Machine stats

[goodolddays]

Was just looking at my Firepower's stats before I give her a wax .
1208 balls served up over 586 mins which means average time a ball is in play is 29.1 secs 
Just goes to show what a drain monster this game is . 
Current high score is 768,000 set by my 16 year old Daughter .
My excuse is she is 31 years younger than me so has faster reflexes 

[illawarra_steelers]

Oh no....isn't this the Rollerball pin of choice for the comp Saturday night? 

What d*ckhead voted for that game? 

Could be a real short comp 

Dave, great to see Jade getting into your pins still 

[goodolddays]

Oh no....isn't this the Rollerball pin of choice for the comp Saturday night? 

What d*ckhead voted for that game? 

Could be a real short comp 

Dave, great to see Jade getting into your pins still 

  Good one Tony .

Yeh , Jade is pretty much addicted to FP ATM .. machine has clocked up almost 250 games in past 2 weeks and I know the majority of those are her 

Would be interested to hear from other FP owners to see if they see similar av ball in play time .. maybe I've got too much slope on mine ?

[FirePower]

Interesting, when I saw 29.1 secs per ball I thought wow goodolddays must be a pretty cr@p player, chuckle chuckle to myself!   .....   

Then I checked my Firepower, 13,941 balls in 5255 mins.  Seems I'm an exceptionally cr@p player at 22.6 secs per ball. 

I don't think I've ever reset my stats, so not sure how much of these I've inherited and I run it in free play mode, so I'm just guessing the ball count and timer still run.

My HS is 758,460 so I've always looked at the mod that converts to a 7 digit score and thought I wont be needing that.

I mostly play now trying to achieve a certain feature, for example will play with the sole aim of getting an extra ball (complete top rollovers five times to get 5x bonus up, then once more to light extra ball target, then hit target) I'm not that successful at this either as I note the extra ball counter is on 4 and I'm sure at least one of them was finger actuated!

Another one I go for is trying two get two multiball plays in one game. I find that multiball is good fun, but not really a key to high scores and usually fairly short lived.

On a related note does anybody know why WMS machines of this vintage only allow a maximum bonus score of 29,000? When I first read the flyers I thought it must be a typo when it said this. You should be able to get the 20, 10, 9 etc down to 1 bonus lights up which would be 39k, but you cant, it stops at 29k and plays a sound at this level. Since is seems common to a few machines of this period I assume it must be a technical probably code related reason, but can't think of one. Anyone got any ideas?
 

[goodolddays]

Thanks for the feedback Firepower 
Interesting to see the comparison from another machine .
Of course there are variables such as
Condition of the PF , how often you wax, angle of playfield, how good (or crap) a player you are.
(Yeah I figured you guys would think I'm a crap player .. and I am  )
Far as I know freeplay mode shouldn't affect these stats.
I tend to aim for features too, especially multiball 
I didn't know about the max bonus issue (goes to show you how often I get it eh?) 
I have never got Special or Extra ball on this machine either.
I intend looking into the settings further to see if you can set parameters for achieving Special .. no doubt you can.
I'm pretty sure you can change settings so Extra ball is acheived from hitting the 3 power targets , but that ain't easy either, in fact nothing is easy on this game , but it sure keeps you coming back .
No doubt a great money maker in its day, I remember how popular it was in the arcades .
No wonder Williams made 17,000+ of them.

Cheers
Dave

[FirePower]

Hi Dave,

Since we're both FP tragics and apparently a bit bored today - cricket on in background - we can continue the conversation and attempt to put everyone else to sleep! (Astute readers will watch for tips  )

I got the idea of the limit on 29k bonus from page 3 of the Gorgar flyer and, as I said, first I thought it was a typo, but I think it's typical of these machines. I have a FP and a Gorgar which has this limit and a Time Warp that doesn't play yet, so can't test it.

I've never got a FP special, but looks like function 35 and maybe 33 are the ones to adjust for an easier path. 34 makes extra ball easier.  I tend to leave them all as default for "purity" reasons, but as you say pf condition, angle etc are influential as well, not to mention I'm a poor player and have too many beers! When I pull it down for a good clean I will look at the right outlane post that you are meant to be able to move to adjust outhole ease of entry.

Have you sussed out how FP ball lock works with multiple players, I think if p1 has a ball locked and p2 energise for the first time and then locks a ball it ejects the first p1 locked ball. I've always meant to pull the glass off and muck around with this one day.

Cheers,
David.

[goodolddays]

Gday David .

Yes, I see function 35 is the go re Special , thanks.

As for Multiball in Multiplayer mode ..
The manual says ..

"Making eject hole when flashing locks up ball and new ball released per following order:-
From ball ramp
From flashing eject hole
From unlit eject hole
To minimise multiplayer interaction lit and flashing eject holes are reallocated from ball to ball as required : Flashing lamp to empty eject hole if possible, lit lamp to occupied eject hole if possible ."

What I have observed is if 2 balls are already locked (say by player 1) and player 2 locks the last ball, then machine unlocks one of the locked balls (has no choice of course) , but I forget the rest of the finer details .
Will have to be more observant next time .
I usually drink too much when playing too  .

Funny, we are both David, both Fire Power tragics and both live in Sydney 

[pinnies4me]

Funny, we are both David, both Fire Power tragics and both live in Sydney 

Was just about to pass some comments on FP then realised I have the wrong aname and live in the wrong city.

Bummer!!

[FirePower]

Nick, it's true we are an exclusive club, but you can always take the Groucho Marks defence  "I would want to be a member of any club that would allow me to be a member"

But how is you FP going?  Did the glass you "stole"  from me show ok?

oops, sorry editing my words above
Groucho actually said "I would NOT want to be a member of any club that would allow me to be a member"

If you're going to try and be funny you have to get the words right!

[pinnies4me]

But how is you FP going?  Did the glass you "stole"  from me show ok?

Q1 = Currently my most played game of all - love it. Really enjoying it, recalling how much I loved it back in the arcade days.
Q2 = Money sent, then silence. Starting to wonder.. .. ..

[goodolddays]

Just had my best game on Firepower in 30 years .. 689,730 .. what a blast !   
Still 100,000 shy of the current high score though set by my 16yr old daughter 
There is hope for me yet.

[goodolddays]

Forgot to mention .. Machine is set for 3 balls per game

[FirePower]

I'd be complaining to the operator if it's set to 3 balls, hope it's more than 1 game for 20c.

Great score for 3 balls though - you'll soon need that modified flipper rom that removes the least significant zero from the scores. At my rate of progress I'm looking to install it in about 2070.

[braddo]

You should try a game of Gorgar. I'm surprised any of the backglasses survived this long without being smashed due to frustration and just simply 'being ripped off'. When a ball last longer than 20 seconds you start to think to yourself am I lucky or just good. From there on (if you survive) the sweat sets in and go for your life. I don't bother turning this machine on until i'm focused and ready for a game of pinball, my other machines are just for fun. PRICK of a machine I love it.

[goodolddays]

You should try a game of Gorgar. I'm surprised any of the backglasses survived this long without being smashed due to frustration and just simply 'being ripped off'. When a ball last longer than 20 seconds you start to think to yourself am I lucky or just good. From there on (if you survive) the sweat sets in and go for your life. I don't bother turning this machine on until i'm focused and ready for a game of pinball, my other machines are just for fun. PRICK of a machine I love it.

Sounds just like Firepower