Oklahoma City, OK
I am having trouple conquering Mars due to all the SDTM drains. What are some tricks to improve the sliding of the leg levelers on the concrete surface in my garage?
thanks,
Shawn
(Topic ID: 36813)
Linked Games
Attack from Mars
Bally, 1995
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You could try using to of these under each of the front legs. Put the smooth sides facing each other.
http://www.amazon.com/Waxman-Reusable-Sliders-Furniture-Oatmeal/dp/B001W6Q4W4/ref=sr_1_4
Now I don't know if he wants the games to slide more or less. My games won't slide at all on my concrete floor, so I thought he wanted something to help them slide. It seems like everyone else wants to stop them from sliding.
This seems like the opposite of what I want. I want the machine to slide, not stick. The levelers have a tendency to stutter rather than glide on the concrete surface. The furniture sliders seem like they might help.
Quoted from alveolus:said:
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=564
This seems like the opposite of what I want. I want the machine to slide, not stick. The levelers have a tendency to stutter rather than glide on the concrete surface. The furniture sliders seem like they might help.
My bad. I agree that furniture discs should work.
Quoted from alveolus:his seems like the opposite of what I want. I want the machine to slide, not stick. The levelers have a tendency to stutter rather than glide on the concrete surface.
Games tend to slide easy on concrete. Make sure at least one of the front levelers is all the way up. Both up is preferable. Use the back levelers to adjust the rake. Once you get it where you want it, tighten all the nuts. If any leg is missing a nut, add one. If the levelers are beat up, get new ones.
Beyond that, not much you can do. Carpet can have a grain that discourages slide saves (rotating the game can help), but concrete is usually concrete. No grain. At PPE a few years ago, the EM's in the tournament had loose enough tilts so that you could slide the game a foot or or more during a game without tilting them. After your game, you'd have to slide the game back in place using the painter's tape markings on the concrete floor. EM's on concrete are a blast.
oops.... get leg levelers that are plastic on the bottom, maybe that will slide better than metal ones
Quoted from phishrace:Games tend to slide easy on concrete.
Then I must have different concrete than you. Every single game I've brought through my garage stuttered terribly whenever I would try to drag it across the floor. I may try new leg levelers anyway, but I am not optimistic.
If the legs are sliding, that's not really a slap save. That's a slide save and you certainly shouldn't need to be doing much of that to conquer Mars. I guess you could mess around with putting nylon on the leg levelers to make the machine slide around, but that's not really going to make you better as a player. A lot of tournaments now are using rubber feet to stop machines from moving around. Even if they could slide, the tilts are usually set tight enough to where you won't be doing that. Try adjusting where you aim for on the center target bank.
Quoted from KevinDDR:If the legs are sliding, that's not really a slap save. That's a slide save and you certainly shouldn't need to be doing much of that to conquer Mars. I guess you could mess around with putting nylon on the leg levelers to make the machine slide around, but that's not really going to make you better as a player. A lot of tournaments now are using rubber feet to stop machines from moving around. Even if they could slide, the tilts are usually set tight enough to where you won't be doing that. Try adjusting where you aim for on the center target bank.
I disagree. I've watched tournament videos of Bowen and others do it successfully with maybe a warning or two. I think it is part of the game. A you suggesting we're just supposed to watch helplessly when the ball goes SDTM?
Quoted from alveolus:I disagree. I've watched tournament videos of Bowen and others do it successfully with maybe a warning or two. I think it is part of the game. A you suggesting we're just supposed to watch helplessly when the ball goes SDTM?
No, you should do a slap save, which does not involve sliding the game's legs inches to either side. A slide save on the other hand does, and is usually impossible in any kind of serious tournament because the tilt will be tight and the feet basically locked in place, not on furniture sliders. Usually you can only do them at bars with smooth concrete floors and next-to-no tilt on their machines. And depending on the bar you might get yelled at or thrown out for it. 
As a bonus tip, do the super skill shot (hold the left flipper button when plunging) and hit any of the 3 saucer targets within a few seconds and it will start the attack wave in one hit. Then get into a multiball before hammering on the saucer. That should help you avoid SDTMs in single-ball play. You basically never want to be slamming on the saucer in single ball play if you can help it -- SDTMs are pretty much inevitable if you do.
Quoted from alveolus:I disagree. I've watched tournament videos of Bowen and others do it successfully with maybe a warning or two. I think it is part of the game. A you suggesting we're just supposed to watch helplessly when the ball goes SDTM?
No, obviously not. That would just be bad advice! The machines at PAPA use those rubber stoppers. If you're talking about the slide saves and death saves Bowen does in his tutorials, those are done with looser tilts and probably games not on the rubber stoppers as well. Most of the saves done in the tournament videos don't involve the machine's legs moving significantly. You can move the flippers a good 1/4-1/2 an inch towards the center with a solid nudge without the machine moving.
