Download Caveman (Gottlieb 1982) 1.1

Oh wow. A fresh table hot off the press? Nice.

However... nothing but problems with this table, unfortunately:

1: The ball - The ball feels like it's on another planet. Way too light and floaty. Almost like it's knocking a bubble about, floating in the air.

2: For some bizarre reason, I can play one game. If I play again, the whole thing just freezes up and crashes VPX. No idea why.

Any solutions you can provide would be greatly appreciated, as this was a recommended table (by other users) and seems super fun!

Oh wow. A fresh table hot off the press? Nice.

However... nothing but problems with this table, unfortunately:

1: The ball - The ball feels like it's on another planet. Way too light and floaty. Almost like it's knocking a bubble about, floating in the air.

2: For some bizarre reason, I can play one game. If I play again, the whole thing just freezes up and crashes VPX. No idea why.

Any solutions you can provide would be greatly appreciated, as this was a recommended table (by other users) and seems super fun!

1. The gravity is set fairly low.  It was around 50% on the original table. I moved it up to 60%. You can try changing that. I am definitely no expert on Visual Pinball physics. If someone has better settings, let me know. The only issue is that the power of the saucer kickouts at the top will have to be adjusted so the ball can find it's way back to the playfield (the lbshoot and rbshoot sections in the script, currently set to 4.9 and 5.1). I can adjust these for a future update. I made a few very minor changes after the release version so I will definitely have an update at some point.

2. When exactly does it freeze up and is it literally every second game? PinMAME has an issue with this game.  I would say 40% of the time it kicks me out a few seconds after I open it and it closes VPX completely.  You can imagine how annoying this was as I was working on the table. It's odd that yours does it after a full game. Once I play a game for a bit, it's usually good for a while. I have probably played 20+ games in a row. Since it's an emulation issue, there is nothing I can do. 

^You can also put the following line after Option Explicit at the start of the script and adjust it to your liking:

Const BallMass=1

 

Oh wow. A fresh table hot off the press? Nice.

However... nothing but problems with this table, unfortunately:

1: The ball - The ball feels like it's on another planet. Way too light and floaty. Almost like it's knocking a bubble about, floating in the air.

2: For some bizarre reason, I can play one game. If I play again, the whole thing just freezes up and crashes VPX. No idea why.

Any solutions you can provide would be greatly appreciated, as this was a recommended table (by other users) and seems super fun!

 

1. The gravity is set fairly low.  It was around 50% on the original table. I moved it up to 60%. You can try changing that. I am definitely no expert on Visual Pinball physics. If someone has better settings, let me know. The only issue is that the power of the saucer kickouts at the top will have to be adjusted so the ball can find it's way back to the playfield (the lbshoot and rbshoot sections in the script, currently set to 4.9 and 5.1). I can adjust these for a future update. I made a few very minor changes after the release version so I will definitely have an update at some point.

 

2. When exactly does it freeze up and is it literally every second game? PinMAME has an issue with this game.  I would say 40% of the time it kicks me out a few seconds after I open it and it closes VPX completely.  You can imagine how annoying this was as I was working on the table. It's odd that yours does it after a full game. Once I play a game for a bit, it's usually good for a while. I have probably played 20+ games in a row. Since it's an emulation issue, there is nothing I can do. 

 

Sorry for the late response. Was busy testing a batch of new tables. (Caveman was the first one )

1: Yeah, I noticed that a couple of the 'bumpy' things have quite the kick to them. (Bumpers, saucers, etc.). 
Nothing I'm not used to, though. Some tables I have are very wild.
A tweaked update of this build would be awesome. As every time I've had (one) game, the concept and layout is really fun. Can see myself spending countless hours on this when it's fixed.
But. For now. I shall try the minor script tweak you mentioned to at least give the ball some weight.

