88 replies to this topic

[Noah Fentz]

1. Oblique correction isn't cheating, it's necessary to make flippers behave closer to their real-life counterparts.

2. @ xzotic - I'd hav to say when you get used to 'VP flippers', realistic feeling flippers feel awkward. The rubbers on flippers are VERY elastic, the ball bounces like mad, and you do get odd shots off real flippers.

No matter how you cut it, everyone will have their preference. My preference is 'real-feel'.

[Sabbat]

paul what would you recommend for flipper settings on a 70's gottlieb

[Noah Fentz]

I would have to play one to really give an accurate suggestion. It's been a LONG time since I've played one of those!

I'll go play some El Dorado at Marvin's at get back with you.

[xzotic]

1. Oblique correction isn't cheating, it's necessary to make flippers behave closer to their real-life counterparts.

2. @ xzotic - I'd hav to say when you get used to 'VP flippers', realistic feeling flippers feel awkward. The rubbers on flippers are VERY elastic, the ball bounces like mad, and you do get odd shots off real flippers.

No matter how you cut it, everyone will have their preference. My preference is 'real-feel'.

Well I was looking at a Youtube video of Cosmic Princess (relating to another thread) and I couldn't help notice that on that table the flipper bounce is much more like Uncle Willy's settings and in my opinion are much more "real world". I've yet to see a table that has flipper bounce as much as your settings but if you can point one out on youtube I'll stand corrected. Until then Unclewilly's Firepower settings seem pretty near 'real-world' to me and pretty much mirror this real table in terms of bounce.

Cosmic Princess Flippers

Cool flipper pass in this vid too.

[BigBoss]

BIG BOSS:
you are cheating using obliqiue other than 0.

It's most definitely not cheating to try to get the game to play like the original, real game. I have been comparing attack from mars side-by-side with the real attack from mars. With oblique on 0, you cant ever hit the center gate unless you crank the strength up so high. JP's settings on that game made the game way too easy. I conquered mars and got 30 billion on the 2nd play. With flipper settings similar to Noahs, my scores and the feel of the game compares to the original very closely. (No disrespect to JP here. Attack from mars and attack revenge from mars are my favorite tables!)

There's still a small flipper lag though going from real pinball to visual pinball. I don't think any settings can eliminate it. Everyone notices it. It takes 2-3 games to adjust then you stop noticing it until you go back to real pinball.

Well I was looking at a Youtube video of Cosmic Princess (relating to another thread) and I couldn't help notice that on that table the flipper bounce is much more like Uncle Willy's settings and in my opinion are much more "real world". I've yet to see a table that has flipper bounce as much as your settings but if you can point one out on youtube I'll stand corrected. Until then Unclewilly's Firepower settings seem pretty near 'real-world' to me and pretty much mirror this real table in terms of bounce.

I have 6 real tables. I dont need to surf youtube to compare. The flipper bounce is more pronounced on all my games on the real flippers than even using 0.65 elasticity. On most games it is difficult to stop the ball due to the bounce and it requires some actual skill to do so. On many of the tables with regular settings, it is very easy to stop the ball because the flippers have no bounce at all.

Noah's settings seem closer to real 95 era tables, but with some oddities: 1) small lag still 2) Flipper itself, bounces when ball hits (looks odd) 3) Ball sometimes goes back when it should angle forward (attack from mars, for example, flying around the table loop). Still, I haven't found anything better.

Edited by BigBoss, 08 February 2011 - 02:36 PM.

[DedRok_V]

Well I was looking at a Youtube video of Cosmic Princess (relating to another thread) and I couldn't help notice that on that table the flipper bounce is much more like Uncle Willy's settings and in my opinion are much more "real world". I've yet to see a table that has flipper bounce as much as your settings but if you can point one out on youtube I'll stand corrected. Until then Unclewilly's Firepower settings seem pretty near 'real-world' to me and pretty much mirror this real table in terms of bounce.

Cosmic Princess Flippers

Cool flipper pass in this vid too.

Notice that Cosmic Princess uses the 70s Gottlieb flipper bats, Sabbat.
Love the light flick flipper passes.

[EalaDubhSidhe]

From my experience with early solid-state games, both Sterns and Williams have tight flippers with low recoil, making for fast and accurate shooting with the minimum of angle drift. Bally and Gottlieb flippers feel looser, and have much more give recoil when a ball bounces off them, which suits the gentler playfield slope that old Ballys and Gottliebs tend to have. It's also harder to catch a ball on these so that it goes up the return lane.

[Noah Fentz]

On that subject, I have 'stiffened' up the flippers in most of my updates and backed the oblique correction down a bit.

Still say they're as close to real as you're going to find. Now, even more so.

[Bob5453]

On that subject, I have 'stiffened' up the flipper in most of my updates and backed the oblique correction down a bit.

Still say they're as close to real as you're going to find. Now, even more so.

How can you keep improving perfect flippers?

[Noah Fentz]

They're MORE perfect?



Anyway, my 'perfect' comments were related to the SPEED of the flippers, which, by example of the video I posted, are perfect. The rest is a matter of setting them game by game, company by company, since we all know no two flippers are alike.

Bob, if real tables had your flippers, I'd hate pinball. If you can't alternately flip each flipper quickly enough to save a ball, because of the slow return speed, it'd be no fun.

Just sayin'.

