44 replies to this topic

[vic viper]

Thank you TAB

[kruge99]

If the FS works well now .. could you pls. upload it here?

Cheers,
FD.

Sorry guys, I was totally baked after dinner and fell asleep, I didn't see Noah's post until this morning. I will work on a new FS conversion today and upload it for you all!


Best Regards,
Todd.

[bha19]

Here is my problem which is sort of similar to what others posted. Sometimes the ball gets stuck in the kickout hole and another ball is released into the shooter lane or sometimes the ball gets stuck before it can loop around to the kickout hole. Either way the ball eventually releases from the hole or lane leading to the loop for the kickout hole. I just have to remind myself not to shoot another ball into play or to wait for the ball to release.
bha19

[destruk]

Here is my problem which is sort of similar to what others posted. Sometimes the ball gets stuck in the kickout hole and another ball is released into the shooter lane or sometimes the ball gets stuck before it can loop around to the kickout hole. Either way the ball eventually releases from the hole or lane leading to the loop for the kickout hole. I just have to remind myself not to shoot another ball into play or to wait for the ball to release.
bha19

The problem there should be fixed in the current release of the 4:3 table for VP9. - redownload it and tell us if it continues to happen or not please. It has been changed but I didn't update the version number.
You can check to make sure it's the 'fixed' one by looking at the keycode section in the script. If it says LeftMagnaSave in the script, it should be working fine.

[bha19]

Here is my problem which is sort of similar to what others posted. Sometimes the ball gets stuck in the kickout hole and another ball is released into the shooter lane or sometimes the ball gets stuck before it can loop around to the kickout hole. Either way the ball eventually releases from the hole or lane leading to the loop for the kickout hole. I just have to remind myself not to shoot another ball into play or to wait for the ball to release.
bha19

The problem there should be fixed in the current release of the 4:3 table for VP9. - redownload it and tell us if it continues to happen or not please. It has been changed but I didn't update the version number.
You can check to make sure it's the 'fixed' one by looking at the keycode section in the script. If it says LeftMagnaSave in the script, it should be working fine.

I clicked the link and the file is the same file size I already have. I overwrote the file and the same thing happens with the balls. Also I am using the latest VP9. Is this what I am looking for in the script?

Sub Table1_KeyUp(ByVal KeyCode)
if keycode = LeftMagnaSave then
Controller.Switch(5) = False
Controller.Switch(7) = False
End If
if keycode = RightMagnaSave then Controller.Switch(7) = False
If vpmKeyUp(KeyCode) Then Exit Sub
If KeyCode=PlungerKey Then Plunger.Fire
End Sub

Sub Table1_KeyDown(ByVal KeyCode)
if keycode = LeftMagnaSave then
Controller.Switch(5) = True
Controller.Switch(7) = True
End If
if keycode = RightMagnaSave then Controller.Switch(7) = True
If vpmKeyDown(KeyCode) Then Exit Sub
If KeyCode=PlungerKey Then Plunger.PullBack
End Sub

bha19

[vic viper]

This table does play kinda strange, so I guess this is why they call it Strange Science.

Just being sarcastic, But I never played one of these in the real world, so I wouldn't have a clue on how this table is really suppose to play.

But I do enjoy playing the Virtual Pinball version,

Great gob TAB

[Shoopity]

I personally am still having the issue and I double checked the keycode section and it DOES have both left and right magnasave. Unfortunately ipdb doesn't have a rule sheet and I'm not familiar with gameplay, but I think it all has to do with the atom smasher.

I'm shooting it where it SHOULD load the AS but it actually loops around the back to the right kickout. The ROM thinks the AS is loaded so it serves another ball but it's really sitting in the kickout. After about 5 seconds it kicks that ball out so now there are two balls in play. The ROM probably wasn't written to detect such an occurrence so when one of the balls drains, it thinks it's the end of the ball and serves up another one.

