vikingerik
Active member
- Nov 6, 2013
- 1,205
- 0
Been waiting to do this writeup for a long time, I love Jack●Bot. So here goes on strategy. Start with ball control as usual.
Short-plunging is often a good idea to get control rather than risking the bumpers after the skill shot. You can plunge just hard enough to pass the gate and usually get a catch by holding the left flipper. I think going for the skill shot is OK when you have ball saver protection at the start of a ball, but not after a lock or ramp->plunger when you don't. I also go for it when plunging to start multiball, particularly in the Mega Visor phase when it awards 10+ free chest hits which is huge.
The biggest problem is controlling kickouts from the game saucer. Turns out that the saucer never actually kicks SDTM, at least on my PC version. If you don't flip or nudge, every kickout will hit either a flipper or the center pin and stay in play. Saving with the center pin is called a Chill Save, although the term doesn't seem to be in the IPDB glossary.
The most common game saucer kickout will bounce off the center pin and drop into the right inlane. Stay chill and don't nudge, it's not going into the outlane. When this happens, you can trap with a nudge up as the ball reaches the right flipper. Nudge-to-trap also works on a feed from the ramp. The second most common game saucer kickout bounces off the center pin up the left inlane, which can also be nudged up to a catch as the ball reaches the flipper. Overall, the game saucer kickout isn't exactly random, it's still railroaded, it's just that there's about five different railroads that can occur.
Eye kickouts don't seem to be a problem, they always hit a flipper and are easy to catch. Eye shots are very reliable, the ball almost never bounces out, Farsight tuned that very well. Eye shots do seem to be easier to hit by backhand on the same side rather than across the table.
Post passes are safe and reliable as on most TPA tables, do them freely.
Cashier: This target is safe on a set shot from the right flipper. A clean hit will always settle back to a catch on the left.
Ramp: A set shot from the right flipper will most often proceed into the leftmost column of pegs and through into the inlane. This is the best outcome, you want control and can get it by nudging up at the flipper. The plunger exit is OK, but don't be tempted into the skill shot, just short-plunge back to the flippers. You definitely don't want the ball to drop into the bumpers, so watch the ball as it enters the pegboard and nudge if it's trying to go through the middle entrance into the hole.
If the ramp does something to light the cashier (either the bumpers for Solar Value, or the inlane award for 2X Bonus), get control and shoot it. The Cashier target is safe and those points add up quite a bit.
I haven't found any workable way to get the extra ball from the ramp. The ball rarely (by design) stays there long enough for the award to click back around to EB. It can happen if you get lucky with a nudge that settles the ball on top of a peg for a few seconds. I've done it a few times by luck, up to three in a game. I'm not sure if that's worth trying, because failing usually means you've delayed the ball long enough to get the lousy Mega Ramp instead of the valuable Cashier.
There's a sneaky way to get the EB, though. Occasionally, the ball will drop through the hole but not hit any bumpers. When this happens, the game doesn't know the ball exited the pegboard yet, so the inlane award stays lit and cycling. It is possible to gain control on the left flipper and shoot the right inlane at the right time when the EB award is lit. This bit of physics looks to have been ported directly from Pinbot, which allows the same thing of "shatzing" the opposite inlane from a flipper.
Multiball: Know how it works. The first time, you complete the visor once and lock two balls to start a two-ball multi. The second time, you complete the visor once and lock two balls, then plunge a third for a three-ball multi. The third and subsequent times, you complete the visor twice (once for each lock) then plunge the third ball.
As in Pinbot, when a fresh visor begins, one target will flash and cycle to open the visor immediately when hit. This is critical. When multiball ends, DON'T FLAIL FOR A GRACE PERIOD JACKPOT. CATCH the ball so you can get the quick visor open. You may have to shoot something to get the visor to close, either the game saucer or ramp. To hit the traveling hazard, the most reliable shot is from the left flipper to the yellow (leftmost) target, so post pass if necessary to set that up. Unfortunately, unlike Pinbot, you're only allowed one quick open for each pair of locks and have to do the second visor the long way. I haven't found any good way to grind that; most visor shots bounce into the slings and lose control.
