Table of the Week Club...week 3: ATTACK FROM MARS

[Reagan Dow]

We keep having trouble understanding each other Maybe my English is not up to par, it's not my native language in any case. Anyway, I don't have a problem other than that my iPad Air 2 has broken tables since the latest updates (there are some bug threads already around). So I switched back to my older iPad 2 and keep them both in sync for when the issues on my Air 2 are solved. TPA doesn't sync automatically between devices, it has to be done by remote restore. I'm actually glad that TPA doesn't synch automatically because this could potentially wipe out all your scores, goals and HOF points if you have issues on any device that then transfer over to the others.

Your English is PERFECT I'm just an idiot. I didn't realize what you were saying. Was probably half asleep when I wrote it. Sorry I wasted your time. Who brought the smart guy?

 

[tyche]

i just got the billion hurry up to complete wizard goals. I wasn't even really watching closely no idea what I did but I'll take it!

 

[Crazy Newt]

Thanks SYT for organizing this each week. Great idea! I learn quite a bit from everyone and enjoy spending some time delving deeper into the history and general information about the tables. I have competed the wizard goals on nearly every table (4 tables remaining), including this one, but Martian bombs skipped my mind, which is silly as Troll bombs are available in MM, and these games are virtually identical. (in a good way)

 

[Extork]

SYT, if I had to chose between low scoring rulesets, or high scoring like AFM, I'd have to say low scoring. For some reason it makes me pay attention more to what's scoring what.

 

[shutyertrap]

SYT, if I had to chose between low scoring rulesets, or high scoring like AFM, I'd have to say low scoring. For some reason it makes me pay attention more to what's scoring what.

The scoring in AFM has always seemed ludicrous to me. I tend to think the sweet spot of scoring is like what Whirlwind has, and tops out with what TAF has. Whirlwind you really struggle for 7 million points (IRL), but feel good for the effort. TAF has some big rewards, but can be equally punishing where one game you might barely pass 20 million, and the next might do 120 million. I think my brain can't comprehend billions, and so there is no satisfaction there. What's funny is they are all just artificially inflated scores. I saw an EM where the final 2 score reels didn't even move, were just pieces of plastic with zeros painted on. It was still just a 4 reel game, but now you could score 999,900 points instead of just almost 10,000.

 

[shutyertrap]

Holy hell, just got the billion wizard! I had the right ramp and 2 orbits lit twice, but the left ramp only lit once. Getting the right ramp first, which for me is the hardest shot, I just hoped I could avoid hitting the saucer and collect the others. Bam bam, collected the orbits, and then it was just the left ramp. Hit it once with a roller technique I'll share in a sec, and then from a captured ball on the right flipper. Huge sigh of relief. Now all that's left is video mode *groan*.

Techniques

Right ramp...so for some reason, I cannot for the life of me hit this thing from a capture on the left flipper. Either I wildly miss it, or it rattles and rims out. The only way I can hit it is from a rolling ball off the left. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out the timing, I think I have it. It's all about the gal's leg. The timing for me is once I see the ball roll to her leg, flip. It's not 100% accurate by any stretch, but I could at least somewhat count on it. More than I can say about any other shot attempt on it.

Left ramp...this one is fairly bankable. When the ball shoots out of the Stroke of Luck hole, it goes to the left flipper. Hold your flipper up as it comes, and the ball will usually roll up the lane a bit, and then back up the flipper to the right flipper. It's a soft hop, but as soon as the ball touches the right flipper, flip. 75% of the time it will go up the left ramp. The other 25% it will go to the left orbit. Either way, it's a safe shot. I am able to shoot the left ramp from a right flipper capture, but that one is purely by feel.

Don't know if either of these tips will help anyone else with the billions, but it got me close enough many times that I continued to count on them.

 

[Fungi]

Feels good don't it? I felt like the most powerful man in the world when I did it.

 

[Slam23]

Your English is PERFECT I'm just an idiot. I didn't realize what you were saying. Was probably half asleep when I wrote it. Sorry I wasted your time. Who brought the smart guy?

thanks for the compliment!

 

[Slam23]

I talked about this in our last BlahCade Podcast. I don't think the license would actually be as crazy as I initially thought. There are no licensed items on the play field itself other than the NBA logo and trophy. The back glass could be easily altered to make the players wear generic jerseys (and then good luck identifying who's who). The NBA owns all the team names, so that's who you'd get the license from. The announcer is just a voice actor, no one of fame. Yes, he calls out player names, but I don't think that means you need to enter into agreement with each of them. As for the DMD images that pop up, not exactly photo reproductions! All this is to say, I think the only license to get is that of the NBA, not even the Player's Association.

As for the popularity of the machine, I don't think very many people have experience on it. I didn't see it in many arcades back in the day, as tables were definitely on their way out by the time of its arrival. I love it to death though.

I just played Wizard of Oz over the weekend, and that has really low scoring, as in a good game is still sub 100k.

