smbhax
Active member
- Apr 24, 2012
- 1,803
- 5
^ That's pretty much the main thing. I am by no means a master of this table so take all of the rest of this with a grain of salt, and add your own corrections and tips as necessary.
Every ten hits on each of the three colored tri-clusters of targets inside the Mixmaster will spot a corresponding Element of (Coolness?), ie the Gift of Gab, etc. The Mixmaster is a much safer shot than the three Elements, so even though spotting them via the Mixmaster will take longer than shooting them directly, you're more likely to survive the process. Also then you usually get one more hit on a target in there, so you don't have to shoot the Mixmaster again like you do if you shoot the Elements individually, and can go right to shooting the Ray to lock a ball for multiball.
The multiball is a two-ball affair with no ball saver; multiballs tend not to last long, but they're really the only way to get a large number of points short of an absolute marathon of shot-making, so you want to get as much out of them as you can.
One way to do this is to soft-plunge with the new ball that loads after you lock the first in the Ray: soft-plunging avoids the pop bumpers, which tend to dump the ball straight down the middle for a drain (so really you should probably never go for the skill shot on this table; instead of pulling the plunger back far enough to power the ball up into the pop bumpers at the top of the table, I soft-plunge by pulling the plunger just far enough so that the head of the plunger crosses the bottom of the rectangular metal face plate it comes out of, as seen from plunger cam 1 (I think) on the PS3--this will be different on other platforms, though; by the way, if you soft-plunge and drain the ball without hitting a switch, you will get the ball back), and will generally bring the ball to a flipper safely, usually the right, where you're all set for a nice, leisurely shot into the Mixmaster, because you haven't hit a switch yet so the game hasn't ejected the Ray-locked ball yet. You will probably have to shoot the Mixmaster a few times to get enough target hits for a jackpot, though, and by that time the second ball will be out and wreaking havoc.
The other way to milk these little multiballs is to bring one ball under control on the left flipper as soon as possible. Then, if the other ball comes to the right flipper, you can shoot it into the Mixmaster to build up a Jackpot; if it comes to the left flipper where the other ball is instead, then you have to try what is called "cradle separation": let the balls settle on the flipper, then do a very quick little flick with the flipper, the idea being to move them just enough that the one closer to the tip of the flipper bounces off and over to the other flipper, while the other ball stays on the first flipper. If you can keep getting the balls separate on the flippers, you can keep shooting the Mixmaster from the right, and build up multiple jackpots for a decent score.
You may be tempted to try to nudge to get the ball to hit more targets while it is inside the Mixmaster; the ball will tend to settle down the left side of the Mixmaster as it comes in, and for a while I thought that by nudging it left, into the side of the Mixmaster, I could get it to kick back up and around for more spins, especially if it seemed to be just dribbling down toward the exit; in the end, though, I don't think this really helped, and was probably at least as likely to cause a quicker exit, because when left on its own the ball will often seem to be almost out, but then it gets pulled back in slowly and goes around a few times at a more controlled rate than it does when you try to influence it by nudging; nudging seems to cause it to speed up and sling out the exit in fewer revolutions...maybe. At any rate, I couldn't find a consistent method of nudging in there that would get me significantly more targets. I should mention though that after the left, the next most likely scenario is for the ball to come in and fetch up against the Mixmaster's central post, then fall down to the exit--it seems like there should be some potential for a nudge save there while it is against the post, but it always seemed to me that by the time you could be sure the ball was falling down rather than getting caught for a spin, it was already too late; perhaps I should have tried being more pre-emptive with a nudge in that scenario, though.
Even if you drop out of multiball without having gotten a Jackpot, it is still valuable because 2x playfield scoring lights when multiball ends, and remains lit for the duration of that ball. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
(A camera bug with the Mixmaster is currently making things a lot harder than they should be: if you shoot one ball into the Mixmaster while the other is locked in the Ray, the camera will zoom in on the Mixmaster, so you can't see the other ball which is now kicking out from the Ray and running down to your left flipper. You can blindly flip away with the left flipper to try to keep it alive until the camera zooms back out when the other ball exits the Mixmaster, and this usually works, but sometimes the camera STAYS zoomed in even after the other ball has left the Mixmaster, and you are basically hosed for the duration of that ball. Hopefully the planned "Event Camera - Off" setting will work around this bug. Once you hit it a few times it will be tempting to skip shooting the Mixmaster at all in multiball, but good luck getting points any other way.)
If you're really being cynical, you can take advantage of the fact that the "Dude" level stays between games (unless you exit out to the table select menu, quit the game, or select "Exit game" from the pause menu), and just play games until you have the Dude level raised to the one below the highest ("Major Dude"?)--the highest being "Super Dude." Then drain the balls to end that game, and start a new one. Now, if you want to be really really cynical, get up to the first multiball, do NOT shoot the "Gazillion" shot that lights up on the Mixmaster--let one ball drain and end multiball; since you did not shoot the Gazillion shot (which scores 500,000 per target hit inside the Mixmaster for one shot, which if you're lucky might get you 5 million or so on its own), a special rule has returned you to one level below the top Dude level, so the next time you reach Multiball, "Super Dude" and the "Gazillion" shot will kick in again--and since you went through one multiball, 2x scoring will be active on the Gazllion shot now, so long as you're still on the same ball (not counting extra balls).