2: For example, let's say I play one game. 3 balls. No problem. Game works. Game over.
Push start to play again. Launch the ball. Maybe hit the ball off the flipper. And when the ball comes into contact with anything (like a target or bumper), the game freezes. Then kicks me out completely.
It is literally always after I have played one full game after launching.

Hope this helps!

Hi DarthMarino,

first of all, thank you for the very nice table.

Unluckily I have the very same issue described above from the other members that make this table useless for my cabinet.

I hope you'll fix it in future, for the moment in my cabinet I still run the rascal's version which is stable.

Just to inform you, for this table I applied this following mod to get the joystick working right, because with the original code in case you pressed more than one flipper/magnasave together the joystick handle behaved wrongly.

Sub ZZZ_KeyDown(ByVal keycode)
	If JoyC.visible=0 Then
		If JoyD.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyDown
		Elseif JoyU.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyUp
		Elseif JoyL.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyLeft
		Elseif JoyR.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyRight
		End If
	End If
	Select Case keycode
		Case keyJoyDown,LeftMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyDown) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyD.visible=1
		Case keyJoyUp,RightMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyUp) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyU.visible=1
		Case keyJoyLeft,LeftFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyLeft) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyL.visible=1
		Case keyJoyRight,RightFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyRight) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyR.visible=1
	End Select
	If keycode=PlungerKey Then Plunger.Pullback
	If vpmKeyDown(keycode) Then Exit Sub
End Sub

Sub ZZZ_KeyUp(ByVal keycode)
	Select Case keycode
		Case keyJoyDown,LeftMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyDown) = false:JoyD.visible=0
		Case keyJoyUp,RightMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyUp) = false:JoyU.visible=0
		Case keyJoyLeft,LeftFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyLeft) = false:JoyL.visible=0
		Case keyJoyRight,RightFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyRight) = false:JoyR.visible=0
	End Select
	If (JoyD.visible=0) And (JoyU.visible=0) And (JoyL.visible=0) And (JoyR.visible=0) then
		JoyC.visible=1
	End If
	If keycode=PlungerKey Then Plunger.Fire:PlaySound "Plunger"
	If vpmKeyUp(keycode) Then Exit Sub
End Sub

They substitute the original ZZZ_KeyDown and ZZZ_KeyUp subroutines giving the joystick the right position as per the last button pressed among the fours. 

Thank you again for your time spent on this stable.

Massimo

Hi DarthMarino,

 

first of all, thank you for the very nice table.

 

Unluckily I have the very same issue described above from the other members that make this table useless for my cabinet.

 

I hope you'll fix it in future, for the moment in my cabinet I still run the rascal's version which is stable.

 

 

Just to inform you, for this table I applied this following mod to get the joystick working right, because with the original code in case you pressed more than one flipper/magnasave together the joystick handle behaved wrongly.

Sub ZZZ_KeyDown(ByVal keycode)
	If JoyC.visible=0 Then
		If JoyD.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyDown
		Elseif JoyU.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyUp
		Elseif JoyL.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyLeft
		Elseif JoyR.visible<>0 Then
			ZZZ_KeyUp keyJoyRight
		End If
	End If
	Select Case keycode
		Case keyJoyDown,LeftMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyDown) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyD.visible=1
		Case keyJoyUp,RightMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyUp) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyU.visible=1
		Case keyJoyLeft,LeftFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyLeft) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyL.visible=1
		Case keyJoyRight,RightFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyRight) = true:JoyC.visible=0:JoyR.visible=1
	End Select
	If keycode=PlungerKey Then Plunger.Pullback
	If vpmKeyDown(keycode) Then Exit Sub
End Sub

