Tactics and Strategies Thread

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Well, we might as well have one, right?

- Get the Extra Ball! Yes, it gets increasingly difficult/long-winded, but try to light the Raceway EB every time, make it the first thing you do.
- Ignore the Minor Challenges, shoot for Jumps/Raceways instead (for some Minor Challenges, this is good for some extra points as well).
- Major Challenges are where the points are, especially Meet Your Maker with its unlimited 200M Jumps.
- Seems to me that an Over The Edge/Payback Time stack can be worth some decent points, but Over The Edge is best gotten from Tube shots and not from the Track.
- The Tube is not 100% safe, it will sometimes eject STDM.

 

[invitro]

I'm trying to loop the Raceway for the EB. I usually hold up the right flipper, and the ball bounces into the kickback targets - this seems the best way of lighting the kickback too. It comes back for a nudge and/or dead pass to the right flipper and another shot with a bit of time for another Raceway. This method is a little dangerous though, probability of a right outlane drain is pretty high. So I've been trying to do this during a multiball. So I am choosing Lock from the skill shot, which I think might be good anyway, as it takes two shots to get a lock versus one to start a Challenge, and the other awards seem quite a bit lesser. I've gotten the Raceway EB that requires four Raceways to advance about three times and that's my highest.

I do shoot the right ramp to end that Challenge (Snow?) quickly. I've been sometimes trying to time out the others. Some seem to be worth a decent amount of points though.

I can't shoot the Tube well and it feels dangerous, so I haven't gotten much there. Except Video Mode seems to be nice points. I've mapped Anaheim and Daytona but they're probably wrong. I don't even know if the patterns are fixed. The third Summit Award is Super Spinner and might be worth collecting (the 2nd is lite VM). The Summit Awards reset at the beginning of every ball.

I try to stack Payback Time with a multiball. Or rather, I try to get Payback Time a shot away, then start a multiball, then start Payback Time.

Remember that the Race EB and the MYM EB lights go out at the end of a ball.

Jump This is lit by completing the Cliff, which is done by hitting what I called the kickback targets above. You want this as an outlane ballsaver, and you'll get it if you collect Raceways and bounce up as above, or some other way. It takes more hits on the standups each time though.

The points are definitely in the big three multiball modes. I must have gotten my 51B on the real machine by looping the 200M in MYM. No Limits seems nice when the award gets high... the rules say the max is 70M and my max is around 47M. I think in Fear Fest the Super Jackpot shot is the same as the regular Jackpot.

I'm think that I get the Super Jackpot fairly often without making the jump, but I could easily be wrong about that.

My last and best game is 29.6B, which is currently #2 (the First Loser) behind Tarek at 96.9B. On that game my first ball was 8147M, with three EB's collected. I played poorly after that though. My final bonus was: 42 Challenges for 420M, 39 Jumps for 195M, and 5400 meters for 54M, a 669M total bonus.

It seems that a major factor toward getting a high score is having the patience to time out the Minor Challenges, or at least finish them without taking any shot that's remotely risky.

I didn't like this table at first but I've become a fan. Only the sound, the "crowd noise" or whatever that horrible white noise is, and repetitive music, bother me. And the physics feels off. But the difficulty seems right on target. I'll be making another run this evening.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

It seems that a major factor toward getting a high score is having the patience to time out the Minor Challenges, or at least finish them without taking any shot that's remotely risky.

Yes. Start all minor modes as fast as possible and go for the Raceway EB during the modes. Use the major modes to get the points. The game will never end when you reach the Meat your Maker EB at least once per ball. The Raceway EB is repeatable too but develops into hard work later. I haven't count the number of shots for the EB in the final phase of my 96B game, for sure more than 50 Raceway shots. My bonus total during the last balls was 2.3B.
I wouldn't say that No Fear is a top ten pinball but it can be fun to play it from time to time.

