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Implausibility Goggles to Max

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·52m 18s·analyzed·May 2, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Physics plausibility, 8-Ball restoration progress, and Pinball Arcade updates.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss movie physics implausibility using Fate of the Furious as an example, then pivot to pinball arcade physics simulation in Pinball Arcade vs. real machines like 8-Ball Deluxe. Chris details ongoing restoration work on his 8-Ball Deluxe and Firepower machines, including capacitor repair, playfield refinishing, and clear-coating plans. They also cover Farsight's Pinball Arcade updates: Paragon as the next table in May 2017 and Ghostbusters (Premium model) coming soon, plus details on the head-to-head beta testing program.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Arcade's physics model has noticeable uncanny valley moments where the ball moves too fast or at impossible angles, breaking immersion compared to real pinball

    high confidence · Chris describes specific examples of balls bouncing up the in-lane with impossible force on Pinball Arcade vs. real 8-Ball Deluxe behavior

  • 8-Ball Deluxe requires active nudging to avoid drains due to difficult outlanes and center drain; significantly more drain-prone than Pinball Arcade version

    high confidence · Chris contrasts his real 8-Ball Deluxe experience (drain monster) with Pinball Arcade (more forgiving in-lane physics)

  • The 8-Ball Deluxe sound issue was caused by a failing capacitor, not grounding problems despite initial diagnostic appearance

    high confidence · Nick from Planet Nine Pinball identified the issue through power behavior testing and capacitor replacement resolved it immediately

  • Paragon will be released in May 2017 as the season 7 launch table for Pinball Arcade

    high confidence · Farsight newsletter explicitly states 'coming May 2017' under Paragon announcement

  • Ghostbusters will be added to Pinball Arcade in Premium model version only (no Pro version)

    high confidence · Farsight announcement with images; Jared confirms it's Premium based on subterranean and crossover ramps

  • Chris is using an 8-gallon air compressor to clear-coat Firepower, which may be insufficient (30-gallon recommended)

    high confidence · Chris states his plan to test PSI and avoid the compressor kicking in mid-spray

  • Mill wax containing silicone can peel Mylar and acts as a lubricant rather than filling valleys like true wax

    medium confidence · Jared references a debate he read about mill wax properties; presents as secondhand information

  • 8-Ball Deluxe features inline flippers, which differ mechanically from later crank-style flipper assemblies

    high confidence · Chris explains inline flipper maintenance and cleaning coils resolved sticking issue

Notable Quotes

  • “It's like the organs are in an ice-filled bucket, and they're just waiting to be transferred back onto the playfield again.”

    Jared @ ~28:45 — Humorous analogy comparing the depopulated wire harness on cardboard to organ transplant; illustrates the delicate nature of playfield restoration

  • “I went to Lowe's and was like, where's your cast-off paint? And they had a little container of cast-off paint for $1.25 that happened to be gray, and I went, I don't care if it's the same gray or not. This is what we're using.”

    Chris @ ~26:15 — Shows pragmatic, cost-effective approach to restoration; reveals Chris's humor and willingness to accept 'good enough' solutions

  • “That's complete bull. None of that works.”

    Chris @ ~3:30 — Expresses frustration with dated movie technology representations; establishes the 'implausibility goggles' theme of the episode

  • “It's a little uncanny valley of special effects.”

    Jared @ ~8:50 — Articulates the specific technical phenomenon in Pinball Arcade physics that breaks immersion

  • “I'm not worried about it. I'm not concerning myself with it.”

    Chris @ ~27:30 — Shows acceptance of the temporary 'messy' state during restoration; philosophical approach to project management

  • “You just hold a lighter underneath the bell for about five seconds. Just enough to melt the plastic.”

    Chris @ ~18:15 — Practical tip for removing plastic-mounted pinball bell hardware; shows sourcing solutions from community forums

  • “I have a 30 gallon air compressor tank, yeah right. I have an 8 gallon air compressor tank which I think is going to be just enough.”

    Chris @ ~34:40 — Reveals potential equipment limitation for clear-coating project; demonstrates risk-taking in restoration process

  • “Please do everything you can to be a part of it. If you want to be a part of the beta, like I said, there's ways and there's people that you can ask.”

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonNickpersonTim MoyerpersonStevepersonBlockade Pinball PodcastorganizationFarsight StudioscompanyPlanet Nine Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Farsight maintaining active developer participation in Pinball Arcade head-to-head beta testing with real-time code modifications and player feedback integration

    high · Steve from Farsight present during beta sessions making code changes on the spot; weekly testing schedule with community headset coordination

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside forum's archive thread system encouraging thoughtful community participation by requiring explicit authorization to revive old discussions rather than creating duplicate threads

    medium · Chris had to authorize old thread revival; perceives as positive system preventing thread bloat while maintaining historical context

  • ?

    design_philosophy: 8-Ball Deluxe requires active player skill (nudging) vs. Pinball Arcade's forgiving physics, showing design intent for difficulty and player engagement through risk management

    medium · Chris notes 8-Ball Deluxe designed as 'drain monster' teaching nudging necessity; Pinball Arcade version more forgiving in center drain and in-lane mechanics

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball parts availability crisis: metal bell standoffs unavailable through normal retail channels, forcing sourcing through machine salvage on secondary market

    medium · Pinball Resource stated parts are not made/available; Chris sourced from eBay-listed Bobby Orr hockey machine; found 8-bell piece cheaper than Marco Specialties' individual pricing

  • ?

    announcement: Paragon confirmed as May 2017 release for Pinball Arcade Season 7; Ghostbusters Premium model coming soon

