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Don't Panic Flip Episode 10 - Star Wars: New FW Didn't Help Me Blow Up the Deathstar

Don't Panic Flip·video·40m 17s·analyzed·Apr 11, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.021

TL;DR

Star Wars FW 1.13 upgrade causes ball physics changes and bugs; Death Star mode remains elusive.

Summary

Don't Panic Flip host George plays Star Wars Premium after upgrading to firmware 1.13, which resets all machine records. The new firmware introduces noticeable changes to ball velocity and power settings, and George encounters multiple bugs including video mode issues and inconsistent Death Star mode behavior. Despite multiple attempts across several games, he struggles to consistently execute the Death Star shot and complete associated modes.

Key Claims

  • Firmware 1.13 update completely reset all machine records and scores

    high confidence · George directly states he had a 1.3-1.4 billion score that was lost after the full firmware update

  • The new firmware (1.13) significantly changed default ball velocity/power on spit-out

    high confidence · George explicitly observes: 'the default spit out velocity or power on this new version of firmware is significantly different. It shot out to the left flipper. That has never happened before.'

  • Previous firmware versions had bugs with ball drops during mode initiation that caused ball loss

    high confidence · George mentions this was 'a big, irritating' bug from prior versions that he hopes is fixed in 1.13

  • Video mode in current firmware still has bugs or inconsistent behavior

    medium confidence · George notes video mode had issues before and wanted to test if 1.13 fixed it; observes multiplier behavior seems off during gameplay

  • Death Star multiball mode requires multiple hits to the Death Star shot to complete

    high confidence · George repeatedly asks 'How many times do I have to hit the fucking Death Star to kill it?' indicating it requires 3+ shots to destroy

  • The firmware 1.13 appears to be 'even more buggy than the previous software'

    medium confidence · George states this as his assessment after gameplay: 'This new software I think is even more buggy than the previous software'

  • There is no documentation in the firmware update notes explaining differences between quick update vs full update

    high confidence · George explicitly notes: 'there was nothing in there the readme to specify what those differences were'

  • The Death Star shot is mechanically difficult to hit consistently, requiring backhand technique or precise positioning

    high confidence · George repeatedly struggles with the Death Star shot and notes: 'we all know how hard it is to hit that Death Star shot'

Notable Quotes

  • “the default spit out, uh, velocity or power on this new version of firmware is significantly different. It shot out to the left flipper. That has never happened before.”

    George (Don't Panic Flip host)@ 4:11 — Direct observation of firmware 1.13 changing ball physics behavior

  • “How many times do I have to hit the fucking Death Star to kill it?”

    George@ 10:01 — Frustration with Death Star mode requiring multiple shots; indicates design clarity issue

  • “This new software I think is even more buggy than the previous software.”

    George@ 22:54 — Explicit negative assessment of firmware 1.13 quality relative to prior version

  • “I have every intention of actually blowing up the Death Star”

    George@ 1:18 — Sets episode goal; frames Death Star mode as central challenge

  • “we just upgraded to firmware version 1.13. We also reset and lost all of our records, which sucks because I had, I don't know, an okay score of 1.3 billion.”

    George@ 1:22 — Confirms FW 1.13 causes full machine reset; establishes baseline score loss

  • “I did a full update, which I'm guessing replaced all the code.”

    George@ 1:46 — Uncertainty about update mechanism and lack of documentation

  • “We are documenting the journey from shitty player to mediocre player. Nowhere near there yet.”

Entities

George (Don't Panic Flip host)personStar Wars PremiumgameStern PinballcompanyDeath StarproductDon't Panic FliporganizationHyperspace shotproductEndorproductBattle Above EndorproductTatooineproductVideo modeproduct

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Death Star shot mechanical difficulty is high; requires specific technique (backhand or precise positioning); inconsistency suggests playfield design or shot geometry challenge

    high · George struggles repeatedly: 'Really waiting a long time,' 'Missed it,' and notes 'we all know how hard it is to hit that Death Star shot'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Ball routing/cradle separation behavior appears unstable; multiple unexpected ball ejections during gameplay

    medium · George observes 'cradle separation' twice and notes 'I can't believe two balls got pushed out there. I wonder what happened.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Death Star mode requires unclear number of shots to complete; George frustrated by multiple failed attempts and lack of clear progression feedback

    high · George repeatedly asks 'How many times do I have to hit the fucking Death Star to kill it?' and expresses confusion about mode completion requirements

  • ?

    product_concern: Firmware 1.13 assessment: George concludes it is 'even more buggy than the previous software'

    medium · Direct statement: 'This new software I think is even more buggy than the previous software. Why did it stop as soon as I hit the goddamn Death Star?'

