Link to weblog entry where comments on this article can be posted, and TrackBacks/PingBacks found.
The first thing to say to the aspiring Space Cadet Pinball Samurai warrior is (pardon): RTFM!! - where R = “read,” T = “the,” and M = “Manual.” Yes, there is a manual: It’s the Word document entitled “PINBALL” that should be in the C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Pinball folder. (That’s for Windows 2000, and that’s because Space Cadet pinball comes standard with that OS. It does not come standard with all MS operating systems - not that that is a prerequisite for having it on your computer, of course. It’s just a program like any other. Those with other OS’s will simply have to find the file I’m talking about here, wherever it may be.) But maybe you knew there was a manual, maybe you have already read it. Even in that case, I would have to say that you’re still not very far ahead in the game, because the manual does not do justice to the complexities and interrelationships inherent in the game. In other words, the game is so multi-layered and complex that it was probably an impossible task to come up with a manual that would describe it just right - not that I think whoever wrote this one made much progress at all towards that objective. (Why do we need an exhaustive list, at the bottom, of all the lights that could possibly light up on the board and what they mean/do? That’s just asinine.)
ADVANCING IN RANK: MISSIONS
There is an overall structure or meaning-of-life that provides the backbone to this game. It is physically represented and tracked by the concentric circles of dots you see in the middle of the bottom part of the table. The nine inner dots (brown when not lit, yellow when lit) denote your progression up a series of ranks: Cadet (one dot lit), Ensign (two lit), Lieutenant (three, etc.), Captain, Lt. Commander, Commander, Commodore, Admiral, Fleet Admiral. The eighteen outer dots (dark blue when not lit, light blue when lit) mark your progress towards the next-higher rank; whenever you fulfill a well-defined mission you are awarded (in addition to points) a certain number of these outer dots, and when you have completed enough missions so that all eighteen light up, then you go up to the next rank (i.e. get an additional inner dot) and the outer dots (after flashing for a few seconds in celebration) go dark again, waiting for you to resume performing missions. What is the point of advancing in rank? Well, many would call it an end in itself, but going up in rank does also have the effect of going on to missions which award more points for their completion. So, if you gauge success here by the number of points you can accumulate, then it makes sense to go about completing missions and advancing in rank, because then you go on to higher ranks where you can add points at a higher rate (and the missions at those higher ranks are, for the most part, not so much harder to accomplish than the lower-ranked missions).
Generally speaking, every pair of ranks has its own set of four missions available for completion for points (with some overlaps at the higher levels; plus the initial rank, Cadet, has its own unique set). These are listed in detail in the manual. I can’t comment on each and every one, only to say that some of these are what you could call “bastard” missions, which are so hard to complete that it’s not really worth the effort. But at least all four of the missions offered at the Cadet level are about equally easy to do. Let’s review this set of (lowest-level) missions to give you a taste of what’s involved here:
Note that the Science Mission is the one mission in this group of four that you could call the “Super mission”: accomplishing it gains you slightly more points (in the case of the Cadet missions, you get 750,000 points instead of the 500,000 you get from the others) and more “progress lights” or blue dots towards the next rank. (Nine, whereas with the others you get six; note that this means that you only have to do two Science Missions to advance to Ensign, whereas you have to do a combination of three of any of the others - or of the Science Mission one time - to advance. But I don’t think I’ve ever advanced to Ensign by doing two Science Missions.) In each rank’s group of missions will be one “Super mission”; unfortunately, it’s often true that the “Super mission” is also the “bastard mission,” as coined above.
How do you choose a mission? Well, it’s hard to really choose. You get a mission offered to you whenever the ball hits the “mission target bank” (see table.bmp), over on the side of the launch ramp area. Which mission? Well, the mission according to how many of those three yellow dots (arrayed vertically) that you see over there at the “mission target bank” are lit up. (I won’t go into the detailed dot-mission correspondence.) And if you’re not able to “accept” the offered mission in time - or you don’t want to, or you’re busy with something else - then it’s likely that pretty soon the ball will hit that area again, prompting a different constellation of lighted dots and therefore a different mission being offered to you.
