9 replies to this topic

[jimmyfingers]

I've been able to enhance the current flipper soft tap / variable strength routine to enable flipper drop catches. I recalled some discussion previously about flipper settings and how the recoil strength was set very low to do this. While this caused some aspects for other parts of game play, the concept was used to enable a low recoil strength only when the flipper is retracting (the key up / solenoid off) which does not affect it in the extended / on position.

With only about another dozen lines of code added to my existing enhanced flipper routine, I am able to add a momentary drop in recoil strength the minute the key up is sensed / solenoid NOT enabled and if timed correctly can work pretty nicely. The routine already had a momentary drop in speed to help with the visuals and the soft taps and that has helped this recoil work well as if the speed is too fast, the flipper pulls away from the ball too fast and it needs to make contact after the key is lifted but before it ends it's rotation back to the start position.

There's a slight change to the momentary speed drop in this enhanced routine but it's not perceivably different from the original (.04 vs. .05). It can be kept at .05 but is a fair bit harder to time exactly. Subsequently, the momentary speed for the flipper return can be lowered to .035 or .03 and the catch a fair bit easier but the flipper at that point becomes a little too slow to return to the start position IMHO.

I will post the code in the I500 release support topic to swap out for people to try on their own.

[thewool]

Great stuff Jimmy, you really are pushing boundarys with your coding skills In the video it seems that you are making the catch every time. It would be nice to see some variation in the way the ball is caught to keep that random feeling but not sure if this is possible. I suppose in a VP game the ball will be approaching from all angles which will keep things wild, don't want to give the player too much control

Really looking forward to trying this on I500 to get a feel for it!

[Bob5453]

Jimmy, the video looks awesome. I made a flipper tester once, I was going to play around with stuff looking for great settings, but what I soon discovered was VP just doesn't have enough flipper ball hit angles to make me excited about playing the game the way it should be played. A VP author either chooses to have sweet spots or he chooses the game to be hard, meaning it is tough to hit shots, there is no happy medium that I can see without more hit angles for each flipper flip.

Anyway, I would love to see you add your routine(s) to my test table and try to see if you can change my mind. Link below, after I made this flipper test table, I was bummed out on VP for awhile. That is how bad the flippers suck in VP when you are trying to aim at all of the table's angle shots. Link below to file. Feel free to change anything, I would just like to see great VP flippers and the test is not playing a completed table, but seeing the ball and the flipper while trying to hit all of the available shots on a VP table.

http://www.vpforums....s&showfile=6191

Edited by Bob5453, 03 October 2012 - 09:35 PM.

[jimmyfingers]

Great stuff Jimmy, you really are pushing boundarys with your coding skills In the video it seems that you are making the catch every time. It would be nice to see some variation in the way the ball is caught to keep that random feeling but not sure if this is possible. I suppose in a VP game the ball will be approaching from all angles which will keep things wild, don't want to give the player too much control

Really looking forward to trying this on I500 to get a feel for it!

Good eye, the video is quite static as I wanted to be able to quickly get it produced and demonstrate so I actually use a hidden trigger above the flipper that disables the solenoid (the same as lifting my finger of the key) at just the right time / positioning. Otherwise, you'd have to sit through a bunch of attempts AND with my wireless keyboard on my develpment rig it's way tougher to time then with a wired keyboard or controller such as I have in my mini-cab (and I ain't loading capture software on my smooth playing cab

You will indeed see a lot more variation when not using static kicker parameters and a fixed trigger to demonstrate. Trust me, you'll wish it was back to being as easy / reproducible as the video makes it look once you try it It's quite hard to time in actual game situations.

I've added a post on my I500 mod support topics that gives you the script changes you would need to test it out - give it a try!

