Can someone please explain how tilt works?

jonesjb · May 13, 2013

I'm playing this on the iPad and can't figure out which of the following pertain to how tilt works:
A: You have a set number of warnings/shakes before the table tilts (e.g. 5 shakes per ball)
B. You have a set number of warnings/shakes before the table tilts, within a period of time (e.g. three shakes within 10 seconds).
C. Tilting is shake sensitive, and it depends on how strongly you nudge the table irrespective on number of nudges.
D. Another mechanism not mentioned above.

If someone could shed some light on this, I'd appreciate it.

Sean DonCarlos · May 13, 2013

What seems to happen is something like this: There's a value stored in the game that is a representation of how hard the (virtual) tilt bob is swinging. Normally this value is 0, meaning the tilt bob is at rest. Nudging the table increases this value by a set amount (because on an iPad you can't control the force of your nudges, at least not with touch nudging), and then the value slowly decays over time to simulate the tilt bob settling back down after a nudge. When the value crosses some threshold, as from repeated nudging in a short timeframe, the table tilts (or gives tilt warnings).

As best I can tell, if we assign the rest state a value of 0%, and assume the table tilts when the value hits 100%, then each nudge increases the value by about 60% and the value decays by about 5% per second. This is from observing that two nudges in a row from the rest state almost always gives an immediate tilt warning, while two nudges a few seconds apart will not. However, if you do two nudges a few seconds apart, you need to wait quite a bit longer before a third nudge becomes safe, because you have the tilt value jacked up to near 100% and need to wait 10 to 12 seconds for it to get below 40% for the next nudge to be "safe".

All this being said, I'm not a FarSight programmer and I have not seen the source code. I'm guessing this is close to how it is done from observing in-game behavior, but it might be done by some other method.

MontanaFrank · May 13, 2013

Great question jonesjb and welcome to the forum. Thanks for your answer Sean DonCarlos. I would have never thought the electronic tilt worked that way. I thought it was the number and/or intensity of the shake(s) per ball. This will certainly help me in my playing.

norbert26 · May 13, 2013

to my understanding you have to complete all the wizard goals before you can even use the nudge as my tilt says locked in the menus. Is this correct or am i misunderstanding this ? If i misunderstand this please clarify it thank you.

DeeEff · May 13, 2013

norbert26 said:
to my understanding you have to complete all the wizard goals before you can even use the nudge as my tilt says locked in the menus. Is this correct or am i misunderstanding this ? If i misunderstand this please clarify it thank you.

Completing Wizard goals enables the option to turn the tilt sensor off for that table, which allows you to nudge as much as you want without tilting the machine.

The act of nudging works regardless.

HTH

Fungi · May 13, 2013

The act of nudging is often confused with the term "tilt". "Tilt" is actually the penalty. So when players read the function "tilt" being locked, they think they're not allowed to nudge.

brakel · May 13, 2013

Turning tilt off will also not allow those scores to be posted to the leader board. I don't remember if it allows those scores on the high scores.

spoonman · May 13, 2013

I'm just glad Farsight turned off the ability to score on the Leaderboards with Tilt disabled. It was pretty crazy with The Williams Pinball hall of Fame Collection with everyone hitting huge scores with Tilt turned off!

norbert26 · May 13, 2013

Fungi said:
The act of nudging is often confused with the term "tilt". "Tilt" is actually the penalty. So when players read the function "tilt" being locked, they think they're not allowed to nudge.

thanks for clearing that up i should be able to set the iPad for shake it says touch screen under nudge i will change it to shake. Its really needed on firepower.

Man-Machine · May 13, 2013

The shake nudge doesen't work very well, unfortunately. I think you need to be in landscape-mode to use it at all.

norbert26 · May 13, 2013

Man-Machine said:
The shake nudge doesen't work very well, unfortunately. I think you need to be in landscape-mode to use it at all.

yuck thatks for the heads up ill leave it on touch screen i use portrait mode.

MontanaFrank · May 13, 2013

You can shake nudge in portrait mode. I've never had a problem.

Jeff Strong · May 13, 2013

MontanaFrank said:
You can shake nudge in portrait mode. I've never had a problem.

I think it's better on Android from what I hear. It's pretty bad on iOS though.

Baron Rubik · May 13, 2013

Jeff Strong said:
I think it's better on Android from what I hear. It's pretty bad on iOS though.

I think it differs device to device on Android. Works flawlessly on an N7.

norbert26 · May 15, 2013

MontanaFrank said:
You can shake nudge in portrait mode. I've never had a problem.

i will give it a shot then.

norbert26 · May 15, 2013

norbert26 said:
i will give it a shot then.

put it through the firepower test seems to be working saved a few outlane drains and a few down the middle drains.

jonesjb · May 15, 2013

Thank guys, I appreciate it and that makes sense. Which version of tilt do you find works bes? I've been using shake because I find that the others don't feel as natural to me.

pinballchris · May 15, 2013

Although not great, but better than the rest, I think touch nudge works best for iOS. Shake just does respond, or over responds, swipe too long. I hate moving my fingers from the flippers, but touch seems to be more natural until shake is reworked.

superballs · May 16, 2013

Unless it's been improved ios shake nudging sucks pretty bad and I never had it working in portrait.

For android here's a breakdown of my experience.

Galaxy s3 (dual core lte version): laggy and unresponsive. Only slightly better than ios.

Note 2: Not great and not terrible. Fairly responsive with a bit of lag. Otherwise the game plays beautifully.

Nexus7: This is where it's at. Shake nudging is responsive and subtle and everything runs as smooth as silk.

Day · May 16, 2013

Baron Rubik said:
I think it differs device to device on Android. Works flawlessly on an N7.

superballs said:
For android here's a breakdown of my experience... {snip}.... Nexus7: This is where it's at. Shake nudging is responsive and subtle and everything runs as smooth as silk.

I've tried to use shake nudging on Nexus 7.... but have found it to be far too sensitive. Simply holding the pad & playing, i'm generating unwanted nudge events and consequent tilts. Ideally i'd like configurable motion sensor sensitivity. I looked in the Android settings (stock JB 4.2.1) and also on Google Play but could not find anything.

either of you guys, or anyone else reading, know if there's a way to desensitize the motion sensor ?

Can someone please explain how tilt works?

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