Plunge hard to go past the 4-5-6 lanes to the upper playfield, but not so hard that the ball screams down through both sets of flippers. Stay in the upper playfield and complete the drop targets as many times as you can. If/when the ball drains to the lower flippers, go back to the upper playfield for more drop targets if the lower left flipper can backhand the ball back to the upper playfield; otherwise, try to lock balls at the saucers and stay in multiball as long as possible, since you get 1,000 points in end of ball bonus for each second you were in multiball on that ball.
4-5-6 are the game's top lanes in the upper right. 1-2-3 arw a set of three standup targets at the left side of the upper playfield. Hit an unlit target or lane to light it. Lane change will rotate the positions of the lights above the 4-5-6 lanes only, and only with the right flipper. The 1 and 4 advance the left bonus; the 3 and 6 advance the right bonus; the 2 and 5 advance both bonuses. Completing 1-2-3 OR 4-5-6 lights one of the three bumpers for 1,000 points instead of 100 for the rest of the ball. Lighting the second bumper also lights the spinner in the top left of the upper playfield for 1,000 points per spin. Progress on the current set of 1-2-3 and 4-5-6 is held from ball to ball, but lit spinners and bumpers cannot be carried forward once the ball drains.
Lighting the spinner early in a ball is a good idea, and can be done from the upper playfield where you're likely to stick around for the drop targets anyway. If you light the spinner then lock a ball, plunge as hard as you can to get points from the lit spinner off of the plunge that follows the lock.
Each target down scores 2,000 points. Hitting all 6 targets scores and advances the currently lit value on the upper playfield: 10,000 - 20,000 - 30,000 - 50,000 - special. Collecting the special resets the value back to 10,000. Stay here and collect targets for as long as you can, since they're quite lucrative and the upper playfield is generally a much safer place to be than the lower playfield. The value of these drop targets is preserved from ball to ball on default settings.
There are two saucers on the left and right sides of the playfield at the end of very thin lanes. They are always lit for a lock, but require a precise shot or they are a high drain risk. Locking a ball in either saucer collects the bonus on that side of the table only (left or right) and resets the bonus on that side only back to 1,000. Locking a ball in both saucers instantly starts 2-ball multiball and increases the bonus multiplier. Locks can be stolen in a multiplayer game, but locked balls are kicked out when a game ends.
The goal of multiball is just to stay in multiball as long as possible. During multiball, the ball in play window on the backglass instead acts as a stopwatch for how long you have spent in multiball on the current ball, and the number of the ball in play will be shown in the ones position of all 4 players' scores. If no switches are hit anywhere in the game for 3 seconds, the stopwatch will pause, so you can't cheese the timer by trapping both balls up on the flippers. If multiball is played twice in the same ball, the timers will be added across them. Reaching 15 seconds of multiball lights the right orbit for 50,000 points. Reaching 35 seconds of multiball also lights the right orbit for an extra ball. Reaching 50 seconds of multiball also lights the right orbit for a special. All right orbit awards will stay lit until collected, even across balls. When the turn ends, you receive 1,000 points of end of ball bonus for each second in the timer. Up to 99 seconds of multiball can be counted. Completing the lower playfield drop targets during multiball lights the out lanes; draining down an out lane will double the multiball timer bonus you receive for that ball.
Each target down scores 2,000 points. All targets down increases the bonus multiplier in the sequence 2x-3x-5x.
Scorpion has a conventional in/out lane setup but with 2 in lanes instead of 1 on each side. All in lanes score 1,000 points. The far left and near right in lanes advance the left bonus. The near left and far right in lanes advance the right bonus. Out lanes score 5,000 points and can be lit to double the multiball bonus by completing the lower playfield drop targets during multiball.
There are three bonuses: left, right, and multiball. Left bonus is increased by the 1, 2, 4, and 5 numbers, and the far left and near right in lanes; it maxes at 10,000 points. Right bonus is increased by 2, 3, 5, 6 numbers and the near left and far right in lanes, also maxing at 10,000 points. Left and right bonus are the only ones affected by bonus multiplier, which is increased by completing the lower playfield drop targets or starting a multiball. Left or right bonus can be collected without multiplier mid-ball by locking a ball in the respective saucer; doing so resets that bonus to 1,000 points. Multiball bonus is equal to 1,000 points per second spent playing multiball on that ball; this can be doubled to 2,000 per second by completing the lower playfield drop targets during multiball and then draining down a lit out lane. No base bonus can be carried between balls. Bonus multiplier can only be carried if it has not been maxed out at 5x.
In competition/novelty settings, specials award 50,000 points. Extra balls cannot be assigned a point value.
The upper playfield drop target value can be set to return to the base value of 10,000 after each ball.
5x bonus multiplier cannot be held from ball to ball. A setting determines whether it will reset to 3x or all the way down to 1x.
The amount of multiball time needed to qualify the right orbit awards can be individually set to 1-99 seconds for each, or the awards can be independently disabled. Default is 15 seconds for 50,000, 35 seconds for extra ball, 50 seconds for special.
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