AFM Tactics and Strategies

[Alaeriia]

A few things I have picked up.

• If the Forcefield is up, take the Super Skill Shot and get it down.

• It is possible, and rather easy IMO, to backhand the Big-O-Beam ramp on the fly after a right orbit.

• As far as I know, there is no cap on the Annihilation Jackpot value. I've got it up past 10 billion using the Ball Control feature.

• If you find yourself in a Dirty Pool situation (i.e. ball stuck behind the Forcefield, take advantage of it and go for jackpots. The saucer kill will happen eventually.


The race to a trillion is on...

 

[Advalle]

I have big trouble aiming for the right ramp. That is the last one i complete

 

[Clawhammer]

• If the Forcefield is up, take the Super Skill Shot and get it down.

The easiest way to do this IMO, is to let the ball coming around the orbit dead bounce off the left flipper to a trap on the right allowing for an easy controlled shot.

 

[xAzatothx]

I've got it up past 10 billion using the Ball Control feature.

what do you mean by the ball control feature?

 

[Bonzo]

with pro menu you can push the ball around the table very much like on a real one with the glass taken off.

 

[xAzatothx]

ah! thanks for that. Guess this is how FS test some of the ramp issues, like the right orbit kicking the ball out into the middle incorrectly.

 

[Clawhammer]

Here's a few other general tips:

1. Rule the Universe is by far the best scoring opportunity on this game, and as such should be your primary focus. Each subsequent RTU is easier than the 1st one because you do not have to destroy the saucers/Mars again. Because of this, if you are close to your first RTU and also close to your second Total Annihilation, get RTU first. This way, you will be that much closer to completing the goal when you go for your second RTU. It is possible to come out of your first RTU only a few shots, a five way combo/martian multiball, and a super jackpot away from another one. If you have finished destroying Mars, the saucer area is basically ignorable for the rest of the game; the points just aren't worth the risk.

2. When going towards the first RTU, stack your multiballs with the later saucers to avoid the drain hazard associated with those shots. In regular multiball I tend to go for the super jackpot, and let the incidental bounces into the saucer help. Aside from notching off the goal for RTU, getting a super increases the base jackpot and super jackpot value for your next multiball. Supers can get huge later in the game, so don't ignore them. Total Annihilation, although worth a lot of points in itself, can be very useful for getting the fourth or fifth saucer down because of it's lengthy ball save. Martian Multiball should almost always be used for saucers, the points for nailing martians aren't worth much in and of themselves.

3. Speaking of Martians... If you have a martian bomb, don't hit it as soon as the multiball starts. Take your shots and when you have one martian left you can use your bomb if you are about to drain. There is no point to wasting a bomb that could have been saved and then draining while trying to pick off the last three martians. As of now, there seems to be a bug on iOS where nudging will automatically use a bomb. This can actually be a lot more convenient than hitting the launch button.

Loving this table. My best so far is 55 billion and change.

 

[Slam23]

Here's a few other general tips:

1. Rule the Universe is by far the best scoring opportunity on this game, and as such should be your primary focus. Each subsequent RTU is easier than the 1st one because you do not have to destroy the saucers/Mars again. Because of this, if you are close to your first RTU and also close to your second Total Annihilation, get RTU first. This way, you will be that much closer to completing the goal when you go for your second RTU. It is possible to come out of your first RTU only a few shots, a five way combo/martian multiball, and a super jackpot away from another one. If you have finished destroying Mars, the saucer area is basically ignorable for the rest of the game; the points just aren't worth the risk.

2. When going towards the first RTU, stack your multiballs with the later saucers to avoid the drain hazard associated with those shots. In regular multiball I tend to go for the super jackpot, and let the incidental bounces into the saucer help. Aside from notching off the goal for RTU, getting a super increases the base jackpot and super jackpot value for your next multiball. Supers can get huge later in the game, so don't ignore them. Total Annihilation, although worth a lot of points in itself, can be very useful for getting the fourth or fifth saucer down because of it's lengthy ball save. Martian Multiball should almost always be used for saucers, the points for nailing martians aren't worth much in and of themselves.

3. Speaking of Martians... If you have a martian bomb, don't hit it as soon as the multiball starts. Take your shots and when you have one martian left you can use your bomb if you are about to drain. There is no point to wasting a bomb that could have been saved and then draining while trying to pick off the last three martians. As of now, there seems to be a bug on iOS where nudging will automatically use a bomb. This can actually be a lot more convenient than hitting the launch button.