Personally though I don't trouble myself that much about the Gazillion shot anymore because it is just as likely to fall out of the Mixmaster without hitting any targets at all, so all that worry was for zero points.
What do you do once multiball ends? Grind the Mixmaster until the next multiball is ready. Yeah, that's how fun Dr. Dude is.
For a little variety I do sometimes go for the "Bag of Tricks" shot in the Ray if I happened to light it with inadvertent caroms into the drop targets on the right--the rewards are random, and some are worthless, but you can get the Million shot on the Mixmaster or even extra balls out of it once in a while, and anyway it isn't a very dangerous shot. Oh, it will also sometimes spot one of the Elements of Coolness you don't have yet--I like it when it spots me "Gift of Gab" (except for the hideous voice sample), because the Gift's yellow targets in the Mixmaster seem to be the ones that are hit the least often. I do *not* shoot for the drop targets on purpose, even though they can give a Special (or an extra ball or whatever)--rebounds too often into a drain--and I do not go for Reflect 1-2-3 for the same reason: those Element shots are dangerous.
~~~~~
Flipper stuff
Since you only need two shots--the Mixmaster and the Ray--and both are on the left side, in general you want the ball on the right flipper. You can backhand the Mixmaster from the left flipper, but it isn't very easy, whereas both are pretty reliable shots from the right. Fortunately, dead passes, post passes, and nudge passes from either flipper are very solid on this table. Let's cover specific cases of what you can do for various incoming balls, going generally from left to right:
- Ball coming down from the Ray kickout:
You can hold the left flipper up and the ball will bobble over to the right flipper, although only far enough for a tip shot, usually. You can get more distance by nudging to the left as the ball is going up the left flipper, but it's a little risky; what I find much safer is nudging right, which, if timed correctly (you can also do it when the ball is coming down the passage under the sling, even before it has reached the flipper), will stop the ball on the left flipper, letting you cradle it and post pass it at your leisure. This almost feels like cheating but remember, Dr. Dude would do the same to you IN A HEARTBEAT.
I should mention that on this table, to post pass you have to release and than re-engage the flipper *very* quickly, which will scoot the ball neatly over to the other flipper--you have to be fast to make the pass, but at least it isn't dangerous if you aren't, because the ball will just bobble in place and settle back into the cradle on the same flipper.
- Ball coming down from The Magnetic Personality:
A controlled release from the magnet will drop neatly to the end of the left flipper: hold it up for an easy catch or, at more risk, leave the flipper down and the ball will *usually* bounce over to the tip of the right flipper--not very high up, but usually ideally set up if you want to make a quick return shot to the magnet, or to the Ray. ONCE I had it come out at a slightly different angle that made it glance off the left flipper and go straight down the drain, and I've held my breath when dead passing it ever since--usually I just go for the catch, saves my nerves.
- Ball coming down from an incomplete Ray shot (or a rollover from the pops):
You can almost always catch this ball simply by holding up the left flipper. Dead passes (leave the flipper down) are usually reliable as well.
- Ball coming down from an incomplete Mixmaster shot:
This tends to have a fair amount of velocity on it; if you try a dead pass it will usually bounce over to the right, ricochet up into the lower corner of the slingshot, and then sail dangerously close to the center drain. If you hold up the left flipper instead, it will still bounce over to the right, but usually more in control, either for a catch on the right, or a bounce back to the left for a catch.
- Ball coming down from the pops / center lane:
This is dangerous, and in general you do not want to put the ball up into the center lane or the pops: they aren't worth much in the way of points, and they can send the ball straight down the middle, or into the slingshots and from there into an outlane. Nudging left or right before the ball starts falling down can sometimes save you from a straight-down-the-middle course, but will probably make a sling drain a little more likely.
- Ball coming off a ricochet from the Heart of Rock 'N Roll, Big Shot, drop targets, or posts between:
This is also dangerous, and you really shouldn't be shooting these targets. Best case scenario is that you were shooting for the Mixmaster from the right flipper, and instead hit the Heart directly: in this case, it will often rebound right back down to the right flipper, so if you get the flipper up in time, you get a nice little catch and can pretend nothing happened; usually, though, the ball will be going side to side and looking for an outlane.
If the ball is coming in high toward the top of a slingshot, you will probably want to nudge upward. I find that this usually happens with a ball coming in toward the top of the right slingshot, and sometimes one nudge just has it bounce straight up or off the drop targets next to it, and then right back down onto the top of the slingshot again; in this case you MUST nudge again or the ball will skip off the top of the slingshot, off the inlane/outlane post, and down the outlane for a drain.
- Ball return from the Mixmaster or Gift of Gab kickout:
This comes with a bit of speed on it to the right flipper; in theory you may be able to deal with by holding the flipper up, possibly nudging a bit to help it as with a return from the Ray shot to the left flipper, but since either Mixmaster or the Ray are pretty much always valid targets, I just use this return for an on-the-fly shot at one of them.
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