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Starship Troopers

Sega Pinball, 1997 — shot-by-shot rules and strategy guide.

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Starship Troopers gives you a war and a scoreboard, and they pull in opposite directions. Six planets have to be cleared of bugs one at a time, but bugs can only be killed in single-ball play — so every long multiball is time spent not winning the war. Learning where those two demands meet is what separates a decent game here from a huge one.

The extra flipper

Before anything else: there is a third flipper, small, above and right of the standard right one, on its own button underneath the normal one. Most players ignore it for their first several games, and that is a mistake twice over. A bug standup hit with the mini flipper counts as two kills, roughly halving the work of clearing a planet. It is also your control flipper — it drop-catches Recon scoop kickouts and bleeds the speed off anything arriving down the right inlane. And it is the only realistic route to the Arm Nukes hole: cradle on the right flipper, hold it up, flick the mini flipper.

The bug war

Four species, four colours: yellow Warriors, green Hoppers, blue Plasma Bugs, red Tankers. Shoot any flashing standup of the matching colour. Displays above the flippers count what is left on the planet you are attacking, and the lit standups thin out as you work through them.

Clear a planet and the Brain Bug rises in front of the right ramp. Each hit is a million, and the required number of hits climbs every time — one, then two, then three. It is timed. Later on, cradling the ball and letting it escape is often the smarter play, because you unlock the next stage either way.

Advance, or nuke

With the Brain Bug gone, two shots light and stay lit until you use one: the Recon scoop advances you to the next planet, the Arm Nukes hole starts Planet Multiball. A 5M hurry-up runs alongside, collected by either. Advance whenever you can — Planet Multiball nukes every flashing planet at once, and the scaling is enormous. One planet is a 1M Nuke, a 10M Super Nuke and two balls; five planets is a 12M Nuke, a 120M Super Nuke and four balls. Making the five Nuke shots (both loops, both ramps, the scoop) lights the Super at the Warrior, and collecting it relights everything.

The other two multiballs

Regular Multiball is at the Warrior — a standup that walks backwards as you hit it, revealing a sinkhole. Four hits the first time, six the second. It is a four-ball with both ramps lit for jackpots starting at 3M. Every unlit bug standup you hit raises that toward a 4M ceiling, and lighting all of them awards an extra ball, so bash the standups before you start collecting. Five jackpots lights a 15M Super Jackpot for sixteen seconds, then the cycle repeats. If you finish without collecting a single jackpot, you get fifteen-odd seconds to get back in the sinkhole for a two-ball restart.

Orbit Multiball costs six loop shots and — unusually — that number never increases. The inlanes cross-light the loops for about five seconds each; three lit loops spell ONE and a magnet drops the ball in the lock, three more spell TWO and start it. A lit loop stays lit after you hit it, so three down the same side in a row is entirely legal. Both loops pay 5M throughout, and the first two loop shots each add a ball.

Recon Levels

Ramps raise your Recon Level, the scoop cashes it in, and there are six. Level one gives a 1M bounty or the Psychic Test video mode; level three brings Double Scoring and Multiball Ready; level four brings the Ramp Hurry-up and Nuke Chase. Level five is where you want to be — it almost always awards regular Multiball if you have not had one, Orbit Multiball if you have. Level six mostly pays a flat 25M, worse than either multiball, so collect at five and resist the climb. A random Recon Boost can shove you up without warning. To climb fast: right ramp, left ramp, scoop is worth three extra levels.

Klendathu

Nuke and clear all five stocked planets and Klendathu flashes. Shoot the Recon scoop and you get unlimited balls for thirty seconds, with every bug standup lit at once. To finish it you need nine bugs of each species and all five Nuke shots — 5M a Nuke, 10M for the Double Nuke at the scoop, and a 50M completion bonus if you get through the whole thing. When the timer expires the mode continues with whatever is still in play, so a good ball here runs long.

Extra balls are scattered in places nothing announces. Fifteen shots to an unlit Arm Nukes hole lights one, as does fifty ramp shots, as does lighting every bug standup during regular Multiball. And playing badly enough lights one for you on ball three.

How Starship Troopers plays

You fight the Bug War across a fixed run of planets, clearing each by shooting the flashing standups that match its bug colors. Climb the Recon ladder, bank the multiballs, and nuke every planet to reach the Klendathu wizard finale.

The loop

  1. Kill a planet's bugs by hitting flashing standups of the right color, and take the ones you can on the right mini flipper since those score as a double kill.
  2. Clear a planet and the huge Brain Bug rises at the right ramp; bash it or let it flee, then pick the Recon scoop to move on a planet or the Arm Nukes hole to cash in a Planet Multiball.
  3. Alternate the ramps to climb six Recon levels and collect at level five, where the reward is almost always a multiball rather than level six's flat award.
  4. Empty and nuke all five stocked planets to set Klendathu flashing at the scoop, a finale of unlimited balls with a fifty-million bonus for clearing it.

