Mustang

Stern Pinball, 2014 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

Open Mustang in the Pinball Genie app →

Mustang runs on two tracks at once. The gear ladder decides which multiball you get and what your super jackpot is worth. The six modes decide whether you see the game's deep end. Neither feeds the other, and most players spend a whole game on one without realising the other exists.

Start with the skill shot

Hold the left flipper in before you launch. Three lamps in front of the gears targets sweep back and forth — GE, A and RS — and hitting the A while its lamp is lit advances you two gears in one shot, though it will not carry you past gear four. GE and RS each pay a million, and the scoop pays two.

The real skill is arriving at a stationary ball, because any significant shot beforehand cancels it. Plunge somewhere you can control: softly, so it traps on the right flipper, or hard enough to catch it live on the left or pass it across the loop. Which works depends on your machine.

Climbing the gears

You start in first gear, and each completed set of drop targets shifts you up one. Gears five and six add a timing requirement on top.

• Gears two to four — just clear the drop bank.
• Gear five — clear all the drops, then hit one of the two standups behind them inside five seconds.
• Gear six — clear the drops, hit one standup inside five seconds, then the other within another five.
• The super jackpot is the sum of the gears you have climbed: gear four pays ten million, gear six normally pays twenty-one, but the very first gear six super is boosted to fifty million.
• Once a gear's multiball has been played it is gone. Start in third and your next has to be four, five or six; start in sixth and you have to come back down.

That first super jackpot has a generous timer, and the right thing to do with it is not to shoot the super. Go and arm the N2O boost first. Double scoring on a fifty million super is the biggest single swing available to you.

The six modes

Modes are selected and started at the scoop, and there are two thresholds worth knowing. Merely starting all six prepares Drift; lighting all six solid — actually finishing them — prepares Silverball Stampede.

• Cruisin' — the only mode needing two starts. The first pass wants every shot once, and taking them strictly left to right doubles each. The second wants the first four in order, then a roving light caught four times, faster each time.
• Road Course — the first four of six lit shots advance you, then the two you skipped become the only ones that count, needing four more hits between them before the scoop ends the race.
• Police Pursuit — cheapest of the top row at eight shots. Alternate sides for yellow light, any of four for red light, then right orbit twice and left ramp twice.
• Stunt Driver — gears target, left ramp, then left ramp or right orbit, then anything on the right.
• Drag Race — five standup hits pushes you to gear six and starts a multiball, completing only once you are back to single-ball play.
• Rally Race — left, right, right, then a shortcut lights at the left ramp. Hit it and you save two shots; miss it and the captive ball becomes mandatory.

Two very different multiballs

Burnout Multiball is qualified by four hits on the captive ball, or handed to you by a Mystery Ford award after finishing one of the top three modes. It opens with three 200,000 jackpots — left ramp, captive ball, right orbit — and one lights the main jackpot at the captive ball for ten million. While you are spelling BURNOUT the left ramp diverts to the cup instead of returning to the flipper. Once the word is done the ramp feeds the flipper again, setting up a twenty million combo into the captive ball. A set number of bumper hits restarts the sequence, adding twenty million to the combo jackpot and five to the regular one each time.

Mustang Multiball is spelled out from completed modes and Mystery Ford awards, and it waits at the scoop until you want it. Four balls, every major yellow arrow lit. Collecting one shot switches all the others off and lights the shot you just made for a double jackpot; taking that double relights everything except that shot. The rhythm is new shot, same shot, new shot, same shot.

The scoring nobody expects

The three RPM standups down the right side are the most lopsided thing on the playfield. Complete them and every hit to that bank is worth two million — four with N2O running. That beats the drag race super jackpot, and it runs on a long timer you can restart by hitting the bank again. Watch the lamps: all three flash, then two, then one, then it is gone.

Two more things are easy to forget. Completing the bottom lanes and then shooting the scoop adds a ball to any multiball — set that up before you start one. And the Upgrades are a separate track: complete them once for Upgrade Scoring, twice for Upgrade Multiball. Everything funnels through that one scoop, so when awards queue up there, clear the cheapest first.

Goals in Mustang

Every goal below is tracked step-by-step, with shot paths drawn on the playfield map, inside the app.

• Super Skill Shot skillshot · Medium

  Hold the left flipper in before you launch. Three lamps in front of the gears targets sweep back and forth — GE, A and RS. Landing the A while its lamp is lit advances you two gears at once, though it will not carry you past gear four.

  Reward: 1M for GE or RS, 2M at the scoop, or two gears

• Gear Shift Multiball multiball · Medium

  You start in first gear and every completed set of drop targets shifts you up one. Each gear has its own multiball, and once you have played a gear's multiball you can never play that one again — so the gear you start in matters.

