Here's what he posted over in the other thread:

"Multiball difficulty -
I will add adjustments so that the two main multiballs can be made harder if desired."

Didn’t Star Wars have 3 colour GI’s on Pro?

White, Red, Blue. Yep.

You are right. I was remembering that wrong. I thought it was a Premium/LE feature.

I only know that because it stands out on the Pro with the red/blue lightsaber battle. The only cool thing about the otherwise boring Pro.

PinMonk how are your insert mods coming? Any other mods planned?

Turtle Power's done and in the store. The mode inserts are a two-piece set because there's a large area and a bunch of mode lights. It's up there with X-Men for the biggest I've done. I should have that one in the store with pictures in a day or two, but here's what the right side one looks like on the board (the left one not shown spans two circuit boards):
right-side-TMNT (resized).jpg

Since "Cowabunga" is a comic speech bubble my current thinking is to leave that one white so it stays looking like a comic speech bubble.

The horrible white flashers aimed straight at your face on the ramps can be fixed with existing flasher domes that come in other colors, so not doing those.

I don’t remember Star Wars missing anything at launch. GOT was feature complete within a couple months (only missing WHC MB at launch) Munsters was feature complete at launch I believe.

Not sure on GB.

Star Wars launched with .83. It didn't reach 1.0 until 6 months later.

Munsters launched with .81 and didn't reach 1.0 until 5 months later.

https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Star_Wars_1_05_0-README_PRO.txt

https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Munsters_PRO-1_03_0-README.txt

Dwight coded all of these games, so his meaning of 1.0 would be relatively similar between games.

You are correct about GOT. It launched with 1.0 code.

https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/GOT-1_37_0-README_PRO.txt

CALLING Munsters feature complete and pretending it's actually complete are two different things.

GB was missing the wizard mode on the score card for more than two years, and riddled with frequently-occuring bugs.

Star Wars was not ok for about 6 months, if I remember right.

We all know the only reason this game is so far along at release is Covid. Wouldnt expect it to be a permanent thing once all this cr*p is over.

Has there ever been a Stern game released with a code dev number over 1.0? How far back do we have to go?

Edit: Just saw the GOT comment above. Didint realise that - that's impressive.

Here's the topside with all the mode inserts color-coded to match the rings around the formerly-white mode inserts. Technodrome (the large insert) is a color similar to the laser beam on the playfield art.
Mode_Inserts_600x (resized).jpg

Edit: not sure what point I was trying to make. Haha

I got my LE last night and it is amazing. Way beyond my expectations.

20200707_190817(0) (resized).jpg

Ok, I have to ask:

WHY is the white bandage wrap on Donatello's bo staff on the sides rather than right in the middle of the staff?

That is never how it has been in practically any rendition or generation of TMNT.

Has anyone else said this before me? I'm shocked this has never been mentioned/brought up.

Nice when can I order this is a must

Should be in the pinmonk pinside store by the end of the week.

Okay, did some more TMNT coil temp testing (bottom 2 only, but I may end up testing the third flipper at some point. The coils on TMNT do get pretty hot, but not nearly as fast as Stranger Things, so maybe the coils are being pulsed differently? I've definitely verified that the left ramp backhand becomes impossible with the coil temp around 125-127 degrees. I can make it about 1 out of 3 times before that point. After it hits that temp, I can make it 0% of the time.

I played multiple games totaling 36 minutes with no breaks and the coil temps were around 145 degrees and just starting to feel generally fade-y. Until that point I only noticed it on the left ramp backhand. If I had played another game for another 10 minutes or so, I should have been into the 150s with very obvious fade on both flippers. I'll try to get a solid hour on it by the end of the week and see if I can do that.

Cooling fans are installed and wired up so once I have some un-cooled data, I can flip the switch and turn them on to see what kind of performance I get with active cooling. I expect it to be similar to the STh data, where it's near impossible to break 100 degrees with the cooling on. We'll see.

Sounds like you got a bunch of time on this one...how does the gameplay stack up to JP? Im somewhat concerned the shots are tighter. And lots of misses on that left ramp when the pizza disc is moving. But co-op mode looks really cool.

Just be glad TMNT doesn’t have any shots that require the flippers to be at peak power at all times. Haha. Stranger things has not been fun battling that.

*BEWARE OF DRY ROTTED POST RUBBERS ON TMNT OUT OF BOX*

All 6 of my 1" tall post rubbers were dried out hard...
I fortunately always replace them in games day one.
Please check on your games.
Mine was made June 22nd.

For someone who is newer at owning vs just playing. What’s the downside of these drying out? Aside from them becoming brittle and breaking. Does this in turn cause damage to the machine somehow? Is it a factor of causing balls to wear and damage easier?

Do you sell these? I’d consider getting a set for this and TNA.

WOW!

Just dry rubbers. Less bouncy and fall apart. No biggie. But crazy they are old and hard on a NIB game.

That makes sense thanks.

you are talking about the black post-rubbers? because those are hard rubbers like on JP and i cant imagine those are drying out.

