Determining "Ball Saved"?

[IdontHave50cents]

Im curious how do these pinball machines determine when to throw you a bone with a free ball after a quick drain. Is it based on the little amount of time the ball was in play or a low amount of points accumulated before the drain?

Of course The Black Hole cares not of my quick drains...

 

[Brian Clark]

It depends on the game. Some games have a flashing light near the flippers that indicates the ball save is active and others only give you the ball back if you got no points after launch.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

It's game-specific. The older tables tend not to have any ball saver at all. For newer tables, most of them are time-based (and operator-adjustable). A few count the number of switches hit before the drain and if this number is below some threshold, it'll return the ball.

 

[bavelb]

I believe TOM and TOTAN are timer based, Ripleys is score or switch based.