But how do you “accept” the mission currently being offered? Simple: just shoot the ball up the launch ramp. The system will then show that you currently have X mission, whatever it is, and you can proceed to try to fulfill it (if you feel like it - but that is usually a good idea. If you don’t feel like it, there’s something you can do, see below).
Ah, but there’s another complication here - the matter of “fuel.” Check out the fuel chute: That’s the chute on the left side of the table that goes under the “launch ramp” overpass and opens up to the top of the table. You’ll notice that, in the section where it is going under the launch ramp, it is lined with a series of colored rectangles. These are your “fuel lights,” and all the while that you play, the fuel lights are decaying: first the top-most one will go dark, then the next one down, then the next one down, and so on. When the last fuel light at the bottom flickers and then goes dark, you have run out of fuel - the main effect is that your current mission is aborted, which can be a real pain if you had made good progress towards fulfilling it and now all that effort goes for nothing! How do you refuel? Easy: simply shoot the ball up the launch ramp; as it drains at the bottom, it will hit a trip that lights up again all the fuel lights, so they can start decaying again, in order. Another way to refuel is simply to have the ball go up or down the fuel chute; as the ball goes over each individual fuel light, it lights it up again. (There’s yet a third way to refuel, but it’s not very important.)
Note: Let’s say that you’ve been involuntarily saddled with some “bastard” mission that you really don’t want to do. How do you get rid of it, i.e. clear the slate so that you can let the ball hit the mission target bank once more so the system can presumably offer you a mission that you like better? How about simply holding the ball somewhere, safely and securely (i.e. holding it with a flipper) and then waiting the 45-60 seconds or so that it takes for the fuel to run out? Then you have successfully aborted that mission.
So that’s mainly what I wanted to take from the manual, this idea of ranks and missions, of having them offered and accepted, and of making sure you don’t run out of fuel while you’re trying to fulfill them. You’ll find that the manual puts this under the “Advanced Strategy” label, but really, it’s the only way to play if you’re serious about racking up some points. And what happens up in the nether regions, i.e. when we’re talking about ranks of Admiral and Fleet Admiral? I’ve been up that mountain, my friend - some fairly interesting things happen up there, but I’m going to leave that stuff until later.
TWO FLAVORS OF IMMORTALITY
OK, so you’re supposed to get missions offered, accept them, fulfill them, and so make your way up to the next rank, and then the next rank after that, and so up the whole career ladder. Unfortunately, as you probably know only too well, you’re very unlikely to avoid some unpleasant interruptions - basically losing your ball to one sort of “drain” or another. Not only is that a pain in that you have just expended one of your balls, of which you nominally only have three, but a drain of course completely brings to a halt any mission you might have been pursuing at the time: back it up, start it up, try it again. Draining does bring you a certain amount of “Bonus Points” that have been stored up by the system for awarding to you, because of certain things you have done. I don’t know too much about this, because I’m not really interested. It’s a cold comfort, anyway, for losing a ball - but read on . . .
The answer to this has to be what I call “immortality,” and it comes in two flavors: extra balls, and replay (“shoot again”). In fact, as I play I constantly have two numbers in my head, namely how many extra balls I have, and how many replay. (Actually, better put, that’s not how many but whether I have a replay - you only are allowed one, and if you earn another, you don’t get it. But you can have as many extra balls as you can achieve.) For example: “0-1,” no extra balls and one replay - that’s OK, I guess, at least you have one bit of safety margin; “5-1,” five extra balls and one replay - that’s fantastic! “0-0” - that’s the situation we all start with, and it’s no good at all; no safety margin, if you drain you go on to the next ball (if any).
Let’s examine these in detail, first just the definitions:
Extra Ball: If you have n of these to your credit (and the system doesn’t count them for you, that’s why you have to keep it in your head), then when you drain you go to n-1, and you get the ball back again at the plunger, without it having counted against you for the three nominal balls you’re supposed to have for the game. However, otherwise the effect is precisely as a drain: the mission you were pursuing is cancelled, and all “temporary” progress you have achieved on the table (e.g. drop targets knocked down, and all sorts of other things, but we can’t get into this stuff now) is wiped out. (As opposed to your “permanent” progress, which is namely your progress towards the next rank - except for the incomplete mission that you just lost. You never lose your rank progress just because you drained.)
