Hoping to join this club soon, if all goes well. I got in a deposit with Mad Pinball for what they said was their last premium of the March (and running into April apparently) production run.

I thought that's how you were *supposed* to do the secret skill shot. Not exactly by missing the drop targets, but I thought you were meant to *shoot* the loop for it, that the "secret" part is that first you fail the Tower skill shot to get the ball to the upper flipper (or a lucky bounce from the disc stud.) I was playing AIQ on location for quite a while before I looked up the rule sheet to see that you're supposed to plunge to the upper end of the Hawkeye loop.

How far are you getting? 40 million is fairly normal for finishing one or two gem quests and a modest Iron Man or Thor multiball.

To crack 100 million, you need to do several gem quests well (with a portal lock, and hit the more valuable shots like the critical hit for Power, first drop target for Mind, spin up the disc for Reality), or else get several tens of millions from something else like multiple Binary hurryups or Super timed modes, or by reaching Black Order Multiball.

To play with the big boys up over 300 or 500 million, you've got to start really diving into the deep end. The big scores come from stacking and comboing everything together: get a gem quest with two portal locks for 3x scoring, add Iron Man multiball on top of that to keep it going, hit some add-a-ball shots too, finish the quest early, rack up victory laps, and then re-collect it all over again with a Soul Gem Jackpot placed on a max-leveled Avenger.

From playing both on location, I feel the Premium flows quite a lot better. Portal locking in the actual portal feels so much better than just bumping the disc yet again. And Marvel and Ant-man both feeding the flipper also feels much better than just dumping the ball back on the playfield, particularly during multiballs. The spinner on Pro for CM is a poor substitute, since nothing works with just one shot there (particularly Soul Gem), you have to make multiple shots for a lot of spins. I put up the cash for my Premium on order since I knew I'd always regret it if I didn't.

This is true. But you might still want to avoid the secondary shots, so that the disc isn't enabled yet to accidentally spin too early, before you succeed in shooting the primary shot.

There also might be strategic reasons to avoid a certain shot. Maybe you want to keep Black Widow at level 1 for putting the Mind Gem on instead of level 2, for example. Or I'm sure there could be more reasons among the many gem effects. Or even avoid Black Panther just so you don't miss and hit Thor accidentally to start him when you don't want to. So yeah, there are reasons to use any kind of side-to-side transfer.

Same here, I've got a premium that my distributor says should arrive this week. I'm a first-time Stern owner here so looking for the must-have tips for AIQ. I'm not sure I understand what's going on with that Pym shot protector - that link is to Cliffy's WIP page, is it actually orderable?

Ha, I can't tell if you're asking "what to do first" about playing it or owning/maintaining it. For playing, the basic first strategy is get a portal lock before your gem quests (from secret skill shot, shoot combos, or the computer grid - not the lock square which is for Iron Man, portal lock will be one of the three-in-a-row awards.) I like to start with Time Gem if I do get a portal lock (the center ramps and drop targets are easy to hit in multiball, but the drops are risky for draining), or Mind Gem if I don't.

Yeah - I'm trying to understand for AIQ specifically, what's available and relevant. AIQ only has the one scoop and eject. I haven't seen anything anywhere mentioning wear around the drop targets, tower drop, up-post, disc, or anything else. Looks like the essentials besides coil stops are for Ant-man and if you have problems with rattling and rejects on the Captain Marvel ramp or the plunger lane entrance to the playfield. Any other advice?

And I'm in the club too, got mine Wednesday and been having a blast on it, even around some setup issues. Just had my best game so far, 540 million, four gems, including winning Thanos Attacks, and when I had the foresight to Change Gems right before to put Mind on Black Panther for free hits and Reality on Black Widow for the multiplier. (I think Reality's multiplier should work on Thanos Attacks shots? Didn't get to see the shot values during the game.)

My most beautiful moment was this: Iron Man MB, phase two, one ball held on each flipper. I shot Panther from the left (jackpot), Hulk from the right (jackpot), the returning ball from Panther up into the tower (super), the ball from Hulk came to the upper flipper to shoot Hawkeye, and from there into the tower for double super. The only thing better than flowing combos on this machine is doing it with two balls at the same time!

Bunch of assorted comments:

I've got both plunger problems. Autoplunger shots rattle somewhere and fail to make it around about one-third of the time. I decreased the autoplunger power to 230 which helped a bit but didn't solve it. Going lower meant clean shots wouldn't make it. I saw upthread that this happens when the ball is falling off the shooter ramp too early and too far to the left; I need to get slow-motion video to see what's happening.

My manual plunger never comes close to making it around. I think the problem is that there's a big gap between the tip of the shooter rod and where the ball rests on the autoplunger forks - the ball sits over a quarter inch beyond the tip. I think this is because the outer shooter spring is too long - has anyone tried either compressing that or replacing it with a shorter one?

I get launched balls stuck under the gauntlet frequently. Was there an official Stern fix for this?

I agree with the folks who say to turn UP the slingshot power to avoid outlane drains. That makes them often kick partway up the Thor and Panther orbits, for a slow return to gain control. It also helps in multiballs, they clear the area in front of the flippers more. Also get a few more random hits to the drops and Ant-man.

I get a lot of balls falling out of the left side of the Captain Marvel ramp, sometimes even onto the gauntlet ramp wireform, I definitely want to put in some kind of shield barrier there.

For slow returns from the Panther orbit, I've got the issue where the post there bumps the ball out towards the center. I kinda like it this way. Most of the time it goes to a flipper, and when it doesn't, I can see and react early enough to slap save. Better than hitting the slingshot I think.

Had some minor problems when a drained ball would sit at the top of the trough instead of rolling down. I think I got this fixed by sanding the edges of the trough groove, hasn't happened again since.

No problems with any of the following: disc (smooth and flush and level), subway, optos (none miswired or mislabeled as far as I can tell), or balls falling off the gauntlet ramp or getting stuck at the intersection of the gauntlet and CM wireforms.

Mind Gem is tough, since you lose control shooting the disc so much. And you can't have the Mind Gem placed anywhere to help!

The best tip is to pay attention to the stud and don't force a shot that's likely to thud. Don't shoot it near the 11-12 or 5-6 o'clock positions - don't assume you can hit it off-axis from its center to get it moving, only shoot at angles where any contact will make it move. If the stud isn't nearly perpendicular to the angle from the lower flipper, shoot the Gauntlet ramp instead and use the upper flipper for the disc.

Also practice basic skills to gain control for rebounds from the disc area - dead pass, slap save, drop or live catches. Also tweaking the machine setup can help you catch - steeper slope, low-bounce flipper rubbers, and increasing the slingshot power for them to kick the ball higher instead of towards the outlanes.

It works for the theme too - that ramp also conveys the feeling of Captain Marvel blasting off at full power!

Waxing the ramp entrance is an interesting suggestion, I'll try it too. Sounds like the problems (for both Widow and CM) are that the ball gets knocked off its straight line somehow around the ramp entrance, so waxing it for less friction might minimize that. Also I saw a post upthread that suggested adjusting how the ramp flap is attached -- mine looks like the bolts are in tight enough to crease the flap slightly (again both Widow and CM), maybe I can space that upwards a millimeter or two.

There really isn't any quick way to get there. The only shortcuts are to intentionally fail the Soul Gem (and don't win it back via another method) since then you don't have to play Thanos Attacks, or to win an unplayed gem via Hawkeye at Marksman difficulty (which requires first winning it on easy and pro, since you can skip to marksman only if you lost a gem.)

Really, the way to get to Thanos is to win gems - but not because the gems help directly - it's because winning the gem is the only way to get out of a quest and into another without losing a ball.

Also, I think most people reaching Thanos regularly here are doing it with significant help from mods, like smaller outlanes, the metal disc, low-bounce rubbers. Or even 5-ball game setting. It will be harder as factory stock.

I don't think that's true? Battle Thanos requires you to have attempted all 6 gem quests. (Since version 1.00 software at least.)

You can get to Thanos with no gems won, yes. But you have to attempt all 6, and the only way to get out of any (except Soul Gem) to start another is by winning or draining. Getting to Thanos with 0 gems won means you lost 5 balls attempting gem quests. It's possible if you get that many EBs, but you've got no margin for error. Reaching Thanos is realistically going to mean winning some gems just to avoid spending drains on them.

You're right that collecting the Avengers 3x might be the longer task overall. But you've got more shortcuts to help with that, like the Power Gem, the grid square to Spot Avenger, or just long multiball sessions. There's no way to shortcut through the gem quests besides winning them or Hawkeye Marksman (and that's if you never lost any.) Draining isn't a shortcut, it's the biggest penalty you can take.

Bad coil stops are most likely (they tend to show up around 500 games, right where you are). Other solutions besides already mentioned:

Try waxing the ramp entrance, that may help. Also check if the ramp hardware is loose at all so that it's absorbing some energy from the ball.

