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Twilight zone - pop bumpers, mystery playfield variation

DRD

DRD

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1 10 Years
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
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One maddening feature of my tz is that when you hit the skill shot, the ball is sent over by the rocket kicker to the hitch-hiker on the left hand side of the playfield. Through no fault of your own it then always runs under the mini playfield and falls into the pop bumpers. It is designed to do this.

But once in there, a real risk exists that the ball will drain down the left gutter, thrown by a pop bumper, and there is zero you can do about this, other than deliberately missing the skill shot in the first place

I have looked at pictures of tz play fields on line and a minority have two double star posts, with two rubbers on placed in a line between the bottom and left pop bumpers. This would eliminate the risk of you losing the ball by virtue of making the skill shot. The power ball in particular is prone to drain immediately in this way

Do people know whether this was a factory addition to stop this drain risk ? (I could imagine in an arcade punters getting well annoyed with this, and going onto other machines). It would make the game more logical and also reduce the damage caused by pop bumpers in this area. But is spoils the look of the town square area and is an ugly way to deal with this issue
 
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prototypes and early sample games had this layout. look for the green lock lens on the lock shot. later game have an orange lens.
 
bartron said:
prototypes and early sample games had this layout. look for the green lock lens on the lock shot. later game have an orange lens.
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I believe it must of been more than the first sample games that had this layout, more like the first 2000-3000. My TZ has the extra posts fitted, the white clock dial and an orange lock light insert. I think it was left up to the operator whether to fit the posts in a lot of the games, either they were left in the coin box or little inserts to fill the holes.
 
The clock, being relatively easily removable, isn't a definitive indication of a games' early or late production.
 
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The frustrating thing about the bumpers is that ball save is cancelled once the ball hits them.

But if you get skill shot, then when the ball is in the rocket about to fire, nudge it out to the flippers, if it drains you still get the ball save! :)
 
A slight tweak in the code to allow a ball save from the bumpers would solve the skill shot problem. I often go for the skill shot...hit yellow and your 1 step closer to LITZ :)
 
On the PAPA tutorial on YouTube, I had noticed that the excellent player did not shoot for the skill shots, I understand why now

On such a wonderful game, this is a clanger of an error IMHO. Bad design. And bad fix. But given the shots around that area, there was no easy proper fix for this.

Sorting this properly would have required a complete redesign, the timed ball save would have been my fix here too - especially as tz can automatically re-shoot balls into the playfield
 
Which Rom have you got. 9.4H Is what I have. I am just asking as on my machine the ball saver will certainly save the ball if it drains down the side after going in the bumpers from a skill shot....
 
Mfresh said:
Which Rom have you got. 9.4H Is what I have. I am just asking as on my machine the ball saver will certainly save the ball if it drains down the side after going in the bumpers from a skill shot....
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I've got 9.4H with factory settings on mine and it only seems to save the ball on a buy in. Perhaps it can be changed as a feature adjustment? I believe the factory defaults differ based on region also so its possible one of ours is different there, I've never checked.
 
Hi. I am currently running 9.4h on medium difficulty.

I have owned the machine for less than two weeks so haven't figured out the adjustments and menus properly yet. I have been stripping out mods, replacing solenoid sleeves and plungers and removing the oil that some muppet put on most of my solenoid plungers in the distant past.

Backbox to come off soon so I can move it.....
 
Feature adjustment (A2) number 27 is Free Ride Time which is the ball saver. The default setting is Off. I have it set to 15 (because why not?!) and that keeps me safe from skill shot bumper drains. The next adjustment (28) is Buy In Free Ride Time, and the factory default is 10.

From what I understand, Pat Lawlor didn't like ball savers, hence no ball saver in TAF and TZ (apart from ball 1). The home ROM of TZ has a ball saver for all balls, but I wonder if anyone has ever tried to hack together a TAF home ROM with a ball saver.
 
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DRD - If you are stripping out mods are you selling any of them? I may be interested if you are...

EDIT - Just saw these are for sale in the For Sale section - ignore this message...
 
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I've never gone for the skill shot because of this. I didnt know anyone who ever did go for it. them pops be dangerous
 
I didn't realise you could alter the ball save settings :oops:, but then I always play my games on default settings.

The pop bumper thing is just another quirk that makes TZ what it is.

Most of the time I ignore the skill shot, but it's tempting when the door is nearly full and 10m is still unlit....risky though
 
Thanks Mfresh for the info. I normally keep everything "factory" but losing a ball having scored the skill shot is just plain daft to me.

Indeed when I encountered things like this in London pubs in the early 90s, it meant I was never the greatest fan of tz at that time. I was a student and wanted some value for my pound

In addition to the two adjustments you mentioned, I spotted a third one. A.2 36 last free ball ride. This enables you to put the ball saver on the first 1 or 2 or 3 ...... balls. The factory setting for this is just 1. Mine is now set on the max of 5. I set free ride at 8 versus factory 10 as I just want to eliminate the pop bumper risk

Is is possible to remove the buy in feature and also remove buy in high scores pls ? I never liked this aspect of the game
 
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Try A2 01 to turn off buying in an extra ball

Also, have you ever tried pressing the buy-in button whilst cradling a ball in one flipper to put the machine into "getting a beer from the fridge" mode?
 
I didn't know about this beer from fridge mode! It works on mine. Thanks for the tip.
 
You can push and hold the extra ball button when you have started a game to "practice" Lost in the zone mode with the 9.4H ROM also. Its only a practice though, the points aren't added to your score.
 
Very ashamed, could not feel worse if I had taken the glass off to do it, going to reset the high scores and shut the button option off in the menu to cleanse my soul (a little).
Don't ever press it, it is not worth it.
 
Ade, hang your head in shame old boy, I thought you was better than that!

I felt dirty enough adding a ball saver for people who were round playing it last night who had never even seen a pinball machine before.
 
I turned off the buy in option today. This evening, I had the flashing door knob. And had a spare ball light to hit, as super skill was the last door feature I scored. Then I lost the ball.
 
sloth in a box.jpg you sanctimonious lot! pinball is supposed to be fun!

there's no shame in the pleasure of rebooting a bad first ball, or adding an extra ball when you didn't quite make the level you wanted to. hell, there's no shame in making it a 10 ball game, or even taking the glass off. if you feel that bad about it, you should forget the fact that you shelled out a month's rent/mortgage on the thing, and every game you play, just give 50p to charity.

no, i thought not. me neither. don't beat yourself up about it, it's just pinball. that way madness lies.
 
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