Alien Star (Gottlieb 1984)

Gottlieb's 1984 Alien Star!  Journey to an Alien Star for a pinball battle in space!  Multiball, skill shots, and plenty of fast action!  So much fun to play!  Thanks to Borgdog for providing original playfield and plastic scans, cabinet stencils, and physical measurements of his actual table.  He also had lots of authentic Gottlieb primitives to use, and did a tremendous amount of testing!

Thanks also to Redbone who took those scans of the playfield and plastics and did a tremendous amount of work to get them to look so good!  He also spent a ton of time with all the other graphics on the table as well as a ton of testing!  Hauntfreaks provided the higher resolution VR backglass.  DarthVito did the VR wall environment.  

I updated to latest VPW standards, physics, GI and shadow baking, Lampz and 3D inserts, dynamic shadows, updated backglass for desktop, playfield mesh for a saucer bevel, roth standup targets, standalone compatibility, sling corrections, optional DIP adjustments, updated flipper physics, VR and fully hybrid modes, Flupper style bumpers and lighting, gBOT system and trough. Dozens and dozens of hours were spent studying gameplay videos (2 streams were recorded by Borgdog) to match the table skill shots and action.  

Thanks also to Rothbauerw for providing updated flipper physics code to help with the skillshots. That code was needed to be able to do some of the skillshots.  

This table is loaded with options. Various balls, ball brightness, flippers, tents, caps, plastic edge colors, LUTs, Dip settings, siderails, and plenty of other VR stuff. Redbone encouraged me to include special edge LED lighting in the plastics that iaakki originally did for another table.  Looks really cool, and is included as an option.  

The ROM can be found at pinballnirvana.com... alienstr.zip).  There's an option in the script to change the DIPS, however it will load a default set when you launch the table.  NOTE:  YOU HAVE TO START THE TABLE 1ST, EXIT, AND THEN RESTART FOR DIP CHANGES TO TAKE EFFECT.  This is ONLY the first time you launch the table.  

There's also an option for "Tourney Mode".  In that mode it'll play a little harder with different DIP settings, which excludes extra ball... and only allows for points on 3 balls.  Tourney mode also sets colors and rainbow'ed LEDs on plastics.  NOTE:  you'll have to start and restart the first time in that mode for the DIP changes to take effect.

If you want to change the DIPs... you will need to go into the script options and change SetDIPSwitches to 1, then open the table, hit F6 (that'll load the default DIPS and display them). You can then select various ROM options.  Once entered, you can exit out, and restart.  That will then set the new ROM settings.  

 These are the default DIPS that are and set at original table launch:
    1=Coin Chute same
    0=3rd coin chute no effect
    0=Game mode of replay for hitting threshold
    1=Number of balls =3
    1=Playfield Special of extra ball  (However in tourney mode this is zero)
    0=Novelty of normal game mode    (However in tourney mode this is zero)
    1=Match feature
    1=Background Sound

Thanks again to Borgdog and Redbone for the playfield and plastic images, the stencils, the testing, and all the feedback!  Also thanks to Hauntfreaks for the updated Backglass images, and to Rothbauerw for his flipper physics code.  Also thanks to pinstratsdan, and everyone else from the VPW team that provided testing and feedback!