Also, check your flipper alignment. There's a tiny tiny hole in the artwork that should be centered just beyond the tip of the flipper bat. If it's not, then your flippers may be aligned slightly too low. This is more likely to be the case if it's only the Widow ramp that's the problem, if you can make all the other shots alright. AIQ is very sensitive to flippers that are aligned too low, because of the two important ramp shots straight up the center of the playfield. My own AIQ is aligned about half a millimeter too low and it feels like the Widow and Gauntlet ramps are a tiny fraction harder than they should be, and I'll try adjusting this soon.

I just did this, and wow, the flipper alignment does make a difference. I adjusted the alignment so they're about a millimeter higher than being centered on the hole, and the game feels great. Feels like it improved my make rate for running shots on the Widow and Gauntlet ramps by about 15%. Also gives a hair more power to Captain Marvel shots; I think it's because the ball picks up less sidespin from the flipper starting a touch higher. And they can catch more balls of course, but not enough that it feels like any kind of cheating. Just put up my second-best score, including the Black Order MB super for the first time.

I also tried going up another millimeter, but then the Panther shot verged on unmakeable, the flipper couldn't deliver enough power at that low angle.

Mine doesn't lose flipper control during the Thanos intro at all. One possible guess is a flaky trough opto, so that the game is very briefly going into "looking for pinballs" mode. And if it happens during a ball, maybe the game thinks the ball reached the trough and goes briefly into bonus mode.

I pick up my playfield to get it over the hump. Shoving it feels like it takes way too much force, even though I know it's designed for that, it still feels too harsh and abusive. I can reach one hand all the way to the bottom of the playfield in the back, while also lifting with the other at the apron. I don't mind doing it this way, although anyone with a shorter wingspan than me (about 5'11") wouldn't be able to.

Yeah, this is a very common FAQ, and answered often, though it's hard to search for. The gems on the gauntlet have four states:

- Flickering dimly: not contested yet (default at game start)
- Flashing brightly: current quest in progress
- Solidly lit: Thanos has it (you lost the quest, or he stole it when you lost Thanos Attacks)
- Off: Avengers have it (so it will be on one of the playfield locations instead)

It's Thanos's glove - so you're not trying to light up the gauntlet gems - you're trying to turn them OFF which means Thanos doesn't have them. You're trying to turn on the *playfield* gem locations that represent what the Avengers have.

The LEDs are bright enough that it's hard to distinguish the flickering and lit states, but once you know what to look for, you'll see it.

And I've got the opposite problem. My Captain Marvel ramp is too wide open at the top. Just after the standard plastic cover and just before the peak, there's a place where the wires are far apart with a huge opening, more than a quarter-inch wider than a ball. Balls fall out of here all the time, close to 25% of shots. Sometimes they even land on the gauntlet ramp wireform.

There's also a second problem area on the downslope where there's also a big enough space for a ball to fall out, and a few (maybe 5%) do.

I suppose I should talk to Stern support - do you think they would issue a replacement?

captain marvel ramp (resized).jpg

The spot that Diddy's fix covers isn't where my problem is - that's on the vertical section going up, my problem is at the top just before the peak.

I'll try the radiator hose clamp to get the wires bent closer together.

The toy on AIQ was supposed to be the subway walker lock mechanism, but that fell flat in practice, you can't see it, and it accomplishes nothing that wouldn't have been done with a simple plain subway tunnel and virtual ball locks.

Besides that, the toys on AIQ are the gameplay components - the tower magnet shot and loop ramp are new physical elements, and so is the gauntlet ramp shootable from all three flippers and feeding an upper one. And the disc gives good variety to gameplay since how you have to approach shooting that area varies so much by where the post currently is, including how it makes the Sanctum target delightfully infuriating.

But yeah, all that is only going to matter to serious pinball players. For a casual fan, all that isn't even as interesting as bashing AFM's saucer or MM's castle. Elwin was concentrating on making AIQ the flow fest that it is, although we can wonder what might have been if the game had been built around a big Thanos bash toy.

Yeah, this is it, there's no big moments. Winning a gem should yell out a huge "GEM VICTORY!" fanfare. Instead what you get is a "final blow" display for two seconds that you can easily miss, and a confusing aftermath where you still have to make two more shots to collect and place the gem.

The big moments aren't emotional, they're all mathematical. The big moments are when you set up a big Soul Gem jackpot or shield bonus or Binary hurryup or combo jackpot, with some combination of powered-up avengers and gem placements. That's what the depth of the game is about, and what the game is designed to be doing... but it's really obtuse and tangential compared to what the main progression of the gems should be. Winning a gem should be the big accomplishment to celebrate, not just one step out of five more convoluted sequences to make it do something useful. Each gem should do something big *right when you get it*, not just modify stuff for later.

Those countdowns are either one of the Super modes started from the computer grid, or the timer for a tower super jackpot during Iron Man multiball. Neither is really important for gameplay (although super modes can earn a trophy), they're just a few million points. There are no countdowns for the gem quests, even though that's what anyone would immediately assume it is. The countdowns have nothing to do with which character is speaking, that's just random.

Has anyone has this experience? I put on Titan low-bounce silicon rubbers, and then my left flipper can't make the Captain Marvel ramp from a catch.

It's definitely this rubber causing it. If I switch back to the original rubber, the flipper makes the ramp fine. Playfield is at 6.5 degrees by a digital readout. It's not a problem with flipper strength, I replaced the coil stops and sleeves, and it hits every other steep shot fine. The behavior is the same with or without a lexan barrier on the left side of the Marvel ramp entrance. Making the Marvel ramp from a rolling shot is more consistent than from a catch, but still less consistent with the Titan rubber than the original.

I think the cause is ball spin - the ball needs some clockwise sidespin to grab and climb the outer wall of the Marvel ramp. The original rubber applies more spin than the Titan. A rolling shot picks up more spin (with either rubber) for a better shot at making it.

Any thoughts on this? Any suggestions for other flipper rubbers that are good with control and can also apply the bit of sidespin that seems needed?

The Titans don't feel that way to me - they feel slicker than Stern's standard rubbers, they seem shinier and harder. It's hard to tell for sure, but it feels like they impart less spin, like if a soft shot or tap pass comes back to a flipper, it's spinning less than with standard rubber. Less spin is good in general, but it seems like some is needed to grab and climb the Captain Marvel ramp wall.

I've been cleaning almost obsessively (almost every play session), though haven't waxed.

Thanks for that pointer. That's pretty much what I'm seeing - silicon flipper bands make the Captain Marvel ramp much harder, and some impact on Panther too.

I believe the cause is the opposite of what he says though. The silicon bands impart *less* spin (because they're harder), and it's that *lack* that hurts the shotmaking. Think about the geometry. A left flipper applies clockwise spin, which helps the Marvel ramp, since as the ball contacts the right wall and roof, clockwise spin will propel it upwards and leftwards. Same goes for the Panther shot, clockwise spin propels upwards while the ball is in contact with the right wall. Mirror image for the Hulk shot (counterclockwise spin from the right flipper) which Jediturtle mentions too. Conversely, the other shots (Widow, Gauntlet, Tower, Captain America) don't involve the ball spending time along a wall, so spin won't matter, and those are the shots that we find aren't affected by different flipper rubber.

All the evidence points to spin as the differentiating factor - but the logic of the geometry points to *less* spin being the culprit, on Marvel primarily and Panther and Hulk secondarily.

I think I'm looking for *softer* flipper rubbers to get more spin for the tough shots - even just for the experiment to see if it works.

I hate Thanos Attacks and it needs to die in a fire. It's got nothing to do with the progression of the game at all. It was crammed in because Gary Stern whined that players would never see Thanos if he was only the final mode. No, the points aren't worth risking a ball. It's way too many shots. I always select Soul Gem and just trap up and let him have it, then win it back later from Black Order MB or Battle Royale or Hawkeye.

Agree that Space Gem isn't useful enough. I always do it last. Moving the gems around doesn't really do anything, or actually it's usually a net loss, in moving gems to worse locations more often than to better locations (since you put them on good locations in the first place.) You can do cutesy stunts like the 2-flip Soul Gem, but that's way more work to set up than it's worth. It doesn't really work to use Space Gem to recharge Mind; it's not going to land on a powered-up avenger often, and an unpowered Mind isn't very useful.

Thor takes way too many hits after the first one. Seriously, 9 risky rebound shots for a 2-ball multi? I never go for that, unless I accidentally get multiple hits with the Widow inlane helper. Thor always gets completed from Spot Avenger after the first time.

But really, the game's problems aren't code related. Code can't fix an uncooperative Marvel ramp, or that every reject from the Hawkeye loop blasts straight down the left outlane, or that half the rebounds from the disc area go down the right one. What AIQ really needs is an outlane ball resurrect feature, like on Star Wars and Rush and Led Zep and many others. There's no insert on the playfield for it, but it could be indicated by flashing/pulsing the I or N outlane light.