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.157

0:00
This is a Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. Hey there, welcome to the Blockade Podcast.
0:41
Yeah, that was me, and joining us always, Jared Morgan from Australia. Hi, I'm here. In the future. The future is fine. Nothing bad has happened yet.
0:53
Well, I'm glad to hear that. We wouldn't want to, well, I don't know. Would you really want to be alerted if bad things were on the forefront? I don't know. That's one of those paradox questions. It is. I'm sort of like the early warning canary. So if you see me go quiet on social media, you know something's wrong. Or that I'm just asleep. One of the two.
1:15
That's right. Fair enough. So not really a good early warning canary at all is what I'm saying. Also, while there might be a tsunami coming your way, it's highly doubtful it's coming our way. possibly yes, unless it's a real bad one then we're all screwed yes, I'll tell you what you can be our early warning for if North Korea launches anything at us and you can just look up into the sky and see if there's a missile floating overhead, although why they would be firing through the southern hemisphere I don't know but maybe they're trying to slingshot around Antarctica or something right, right that's it Antarctica's like the moon isn't it it's got a gravitational pull and stuff I've failed at science I'm absolutely positive that's how that works let's make news man so I went and saw Fate of the Furious oh you did I did go see it and while I will say it's in general entertaining and stuff it did do the kind of thing that tweaks me Oh, really? What do they do?

  • Firepower playfield bottom was depopulated for clear-coating to avoid difficult protective masking

    high confidence · Chris describes complete removal of 142 staples and full wire harness transfer to cardboard

  • Farsight head-to-head beta testing occurs regularly (primarily Wednesdays at 11 a.m. Pacific) with live developer participation and code changes during testing

    high confidence · Chris details beta testing protocol with Steve from Farsight making real-time code adjustments

    • Chris @ ~42:15 — Community engagement call; indicates open beta participation structure for Pinball Arcade testing

  • “Center drain city. I get so many center drains from the pop bumpers.”

    Chris @ ~13:20 — Characterizes 8-Ball Deluxe's difficulty and drain-heavy design; shows frustration but acceptance

  • “I wouldn't have thought if I managed to ground it out and got power and actually got the sound, I thought, Oh, it's definitely grounding issue.”

    Chris @ ~20:45 — Shows diagnostic difficulty when symptoms point misleadingly to one cause (grounding) while root cause is different (capacitor)

    • Pinball Arcade
    product
    8-Ball Deluxegame
    Firepowergame
    Paragongame
    Ghostbustersgame
    Fate of the Furiousproduct
    Star Trek IVproduct
    Pinsideorganization
    TPA Fansorganization
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Pinball Resourcecompany
    Bobby Orr Power Playgame

    high · Farsight newsletter dated April 29 explicitly states 'coming May 2017' for Paragon; Ghostbusters images and details provided in official announcement

  • ?

    product_strategy: Chris implementing significant 8-Ball Deluxe playfield upgrades (new rubber, waxing, post replacement, lamp drivers) to bring machine closer to factory-fresh condition for testing against Pinball Arcade

    high · Chris ordered rubber, pop bumper caps, replay coil, knocker coil, and planned complete playfield depopulation and waxing; waiting on lamp driver chip from eBay China

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Arcade exhibits uncanny valley physics behavior where ball movement violates real-world mechanics, breaking immersion and making simulation feel inauthentic compared to physical machines

    high · Chris and Jared describe multiple instances of impossible ball trajectories (ball rocketing up in-lane with excess force, floaty slow movements) that never occur on real 8-Ball Deluxe

  • ?

    technology_signal: Nick's diagnostic approach (grounding behavior testing under power) identified capacitor failure despite misleading symptoms, demonstrating advanced troubleshooting methodology

    high · Technician's systematic power testing revealed capacitor was insufficient to maintain boot state; capacitor replacement immediately resolved issue

