Table of the Week Club...Week 49: STARSHIP TROOPERS

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shutyertrap

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Mar 14, 2012
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Breaking news in Buenos Aires: Recruits are flocking to join the battle of bug hordes on Klendauthu in hopes of citizenship. You too can join the fight this week by playing Starship Troopers! Would you like to know more?
 

Slam23

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Jul 21, 2012
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My worst table! Only 57 HOF points. Don't like it, don't play it. So a perfect TotM table for me! :)
 

MontanaFrank

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Dec 19, 2012
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Yes, this is a cranky table. Haven't played it in awhile and agree with Slam23, it's a perfect TotW table.

That said. I was in the basement section of the standings in the last round of TotM. I have no where to go but up, hopefully.
 

shutyertrap

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Haven't really formed an opinion on this table yet (this is truly the first time I've spent any real time playing it), but it's leaning toward positive. Except for that music. Yuck.

So I have one wizard left, the nuking 5 planets which reminds me of playing Pin Bot. I've yet to figure out how to really jack up a score though. So what's the trick to that?
 

Slam23

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Jul 21, 2012
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I'm gonna go ahead and shamelessly rip off a post from VikingErik in the main strategy thread: (disclaimer: everything between " and " is totally VikingErik)

"The only way to score multiple billions is the hold-bonus feature. The entire multiplied bonus gets held, and can be multiplied again on the next ball, and held and multiplied again, and so on.
So (at my level of play) the game is mostly about grinding recon level 1 for the chance at hold-bonus. This can also award "Spot Species" which is a better (safer) way to clear out bugs than actually shooting them.
Ball control: My one big tip is with every scoop eject, use the mini-flipper to try to one-time backhand the ball up the right orbit. This works surprisingly often, and even most misses yield a safe railroaded rebound. I can't find anything else safe to do with this eject, and it's important because it happens about every eight seconds on this table.
Don't trigger Planet multiball early; it's better to stack up all 5 for the bigger jackpots.
I ignored the bad multiballs (the ones from shooting the orbits and from recon level 2), they score crap and aren't worth the risk of a double drain, just catch one ball and let the others go.
Don't chase the extra ball at the advance-rank hole. The shot is safe but the eject isn't. You won't recover 15 ejects from it before draining. "

Thanks Erik! ;)
 

Extork

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Mar 14, 2013
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I'm gonna go ahead and shamelessly rip off a post from VikingErik in the main strategy thread: (disclaimer: everything between " and " is totally VikingErik)

"The only way to score multiple billions is the hold-bonus feature. The entire multiplied bonus gets held, and can be multiplied again on the next ball, and held and multiplied again, and so on.
So (at my level of play) the game is mostly about grinding recon level 1 for the chance at hold-bonus. This can also award "Spot Species" which is a better (safer) way to clear out bugs than actually shooting them.
Ball control: My one big tip is with every scoop eject, use the mini-flipper to try to one-time backhand the ball up the right orbit. This works surprisingly often, and even most misses yield a safe railroaded rebound. I can't find anything else safe to do with this eject, and it's important because it happens about every eight seconds on this table.
Don't trigger Planet multiball early; it's better to stack up all 5 for the bigger jackpots.
I ignored the bad multiballs (the ones from shooting the orbits and from recon level 2), they score crap and aren't worth the risk of a double drain, just catch one ball and let the others go.
Don't chase the extra ball at the advance-rank hole. The shot is safe but the eject isn't. You won't recover 15 ejects from it before draining. "

Thanks Erik! ;)

I have also seen VE's strategy. I've got a few things to say about that. His strategy is for someone that has extremely good ball control. I have 'pretty good' ball control. I like to play 'flow' style. That's just how I am. Even though I agree that going for multiple bonus holds is the only way to go. Not for me. I always go for boosting recon, and whenever available, go for orbits. (Dirty mouth? Clean it up with orbits). I understand where VE is coming from, he's going for exponential points. Whereas I'd rather get the points right away with orbit multiball, and do it again. It's not as hard to do as you might think. Being a 'flow' player, I don't have the patience to sit there and go for recon level 1 over and over, especially considering when I tried that I kept on getting phych test. And somehow kept getting boosted to recon level 2. Nah screw that, get it up to recon 6 or keep playing multiballs. Excluding ground attack
 

Voof

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Sep 22, 2015
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As far as tournament strategy is suggest getting yourself comfortable with the multiball shot and the next planet shot. In a 2 play tournament I'd suggest attempting 2-3 planet multiball, whatever you are comfortable with, and then the second Playthrough you either play it safe, or try to ramp it up based off your success/failure in game 1. I smashed the leaderboards on the last pinball arcade tournament by getting 4 planet multiball up for a few solid super jackpots.
 

vikingerik

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Nov 6, 2013
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Hey Slam23, we've got a perfectly good "quote" function for delimiting quoted material. ;)

I understand where VE is coming from, he's going for exponential points. Whereas I'd rather get the points right away with orbit multiball, and do it again. It's not as hard to do as you might think. ... Nah screw that, get it up to recon 6 or keep playing multiballs.

Yeah, we're going for different things. I'm aiming at the top of the leaderboard, and those billions aren't going to come from orbit multiball. But if you're satisfied with a couple hundred million, sure orbit multiball is a fine and easy way to get that.

Although for a TOTM tournament, the hold-bonus strategy is off the table anyway, since the plunged EBs will interrupt the hold-bonus chain. For that, yeah, I'd go for and play orbit multiball.

Recon 6 actually doesn't seem to do much. I don't think it ever awards Klendathu. It can award EB once, but then it's always just the 25 million.
 
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Johni3w6

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Oct 31, 2012
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Have to work more with this table, it's a frustrating table. Missing and forgetting about the small red flipper makes feel like Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake.

I'll keep working at it, HS is only a little over 246mil.
 

Slam23

Active member
Jul 21, 2012
1,279
2
I played some SST and was reminded how I not like this table. There is very little control, operating the small flipper is awkward, and shots just feel off. It shouldn't be that hard to hit those ramps and orbits. It's always the question if it's just adjusting to these particular tunings and physics, but for me they keep feeling off. I do like the goofy DMD animations but get tired quickly of the sound track. Man, I really wanted to like this table.....
 
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