The biggest thing code could fix is how many times you need to spin up the disc to enable the next mode. I drain half my balls just doing that. The game could really use some shortcut to spinning up the disc sometimes, maybe the Sanctum target. Also allow disc spins to count during the Collect Gem / Place Gem steps, it's completely maddening that you have to finish those before spins will count again. Also for Thanos Attacks, just enable it right away like the Assembled modes instead of spinning up the disc yet again, if you're going to screw over the player with this useless mode, at least give him that much.

I'm trying to keep the difficulty where it belongs, on the gem quests (and the physical shots which are steep and tough enough already), and not on the secondary faff that only serves to give you more chances to lose a ball.

Thanos Attacks just shouldn't be in the game at all, or at least have a setting to get rid of it. If it has to exist, I agree that making it drain-proof is a bit too much and too similar to Soul Gem. But it needs some help; it just takes too many shots and too much risk for not enough reward. The worst part is how it actually punishes you for having more gems, which is just dumb, you should never be worse off for owning more.

I'd structure it like this: shoot a total of 5 shots on any of the gems you own (so having more always helps), plus the usual spots available from flank attack and mystery, maybe also one more way to get shot credit (say a Hawkeye combo), then end it with a final blow to the gauntlet ramp (once, not once per gem.)

I love zipping the multiplier around on Star Wars. I don't mind the side faff modes there (Lightsaber Battle, Escape from Boba Fett, and the video mode) - I get excited at another chance to use the multiplier. I wish Thanos Attacks could have that same level of excitement. I think the design could get there by making it a showcase for the gems, not a liability - the gem powers should help you beat Thanos, like a Power Gem shot should count double, Space could light an extra shot, and so on. These gem perks were in older code but somehow disappeared when the Thanos modes were reorganized.

My turn for the big brag post, got the 6 gems and to Thanos for the 1 billion score, for a 2.6 billion GC. All factory settings (except for adjusting power for ejects and autoplunge and slingshots.)

Funny part was that as much as I was complaining about Thanos Attacks, it was key in this game. I got there with two gems (having lost one), and finished the first one during the ball saver, so decided I might as well go for it, and pulled off defending the second gem to reclaim the third.

Also made Computer Frenzy for the first time, but fell short of Trophy Mania, at 20 trophies. You really gotta get almost all the Super mode trophies for that, and also several level-2 avengers.

I also discovered what happens if you assemble the avengers again after Battle Royale (so the fourth time total): the wizard modes loop back around to play Soul Gem again. I assume it would keep going to Black Order MB and Battle Royale again as well. Although at that point you'd only ever be collecting them via Spot Avenger; it was up to 13 shots for each of Widow and Panther.

avengers 2600m.jpg

It's only somewhat the outlanes themselves; they're not all that different than any other pin, although the slingshot post being above the outlane post is irritating. Really I think the problem is how so many areas on the playfield rebound towards them: every rollback from the Hawkeye loop goes towards the left outlane; lots of rebounds from the disc and Sanctum and drop targets and weak/missed shots to Ant-man all go into the right outlane. It's also more infuriating since draining ends and loses your mission, unlike many games like Star Wars and TMNT. AIQ really could have used a lightable outlane ball resurrect feature.

For pitch, I found mine is best at exactly 6.5, with a digital level. Any higher and the ramps get brutally hard (particularly after flipper fade), any lower and it's too bouncy and floaty around the flippers to gain control.

Other NIB advice: check that the disc is level and flush and the post is screwed in tight, turn down the trough eject and slingshot power, install some kind of blocker under the gauntlet to prevent stuck balls there, maybe install a barrier on the left side of the Marvel ramp if it's a premium (although mine doesn't really seem to make any difference.) Also inspect the flipper alignment: mine were a millimeter below centered on the indicator, I adjusted them to be a millimeter above, and that makes a noticeable difference in hitting the two center ramps and in trapping a bit more easily.

2: For trouble with the ramp shots, yes, clean and wax the playfield. It makes a lot of difference particularly on the Captain Marvel ramp. My make rate went from like 50% to like 80% after just a quick wipe-down with Novus 1. This ramp is incredibly sensitive to having a clean and slick playfield. (My hypothesis is that the ball needs to be sliding, not rolling, when it reaches the ramp entrance; rolling makes for just enough friction to sap just enough power for the ball to not make it.)

I put a lexan barrier on the side of my Marvel ramp, but it doesn't really seem to make much of any difference. A shot that's off-axis enough to hit the barrier isn't going to make it anyway.

For Widow and Gauntlet, I found the most important thing was make sure the slope is at 6.5 and not higher. But just by their nature, these ramps will have a lot of rejects - the ball comes in at quite a range of angles and speeds, and the ramps are hard metal that the ball will clunk off hard, not plastic that has a bit of give. I have occasional problems with the ball jumping too high on the Widow ramp so it hits its roof instead of making the shot; I haven't figured out how to solve this.

Mine saw the shavings indicating a bad coil stop after about 250 games. I took it out and yes the brass center piece was slightly loose. I replaced it with Pinball Life parts. Only the left side was bad for me, but if it was then the right side would probably also go soon so I did that too.

3: I installed flipper coil fans and they do seem to help. The Marvel ramp in particular got a lot worse after 20-40 minutes without the fans.

There are two, but both are very late in the game, when you beat Battle Royale or Battle Thanos. Probably not what you're seeing. (Soul Gem doesn't do this, if you run out of flips, the game just changes back to normal play with no break.)

Flippers going dead is most often a node board problem, either a loose connection or it's bad and resetting on its own. The other possibility is a trough switch making the game think a ball drained, but you'd know this because it goes to the bonus count.

1. I think you just bend it back down periodically. There are mods to install a stronger bracket if you want. I haven't yet but might soon.

2. The tower magnet should grab the ball to end Soul Gem, but it might happen to miss on any given physical shot. Did this happen repeatedly or just once? In normal play, does the tower magnet grab it when lock is lit?

In normal play, if you can get 4X Arc Reactor shots and lock balls, then the optos are working (for a lock, you just have to make the top switch, the magnet doesn't have to grab it.) If the magnet isn't consistent or never works at all, it's most often a loose connection to it or its node board.

Light mods can indeed be the issue. They can pull enough power so that a node board gets underpowered and resets. That it happens in multiball with more going on also points to a power issue. Try disconnecting the light mods and see if it still happens.

Same here, mine needs Novus 1 very often or the Captain Marvel ramp fades and becomes unmakeable. Basically as soon as I can see any ball trails in the inlanes. It can be as little as 40 or 50 games (although my average length of those games is going up quite a bit.)

Bet ya can't beat this:

avengers soul gem 267m (resized).jpg

That's not a Soul Gem Jackpot, that's the Soul Gem Quest. 267,750,000.

Hard mode of course. The linchpin was the second-to-last shot, on Captain Marvel, at 5x from Binary hurryups and holding the Reality Gem. 1,750,000 base value, x10 for hard mode, x5 for Binary, x2 for Reality Gem, comes to 175,000,000.

You know how Rush teases you with the "100x scoring" that's never awarded? Avengers actually has that, for this one shot. 10 x 5 x 2 multipliers on this shot = 100x.

The only ways to beat that 267M would be more remaining flips, or more level-2 avengers to double some of the early shots for a few million more, or Space Gem shenanigans (start with Reality on Widow to double that shot, then move it to Capt Marvel.)

This happened on the second loop of the game - after battling Thanos, complete all avengers again (a fourth time total) and you play Soul Gem again. It would be quite a task to get Binarys up to x5 before playing Soul Gem the first time.

avengers binary 196m (resized).jpg

Also got this Binary champion - different game, same setup, x5 for Binary and x2 for Reality Gem. The first shot was 16m and the second was 180m. I'm not quite sure what the math was there - I think it was 8M base doubled by L2 Black Widow, then 9M base x2 (for being the second shot of the hurryup) x5 (Binary) x2 (Reality Gem).

I've gotten there about 8 times in about 400 games total. Half with all six gems for the auto-win, half battling him normally.

Portal locks are absolutely the most important thing you can do to make the game less hard. Get at least one for every quest, unless Thor or Iron Man MB is ready to go instead. Although it's even better to stack a portal MB into Iron Man or Thor. More balls at once makes for a self-sustaining effect, where you're likely to get one or both add-a-balls, which refreshes the ball saver each time, plus also more random bashes of the drop targets to keep making progress there.

I also found that it's more important to collect Avengers than to play the gem quests. Battle Royale is always the longer task than the gems. I've never yet had a gem quest still left over after playing BR. If you're close to an Avengers Assembled mode, go for the shots to finish that over the next gem quest. It's always better to clear out and reset the Avengers, so that you can make progress towards the next set with whatever you're doing next.

I also found that Power Gem is the most important gem to have and do first, since it makes the most progress towards collecting Avengers, and to getting level 2 Avengers for the trophies towards Trophy Mania. Get it before Soul Gem so you can carry over one avenger then, then change gems to help collect another one, who then gets carried over after Black Order MB. I like to put it on Hulk first, since he'll get enough spinner spins eventually to reach level 2, then change it to Panther to get carried over after Black Order MB, since his shot is the least likely to make progress from random activity.

