Tesla Trophy Guide by skippycue

Kickbacks, Ball Save, and Magna Save!

This table only has one kickback on the right outlane which can be enabled by spelling out FUSE using the lanes. The ball save is enabled by hitting the dynamo spinner 25 times or more. This is exactly how you get the “Dynamo” trophy explained below. The magna save is unique to this table and will become VERY useful once you learn how to take advantage of it. This is enabled by hitting the tesla coil ramp three times. The tesla coil is the hardest ramp to hit on this table! You have to hit it using the top left flipper. Fortunately, when you hit the left spinner the ball is deposited slowly right past the top left flipper. This is almost always how you will hit the tesla coil ramp (the alternative of hitting the orbit using the left flipper causes the ball to generally go too fast to really aim a shot with the top let flipper so I wouldn’t recommend it). You might as well get good at timing this shot because you will need it for the magna save and 2 of the experiments! Magna save is essential for this table since there is no left kickback. Unlike the ball save, the magna save does not disappear until it has been used or you lose your ball. If the ball goes down the left outlane, lift the left flipper and hold the X button as the ball is getting near the flipper. You’ll see the ball get sucked back up through the flippers back onto the table like it’s being attracted by a magnet! This really is a life saver and without a left kickback, you really should always try to have this enabled. It might also be useful when you’re going down the middle and you don’t have a ball save, but I’ve never used it in that regard.

Dynamo (Bronze)
Spin the dynamo spinner 25 times with one shot!

This is perhaps the easiest trophy in the game because all you have to do is hit the left spinner ramp hard and get a score of 25k (1k per spin) or greater. Unfortunately I have not found a consistent way to do this, it seems pretty random to me. I’ve tried pushing the R1 button hard, soft, timing the shot slightly different, but nothing seemed consistent. Despite all this, if you hit this with a clean shot, you should get at least 25 spins after no more than several attempts.

Bunch of Dollars (Bronze)
Secure at least 500.000 points in Funding Hurry-up mode!

This trophy isn’t too bad, but it does take several shots to pull off. The first thing you have to do is hit the 2 targets on the right with the “$” on them. They are blocking the way to a path on the side of the table that leads to a sink hole under the mini playfield. Once you hit these targets you can then make a shot up to the sink hole. This is a tough shot to pull off consistently, but it can be done from a caught position on the left flipper. You’ll have to hit the ball when it’s quite close to falling off the flipper, but you’ll have to figure out the timing for yourself. When you get up the path and into the sink hole successfully you’ll hear “Hurry Up!” which means you’ve started funding hurry-up mode. At this point you have to get the ball in another sink hole above the yellow dollar sign that is now lit up in the center of the table. I found this hole tough to hit consistently and there are a lot of bumpers up there that will cost you time if you miss. Time is important here because when you start hurry-up mode the funding start at 1 million and goes down by 10k every second. This means you have 50 seconds to secure at least 500k points for the trophy. Once you get the ball in this second sink hole, you then have to make a skill shot launching the ball. You may have noticed that when you launch the ball there are 3 holes it can fall into. The skill shot is the middle hole and requires the plunger to be at a little more than half power. If you miss the skill shot you, don’t worry because you can try to get back into that second sink hole for another chance if you have enough time. If you run out of time you’ll have to hit the drop targets and start all over again.

Tesla Coil (Bronze)
Make 10 coil ramp shots with one ball!

As I said earlier the best way to hit this coil is to shoot the left spinner first. After it drops the ball it will roll slowly passed the top left flipper and you can time your shot a lot better. I usually tried to hit it right after it was completely over the bumper, but there are other timings that also work so try to find one that works for you (I would recommend View 2 for the best view of the top left flipper so you can time your shots better). There is a blue lightning bolt that indicates the path to the coil, but it’s not always lit up. This is the same flipper that needs to be used to start experiments so the ball position on the flipper is very important. As long as you keep an eye on the ball save you should be able to get this trophy with a little patience. If you see the ball save light go out, DO NOT try to make this shot until you enable it again. That means if you hit the spinner and it’s only 23k, let the ball drop back down the left lane instead of hitting it with the upper left flipper. As the ball gets to the flipper leave the flipper down and nudge the ball to the other side. If you keep hitting the spinner and then nudging the ball it never leads to a tilt, so do this until you enable ball save again. Then you can continue trying to make coil ramp shots.