Replay: A rather different thing. When you have one replay available (can’t have more), then when you drain you lose that replay, but you get the ball back at the plunger without any effect of a drain! In other words, the mission you were pursuing is still alive, all your temporary progress is still there, etc. It’s important to note that, upon a drain, the system will always take your replay first; you don’t have the option to have it take one of your extra balls instead. “Why would you want it to take the extra ball instead?” you may ask. Because, in certain advanced situations, you would in fact rather do an extra ball than a replay!
Now, how do you go about getting these delightful things? Allow me to reverse here the order of treatment; you’ll see that that makes sense, since winning extra balls is so much more complicated (yet at the same time so much more under your control).
Winning a replay: Here’s where we have to get into the subject of “wormholes.” Check out table.bmp: there are three wormholes, colored yellow, red and green and located respectively towards the bottom of the table to the right, up at the top of the table to the right (alongside of that space where the three “attack bumpers” are), and, finally, the green one is way up at the top, on the left side, facing that one attack bumper that’s up in that corner (but the wormhole is not in that corner itself; you’ll find it!). Wormholes, among other things, are involved in a couple of missions (actually, they tend to be the things that make those missions “bastard” missions). But, as for replays, winning one is done by maneuvering the ball so that it enters an “active” wormhole.
You see, there’s only one “active” wormhole at a time, and you can tell which one it currently is (yellow, red, or green) because then all the wormholes will have a light in front of them which is the color of the currently active wormhole. Sometimes there will be no active wormhole at all; for example, at the beginning of each ball there is no active wormhole by default, and you only get one activated by having the ball hit the “Space Warp Target” (see table.bmp - it’s pretty easy to do, from the left or right flippers). Unfortunately, the active wormhole changes, randomly, whenever the ball hits either of the two “flags” (see table.bmp - but I’ll tell you that they’re located up the Hyperspace Chute - sorry, see table.bmp - and up the Fuel Chute - ah! you already know that one!) Finally, whenever the ball does go into any wormhole, then there is no active one anymore until the Space Warp Target is hit again.
So it’s simple: Check out which is the currently active wormhole (if any), hope that the ball won’t hit any of the flags en route to change it (that mainly means don’t shoot the ball up the Fuel Chute), and try to get the ball into it. In practice, of course, it only makes sense to deliberately aim for winning a replay when the active wormhole is the yellow one, over there low in the table where (if you have developed this shot, or you’re just lucky) you can shoot the ball in there from the left flipper. So what I’m basically saying is that, in essence, a replay is most often a gift suddenly given to you by chance, when through no deliberate effort of your own the ball happens to go into the correct wormhole, and the Replay Light lights up for you, and you smile and change the second number that you are keeping in your head from “0” to “1.”
Winning an extra ball: Here we go: There are two ways to win an extra ball. I’ll discuss the less-complicated way, but also the rarer way, first.
Extra ball via the “Medal Target Bank”: A “target bank” is a collection of three “drop targets” - and we’ve already discussed what these are (hint: domino). The “medal target bank” happens to be the set of three drop targets located centrally, up there just below the lowest of the three “attack bumpers” that I mentioned before in connection with the red wormhole. There they are, almost begging to be hit by either the left or right flipper. (But it takes extraordinary skill to drop the left-most drop target from the left flipper - and this is important, as we’re about to see. The right flipper, on the other hand, can hit any of these three drop targets - on the assumption, of course, that the player has cultivated the elementary skill to do so.) You don’t gain anything (except for some chicken-shit amount of points) for dropping them individually - what really matters is dropping them all, so that they pop up again.