Reading the lights

  • Bug Standups (status) — lit: Each standup's color names its bug species -- a Warrior is yellow, a Hopper green, a Plasma Bug blue, a Tanker red -- and a killed one darkens and knocks a notch off the species count above the flippers. · flashing: Only a flashing standup is a live target on the planet you are attacking, and bugs die in single-ball play alone, so a long multiball is time stolen from the war. · then: Wipe out every bug a planet stocks to raise the Brain Bug in front of the right ramp. Clearing planets is the spine of the whole game, and the deeper you get the more each bug pays, from a hundred thousand up past half a million. · control: Right flipper button: take standups on the small right-hand mini flipper, on its own button below the main one, so each hit lands as two kills instead of one
  • Recon Level Ladder (ladder) — lit: Every ramp shot nudges you one step up a six-level Recon ladder, and the level you have reached holds until you cash it at the scoop, though a random Recon Boost can jump you up a rung or two without warning. · then: Collect at level five, where the award is nearly always a fresh multiball -- regular if you have not had one, Orbit if you have -- and skip level six, whose flat twenty-five million is worth less than either. Right ramp into left ramp into the scoop jumps three extra levels at once.
  • B-U-G Rollovers (lanes) — lit: A lit B-U-G rollover is a letter already banked, and each time you finish all three the end-of-ball bonus gains another multiplier. · then: You mostly fill these without aiming, because a magnet just above the U snatches unlit loop shots and drops them straight into the lanes. Every B-U-G you finish multiplies the bug bonus built that ball.
  • Orbit Multiball Locks (letters) — lit: Rolling an inlane cross-lights the loop on the far side for about five seconds, and a loop stays lit once you hit it, so three down one side is fine. · then: Three loops spell ONE and magnet-lock a ball at the sinkhole behind the Warrior; another three spell TWO to launch the multiball, and both loops then keep paying five-million jackpots. Six loops total, a count that never grows.
  • The Warrior (status) — lit: Every hit walks the Warrior standup backwards, and the number of hits it demands climbs each time you do this, four on the first run and six on the next. · flashing: The Warrior rocking back and forth is your sign that a single hit is left to open the sinkhole behind it. · then: Start the four-ball multiball in the exposed hole and lift the jackpot toward four million by tagging the unlit center standups, then bank five and take the fifteen-million Super in that same hole. Lighting every center standup also awards an extra ball.
  • Planet Nuke Choice (mode) — lit: Once the Brain Bug is gone the Recon scoop and the Arm Nukes hole both light and hold until you spend one of them, while a hurry-up ticks down from five million to one beside them. · then: Advance at the scoop to bank another flashing planet for a bigger payoff later, or start Planet Multiball now at the Arm Nukes hole to nuke every flashing planet at once -- five saved planets turn it into a twelve-million Nuke, a hundred-and-twenty-million Super Nuke and four balls. Make all five Nuke shots to light that Super Nuke at the Warrior.

Lane change: not verified for this machine yet.

Start scoring

  • Ball one — Take a skill shot off the plunge -- leave the flippers alone and the ball settles on a magnet above the B-U-G lanes, where the buttons steer the flashing rollover under it for a free bonus multiplier, or hold the left flipper and plunge full to run the right ramp for five million. Then open the Bug War, killing standups on the mini flipper for double credit. — Rollover Skill Shot, Ramp Skill Shot, The Bug War, Kill Bugs With The Mini Flipper
  • Building — Climb the Recon ladder and cash it at level five for a multiball, spell ONE and TWO in the cross-lit loops for Orbit Multiball, and walk the Warrior back for the four-ball regular multiball. Clearing planets keeps raising what every bug is worth. — Recon Awards, Stop At Level Five, Orbit Multiball, Regular Multiball
  • The big one — Empty every one of the five stocked planets with nukes and Klendathu opens at the Recon scoop -- thirty seconds of unlimited balls with every standup lit and fifty million for finishing the job. Banking planets for a full Planet Multiball is the other giant score on the machine. — Klendathu, Planet Multiball

Does Starship Troopers have an action button?

There is a third button on the right side of this cabinet, but it works a flipper, not a game feature: it sits just below the normal right flipper button and fires the small flipper mounted above and right of the main one. Learn it anyway, because a bug standup hit with the mini flipper counts as two kills and it is the only sane route to the Arm Nukes hole.

Goals in Starship Troopers

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

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