77 replies to this topic

[rob046]

put another trigger where the ball is stopping
on the hit eventfor that trigger have something like this
if activeball velocity <40 then activeball velocity =40

i dont have the exact syntax as i am at work but if you look at the other switch you can see the syntax

40 is just a number i pulled out of the air that would require some testing

Yeah I'm sure that could work for it, though if it is dying as bad as he says it is, it makes me wonder if even this will do the trick. At this point I'm more concerned exactly how many people this is happening to, & why. Not just for this version, but the other 2 versions of the table as well. You like to think with physics that whatever happens on your machine will happen on everybody else's, but I guess not. Though I do wonder if you play at a low enough frame rate if that will cause problems.
Can't hurt to try.
Hey JAM0, try turning your alpha slider all the way left. If the works for you, then no other tweaks are required.

Now I would just update the table with this extra trigger where the ball dies for some, if it turns out to be a really widespread problem. I'd rather not though, cuz even as it is now with the 1st trigger, the ball already speeds through the creature ramp to the bowl quite a bit faster than in real life, so I'd rather not speed that up more unless it is really needed. Also it doesn't look very realistic when you got an invisible trigger speeding balls up. So I'd really like to know what the root cause of this is. & maybe some of you guys who are more experienced with VP9 might know?

Edited by rob046, 27 June 2012 - 11:24 PM.

[rob046]

found the problem, & it explains why these problems don't happen to most people but does to some. its an interesting problem, & I wonder how many other tables are unknowingly affected. I'll give details shortly & update the table.

Edited by rob046, 28 June 2012 - 03:44 AM.

[Arcade4]

Not a big deal here, just something I noticed as a past owner of a real CFTBL.
When I shoot the ball up the "Move Your Car" center lane, the ball will always will bounce off the top rubber post at the exit of the shooter lane and rebound down the left KISS orbit.
This should not happen every single shot. The ball should stay in the FILM rollovers.
A "Sneak In" should be a rare occurrence.
Awesome job with this desktop version.

[rob046]

Not a big deal here, just something I noticed as a past owner of a real CFTBL.
When I shoot the ball up the "Move Your Car" center lane, the ball will always will bounce off the top rubber post at the exit of the shooter lane and rebound down the left KISS orbit.
This should not happen every single shot. The ball should stay in the FILM rollovers.
A "Sneak In" should be a rare occurrence.
Awesome job with this desktop version.

I actually spent a good chunk of time on this & changed a setting there right before the upload cuz I wasn't happy with how little the ball was getting into the sneak-in. Its hard to find a fine line like that in VP sometimes, a fine line between the ball going in the sneak-in almost all the time or almost never, but I'm about to upload an update here & I'm gonna see if I can improve that, then upload.
Thanks for the note.

Edited by rob046, 28 June 2012 - 04:33 AM.

[rob046]

Update is uploading now, & those having issues like ball stuck on ramp might experience much better gameplay on the ramps, it should now play like I intended it to. Those playing at full alpha settings probably won't notice any difference. Update includes a slightly tweaked sneak-in shot though. Arcade4 or anybody else, now I worry that the sneak-in won't be made often enough if at all, so please let me know if you guys are unable to make it in at all. I only tested it for a few minutes, I wasn't able to get it in there but came pretty close a couple times I think. So IDK, we'll see. After thinking about it I'd rather it not go in at all though than have it go down there too much.

v1.2 - Set all alpha ramps to non-collidable, then created new invisible ramps for contact with the ball. This should help ramp & bowl physics work the same on all systems regardless of alpha setting.
- Found another ramp to set to alpha, now the lamp behind it can be seen when on.
- Frequency of "sneak-in" shot is adjusted, should happen less easily.

[Arcade4]

Update is uploading now, & those having issues like ball stuck on ramp might experience much better gameplay on the ramps, it should now play like I intended it to. Those playing at full alpha settings probably won't notice any difference. Update includes a slightly tweaked sneak-in shot though. Arcade4 or anybody else, now I worry that the sneak-in won't be made often enough if at all, so please let me know if you guys are unable to make it in at all. I only tested it for a few minutes, I wasn't able to get it in there but came pretty close a couple times I think. So IDK, we'll see. After thinking about it I'd rather it not go in at all though than have it go down there too much.

v1.2 - Set all alpha ramps to non-collidable, then created new invisible ramps for contact with the ball. This should help ramp & bowl physics work the same on all systems regardless of alpha setting.
- Found another ramp to set to alpha, now the lamp behind it can be seen when on.
- Frequency of "sneak-in" shot is adjusted, should happen less easily.

Awesome.
Thanks for the fast update.
Can't play it till tomorrow, but I'm sure it will be great.

[JAM0]

Awesome Rob, Thanks or the update! Haven't tried it yet but will soon. To answer your question regarding the FS alpha version, yes it does work for me (ramps) after the final tweaks that were made.

What I am gathering is that it has to do with the alpha slider? I have had mine to the left because I didn't see much visual difference and wanted any performance gains I might get.

[ced]

Thx Rob !!

[bolt]

Wow, thank you Rob for this fast update.

[JAM0]

I can confirm that the ramp problem is completely solved for me, and you are right Rob that all ramp action seems significantly improved. Also the KISS skill-shot appears fixed, and I can confirm that the sneak-in action still happens but is significantly reduced in frequency from a PAID lane shot. Great Table -- am very pleased with this. Thanks again Rob and UW for the table!

