I would be tempted even with the "old technology" simply due to the theme and possible lighting greatness, and I couldn't care less about the run size of the LE, but in my mind the price is just WAY out of whack for what's on the playfield.

I mean, I purchased BSM brand new for $4350. Is Star Trek LE at $8800, with an almost identical layout, literally giving me TWICE the game?

Sure the Premium is less... but while I'm okay with the cabinet artwork, I'm not as fond of the backglass, or the red trim, and especially the DMD frame.

Thinking about it, maybe at some point if I get bored I'll be able to do an even swap... my BSM for a STLE...

I assume you're just using dissimilar examples... but Road Show is a Lawlor. And yeah, it's one of my favorites!

I love RS's unique use of cross-playfield shots. It's got a busy playfield with great toys, tons of lights for the time period, a lot of modes with an unusual linear progression style, and it even proves that two heads really are better than one!

I really want to like ST besause of the theme... but I have a very small collection, and the layout is just WAAAAAY too similar to Spider-man for me to possibly have both. SM is already a proven winner, so I can't risk selling it for this until ST is proven just as good... and we probably won't know that for a year or two.

Sigh...

Why fix what ain't broke?

Take SM's proven design... replace Green Goblin standups with short laneway... keep left orbit and spinner but bring it down a couple inches further... keep left side ramp exactly... enlarge center ramp... replace Sandman toy with Enterprise... swap right ramp and Doc Oc... shift lanes and rotate pops to suit new sightlines... keep right orbit and upper right flipper... keep lane behind upper right flipper but change exit to alternate design thought up for SM... don't touch anything else in the bottom third of the playfield... done!

With that said, I get the feeling this is going to be a fast and very flowy game even with all the standups between shots - those two ramp entrances are HUGE compared to SM, so they should be quite easy to shoot!

ST_SM_Comparison.jpg

By "stripped down" people are talking about the perceived bill of materials. On a pinball, some of the most expensive items are "active" items, or those that "do" something: we're talking coils, motors, magnets, secondary screens, and so forth. I'm not including ramps or flashers.

As an example:

TSPP: 20 items (21 with TV)
BDK: 19 items
Spider-man: 20 items

Notice a trend? But then:

Iron Man: 15 items
TRS Pro: 12 items
ACDC Pro: 14 items
ACDC LE: 25 items (with shaker)

Iron Man does fall into the "stripped" game category, with a 25% reduction in active items over the prior average. Note that the simplest pinball machine with only 2 flippers, 2 slings, 3 pops, and auto ball launch requires a minimum of 9 active items.

For comparison, one of the most deluxe games of all time, Twilight Zone, has 28 active items. WOZ has 36 items (37 with the Crystal Ball).

I create it myself, either from owning the game, or from reading manuals and schematics and studying photos. I've posted detailed breakdowns of how I calculate this in the past, and can re-post a few if you like.

It goes without saying that there are other components in a game's overall bill of materials, but I've found active items to be like a quantifiable "canary in the coalmine" as to how expensive or feature-loaded a Stern game will otherwise be (of course, how much a game costs to build or how many moving parts there are does NOT necessarily equate with how "good" or "fun" it will be, and that's not what I'm trying to say here).

Prior to the new investors, Stern always had around 19-21 active items in their games. Why? Primarily because that was close to the hardware limit - the Whitestar and SAM systems really couldn't handle any more. But when the new investors came in and stripped-down games like NBA, Iron Man and Avatar came out, literally overnight the number of active items was reduced by ~25% or more (without an equal reduction in price), and this reduction continues even today with Pro series games (like PinballWizard79 said on the previous page).

When Stern first introduced the "feature enhanced" LE model concept, unsurprisingly the number of "active" items returned right back to the 19-21 range, again because that was the hardware limit. But guess what: the price went up by an equal percentage over the stripped "Pro" models. Then they introduced the Aux board, and now the most expensive LE models have boosted the item count into the 24-26 item range... and again the price went up by an amount equal to the boost in items.

See for yourself:

Iron Man: 15 items, $4200 street
Avatar LE: 19 items (27% increase), $5200 street (24% increase)
AC/DC LE: 25 items (32% increase), $6900 street (33% increase)

As mentioned earlier, more than mere active items is involved in a game's overall bill of materials - such as ramps, wireforms, decorative toys, lighting and so forth - but I've found an uncanny connection between the raw number of active items and how much money Stern is willing to spend on other aspects of the game (so, it's not like the games with fewer items have that extra money spent elsewhere on custom toy molds or fancy embellishments).

Now, ever since AC/DC LE's success, Stern's gone a bit starry-eyed and has figured out they can increase prices without significantly increasing their cost on a game... but that's not my fault.

FYI, Star Trek LE is currently working out to 24 active items, however I need to know a lot more about the game's features and mechanical engineering and expect that number to change.

Spider-man is 20 + optional shaker. You could only count it as 21 on BSM.

TRS is a bit trickier. The manual page you show is for the LE version of the game, which adds 2 magnets and 3 up-posts. The shaker is also optional on the Pro. So if we take those off, we're down to 14. The Mick mechanism counts as two drives, one for left motion and one for right motion, but since it's only one motor I only counted that as a single item (and did for BDK's crane as well). Down to 13. Then, the up-post for the ball lock requires 2 drives, one to shove the pins up and one to lock the pins in place, and I'd only counted that as one feature, but I noticed in my Avatar calculations (which use the same mech) I did count it as 2 there, so I suppose we could boost TRS Pro to a count of 13.

It's been over a week since ST's teaser trailer. Compare the LE situation today with the situation the same amount of time after the Metallica teaser trailer came out.

I'm not really counting just drivers, but how the mechanism works. If something has a single motor, then I'm not sure that the chosen method of operation (separate drivers for relay and control) should necessarily result in a perceived advantage for that feature. For example, in BDK the joker can mechanism requires 2 drives, but still only uses one motor and gearbox. Personally, I just count it as a single active item, and some might say I'm being too generous with that.

A good example might be the Trex in JP. There are drivers for L/R, up/down, chew, and so on. You might count this as 1 feature (the dinosaur), I might count it as 2 (up/down, left/right), swampfire might count it as 3 (up/down, left/right, eat), etc.

I'll tell you right now how I would count that: it depends on the mechanism, not the drivers. For example, if there are 2 motors (left/right and up/down) and 1 solenoid (chew), then I would count it as 3 items. If the whole thing took 5 separate solenoids to drive it, I would count it as 5.

I think this just goes to show that the marketing on BOTH games was/is screwed up.

In terms of quantity of clips and potential audio mix quality, ST by a mile. In terms of real-world quality it's probably closer to a wash, but STTNG's audio quality isn't as good as later generation DCS games, so I'd still say ST. Of course, we'll have to see HOW Stern uses the hardware.