@bob5453
I'll need some time to look into your request but am actually curious myself. Between the new flipper enhanced routines and the dampener settings I now use, which were also debuted in I500 GI8, I believe that things have a nice balance of control and realism, but still with some randomness. My view of VP flipper control and behviour has changed since I've implemented and manipulated them using these routines. There will be another table out soon to check out the flipper dampener included (but I do not think at this point I'll put the catch portion in - just maybe the code to swap out if people want as I still want to test more).

[rob046]

I've been able to do drop catches for a long time now in VP. Even with the flipper tap routine, but even there its the same idea I use in any VP table, which is lower return speed (though I wonder if I may be the only author even doing it this way, but it works fine for me & I do a ton of drop catches in real life, I guess that is just my play style). I do agree that sometimes to do this, the flipper return can be a little too slow, but I personally don't find it so bad to where it bugs me or hurts gameplay. I will definitely check this out though, see if maybe I prefer this method a little better.

Jimmy, the video looks awesome. I made a flipper tester once, I was going to play around with stuff looking for great settings, but what I soon discovered was VP just doesn't have enough flipper ball hit angles to make me excited about playing the game the way it should be played. A VP author either chooses to have sweet spots or he chooses the game to be hard, meaning it is tough to hit shots, there is no happy medium that I can see without more hit angles for each flipper flip.

Anyway, I would love to see you add your routine(s) to my test table and try to see if you can change my mind. Link below, after I made this flipper test table, I was bummed out on VP for awhile. That is how bad the flippers suck in VP when you are trying to aim at all of the table's angle shots. Link below to file. Feel free to change anything, I would just like to see great VP flippers and the test is not playing a completed table, but seeing the ball and the flipper while trying to hit all of the available shots on a VP table.

http://www.vpforums....s&showfile=6191

Bob I think we talked about this before, & I do know what you mean. However, you should know something if you don't already. Some people do use certain physics settings that do exactly what you say. Even I slipped up & released a version by accident like this, & you noticed it. This is usually just due to a bad speed/strength balance. So if you have this happening to you.... I think JF can & will help you solve some of this, & I feel like I could give you some settings as well that would work great.
As long as you don't tip that balance that can make flippers aim a little wonky, it should be all good. Yes, I admit that VP still isn't 100% perfect with aiming, but with the right settings its pretty damn close. I actually already did a mod of an original of yours for my own use, & now its one of my favorite originals to play. You might also be interested in reading about my latest Mystic update & trying that. Yes it is more modern tables that still play closest to the real thing in VP, but I'm feeling like I'm making some real nice improvement on the classics that use that old style bigger flipper, which have always been a headache to work with in terms of getting optimal flipper physics.

Oh, & with this issue I'm talking about above, this applies to all tables, BRMP or not, doesn't matter. Though as far as flippers go, I definitely now use Jimmy's flipper tap routine on every table I work on. I modify just a couple settings in it to my preference, but this routine also really helps to solve a couple old & annoying flipper issues that VP has always had. So while you are souring on VP a bit, I'm messing with all this stuff & I'm more impressed than every at what VP can do. It isn't always easy to make flippers play totally satisfactory, but with things like the tap routine & just the fact that VP9 has so many more settings to play with, it is pretty doable. & the good news is that of JF's routines, the flipper tap is very easy to add, & like I said it is a bit tweakable as well. Yes, even your originals can play as well or better than any table out there, I assure you.

Edited by rob046, 04 October 2012 - 03:54 AM.

[Bob5453]

Rob, until someone can make a flipper that can hit at least 90% of the triggers on that flipper tester table without adjusting settings mid game, then we are just blowing smoke. I know how flippers can be made to hit 6 shots on any particular table, but I want to see flippers where it is possible to spray the ball around at the different possible angled shots one would see in real life. The table is there, try it, put in any settings you want and you will see the impossible angles with any settings you enter. I don't know how many programmed angle points of contact the flipper can make with the ball, but I can't imagine it being that hard to add more of these hit possibilies to VP. We are trying to make things more real, but I believe we need to attack the source code more here to achieve better physics. I'm sure if you did this with a real table, all kickers could be hit.

