Lyman's Lament

[Xenonite]

I guess it'd probably help if I wasn't flinging balls up into Franky and subsequently down into the drain every 30 seconds... I'd never thought about using the [loopable] scoop for that. For bride ramps and FMF it's not too bad to just shoot them, but for Franky and Drac (esp. franky...) ... will have to investigate that.

How often does the scoop actually start/advance modes? In that fairly long 7B game with 2 laments (so like 90 scoop hits or whatever), I only recall getting mode starts maybe 3-5 times. I did get a lot of (advance X) though.

Bonus X *should* max out at 250X, given the coders of the game, but that's anyone's guess. It feels like it'd probably be easier to deliberately shoot for the Tombstone target than to shoot DIG over and over and over again...

edit 1: Just played a (fairly short game) hammering away at the scoop.

Notable things I noticed:

• This table has physics issues all over the place... especially around the right ramp... I saw a ball head for the tombstone target in multiball and then spontaneously phase up into the right ramp... what the heck...?
• I scored 30 or so Mosh Pit lanes without actually aiming for them. Serious control issues, much?
• MB's end of ball bonus is horrible... actually horrible... MM is much better behaved about this.
• Of course *now* the scoop starts lighting mode after mode after mode.

The overall game was 1.5 billion points, which falls at the 84% line (really?) for my scores. The Lament itself was 1.4m * 55x -> 77m lyman lament ball. only one MoR on that ball. So it made up about 5% of my score. Granted, it's end of ball bonus, but I still can't say I'm too impressed, especially given that the MoRs I had were about 45%. How on earth do you keep the ball in play for that long?

I'm definitely going to have to experiment with this more.

 

[vikingerik]

Yeah, the scoop starts a mode about 10% of the time. That sounds low but it isn't. It's actually quite a lot of payoff for the venture. 10 scoop shots for a mode is way safer than 6 Franky or Bride or Dracula shots. And the other stuff the scoop can do like bonus X and monster bombs are better than the piddly 250K or whatever paid by the intermediate shots to the monsters.

The overall strategy is more like, not so much about Lyman's itself, but the scoop in general and Lyman's is a nice addition when it happens.

How does the bonus get so high? Suppose your next ball is as good as the Lyman's ball. Now suppose that one instant you lost control into the drain didn't happen, so that the two balls merge into one continuous ball. Now both the bonus score and X are twice what you had before. 2.8m * 110x = 308m. How's that sound?

 

[Xenonite]

Ah, yes, it's our friend quadratic progression again, where combo breakers at middles are disproportionately more painful than beginnings or ends (start of Lament notwithstanding). Of course, without Lyman's Lament, none of this really matters because a non-Lament 100M bonus ball, if such a thing even exists, would be a crap shoot.

Bride goes 200-250-300, Franky is 250 for spot shots and ??? for spot the spot light shot, and FMF is 200-225-250-300??? I think the lagoon always scores 250k.

Anyways, the only modes worth starting from actually shooting them seem to be FMF because orbit shots are easy as pie (and if you shoot the right orbit strongly, holding left flipper up as it loops around = free lagoon hit), Bride because the ramps aren't too terrible about draining and Creature maybe because it's not that hard to start... Although honestly, I wonder whether it's best to start and not finish creature to avoid the "Rock before Bash" anti-bonus.

7

 

[BamBam92345]

Do you have codes for tables on ANDROIDS

 

[dave950lam]

Just got Lyman's Lament. Should've gotten special, but it didn't register.

 

[rehtroboi40]

Just got Lyman's Lament. Should've gotten special, but it didn't register.

That's one of an increasing number of things I dislike about the PC version-goals that do not trigger. I remember going for those goals you've mentioned and how grueling they were to get.

Well the newer tables are worse. FarSight has just fixed the CJ 3.5M goal. I got that one three times before they fixed it-and now I can come nowhere close to getting that. Al's Garage Band still, to this day, does not give credit for the 200M jackpot goal. Heck, Gladiators and MoT both released without achievements. Took about a month to fix that.

 

[Snorzel]

+1 for the chevo fixes. It's brutal when you are going for something just for the sake of the goal, get it, then not get credit. I guess I'm a sucker because I usually do it twice just be be sure I wasn't deluded.

 

[Tann]

Should've gotten special, but it didn't register.

I don't know on PC, but on PS3, the trick to collect the special was to have a single ball in play.

> http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/7710-Collect-the-Special?p=142641&viewfull=1#post142641

All goals which require to collect a special are kind of buggy:

- Sun Special on Pinbot (no multiball, no ball locked, visor closed)
> http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...al-wizard-goal?p=160508&viewfull=1#post160508)

- Class of 1812 (no multiball, complete bonus level only via an inlane, anything else do not register the goal when collecting the special)
> http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...all-platforms)?p=168821&viewfull=1#post168821

- Scared Stiff (to collect a Spell, no multiball, no ball locked but my memories are fuzzy about this one)

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

A lot of these goals are triggered by the table playing a specific sound or animation. Particularly during multiballs, those sounds/animations just don't get played because the table overrides them with whatever else is going on.

I'm pretty sure in Monster Bash, the Special goal is triggered by either: (a) the animation of Dracula smashing his guitar, or (b) Drac saying "Hey, (you're?) Special, (just?) like me!" Neither of those are played during any multiball (Frankie, Mosh Pit, Bash, or Rock). What is played is the short "siren" sound, but that's obviously not the trigger for the goal.

 

[Zaphod77]

Yeah, detection is difficult. you can't base it off the knocker because that also fires for score based replays.

You have to find a unique path of events that a) happens every special and b) only happens during specials. Things getting cut short and overridden in multiball does NOT HELP.

when a table is scripted this is not a problem (but that has other issues), and it's not a problem in new stern because they actually have the code and can code in the goal check.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

The programming for Monster Bash is completely over-the-top when it comes to canceling animations, pretty much any animation can be skipped/canceled with the flippers. In terms of making a user-friendly pin that's accessible, streamlined, and fun, Lyman's code is fantastic; but it sure doesn't play nice with the way FS interacts with the emulation!