Buck Rogers

Quickie Version:

First, hit the top center captive ball Hard until you light Return To Base. Next, shoot the yellow drop targets on the left until your bonus multiplier is at 5X. Now go UTAD on the left until your bonus collect saucer in the upper right corner is lit. Shoot the saucer, then resume left side UTAD.

Go-to Flipper:

Right unless Collect Bonus saucer is lit

Risk Index:

High

Skillshot(s):

Ideally, whichever of the “C” and “U” lanes balls shot up top through the left orbit tend to not drop into. You can get “B” and “K” via the return lanes, so you’re better off not wasting a plunge on them.

Full Rules:

The yellow drop target bank on the left scores 5000 when completed and increases your bonus multiplier from 1X up to 2X, 3X, 4X and 5X. BUT you have to hit the captive ball until you reach Return to Base in order to light the yellow drop targets to do that. The captive ball can be hard to score if the flippers are weak or the game’s slope is wrong; you may have to adjust your technique accordingly. Once the base bonus is at 20K, the upper right saucer lights for bonus collect. You don’t want to do that unless you have a decent multiplier, though, since it wipes clean the bonus value [back to your starting 1K] when scored. Wait for 4X or 5X. Collect bonus does not remove your multiplier; if you have 5X lit, it stays lit for the remainder of the ball. You can thus collect a potential 100K several times in one ball even before your end of ball bonus. The upper left bullseye target can’t be shot directly, but since it’s worth 3000 points and a bonus advance, try to nudge any balls going through the “B” lane into bouncing off of the bumper and into that standup target. Ignore the right side red drop targets completely. Key Feeds: out of the right side EB-when-lit lane, should go to the left flipper. And when hitting the captive ball, try to hit it just barely off center: you want to hit it hard enough to make the captive ball push the pad behind it all the way up, but you also don’t want the pinball’s rebound to go SDTM. If your machine still has the center post in, with rubber on it, this is less of a risk If by some chance the captive ball is easy to hit all the way back and the rebounds don’t drain, an alternate strategy is just shoot the captive ball all day and take whatever targets you happen to get along the way. Bonus is important here, but the even more important raising your bonus multiplier is a two-stage process. Base bonus is advanced by all lanes, targets and the saucer. For the multiplier, first you need to hit the captive ball hard enough to score the “return to base.” The fewer shots you take, the sooner stage 2 starts. In stage 2, you need to complete pairs of the now-lit yellow drop targets on the left side. Each pair increases your bonus X by one up to 5X. The captive ball target scoring is tiered: getting it in one hit scores 10K and also lights the saucer for 5K; two hits scores 5K; three hits scores 3K, but only lights the left two yellow drop targets. I prefer to shoot at the captive ball from the right flipper since shots from the left that miss are more likely to graze the drop target block just left of center. Multipliers, base bonus, bonus X and yellow targets all reset each ball. The B-U-C-K letters at the top are linked to specials and can be ignored for scoring purposes. Completing the red drop target bank scores 10K. The Collect Bonus saucer lights when base bonus is maxed at 20K. You can just barely shoot it with the left flipper, but you want to avoid it until you have a good multiplier, say at least 3X, since the base bonus resets after collecting. The bonus multiplier is held for the remainder of the ball. I’ve found another way to hit the collect bonus is to shoot up top from the right flipper, nudge the ball into the “K” lane, then nudge its bounce off the right bumper to the saucer. If you’re ready to collect with the ball on the right flipper and are unable to tap pass it to the left flipper, or if the left flipper shot won’t go in cleanly, try that. I’ve seen the bonus collect only work once per ball in play, too; that may be a setting. There’s normally a center post between the flippers. Look to see if it’s there, and if it is, use it!