For those with a Data East Star Wars that wants to update to a new code, your in luck released yesterday by Stern.
http://www.sternpinball.com/Community/Blogs/news/data-east-star-wars-pinball-20th-anniversary-code-update.aspxI hope we don't have to wait this long for new machine code updates
kidding
Announcing...
Data East STAR WARS V1.04
20th Anniversary Edition
"A NEW HOPE"
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... actually, back in 1992... the best ever Star Wars themed pinball was released by Data East. A beautiful game that pays tribute to the original Star Wars trilogy movies from 1977 to 1983. With it's wonderful playfield design, exciting animated Star Wars toys, classic hand drawn comic style playfield artwork, and it's beautiful translite, this game won the hearts of Star Wars fans of all ages.
Now we bring you STAR WARS - 20th Anniversary Edition with newly updated code that balances the scoring, adds features, opens up shots you previously ignored, and enhances this classic Star Wars pinball game.
Updates include:
Added Freeze (ball save) on a 10 second timer. Tired of plunging the ball only to have it immediately drain? Now you have 10 seconds to relax and start your battle to destroy the Death Star. The insert light where Luke and Vader's Light Sabers cross will flash to indicate when Ball Save is active. If you drain before the 10 second timer is up, Darth Vader will say "FREEZE!", Han Solo frozen in carbonite will be displayed on the DMD, and the ball will be auto-launched back into play!
Ramp will no longer Collect Force Awards. You must now collect them via the Force Scoop. The Force Scoop is now a very valuable target to shoot for!
Climbing ramp bonus reduced. Ramp bonus score awards are reduced to 10% of original value. This extremely unbalanced and overpowered ramp shot has been fixed. If you want to keep shooting only the ramp, go ahead, but the bigger points are now to be found elsewhere!
Relite Force Award via ramp normalized to every 5 shots. Force Award will now relite on ramp shot 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc. It used to be on the awkward shot pattern of 4, 8, 10, 14, 18, 20, 24, 28, 30, etc. It is now easier to keep track of where and when you need to shoot to light the valuable Force Award!
Lite Extra Ball ramp count logic changed. The ability to light Extra Ball via the ramp shot has been set at 18 shots permanently. It will not adjust over time. The default value was only 5 shots and would adjust over time and could eventually increase to an unobtainable amount which required an audit reset to fix it. Now there is consistency!
The 'S' in 'STAR WARS' is no longer spotted at the beginning of the ball. Just plunging the ball will spot a letter as it goes around the loop anyways.
Pop Bumper Sarlaac Value increased. The pop bumpers now add more than double the amount of points to the Sarlacc Pit bonus. This makes the often ignored right Jabba scoop a much more attractive target!
Jabba Scoop will award Sarlaac Value *plus* Jabba Award when lit. This fixes the issue with Jabba Award sometimes being worse than Sarlacc Pit Value. Now you always get the Sarlacc Pit Value when you get in the right scoop plus you get whatever bonus Jabba wants to give when he is lit!
Relite Relaunch logic now based on current ball time. Relaunch can now always be relit with only a shot to the left orbit for the first 90 seconds of each ball. After 90 seconds it can be relit by dropping the drop target bank one time and then making a shot to the left orbit. This fixes the inconsistent behavior of the Relaunch in the original game and helps level the playing field for multiplayer games. This also makes the DMD instructions match the game closer. With the new rules, you are going to want to relite Relaunch now because you also want to shoot the valuable Force Scoop. With Relaunch lit, you have that added layer of protection if you miss that important Force Scoop shot!
Chance to attain Extra Ball via Force Award increased. Before it was almost impossible to ever have the game offer up this Force Award. It will still be rare but now you at least have a chance!
The AT-AT Walkers mode now only requires 15 pop bumper hits to complete. Now you have a better chance at completing this very hard and very valuable mode!
Dark Side shot requirement increased. Instead of it taking four non-lit Force scoop shots to collect the 25 million Dark Side Award, it now takes five non-lit Force scoop shots.