It's been a while since I watched it, but I believe Pinball 101 has a section on this entitled "Jilt without Tilt" or something like that. I think we also need to get some terminology straightened out here. The gist of slap saving is that you want to flip the flipper that the ball is closer to first while nudging that flipper towards the center gap. The ball should graze the edge of that flipper, then when you flip the other flipper immediately afterwards, the ball will be propelled back up the playfield. The legs don't really come into it unless you are making a huge shove part of the slap. There's also slide saving which I believe really refers to sliding the game so that the flipper ends up being able to get a large patch of contact with the ball resulting in a successful flip. This is almost never possible to a meangingful extent at tournaments. As someone who has played in 30+ tournaments in the past year and a half or so, I can assure you that sliding games is not something that you can do in any major event (with pretty rare exceptions, like the Tron LE at CalEx this year). I don't say this to imply that I'm a great player, I'm just saying that from attending lots of semi-major and major tournaments I happen to know how machines tend to be set up for such events.
Route play is a totally different story sometimes. If you can slide the game around without repercussions (tilting or the operator/venue being unhappy with abuse of their machines), then sure, I guess it's a valid strategy. Why you would want your machine to play like a crappy game in a location that doesn't care about their machines is beyond me though. I think you'll find that if you work harder on performing actual slap saves, you'll consider far fewer balls to be "SDTM" and instead find that a lot of them are actually "Really Near The Middle" or "Slightly To The Left Or Right Of The Middle".
Melbourne
I have noticed that new legs are slightly flexible making it easier to do slap saves, the old bally \ Williams legs do not flex at all. You can test this by placing one finger on the side of the cab and pushing sideways.
I made my own feet out of 2 x 1\4 plastic sheet welded together will skid easily on tiled and concrete floor making slide\slap saves much easier without putting stress on the cabinet
Quoted from KevinDDR:I think you'll find that if you work harder on performing actual slap saves, you'll consider far fewer balls to be "SDTM" and instead find that a lot of them are actually "Really Near The Middle" or "Slightly To The Left Or Right Of The Middle".
Trust me, I can do slap saves all day long. They will not help at all if the ball is going SDTM. I would rather have the game slide a bit than merely put torque on the legs. To me, that is more abusive.
Also, unless you have amassed a huge bonus, tilting is a small price to pay for saving a ball that was sure to drain anyway.
Finally, I know the saucer is a sucker shot. I would never shoot it in single ball play at a tournament. But AFM to me is much more fun when you're blowing up saucers.
Quoted from jimjam:I have noticed that new legs are slightly flexible making it easier to do slap saves, the old bally \ Williams legs do not flex at all. You can test this by placing one finger on the side of the cab and pushing sideways.
I made my own feet out of 2 x 1\4 plastic sheet welded together will skid easily on tiled and concrete floor making slide\slap saves much easier without putting stress on the cabinet
Looks like that would work nicely. Thanks!
Quoted from KevinDDR:It's been a while since I watched it, but I believe Pinball 101 has a section on this entitled "Jilt without Tilt" or something like that. I think we also need to get some terminology straightened out here. The gist of slap saving is that you want to flip the flipper that the ball is closer to first while nudging that flipper towards the center gap. The ball should graze the edge of that flipper, then when you flip the other flipper immediately afterwards, the ball will be propelled back up the playfield. The legs don't really come into it unless you are making a huge shove part of the slap.
Quoted from jimjam:I have noticed that new legs are slightly flexible making it easier to do slap saves, the old bally \ Williams legs do not flex at all. You can test this by placing one finger on the side of the cab and pushing sideways.
Be careful. I have never seen a leg from a W/B or old chrome leg from any mfr break or crack. I have seen them bend, but never break. OTOH, I have seen new Stern legs develop cracks after only a couple of years. Those legs CAN break, they are not near as strong as the old chrome legs as seen on W/B or other manufacturers. Just keep this in mind if you decide to try and slide the game around as a normal part of your play. I think the first game I started to notice this issue was on SM several years ago.
Quoted from alveolus:Then I must have different concrete than you. Every single game I've brought through my garage stuttered terribly whenever I would try to drag it across the floor. I may try new leg levelers anyway, but I am not optimistic.
The concrete you find indoors in commercial facilities tends to be polished. The concrete you find in your garage is generally unpolished, and often deliberately made rough so that it's not slippery when wet. If you know how to use a floor buffer, you might be able to rent a concrete polisher (basically a buffer) and do the area under your games.
Good luck.
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