The first phase of multiball is to collect 15 Jackbots. As with most games, don't flail, catch the balls and make controlled shots. Always hold one ball in order to catch the second. Starting from two caught balls, the safest shot is the Cashier: shoot it from the right, then quickly post pass left-to-right so you can catch the first returning ball. When the Cashier isn't lit, go for a Super Jackbot, by shooting a lit eye then the other eye within a second (which doesn't have to be lit.) Note that backhand shots to the eyes seem easier. If none of those are lit, shoot the game saucer from the right to relight them. I haven't found a good way to get control of the ball coming from the game saucer while holding another, since you can't rely on the chill save while holding a flipper. The best method I've found is to post-pass left-to-right with the second ball, then shoot the right eye just as the ball ejects from the saucer, freeing up the flippers so you can chill save.
Phase two is to complete 25 Mega Visor shots. I have found how to grind this. Catch on each flipper. Shoot the BLUE visor target (second from left) from the left flipper. That ball will clunk off the other held on the right flipper and return to a catch on the left to do it again. I was able to grind 25 hits this way missing only once, and collected the Mega Jackbot twice in one multiball. On my stream, some folks were talking about shooting the leftmost visor target instead, then you can nudge while the ball is in open space to direct it back to the left flipper. I haven't gotten the hang of that, but can see how it might work.
Because it takes so much time and risk to open the visor after the second multiball, I think it's best to ignore MB and go for the casino games and Run. Random rebounds will eventually make progress on the visor, and it's worth manually completing when it gets down to three or so hits needed, but not before that. Do make sure to aim for the cycling Keno arrow for an extra reward.
Casino games: Note that you can choose your casino game by clicking with the left flipper. I like to choose the Slot Machine first, since it has the broadest range of outcomes and you want the information sooner. Save Dice Game for last, since you might get more bumper hits to raise its value before playing it.
The casino games are the biggest source of scoring in Jack●Bot. The values are progressive throughout the game; a maxed cheated Dice Game doubled is 480M which is huge. Poker and Keno are harder to increase, as it's not easy to collect their cards, but still score 99M if cheated. The other big point source is the 2X Bonus awards at the Cashier from the ramp, which is also progressive because bonus is. In my top game, I had bonus up over 100M, so 200M payouts from the cashier.
Double or Nothing: Do this. If you know to chill save on the game saucer kickout, you can always get a catch, and the Cashier target is safe to shoot. I sometimes won't bother on a small score (<100M before doubling), but for anything higher, do it every time. Especially early, because before the first Casino Run, hitting the Cashier also counts as a ramp shot to relight the saucer.
Note that starting either Casino Run or multiball collects anything lit at the Cashier such as a doubled game.
Cheating: Since there was some confusion in the original thread on how this works, here goes. During a casino game, a Casino Run spin, or a bonus countup, the Extra Ball button will flash. To press the Extra Ball button, use the 2nd Right Flipper button on a keyboard or gamepad (the same button as activates the right Magna-Save on Black Knight), or just tap it on a touch screen. You will know it's working if each press makes the DMD shake with a "boop" noise. If you keep pressing EB repeatedly while it's flashing, you may get Pinbot or Bride to cheat for you. The Slot Machine if successfully cheated will change to Light Extra Ball, which I have gotten twice in one game, don't know if it's repeatable more than that. The other three casino games will award more points for cheating with no limit throughout the game. In Casino Run, cheating will always eliminate a bomb for you on the center reel, once per Run. I also saw it work once on the right reel, but never on the left.
Casino Run: Love it. Huge thrill. Quite a bit of strategy.
Always shoot the eyes, since those kickouts are easier to handle and catch quickly, particularly the right one. Don't shoot the game saucer because it takes longer to catch and control. Someone on my stream said the game saucer gives better spin rewards, but that sounds urban-legendy to me. I haven't noticed it doing anything different.