OK, so far it’s no big deal, but now it gets very interesting:
It doesn’t stop there! What happens if you’re really, really good and you drop all three drop targets in the medal target bank one more time while the purple light is still on? You get another extra ball! And the purple light has its life refreshed by the period of another cycle. (After all, there is no additional, fourth light to light.) And check this out: What if you drop all the of the targets in the medal target bank when the purple light has died, but the red light is still shining? You get an extra ball, and the purple light comes back on.
So please understand the fascinating dynamic in play here. I’m sorry I don’t know the precise amount of time any of these lights stays lighted, but let’s call it x. You get your first extra ball via this medal target bank, to review, by dropping all three of these drop targets while the red (and therefore also blue) light is shining, in other words you have had x amount of time since you dropped all three targets and only got a “Level two commendation” (and the red light came on) to win this extra ball. But, if you have succeeded in getting this first extra ball, then immediately subsequent extra balls are twice as easy to gain, because you have 2x time in which to make them, not just x - that is, you have the time that it takes for both the purple and then the red lights to die. And each time you succeed in gaining that subsequent, easier extra ball, you’re back in a position to earn yet another “easy” extra ball, within 2x time, because, once again, the purple light (and the red, and the blue) are lighted, and you have the time it takes for both the purple and the red lights to die! This whole frenzy ends only when, finally, even 2x is not enough time for you to drop the three targets again, and to your distress you see the red light die out, leaving only the blue. At that point, if you’re still interested in earning extra balls this way, you’ll have to do so via earning that first, difficult one, for which you are given only x to do it in.
As I say, when I’m in this sort of extra ball-earning “frenzy” I drop everything else to concentrate on getting the ball back on a flipper to shoot at the medal target bank again - obviously. On the other hand, I generally don’t set out deliberately to knock down the medal target bank again and again, to put myself in this extra ball-gaining position, mainly because it’s usually just too hard - recall that, until you have won your first extra ball, you have repeated periods of only x during which you have to knock down all three drop targets, and then drop them again in another x. It’s hard - it’s hard just to gain control of the ball on one or the other flipper so you can take a shot at them - and also remember what I already mentioned, namely that if you’re looking to knock down the left-most drop target but the ball is on the left flipper, you’re probably not going to succeed - and time is running out! Rather, I get interested in the medal target bank if natural causes (i.e. the random course of the ball) have given me as a gift enough progress so that the blue light is already lit and there’s a good chance to light the red - and beyond!
And that’s how you earn extra balls via the medal target bank.
Earning extra balls via the hyperspace chute: Have you looked at table.bmp already? Anyway, I need to tell you that the hyperspace chute is that very prominent chute on the right side of the table, the one that has the flag in it and that proceeds up in a sexy curve up to the left. Up at the top is the so-called “hyperspace kickout” which, after about a second or two, will shoot the ball back out from whence it came.
Verily, grasshopper, the shot whereby you shoot the ball from the left flipper up this chute is one you will have to master! (And it is also possible to shoot the ball up the hyperspace chute using the right flipper!) Let’s review, from the manual, what happens when you shoot the ball up this hyperspace chute one time after the other, with not too much time elapsed in between (in other words, don't be too slow with this: "decay" is at work here, too):
What’s the “center post”? It’s very handy; it’s basically a little nub that pops up located right in that central “drain space” between your two flippers. Yes, it’s very handy - for one thing, it completely prevents that “straight down the center power drain” against which allegedly there is no defense. (I'm not sure whether that's true.) And the center post will stay there for the period of decay time associated with the hyperspace chute - as I say, I don’t know how long that is, let’s call it y.
Let’s talk about these out lanes - they’re obviously very important. The second most important thing about them (the first is that they can get you an extra ball, under certain conditions) is that the first time you use them (whether they have their yellow dot lighted to give you an extra ball or not), a kicker at the bottom of the lane shoots your ball back up along that side of the table. However, once an out lane has performed that service one time, a block moves into place so that, on all subsequent times, your ball actually drains out of that side! (Now, what if the ball goes down an out lane with the extra-ball dot lighted, but also the block in place so that it drains? Well then, you’ve gained an extra ball - but you have also immediately lost it. The effect is of a drain, but no claim on any of your nominal three game balls - but also no claim on any of your stock of extra balls! On the other hand, if you had a replay, then you in effect lose a replay in exchange for gaining an extra ball.)