No post rubbers should be hard...

TBD
But no game should be shipped with dry rotted post rubbers...

If I have to do a 101 video on what the post sleave should be like I will...
Hell I'll do a video comparing a few brands then to dry rotten ones I or we got...

I know nothing of the topic. Would enjoy a video.

Dry rubbers would be no fun.

Not good when they fall apart either !

What thread is this anyway ? Sounds like something O-din started in the basement.

Not saying this is the case here or anything, but doesnt stern use some type of almost plastic type posts? or maybe im thinking of Sega and/or data east.

Not true. They've been using hard post rubber for over 25 years.

http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=RB-5308-00

Yeah I didn’t realize we were talking about the full post sleeves. Thought he was talking about rings.

I will be shortly. Waiting on the wiring harnesses to arrive. The brackets are done and tested in Stranger Things and TMNT. I don't have a TNA, so I'd probably need a picture and some measurements to make sure one of the two bracket designs I have work, or if they don't make a third style.

Once I started testing Stranger Things, I was shocked at how hot the coils got. I think there's a lot of subtle coil fade happening on a number of games in the 125-135F range of longish or serial games that people don't even realize is coil fade and not them. I intend to temp-test all the Stern Spikes that come through here now.

Vire is this a new thing with the coils Stern are using? Have they changed brand etc? I remember playing a lot of my SAMs for hours with no issues and I hammer my BM66 and don’t seem to notice any issues with loss of flipper power, kinda curious what your take is since you’ve been looking at it.

Short answer, I don't know. I only pulled out the probes and started testing the coils on Stranger Things because of the issues people were having with the TK lock on long games and after serial games, which sounded like fade to me. Turns out, it was. But the temps really surprised me - Stranger Things was greater than 157 degrees when it hit the limit of my probe (and at that point the fade was undeniable).

I was surprised no one had gathered temp data once I had that result, so I decided to do it for all the Sterns that pass through here, so I have data for STh and TMNT now, and will be doing Iron Maiden (which I've definitely felt fade on in the past, but that was before measuring coil temps hit me) soon. STh DEFINITELY benefits from the active cooling of the fan kit. TMNT is more subtle and I would say optional. The only thing I absolutely noticed when the coils heat up on TMNT is I can't backhand the left ramp anymore. Can at the start of the game, can't after a while.

Also, when the coils are in the 125-135 range the effect on gameplay can be pretty subtle, you "miss" or "deflect" or "rattle" shots that you should make, but you think it's your bad timing and not the machine, when it may be the machine because the coils have hit a certain temp and the effect is still subtle enough that it doesn't yet feel like straight up fade, when it is, it's just the beginnings of it.

Anyway, it's a pretty interesting set of data no one was gathering. I'll keep sharing as I test more Spike machines.

LOL

Are you sure? I think those are just the plastic-like post sleeves Stern uses.

Not all games use them, some like deadpool etc are soft...

i am sure, because i saw them on the images.
they are the same like on JP, and im happy with them, because they hold up well until now and dont bounce the ball back at speed of light,
so you have a bigger time window for reaction. i testet perfect play, titans and superband too.

I've noticed coil fade on both Guardians and Ghostbusters during extended play times when I had them.

Coil fade has been a thing for a long time. Ask anyone who has tried to destroy the ring in LOTR after a long game.

I actually put the LOTR coil in my stranger things. Helped a lot but the fans are best.

+1 with coils losing power (because of the heat)

not only STERN, i see this on my OF, easy to notice with those ramps
after a long play, it become hard to climb, and its not me
if i stop playing and came by X time later, all is powerfull again

...

I think it's probably a thing on all of them, but some are only subtly affected so people think they just missed a shot or didn't hit it cleanly. I hope to test temps on all the Spike machines eventually. Probably find that they can all benefit from active coil cooling.

Never mind. Found a forum topic on it. Heatsinks run risk of shorting out the coil.

I haven't really been playing to play, but rather trying to get as much multiball as possible to see how hot the coils get over time. So it's not really representative gameplay. That said, I like the game, but that 3rd flipper ramp is a BITCH. More often than not, I end up hitting the inner loop instead of the ramp when I want to. There's also quite a bit of optimizing that needs to be done to the lightshows. Right now there are a number of sequences where the lights draw down to completely off, then back up. It's not just the inserts, it's ALL of them, including GI. The problem is, the timing ends up that the ball is headed to the lower left flipper or the upper left flipper (depending on the light show/shot) RIGHT as I need to SEE THE BALL to make a shot. So if you play in a darker or dark room, essentially it's turned into TMNT:Tommy edition, no fan blinder necessary.

I think that kind of stuff will get worked out, though. Right now, I would say Deadpool is better for a goofy pin. But remember, I *hated* Deadpool until about 8 months after release when the code was polished and stacking/mechsuit multiball was added. I will say that 1-2-3 foot HAS to go in its current incarnation. WAY too frequent and annoying. It also would be nice to stack it with battles rather than having it interrupt battles.