I still wouldn't call the game easy by any means, but it's incredibly skill-rewarding, both for strategic planning and physical execution. All the extra balls do soften the difficulty significantly. There's a self-sustaining effect there too: get the first couple EBs (target completions and 8 trophies) and that will make you last longer to the rest of the EBs (computer grid, 12 Marvel ramps, 50 combos, second Hawkeye Challenge.)

I still hate Thanos Attacks and just work around it: select the Soul Gem on purpose and just time it out to avoid losing a ball, counting on reclaiming the Soul Gem in Black Order MB or BR. This plan does give up any Soul Gem Jackpots, but that's tolerable.

The scoring is all about getting to the end. It's a billion if you get all six gems, or still 400M or so from the battle itself plus super victory laps. And Battle Royale, Computer Frenzy, and Trophy Mania all each score in the hundreds of millions too. The points from the gem quests are peanuts compared to that. Portal locks are critical for making each quest a multiball, not really directly for the points.

The quest multiplier does matter if you're chasing replays on location or trying to top someone else in a tournament, but if you're chasing high scores on a home game, the end modes are the only way to get up into multiple billions.

That's amazing! I did say I bet ya couldn't *beat* mine

First drag it into the box to upload, then there will be an "insert into post" button at the bottom left of that area. It will insert some bracketed text that will be converted into displaying the image.

If you win Battle Royale, yes, the flippers cut and drain the ball. You will get a new ball served to the shooter lane after the victory animations. You don't lose a ball.

If you lose Battle Royale, there is no cut, the game immediately switches back to normal play.

Besides the optos, tower magnet problems can be a loose connection to the magnet or its node board.

There was also one report far upthread where someone figured out it was the balls - that somehow one particular ball out of the six wasn't getting magnetized enough for the magnet to hold it.

On a different topic, I managed to eff something up. I was installing the Cliffy shooter lane protector, and when reassembling, overtightened this nut and actually broke this bolt.

It's a weird bolt, with the flat top and those tiny little wings. Is this something a local hardware store has, or am I going to embarrasingly contact Stern support for one bolt?

broken bolt.jpg

If your plunge isn't consistent, you need to take slow motion video to figure out exactly what's going wrong. There are several places where the ball can deviate from its straight line and start rattling around and losing power. It can happen starting from the plunger forks, or where the metal fork starts near the end of the shooter lane, or all the way at the end where the ball drops onto the playfield, or farther up the orbit when contacting the ball guide to the right. The fix will be different in each case.

Right, the portal lock multiplier only ever goes down as you lose balls, it doesn't go up by adding them.

One of the info screens does tell you how many portal locks you have (but not how many are *lit* and not collected yet, which is sometimes a problem.)

On the Premium, you can just look at the locked balls. Although there are cases where the physical count doesn't match the rules count; if you have two portal locks, and get another multiball up to 5 balls (Iron Man or Black Order with both add-a-balls), the game has to put one of the portal-locked balls into play since there aren't any more in the trough.

I've been watching the Avengers Assemble cartoon too since I got the pinball. They do fight among each other a lot. But it's not the same vibe as the taunts in the pinball. The difference is that in the cartoon, the insulted Avenger always fires back, but the pinball player doesn't get to retaliate, there's no way to get revenge on Carol for the taunt.

I agree, the Avengers really shouldn't be taunting the player - that's what the bad guys are for. The callouts for losing gems are enough, the Avengers don't need to add insults on top of that. The right tone would be a frustrated but ultimately sympathetic callout, like "better luck next time".

I'd say the better use of the Captain Marvel multiplier is for the Reality Gem, not the Soul Gem. All the blowup scores I get come from that - shots of 100m or more during more Binary hurryups, Battle Royale, Super Victory Laps, and 30m multiple times in Trophy Mania. (Not sure about Computer Frenzy - I've been trying to figure out if the multipliers apply to a Computer Frenzy super jackpot collected by shooting CM.) Soul Gem jackpots happen only two or three times in a game; the Reality Gem can multiply many more shots.

I go like this:

Power Gem goes on either Hulk, Captain America, or Black Panther. Whichever needs the most help powering up at the moment. After each Avengers Assembled mode, that avenger stays collected, so hit Change Gems when you can and move it to a new avenger to power them up and carry over next time. (The advanced version of this: leave it on the same avenger until they reach level 2 for the trophy, then move it to power up someone else.)

Mind Gem always goes on Widow, since she's the easiest to power up to levels 1 and 2.

Reality Gem goes on the drop targets if I get it early, then Captain Marvel later once the Binary multiplier gets up.

Time Gem most often goes on the drops, those get the most random hits for tacking on time.

Soul and Space go wherever is left over, doesn't really matter.

Sometimes I will move Soul or Mind for short-term tactical reasons. If I happen to hit Change Gems while a Soul Gem Jackpot is lit, then of course I'll move Soul to the currently highest-powered avenger (or Captain Marvel if Binary is at least 4x.) I will also sometimes change Mind for a specific next quest or mode - move it to a level-1 avenger for most quests, or a level-2 avenger if I have any and Reality Gem or Battle Royale is up next.

Right, there is no CM multiplier on the Pro. I've tried using Power Gem on CM, but it's not all that great, problem is the opportunity cost of not using it to power up and carry over a real avenger. If you want to make Battle Royale and the other wizard modes, you really need it helping on the avengers.

1 - Just bend the target back down. There are mods for a stronger bracket if you want to get and install one.

2 - You need to get and install a stronger plunger spring - that seems to be the only thing that works for it.

Push it down towards the playfield. The airballs happen when the target isn't vertical but is slanted upwards.

Not sure what keyfobs you mean? I just got two keys for the coin door and two for the backbox, just on standard key rings.

The magnet should grab the ball for every shot that reaches the top opto in the tower. There are no exceptions at all. It can occasionally miss the timing or not hold strongly enough, but it always tries on every shot no matter what's going on.

If it's not grabbing, then either the opto isn't registering correctly, or the magnet itself has a problem, either a bad connection or a bad node board. If you can get "Ball 1 Locked" during a game, then the opto is correct. (The magnet doesn't have to hold the ball to register a lock. It *does* have to hold the ball to register the Soul Gem shot, or a super during Iron Man Multiball.)

Try replugging the connections to the magnet and its node board. If that doesn't help, then contact Stern support.

I discovered an interesting feature: When you have the Mind Gem on the Captain Marvel ramp, if you hit the button to spot the shot that will start the Binary hurryup... it also COLLECTS the hurryup in the same button press! So you just need to make the easy Widow shot to get the ramp multiplier.

So I used that with some new gem strategy to put up a 4.8 billion GC. Basically get Captain Marvel up and then collect big Soul Gem Jackpots there.

Do Mind Gem first of course, ideally without using any portal locks on it, since we don't care about the scoring from the Mind Gem quest itself. Stacking it with Thor is a good idea, since spinning the disc for Mind Gem also qualifies Thor's add-a-ball. When finished, put Mind Gem on Captain Marvel (this may be the toughest part, it's a bitch to get control and hit that without hitting any drop target or spinner or pop bumper!)

Bring Captain Marvel to 2 ramp shots (remember that the gem placement shot itself will count as one), then hit the button, which will both count as the 3rd shot and collect the CM side of the Binary hurryup, so you just need to shoot Widow for the multiplier. You can even do this with a caught ball so you're totally ready to shoot Widow. Bring CM to 5 shots and do it again. Easy 3x, and you can leave the Mind Gem there until you get up to 14 ramp shots to do it one more time for 4x.

Don't start any other gem quest until after Soul Gem, so that its jackpots will be available for all the following quests. And you can take advantage of Soul Gem itself to get some extra CM ramp shots in. If I get it down to the last shot with lots of flips remaining (can often do this with 40+), I'll take advantage of the time to pound CM a few extra times before ending the mode, I'm pretty confident in hitting the tower within about 20 flips if necessary.

After Soul Gem (and the third use of the mind gem at 15 ramp hits for Binary to 4x), then do Change Gems. Put the Soul Gem on CM, and Mind wherever you want, generally Widow is best since she's the easiest to level up. Now start gem questing for real - get portal locks for triple scoring, and ideally stack with Iron Man MB for some nice long victory laps. Now I pick quests based on the status of the Mind Gem at the time: when it's low level, go for Power Gem; when it's at level 1, go for Time Gem (use Mind for all three drop target hits); when it's level 2, go for Reality Gem and super-boom it all at once.

And of course for each of them, hit Captain Marvel for the jackpot of 200% or 250% of the quest score (if/when you can get it up to 5x with one more Binary.) I got four Soul Gem Jackpots each over 200M in that GC game, and up to 400M in another game (actually came from the Space Gem quest, thanks to Panther happening to be at level 2 via the Power Gem, and some lengthy victory laps.)