    • 2:29
    So they have somebody completely take over remotely a whole slew of cars. Remotely? Remotely, and drive them. So basically they're claiming any of these cars that has computer startup and maybe driver assist can be gone full bore into just remote control driving autonomously. Oh, yeah. And that bugs me to no end because I'm sorry, the majority of cars out there, you can't self-drive them. I don't buy it. I don't believe that a car can steer on its own, accelerate on its own, all through a remote patch. They're not meant that way. Now, if you're talking about a Tesla, yes, absolutely, I would believe that because it can drive autonomously.
    3:24
    It's one of those they threw out some bit of gobbledygook tech speak of any car that has such and such, we can hack into and drive. But then you're looking at the cars they're driving, and you're like, well, that just looks like a whole bunch of normal. I see a lot of Priuses, sure, but I don't think even a Prius you can remote control drive and take over the steering wheel on and stuff like that. And then on top of that, you're talking about 100 cars at a time in New York driving down the street, and they're able to steer them all. And how are they watching where they're going? Where's that video feed coming from autonomously?
    4:01
    Satellite feed, apparently. which is it and here's here's the other part right and here's the other part that gets me is you know so they do the high-tech you know computer grid you know they've got the the gps or whatever right and it's showing little dandy version you know models of the cars but they're like rendered models i'm like you know what if you had to just put a triangle i would have believed that but the fact that you like have it going oh there's the dog challenger and oh there's the you and all the this and there's the that. I'm like, that drives me bonkers. I haven't seen that on Google Maps recently. I haven't seen a ranger of my scooter scooting down the road, guys. And the thing that drives me bonkers about that is, although right now you can maybe believe it, maybe. Like I said, I'm not. But in my younger self, I probably could have gone, oh, yeah, okay. Flash forward to six years from now, and you're watching the movie, and you'll just laugh. You'll be like, what a load of crap that was.
    5:00
    That's the kind of thing that completely dates a movie. For instance, I remember the first time this ever happened to me, and it was quite a few years later, but I watched Star Trek IV.
    5:14
    The pre-Ibram Star Trek. Yes, this is the movie that cemented the idea that only the even number of Star Treks are good. This was the one where the Enterprise saves the whale.
    5:29
    Oh, that. But anyway, they were using a Mac SE or an old-school Macintosh, and they were, I don't know what they were doing, but typing really fast. And all they were doing was this program called HyperCards, and the HyperCards were going flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. They weren't programming any of these things in. This is pre-internet.
    5:49
    It was one of those things where at the time when you watched the movie, You went, oh, okay, because I had no clue about computers. But then a couple of years later, after I had that very Macintosh in my college dorm room, and I'm watching the movie, and I'm going, what kind of crap is this? That's complete bull. None of that works. You just went, stand back. I'm about to code. You started flipping those hard to cards like a monster. Look at me. Mom, I'm coding.
    6:15
    Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So anyway, it's a cardinal sin with me. It's right up there with security cameras that pan and boom or cut. Oh, yeah. You know, those just drive me nuts also. So I was not pleased with that aspect of the movie. But like I said, the rest of the movie is entertaining.
    6:35
    We've got two tickets to go to that. Well, we actually, Kim, my wife, entered a competition not for us but for my sister-in-law, who's a massive, massive Vin Diesel fan and huge fan of the Fast franchise. but she's going she turned out she was going to gold class so she won't be using them so I guess we're going to have to find time to go and use them up like I said it's fun there's no doubt about it and it's big and bombastic and well worth seeing on the big screen but make sure you put your implausibility goggles on before you go in because you're going to see a lot of that in a movie well you're definitely going to see a lot of that you're going to now part of that goes back to the movie where they had the world's longest runway as they were traveling 80 miles an hour with the airplane that was on the runway for, I think, five minutes of the movie, and basically somebody timed it out that it had to have been like an eight-mile-long runway.
    7:33
    There's a little bit more of that when they do a whole sequence with a Russian nuclear sub, and you go, boy, that submarine's fast.
    7:44
    Do you mean the one where they're coming up underneath the ice? I've seen it on the ads. Yes, you see it in the ads. But when your vehicles are going full tilt boogie down ice,
    7:54
    and the sub is keeping pace. Yeah. Impossibility goggles. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the franchise has probably reached that point, which is they've done so many ridiculous, stupid stunts that now they're just going into the well, what's completely impossible world of stunts.
    8:22
    Because they're going to be bigger and better than the previous one. And my thought is, well, no, because now you're reaching into the make-believe bag and I don't care for that.
    8:32
    I think the thing about the Fast franchise was it was plausible enough that you go, okay, these are practical stunts with vehicles and technically speaking, if you were nuts enough, you could do it.
    8:46
    Well, that's the other thing that drives me. I was really, like the first two movies relied heavily on CG cars.
    8:54
    Yeah. And the third movie, they went back to real cars for the most part. And then the fourth movie, they really embraced and started just doing regular carnage with actual vehicles. But again, going back to the sequence of all the cars driving autonomously, we're back to CG cars. Oh, yeah. No, they didn't. How do you spot all the CG car stuff? You can tell by the physics of it driving. It just looks a little bit janky. It just doesn't look right. How it skids, how they ricochet off another vehicle,
    9:32
    knowing what precision driving is with other precision drivers and realizing that there's no way that that could possibly – it's too clean, you know, how they did the maneuvers or whatever. There's just little telltales like that. It's a little uncanny valley of AI – not AI – of special effects. Yes. It's kind of – hey, let's bring this into pinball. It's kind of like while playing TPA, and there's those moments where the ball just goes so blindingly fast or hits an angle that you go, how is that possible?
    10:11
    It doesn't happen often, but it happens enough to make sure that you're very much aware you're playing video pinball and not actual pinball. You're playing a simulation, not the real thing. Yes. Yeah, true. I have been noticing that. So with me playing A-Ball Deluxe at home, I decided I needed to knock off the wizard goals in TPA of Abel Deluxe.