Master Mind (Silver)
Activate the Teleforce by completing all of the other experiments!

This was probably the hardest silver for me due to 2 of the experiments! If you are able to get this silver, then you will be able to get the others as well so be prepared. There are 5 experiments you have to complete to activate the teleforce. You don’t have to complete the teleforce, but it’s an easy 20 million if you do! My advice is to always have the magna save enabled and the ball save enabled just before you start an experiment. It will give you the best chance of survival and that’s the most important thing!

Before I get into the details of each experiment, I’m going to explain how to start and change the current experiment. In order to do either of these, you need to get into the magnetic field. This is generally done by shooting the ball from the top left flipper into a vertical up-kicker which is tough to see (I’ve managed to deflect the ball off the wall into the playfield, but it was never intentional and probably tough to do consistently). You’re actually aiming for the jagged yellow blob in the center of the table and it’s not an easy shot. The best way it to hit the ball late off the left flipper so that it deflects off one of the 2 hurry-up mode drop targets on the right, it will circle around the orbit at a slower speed. If you then hold the top left flipper in an up position the ball will roll right off of it and right into the mini playfield up-kicker! WATCH VIDEO The only bad part with this is that after you hit one target it goes away and it can be tough to hit the other target correctly to get a proper deflection. Also, to get the targets back after you’ve hit them both involves starting hurry-up mode by getting the ball up into that sink hole behind the targets. The good news is that you don’t have to fund hurry-up mode, you can simply let it time out after 90 seconds. I would generally use this time to practice coil shots, enable magna save or ball save, or even fund hurry-up mode for some points.

Once you are in the playfield you have to hit all 5 drop targets within 10 shots and then get the ball up the half-pipe ramp. I was confused at first about how this worked, but it’s quite simple really, hitting the right flipper throws the ball up and to the right and hitting the left flipper throws the ball up and to the left. There is a hole at the bottom of the playfield that often swallows the ball if you’re not careful, but it just drops the ball down to your right flipper for an easy catch so not a big deal (just annoying). If the ball exits the ramp on the left side, it starts the current experiment. If the ball exits the ramp on the right side, it switches to the next experiment. There is a gauge in the center of the table that shows what experiment is currently selected (if you’re having trouble reading it, hold square and tilt the controller to get a great overhead view). The arm on the gauge shifts left by one each time you change the experiment (regardless of whether you’ve completed the next experiment already) until it gets to the fifth experiment. After that it will start shifting back to the right. It will continue this pattern until you activate the teleforce and then it will switch to the red teleforce section. One of the frustrating things about this table is that it’s very easy to accidentally change the experiment when you wanted to start the current one instead. You’ll see that the ball gets crazy in that magnetic field and it doesn’t always come out how you want it to! Once you have successfully completed an experiment, the light bulb above it will turn on indicating it’s complete.

When you start an experiment the ball always travels down the left lane too fast to catch on the left flipper so I ALWAYS start out by immediately nudging the ball to the right flipper so I can start out in a controlled, caught position. If for some reason you want to start out on the left flipper then just nudge the ball back.

Now that you know how to start and change the experiments, let’s go through each experiment one by one:

• Induction (1 minute)
This is the easiest of all the experiments. You have to keep hitting the left spinner ramp until you get to 10k watts of power. When you reach 4k, 6k, and 8k, the timer goes up to 36 seconds. If you let the timer expire, you lose 2k of power and get more time so you don’t fail the experiment. After you it the spinner, the ball goes into a sink hole and then pops out the cannon. If you’re lucky it will come to rest on your right flipper every time. If you’re less lucky it will hit the right bumper instead and become more difficult to catch. Whatever it does the first time it will continue to do so you know what’s coming. If it hits the bumper usually you can hold the right flipper up and it will bounce off the left flipper onto the right one. Be careful though because sometimes it doesn’t bounce and you need to instead nudge it over or catch it on the left one first.

• Transmission (1 minute)
You have one minute to complete this experiment. This is the first experiment involving the tesla coil. You’ll notice that when the experiment starts there are 2 little blue lights lit up in front of each of the Y-ramps (ramps that alternate the path they send the ball). You have to hit each of these ramps one time and the light will go out. If you hit the ramp a second time it will turn the light back on and you’ll have to hit it a third time. After you hit one of the ramps, the ball will come down too fast to catch so you’ll have to nudge it to the other flipper. Depending on what flipper you catch it on, you may have to nudge it back to go for the other Y-ramp. Just remember if you nudge too much you can tilt the table so be careful and pay attention to the size of the word “DANGER”. After you hit both of these ramps you’ll see the blue lightning bolt come on, this is the indicator for the tesla coil shot. You’ll have to make the tesla coil shot to end the experiment.