That actually sounds promising, nice analysis on the license side of things! I think the scoring system although maybe being a small innovative thing could still warrant inclusion into TPA. Also the ball passing holes around the basket area is someting I haven't seen before but that may have been done on other machines. The thing I like most about Fastbreak is the combo shot system in which you have to shoot different combinations of ramps to collect basketball themed shots like a "fastbreak" or a "slamdunk". Although the middle ramp that leads directly to the basket is kind of the "money shot", to get anywhere you will have to learn how to shoot all the ramps and orbits. I think that's smart design. If you go on a roll the game reacts accordingly and you get cheered, but also when you bricks shots, you will get taunted by the commentator. The only things I don't like are the ruleset that isn't that deep, and the fact that some of the requirements for the end game start on a fixed number of bumper hits. I would have liked to have to shoot for them, instead of waiting for them to happen.
Back on topic: upped my week's best to 113B, just a clip under my second best alltime score of 116B. I'm not sure if I'm going to top my 141B before week's end. Still a nice game though, although I messed up my last two balls.
Edit: waddayaknow just got up to 147B.....hoped to go somewhat further but there you go. This makes me 3 for 3 on table of the week improvements to my own grand champion scores, I say it works for me!

 

[shutyertrap]

So all I care about right now is video mode. Trying to get super jets as quick as I can, so that the next Stroke of Luck I get is video. I've gotten cow mode 4 times now, but still haven't beaten the stupid thing. If I screw up video, I just exit and start all over. I'm so close yet so far.

 

[Xanija]

Hehe, I did exactly the same these days. Without success, I might add. Maybe I will give it another try tonight.

 

[Locksley]

There is a fairly modern pinball that kind of uses single points for scoring and that is NBA Fastbreak. Although it also has the option to activate the usual scoring that goes up in the millions, the fun with the single point scoring is offcourse the idea that you score baskets. A good game would be if you score 100-150 points, my best up until now (I own one) is around 275. Another nice feature is that you have a highscore list that keeps seperate scores for all 29 teams that you can choose to play (only difference being audio commentary callouts for player actions on those teams and different player portraits on the DMD). No chance of seeing this one in TPA, because of serious license troubles. And I think it's not popular enough to warrant inclusion, especially with that kind of license costs. Would like to see it offcourse.
Love the pinball-adapted Boromir speech btw in your signature!

Never played that, the theme would not attract me but if it is as good as they say it sure seems worth playing.
Seems I am not alone in struggling with too many numbers. One problem, illustrated very well by my post, is seeing and understanding the scoring. There so many numbers it is hard to process whilst playing; and even afterwards I just didn't bother and remembered hundreds of billions... or was it millions... was it tens of.... and so on.

Thanks for the signature mentioned; made me smile when I read it so I thought it signature worthy

Got some spare time this weekend, will prob play all three of the last Table of the Week pinballs.

EDIT: Well what do you know. Just got a message from the post, my "pinball controller" has arrived! END

 

[Extork]

The scoring in AFM has always seemed ludicrous to me. I tend to think the sweet spot of scoring is like what Whirlwind has, and tops out with what TAF has. Whirlwind you really struggle for 7 million points (IRL), but feel good for the effort. TAF has some big rewards, but can be equally punishing where one game you might barely pass 20 million, and the next might do 120 million. I think my brain can't comprehend billions, and so there is no satisfaction there. What's funny is they are all just artificially inflated scores. I saw an EM where the final 2 score reels didn't even move, were just pieces of plastic with zeros painted on. It was still just a 4 reel game, but now you could score 999,900 points instead of just almost 10,000.

Are you 4 reel? Haha. I've often wanted to tape an extra 0 on some of my TPA scores

 

[MadAxeMan]

Cool to see this thread!

I too, am stuck on 1 billion and video
I was one shot away from the 1 billion (bangs head on keyboard)
I will give some of these tips a try

Question:
If you have to get Super Jets to get video mode, what do you need to get video mode the second time?
Super Jets after Rule the Universe?

Top score this week 60.4 billion (mainly been going after 1 billion)

 

[Nat-1969]

Cool to see this thread!

I too, am stuck on 1 billion and video
I was one shot away from the 1 billion (bangs head on keyboard)
I will give some of these tips a try

Question:
If you have to get Super Jets to get video mode, what do you need to get video mode the second time?
Super Jets after Rule the Universe?

Top score this week 60.4 billion (mainly been going after 1 billion)

Somebody said that you can only do video mode once per game, which makes sense..I don't recall ever seeing it twice in a game

 

[shutyertrap]

Cool to see this thread!

Question:
If you have to get Super Jets to get video mode, what do you need to get video mode the second time?
Super Jets after Rule the Universe?

Elsewhere in this thread it was mentioned that you could get video a second time after completing everything, but if that mode is all you need, why waste your time?

 

[vikingerik]

Right ramp...so for some reason, I cannot for the life of me hit this thing from a capture on the left flipper.

It's impossible. TPA has a limited number of predefined ball trajectories from a catch on any flipper. None of them send the ball up AFM's right ramp. This happens on other tables too: TOM's right orbit, HRC's right orbit, Firepower's bottommost Power target, Taxi's bottommost Pinbot target. TPA also has some impossible rolling shots, Dr Dude to Gift of Gab and Junkyard to the Dog ramp. It's not just you, it's Farsight delivering broken nonworking physics.

 

[Nat-1969]

Elsewhere in this thread it was mentioned that you could get video a second time after completing everything, but if that mode is all you need, why waste your time?

Probably have a pretty righteous high score if you complete everything twice

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Time to marathon tonight...

http://www.twitch.tv/pinballwiz45b

 

[shutyertrap]

It's impossible. TPA has a limited number of predefined ball trajectories from a catch on any flipper. None of them send the ball up AFM's right ramp.

So it's not just me. Huh. That's pretty unforgivable on a shot like that. I understand on extreme angle shots, but not one like that. Especially since the near exact same shot can be made in MM.