Great analysis! I think this partially explains why the AFMr I played (I've only played one for multiple games, around 30-60 minutes of play) felt weird and not as enjoyable -- from a flipping perspective. Shots felt much more difficult to make, even after having played multiple games in a row, when typically I would have dialed in my shots and timing.

I originally attributed it to the difference in the flipper alignment (both activated and non-activated) of the AFMr from what I recalled of most AFM's I've played. But you see this difference in flipper angle and flipper power between different physical copies of AFM's (and any other pin). As a player, you then adjust to the difference: "this pin -- and sometimes even individual flipper -- I need to flip a little earlier than I'm used to." You retrain your brain and find the shots, hopefully sooner rather than later, and all is well.

But the variability in delay from flip to flip -- that's killer. I would certainly not want to use or play an AFMr or MMr in a high level competition until this issue is addressed.

Again: great analysis. It will be interesting to see how this issue gets corrected by the mfr.

This isn't about human response time measurement -- it involves predicting where a moving ball will be on your flipper with a constant flow of visual information on what the ball is doing prior to your flip. Scroll up/back to read others' posts on this, along with links on how good the brain is at PREDICTING objects in motion.

Check out the Pinball 101 DVD or stream online.
From Keith Elwin (who helped produce it, along with his brother Randy): "8 ms on an inlane feed was the difference between a clean right ramp shot on Shadow and a clean mode start shot."

The brain can indeed accommodate that delay -- but NOT when the delay is *inconsistent*