Strategy for this table.

[Zaphod77]

I figured out how to handle asylum.

Nudge left a lil after the ball bounces left it will land on a raised left flipper and the tilt bob will settle enough for a nudge up to trap

 

[Zaphod77]

Finally got that coffin jackpot goal. Was a royal pain. and since i rolled the game already, nothing more to do.

 

[skippycue]

The coffin jackpot is doubled if three or more physical balls are on the playfield, and subject to multi multiball multiplier. so you have to collect the coffin jackpot after the castle jackpot ejects the balls from the lock after collecting 3 coffin jackpots. if you have two trapped in the lock, you will only get a 3x instead of a 6x jackpot, and you need the 6x50 to get 300 million.

This is not at all true. Not sure where you got your math but there is no 6x50 to get to 300 million. You raise the base jackpot by 20 million each time you hit it when you have 3+ balls in play. It only gets raised by 10 million if you have 2 balls in play when you earn it. So with 3 balls in play, it starts at 40 million and goes to 60, 80, then 100 million with each subsequent jackpot. This is then multiplied by the number of multiballs going, so 100 million x 3 multiballs is the 300M jackpot. And you can definitely earn the 300M jackpot with 2 of the 3 balls locked as shown here:

https://youtu.be/PPS3y2b2540?t=1933

 

[Zaphod77]

I've done that, and only gotten 150 million instead of 300 million.

Pretty sure you only got the 300 million BECAUSE you drained the fourth ball, and the game decided the two to light the jackpot were still in play.

the software regularly gets confused about the number of balls on the playfield. It's never failed to double the jackpot when there are three physical balsl bouncing around when i get one in the coffin, but i have gotten the 150 million instea dmore times than i'd like to.

here's the section on the rulesheet at pinball.org.

"The Coffin Jackpot value is 20M, 30M, 40M, maximum 50M. If three or more balls are still in play when the Jackpot is collected, its value is doubled. The Coffin Jackpot appears to start at 40M on some machines. The game manual implies that the Coffin Jackpot value may be increased by Jet Bumper hits, but it appears that it is merely increased to the next base value when it is collected."

Operator's manual says the exact same thing. it's doubled if there are three balls in play.

it's also possible that the'rs a special exception for if you have the double castle jackpot lit. every time i've had the non double castle jackpot lit, and less then 3 physical balls on the table, i've gotten 150 million.

 

[skippycue]

So I think ultimately we are saying the same thing. There seems to be a glitch in the pinball arcade rules because they indicate a maximum of 80M for 2 ball jackpots, but I believe 50M max is correct. The max of 80 is what made me think your "jackpot doubled for 3+ balls" didn't make sense. Here are the pinball arcade rules for reference:

The Jackpot value depends on how many balls are in play. If only two balls are in play, the Jackpot value starts at 20M points and increases by 10M points each time it's scored, up to a maximum of 80M points. If three balls are in play, the Jackpot value starts at 40M points and increases by 20M points each time it's scored, up to a maximum of 100M points. The Jackpot value carries over throughout the game. The Multi Multi-Ball Multiplier is also applied to Coffin Multi-Ball. If Coffin Multi-Ball and one other Multi-Ball mode is active, a 2X Multiplier is applied to the Coffin Jackpot value. If Coffin Multi-Ball and two other Multi-Ball modes are active, a 3X Multiplier is applied to the Coffin Jackpot value.

So ultimately, the jackpot is doubled when 3+ balls are in play as you first mentioned. However, there is no problem locking balls for Castle jackpots during multiball, this does not hinder coffin jackpot values at all. I did this many many times and never saw any inconsistencies in the jackpot values.

For instance, in the video above my progression was as follows:

1. 60M = 20M x 3X for multiballs active (2 balls in play)
2. 90M = 30M x 3X for multiballs active (2 balls in play)
3. 120M = 40M x 3X for multiballs active (2 balls in play)
4. 200M = 50M x 2X (3+ balls) x 2X for multiballs active (3 balls in play)
5. 300M = 50M x 2X (3+ balls) x 3X for multiballs active (3 balls in play)

So really the important factor here is how many jackpots you've scored. So you could score 3 jackpots in 2 ball castle and coffin multiball to take advantage of the castle lock and build up your coffin jackpot progression, then light all but one or two letters in dracula, start Mist multiball, then shoot the coffin ramp one time for the 300M coffin jackpot! Basically, as long as you hit 4 coffin jackots and have 3 multiballs active with 3 balls in play for the last one, you'll get a 300M coffin jackpot.

Do you have an example of when you feel you were awarded the wrong jackpot value on video (one that shows all the jackpots, not just the last one).

 

[Zaphod77]

As i've said. i've gotten the 150 million jackpot (and thus not the goal) many many times, even with zero balls in the trough. every single time i've only gotten the 150 million, i've had balls locked for castle jackpot. the time i finally got it, i had three balls visible and moving around on the playfield.

either the game is trying to not count balls locked for castle jackpot among the three (which actually makes sense to me, making it so if you park balls you don't get the doubled jackpot), or three balls counts and 4 does NOT. the 300m jackpot in your video was exactly 3 balls in play. (2 in castle, one in trough, and one on field)


btw here's how the rats works.

base rats mode is 500k for first rate 500+50 fror the secon drat, and a 500k binus for the last rat for 13,250,000

but with 3x, both the final count AND the amounts added to it are tripled, as near as I can tell.

 

[skippycue]

As i've said. i've gotten the 150 million jackpot (and thus not the goal) many many times, even with zero balls in the trough. every single time i've only gotten the 150 million, i've had balls locked for castle jackpot. the time i finally got it, i had three balls visible and moving around on the playfield.

either the game is trying to not count balls locked for castle jackpot among the three (which actually makes sense to me, making it so if you park balls you don't get the doubled jackpot), or three balls counts and 4 does NOT. the 300m jackpot in your video was exactly 3 balls in play. (2 in castle, one in trough, and one on field)

As I said, the jackpot value was always what I expected it to be and I always had balls locked in the castle lock. Perhaps there was a bug they fixed that you encountered? I also don't think it would be fair to require balls not to be locked when that is part of the multiball modes... Also, even if that were true, you could still lock the balls to build up the Dracula letters until you only need 1 or 2, then unlock the balls, make the last shot, then relock them... Wouldn't be too much harder really... But yes, this aspect of multiball made the goal easier for sure. Found another video where the jackpot was earned with 2 balls locked:

The only reason I'm pressing the issue is because not taking advantage of the locking mechanism makes the goal much harder than it needs to be and I don't want people to become misled. At least 2 of us were able to get the 300M jackpot this way. I would still be very curious to see you repro this and post a vid, just curious.

 

[Zaphod77]

Well, something robbed me of that 300 million many times.

And as i said, BSD is known to lose track of the number of balls on the playfield. and this is not something that FS could have fixed.