    10:36
    So I've been playing a lot of that on TPA, and the physics model has never been more apparent for me.
    10:47
    Here's the thing that Farcsyte got right with Abel Deluxe. Yes, it is a drain monster. The outlanes are truly wicked, and so is the center drain. I mean, all three of them, they just, your ball is going in there a lot, and off of janky bounces off the slingshots. If the ball goes anywhere near the top of the slingshot, just, you're like, uh-oh. Yeah, danger.
    11:14
    On my table, if I've had so many balls go to go into the in-lane and basically rim out and go right back into the out-lane, where it looks like it's going to go perfectly and it just hits the metal, bounces over, hits the rubber, and that sends it right back over the top and out the... It happens so much. I think the game is really trying to teach me how to nudge because I'm not a nudger.
    11:41
    It's not strange. You have to nudge. You can't just sit there content and wait for it to go because it's... No, it's going to go down the out lane. Whereas on TPA, it's a little more forgiving in that aspect. If it goes in the in lane, it's going to stay in the in lane.
    11:58
    Yeah. I've only had a few times where it's rimmed out. But what doesn't happen on the real table that has been happening on TPA a lot is man, there are moments when that ball just like somebody kicked in the nitrous and it was like it blasts all over the place. TPA. Yes. I've had one where it bounced like I was flipping with my left flipper, flip too late so it shoots up the in lane on the right hand side, goes all the way up, bounces on the piece that's right there for the eight ball lane, ricochets up that, up the eight ball lane, hits the eight ball target, and then drops back down. And I'm like, there's not enough force. It is never going to happen. What usually happens in that instance, when I have had the ball go up the from the flipper and go all the way up the in lane is it goes out the in lane It just gets enough momentum to get up that high up the apex and then takes its momentum over just a little bit and drops back down with the spin Yeah. And, or in most cases, what would probably happen, it would probably just rattle around at the top of the, um, the in lane and then just roll back down again. In most cases. Yeah. It would never, it would never act like it had just been flipped all the way up the table. Um, like you were describing. I have a lot of shots where the ball is kind of just moseying around yeah just floaty floaty floaty you know it's taking a sweet time and going and that's not to say that the game becomes easier that way either like I said usually in those slow floaty moments I go uh oh here comes the drain because it's about to drain isn't it I'm telling you center drain city I get so many center drains from the pop bumpers oh yeah um and it's basically so you got the three pop bumpers you got the one on the lower and then two on the upper and it's when it hits the upper right into the i guess you'd call them slingshots up there it's kind of a half circle of slingshots on the right hand side um that the ball can bounce between yeah and that's when you're in trouble because it'll get one foul bounce on the pop bumper, hit those, and it's going to loop and go straight down the middle.
    14:32
    So yeah, it can be nasty. I think all those things you're calling slingshots up there are just the ones with little leaf switches on them, don't they? So they detect when they've been hit. They're passive slings, I guess.
    14:47
    But yeah, you're right. Those are interesting too. I've seen not necessarily in 8-ball, but in other games where a ball just gets stuck and slamming up against one of those rubbers and back onto the pop bumper, so it just racks up the points. I don't think it's actually... For a good five seconds, it's going...
    15:08
    Yeah, I love that. That's the great sound when it does that. Fantastic sound. Yeah. It's cool. so we'll have to see what happens once i put new rubber and uh wax the play field how it yeah i think that is going to be that will be the very interesting thing to see how it behaves after that because you've got to remember that in in tpa it's basically they try and emulate factory fresh so for you to do that on your eight ball you need to rebuild all the flippers you need to i don't need to rebuild the flippers they're strong are they are they good like there's no play in them or anything like that? There's no overling out of the linkages or anything like that? No. Okay, that's good. That's fine then. They're basically okay. Yeah. I know what a bad flipper feels like and these feel very fresh and fine.
    16:01
    Oh, good. That's excellent. That's unusual for a game of that age that doesn't usually get a lot of play.
    16:08
    These have what are called inline flippers. Yes. as opposed to what the Williams games did and then eventually Bally adopted also.
    16:21
    And I guess there's an issue. Remember when I said my flippers were sticking? Yeah. That was part of an inline issue. So I went and I cleaned all my coils and coil sleeves, and I haven't had that issue since.
    16:38
    So there is a difference in the feel of the flippers. Yeah, they behave differently. crank. A crank style like you see on the modern Stearns and all those sort of ones now. Or even, you know, like the Belly Williams of that era as well. Like a few years later past 8-ball deluxe where they moved from linear to crank and pull style for the assemblies. Yeah.
    17:07
    So, well, I did place an order to get... Oh, you did? Yeah, so I ordered up rubber, ordered up my new pop bumper caps since they're just, well, I'm missing one and the other two are hot glued gunned down onto the little skirt that's on there. So I ordered three more skirts too, just in case the other two were broken. I'm not sure what they are. Yeah, good idea. ordered up my replay coil the knocker coil and then I also found on eBay so the Nick from I'll give Nick shout out so Nick is from planetary planet nine pinball excuse me planet nine pinball in Vegas that's where it's based and he services the basically Long Beach, LA area, Orange County and Las Vegas. So Nick came out and was basically trying to figure out my sound issue.
    18:20
    And was poking around, poking around, poking around. You know what the end result wound up being, Jared?
    18:27
    Yeah. It was a capacitor. Yeah. Thought it would be. Which is like, when he said that, I was like, really? Damn. Now all these people are just going to be like, told you so.
    18:40