If a ball is locked, draining will give you a free spin and eject that ball into play. This could be done intentionally in order to free up both eyes for shots, but I prefer to leave the locked ball there. Reason is to preserve that free spin for an emergency collection on short time if necessary. If I'm under 5 seconds with a ball locked, I'll drain intentionally in order to spin and collect that way.
The giant question for Casino Run strategy is how often it gives out extra balls, whether it's worth pressing your luck with a big bank in hopes of an EB. I'm now convinced the EB frequency does drop with time. I've had two EBs in an early Run several times, and three once, then seen dry spells of eight or ten consecutive Runs without any EBs. But I don't think the chance ever goes to zero. In my 62B high game, I spun an EB while somewhere over 50B on something like the fifteenth Run. There's also the MK3 Hint that awards an instant EB, which I've gotten three times now all in separate games, so I suspect that one is only ever once per game.
Whenever you have a No Bomb, you're free to keep shooting for as many spins as you like of course, there's never two bombs on one spin. Without the protection, when to collect is a tough question indeed. I say always collect for any EB right away, except on the first and maybe the second Run that seem to be more likely to award more. Anything under 500M isn't worth collecting, but then the stress clearly rises. I will usually keep going up to a billion if I haven't cheated away a bomb yet, or collect somewhere around 800M after the bomb cheat is spent.
But one more thing to do during Casino Run is to play but NOT spin. You might luck into a billion bank on just a few quick spins, perhaps along with an award of More Time. But don't hurry to collect it and waste the 40 seconds of invulnerability. Use that time to do other things on the table. Bonus multipliers are available during Casino Run, at the lit drop target. Or if that's maxed, go collect Hit Me cards to build bonus. Poker cards don't seem worth doing since it's too hard to hit all three drops before they reset. Plus every switch continues to add 4M to the bank. I like doing this Casino Run spinless free play while a ball is still locked, so I can drain to spin and collect just before the timer expires.
Glitch: I keep seeing a weird ROM bug where the Vortex Millions value resets to a low number such as 2M. I don't know what causes that. I do vaguely recall seeing it happen on a real machine a long time ago. This hurts since that should be the biggest component of your bonus, which gets collected so many times thanks to the cashier. But I guess all you can do is build it back up with ramp shots.
I think that covers it. Enjoy!
Short-plunging is often a good idea to get control rather than risking the bumpers after the skill shot. You can plunge just hard enough to pass the gate and usually get a catch by holding the left flipper. I think going for the skill shot is OK when you have ball saver protection at the start of a ball, but not after a lock or ramp->plunger when you don't. I also go for it when plunging to start multiball, particularly in the Mega Visor phase when it awards 10+ free chest hits which is huge.
The biggest problem is controlling kickouts from the game saucer. Turns out that the saucer never actually kicks SDTM, at least on my PC version. If you don't flip or nudge, every kickout will hit either a flipper or the center pin and stay in play. Saving with the center pin is called a Chill Save, although the term doesn't seem to be in the IPDB glossary.
The most common game saucer kickout will bounce off the center pin and drop into the right inlane. Stay chill and don't nudge, it's not going into the outlane. When this happens, you can trap with a nudge up as the ball reaches the right flipper. Nudge-to-trap also works on a feed from the ramp. The second most common game saucer kickout bounces off the center pin up the left inlane, which can also be nudged up to a catch as the ball reaches the flipper. Overall, the game saucer kickout isn't exactly random, it's still railroaded, it's just that there's about five different railroads that can occur.
Eye kickouts don't seem to be a problem, they always hit a flipper and are easy to catch. Eye shots are very reliable, the ball almost never bounces out, Farsight tuned that very well. Eye shots do seem to be easier to hit by backhand on the same side rather than across the table.
Post passes are safe and reliable as on most TPA tables, do them freely.
Cashier: This target is safe on a set shot from the right flipper. A clean hit will always settle back to a catch on the left.
Ramp: A set shot from the right flipper will most often proceed into the leftmost column of pegs and through into the inlane. This is the best outcome, you want control and can get it by nudging up at the flipper. The plunger exit is OK, but don't be tempted into the skill shot, just short-plunge back to the flippers. You definitely don't want the ball to drop into the bumpers, so watch the ball as it enters the pegboard and nudge if it's trying to go through the middle entrance into the hole.