  • ?

    product_concern: Firmware update process lacks documentation; no clear explanation of full update vs quick update or what changed between versions

    high · George explicitly states: 'there was nothing in there the readme to specify what those differences were' regarding full vs quick firmware updates

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.121

0:00
Thank you. All right. So I think we've got everything set up, cameras adjusted. This is Don't Panic Flip.
1:06
Tonight we will be playing Star Wars. It's Star Wars Premium. No surprise there. I hope you're down for watching more Star Wars. Cool difference tonight is, A, I have every intention of actually blowing up the Death Star, and two, we just upgraded to version 1.13. We also reset and lost all of our records, which sucks because I had, I don't know, an okay score of 1.3. I'm going to round up and say 1.4 since there's no way to really verify it unless you look at past videos, so don't go ahead and do that. I'm going to say 1.4 billion, and that was with buggy code, it turns out. So now we're at 1.13, and instead of doing a quick update, which I'm pretty sure I did before, I did a full update, which I'm guessing replaced all the code. I have no idea what the difference is there, and there was nothing in the readme to specify what those differences were. So this is Don't Panic Flip. This is Adventure 1 Part 4 as we attempt to blow up the Death Star.
2:09
Let's just get going. You know what? I'm not even going to mess with it. Let's just get started. I'm going to turn the volume down on the game a little bit We can hear some of the background music Feeling the 80s vibe right now And here we go
2:40
Here we go Let's go ahead and make that Death Star shot Missed the first one You know what? We're going to do a backhand. Missed.

George@ 39:53 — Self-deprecating closing statement; frames channel as skill progression documentation

  • “I feel like after a few games, I finally get some of these shots down.”

    George@ 39:32 — Suggests significant learning curve or muscle memory requirement for Star Wars shots

  • ?

    product_concern: Firmware 1.13 introduces noticeable changes to ball velocity/power that alter machine behavior unpredictably; George observes balls being spit to unexpected flippers

    high · George states 'the default spit out velocity or power on this new version of firmware is significantly different. It shot out to the left flipper. That has never happened before.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Video mode appears to have unresolved bugs in firmware 1.13; multiplier behavior inconsistent or unclear

    medium · George notes he had 'an eight times multiplier going in' but 'still have a one times multiplier for video mode' and questions why behavior differs

