Yes, I had Flipper Hop on both. Thankfully there is a fair bit of play on the fixings of the lane guides. Simply loosen, push up or down (in my case they needed to move up) and tighten again.

You may need to readjust again as they move back down over time from ball impacts.

Make sure your game is level, and consider increasing the pitch.

I did until I fixed the flipper alignment. Stern seems to ship their games with ‘saggy’ flippers. When down they should be perfectly in line with the lane guide, making a straight line. From factory they sit too low, requiring earlier shots than normal, hard to be accurate up the middle, and more difficult to trap the ball.

After adjusting mine I’m having a far better success rate hitting the right right-hand shots on the game, and the control room. My first game after adjusting them I beat my GC score. Worth it.

Anything straight and short enough will do the trick.

Good to know, straight from the source. I have personally been finding the control room and helipad shots easier to make now that I've aligned the flippers with the lane guides. And I do like easier traps (e.g., it's much easier to catch the ball from the control room feed, whereas before it would sometimes bounce STDM after hitting a raised flipper). So I may leave it, but knowing that it's not 'correct' is making me consider reverting back to factory.

Nice! I’m new to it as well. Need to learn what modes are good for stacking.