If the ramp does something to light the cashier (either the bumpers for Solar Value, or the inlane award for 2X Bonus), get control and shoot it. The Cashier target is safe and those points add up quite a bit.
I haven't found any workable way to get the extra ball from the ramp. The ball rarely (by design) stays there long enough for the award to click back around to EB. It can happen if you get lucky with a nudge that settles the ball on top of a peg for a few seconds. I've done it a few times by luck, up to three in a game. I'm not sure if that's worth trying, because failing usually means you've delayed the ball long enough to get the lousy Mega Ramp instead of the valuable Cashier.
There's a sneaky way to get the EB, though. Occasionally, the ball will drop through the hole but not hit any bumpers. When this happens, the game doesn't know the ball exited the pegboard yet, so the inlane award stays lit and cycling. It is possible to gain control on the left flipper and shoot the right inlane at the right time when the EB award is lit. This bit of physics looks to have been ported directly from Pinbot, which allows the same thing of "shatzing" the opposite inlane from a flipper.
Multiball: Know how it works. The first time, you complete the visor once and lock two balls to start a two-ball multi. The second time, you complete the visor once and lock two balls, then plunge a third for a three-ball multi. The third and subsequent times, you complete the visor twice (once for each lock) then plunge the third ball.
As in Pinbot, when a fresh visor begins, one target will flash and cycle to open the visor immediately when hit. This is critical. When multiball ends, DON'T FLAIL FOR A GRACE PERIOD JACKPOT. CATCH the ball so you can get the quick visor open. You may have to shoot something to get the visor to close, either the game saucer or ramp. To hit the traveling hazard, the most reliable shot is from the left flipper to the yellow (leftmost) target, so post pass if necessary to set that up. Unfortunately, unlike Pinbot, you're only allowed one quick open for each pair of locks and have to do the second visor the long way. I haven't found any good way to grind that; most visor shots bounce into the slings and lose control.
The first phase of multiball is to collect 15 Jackbots. As with most games, don't flail, catch the balls and make controlled shots. Always hold one ball in order to catch the second. Starting from two caught balls, the safest shot is the Cashier: shoot it from the right, then quickly post pass left-to-right so you can catch the first returning ball. When the Cashier isn't lit, go for a Super Jackbot, by shooting a lit eye then the other eye within a second (which doesn't have to be lit.) Note that backhand shots to the eyes seem easier. If none of those are lit, shoot the game saucer from the right to relight them. I haven't found a good way to get control of the ball coming from the game saucer while holding another, since you can't rely on the chill save while holding a flipper. The best method I've found is to post-pass left-to-right with the second ball, then shoot the right eye just as the ball ejects from the saucer, freeing up the flippers so you can chill save.
Phase two is to complete 25 Mega Visor shots. I have found how to grind this. Catch on each flipper. Shoot the BLUE visor target (second from left) from the left flipper. That ball will clunk off the other held on the right flipper and return to a catch on the left to do it again. I was able to grind 25 hits this way missing only once, and collected the Mega Jackbot twice in one multiball. On my stream, some folks were talking about shooting the leftmost visor target instead, then you can nudge while the ball is in open space to direct it back to the left flipper. I haven't gotten the hang of that, but can see how it might work.
Because it takes so much time and risk to open the visor after the second multiball, I think it's best to ignore MB and go for the casino games and Run. Random rebounds will eventually make progress on the visor, and it's worth manually completing when it gets down to three or so hits needed, but not before that. Do make sure to aim for the cycling Keno arrow for an extra reward.
Casino games: Note that you can choose your casino game by clicking with the left flipper. I like to choose the Slot Machine first, since it has the broadest range of outcomes and you want the information sooner. Save Dice Game for last, since you might get more bumper hits to raise its value before playing it.
The casino games are the biggest source of scoring in Jack●Bot. The values are progressive throughout the game; a maxed cheated Dice Game doubled is 480M which is huge. Poker and Keno are harder to increase, as it's not easy to collect their cards, but still score 99M if cheated. The other big point source is the 2X Bonus awards at the Cashier from the ramp, which is also progressive because bonus is. In my top game, I had bonus up over 100M, so 200M payouts from the cashier.