Sub ZZZ_KeyUp(ByVal keycode)
	Select Case keycode
		Case keyJoyDown,LeftMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyDown) = false:JoyD.visible=0
		Case keyJoyUp,RightMagnaSave
			Controller.Switch(swJoyUp) = false:JoyU.visible=0
		Case keyJoyLeft,LeftFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyLeft) = false:JoyL.visible=0
		Case keyJoyRight,RightFlipperKey
			Controller.Switch(swJoyRight) = false:JoyR.visible=0
	End Select
	If (JoyD.visible=0) And (JoyU.visible=0) And (JoyL.visible=0) And (JoyR.visible=0) then
		JoyC.visible=1
	End If
	If keycode=PlungerKey Then Plunger.Fire:PlaySound "Plunger"
	If vpmKeyUp(keycode) Then Exit Sub
End Sub

They substitute the original ZZZ_KeyDown and ZZZ_KeyUp subroutines giving the joystick the right position as per the last button pressed among the fours. 

 

Thank you again for your time spent on this stable.

 

Massimo

I was going to put some code in so only one joystick direction could be seen at once but I figured no one would notice anyway. Guess I was wrong!  I play with a four way joystick so it's actually impossible for me to see two at once. 

Unfortunately, I can't replicate the crash after one game issue so I really don't know what is causing it. I suppose you could just replace the pictures in the original version but the Vari-targets won't work 100% correctly. I think that was the only functional change I made besides the gravity/ball mass. The rest was graphics and sounds.

Hi DarthMarino,

yes, I guessed you were using a joystick which can't show that issue.

I honestly tried to to see what it was locking-up your table, but despite I'm a senior electronic engineer with years of SW designing (mostly for self designed devices), I'm just a newbie in these VP VBscripts and I can't figure out why it happens. IMHO, it should be something about the controller, but it's just a opinion, nothing more. I also compared your VBS code with the rascal's one, but effectively I can't see anything which could lead to that issue.

Now I'm loading my cabinet with my pinball collection, in future I would give a try again to fix it.

Thank you again for the time spent doing the nice makeup that you applied to the look of the table.

Have a great day.

Massimo

The emulation isn't great and even on rascals table it will often kick me out when it first starts.  Occasionally, a little bit into the first game but once I get going it's usually fine, even on my table.  Sometimes the video game part struggles so I wonder if the ROM portion is sometimes using a lot of resources and with a few extra timers and higher res graphics, it's too much for it to handle. The Visual Pinball portion of my table is very simple with minimal lighting effects. 

Hi DarthMario.

The emulation isn't great and even on rascals table it will often kick me out when it first starts.  Occasionally, a little bit into the first game but once I get going it's usually fine, even on my table.  Sometimes the video game part struggles so I wonder if the ROM portion is sometimes using a lot of resources and with a few extra timers and higher res graphics, it's too much for it to handle. The Visual Pinball portion of my table is very simple with minimal lighting effects. 

This morning I checked the table a little more, but as we say in Italy "I couldn't get the spider out of the hole". Meanings that I didn't understand what it really happens. 

I admit that I'm not an expert in VP, but  I also tried to call the VPinMAME ROMs using the VB6 application named VPinMameTest and a couple of times it locked the VB6 compiler IDE too. This means that there is something very wrong in the VPinMAME Controller_OnSolenoid and/or Controller_OnStateChange events handler (I can't tell which hanged up the IDE, because when it did it, I still hadn't enabled the VB6 IDE debug window, and after that I enabled it, I couldn't experience the issue no more (which should be  the case of one of the damned statements of Murphy's law, I guess). 

Thus, you should be right that the problem stays in the ROM portion of the table.

Just to say, I found a very disappointing behavior of the VBscript compiler in your Table script, that is you doubled some subs declarations in the JpSalas ball rolling handler and the compiler don't noticed about that. Luckily the subs were doing the same (I think you copied and pasted two times them) so I suppose that the compiler just used the first ones it encountered.

Even rascal had inadvertently doubled the Timer1_Timer sub in his script (you left those subs both in your table too), and in that case I suppose that the table should have some issue about Wall9a, Wall8a and Wall7a or Wall87a, Wall86 and Wall85 since one of the two subs shouldn't be executed at all.

Have a great day.

Massimo