Stellar Airship

This is a somewhat rare (200 units made) variation of Eight Ball. Like Eight Ball, most points will come from bonus and the spinner, with some added by the candy cane shot (right orbit). Bonus is 3000 per letter completed: four at the top lanes, two from stand-up targets left and right, one from the return lane on the right. You can’t get the return lane letter by skill, you’ll just have to hope the ball drops into it instead of the outlane somewhere along the way. Completing all 8 letters lights the 24000 base bonus light (base bonus carries over from ball to ball) and lets you start to complete another set of letters.

Skill Shot for ball one is the far right lane, hoping to have the rebound either hit the pad to light the kickback or go clockwise around the candy cane. After that, the Skill Shot is whichever letter you still need, unless you have all four, in which case get whichever of the center lanes is lit for a multiplier progress advance.

There are three priority shots on this game. First is the stand-up target in the upper right in front of the candy cane; this lights the kickback at the bottom left and the spinner. Unlike Eight Ball, the target here is a small stand-up target, not a large pad, making it much harder to hit. You’re very unlikely to be able to hit it via a backhand from the right flipper, and it’s a tight shot from the left one. In tournament settings, the kickback is usually NOT lit at the start of the game, making it that much more important to hit it a.s.a.p. You can often score it with a counterclockwise candy cane shot from the left flipper where the ball hits the top right bumper as it comes out of the candy cane and rebounds into the target. Important: when the ball is saved by the kickback, it turns off both the kickback and the spinner\! You must hit the target again to relight them, which takes precedence over other goals.

Second priority is the star rollover at the of the candy cane and right of the top lanes. That's your bonus multiplier advance. The first two hits just advance the score value of candy cane shots, the 3rd, 4th and 5th advance the multiplier to 2X, 3X and 5X, after that it's EB and then it stays at 5000 points.

Third priority, once your bonus multiplier is maxed and the kickback and spinner are lit, is the spinner on the left, for both the points and to go back up top to collect more letters.

Final priority is to complete the set of letters to advance to another set and increase your base bonus. Like many other games of this era, completing a set of something gives you a locked-in base bonus for future balls in play and allows you to start building more bonus. Bonus in this case is 3000 per letter, times bonus multiplier. A complete set of eight letters gives you 24000 base bonus, and you can then add more letters in a second set. I place finishing sets as the lowest priority since you can't collect the return lane letter by normal skillful play; you have to get the ball to go into the right side return lane rather than the outlane. It can't be reliably shatzed, and any kind of bank shot to try to get the ball over to that area has a high risk of draining. Just hope it happens on its own.

Once you have the seven base letters, hit the stand up target to complete the set. You cannot collect the set until you have finished the first seven letters.

Completing the top four lanes will light one of the 2 center lanes for a candy cane advance.

The rare configuration of kickback/outlane only on the left and the broad, flatter-angled-than-typical slingshot on the left side make ball control on this game unique. Plan on making lots of little nudges to keep the ball out of the outlane and get it to settle onto the left flipper.