For Thanos Attacks, select whichever was your third gem (not Soul or Mind), and catch the ball to time it out -- so you can quest for that gem again and get another Soul Gem Jackpot! Go for the repeated gem quest when you have two portal locks, so you're most likely to win it and avoid losing the Soul Gem.

Once you finish all the gem quests, then change gems again for Reality to be on Captain Marvel, since that gives the biggest scoring in the wizard modes (Battle Royale, Super Victory Laps, and Trophy Mania.)

Short version: Exploit Captain Marvel's multiplier for big scores (sorry Pro owners!) Start with the Mind Gem on her for super-easy Binary hurryups, then Soul Gem for big jackpots, then finally Reality Gem for the wizard mode payoffs.

Yeah, the scoring really blows up when you reach the wizard modes. You really want Thanos with all six gems for the billion, and then Battle Royale, Super Victory Laps, Computer Frenzy, and Trophy Mania each score 200-400 million. And the way to get to the higher ranges on those is to have Captain Marvel multiplied and holding the Reality Gem, plus ideally use a level 2 Mind Gem. (Although I've twice had what should have been a crazy L2 Mind Gem foiled by accidentally hitting the Space Gem shot just before and moving all the gems out of position!)

The scoring blows up from under 1 billion to around 3 billion when you can make all the wizard modes. Then the way to blow up from 3 billion to 5 billion is by adding multiplied Captain Marvel stuff on top of that, with Soul Gem Jackpots and then the Reality Gem.

Yes, using that Mind Gem method means that CM is the first shot, so you don't get to double the ramp-multiplied value. That's why I use Mind Gem just up to 4x, then try to get the next one normally with Widow first to double the CM shot.

Thing is, I think it converges back into one approach on the high end - there's a lot of strategies, but to really blow the roof off (I'm chasing 5 billion now), you have to do ALL of them. You have to get the Binary hurryups, AND the Soul Gem jackpots, AND the wizard modes, AND blow up some of them with a level-2 Mind Gem. For Thanos Attacks, I now think it's a good idea to intentionally lose an unimportant gem (not Soul or Mind) - just so you can go play and win its quest again for the portal multiball and Soul Gem jackpot.

Reaching the wizard modes is great, but the thing is that the scoring pretty much tops out after them. There's not much of anything left to do, just more instances of Iron Man multiball, but even that can't get as big without a portal multiball stacking into it. You need to score big along the way, and that means portal-lock triple scoring on every gem quest if you can get it, plus the Soul Gem jackpot on CM at 5x.

Yeah, Space Gem can be surprisingly tough, since you're always constrained into just one or two specific shots to make progress, even a multiball has trouble hitting those single shots one at a time. I try to have a level-1 Mind Gem for it (or reach it during the quest), which helps a lot, use it whenever you have a ball on the wrong flipper to move the current shot to the other side. BTW, note that a level-2 Mind Gem will complete both the parry and attack shots together, even though it usually goes left-to-right and the parry shots are on the right.

You guys want more gem shenanigans? Of course you do.

soul gem 467m (resized).jpg

467 million Soul Gem Jackpot. Here's how. It was with the Power Gem quest, because that is the only one that scores points on the multipliable Captain Marvel ramp. (The Reality Gem quest also can, but you can't have the Reality Gem on a shot while questing for the Reality Gem.) I set this up very deliberately.

Reality Gem on Captain Marvel, Soul Gem on Black Widow, Space Gem anywhere (I had it on Panther.) Marvel ramp multiplier at 5x (10x with Reality Gem.) Start the Power Gem quest, with triple portal locks of course. I got a good rip on the Hulk spinner to build the value, and shot the critical hit on the Marvel ramp for 6.4 million x 5 x 2 = 64 million. Then three glancing blows on the other shots, then that critical again. Finish with the final blow (I really don't know how the scoring works for that shot), total quest value 186 million.

Then shoot the Space Gem and hit the button, to move the Soul Gem from where it was waiting on Widow into position on Capt Marvel. Then collect the gem and the jackpot! 186 million x 50% x 5 = 467 million.

What's really going on here is applying the 5x multiplier *quadratically* to the points - the base value gets multiplied for shooting the shot, then the result of that gets multiplied *again* by the Soul Gem jackpot, made possible on the same shot by changing out the gems in between.

Also this (in a different game):

avengers battle royale 595m (resized).JPG

595 million Battle Royale.

The key was a level 2 Mind Gem, and of course Captain Marvel with Reality Gem (although only at 4x from Binary so 8x total.) I got Wasp into play quickly, shot enough shots to beat the first villain, then hit the Mind Gem as the second villain started with all shots lit for Wasp's 2x damage -- this beat two more villains instantly and catapulted into the middle of the fourth! (The display said Mind Gem 46 million, but it should have been higher, maybe the Mind Gem doesn't use the Binary multiplier?) Anyway, this put the Avenger Attack Streak counter at 14, and I got two more shots on that same streak: Widow for 39M, then Captain Marvel again where I didn't see the display but it should have been more-than-39M x 4 x 2 = more than 312 million.

How'd you get the 830m Soul Gem jackpot? I assume on a 5x Marvel ramp of course, but which gem quest was it, and how did you build up the quest scoring, was it mostly victory laps?

My GC so far is 5.4 billion, in a game where everything went right except I biffed both Computer Frenzy and Trophy Mania for very low scores. I'm definitely gunning for your 6.3 billion

Correct, Victory Laps don't count towards the quest high scores. They do count for the in-game displayed total and for the Soul Gem Jackpot, of course.

This is the deal with Computer Frenzy. It changed in one of the code updates. Old behavior was that Computer Frenzy could not be started until you had played all 6 Super modes. This changed, so now that is not a requirement, new behavior is that you can light and start Computer Frenzy as soon as it comes up on the grid. It was never a bug, just unintuitive behavior that the game didn't explain.

The requirement to *reset* the grid sequence is to play all 6 Super modes and Computer Frenzy. As long as there is still any super mode waiting on the grid, all future bingo slots will be filled with "Light Computer Frenzy" until you play that, and then "5 Million" until you play all 6 Supers. I very clearly saw this happen in one game: played Computer Frenzy, saw the grid full of "5 million" awards, played the last remaining Super mode, and then the grid reset to the beginning.

The purpose of both versions of the rule is so you can't miss out on the opportunity to get any of the trophies for the super modes. Originally the grid reset after Computer Frenzy, but it was unintuitive to make Computer Frenzy wait for all 6 super modes, so that was changed, and now the grid resets after Computer Frenzy plus all 6 super modes, with the "5 million" awards as placeholders until that happens.

As I understand it, this only happened in older code: when Light Computer Frenzy goes gone from the grid, it's because you collected that grid line, but you didn't play all 6 Super modes, and so Computer Frenzy will wait until you do, it will light at the portal when the 6th Super mode finishes. I vaguely remember Rayday saying this in a video or stream.

I believe that never happens in current code. (Not sure of the exact versions; I think likely post 1.00; mine shipped with 1.03 from the factory.) I've never seen Computer Frenzy fail to light at the portal upon completing its grid line, in maybe 15 or so instances total.

You don't need to play all 6. You did in older code. Currently, you just need to advance the grid far enough for Light Computer Frenzy to come up as an award for one of the lines.

Currently, if you play Computer Frenzy but haven't played all 6 Super modes, the unplayed ones will stay on the grid until you do get them, and any otherwise vacant grid lines will fill up with "5 million".

Once you've played all 6 super modes AND Computer Frenzy, in either order, then the grid resets to the beginning.

It's not automatically up next after all 6 Super modes. You have to complete enough grid lines (9 total since game start) to get Light Computer Frenzy to move on to the grid, and then complete its line too.

On the Computer Frenzy topic, I captured in a game what happens (with a potato quality dirty camera lens):

grid1 (resized).jpg

This is the grid after getting Light Computer Frenzy and playing it. Notice that Super Arc Reactor is still on the grid, and that "5M Points" replaced all the vacant squares that previously had Light Computer Frenzy.

grid2 (resized).jpg

This is the grid while Super Arc Reactor is running. 5M Points has also replaced that.

grid3 (resized).jpg

This is the reset grid after Super Arc Reactor finished. All the 5M Points awards have been replaced by fresh awards, but other awards (portal lock, collect bonus, trophy) are still there. (Wow I played that whole game without ever getting that portal lock.)

grid4 (resized).jpg

And this is the new list of upcoming awards - notice that the first three of those are on the grid at game start, so resetting the grid is the only way to get those into the upcoming list.

Battle Royale shuts down so it can display the victory animations and score awards for finishing. It doesn't have a final shot that can hold the ball like Soul Gem or Thanos Attacks (at the gauntlet ramp), since any shot could be the last one to deal damage. Also the second ball from Wasp could be in play and that should get cleared out too.

