do start to see the ball hit the slings. No QA problems to speak of here, but I know from my experience with MET that the first 50-100 games are more likely to have problems.

On my game that's a hard number lol. I'm at 6.7 at the drops and 6.56 at the flippers. Seems I have a bit of a bow in mine lengthwise. All of my machines have this variation though.

Have you guys already covered how to fix/alter the bouncy inlane guides in this thread? Picked up a pro in a temporary trade, the game itself is great fun but the fact that 75% of the time I’m not getting a smooth roll onto the flippers kind of ruins it for me...

[deleted - I misunderstood the problem]