    • 2:57
    That sucked. All right, maybe next one. Do we need some light? Can't tell. Maybe that was better. We don't care about score. We're going to light the Tatooine missions. That way... we have one more option. Let's see if we can hit Tatooine.
    3:26
    Nope. Come on. Settle down. We don't care about that. Don't need that. I guess we could light Endor. There it is. Got Tatooine. so now we should be able to do both Tatooine and light the escape pod or escape from Mos Eisley let's escape from Mos Eisley four hurry up shots on Death Star and we need to use ramps to build value before time runs out and collect value on the hyperspace shot whoa the default spit out Uh, velocity or power on this new version of firmware is significantly different. It shot out to the left flipper. That has never happened before. Um, all right, there's one shot.
    4:29
    Uh, looks like we need right ramp. Death Star. Missed it. Alright, we need the Death Star and Left in order to finish the Death Star mission.
    4:49
    Alright, let's... We can backhand these easy, both of these. Let's go Death Star. There's that. Oh, man, I'm loving me some Africa by Toto. Okay, we need... Oh, my God, I can't believe I dropped that. That sucked.
    5:19
    I'm going to say we just had one more shot on the Death Star. And that's an easy backhand from the left-hand side. I can't believe the power of the Tatooine scoop. That was ridiculous.
    5:33
    All right, and also try to point out some of the other bugs that we encountered before and how hopefully those are solved. A big one is going to be video mode.
    5:42
    And another one is going to be if you drop a ball accidentally while initiating a mode, you don't just lose your ball. That was a big, irritating one. In fact, on our last stream, that really caused us an issue. But here we go. Lighting the Death Star. I've got to turn down this light. It's way too bright.
    6:02
    Whoa! All right, cradle separation. Wow. That's a great start to the game. I can't believe two balls got pushed out there. I wonder what happened.
    6:42
    I feel like maybe I need a game or two to get these shots figured out again. Don't care about the multiplier. There it is. Finally. Rescue the princess.
    6:59
    Oh my gosh. Come on. Alright. Laziness. Just bad playing. Let's go TIE fighters. Was really not expecting that. Oh nice, we got that shot.
    7:27
    Let's go this one. And now TIE Fighter. TIE Fighter is going to be really helpful later. Left-handed, that was actually super hard. Two shots left, we need Death Star and Right Loop. There's one.
    7:46
    Now we just need the Death Star. Let's see if we can backhand it. Oh, missed. Not helpful. There we go. Let's see if we can backhand it. There it is. Now we just need to either light another mode or hit the Death Star. I'm going to hit the Death Star. Oh, my God.
    8:22
    Missed it. You know what? Let's light Endor. I can't believe I missed that shot. All right. Endor. Boom. See? Ah, perfect. This is a perfect example. Since I can't hit the flippers.
    8:40
    Oh, no. Oh, that's what... Okay, so that's how they fixed it, by resetting. I have to hit Endor again.
    8:50
    Okay, so I hit Endor again. I'm going to destroy the Death Star. Let's go ahead and do that. All right, so this is Complete Ramps to Light Death Star. And then I've lit the Death Star multiple times.
    9:09
    All right, here we go. Death Star. All right, Death Star is lit. We just got to hit the Death Star. Here it is. There it is.
    9:30
    All right, so we lit the Death Star. Now we've got to... hit the Death Star shot again. Okay, we hit the Death Star shot.
    9:51
    Now we need to hit that. Hit that. Oh my gosh How many times do I have to hit the fucking Death Star to kill it That was three times I just want to blow up the goddamn Death Star Yeah, we're going to get a bunch of these since everything reset. I'm sorry to waste your time. All right. Come on, we got this. We're going to light the Death Star, and then we're going to destroy it. I wonder if Endor is honestly the better way to go. I'm going to go with Endor. Yeah. All right, so we're switching. We're going to go with Endor. If my goal is just to blow up the Death Star, we can give a shit about points. We just want to see the Death Star. Oh, good song. Who is this?
    10:57
    This is Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield. We got this. Endor, lit. Knockout shield generator. Four than four. We got this. There's one.
    11:19
    There's two. Three. Missed it. Not letting that go. There it is. Four. So now we relight all of these.
    11:46
    Oh my gosh! I really don't care about that right now. There's that. One more.
    12:12
    Oh my god, that is twice! And we all know how hard it is to hit that Death Star shot. There. Oh, thank god. Okay, completed the mode, we're going to do Battle Above Endor.
    12:28
    If I can hit this last shot... Wow. Oh no. Oh my gosh. it's okay this is gonna be really easy we're just gonna kick it out and that's and this is ball two there's no way that uh we're not gonna start the mode if tie fighters are active i don't need to do hyperspace hurry up let's light tattooing yeah i don't want to start anything else i just want the battle above endor which is a really easy shot right all right here and we're up okay battle above endor complete shots to light death star hit three bank for more time
    13:32
    There's the three bank for more time. We did not blow up the fucking Death Star again. God, that felt good. I felt like I was hitting all the shots.
    14:13
    I couldn't read. There was too much going on. All right, we're at 15. Oh, my God. Escape from Hoth. We've already lit Tatooine.
    14:27
    I guess let's light the escape. Oh my god, get there! So, this Tatooine shot... You really gotta backflip it or hit it on the tip of the left? Just the tip.
    15:25
    Come on, I'll take all kinds of stuff. There goes ball three. All right. We've had better. Come on, we can do this. Oh, my God. I don't want to enter my initials in for everything.
    16:02
    Oh my god. Get somewhere. Make a shot. Hyperspace hurry up. Endor. Got it. Knock out the shield generators, baby.
    16:37