    Yep. The weird thing was, I mean, he checked the voltage on everything, you know, caps and everything, and everything was looking fine. And what was happening was he would ground to the cabinet, and all of a sudden we'd be getting sound. The second he moved the ground, we would lose sound. Or he would remove the ground and then power up the power, you know, repower up the machine and then we wouldn't have sound again. And so he first thought it was something to do with the grounding. And then he kind of went, well, maybe it's just that he identified which chip would be the responsible for it. And he's like, but the chip is good. He goes, maybe it's just not getting enough power to hold, like to boot up, you might say. And so that's when he changed out the capacitor. Exactly. So that's when he changed out the capacitor and boom, instance working. So that's an interesting part of troubleshooting though, isn't it? That's an interesting part of the way he found out that that's how it was. Cause you know, I would have thought if I managed to ground it out and got power and, and actually got the sound, I thought, Oh, it's definitely grounding issue. I've got problems with ground between the boards, but no, it was actually just the caps.
    19:54
    It was funny because he was like, he had momentarily said, he's like, I'm going to have to take the board with me and reflow some things. And he really didn't want to do that. And so that's when he was like, I'll just try this and change out the cap. And, yep, that did it.
    20:08
    Job's done. That worked. He wound up changing a resistor and one more cap on the motherboard. And then he was hoping that he had the correct chip for the lamp driver because I have those lamps that aren't working. Yeah. And he didn't have it, so I ordered one up on eBay from China. Yep. So I'm waiting for that to show up. And then the other thing that I ordered off of eBay was...
    20:41
    So the metal bell, standoff bells that I was talking about last time, I believe. When I was on the phone with Pinball Resource and I asked about the bells, he just pretty much went. Nope, you're not going to find those anywhere. Nobody's making them. They're not available. Okay. Right, and he's like, you have to salvage them off of something else. So I went, okay, fine. So I went to eBay. I typed in pinball plastics, and all of a sudden up popped this one from Bobby Orr Power Play, I think it is, or it's a hockey-themed ballet from 1980, I think, 79 or 80. but I went, Ooh, that's going to have the exact same bells that I need. Sure enough, there was this plastic piece that had eight bells on it. And I did the math for what, uh, Marco specialties was charging because they have the bells listed. They just say out of stock and they were charging two 50 a bell. And I added up what this person was asking on eBay. And I went, you know what? I'm getting a bargain.
    21:44
    Let's get it. I was like, cause I need for sure. I need two bells. Yeah. I wanted to have extras in case just for whatever reason.
    21:54
    But so now I have eight bells, and I just removed them this morning from the piece of plastic, and it was super easy, so much easier than I expected. All you do, it was interesting. All I did, and I got this from somebody on the pin side, was you just hold a lighter underneath the bell for about five seconds. Just enough to melt the plastic. Just enough. So basically, you're not even melting the plastic. You're warming up the bell is all you're doing. And then I took a pair of pliers and just kind of jiggle-wiggle it out, and boop, out it popped. There it comes. Then you just got to do the same thing when you put it back into your plastics. Yep. That's all, which I'm getting cut this week.
    22:34
    So that'll be taken care of. So once I get the plastics and the rubber, I'm very tempted to change out all of my colored finned posts because they're all faded blue and I want the regular blue but I'm kind of debating if I want to do that right now or not but anyway I'm going to strip the entire play field depopulate it wax the heck out of it are you going to try that Mylar restoration product that you were talking about last week? No you know what I'm not at the most I may and I don't even know if I need to I was going to say I may get some Novus 2 I don't own any of the Novus stuff but they said that that's mainly a cleaner which I have a can of Naptha that will also clean so I'm probably just going to use the Naptha and clean and then throw the wax down I've got this stuff I think I was talking a couple of episodes ago about what I use if I ever do clean pinballs and that is just like aerosol furniture polish. Yeah. We call it Mr. Sheen down here. I don't know if that brand carries over to the US, but it's just, yeah, I just get it from the supermarket. It's super cheap and it's basically a wax. It has like a waxy sort of residue that gets left on the furniture. It's great and it's cheap. Yeah, it was interesting. There was a debate that I started reading about whether or not to use mill wax.
    24:05
    All right. I guess mill wax has silicone in it, and therefore, once you put silicone on a table, good luck getting silicone off the table. Right. And so it's not doing what wax does, which is fills in the valleys and makes a flat surface. It's just acting as a lubricant. Okay. So it's not filling in any of the micro impressions on the table. It's just making them really, really slick for the ball. And somebody was saying that it's not the greatest stuff for mylar either, because if you get any underneath the mylar, you'll start peeling up the mylar. Oh, yeah, okay. That sounds good. So anyway, that's what's going to happen with that. There is news on my firepower, Jared. Oh, what have you been doing to that thing? Did I mention last time that I completely depopulated the underside? No, I did see it on Twitter, though, that you slid off the whole harness. Yeah. So, I took the play field to Lee. The one guy, Tim Moyer, had basically told me, hey, you know what? Save yourself the headache of, with clear coating, just depopulate the bottom. He saw the fear in my eyes. He said, don't worry about it. It comes off. All the wires all have a memory to them. Just slide everything over to a piece of cardboard.
    25:31
    Oh, okay. Sure, no problem. And so I went about unscrewing everything and then went about pulling the 142 staples that held in all of the ground cable, which was very difficult because it's all flush with the wood. So I took a little tiny brad and was having to nail, pound underneath to kind of pry up the staple and then grab my pliers and pull them out. Yeah that was a real treat Next up get staple removers And just go No I tried I tried that I couldn get a A because there so much cabling around you couldn't get a grip to get in there.
    26:20
    And then B, like I said, it was flush with the wood. There was no gouging into the wood to get it. And some of these, they were so close to wires, other wires, that you wouldn't have dared risk it anyway. Fair enough. so I then when I went to pick up the whole wire harness and transfer it over to the cardboard and in my mind I was like you know what I'll just do a clean slide over and then I'll screw the main harness into the cardboard and then everything will be peach keen right I went to go do the first slide and the whole thing just basically felt like spaghetti in your hands oh no what did I do this seems like a terrible terrible mistake so did you sort of go I'm doing this for the people who aren't watching the podcast at the moment. So you had like, this is your cardboard, this is your play field. You went like that and then just went... Somewhat like that, yes. I still had a couple of pieces. Almost like... Yeah, there were a couple of pieces that didn't want to go and then you kind of realized that, oh, I still have a staple here and then you pound that out and then you're kind of... Then you start to move and something hooks on something else and kind of folds under on itself. So it's living on a piece of cardboard now. I'm not worried about it. I'm not concerning myself with it. It's basically like a transplant, isn't it? It's like the organs are in an ice-filled bucket, and they're just waiting to be transferred back onto the playfield again.