[jimmyfingers]

I've been able to do drop catches for a long time now in VP. Even with the flipper tap routine, but even there its the same idea I use in any VP table, which is lower return speed (though I wonder if I may be the only author even doing it this way, but it works fine for me & I do a ton of drop catches in real life, I guess that is just my play style). I do agree that sometimes to do this, the flipper return can be a little too slow, but I personally don't find it so bad to where it bugs me or hurts gameplay. I will definitely check this out though, see if maybe I prefer this method a little better.

Rob, when you are referring to "return speed" do you mean "return strength" as there is no setting in VP for flipper "return speed" only "speed" (i.e. equally affecting both directions / RotateToEnd and RotateToStart). I'm a bit confused by your post and might assume you were talking specifically about my flipper tap routine, as I fabricate a discrete return speed - and use a very lower value mainly for visuals - by altering the flipper "speed" setting before the RotateToStart command, then return it to the initial speed value afterwards (it's intentionally momentary). However, you state "even with the flipper tap routine" which seems to indicate you're not exclusively using it to alter "return speed" so unless you're using another custom bit of code and without the VP setting I don't see how you are or have been using a low "return speed" setting.

Plus, if you were referring to return strength, I don't see how that setting would alter the speed at which the flipper returns as I've never seen that setting on it's own alter the speed of the flipper RotateToStart motion (one of the reasons actually I use it and momentarily crank it up to a full 1 on the Sol False / RotateToStart portion of the flipper tap based subroutine as the increase in flipper return strength helps against weak underside flipper hits of the ball in a draining position when the speed has been momentarily set so very low).

[jpsalas]

Just a little information about drop catches in VP: to make the drop catch you just need to reduce the power-law. Normally the authors set it to 1 or 2, but I don't think many know what really happens. The official explanation of this value is that it is a multiplier for the flipper values. But it is a value of the relation of the mass between the ball and the flipper. So if your flippers are made of solid plastic you need a higher value, say 2 or higher, but if your flippers are lighter then you may use a lower value, like 1 or lower. The effect of this value is not only a semi multiplier for the flippers values, but it has a strong effect on how easy is to make a drop catch. In the beginning I used to use the value 1 for my flippers since with 1 I could adjust better the speed and the strength of the flippers then with a value of 2. There was one just a little problem with using a value of 1 (or lower): the drop catches are incredibly easy. If you want to try it then just set this value to 0,1 and you will catch most of the balls. The shots will be weaker. That's why later I started to use 1,5 for the power law, which I thought it was an in between value. Now I use 2, so the drop catches are hard to achieve Well, just my two cents

Edited by jpsalas, 04 October 2012 - 03:43 PM.

[gtxjoe]

Hi,

 

I just want to say I noticed the flipper drop catch support in the Medieval Madness table and I have gotten used to using it during gameplay.  Kudos to Jimmyfingers, JP and others who are adding it to the tables.  Now when I play some of the older tables I notice how much I have gotten used to having it :-)

 

I finally got around to building a cabinet last month and am now busy installing, setting up and occasionally playing the tables ;-) so thanks to all the table authors and developers.

 

Is the flipper routine purely in the table script or did it also require VP support in 9.1.5?  I will have to tinker a little bit and see if I can import the flipper routine into some of the other tables without breaking them.

 

thanks again!

Edited by gtxjoe, 29 May 2013 - 01:36 AM.

[jimmyfingers]

Is the flipper routine purely in the table script or did it also require VP support in 9.1.5?  I will have to tinker a little bit and see if I can import the flipper routine into some of the other tables without breaking them.

It's independant of VP version and I developed the routine before VP 9.1.5 was released. However, it's not necessarily independant of the flipper object settings so when copying the code from the script you also have to try and generally match the flipper physics settings as well on the table you're moving / adding it to.