    There's one. Missed it. Two. I missed that. Three. Need to hit the TIE Fighters now. There's four.
    17:21
    Slow it down. Oh. Two. Oh, I can't believe I missed that. I was getting... Yeah, I need... Let me give myself a little bit more room there.
    17:47
    Three. Missed it. Huh. Four. All right. And... Battle above Endor. First ball, maybe. I don't know.
    18:32
    Missed it. Lost the ball. Ugh. Alright, we're going to go plus five type fighters. And that's game. plus five TIE Fighters and oh my god we got there got the multiball Oh, my God. Cradle separation I think we have to hit all the orange shots before we start getting super jackpots
    20:33
    Cradle separation. You know what? Let's check out video mode. Eight times multiplier. Do we go in with an eight times multiplier?
    21:22
    No. Multiplier one times. Don't you want me, baby? Don't you want me? Oh, oh, oh. Why did I go to the left there? That was bad sushi. All right, so I had an eight times multiplier going in. I have an eight times multiplier going out.
    21:56
    And I still have a one times multiplier for video mode. Ooh, hyperspace multiball. I mean, I don't even know what I'm playing for anymore. Oh my god.
    22:26
    What just happened there? I shot the Death Star. oh my gosh all right i'm gonna go ahead and call it this new software i think is even more buggy than the previous software? Why did it stop as soon as I hit the goddamn Death Star? It's supposed to... The more balls go up there, and it's so much fun when that happens.
    23:15
    Nice. Theme song to the new Ready Player One movie. You know, the cool thing, at least about R2, is I get two opportunities to destroy the Death Star instead of one.
    23:28
    I'm doing that. Good, solid beginning. Boom, right there. What do we got? Rescue the princess. Thank you. Thought I'd hit the... I'm just going to keep hitting these.
    24:50
    There it is. Oh my god, that would have been so cool! Alright, Death Star... Coming up! Nope. We got this, we got this. Oh no.
    25:10
    Not... Oh, you know what? Totally. Destroy the Death Star by lighting. Wow. That's pretty awful. All right. Round two. Wow!
    26:23
    Alright, nothing's gonna get me down. All right. I don't know what happened there. Those were some pretty awful shots.
    26:50
    We're going... Oh, that's going to start me up in that mode. Alright, come on. We need several shots. There's one, two, three, and four.
    27:15
    I don't care about the multipliers. Okay, so there's our four shots. That sucks. So now we need four more Waited a little bit too long to hit that That's fine We're gonna go backhand up here Right there I had some backspin on it There's that One more shot Not it
    27:50
    Come on, Death Star shot. Oh my gosh, was that ball three? That was ball three, wasn't it? That was ball three.
    28:33
    And I kind of thought I had an easy Death Star shot. There it is. Nice and easy, nice and easy, people.
    28:54
    There's that mystery shot. Oh my god! Not sure what I was attempting to do there. Oh, come on! Right down the old middle.
    29:50
    Like, why am I still hitting that? That right down the middle Luckily ball two so we just have to make one shot to get to the Death Star again Come on
    30:24
    Okay. Boom. Mystery Tatooine. We're going to initiate Kill the Death Star with double multipliers and destroy TIE Fighters. Wow, that escalated quickly. There's one shot.
    31:07
    I don't even know what shots I'm supposed to be making. There it is. I think I got my workout in. That's good. That's good.
    32:11
    One. Two, maybe? Nope. Six. I did not know that this was timed. I don't think that would have made a difference.
    32:40
    You belong to me. All right. Last game. Let's blow up the effing Death Star. Let's do it this time. Come on.
    33:01
    You make everything you take. You watching? Solid start. I'm feeling it this game, guys. That was a good shot! So was that. That's fine. Death Star two in a row. Like I said, you know, it takes about ten games for me to get my shots back.
    33:33
    There's one. Missed it. Two. Missed it. Got some multipliers unintentionally. Got three. Oh, man, that would have been beautiful.
    34:05
    Just get there! Oh my gosh. This game is trying to kill me. There it is. Don't get cheap on me, Dotson. Oh my god.
    34:54
    Alright, we got this. You know, feeling it from the right side now. Suddenly, Death Star shot isn't all that difficult. Complete ramps to light Death Star. You know what? I think that is the first time I've seen that I need to complete both ramps.
    35:20
    Missed it. Ah! Lost both. Okay. You know what? I know something I didn't know before. That was ball one, huh? We need... Screw it. Let's light Tatooine.
    35:54
    I wanted to shoot again. obviously so we need to hit Endor really waiting a long time we got this Endor one more
    36:22
    missed it Andor's lit Really went fast with that one There it is Knockout shield generator Alright You know what? Like I meant it Oh my gosh! That would have been so great.
    37:20
    Right down. That was ball two. Okay, so we've got two more shots to make, I think. I think two, right?
    37:29
    And let's go plus five TIE Fighters. Because getting a multi-ball while also finishing this might be kind of epic.
    37:46
    I don't think we can start the mode now. You know what? Multiballs are fun though. Fuck-sicles. All right, what do we need? We need right ramp.
    38:58
    Missed it. Missed it twice. Got it the third time. And we just need to hit Endor. Missed it. Oh, my gosh.
    39:12
    Ugh. Tilted? Does anyone else feel like the ground is mildly crooked, or as some would say, tilted? All right, I'm done for the night.
    39:32
    Not great games. Not great games. I feel like after a few games, I finally get some of these shots down. I was making some of the shots. Just poor playing. Poor playing. I need to get better. more practice. I don't practice enough. This has been Don't Panic Flip. We are documenting the journey from shitty player to mediocre player. Nowhere near there yet. I'm George, and this has been Star Wars and some pinball. I hope you enjoyed it. Bye.
    40:15
    Thank you.