Here’s a crucial fact: There is something you can do to remove the block on an out lane so that it doesn’t make your ball drain even when your ball has been down that out lane once before. It’s something non-obvious; it’s something that, yes, the manual does mention, but in a rather garbled way that makes it easy to miss. It involves, believe it or not, the so-called left and right “hazard lights.” (Table.bmp!) These are the two sets of yellow dots, one to the left and one to the right, that you find up there in that “attack bumper” area. Here’s a clue: the set of right hazard lights is located just below the red wormhole; the left hazard lights are in an analogous position over on the left side (but no wormhole there; the green wormhole is further up). You light these lights simply by having the ball go crashing around in that area and impacting where those lights are. These lights act similarly to drop-targets: you hit them to light them, and so long as you have hit only one or two, then only the one or two you have hit will stay lighted. Once, however, you hit the third, then all three flash for a second or two in celebration (and, importantly, the block is removed on the corresponding out lane - left or right) and then they all die again, waiting to be hit and lighted again.
Here’s the thing, though - you don’t want to send the ball up there for the fifth time to start the gravity well, even though it also means winning 150,000 points. After all, what you’re really after is an extra ball, am I right? So here’s what you want to do, optimally:
In fact, it’s best to have the center post in place during a period which, for as much as possible, overlaps the period y during which the extra ball lights are lighted over the out lanes. What this means is, basically, the cleverest maneuver of all is shooting the ball up the hyperspace chute the third time, to gain the center post, and then, when the hyperspace kickout shoots the ball back violently to your left flipper, being able to immediately shoot it with the flipper back up the hyperspace chute (and so light the extra ball lights). (This is a hard thing to do, but I’m reasonably good at it; I liken this to hitting a baseball pitch.) Then, with the extra ball lights lit and the center post in place, and not much less than y at your disposal, try to get the ball in one of the out lanes.
If you succeed in getting it in an outlane, congratulations! You've gained an extra ball! But now see if you can’t “clean up” that block you’ve created in the out lane by hitting the correct set of hazard lights, otherwise you’ve just set yourself up to give up that extra ball again by having your ball drain through that out lane that you used. If you don’t succeed in getting the ball in an out lane in time, so that the Extra Ball lights licker and go out - what to do? Simply send the ball up the hyperspace chute one more time and the extra ball lights will light again! (Or maybe the center post light will light again; no problem: send the ball up the hyperspace chute one more time! You see, you only lose this “instantly renewable” aspect of the hyperspace chute when you make progress beyond iteration four, i.e. when you do it a fifth time and you get the gravity well. Then, to get the extra ball lights back, you have to start all over from the beginning.)
PLAYING THE HYPERSPACE CHUTE
What happens if you do succeed in gaining an extra ball (together with a blocked out lane, unfortunately) by getting the ball into one of the out lanes when lit? Important: You can regain the extra ball lights quickly and easily in such a situation - i.e. to be able to try yet once more to try to get an extra ball - simply by sending the ball up the hyperspace chute one more time again! But not so fast - it’s a subtle thing. If, having just gained that first extra ball, you send the ball up the chute right away, what you’ll actually get is the gravity well - and we know from last time that, going so far as the gravity well means that, to come back to the center post and the extra ball lights, you’ll have to start again from the beginning of the cycle.
