Dark Rider

This is a retheme of Bally’s 1979 Star Trek with different art for the playfield and backglass. About 150 of these conversion kits were made, so it’s fairly rare.

Base bonus goes up to 29K. Completing the drop targets scores 5K and raises your bonus multiplier to 2X, then 3X for an overall max bonus of 87K. Besides helping raise your bonus X, shots at the drops rebound towards the top saucer and might lead to getting more letters in RIDER [below]. The right side “warp speed” chute is your bonus collect lane and returns the ball to the plunger. Shoot this whenever your bonus is good.

Completing the RIDER letters scores the current value and raises it to the next value: 10K, 25K, 50K, Special. [Specials might be set to be worth 50K.] Besides the two top lanes and the lower stand-up targets, the top saucer scores the lit letter; which one is lit cycles on bumper hits. Completed and partial sets of RIDER letters are preserved from ball to ball.

The two star rollovers at the upper left and the two return lanes score and raise the top left “hyperspace” value up to 10K. Ignore this until you’ve got your bonus at 3X, then ignore the drop targets and shoot this instead.

If you’re good at tight ball transfers via shaztzing or tap passing, transfer right to left to set up the chute shot, especially once you have 2X or 3X bonus.