Crane Shot

[EccentricFlower]

The single biggest problem I have with this table is that I can't reliably sink the crane shot - I mean all the way into the opening at center top of table. I always get it a little off and deflect off the car targets, or the wrecking ball when it's in the down position.

Moving ball, held ball - doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure every single time I've actually made that shot it's been by accident. Needless to say, this limits my scoring possibilities! I haven't gotten beyond 17 million on the table yet, which is chicken feed. Not to mention it's annoying to do the Great Jalopy race and reliably be able to hit the other four checkpoints ....

Any advice from the pros?

 

[Spork98765]

I find it's the same timing as the centre shot on STTNG. I can't do it reliably from a rolling ball, but a cradled shot it is much easier to get most of the time.

 

[invitro]

Center shots are notoriously overly difficult in TPA on inlane-returned balls (and far-left or -right shots are overly easy) because they have something screwed up in their physics or timing tables. I recommend practicing this shot with caught balls until you find the sweet spot. I think I recall that [MENTION=3745]vikingerik[/MENTION] posted a very serious complaint about this shot being much much harder than it should be, thus creating a great problem for the table quality in general. Maybe it is in the strategy thread. I think Farsight will need to visit this issue at some point as it's starting to rise higher on the list of most important bugs as they fix other bugs.

I haven't played JY a huge amount, but I don't place much or any emphasis on making this shot as I don't try to start multiball, and since it's easy to flipper-hop, I just do that and shoot from a caught ball, if I need to make it.

If you want to score on JY I suggest working on starting and winning video mode. That is good practice for flipper-hopping, too. The Crazy Bob award is great if you can win it, but winning it is not easy, for me anyway.

(FWIW, I can hit the center scoop on STTNG pretty reliably from the inlane, but probably not as reliably as I could on the real machine.)

 

[vikingerik]

STTNG's scoop isn't in the center. It's displaced a ball-width to the right, which is enough to put it where TPA's flipper can hit it.

Try shooting the Alpha Quadrant ramp with the same feed. That's just as nearly impossible as Junkyard's shot and MB's Mosh Pit.

 

[Zaphod77]

the shot really is pretty difficult in real life, as far as up the middle shots go.