    27:48
    So I did that. I wound up repainting the bottom of the playfield. It's now a nice bright gray. I went to Lowe's and was like, where's your cast-off paint? and they had a little container of cast-off paint for $1.25 that happened to be gray, and I went, I don't care if it's the same gray or not. This is what we're using. That looks about right.
    28:09
    I pulled off, literally pulled off everything, pulled off the little T-screws, and I just got a roller and did that. It's all peachy. Job's done. Job's done on that. They just need to get that same roller and just do it to the top of the play field. Top of the play field with a roller? What are you talking about? I'm just trolling and then just yesterday I went and purchased spray gun and mask and goggles and I'm going to try and clear this thing this week that's my goal this week I'm going to try and make it happen this week so I went on the pin side and resurrected my thread from three and a half years ago which was funny because Wow. Pinside doesn't let you do that. They basically go, this is a terribly old thread. Do you really want to do this? Oh, really? Yeah, and so in order to do it, I had to authorize myself or something like that. I don't know. It was weird. But it's done. That's the concept of archive threads, I guess, which is kind of good. It probably would be good to have that on Pimple Arcade fans in some respect. Yeah. Because then we wouldn't have to go back. I remember in my early days of being an enthusiastic mod, I used to go back through and close off threads and maintain them and do all that sort of thing. It's just too onerous to do.
    29:34
    So yeah, having it inactive and then having to physically make you think, yes, I do actually want to comment on this thread because it will add value. That's a good thing.
    29:43
    It is, because they were like, you sure you don't want to just start a new thread? Yeah. But I was like, I've got all the other information, and this is kind of, rather than start a new thread and go, I started this three and a half years ago.
    29:57
    Go look it up if you want to see the pictures from then. I was like, nah, screw it. I'd like it all in one thread. There you go.
    30:06
    That is my plan, though. I need to find out what PSI this clear coat sprays at. I need to do a test to make sure that my air compressor doesn't kick in mid-spray. because the recommended is to have a 30 gallon air compressor tank yeah right I have an 8 gallon air compressor tank which I think is going to be just enough to do one complete coating on the table without the air compressor kicking in yeah so we'll see I don't know that'll be another adventure on the pin side to find out what I'm doing but But yeah, follow me on Twitter at ShutYourTraps, and I've been posting photos of what I've been doing, so everybody would be able to see that. I've been having them have the Blockade account, at Blockade. I've also been retweeting. For those of you that don't want to follow me, want to follow Blockade, hey, I understand. Yeah.
    31:10
    Let's shift over to Farsight a little bit here. Okay. Talk about the newsletter that just came out today. and within the newsletter it mentions that yes Paragon is going to be the next table but specifically says we are proud to announce that we will be kicking off season 7 next month with the fan selected Paragon now yes the newsletter has come out here the 29th of April so I'm curious to know does that for sure guarantee that we're seeing Paragon at the end of May or is it one of those things that we may not see Paragon until June. I don't know.
    31:50
    I'm pretty confident that it will be May. If you have a look, directly under the flyer, it says coming May 2017 under the flyer of Belly Paragon. It's in small font.
    32:01
    Ah, yes, I did not see that originally. Yeah, so they do. I reckon it will be May, which would sort of keep in line with what they promised with the month of bug fixes for April. So, I'm pretty confident that we'll see it in May. They also have listed that Ghostbusters will be coming soon for Stern Pinball Arcade. They posted a couple of pictures, and I'm trying to figure out, does that look like the Pro model or the Premium model to you? That's LE. That is the LE. Premium or LE. It'll be Premium probably because it's got the subterranean ramp and it's got the crossover ramp, which isn't on the Pro because I know I've been playing it. Okay. So that's definitely the premium. Okay, good to know. Good to know. So that will be coming. I was going to say, for the record, that is what Steam Pinball is going to be doing. There won't be any pro models in the game. It will always be premium. It will always be premium, yep. Okay. Yeah. So there's that.
    33:05
    Currently, there is a head-to-head beta going on. If you want to be a part of that beta, There are ways that you can ask and get in on it. But I will say this. Pretty much every – it's been every Wednesday at 11 a.m. Pacific so far that they've been testing this. But it kind of shifts. Sometimes it's on Tuesday. Anyway, what people are doing, there is a website set up for discussing live on a headset. Everybody gets on a headset and then plays the beta of head-to-head. and that way and farsight's on there with us so that way if there's any bugs that are happening with there any problems you can immediately voice it and uh the the one guy steve was the one that's been dealing with it he would sometimes bust open the code right then and there and start making changes um whether because he was trying something out or go oh i know why that's happening and then you know tweaking it that way so the the important thing is though to have players there so if you've been invited to the beta, please do everything you can to be a part of it. If you want to be a part of the beta,
    34:17
    like I said, there's ways and there's people that you can ask. And then you can be a part of the beta and help out on Steam getting the head-to-head shaped up and going in the right direction because they've been doing a lot of work on that. So for those people who want in, but don't know how, should they contact you? well there is if you go to the tpa fans uh website the right there in the splash page with articles there is a mention of it and if you follow enough links in there you will find the code okay oh so there's actually a code you got to enter yes there's a beta code that you will have to enter um but those are the people those are the people that are responsible for handing out the beta. I made the mistake of tweeting out the beta code because I wanted a whole bunch of players and about 10 minutes later I got a message from Farsight going, can you please delete that tweet?
    35:15