  Reward: A different multiball at every gear

• The Gear Super Jackpot multiplier · Hard

  The super jackpot value is the sum of every gear up to the one you are in, which is why gear six is worth chasing. Gear four pays ten million; gear six normally pays twenty-one, but the very first gear six super is boosted to fifty.

  Reward: 10M at gear four, 50M for the first gear six super

• Cruisin' mode · Medium

  The only mode that takes two visits to finish. The first pass wants every shot once, and taking them left to right doubles each one. The second pass wants the first four in strict order and then a roving light that speeds up each time you catch it.

  Reward: Doubled shots for going left to right

• Road Course mode · Medium

  A timed race across six lit shots — all the N2O targets, the left ramp, the captive ball and the right orbit. The first four you make advance your position, and then the two you did not use become the only shots that count.

  Reward: First place at the scoop

• Police Pursuit mode · Easy

  The least demanding of the top row by a distance. Six shots light, three on each side, and you have to alternate sides to reach yellow light. Then four shots light for red light, and then it becomes a straight chase.

  Reward: Mode lit solid in eight shots

• Stunt Driver mode · Medium

  A loosely timed mode with a short shot sequence. Take the shots in order and it is over quickly; miss the order and you end up doing repeated takes to get through it.

  Reward: Fast completion for a clean sequence

• Drag Race mode · Medium

  The mode that doubles as a gear ladder. Five hits on the standup targets pushes you up to gear six and starts the drag race multiball, and the mode is only marked complete once you are back down to a single ball.

  Reward: Gear six and a multiball

• Rally Race mode · Medium

  Left side, right side, right side again, and then the mode hands you a shortcut at the left ramp. Take the shortcut and you finish two shots sooner; miss it and you are forced through the captive ball first.

  Reward: A shorter route for hitting the shortcut

• Starting and Finishing All Six progression · Hard

  There are two separate thresholds here and it is worth knowing the difference. Merely starting all six modes prepares Drift at the scoop; actually lighting all six solid — which means finishing them — prepares Silverball Stampede.

  Reward: Drift, then Silverball Stampede

• Burnout Multiball multiball · Medium

  Qualified by four hits on the captive ball. It opens with three 200,000 jackpots at the left ramp, captive ball and right orbit, and one of them lights the main jackpot at the captive ball for ten million.

  Reward: 10M main jackpot, 20M and up on combos

• Mustang Multiball multiball · Hard

  Spell MUSTANG from completed modes and Mystery Ford awards to light the scoop, then start it whenever single-ball play suits you. Four balls, and every major yellow arrow shot is lit for a jackpot.

  Reward: Alternating jackpots and double jackpots

• RPM Scoring multiplier · Medium

  The most lopsided scoring on the machine. Complete the three right-side standups and every hit to that bank becomes worth two million — four million with N2O running — which outscores most of the multiballs outright.

  Reward: 2M per target, 4M with N2O

• N2O Double Scoring multiplier · Easy

  The far left N2O target arms a double-scoring boost. It is the cheapest multiplier in the game and the habit worth building is simple: before any big collect, check whether N2O is ready.

  Reward: Double scoring

• Drift wizard · Hard

  Prepared at the scoop once you have started all six modes. It is a single-ball round with a long ball save: hit lit shots to build style points, then cash the total at the left ramp. Every shot you hit goes dark and relights when you collect.

  Reward: Style points collected at the left ramp

• Silverball Stampede wizard · Hard

  The deepest thing on the machine. Lighting all six modes solid — genuinely finishing them, not just starting them — prepares Silverball Stampede at the scoop. Getting there is the achievement; almost nobody sees it on location.

  Reward: The final scoop award

• The Upgrades progression · Hard

  A separate track from the modes. Completing all of the playfield Upgrades once lights the scoop for Upgrade Scoring, and completing them a second time lights it for Upgrade Multiball.

  Reward: Upgrade Scoring, then Upgrade Multiball

• Mystery Ford Awards secret · Medium

  Finishing one of the top three modes can hand you a Mystery Ford award. It is the game's shortcut currency — it can qualify Burnout Multiball outright and it spells letters in MUSTANG toward the four-ball multiball.

  Reward: Qualified Burnout, MUSTANG letters

• Multiball Add-A-Ball strategy · Easy

  Simple and easy to forget in the middle of a multiball. Complete the bottom lanes, then shoot the scoop, and you get another ball. Worth setting up before you start a multiball rather than during one.

  Reward: One more ball in play