Loving this table. My best so far is 55 billion and change.

Thanks for the advice, good points! I would add that while Martian Multiball is indeed not a highscoring multiball in itself, it's really nice to stack it with TA and regular Multiball. For the video game mode I tend to strafe back and forth all the way in a calm rhytm to reach the most lateral flying saucers. It also works on the erratic moving Mothership, but letting it pass through a stationary stream (what exactly do we shoot up?) and counting on the ship to move back and forth itself across the stream a couple of times is often even better. Then don't forget about using a Martian Bomb in tight situations. Primary goal is to get the EB offcourse, but completing the mode gives you 635M which is also nice. I'm giving the table a pause after reaching 25B because of a gamebreaking bug on iOS (something to do with having TA and Super Jets running at the same time), it cost me a game where I maybe would have reached the 40-50B range.
Slam23

 

[9u1d0]

Any tips on Vide Mode ? Still did not make it to the mothership at all. There is one bomb that can be used, but even when using it as my last saving, my maximum still only is 40 saucers at this moment.

 

[superballs]

Video mode is pretty tough, the only way I've ever done it is full side to side sweeps, and pray i time it so that a straggling bullet takes care of the sneaky ufos that show up after you've swept across the middle.


Did i mention i suck at this version?

 

[xAzatothx]

The PAPA video makes it look easy - I've yet to get to the MS yet.

 

[pinballchris]

any tips on the 1B hurry up? been trying everything but something always seems to happen. i screw up, or the bumpers throw the ball into the middle.

 

[eckless]

any tips on the 1B hurry up? been trying everything but something always seems to happen. i screw up, or the bumpers throw the ball into the middle.

It is difficult but quite rewarding. For me in AFM the ramps are difficult and the orbits are easy. So I shoot the ramps until they are one away from triggering, and the orbits two away, the start the hurry-ups. That way if I am struggling to trigger a hurry up on a ramp and am running out of time I can shoot orbits, but not trigger the orbits too soon. I would also have an attack wave started (I.e. forcefield down) when doing this -- when the forcefield is down there is a better chance that errant balls in the middle of the play field won't collect the hurry-up.

That was my theory anyway.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

 

[Jutter]

You could try and send the ball along a somewhat diamond-shaped path; the ball bounces off the side of the playfield bouncing off the saucer and via the other side of the playfield back to a flipper.

 

[Clawhammer]

any tips on the 1B hurry up? been trying everything but something always seems to happen. i screw up, or the bumpers throw the ball into the middle.

This is my method: Get all shots one away from completing the hurry up and get the ball trapped on the left flipper. Shoot the right ramp first because it is the most difficult in my opinion, and the left ramp from the return. Shoot the right orbit from the return from the left ramp, let it dead bounce over to the right flipper. Trap on the right flipper, take a breath because you have tons of time to complete the sequence, shoot the left orbit and then enjoy your 1 billion/TA! Obviously this is ideal. If you miss a shot, relax, get control of the ball to a trap/post pass the ball to the flipper you need it on and continue. Keep in mind that after two or especially three completed shots you have plenty of time to finish, so don't rush it.

 

[pinballchris]

This is my method: Get all shots one away from completing the hurry up and get the ball trapped on the left flipper. Shoot the right ramp first because it is the most difficult in my opinion, and the left ramp from the return. Shoot the right orbit from the return from the left ramp, let it dead bounce over to the right flipper. Trap on the right flipper, take a breath because you have tons of time to complete the sequence, shoot the left orbit and then enjoy your 1 billion/TA! Obviously this is ideal. If you miss a shot, relax, get control of the ball to a trap/post pass the ball to the flipper you need it on and continue. Keep in mind that after two or especially three completed shots you have plenty of time to finish, so don't rush it.

Thanks, all these tips you all gave helped.

Actually need to tell my story on completing this tonight after a crap load of games trying, lol. Had all set up except the forcefield down and two more hits on the right loop (which was my bane earlier in the night as I had one shot away about 4 times with the right loop to go and missed all). Well, got lucky after getting the ramps that I hit the stroke of luck and it lowered the forcefield (which relaxed me more). hit the left loop, collected, deep breathe, hit the right loop, collected, deep breathe and finally hit the right loop again to finish. Gosh, it is a great feeling.