    Okay. So they want people to test the beta, just not the whole internet. Exactly. Not the whole internet. Is the code that sort of thing that gives you more entitlements that you would normally have if you just went for a Steam beta? No, only good for the head-to-head. However, what it does is it opens up the, all of TPA that has, has this. And this is where I've been able to play the new, uh, tuning that's gone into the trigger and stuff, which isn't in the regular game yet. They have not implemented that into the regular game yet. So, so this is implemented into the regular beta steam channel. So this is like a third steam channel, right? Okay. But that's, that's the thing that's been going on. But, uh, within the newsletter though, they also brought up a whole bunch of other listings for bug fixes, the base of what they've been doing this past month. We're talking about like right off the bat, 17 new challenges for seasons two through six.
    36:15
    Added the reset high score button to the local high score screen. So, I mean, it's all manner of different fixes.
    36:22
    That's been mobile for a while, the reset high scores thing. And it's dangerous. Because you can accidentally hit it. and zero out your height scores for that table. It's good if you want to play random loading tables that don't exist.
    36:39
    Yeah, that's interesting. Replace several generic sounds used on older tables. We mentioned that a lot of the Season 1 and 2 tables are getting the majority of these fixes thrown in.
    36:53
    Now, on that point, the several generic sounds used on older tables, that is specifically relating to the farting saucer. Ah. So the Fighting Saucer is gone.
    37:06
    Finally. After six seasons or so, it is gone and banished and will never make its way back into the game again.
    37:14
    I'd love to hear the replacement. Yeah. Then just after the general bug fixes, there's 12 tables listed that they've done specific fixes to. And that's fixes on Al's Garage Band, Bone Busters, Cactus Canyon, Cactus Jack, Circus Voltaire. Genie, Haunted House, Slice Camera, Action, Medieval Madness, No Fear, Sword to Fury, and Twilight Zone. Yeah, there's a fair few tables that they've gone through, particularly that Circus Bulb tier we've talked about at length. Yes. And definitely Creature as well.
    37:46
    And there's more. There's going to be more. What's that? No, this Creature's not even listed on this one. So that's what I say. There is more tables that they're working on than what got posted in the newsletter. there is actually a click here for more information so I'm actually clicking here for more information which takes you from looks like a flat file that you can read through but yeah there's a lot more detail about the bug fixes in there so if you want you can click the link I might actually add it into the show notes so we can click it and you can see it well yeah it actually does have creature from the black lagoon it's probably the largest of all of the bug fixes um bug fix summaries here it's huge um including links to the new tuning um videos and stuff like that so um genie is another one that's got a heap of fixes um as well um one of those rob and i worked on directly about the flipper strength and retuning that sort of back and forward so that was a good one to get right because it's a lot I think it's a lot more realistic now it likes camera action geez what the DS 11 lighting issues and that were from the bug list pretty big yeah they really nailed that and yeah Twilight Zone is gonna be interesting now it got tuning and cameras and collisions being fixed So while those three points are actually seem pretty minor I pretty sure that going to be a massive change to how that game plays So yeah, that's going to be pretty good. Yeah, heaps of fixes. So you go and check out the link in the show notes, and I'll put it in there so you can read it all.
    39:32
    Or just look at the email that you got if you signed up for the newsletter. If you haven't signed up for the newsletter, then go correct that. Go on to Farsight's website. It's actually not Farsight's website. It's pinballarcade.com. Yeah. Go there and click on the little tab for newsletter, enter in your email, and then once a month you'll get the newsletter. They don't harass you, so it's not like you have to worry about them constantly barraging you with. Barrage themselves with the newsletter. Yeah, they're really good about that. Yeah. beyond that pinball wise not much going on is there? No not a great deal going on it's been quiet from Zen nothing from them I've still left the Ask Homework AMA thread open for now but it's probably going to be closed off shortly after I post the podcast this week there's not I'll say that I was expecting more questions than we've got in there at the moment. So there's not a huge amount of action on there.
    40:37
    So I wonder if that could mean two things. Everyone kind of knows what's going on or the interest level for it has actually dropped off a little bit now.
    40:48
    Or the other thing is that they may actually be getting all the answers to their questions through other means, like maybe the Steam forum is actually more active than I can see because I don't have a Steam account, so I don't know. So, yeah, for whatever reason, we will still send the questions over to Zolt and do a quick follow-up with him on the questions. But if you haven't yet done the survey or you've got some burning questions, go ahead and complete it. Links are in the show notes.
    41:18
    And we also wanted to just mention once again, May 20th, which is a Saturday in the Northern Hemisphere and a Sunday in the Southern Hemisphere. that is the date that we're going to be recording our 100th podcast episode and we would really love people to join us live while we record it and participate in the comment section while we're recording we've talked to a few people already that are going to be joining us live for that event and we're hoping to have some other surprises to go along with it, that's when we'll be doing the answers that we get from Zolt regarding the AMA homework questions and I believe we're working on having Farsight. It might wind up being a pre-taped segment but I'm not quite sure.
    42:06
    Like I said, we're trying to gather the forces and have it be a really awesome show. It'd be great for people to be able to listen live while we actually do that recording.
    42:17
    Yeah, for sure. Mark it on your calendar, folks. May 20th. I think that is it for me. yeah that's for me too I think alright so make sure you tune in next week and I'll hopefully have positive stories about clear coating and not horror stories otherwise there's going to be a picture of the bad clear coating and the jumble of cables right next to each other with me crying yeah my other things to talk about, you need to visit our website, which is blockadepinball.com. You need to drop us an email,
    43:02