[Bob5453]

Bob, if real tables had your flippers, I'd hate pinball. If you can't alternately flip each flipper quickly enough to save a ball, because of the slow return speed, it'd be no fun.

Just sayin'.

I never said my flipper settings were perfect, I've never even said they were good, I also don't like trying to recreate real tables for reasons like that among other reasons. I played most of my real pinball between 1966 and 1980. I remember finding an AFM table about 8 years ago at a movie theater, I still remember thinking, "these flippers suck" the whole time I played it, the same with an Austin Powers table I played somewhere. I still hate seeing flippers shaped almost to a point at the end.

The nice thing about VP is it's not too hard to adjust table settings for different tastes.

[Noah Fentz]

Indeed, pointy flippers bug me, too.

[EalaDubhSidhe]

Flipper settings are only one part of the equation; even the best VP9 flippers won't feel right on a table saddled with VP8-era physics and a ball that isn't the right 'weight'. Particular culprit tables, even among dedicated VP9 builds, are those with not enough bounce elasticity which try to compensate with overpowered solenoids.

Edited by EalaDubhSidhe, 08 February 2011 - 07:25 PM.

[Bob5453]

How are these flippers? Much more like how I remember them back in my day.

Nice bouncy ball too.

[Noah Fentz]

That's actually a pretty good example on how elastic all rubbers should be, and that most tables' slopes are set too high.

Of course, these days, every has a 'need for speed', so I can understand why.

[EalaDubhSidhe]

That's actually a pretty good example on how elastic all rubbers should be, and that most tables' slopes are set too high.

Of course, these days, every has a 'need for speed', so I can understand why.

Gottliebs in particular are slow though, especially old System 80s. You've played Black Hole; the slope is so shallow that the ball is prone to deflecting off the edge of the plastic lens over the lower level.

This is what I based my current research on:



And also this:



Listen for the rattle each time the ball bounces off the flippers; it's certainly not unique to that particular Paragon.

Edited by EalaDubhSidhe, 09 February 2011 - 10:16 AM.

[xzotic]

How are these flippers? Much more like how I remember them back in my day.

Nice bouncy ball too.

That just reaffirms my point. The one time the ball came down the table and bounced off the flipper it bounced like Unclewillys settings. If it followed noah's settings that ball would have bounced half way back up the table!

[Noah Fentz]

You're not talking about elasticity then, you're talking about recoil.

Increase the recoil velocity to 34-36, and you're done.

[Sabbat]

cool video Bob

[chas]

BIG BOSS:
you are cheating using obliqiue other than 0.

It's most definitely not cheating to try to get the game to play like the original, real game. I have been comparing attack from mars side-by-side with the real attack from mars. With oblique on 0, you cant ever hit the center gate unless you crank the strength up so high. JP's settings on that game made the game way too easy. I conquered mars and got 30 billion on the 2nd play. With flipper settings similar to Noahs, my scores and the feel of the game compares to the original very closely. (No disrespect to JP here. Attack from mars and attack revenge from mars are my favorite tables!)

There's still a small flipper lag though going from real pinball to visual pinball. I don't think any settings can eliminate it. Everyone notices it. It takes 2-3 games to adjust then you stop noticing it until you go back to real pinball.

Well I was looking at a Youtube video of Cosmic Princess (relating to another thread) and I couldn't help notice that on that table the flipper bounce is much more like Uncle Willy's settings and in my opinion are much more "real world". I've yet to see a table that has flipper bounce as much as your settings but if you can point one out on youtube I'll stand corrected. Until then Unclewilly's Firepower settings seem pretty near 'real-world' to me and pretty much mirror this real table in terms of bounce.

I have 6 real tables. I dont need to surf youtube to compare. The flipper bounce is more pronounced on all my games on the real flippers than even using 0.65 elasticity. On most games it is difficult to stop the ball due to the bounce and it requires some actual skill to do so. On many of the tables with regular settings, it is very easy to stop the ball because the flippers have no bounce at all.

Noah's settings seem closer to real 95 era tables, but with some oddities: 1) small lag still 2) Flipper itself, bounces when ball hits (looks odd) 3) Ball sometimes goes back when it should angle forward (attack from mars, for example, flying around the table loop). Still, I haven't found anything better.

AFM is a table that oblique is needed to be able to hit and destroy the saucer.
im pretty sure i have strength on 5, speed on 0.08 and oblique on 2.
works well and able to hit lower targets.
using oblique on some tables makes it very difficult to hit lower playfield targets.
with oblique up i need to let the ball roll to end of the flipper then swing.
on these tables i have oblique on 0.
most flipper settings are on strength 5, speed 0.05-0.075 maybe a little higher as in AFM.
AFM/ARFM might be the only table i use oblique.

>>With oblique on 0, you cant ever hit the center gate unless you crank the strength up so high.<<
i dont have the speed cranked up that high.
the authors set the strength of some tables at maybe 1 then cranked up the swing speed to 0.275.
it was very difficult to hit the lower playfield targets.
the flippers were rocketing the ball to fast.
the flipper settings were not right.
strength of 5 and speed of 0.05-0.075. maybe speed of 0.1 at the highest on the tables with an upper flipper on the side so i could jet the ball through the upper side ramps with the upper flipper.
works well.
a few tables with 5 strength was too strong.
lowered to about 3 with the speed on 0.05.
worked well.

Edited by chas, 10 February 2011 - 11:23 PM.