Double or Nothing: Do this. If you know to chill save on the game saucer kickout, you can always get a catch, and the Cashier target is safe to shoot. I sometimes won't bother on a small score (<100M before doubling), but for anything higher, do it every time. Especially early, because before the first Casino Run, hitting the Cashier also counts as a ramp shot to relight the saucer.
Note that starting either Casino Run or multiball collects anything lit at the Cashier such as a doubled game.
Cheating: Since there was some confusion in the original thread on how this works, here goes. During a casino game, a Casino Run spin, or a bonus countup, the Extra Ball button will flash. To press the Extra Ball button, use the 2nd Right Flipper button on a keyboard or gamepad (the same button as activates the right Magna-Save on Black Knight), or just tap it on a touch screen. You will know it's working if each press makes the DMD shake with a "boop" noise. If you keep pressing EB repeatedly while it's flashing, you may get Pinbot or Bride to cheat for you. The Slot Machine if successfully cheated will change to Light Extra Ball, which I have gotten twice in one game, don't know if it's repeatable more than that. The other three casino games will award more points for cheating with no limit throughout the game. In Casino Run, cheating will always eliminate a bomb for you on the center reel, once per Run. I also saw it work once on the right reel, but never on the left.
Casino Run: Love it. Huge thrill. Quite a bit of strategy.
Always shoot the eyes, since those kickouts are easier to handle and catch quickly, particularly the right one. Don't shoot the game saucer because it takes longer to catch and control. Someone on my stream said the game saucer gives better spin rewards, but that sounds urban-legendy to me. I haven't noticed it doing anything different.
If a ball is locked, draining will give you a free spin and eject that ball into play. This could be done intentionally in order to free up both eyes for shots, but I prefer to leave the locked ball there. Reason is to preserve that free spin for an emergency collection on short time if necessary. If I'm under 5 seconds with a ball locked, I'll drain intentionally in order to spin and collect that way.
The giant question for Casino Run strategy is how often it gives out extra balls, whether it's worth pressing your luck with a big bank in hopes of an EB. I'm now convinced the EB frequency does drop with time. I've had two EBs in an early Run several times, and three once, then seen dry spells of eight or ten consecutive Runs without any EBs. But I don't think the chance ever goes to zero. In my 62B high game, I spun an EB while somewhere over 50B on something like the fifteenth Run. There's also the MK3 Hint that awards an instant EB, which I've gotten three times now all in separate games, so I suspect that one is only ever once per game.
Whenever you have a No Bomb, you're free to keep shooting for as many spins as you like of course, there's never two bombs on one spin. Without the protection, when to collect is a tough question indeed. I say always collect for any EB right away, except on the first and maybe the second Run that seem to be more likely to award more. Anything under 500M isn't worth collecting, but then the stress clearly rises. I will usually keep going up to a billion if I haven't cheated away a bomb yet, or collect somewhere around 800M after the bomb cheat is spent.
But one more thing to do during Casino Run is to play but NOT spin. You might luck into a billion bank on just a few quick spins, perhaps along with an award of More Time. But don't hurry to collect it and waste the 40 seconds of invulnerability. Use that time to do other things on the table. Bonus multipliers are available during Casino Run, at the lit drop target. Or if that's maxed, go collect Hit Me cards to build bonus. Poker cards don't seem worth doing since it's too hard to hit all three drops before they reset. Plus every switch continues to add 4M to the bank. I like doing this Casino Run spinless free play while a ball is still locked, so I can drain to spin and collect just before the timer expires.
Glitch: I keep seeing a weird ROM bug where the Vortex Millions value resets to a low number such as 2M. I don't know what causes that. I do vaguely recall seeing it happen on a real machine a long time ago. This hurts since that should be the biggest component of your bonus, which gets collected so many times thanks to the cashier. But I guess all you can do is build it back up with ramp shots.
I think that covers it. Enjoy!
