[New VP10 Alert] Star Gazer (Stern 1980) by arborelia

[arborelia]

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Star Gazer (Stern 1980) by arborelia

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This is my first VPX modification. I based this on the version by @Felsir, with permission.

 

Star Gazer is one of my favorite pinball machines. I got to play it recently at Rochester Pinball Collective, and I watched the high-level competition on it on the stream of INDISC 2024. I wanted to make this VPX table play like what I'd played and seen. But none of this would be possible without having Felsir's version to start from.

 

This table is often about flow and on-the-fly shots, because the unusually low flipper angle stops you from trapping the ball very often. Time your shot to the upper drops - the first one you hit in the bank determines whether clearing the drops or ripping the top spinner is worth big points.

 

My changes (v2.0):

 

 

- Reworked the physics - more friction, slightly weaker flippers, stronger pops, weaker plunger, more flipper elastic.
- Fixed flipper angles and the position of the left flipper. They really do look like that -- these flippers at rest point downward more than other tables.
- Made physics sounds audible over the very loud beeps from the ROM. You're presumably running the table at a low volume overall.
- Increased the strength of digital nudging, but made the tilt more sensitive.
- Corrected some playfield text.

 

I'm happy to see further mods as long as they make things better.

 

Thanks to espie for playtesting.

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• Submitter
  arborelia
• Submitted
  01/09/24
• Category
  VPX - Pinball Tables

 

[coten]

Seems like the next step to improving this VPX would be to rebuild the plunger / Right Orbit wall at the top-right of the table.

The current wall is angled to send high-speed balls straight into the top-left of the right pop bumper.

I would expect balls to be thrown much further to the right, so that they can bounce around the six targets & right side of that bumper.

 

Also quickly shouting out some bugs:

The green "Zodiac Target Value" lights are advancing from bottom-to-top (4k to 1k), instead of top-to-bottom (1k to 4k, the actual values.) Just need to shuffle the light object names around there.

Also, the instruction card has a remaining typo: "roll-oever"