Silverball guide · Predator
Run out of ammo and you lose your gun
Predator gives you six weapons and every one of them is spent from the same five clips. Empty them and you are demoted to the pistol you started with, so the question is always whether this shot is worth a clip.
The ammo economy
Weapons are qualified at the three GUN targets and collected at the camp scoop, then equipped at the left camp reverso ramp. Sweeping the GUN targets collects and equips in one go. There are six, from the pistol up to the minigun.
Every use of the weapon costs one of a maximum five clips, fired with the launch button, and ammo comes from the A-M-M-O lanes and the jungle target hurry-up off the left inlane. Spend the last clip and the equipped weapon resets to the pistol, so a weapon is not a permanent upgrade but a balance you can run down to nothing.
There is a reason to sit at full ammo rather than spend it. When you are fully stacked, every other A-M-M-O collect awards a bonus multiplier instead. Banking a few multipliers before you start firing again is free.
What the ammo is actually for
It is worth knowing everything a clip can buy before spending one on a jackpot. The weapon progresses you towards special missions, makes progress inside them, scores jackpots in multiballs, and is one of the two ways you damage the Hunter.
That last one is where the biggest fights are decided, which is the argument for arriving at a Predator Attack with full clips and the largest gun you have found rather than with an empty pistol.
The crew is a scoring multiplier that can be killed
Collect soldiers and Anna around the playfield. Each crew member adds half a multiplier to special mission scoring, so a full squad is a large boost to every mission you play afterwards.
The Hunter takes them out. Crew needing revival blink red, and during a Predator Attack they can be revived at the camp scoop, but only during the search phase, which forces a real decision: spend the phase reviving people or spend it finding the Hunter before he returns and starts killing again.
Gathering all six also qualifies Hunter Multiball at the right wrist blade reverso, where the perspective flips and you play as the Predator: kill all six soldiers, then revive all six to complete it.
Predator Attacks have two phases and you want to be early
Three attacks escalate towards the final fight. The first needs the drop targets and at least one soldier; the second adds six inner loop shots; the third asks for eighteen.
The search phase asks you to find the Hunter on roving turquoise and pink shots. Find him quickly and you carry the advantage into the hunt phase with more time before his first kill; let it run out and he has the advantage.
In the hunt phase a timer counts down to his next kill and names the victim. Shooting him resets that timer, which is the reason to keep hitting him even when you are not close to winning. Wound him enough and you win the mode; lose the whole crew and it ends.
Jungle encounters are the cheapest route to items
Qualify an encounter at the drop target guarding the jungle, and after the first one at the jungle standup as well. Each is a hurry-up: shoot the left scorpion ramp to light all three scorpion tails, which maximises the cash-out and awards an item when you then shoot the jungle.
If time is running out, shoot the jungle anyway. You take whatever is left on screen rather than nothing, and you still get map progress either way. The first and second encounters are noticeably easier than the ones that follow, which makes them the best early source of items, because the alternatives are jungle hunts and special missions and both are much harder. Reaching the first jungle hunt awards an extra ball.
There are five items and each one is tied to a specific mission: the map doubles spins in The Assignment, the badge halves the reverso requirement in Green Berets, the knife awards two hits per target in Setting Traps, the binoculars add a shot patch in The Hostage, and the torch halves the shots needed in Hunter and Prey. An item collected without its mission in mind is worth much less.
The four multiballs, briefly
Get to the Choppa is locked and started at the right ramp, and runs two phases, jungle then river, each ending on a timed super jackpot. Camp Attack is built by feeding the camp bumpers, forty of them, and the bumpers keep building the jackpot value while it runs; three helicopters blown up lights a mega jackpot at the top magnet. Jungle Blast is locked at the top magnet via the orbits after downing the GUN targets, and its super is priced on a special ammo meter that drains with time, so it wants to be filled fast.
Two things are worth chasing inside them. Bringing Blain into Jungle Blast gives a chance at a revive jackpot at the left reverso. And in Get to the Choppa, shooting the inner orbit around the Predator switches you to the Hunter's thermal vision, which lowers jackpots for a few seconds; the source hints there is a reason to do that at the right moment without saying what it is.
A note on this source
This was compiled from a rule sheet updated for version 0.90, whose author is not recorded in our copy. A version number on a rule sheet is a useful thing, and it means what it says: this is a machine on early code, and the values above belong to that revision.
The sheet leaves gaps and marks them, including a third way to light the mystery award written only as to be determined. Those are left as gaps here. It also withholds a couple of things deliberately, in the manner of a spoiler, and where it does this guide has not tried to fill them in.
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.
- Predator rule sheet, updated for version 0.90 (author not recorded in our copy)