Don’t send it up the chute right away, I say; wait a while. How long? I can’t say for sure - my guess is that you should wait for that length of time of y that your fourth-ball-up-the-hyperspace-chute status would have continued to go on, had you not killed it prematurely by gaining the extra ball. In any case, as I say, if you’re too early, you get the gravity well, meaning that you have to deal with that (although you do win a lot of points) and start the hyperspace chute cycle from the beginning. If you’re too late in getting the ball up the hyperspace chute, the system will inform you by awarding you with a center post, not the extra ball lights you expected. (That is, things had enough time to decay down to below the three-times-up-the-chute/center post stage.) But that’s not so much of a problem: just send it up the hyperspace chute again, and of course you’ll get your extra ball lights. But that’s pretty good: soon after you’ve already gotten an extra ball, if you play your cards right you have another chance as the extra ball lights blink at you again. The fly in the ointment, as you’ve surely realized, is that the out lane from which you got your first extra ball is likely to be blocked, meaning that if the ball goes down that way again you don’t really gain much: you gain an extra ball but then you immediately lose it, and of course what we’re talking about here is a drain, so that all your “temporary progress” is lost, including your status with the hyperspace chute. Sorry, that’s the way it goes. Still, combined with perhaps some lucky/skillful clearing of those out lanes via the “hazard lights,” this hyperspace chute approach can offer the prospect of multiple extra balls gained within a relatively short period of time. (Sure, the “frenzy” of the medal target bank offers even more potential extra balls, in even less time, but again I don’t usually go for that as a matter of deliberate policy since I find that it’s too hard - fighting that x time-limit - to get up to the point where you start earning the extra balls.)
INS AND OUTS OF OUT LANES
Now it’s time for a quick extension on the subject of out lanes generally. They’re such a pain, getting “blocked” whenever the ball goes down them, so that you have to try to hit whichever set of hazard lights to get the lane unblocked - a race against that time when your ball wanders down that out lane anyway and you lose it. And unblocking those lanes - hitting the three hazard lights - is hard. (Tragically, the left set of hazard lights is harder to hit than the right - the right hazard lights are a straight shot from the right flipper, if you’ve mastered that shot, that is. That means that the out lane most likely to become blocked is the hardest to unblock.)
Myself, I often follow a strategy, once the left out lane gets blocked, of stopping everything else and devoting my attention fully to getting the ball up there in that “attack bumper” section to hit the left hazard lights and get it unblocked. After all, it’s a “race against time,” i.e. against that time when my ball wanders down that way and I lose it. (I am never provoked to do this when the right out lane becomes blocked, if only for the statistical fact that the ball goes down that lane less often.) Now, this is not to say that I follow this “drop-everything” strategy the whole game through - inevitably things will happen in the game when, even if the left lane gets blocked, I simply want to attain something else, like a mission, or extra balls via the hyperspace chute anyway. But I follow it often; it depends on the strategic circumstances.
Then again, you realize that embarking on a campaign to gain extra balls via the hyperspace chute when one of your out lanes is already blocked means that the chance is high that you’ll gain one such extra ball at most, or even that you’ll gain nothing for your effort (ostensibly; but see below) because, once the extra ball lights are lit, the ball will head down the out lane that is blocked. And what’s the point at all, you may ask, when both out lanes are blocked? There is a point all right: when that ball rolls down the blocked out lane with the extra ball lights lit, you don’t gain any net extra ball, it’s true - but the effect is of a drain, without loss of any of your three “nominal” balls, meaning that both out lanes are now unblocked after you re-shoot the ball! Indeed, especially when I’m faced with both out lanes blocked and I’m in despair about my ability to get anywhere near the hazard lights to clear them up, I often adopt the alternate “clean up” strategy of shooting the ball up the hyperspace chute precisely to be able to then send it down either of the two blocked lanes with the extra ball lights lit. Sometimes in my frustration about blocked out lanes I even forego doing the hyperspace chute bit and simply let the ball drain and accept the loss of one of my extra balls as the price for having unblocked out lanes again. And this, my friend, is one instance when an extra ball is better than a replay: If you get the ball to go down a blocked out lane when you have a replay to your credit, then you’ve just lost that replay for nothing and made a big mistake, because the effect of a replay (to review) is not that of a drain - the out lanes will remain blocked!