You don't lose a ball for winning Battle Royale. You get a new ball in the shooter lane but it didn't count as a drain, and it gets autoplunged with no skill shot, like any other ball save.

The purple shots are a combo from the Hawkeye loop into something else that is still lit. When you shoot the upper loop (feeding the right flipper), any shot that flipper can hit (Hulk, Tower, Cap, Widow) that is still lit will turn purple for a Hawkeye Attack shot, for 2x damage and points.

There is no way to relight any arrow other than beating the current villain.

BTW, note that the Battle Royale Challenge is somewhat different than the in-game Battle Royale. The Challenge version takes 8 hits per villain but the in-game version takes 6, and that's quite a significant difference. Also the Challenge version deals only half damage to you for draining.

That is normal, the game begins with the progress toward the first gem quest already halfway credited for you.

I don't know about the blinking magnet board, ask Stern support.

This is not normal. Sounds like you have one of the pop bumper switches registering when it shouldn't be. Hitting any pop bumper is enough to place a pending gem on Cap.

In the settings, reduce the trough eject power to the lowest number that will consistently eject the ball. This saves a lot on shooter lane wear. It's also recommended to reduce the Ant-man kickout eject power similarly. And many find that the game plays better with lower slingshot power.

For mods, many people get a protector set from Cliffy. https://passionforpinball.com/wip.htm AIQ is available even though it's on the "work in progress" page. There's no online ordering, you have to email him and he'll send a Paypal invoice. These aren't a must on day-one, though you may want them if you expect to keep the machine longer than 500 games or so.

Besides that, for a new machine: Check that the portal disc is level, and flush with the playfield, and that the stud is screwed on tight.

Some people install a barrier on the left side of the Captain Marvel ramp to help guide balls upwards. I did on mine although it doesn't really seem to make much difference. Marvel ramps can be manufactured pretty inconsistently from machine to machine. Mine had too wide a space at the top and balls would fall out, until I disassembled it and crimped the wires together with pliers.

This will be a little more involved for a first-time owner, but another thing for AIQ is to check the flipper alignment. There is a super-tiny hole in the playfield artwork that should be centered just beyond the tip of the flipper bat. Mine shipped from the factory about a millimeter too low. I adjusted it to be a millimeter too high instead, and that helps quite a lot on making combo shots on the ramps up the middle, and on trapping and catching a bit more easily.

It's fairly normal for a ball dropping from the tower or the up-post to go SDTM. But you've got the upper flipper there - hit the ball!

This is pretty important too. Although its biggest effect is going to be even more people complaining that they don't understand the gem powers, since now this functionality differs from everything that's ever been written about the game.

I mean, it's a positive change, sure, that the gem at level-2 won't work worse than at level-1.

It's just that it's going to cause even more confusion over the gem powers, which is already the #1 complaint about the game.

Or Reality Gem was already won and awaiting the Collect Gem shot. If you hit Hawkeye Marksman while in that state, then yes you collect and place two gems back to back.

Thanks a ton for this, I'll try it. My top target fails to drop about a quarter of the time, and occasionally the middle one too. I saw upthread where someone re-drilled the mounting holes to move the entire assembly forward (to the right), but I couldn't bring myself to dare to do that.

BTW for all, if you have the Cliffy protector here, it makes this significantly worse by narrowing the gap. I had to take it out.

There have been a few reports of this. I had it happening a little bit after I moved the machine to another room. The key seems to be to raise the right rear leg - make sure the playfield is level at the back, or even leaning a little leftwards. Or if the ball is hitting something on the left, maybe it's leaning too far leftwards already and you need the opposite solution.

Don't brick your shots? Problem solved

Whoo, finally had the miracle game where everything came together, and topped awesome1 's score.

gc 6848m (resized).JPG

All factory settings (including 5 EB max), and still on 1.03 code, so not the increased Gamma Ray and Thor Multiball scoring.

My quest progression: Power Gem (on Panther), Soul Gem (on Capt Marvel), Reality Gem (then intentionally lost to Thanos Attacks), Reality Gem again (on Cap specifically for Black Order Multiball, then Hulk for the Space Gem quest, then later Capt Marvel), Mind Gem (on Widow), Time Gem (on the drops), Space Gem.

gc 6848m space gem (resized).JPG

The big thing I blew up was the Space Gem quest. I don't know exactly how the scoring for this works, but the general idea is that most of the scoring happens on the left orbit, and adds to the final blow value, so I set up for this with Reality Gem on level-2 Hulk and also Panther at level-2 from the power gem. I think I hit the upper loop for all three possible 4x attack shots (once by way of a level-2 Mind Gem hit, which I think counts to collect the left orbit plus all of the next attack combo for center ramp - gauntlet ramp - upper loop.) I also cashed in the Soul Gem Jackpot for over 700M, although the Capt Marvel multiplier was only at 4x not 5x.

I also went big on Time Gem, for about 90 million base then 100 million worth of victory laps, and got the Soul Gem Jackpot for 380M there.

And the billion for Thanos of course. Nothing else went really big, but I didn't biff anything else either; Battle Royale, Computer Frenzy, Super Victory Laps, and Trophy Mania each all scored in the low 400M range. This included a level-2 Mind Gem hit during Trophy Mania (after using Space Gem to get Mind Gem over to a level-2 Black Panther), although then I drained out of the multiball with the super lit for 240M.

gc 6848m soul gem (resized).JPG

And the last big thing was that I got around to Soul Gem a second time, and nailed it bigtime in hard mode, with a level-1 Mind Gem ready to go. The big thing here is Reality Gem on a maxed Captain Marvel, which scores 1,750,000 x 10 x 5 x 2 = 175M for the one shot.

I also got to Black Order MB a second time, scoring decently but not huge on both, about 200M the first time and 100M the second time. Besides that, tacked on some Binary hurryups, combo jackpots, and also bonus of over 100M three times including the collect-bonus grid award.

So now I'll be ready to focus on the Star Wars I have on order for later this month...

I had this problem with the Captain Marvel ramp:

captain marvel ramp (resized).jpg

There was a gap, just before the apex, big enough for balls to fall out. I fixed this by unmounting the entire wireform and crimping the wires towards each other with pliers.

Also the outermost prongs at the end of the wireform on the right side were sticking out. I could tell these were flexing and absorbing momentum from the ball instead of guiding it up the slope. I also bent these prongs inwards so they sit smoothly against the metal piece (where the opto is mounted.)

Balls should not get stuck at the intersection of the gauntlet and Marvel wireforms. (No matter where they came from; even if they aren't falling out of the Marvel ramp, they can airball into this spot.) If this is happening, the gauntlet wireform is sitting too low. Try adjusting it from its mounting point there; it may work to add a washer or two to that mounting point to raise it up.

I had this problem, as described in my previous post in this thread, with the pic. I fixed it by crimping the wires towards each other at the spot where the ball would fall out just before the apex, and bending the outer prongs on the right side inward so they're flush with the metal ramp entrance. That second part is important - if those prongs of the wireform are too far out, they are flexing and absorbing momentum from the ball instead of guiding it up the slope. Bending those prongs will require unmounting the entire wireform.

This is your problem:

temp.jpg

The prong on the outside there is floating in space. It will flex outwards and absorb the ball's momentum instead of guiding it up the slope. I fixed this on mine by bending that prong back inwards. This requires unmounting the entire ramp wireform (disconnect all of its attachment points), so you can lift it up to get pliers on that spot to bend it.

P1020163.jpg

Both metal prongs should be flat against the metal side piece. And you want to bend them a little too far, so that they are constantly pushing a little force against the side piece. That means they will also push that force into the ball instead of absorbing its momentum.

I fixed my Captain Marvel ramp by bending these prongs to the left, and the success rate from the left flipper was much better.

There are four ways to get a gem back if you lost it to Thanos:

- Simply play the quest again. This requires possessing the Soul Gem, and if you fail the quest again, you lose the Soul Gem too.

- Win Thanos Attacks. This also requires the Soul Gem, and to have started at least two other gem quests.

- Win Hawkeye Challenge at Marksman (highest) difficulty, which can be accessed by pressing the action button as it starts if there is any gem you have played but don't possess.

- For the Soul Gem only, you can win it in Black Order Multiball (get a super jackpot) or Battle Royale (win the mode).

You get only one back.

My strategy for Thanos Attacks is to intentionally lose it: select an unimportant gem (usually Reality), trap up, and time out. It's better to just play an easy gem again (including another Soul Gem jackpot) than to risk losing a ball in Thanos Attacks.

If your goal is to get all six gems, and you have all three for Thanos Attacks, then the easiest way is to intentionally lose the Soul Gem which you can win back in Black Order MB or Battle Royale.

The name for "Gem Mania" is randomized among a bunch of synonyms. It can be any of Gem/Rock/Stone/Jewel + Mania/Frenzy/Lunacy and several others.

Cute concept, but it's yet another thing about this game to confuse you if you don't know what's going on.