 

[Slam23]

Any thoughts about a 100B hard cap ROM/TPA? Is it worthwhile to farm the tube for EB and such? I have yet to crack double digits and I am experimenting how to best control the ball after looping the left orbit for the EB. Live catching is suprisingly easy to do, yet risky if not timed correctly. Deadpassing to the left often returns the ball back to the right but only with a really clean orbit. Holding up the right flipper can give a lot of Cliff hits but seems to produce the most risk forma drain and often needs nudging.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Any thoughts about a 100B hard cap ROM/TPA?

The ROM handle the full 96B, there's a very big chance that 100B would recognized. Need a courageous person to tried first.

Is it worthwhile to farm the tube for EB and such?

I've got the Tube EB only once in the middle of the game. Don't know if it's worth to play for cause the shot isn't safe enough.

I have yet to crack double digits and I am experimenting how to best control the ball after looping the left orbit for the EB.

I use the same catching strategy as invitro at the moment. Maybe we will find a better method later...

 

[Zaphod77]

I believe the patterns are fixed, but you need to check the track.

I find the tube not that bad.

 

[invitro]

I believe the patterns are fixed, but you need to check the track.

I guess this is about the video mode... well I've checked my maps for each of the three tracks (Anaheim, Daytona, Silverdome, I think that is all?), and it looks like the track is fixed, that is the turns are the same for each track. But the numbers change both location and amount. This is from copying each track to paper, and then comparing my paper version to each one in the game one or two times. It's possible that I made a mistake, but I'm pretty sure, say 70%?, that the above is correct.

I wonder if hitting the tube takes more time to get an EB than just playing the modes until Meet Your Maker.

I just got a 25B. My last Raceway EB took 6 or 7 hits to advance the light. I was just timing out all Minor Challenges before my last MYM, except the Snow one (right ramp to end it). It's not so bad, the timer seems to stop about twice for most of them.

I think it may be time to try to find a keyboard/keys program that will let me do something like hit ctrl-4 to hold the left shift down, and ctrl-4 again to release it. It would make timing out a little more comfortable .

 

[Slam23]

Well this thread covers the table quite nicely already. These are some minor additions and thoughts on the game:

- I'm torn between live catching the left orbit shots or let them bounce towards the Summit, have been live-catching mostly but also lost a few balls from failed catches. I'll have to experiment with bouncing to see if that leads to longer games. I think I will eventually alternate between the two depending on how "clean" the orbit shot is. Only fast balls can be bounced safely (and then only with a nudge at hand to prevent middle drains). Slow balls are a bit harder to catch, but more easily onetimed through the orbit again, or up the Tube.
- I think it pays off to differentiate the game in early and late stage.
* In early stage it can be lucrative to shoot the tube to have a chance for an EB. Those chances are not so bad in my experience and although the Tube shot is not dead-on safe, it's also not as bad as you would think, I shoot it from a cradled ball at the right flipper. In a couple of games where I focused early on the tube, I had several instances in which I got 2 EB's directly (instant or lit at the Skull) and even had 3 in one game from the tube. Shooting for the tube directly out of the gate produces a repeatable list that starts with MK3 Hint and always leads to Start Challenge as reward. Better to hit a couple of other shots and then go for the Tube. I always choose Lock Ball at the start of a new ball if available to safely build up towards multiball. Also in early stage game, I farm the EB from the raceway and the inner Skull loop. If early stage game doesn't reward you enough EB's, just start over because by definition you haven't played that long...
* In late stage game, I focus on getting as fast as possible to MYM and get that EB. So then I often choose Start Challenge at the beginning of a new ball. I haven't had the patience to time-out the modes, but that is probably the best strategy, although I find that when I try it, I lose some flow that is needed to light the "NO FEAR" letters for the big MB's. I've had no luck of getting the Raceway EB after a third time around. Even my MB's don't last long enough to keep hitting those raceways enough to light EB again
- Don't ignore the right loop/orbit, it makes sense to hit that one a couple of times to get the Spinner lit for the rest of the ball and light videomode. The right orbit shot is perfectly catchable on the left flipper. And after that you can backhand the left orbit back to the right flipper again.
- The Tube is an excellent place to park balls in MB. In regular MB it even stays up there for a while, but when released it drops nicely to the left flipper. This is even possible to do with a second ball, that will also drop harmlessly next to the first already there. Nudging will lose you that second ball sometimes, but that doesn't have to be a problem.
- There is some funny business going on with the Jump Ramp. I found that after 3-4 shots up the left ramp towards the right flipper, but without making the actual Jump, this still registers as a Jump (and therefore also Super Jackpot if lit), especially if you make them quickly in succession. So hit that ramp regardless!
- I also think that Video Mode has fixed rewards in the different circuits, haven't got them regularly enough to plot them though.
- The Downhill Challenge can be done in less than one second when the ball is fed to the right flipper (from the Skull or after choosing "Start Challenge" at the start of a new ball). Just keep the right flipper up and let the ball pass to the left. Immediately shoot the ball and more often than not you get a clean right ramp shot that completes the mode.