• Chain Reaction (unlimited time)
I would say this is the most enjoyable experiment because you end up with 4 balls on the table at one time. When the experiment starts, the table view zooms out to view 6 just like typical multiball. Your goal is to hit 3 balls out of the air and onto the table. The balls will drift across the table from right to left getting progressively faster. I usually tried hitting the ball straight up with the right flipper to get the first few balls and then just did what I could to get the fourth. It gets tough to catch all the balls and then control the direction you hit them with multiple balls on one flipper. As long as you have 2 balls in play another ball will come out. In fact, even if you only have one ball in play sometimes another ball comes out (I think it depends on how long ago the second ball was lost). Once you have 4 balls in play the center magnet will turn on and start attracting the balls to the center of the table. This magnet is not as strong as the magna save magnet so you’ll have to be weary of how it affects the balls as they are heading down toward the flippers. The goal is to get all 4 balls stuck together at the center of the table. Hitting them lightly with the butt of the flipper should get them high enough to head straight toward the magnetic center. If you lose any of the balls the rest will drop back out of the center and you’ll have to knock another one out of the air. Sometimes I was nudging the table and it seemed to pull the ball floating across the screen down, but I never tried to do this intentionally. When you get all 4 balls together in a clump at the center of the table, they will shoot apart and you’ll lose flipper control. All 4 balls will drain and there’s nothing you can about it, but then you will get new ball to continue playing. CHAIN REACTION VIDEO

• Lightning (1 minute)
This is the hardest experiment and will probably put you close to the edge. Just remember when you get angry, you need a functioning controller to play this game! Yes, this experiment could lead you to throwing a controller or 2! With that said, you have to make 3 tesla coil shots in under a minute. Of course, it’s actually not even as easy as that. When you shoot the tesla coil during this experiment, the ball will drop right above the top left flipper so you can make another coil shot within 10 seconds of the first one. After you make that shot it will drop back down in front of the top left flipper so you can make a third coil shot within 10 seconds of the last one. If you are able to pull that off, the experiment will be successful and the ball will drop down the lane as it normally does. The only good news is that when you make a coil shot, it pauses the main clock for those 10 seconds so if you can make at least one coil shot it will essentially extend your time. It’s important to understand that you have to make three coil shots in a row without letting the ball come down the table. If you let the ball come down the table you will not be able to make another coil shot within the 10 seconds required. I will admit that one time when I completed this experiment I made 2 coil shots in a row and then missed the third, but I then entered the right orbit and was able to time the top left flipper hit to make a third coil shot very quickly. I was never able to repeat this, so basically you’re looking at three shots in a row. Good luck, this is a tough one!

• Telautomation (1 minute)
This is the second hardest experiment and was actually my nemesis for several games. During this experiment you have to hit each y-ramp twice (once in each direction). The problem is the divider on the ramp that determines the direction the ball goes is malfunctioning and twitches for a while in the center before going to one side or another. If you hit the y-ramp while the divider is twitching you will get electrocuted and the ball will come straight back down (frequently right down the center!). The hardest part about this experiment is getting the timing right to hit each ramp twice in opposite directions. The twitching dividers don’t follow a consistent pattern so it’s very tough. Sometimes they settle to one side for several seconds, but sometimes they only do for 1 second and then you end up getting electrocuted and possibly draining down the center. You have to be fast and patient at the same time with this experiment so it can be very tough. On the other hand, you could just get fortunate timing and it may seem like an easy experiment. Either way, I don’t really have any good tips for this except to make sure you enable ball save before starting it (of course the ball save won’t last for the length of the experiment, but it’s nice to have for a while).

• Teleforce
If you got here then you’ve done it! Congratulations! To start this experiment you have to get the ball in the secret lab hole at the top center of the table. The hole is right above a green sign that says “LAB”. Once you get the ball in here all you have to do is hit the left and right orbits a few times to complete the experiment and you’ll be rewarded with 20 million points!