I think this is somewhat proven because at the end of the game, it'll still say "One ball in the Atom Smasher" (or something like that) when there isn't one. I'm guessing in the original, loaded balls carried over from game to game? Like I said, it's hard to determine since I can't find any rule sheets on the interwebs.

Since there's only one ROM version here, it can't be that.

[destruk]

I have no idea how you're getting that to happen Shoopity. When you shoot the ball with the top left flipper - it hits the ball to the left, and up to the kicker. The kicker destroys the ball, creates a ball on the ramp, and drops the ball down into the atom smasher area.
I downloaded the table here again - seems something always gets changed somehow. Can you try to change the surface of "SpeedTrigger" to be Ramp146 instead of Ramp138 and see if that fixes anything?

[Shoopity]

destruk,

Changing the surface fixed the odd loading problem so that's wonderful (and after looking at the layout of the field it's clear because the game was registering an Atom Smasher load when I was shooting around the upper loop, i.e. I was shooting the ball from the bottom right flipper). But now I'm seeing different behavior. When I hit the bottom of the atom smasher after loading it with a ball, it kicks both balls out the top, but the ROM thinks another atom has been loaded so it serves up the ball. So now I've got two balls on the field and one in the trough.

I added a text box to the back glass and tied it the LockBalls variable to watch things. One time I shot the ball through the bottom of the smasher and it flew right through (as it should based on the Trigger20 code). After closing and restarting (to reset the lockballs variable), I did it again; the ball flew right through again, but the ROM registered it as an atom smasher load AND the lockballs variable went up to 1, even though there was no ball sitting in the smasher. Is there more than one way to load the AS? Again, a rule sheet would be helpful.

I've had the LockBalls variable as high as 6 when there was only 2 balls in the AS (and the game thought there was a ball in play because nothing was going on, then after about 20 seconds, the balls moved down one, then another 20 seconds and one ball was released). I've seen the balls get locked in the AS in the top position. Again, I don't know if that happens in real life or not.

One time I hit a ball in the AS from the bottom but it wasn't hard enough to knock it out; wouldn't the Trigger20 code reduce the LockBalls by 1 even though there's still on in the AS? I tried putting the surface of trigger20 to <none>, still didn't work. One time I finished a game 1 ball in the AS (in the 3rd or 4th position), the lockballs variable was at 4 and the ROM thought there were 3 in the AS (it says how many balls are in the AS at the end of a game).

I'm no coder, I know enough to sound like I know how to code to someone who doesn't, but it's abundantly clear I'm fairly ignorant. I'm just trying to help you track this down.

[bha19]

I personally am still having the issue and I double checked the keycode section and it DOES have both left and right magnasave. Unfortunately ipdb doesn't have a rule sheet and I'm not familiar with gameplay, but I think it all has to do with the atom smasher.

I'm shooting it where it SHOULD load the AS but it actually loops around the back to the right kickout. The ROM thinks the AS is loaded so it serves another ball but it's really sitting in the kickout. After about 5 seconds it kicks that ball out so now there are two balls in play. The ROM probably wasn't written to detect such an occurrence so when one of the balls drains, it thinks it's the end of the ball and serves up another one.

I think this is somewhat proven because at the end of the game, it'll still say "One ball in the Atom Smasher" (or something like that) when there isn't one. I'm guessing in the original, loaded balls carried over from game to game? Like I said, it's hard to determine since I can't find any rule sheets on the interwebs.

Since there's only one ROM version here, it can't be that.

This is the problem I was talking about.
bha19

[destruk]

Updated to 1.02 - reason it worked in VP8 was because the manual has switches 43 and 44 reversed/in the wrong places on the layout diagram. This table was redone from scratch and I had forgotten that's how I got it to work last time.
Anyway, it should be 100% now - played a few games, got 4 balls locked, released one by hitting the bottom locked ball, and it worked fine, tried a few multiballs, standard 5 ball, a bunch of testing. Enjoy.

[bolt]

Thanks for the update destruk and TAB.