The mode is enabled by collecting all six gems total *across multiple games*, tracked by either the topper if installed (all code) or the Stern Insider account (new in code 1.05.) It doesn't score much, it's just more multiball fun.

I haven't done it myself, but what I understand from reading here is that it just happens automatically in 1.05 code if you're signed in to Insider (including via Home Team.)

I have exactly this problem on my AIQ too. The only way I could figure out to solve it was to just allow a *lot* of up-and-down play for the flipper on its shaft (about 3/16 inch where standard is 1/16) so that the EOS pawl could be far enough away from the surface to clear the flipper bracket mounting screws. Is there any better way to handle this?

I would guess that was just timing - it takes a couple seconds for the grid animation showing the award, and the ball got into the portal and started the quest before that.

The alternate explanation is that you already had two portal locks, in which case another one will wait until the next quest, though that doesn't sound like the case here.

Well, whether it's a bug is a matter of semantics. Do you earn the portal lock at the instant the drop target falls, or do you earn the portal lock when the animation plays out and says so? If it's the latter, that isn't necessarily a bug, you could say that's the design and it's working as designed.

Oh my goodness. You guys aren't going to believe this one. I'm not sure I do either.

gc 11b.JPG

gc 11b space gem.JPG

gc 11b soul gem jackpot.JPG

gc 11b trophy mania.JPG

Blew away my previous high by more than 5 billion. The differences were in the Space Gem quest plus its Soul Gem Jackpot (about 1.5 billion difference total), Trophy Mania (another 1.5), bonus (1 billion total - had 390M on one incredibly long ball, plus got Collect Bonus from the grid when it was at 350M, plus had the multiplier held for another 200M next ball), and the rest from assorted Binary hurryups and combos and such.

The Space Gem quest went so huge like this - it comes from the Reality Gem on level-2 Hulk, since all the quest's scoring is concentrated on this one shot. The third attack shot scores 3M base x3 for portal locks x4 for a parry combo on the upper loop x4 for Reality Gem, which comes to 144M. The first two attack shots scored a few tens of millions as well, to a total of around 240M. Then the final blow on Panther collects 60% of the quest value so far x2 for level 2 = 288M, for a quest total of 538M. And I got the Soul Gem Jackpot for 250% of that, on Captain Marvel at 5x, of course.

And I got in the biggest groove I've ever seen on Trophy Mania. Three different times I railed off 8 to 10 consecutive gauntlet ramp shots to get the add-a-ball each time (this is what to do in Trophy Mania, catch everything you can on the right flipper and loop the Gauntlet ramp with one ball.) I got a lot of disc spins early on to raise the value as well. I got the super jackpot three times, going up to about 250m for the last. Also had Reality Gem on level-2 Black Widow which added quite a bit for that shot along the way as well.

This was all still on 1.03 code, so not the higher Thor and Gamma scoring. (Too bad - with those in place I probably would have made 12 billion.)

Yeah I feel that too. I started playing this game to fill a little time before dinner. When it was over, I'd missed the closing time for the restaurant I was going to grab dinner from. The joy was somewhat diluted by being really hungry.

It wasn't quite everything, that's what surprised me. The big things were Space Gem and its Soul jackpot, Trophy Mania, and the bonus. Everything else was no more than decent - I got all the way around to both Black Order MB and Battle Royale twice, but scored peanuts on them both times and also Computer Frenzy and Super Victory Laps (all under 200M.) It was only those three big areas that blew this game up.

I'll get around to a long strategy post eventually, but here's the quick hits:

Portal locks, portal locks, portal locks. The game opens up so much when you always have both portal locks to start a gem quest. Of course it makes the quest a multiball and multiplies the scoring - but the other part is that a portal lock multiball is the only time you can make progress towards Thor and Iron Man multiballs *during another multiball*.

The portal locks are lit by the secret skill shot (try on every ball, I can hit it about 1/3 of the time) and shooting combos. On my machine, I'm really dialed in to keep looping Widow - Gauntlet - Hawkeye - Widow and repeat. That sequence does not have the limiter that is imposed on the Panther-Widow and Capt Marvel-Widow combos. I'm perfectly willing and able to do that for 20 or 30 combos if necessary before starting each gem quest. The Hawkeye Combo shots make significant progress towards grid awards as well.

Extra balls. There is a tipping point where you start collecting extra balls and then that snowballs into many of them. There are quite a number that are at approximately equal distances from the start button (3 target sets, 3rd grid line, 12 Marvel ramps, 12 trophies, 50 combos, 2nd Hawkeye challenge). Once I start collecting one or two, it keeps going into most or all of them.

Gem strategy. The big point is Power Gem first and put it on Panther. He's always the hardest to level up, his shot gets the least amount of random progress during multiballs. I found myself getting to Black Order MB and Battle Royale far far more consistently once I started doing that. The other effect of the Power Gem is holding that avenger's level-1 ability active all the time, and Panther's is the most important for that too - longer combo timer, which is very significant for the portal locks. There are a *lot* of times that I miss a flow shot, but get control again and can shoot Widow or Gauntlet or Capt Marvel during those extra three seconds to keep the combo streak going.

Physical setup of the game. I admittedly have the tilt bob very loose, and it's on a hardwood floor so I can easily make slide saves. I adjusted the flipper alignment upwards by a couple of millimeters, which makes a significant difference for making flow shots onto Widow and Gauntlet. And my autoplunger almost always fails to make it all the way around but lands in the bumpers instead - this is an advantage, for easily powering up Captain America, and when I do want a plunge to go all the way around I quickly grab the manual plunger to launch it.

Mine is a premium. 3 ball. No mods on the outlanes or disc or anything else besides adjusting the flipper alignment and a stronger manual plunger spring. I didn't set up the autoplunger to the bumpers on purpose, it just happens since my ball launch is inconsistent and usually rattles around a lot going up the orbit.

By Hawkeye I mean the upper loop, which feeds the right flipper, from where you can shoot Widow. The Widow - Gauntlet - Hawkeye - Widow combo sequence is the same on either model, although on the Pro you can't do it once a gem quest is lit, since the gauntlet ramp starts the quest.

I do miss getting the Power Gem on Panther about half the time, either a weak shot falls into the bumpers or an uncontrolled ball hits the drop targets. If that happens I hit Change Gems as soon as I can to fix it (although if it's on the drops, do clear them a few times to use up the power gem uses there.)

To get another shot at any gem besides the Soul Gem, you can just start the quest again the normal way by possessing and risking the Soul Gem. If you lose the quest again, you lose the Soul Gem too.

You can't play the Soul Gem quest again, but you automatically get more chances at it in both Black Order MB (get a super jackpot) and Battle Royale (just win the mode.)

If you play the other five gems (win or lose) and Battle Royale (also win or lose), you're going to have to fight Thanos underpowered without whatever gems you don't then have.

If you're just trying to reach Thanos, the drop targets are a good choice, yes. For me, the drop targets don't need the Reality (or Power) Gem. I'm going for high scores beyond just Thanos, and I get enough activity on the drops from all the portal lock multiballs, to pretty consistently get to Computer Frenzy by the time I'm done with all the gem quests and approaching Trophy Mania.

I aim to get Reality Gem twice in a game. I get it second (after Power Gem) in order to intentionally lose it in Thanos Attacks, because it's the easiest gem quest to do twice, and it's easier to just play and win the quest again (with a portal lock multiball) than to win Thanos Attacks itself.

If I get it before Black Order MB, I put it on Captain America, specifically to multiply the super jackpots in that.

After Black Order MB, I put it on Hulk, specifically to multiply all the scoring in the Space Gem quest.

Later I will sometimes move it to Captain Marvel to get 10x shots there, for any of Battle Royale or Super Victory Laps or Trophy Mania. Also during these I will often use up the Mind Gem wherever it is for whatever it can get, and then use the Space Gem to refresh Mind on a new location, and while doing this also look to move Reality onto Black Widow when she's at a high level and I'm hitting that shot frequently in one of the wizard multiballs.

(accidentally double posted, and I don't see a delete button?)

This happens because the target is too close to the rubber behind it, so bounces off that all the way back into position before it falls.

Here's how to fix it. Under the playfield, take out the screws at the front (right-side) edge of the drop target assembly. Put a washer (or two) between the assembly and the playfield. This will make the entire assembly tilt forward (rightwards) a hair, so there's enough space for the targets to fall reliably. I did this on mine and it improved the top drop target fail rate from maybe 25% to under 5%.

You have to collect all the Avengers three times total. The first time starts the Soul Gem quest, the second time starts Black Order Multiball, and the third time starts Battle Royale. After you have attempted all six gems at least once and have reached Battle Royale, then the next time you open the portal will be Battle Thanos.

That's not quite beating the game; there are two more wizard modes beyond Thanos. You get Computer Frenzy by completing enough grid lines, and Trophy Mania by collecting 24 total trophies.