 

[Paul Petrissans]

I need help hitting the left ramp. Just aiming for it seems to be the surest way for me to drain a ball. I will often have every other target well advanced, and this one still without a single hit. PS, I'm on PS3. On my buds iPad it seems different. On PS3 I don't think I've ever successfully made this shot!

 

[ostrich2]

My observations:

RTU is definitely a sure 10 billion (it seems an easy round too - I've never failed to achieve it when I've reached it), although you can get pretty good points from the TA especially. The regular multiball in theory can score pretty well too but in my experience it's not as big a points earner as RTU and TA. Martian multiball can be a deceptive earner particularly later in the game since your martian total feeds into your end of ball bonus, and the martians can really add up, particularly when you can get a big bonus multiplier (hold bonus x really helps there). I've had some bonuses up in the several billion range.

When shooting for the force field or saucers I find it's slightly safer to do so from the right flipper than the left, although neither is really dangerous most of the time.

When doing regular multiball, I generally try for the following pattern; try to shoot the ball coming around down the left outlane up the right ramp while the other balls are being fired up the plunger. Usually there will be time for this ball to come back down to the right flipper and get off a shot to the center/left loop before you have to deal with any other balls. I find the latter the hardest shot to complete, and the orbits are usually the easiest, so getting these two is a good part of the way to getting all the shots you need to make sure you record a super jackpot.

Somehow I ended up getting the 1,000,000 hurry up without realizing it - I looked at my wizard goals and it had already given me credit for it. I wonder if I somehow triggered a hurry up right before I started a multiball, even if you don't realize the hurry up is active the multiball makes you go for each of the other ramps and orbits naturally anyway - perhaps if one can arrange it, a good way to get that would be to get everything built up as close to TA as possible with 2 balls locked, trigger a hurry up and then start multiball.

My best score is 146 billion - I had 4 RTUs in that game, I'm still working on the video mode though, that is quite challenging.

 

[Gorgar]

Video mode is pretty tough, the only way I've ever done it is full side to side sweeps, and pray i time it so that a straggling bullet takes care of the sneaky ufos that show up after you've swept across the middle.


Did i mention i suck at this version?

My advice would be do NOT do full side to side sweeps. Instead, sweep from upper corner to upper corner. The idea behind this is that you have more bullets going towards the top of the screen since you aren't shooting at the sides. If one of the UFOs on the sides gets past your bullet barrage, you can try to alter the course of your bullets to get him, but be prepared to use the bomb if a UFO gets too close to the ground.

The giant UFO isn't too tough. If you have trouble hitting it at first, don't panic. It seems to get easier as it gets lower to the ground.

Also, I wouldn't recommend activating cow video mode. I am fairly certain it is harder. The cows seem to land earlier than expected, making it difficult to use the bomb on time. I hope this helps.

 

[phreaker47]

Since finally releasing on PS3/Vita, this has become my new favorite (still trying to master those ramp shots with consistency... for some reason, the orbit shots are much easier)

I'm still trying to decide on priorities. One school of thought I'm considering is to work on destroying Mars first. That center shot isn't quite as dangerous (THANKFULLY) as the gate shot on MM. But the idea being, the sooner that is done, the sooner you have that unlimited 100M shot sitting there which can be randomly hit while you go for everything else.

Edit: it's also helpful for the last couple saucers... when they require quite a few hits to take down, that you activate a multiball mode after dropping the force field (must be AFTER... the force field targets will be inactive during MB if it is still up)... but if it's down, you can quickly rack up the saucer hits and take advantage of the ball saver time.

Another thing would be to activate the martian attack when you are very close to activating any of the multiball modes, then get multiball or TA going right after activating the Martian attack... now, getting the initial four hits is pretty easy, and you can then rack up tons more martian kills... and if you do this early in the game, you have good EOB bonuses the rest of the way.

I have yet to reach RTU twice in a single game, but I expect to eventually. Those top scores... damn... it must have been reached 4 or 5 times. So far, my top is just over 50 billion.

And yes, RTU is surprisingly easy to win. It seems just smacking the balls around and simply keeping them alive is enough to quickly reach the goal. Not nearly as hair-raising as trying to win BFTK on MM... not by a long shot!