[TAB]

Updated to 1.02 - reason it worked in VP8 was because the manual has switches 43 and 44 reversed/in the wrong places on the layout diagram. This table was redone from scratch and I had forgotten that's how I got it to work last time.
Anyway, it should be 100% now - played a few games, got 4 balls locked, released one by hitting the bottom locked ball, and it worked fine, tried a few multiballs, standard 5 ball, a bunch of testing. Enjoy.

Thanks my friend.
So much worked on it - want see them any more
How much years have we worked on it

[destruk]

It's not the years TAB. I mean, all told I think we have probably put in three or four weeks (total) on this one machine. The real bad part is the hours of frustration with deciphering the lamp 'phase' diagram, and custom coding the ball lock/atom smasher, antigravity ramp and layout...playtesting and tweaking. The visible ball trough also wasn't ever much fun to work on - but it all comes together for one cool, if strange, pinball game. I still don't know if we have the LAB ramp and holes correct - as I've never seen the real machine and I don't have pics of that area either - but it seems to work ok.

[NEW]

Thanks for the update !!!

[humid]

Thanks for your diligence and patience Destruk in finding the Atom Smasher solution. And of course to Tab for reworking this to solid VP9 standards and great playability. It is indeed a strange table, which makes it a cool standout among this eras themes. Look forward to seeing how I'll score on it now.

[Shoopity]

I really hope you don't think I'm being picky about this. I just really like this table, I'll always have the utmost respect for the authors ('cause lord knows I could never do this stuff), and I love trouble shooting.

Destruk, AS seems to be working 100%, but other elements just didn't seem to be working. Now that I knew there was an 8.x version, I downloaded that and took a look at a few things.

1) The Bubble points switch on the right side, in the 9.x version it is labled SW13; I relabled it to Trigger7 and it's properly scoring me bubble points.
2) The brain transfer for the monkey switch, in the 9.x version it is labled SW42; I relabled it to Trigger5 and now I'm racking up bonus points.
3) The anti-gravity seems a bit odd (especially compared to the 8.x version), but the code I replaced it with doesn't seem to have helped.
4) I'm unable to enter my initials. I think input from the flipper keys is disabled before they really should be?

I'm doing some testing with the anti-gravity, I'll let you know what I find out.

[Shoopity]

OK, the code for the anti-gravity is good, but the design of the table is what was causing the odd behavior. If you compare the 8.x and 9.x layouts, they're different for the U-turn. In the 9.x version, the L for the L-A-B rollovers drains through the U-turn but in the 8.x version it's blocked off and the ball stays in the jets area. Regardless if that's accurate (because I have no idea), the way the wall is designed, a ball that shoots out the anti-gravity usually hits that little stub, bounces back, and shoots straight down instead of going around the U-turn like it should. A slight wall modification should fix that.

I honestly think that's it.

[destruk]

Thanks Shoopity. I went through the script, verified each switch and name, removed code that isn't used, added the three top LAB switches (were missing, only bottom ones were active before). I truly hope this is the last update required, but if you find anything else let us know please. btw for entering initials, it's the left/right magna save keys - default are left control and right control. Left control also activates the kickback when lit, and right switches the lit LAB lane. As for layout with the bumper, that matches the playfield diagram, so it should be correct in the vp9 one here. I disabled collision on some of the plastics in the area and steadied the X velocity of the ball when leaving the anti gravity ramp, so it should be a little smoother.

[Shoopity]

Awesome but... you're 99% there, you fixed one thing and broke another. You fixed the brain transfer switch on the right side (for the monkey), but you broke the switch on the left side (for the lady). On the table, the switch for the lady is "Trigger4" and the switch for the monkey is "SW42".

You fixed the code by removing Trigger5 and replacing it with SW42, but you broke Trigger4 because you changed the code to be SW41. You definitely don't need to fix and repost anything for little old me, I can make the change myself (either by changing the code, or by renaming the switch on the table). But you DID say to let you know ;-).

Edited by Shoopity, 01 May 2010 - 12:16 AM.