It’s Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland’s multipurpose lock shot.

Lock it up and cash it in! Always be cashing!

The Xenon Tube is just to the right of the NED target at the top center of the playfield, and it has several functions.

Locking balls:

• At the start of the game, the Xenon Tube is ready to accept a ball and lock it for NED Attack Multiball. You can tell when the Xenon Tube is ready to accept locked balls when in Xenon Lock insert is flashing green. You can lock up to three balls in the Xenon Tube before starting NED Attack Multiball. Note that locking the third ball in the Xenon Tube will not automatically start NED Attack Multiball. You still must finish spelling Z-O-M-B-I-E to start the battle.
• After starting NED Attack Multiball once, you will need to KO at least one zombie to relight the Xenon Tube lock.
• The number of balls that are locked before Multiball starts is up to your choice, your skill, or in some cases luck. You are not required to lock any balls in the tube before starting Multiball. You could choose to go directly for NED with no concern for the Tube at all. However, there are some benefits to loading up the Xenon Tube before you start the battle against NED.

Adding Balls!

• When you complete the spelling of Z-O-M-B-I-E and start NED Attack Multiball, you got one additional ball served to you to make a 2-Ball Multiball. At the same time, the Xenon Tube will also release the balls locked within it as Multiball starts. This can create a 3, 4, or even 5-Ball Multiball depending on how accurate, daring or lucky you were before starting the battle. If you are playing with multiple players, when one of you starts Multiball and unloads the Xenon Tube, the game will remember the number of balls the other players had locked.
• The shorthand for this is “no lock stealing”**. If there are not enough balls in the Tube to give you the locked balls you have earned, the remaining balls will be auto-launched from the trough. You will see the number of balls you have locked on the backbar LCD on the Xenon meter on the left side of the screen. 
• There is no Add-A-Ball award to help you during NED Attack Multiball. You need to add the balls you want to use before you start Multiball. It’s up to you. How many locked balls are good enough before you are ready to fight NED?

Two Damage!

• Each ball that is locked in the Xenon Tube when you start NED Attack Multiball will also deal two points of damage to NED immediately. NED starts out with 20 hit points (by default — this can be changed in the game configuration settings). However, with balls in the Xenon Tube you can give him up to 6 points of damage right away. That will give you a nice head start on your path to victory.

Two Jackpots!

• In NED Attack Multiball, damaging NED means Jackpots. Although hitting the moving NED target will give him 1 damage and give you the next Jackpot, shooting a ball into the Xenon Tube will give you the next two of them! Jackpot awards start at 250 points and increase up to … ?
• This is true at the start of Multiball as well. That means if you have three balls in the Xenon Tube before starting Multiball, not only are you ready to deal 6 points of damage to NED, you are also ready to earn the next 6 Jackpots up the points ladder simultaneously at the beginning of the battle! Make sure to start Multiball before your game ends, or all of those big point awards will be left on the table.
• If you play well, you can continue to collect larger Jackpot awards!

Collect Bonus!

• I love pinball bonuses. It part of the name of this website after all. It made sense to me that for my first ruleset I would use the End-of-Ball Bonus in a way that I hope is fun for The Player. In Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, The Xenon Tube also holds the key to some potentially huge cash ins, using your current End-of-Ball Bonus.
• When you complete one of the ride modes, or do certain other “Good Things”, the Xenon Tube insert will show a flashing purple light. This will alternate with the flashing green light if lock is also lit. Shooting a ball in the Tube when it’s flashing purple will collect your current end-of-ball bonus right then.
• You can collect your current End-of-Ball Bonus during the ball as many times as you can light the collect bonus award at the Tube. However, these collect bonus awards do not stack. For example, if you have activated the Collect Bonus award twice but haven’t collected it at the Tube once yet, you can still get them both. But, you must collect them one Xenon Tube shot at a time. Whatever you do, remember to collect your bonus before you drain out. If you don’t use it, you will lose it. When your ball ends, you will still get your actual End-of-Ball Bonus though, as long as you didn’t TILT of course.

Lock Stealing?

** “Lock stealing” is currently not an option on RAZA. However, since locking balls in the Xenon Tube is relatively simple, do you want to see “lock stealing” implemented for the Xenon Tube locks?

Lock stealing can provide an extra level of risk/reward meta-strategy that only occurs in multiplayer games. For RAZA in particular, it can also be fun (and profitable) to just take those additional balls, scoring potential, and NED hit point damage away from your opponent. Or you might not want to risk leaving balls in the Tube for your opponent to take away from you.

Let me know whether having an option to turn on lock stealing would be fun for you. I am @FunWithBonus on socials, or you can comment/reply where you found this post on Facebook or Twitter.

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