TALES FROM THE EXALTED REGIONS
When you get up rather high in rank - let’s say Commander (sixth out of the nine possible ranks) or higher - life becomes pretty sweet. The missions you’re called upon to do really don’t get much harder than what you’ve been used to below. (Check out the "Recon Mission," for example: easy as falling off a log! The "Doomsday Machine" mission is tricky, though.) What does happen is you get so much more points for accomplishing them. What’s more, you also get (in general - we’ll discuss the exceptions) nine progress lights, meaning that now it only take the completion of two missions to go up another rank, where down at the lower levels it generally took three.
Indeed, the conclusion must be that it becomes that much easier to ascend in rank (although, of course, this doesn’t mean that your ball still can’t drain at any time, and that that can’t be your third ball: Game Over). This brings us to the $64,000 question: what happens when you’ve made it to Fleet Admiral - supposedly the highest rank - and you have just completed another mission that puts your progress lights over eighteen, so that you’re supposed to go up yet another rank? I’m afraid I don’t have a definitive answer - excuse me, it’s rare (even for me) to get up to that stage, so I haven’t been able to test what happens here under all the various possible surrounding circumstances. Here’s my best answer: It seems that, if you "go over the edge" as the result of a forward Time Warp (see below), the game freezes. Game Over, right there. Even worse: the game does not record that super-high score you have just achieved as one of your five “highest-score games”! Nope, all you can do is quit the program and start it again, from the beginning, from Cadet, or else go do something else. But if you go over as a result of having completed your two missions at Fleet Admiral, you simply stay Fleet Admiral, now with credit for no missions completed, and carry on - to go "over the edge" again, if you want. (As long - I think - as you don't do so as the result of a "forward Time Warp." Note also that successfully completing the Maelstrom mission also automatically advances you a rank; I'm afraid I don't know what happens when this takes you "over the edge.")
It seems reasonable to me that, once you are up at the Fleet Admiral level, it's the accumulation of points that should be your major concern - well, after sheer survival and related issues of "immortality," that is. For example, it’s at this stage (the rare times that I actually attain it) that I become interested in getting the ball up into the “attack bumper” area to hit the Field Multiple Target Banks, so that I can get some of those 2X, 3X, 5X, 10X multiplier effects and accelerate my accumulation of points. These effects are of course subject to the usual decay process, meaning, for instance, that if you do attain 10X you won’t have that status for long.
Here's an interesting tactic to consider in order to keep away from that potentially-dangerous Fleet Admiral "edge": make use of the "Time Warp" mission to go backwards. It can advance you a whole rank, or set you back a whole rank - depending on whether you cap the mission off by sending the ball up the launch ramp or the hyperspace chute, respectively. So consider voluntarily accepting the "Time Warp's" demotion of a rank! You won't lose any points; you'll of course gain them for accomplishing that mission, and it will put you back safely away from that dangerous "edge." Then, if/when you're approaching the "edge" again, engineer another "Time-Warp" backwards. (However, be careful: sending the ball up the launch ramp is easy to do, even inadvertently. When that happens, and the player is at Fleet Admiral and was trying to engineer a demotion instead - that's when you go "over the edge" and freeze.)
Then there is the Maelstrom mission. That mission only available when you’re Admiral or a Fleet Admiral, and even then it’s the one that, on average, you’ll be offered by the system the least often. The Maelstrom is truly a bitch - just look in the manual at the long list of tasks you have to go through in order to do it. (Note that this means that you’re really advised to have a replay available when you’re trying to accomplish the Maelstrom - you’re simply going to be involved for too long in doing all those tasks for there not to be some sort of drain, so you need that replay to be able to simply re-shoot the ball without the mission being cancelled.)
But notice that I didn’t call the Maelstrom a “bastard” - I love it, and I’m sorry I’ve only been able to do it twice (I think) in my life. Look what you get: eighteen progress lights, five million points (and that’s presuming you’re not under some points-multiple status). What’s more, according to the manual, “all table lights are turned on.” What does that mean? I don’t have the whole answer; what I can tell you that it does mean, at least, is that all three of the blue-red-purple lights in front of the medal target bank are instantly lighted. Frenzy, man, extra ball frenzy! We’ve covered this before, no? Right after my Maelstroms ("Maelstra"?) I can remember that I got immediately to work knocking down drop targets in the medal target bank and gained for myself an additional three or four extra balls right there.