For the other question: There is no way to quickly explode the score on AIQ, it's not Star Wars. All the big scoring in the billions is back-loaded into the wizard modes. The gem quests and multiballs don't score all that much, typically only in the tens of millions. Besides the wizard modes, the big points come from Soul Gem Jackpots, on a multiplied Captain Marvel ramp on the Premium, for up to 250% of a quest's value; this requires four successful Binary hurryups to set up.

One caveat is that a lot of those videos are outdated from older software code, which had a much different structure around the modes where you fight Thanos. Make sure you're watching something from v1.0 or later.

The Tiltforums rulesheet is updated and accurate. The Stern PDF isn't, since Battle Thanos changed drastically since then, but other than that yes everything is the same for the gem quests and collecting Avengers.

Do you mean to reach Black Order MB or what to do within it?

BOMB is kinda the least important thing to do strategy wise. It's only points, it doesn't make any other progression; you can't progress the grid or avengers or combos or super modes or anything. You can win the Soul Gem if you didn't have it, but that doesn't require much strategy, just light and get the jackpot then the super. Actually the one thing you can progress is the Capt Marvel ramp count-up, and I often do hit that 5 times or so during the mode.

Really the biggest strategy for BOMB points is to have the Reality Gem on Captain America ahead of time, since the super jackpot is always there. Besides that, it's all about ball control, catch everything you can on the right flipper and make all the shots from the left (everything except Hulk.) Do aim for Capt Marvel each time you qualify an avenger, since that shot increases the jackpot multiplier, but doesn't stack if you qualify more than one avenger.

I generally risk the Soul Gem for the multiball restart only once I've already collected the jackpot so I'm close to the super, or else if I drain the last ball during the 15-second grace timer. Of course if you've already collected one super, then the Soul Gem is risk-free.

Regarding Widow-Marvel-Iron Man combos: This is very effective with Black Panther's level-1 ability (ideally held there by the Power Gem), since after the tower drops the ball, it happens very often that you can get control on the left flipper fast enough to shoot the gauntlet ramp while the combo is still lit there.

What do you mean by ending your game here? It's a multiball, and when it ends you just transition back to normal play, it doesn't do anything to end your game. BOMB isn't something you win or lose like a gem quest or the Thanos modes, it just scores points.

The thresholds to qualify the jackpot from each Avenger are displayed directly on the screen. You can do any of them in any order. Each completed Avenger increases the jackpot multiplier, and lights the Captain Marvel ramp/lane to increase it again. Once you light at least one jackpot, you collect it at the Hawkeye loop. After that, spin the disc to spell Strange to light the super jackpot. Collect that at the Captain America lane to add a ball and recover the Soul Gem if you didn't have it.

1300 and change... but I think that number isn't accurate. I think that only happens when the sensor registers phantom hits inaccurately. 1300 RPM is over 20 spins per second, and I don't think it's going quite THAT fast (though maybe with the disc mod.) I often see up to about 900, and a rare fluke of 1200-plus, but nothing in between, so I think the latter is a false reading.

That's out of date, newer code also has an EB at 12 ramps / 360 spins. (For all the Marvel awards, 1 shot on the premium = 30 spins on the Pro.)

Try reseating all the connectors to that node board, that sometimes helps with problems there.

Yeah, this means the high numbers aren't actually measuring the disc's physical speed, it's phantom readings. 600 rpm is 10 spins per second which is about what it's actually doing. 1470 per minute would be over 24 spins per second and there's no way it's going THAT fast.

I don't know personally, I've never had to do anything with mine. Just repeating what I've heard in this thread from earlier.

You're in the AIQ thread, of course you'll get replies that like AIQ.

The downsides of AIQ are the lackluster callouts (the avengers have all the enthusiasm of a retail worker reporting for their next shift) and the complexity of understanding the gem powers. These are particularly in opposition to Deadpool with great callouts and the simplest power imaginable in the boom button. If those are not a problem for you, then AIQ is as spectacular and deep as you can get.

Besides that, the other way to recover a lost gem is to win Hawkeye Challenge on Marksman (top) difficulty. If a gem is available for this, the display will offer for you to hold the action button to skip to Marksman.

The Soul Gem can also be won/recovered by winning Battle Royale, or by completing the avengers for a fourth time total which loops back around to the Soul Gem quest again. Stated another way: All three of the Avengers Assemble modes allow winning the Soul Gem, and they loop around after the third one, so it's always possible to re-win the Soul Gem and therefore to replay any quest you lost, so you are never permanently locked out from winning any gem.

avengers screw.jpg

My turn for a mystery screw to appear on the playfield. It's a small black Philips head (smaller than it looks in this close up pic.) I looked around the Sanctum target and building since that's the most common area to lose a screw, but didn't see any empty holes. Anyone got more suggestions?

Finally found it - turned out it was way up at the back panel next to the Black Widow ramp.

avengers screw found.jpg

I'm trying out that zip tie there to help with Widow ramp rejects, which I get a lot. It seems like the ball goes up too high into the roof and the roof flexes upwards, deflecting the ball backwards (towards the player). There might have been a connection between this and the rogue screw, in either direction - either the loose screw made for more slack in the area causing the rejects, or the zip tie focuses some force towards that screw and loosened it.

Same here. I lean into losing a gem. I just trap up and let him have the Reality Gem. I'd rather play that high scoring quest over again (including a portal-lock multiball and soul gem jackpot) than attempt Thanos Attacks. It's true Super Victory Laps might score more on its best day, but on average the risk-reward is clearly worse for attempting it.

That said, I did once go for Thanos Attacks just out of bloodymindedness when defending 5 gems (happened because I failed Soul Gem the first time and only got it late from Battle Royale), and got through all 24 shots to win it for a total of 340M.

If you just want to reach Battle Thanos, let him have the Soul Gem instead, since you can win that back in BOMB or Battle Royale without playing an extra quest.

POINTS

soul gem jackpot 2191m.jpg

space gem 876m.jpg

Here's how. The setup for this is Reality Gem on the left orbit with Hulk leveled up, Black Panther at level 2 (easy way is to have the Power Gem on him), and the Soul Gem on the Captain Marvel ramp with the Binary multiplier at 5x. In the Space Gem quest, for each of the three parry shots, do a combo of Widow-Gauntlet-Hawkeye (can use level-1 Mind Gem for the Hawkeye hit) to light the attack at 4x on the left orbit. Multipliers for portal locks (x3) and the Reality Gem (up to x4 though I had it at x3 here) apply also. This all multiplies the base values for the attack shots of 1M/2M/3M to as high as 48M/96M/144M.

Then the final blow is lit which scores 40% of the quest value so far at Widow or 60% at Panther. Now drain out of the multiball intentionally, and hit Change Gems to move the Reality Gem to Black Panther for x4 scoring, while still in the middle of the quest. Now that final blow scores 240% of the quest value (I got 611M for this shot here.) Then collect the Soul Gem Jackpot on the Captain Marvel ramp for 250% of *that*.

There you go awesome1 if you need a challenge

I actually wasn't that nervous. I figured if I missed it, I'd try again tomorrow. I've pulled it off a few times before, just didn't have the numbers quite that high - the biggest problem tends to be an accidental Flank Attack stealing a shot during the quest (doesn't enable the 4x, or doesn't use the Reality Gem if it collects the attack), and once I got everything except that I only had Binary at 4x. The intentional multiball drain was with the remaining ball already caught on the left flipper to aim at Change Gems. Really the hardest part was gaining control from the Ant-man feed without shooting Black Widow, since that would be the wrong final blow. I actually had Iron Man Multiball ready to start right then (the quest had been stacked with Thor) and hit it, so I had plenty of time during that to get the final blow, and then the only stressful shot was the SG jackpot itself.

Yeah, I fairly often get backhands like that one in the first video, where an incoming ball already has some rightwards velocity and the right flipper can redirect it up the ramp.

I recently removed the lexan barrier that I'd had on the ramp, and interestingly I actually seem to get such backhands more often without it. My theory for this is spin - that sort of backhand applies clockwise spin to the ball, which would work against it climbing a left-side wall, so it flies up more smoothly without the barrier.

And without the barrier, I also get noticeably less nasty returns when a reject happens. They rattle around a bit instead of plummeting straight down. I'm guessing this is why Stern chose to build it as it is (we saw the prototypes where the wireform extended all the way down, and then they changed it but never said why.)

For anyone having problems with Captain Marvel ramp rejects, check this:

pasted_image (resized).png

Look at those prongs at the bottom end of the wireform on the right side of the entrance. Make sure these are pressing against the metal wall to their left (the right wall of the entrance), and not floating out in space as in this example pic here. If they are not flush and pressing against the metal wall, the wireform will flex outwards and absorb momentum from an incoming ball instead of guiding it up over the top.

When I first got my AIQ, I had a terrible make rate from a catch on the left flipper, about 25%. I unmounted the entire wireform and bent those ends inward with pliers, and that made a tremendous improvement up to about 80%, a far bigger swing than anything minor like waxing or a barrier on the left side.