    blahblahblockade at gmail.com. You need to follow Jared on Twitter, at Jared Morgz. You need to follow myself, at ShutYourTraps on Twitter. You most definitely need to follow the show, at Blockade. With that, we're going to say sayonara. Hey, go play some pinball. You know I am now. and yeah for real i think i need to i think it'd be only right if i actually had to go and buy a machine now it would be right yeah unfortunately as we've been talking offline you know even a junk horrible machine down here is like one and a half grand it'll flare but it's just terrible so yeah you know i i was looking at uh i just randomly typed in how to get good deals on pinball or whatever, and basically everybody's response was the same.
    43:51
    You save Craigslist for last. Yes. Or no, excuse me. You save eBay for last. Craigslist for second to last.
    44:00
    And you basically try and find local people. That's how you're going to get good prices. Actually, the dead, dead last, really dead last, is going to a retailer because they just jack up the price to high heaven. But this one, the $1,500 price tag was through a local seller here.
    44:22
    But I don't know. Really, having a look on eBay and all the other places you can find it, we have a thing called Gumtree over here, which is like Craigslist, really.
    44:35
    And just it makes you sad as a potential pinball owner, just looking at the prices for these tables. And the thing is that most of them now are done up and they're all restored and that's why they're really huge in price. Yeah, like even there's some old Wedgehead EMs that are going for one and a half.
    44:57
    So what do you do? Yeah. Like you've got to try and basically steal them from somebody's house, really. Yeah. That's the only way you can get one for a decent price here. When Nick was over, I was asking him about a Roller Games and how much that was going for. And he was saying he had one that was like sparkly brand new and was probably going to be about 22 for that one. Oh, yeah.
    45:34
    And then he goes, I forget how I mentioned, but I said that I was a Lawler fan, and he goes, oh, you like Ripley's? I go, I love Ripley's. He goes, I've got a home-use only Ripley's that's sitting in some old lady's house not getting any use for $3,200.
    45:56
    He was going, oh. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, It sounds tremendous. Too bad I can't act, but that sounds tremendous. The home use only sitting in some old lady's house. He goes, I don't understand these people that buy pinball and then don't play them.
    46:12
    Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. You must be going, you heard that, going, what do I have to sell? What can I sell to get the money for that? What's up with both of these pins? I can get that pin. Well, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, though, because I am finding myself... I've been playing Able Deluxe virtually daily. I kind of have a routine. I just go into the garage, I pump in 10 credits, and then I play two games at a time so that I can compare scores between the games. And when the 10 credits are up, I turn the machine off and I go back inside the house.
    46:50
    That's the best way to do it. And then there's some days where I get done with the 10 credits and I go, just one more game. and, you know, 10 games later.
    47:04
    Yep. Because then you start going, well, I just need to pass a million. That's what I need to do. I just need to pass a million. I need a good game, you know.
    47:15
    Oh, man, I had that sort of similar thing when I went back to Netherworld the other day. I thought, I want, I actually got, I'll just reach over to my table and for those people who aren't on the podcast at the moment, which is everybody, I will show you the little dude that I got it's a bit dark yeah it's basically the robot from Twilight Zone okay Robbie the robot yeah well that dude the dude who shoots the match at the end basically so I got that for getting 250 million on the game after I fixed it last week and Ghostbusters has a Slimer pin that looks exactly like that and it looks really good, but you've got to get $250 million on Ghostbusters Pro. And I did that in the first week. I actually got $450 million in the first tournament week, the very first time ever I played the game. And I thought, well, that's really good. I have to go and see if I can do it again so I can get a pin for it. Do you think I've been able to do it? Nope. Nah. I'm flat out getting $20 million on the bloody thing. So it's just been driving me insane. So I went there for a beer and lunch with a couple of guys I knew and pumped a good 10 credits into the machine. I felt like that. And it was so frustrating. I can totally get the, just one more game. I've got this. Hold my beer. I've got this this time. Well, and I was able to set, you know, as the operator of the pen, I can set what the replay values are and all that jazz. So I set the replay value at 1.5 million and then a second replay at 2.5 million. And then my high score to date, which had gotten erased, but I just typed it in as 2.3 million. And I really want to get that high score to date again. And the other day I missed it by 300 points.
    49:18
    I was so bummed. I was like, oh, it's right there, right there. That's the beauty, though, of that era of pinball machine for replay value, though, isn't it? Because while they're so simple,
    49:33
    there's something about them, they draw you in for that just one more game. Because of their simplicity and because of what you know you need to do on the game, it's a mind battle. Because you go, I know that if I do this, this, and this, I'll be able to get that score. but if for whatever reason you're just not able to do it drives you insane and you have to have another game yep yeah it's great that's what it is yeah alright folks we're going to leave now okay thanks bye wizardamusement.com the west coast leader in classic pinball makers of custom pinball shooter rods and buyer specifications. Swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table. Installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools. Even if you don't own a table, looks great as a pimple memento to admire. Prices start at $39, but mention Blockade Podcast and receive 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com Sales, restoration, customization.
    50:43
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that BlogPay is delivered to. We can't approve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and place it in board.
    50:58
    And then there's the little issue of my son, who has discovered how to post to YouTube, and he has been making videos with some of his toys. And hey, buddy, what's your channel called? What do they look up? Mason Freebus. Just look up Mason Freebus on YouTube.
    51:22
    Yeah, it's the same last name as me. Go figure. And you'll see a bunch of his videos and I'll warn you they can cause nausea because they're shaky cam.
    51:37
    And also join my Clash Royale clan. Oh yeah, and he also wants you to join his Clash Royale clan, anybody that's playing. He is the Hungry Sharks. is the name of his clan.
    51:49
    That's with a Z, not with an S. So he's trying to build up his clan. I was in his clan and then I left his clan because I had to. That's right.
    52:01
    Yeah. Alright. That gets him out of my hair for right now because he's been bugging me the entire podcast holding up messages saying, please, please announce this. So there you go. be kind to an 11 year old won't you folks yeah