Then there’s the consideration that the Maelstrom gains you eighteen progress lights, i.e. you advance a whole rank right there. Well, when I did my Maelstra I was only an Admiral, so I became a Fleet Admiral. The open question is naturally what happens if a Maelstrom gets you “super-promoted.” I don’t know the answer; it’s never happened to me. I can only tell you that I would still gladly do a Maelstrom even if it meant I would be super-promoted, just to see what happens. (I have visions of scenes reminiscent of the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the “space child” is re-born.) Perhaps one day I’ll indeed find out what happens then; or perhaps one day you, dear reader, will find that out before I do. (Be so kind as to leave a comment about your experience, if you still find yourself to be of this earth.)
THE NEAT “SUPER TRICK”
Theoretically, it’s pretty simple. You’ve surely noticed that, when you have just achieved eighteen “progress lights” and so gone up a rank, all eighteen progress lights flash for a few seconds in celebration before they all go dark again. Well, if, while they are flashing in celebration this way, you drain the ball, you suddenly freeze them! All eighteen stay lit, without flashing. What this then means is that you only have to perform one more mission, of any kind, to proceed further up one rank! Instead of having to do three missions (at the lower levels), you only have to do one to go up a rank! (Of course, this trick is no longer so attractive when you’re up in the “exalted” regions and going up a rank no longer is so attractive, for reasons we have discussed.)
How would you want to pull off this trick, optimally? Answer: With at least one extra ball in hand - then you let the ball drain during the “celebration flashing,” you get the drain effect, and you freeze the progress lights like I have described. Note well: If you try to pull this trick with a replay at your disposal, you’ve just made a big mistake: you’ve used up that replay without getting the desired “freeze” effect (because, as we’ve seen, the replay does not give the effect of a drain). This situation, when you’re trying to maneuver yourself into position for this “super trick” is definitely when you might consider simply giving away your replay by letting the ball drain (assuming you also have at least one extra ball, of course).
("Assuming you also have at least one extra ball, of course": Well, you also pull off the “super trick” without any available immortality, resulting in the loss of one of your three nominal game balls. Is it worth it to give up a nominal game ball (presumably not your last one) to do the super trick? I leave that judgment up to you. The super trick does accelerate your rank-advancement considerably; to make that same two-mission progress the normal way, how many times do you think that you will risk draining or actually drain?)
Let’s talk about this “maneuvering yourself into position.” As you can imagine, it’s primarily about getting a mission (once you are only one mission away from advancing in rank) which, by virtue of where the ball is when you complete it, offers you a good chance of then engineering an immediate drain. (Those progress lights only flash for about, say, five seconds.) I’m afraid I’m not going to go mission-by-mission discussing this, but I will at least discuss the Cadet level briefly. Here, Re-Entry Training is the worse mission for this (obviously: the ball ends up way up the table); Target Practice and Science Mission are possible but uncertain (Science Mission is the better of the two: shoot for the lower-lying drop targets); and Launch Training is the best. Here’s a very specific tip for you, gained from much-too-much practice: Say you’ve got the ball on either the left or right flipper, ready to shoot it up the Launch Ramp for the third time to complete the Launch Training mission. You will have enough time to let the ball go through the Launch Ramp, go out the bottom, and slide unimpeded by any left-flipper movement into the center drain if there is very little or no interruption of its course along the way by the attack bumpers located in the launch ramp. If, on the other hand, the ball gets knocked up and down by the attack bumpers, then you better not let it drain, for it may be too late: the progress lights will have stopped flashing and you will have given up an extra ball to gain nothing. I’m sorry I can’t quantify this more exactly; looks like you’ll just have to accumulate experience of your own (likely including a number of belated “too lates”) to get your own feel for this.
That’s about it. There’s so much more I could cover, interesting and even valuable, but of less fundamental importance:
Well. Maybe I can add more to this document about such topics, and others, later.
Link to weblog entry where comments on this article can be posted, and TrackBacks/PingBacks found.