[rob046]

I can confirm that the ramp problem is completely solved for me, and you are right Rob that all ramp action seems significantly improved. Also the KISS skill-shot appears fixed, and I can confirm that the sneak-in action still happens but is significantly reduced in frequency from a PAID lane shot. Great Table -- am very pleased with this. Thanks again Rob and UW for the table!

Great news!
This also means that this should definitely be worth releasing as a FS version.

As I said earlier, there was nothing wrong with the KISS skill shot & I didn't change a thing in that area with this update. Read rules txt to make sense of this.
Glad you have made it into the sneak-in, was worried that it would now be too hard to get in there.

[rob046]

I was just playing a game on this & thinking that I was either starting to get too good at it or it was just too easy. I noticed how little I lost the ball in the outlanes. Yet the posts seemed like they were in the right spots. but something still didn't seem quite right, too easy. So I went to study more pics & it appears that there shouldn't be any rubber on the outlane posts. So I'm gonna remove that & maybe even bumper them down just a tad, & see how it plays.

Edited by rob046, 28 June 2012 - 11:15 PM.

[JAM0]

I think you are starting to get too good at it; I don't think it plays too easy but just about right. Were you looking at PAPA pics? because they remove the rubbers on the out-lane posts to prepare machines for tournaments. In any case looking forward to checking out the changes, if any.

[CPSNine]

Great news!
This also means that this should definitely be worth releasing as a FS version.

...

Would love to see a FS version of your mod.
I love this table and I never got the previous FS mod to work in my cab.

[rob046]

Well its about to get tougher! Won't be a huge change though. Indeed, in real life there shouldn't be rubber on the outlane posts in this game & I've verified this. If you see rubber on CFTBL outlane posts its because the operator added them after the fact. & the guy who wrote the extended rules I included also mentions this. I'm not sure if PAPA goes quite to that extent for the tournament machines unless the game is supposed to be that way, but I'm curious to know if I'm wrong, when I go to PAPA I usually don't play the tourney machines, I think they like to keep the games as original as possible but they will increase slope & adjust rom settings. But there are some games like this one that just by default do have metal posts.

So I got the metal posts on there & while this does make the game tougher, it really isn't that bad because the ball doesn't really go to the outlanes very often with how this table is designed, but if it does you want to be careful & maybe break out some nudging skills. I also adjusted the adjustable posts right above those as well. But all 4 posts are pretty much in the middle of the conservative/liberal settings. Likely just how most CFTBL are setup. So mainly it will just be those outlane posts having much less bounce being metal that will make things a little tougher there, I think.

Also, I'm adding some metal hit sounds to those posts, & I found a few gates that didn't have the gate sound that is being added.
I'm also trying to figure out if I want to shave just a tiny bit off the bowl speed. I'm often getting 5 hits, which certainly can happen in real life, but I'm thinking 4 might be a good number to hit consistently. But there will always be some randomness, give or take 1 switch hit.
Also am doing a couple other real small changes with this update that most probably won't even notice, but I'll feel better if I do them.

I will finish up a FS version once this update comes out & everybody seems happy with it, which might be after this update.

Edited by rob046, 29 June 2012 - 03:04 AM.

[rob046]

OK update is up.

[JAM0]

Great news!
This also means that this should definitely be worth releasing as a FS version.

...

Would love to see a FS version of your mod.
I love this table and I never got the previous FS mod to work in my cab.

I suggest moving your alpha slider all the way to the right and trying the previous version in your cab again. Rob alluded to the fact that alpha slider position is the cause of the variance of ramp behavior between users. Since I had mine to the left and had problems, I am assuming that right is right.

In any case I am happy to hear Rob is putting out an FS version, which should guarantee that the ramps work for everyone.

Edited by JAM0, 29 June 2012 - 07:55 AM.

[rob046]

Great news!
This also means that this should definitely be worth releasing as a FS version.

...

Would love to see a FS version of your mod.
I love this table and I never got the previous FS mod to work in my cab.

I suggest moving your alpha slider all the way to the right and trying the previous version in your cab again. Rob alluded to the fact that alpha slider position is the cause of the variance of ramp behavior between users. Since I had mine to the left and had problems, I am assuming that right is right.

In any case I am happy to hear Rob is putting out an FS version, which should guarantee that the ramps work for everyone.

Now it doesn't matter, I already fixed all that in the previous update. The slider can be wherever you need it to be for best performance. So the ramps should already work for everyone, & they should on the FS as well.

[JAM0]

Great news!
This also means that this should definitely be worth releasing as a FS version.

...

Would love to see a FS version of your mod.
I love this table and I never got the previous FS mod to work in my cab.

I suggest moving your alpha slider all the way to the right and trying the previous version in your cab again. Rob alluded to the fact that alpha slider position is the cause of the variance of ramp behavior between users. Since I had mine to the left and had problems, I am assuming that right is right.

In any case I am happy to hear Rob is putting out an FS version, which should guarantee that the ramps work for everyone.

Now it doesn't matter, I already fixed all that in the previous update. The slider can be wherever you need it to be for best performance. So the ramps should already work for everyone, & they should on the FS as well.

I was talking about the FS mod by MRCMRC, Rob. CPSNine never got that to work in his cab.

Edited by JAM0, 29 June 2012 - 07:12 PM.

[rob046]

Oh, well maybe that won't matter cuz he will get to try this FS out probably sometime today, shortly. Though hopefully if there is anything else off or buggy, I hope people would be reporting it. So if I don't hear anything I'm assuming that things must be good between the last couple updates.

Since I don't have any type of FS setup to test on, I'm just doing the basic conversion & hoping it looks & plays OK for FS users. Obviously it is tougher for those with only desktop setups to convert to FS than it is the other way around. But it should be good I think.