Shoot The Death Star remains active if was active during ball drain. Found an issue in the original code where if you have Adjustment 46 (Spot Death Star Moon) set to Extra Hard. When you light all the moons that then automatically opens up the Death Star. You are supposed to "shoot the Death Star!" as C3PO keeps saying. If you don't make it in and instead drain, the next ball should STILL be in that "shoot the Death Star" mode... but it is not! The game returns to normal playing mode. In fact, the Death Star is still open and if you shoot into it.... it just ejects it out the Upkicker. The only way to restart the "Shoot the Death Star" mode is to drop the handle and press the fire button (and collect 5 million)... and the game does not indicate this in anyway. This issue only happens on Extra Hard setting. Any other setting (Hard, Factory, Easy, Extra Easy) does not have this issue. On these easier settings, if the ball drains before you get the ball into the Death Star, the next ball starts up with the "Shoot the Death Star" mode activated properly. Since the new default setting for Adjustment 46 is Extra Hard, this was a very important bug to fix. I have now fixed it so it behaves correctly!
The game now defaults to not handing you a free shot at the Death Star and Tri-Ball on the 3rd ball. When you actually have to work for a Tri-Ball opportunity, it will make getting there all the more rewarding and the short cut gamble with the lever that much more appealing – adding a level of strategy! You can set it back to the old, boring, easy default... but I thought you were a Jedi?!
Initial Tri-Ball Jackpot value increased. Starting Jackpot value changed from 10 million to 25 million. This makes the Jackpot and Double Jackpot in Tri-Ball the most valuable shots in the game. This is how it should be. Since you really have to earn this (advance the moons, shoot the Death Star trough, start Tri-Ball which complicates things as now there are balls blocking and deflecting your shots, shoot the Death Star target to increase the starting Jackpot by 1 million per shot, then shoot the ramp for Jackpot, and then shoot the Death Star trough again for Double Jackpot). Double Jackpot (minimum 50 million now and possibly more if you worked to increase it) should be the highest award overall. This needs to be the money shot. Nothing in the game should trump it! You are blowing up the Death Star!!!
End Of Ball Bonus awards and maximum increased. End Of Ball Bonus will now start at 25,000 (was 10,000). Bonus will climb at 37,500 per switch (was 7,500). Also, the maximum End Of Ball Bonus is now 10,000,000 (was 1,000,000). This means Bonus Hold is now a very valuable reward and the Bonus Multipliers that you can get for activating Hyperspace and as a Force/Jabba award are much more desirable especially if you can get up to 8X. Basically, the End Of Ball Bonus is now something that can definitely help your game.
Default high scores adjusted for new scoring balance.
Combo and Super Combo awards increased and rarely heard voice calls have been added to them. Combo shot has gone from 1 million to 15 million. Super Combo has gone from 5 million to 10 million. Giving a total of 25 million. Also, the Combo shot played a very quiet sound effect and the Super Combo was completely silent. They now both have two rarely used voice calls associated with them. Did you even know that there were Combo Shots? Even if you did, their points were not worth the effort. But now they are very much worth shooting for!
Skill Shot audio stereo panning synchonized with display. The stereo panning Tie Fighter audio now matches animations on all balls. Before, only Ball 1's stereo audio matched the video of the movement.
The "this is no cave" sound call will now alternate with previously unused sound calls. Adding a little variety to this rare situation.
Sound and video added to Super Laser Kick Force Award. This Force Award now has added sound effect and added video display, previously it was silent and showed nothing on the display when collected.
Default for Adjustment 41 (Restart Game) is now "No" and game will no longer Restart on last ball if Start is pressed when set to "No". Anyone with little kids will appreciate this fix!
Found a bug in the original code where the audits for Left Orbit and Right Orbit were swapped. This has been corrected.
Found a bug in the original code where the audit for Force Award was not adding correctly. This has been corrected.
A special thanks goes out to Benjamin Baraldi for his excellent suggestions and attention to the finer details of the original game, many productive hours were spent bouncing ideas back and forth with Ben. A huge thank you also goes to Cliffy Rinear, Dan Myers, and Mike Szewczyk for their help in testing, advice, and support. Also, thanks to Lonnie Ropp and John Borg and everyone else at Stern Pinball. Finally, thanks to the members of pinside.com, a friendly online pinball community where everyone gave great support and some even made suggestions that you will find in this new version of the game, thanks for hanging in there!
This new version is dedicated to Neil Falconer.
