Silverball guide · Attack From Mars
Rule the Universe is a checklist, not a score
Six things light the wizard mode, and two of them are things a strong player can miss for a whole game while beating the machine everywhere else. Nothing here expires, so the checklist is the plan.
The six requirements
Rule the Universe needs all of the following, in any order: one super jackpot collected in multiball, Super Jets started at some point, Martian Attack multiball started, Total Annihilation played, Mars conquered in the Attack Mars phase, and a five-way combo.
Four of those happen naturally in a good game. The other two do not. Super Jets needs a specific number of bumper hits and a player who never lets the ball reach the bumpers can finish a huge game without it. A five-way combo is a thing you have to set out to do. Knowing that in advance is most of the work, because nothing on this list can be lost once done.
It pays accordingly: everything lights, Total Annihilation restarts, the martian targets are worth 50 million each, and the goal is to collect 5 billion before the multiball ends, which pays another 5 billion on top. Once you have ruled once, you never need to conquer Mars again to light it a second time. Everything else on the list still has to be repeated.
Nothing on this machine takes anything away
This is the design decision that shapes how to play it. Features do not cancel each other: an attack phase carries on when multiball starts, and several things can run at once.
The attack phase in particular is not timed and does not end when you drain. A saucer you have half destroyed is still half destroyed on your next ball. That means there is no reason to rush a saucer and no reason to treat a lost ball as a lost attack.
The grace periods are generous in the same spirit. Jackpots can still be collected after multiball ends, and if the super jackpot is lit when it finishes you get a ten-second countdown to take it, which also applies if you complete the last jackpot after the multiball is technically over.
The attack phase, and hitting more than one target
Three targets make up the force field in front of the saucer. Knock them down and the force field lowers, exposing three more targets behind it, and the attack phase begins.
Every hit inside damages the saucer, and the rule to exploit is that hitting more than one target with a single shot multiplies both the damage and the points by the number of targets hit. When the saucer has taken enough, the drop target at the back stays down and a shot into the hole destroys it. The first saucer pays 200 million and each one after adds 100 million, while the hits required climb each time.
Defend all five countries and you steal a saucer for Attack Mars. Knock the force field down again, then every shot into the hole takes a piece out of Mars for 50 million, and the tenth destroys it for 2.5 billion.
Total Annihilation is priced on the hurry-up, not the multiball
The four orbit and ramp awards are Capture on the left orbit, the Big-O-Beam on the left ramp, the Tractor Beam on the right ramp and the Atomic Blaster on the right orbit. Each takes three shots to complete.
Completing one starts a hurry-up at 100 million counting down at the saucer. Complete another while it is running and the hurry-up resets higher. Complete all four inside the countdown and the machine pays a billion points. That billion is the real prize here, and it is a sequencing problem rather than a shooting one: hold a completion back until you have another ready.
Total Annihilation itself follows, a four-ball multiball where every major shot pays the annihilation value and the lock shot pays a jackpot built from all the other shots you have taken. Collect it and it resets to base to be built again.
The super skill shot completes a shot for you
Hold the left flipper as you plunge and the ball runs the left orbit. You then have a few seconds to hit any major shot for 50 million, and it also completes whatever that shot was building. Hit the right ramp and the Tractor Beam is finished outright, not advanced by one.
Given that Total Annihilation wants four completions and its billion wants them close together, a super skill shot is worth a third of one of them for free.
Stroke of Luck holds three modes you cannot otherwise reach
Lighting all the inlane and outlane lights lights Stroke of Luck at the scoop, where four awards appear and are shot away until one remains. Three things exist only here.
Strobe Multiball turns every light in the machine off except a strobe by the saucer, kicks out three balls and pays 50 million per force field hit, with an extra ball at ten hits and 250 million at twenty. Video mode is a shooting gallery worth around 635 million completed, with an extra ball after thirty saucers. Sneak Attack lights one martian target bank at random with a hurry-up from 150 million, paying the value, two martian bombs and a lit Martian Attack.
Martian Attack itself is otherwise lit by completing the martian targets and started at the scoop: hit all four martians inside the time limit, using bombs on the launch button if you have them, and a two-ball round follows where every martian target hit is worth 20 million.
A note on this source, and which machine you are standing at
This was compiled from Bob McCann's rule sheet, written with Dan Wilson, Scott Tiesma, Mark Phaedrus and Steve Baumgarden, and our credit names them because the document does. The sheet carries its own note that much of what it describes is Williams' copyright, and it is quoted here for none of its wording, only for how the machine behaves.
It documents the original Williams machine as a current release. That is worth stating plainly, because our own record for this page carries the 2017 remake's date, and of the four Attack From Mars listings on UK floors one is explicitly a Remake LE while the others are listed without an edition at all. The layout and the rules above are what the remake reproduces, but treat specific values as the original's and expect operator settings to move them.
Where this came from
Silverball wrote this, but not from scratch: it was compiled against the published rules below and checked against them, rather than written up from one person’s games. None of the wording is theirs. Machines get code updates that move the right shot, so a guide has a date on it for a reason.
- Attack From Mars rule sheet, authored by Bob McCann, with Dan Wilson, Scott Tiesma, Mark Phaedrus and Steve Baumgarden