 

[relaxation]

33,327M breakdown, another game that confirms I choke on modes where the points matter the most, 5th is okay.

With the spinner giving you ~4.4M without super spinner for every loop I likely also got 730M from just my 166 no limit loops (2.2% of misc). Didn't factor in Highway awards since they're not awarded every time the light blinks after you drain the first EB from the Highway loop.

Tip for controller players: you can nail the skull repeatedly with a soft/medium nudge right after the shot is made.

Notes from a <20m game that tried possible scoring stuff while having the games memory watched. Not too sure what could amount to so much in my misc but the game doesn't have any quirks besides track amounts during other modes you may get short changed.
if you notice the numbers are weird, around 4,260M it rolled over in the memory address I was watching

I probably should've read this thread, I had no idea outside of modes the right orbit had awards like the super spinner available. I usually keep my flipper up and nudge to correct trajectory on left orbits but if it's a weakshot I'll (reverse drop catch+pulse/livecatch) it, same may be needed for the right side as well to keep it from bouncing into the outlane.

additional comparison, if you're bad at the ramp jumps like I am here's the Meet Your Maker scoring potential versus the other two modes doing just left orbits, I included B2 (1st drain) and B3 (2nd drain) to cover likely scenarios, after that I only go for highway awards when I'm already in No Limit.

 

[DanBradford]

Hi guys, I use iOS so how do I time a mode out exactly? If I hold a ball on the flipper then the countdown stops. Any help?

 

[switch3flip]

Hi guys, I use iOS so how do I time a mode out exactly? If I hold a ball on the flipper then the countdown stops. Any help?

If no switch registers anything within 10 seconds, mode timer stops. To start it again you hit something that the table will register, like slingshot, ramp, whatever you feel is your safest shot that will bring ball back in control. Timing out a mode means waiting for timer to stop and shooting something to get timer going again. It's the same across all platforms.

 

[DanBradford]

Oh ok thanks. There's no way it's 10 seconds though, more like about 3. I thought maybe there was a way to disable the info pages or that PC users had a workaround. Thanks for the reply though dude

 

[switch3flip]

Oh ok thanks. There's no way it's 10 seconds though, more like about 3. I thought maybe there was a way to disable the info pages or that PC users had a workaround. Thanks for the reply though dude

No it's exactly 10 seconds, although the DMD starts displaying various info after about 3 seconds but the timer keeps ticking. Press the other flipper repeatedly (the one not holding the ball) and display will eventually return to the timer clock ticking down again. But timer isn't stopped just because DMD starts to display status info, it's still rolling in background.

 

[DanBradford]

I was doing that other flipper thing to no avail, didn't realise it was still counting down, thanks!

Edit: tested it again but I'm still not convinced tbh. I trapped with 23 sec to go and it stalled at 20sec, would go no further until I shoot a ramp. Post flipper transfers don't count.