Request Simple physics adjustment that will make a WORLD of difference.

[Zaphod77]

Have a slight degree of randomness in all rebounds off of standups.

In real life they deform a bit on impact and the ball doesn't go precisely to the same point every time off of them. So why does it in TPA?

This is most obvious on t2, where the skillshot rebounds exactly the same every single time, and with the three in one escape rebound off the rightmost target into the skillshot standups and into the other two.

If we apply a slight random factor, similar to what the jet bumpers do to all standups but less extreme, tables will suddenly become a lot less exploitable. say maybe plus or minus 1 degree, or even .1 degree, it will make a difference.

This random factor is what makes standups of death so dangerous to shoot in real life. You don't know exactly what the ball will do off of them, where they are totally predictable in TPA.

This also makes the superdog to mirror shot a LOT less of a guarantee, like it is in real life. in TPA it can be totally relie dupon, and that's NOT realistic.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Have you heard about Cactus Canyon? Practically every forum member on the website got upset when we discovered the hilariously unrealistic rebounds off of ramp and loop ejects. I mean, for standups it might not be so bad, but still...

 

[brakel]

What they really need is an array of realistic trajectories that the ball could take rather than "random". FarSight hasn't been too good at random.

 

[DarkAkatosh]

Yeah, they tried this already and....

/thread

 

[Zaphod77]

well, do ball launches on t2 always take the same trajectory in real life? NO they don't, even if they always strike the same target.

This is a way to model that accurately and easily.

 

[netizen]

Have you heard about Cactus Canyon? Practically every forum member on the website got upset when we discovered the hilariously unrealistic rebounds off of ramp and loop ejects. I mean, for standups it might not be so bad, but still...

Yeah, they tried this already and....

"artificial difficulty" not randomness

 

[DrainoBraino]

I'm all for "realistic" randomness. Such as varied kickouts slightly different trajectories for balls coming out of loops and failed ramp shots.

As mentioned, the type of randomness that was implemented is Cactus Canyon is absurd. For those that don't know, when the ball is coming down from the left loop it is normally a very easy trap or dead flipper pass, but at random, the people at FS decided to make the ball kick toward the center of the table. When this happens the ball has to be nudged or it will be a SDTM drain. It is an unrealistic movement of the ball. No sir I don't like it.

 

[superballs]

I think VP deals with this using a "scatter angle" variable.

Basically the ball can deviate from the "expected trajectory" when bouncing off of an object within a certain angle, probably determined by random number or something. So let's say surface A has a scatter angle of 1 degree (it's been a while since I've used the interface honestly), the ball could bounce any angle within that one degree (say half a degree either way from the "expected bounce angle"). It only takes a few bounces off a few surfaces to really mix it up. It's not exactly random, more like a bit of controlled chaos, with some constraints so you don't end up with the Goat Simulator effect.

 

[brakel]

I hate the term random though when it comes to expected outcomes from particular portions of a table. Randomness isn't what we really want. We've seen that and it is not good. What we want is realistic variation.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Isn't realistic variation still, for all intents and purposes, random? This variation comes from small, often undetectable, even quantum-level imperfections. Virtual pinball like Pinball Arcade would instead have no imperfections whatsoever and hence the ball will do the same thing in the same circumstances. Not to mention Brownian motion screwing with the ball's trajectory (which would take the world's greatest supercomputer like a century to calculate and simulate).

 

[superballs]

Since the ball is made of vertices and basically it's collision mesh must be a myriad of flat surfaces, they could assign each surface a number and whichever flat surface makes contact with another surface could be what determines the "random" (for lack of a better word) angle of occlusion (hopefully i still have some of my physics terminology, does that only apply to light?). That way it's caused by physical parameters and is random the way it seems random to us in real life?

Does that make ANY SENSE?

 

[Zaphod77]

what i mention is very subtle, but it will have a noticeable effect.

It will stop the easy to get escape routes in T2, and make each plunge different even though the ball will always strike the same target.

Yeah, pinball is in theory non random, and we have a lack of resolution. But done properly, you can cheat things and have it work out. My example is a way to do it right. Perfectly predictable rebounds of off standups are simply not realistic. Rubber should have a similar slight effect. this affects the tv kickout of scared stiff, which goes straight into rubber, though random strength variation will also affect it. The slight random variations accumulate after multiple rebounds, causing wildly different final trajectories.

Scatter angle refers to FLIPPERS in visual pinball. not to the other stuff. They already have their flipper routine for that.

 

[brakel]

I know it's just a word but the word random suggests anything can happen. I want to see realistic variation and not anything can happen.

 

[PC.Doctor]

I did have some concerns over the ball physics in TPA. I played some of the tables, that were on TPA, on Visual Pinball and let me tell you the ball physics on VP were more realistic (since the game is a lot harder) that that of TPA.

Take Scared Stiff, for instance. On TPA, I would get Monster Multiball like at least three times in one game. But on VP, I can barely complete three of the six tales.

Basically, for FS to fully emulate the ball physics. The process would have to take a lot more than one month to complete. Not all emulators can fully emulate the real thing its based on if gameplay is based on physics (like the ball).

Now this is off-topic, but the audio for some of the tables are off-pitch in TPA. The audio pitch in TPA, for some tables, are a tab higher than that of an actual pinball machine. (Tables include TOTAN, SS, and CC). So FS has a long way to go to perfectly emulate a pinball machine.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Not only has this been suggested before, but its solution has been demonstrated in code before:

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...TZ-machine-owner?p=93715&viewfull=1#post93715

Would go a long way toward restoring TZ to its proper difficulty.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

I know it's just a word but the word random suggests anything can happen. I want to see realistic variation and not anything can happen.

Not quite. "Random" just means that there is a limited set of possibilities and that there is no pattern towards which possibility will happen. (This set can be infinitely large, but it can exclude possibilities.) It doesn't mean anything can happen. Otherwise, you could roll a die (a random number generator) and get a picture of Bing Crosby instead of a number on a side of the die. (You can argue that dice are not purely random, but for a normal person, the result of dice rolls would be extremely hard to predict.)

 

[Jeff Strong]

Regardless of what term you want to use, I think we all pretty much agree that adding more variation would greatly help TPA, if implemented properly.

 

[brakel]

Not quite. "Random" just means that there is a limited set of possibilities and that there is no pattern towards which possibility will happen. (This set can be infinitely large, but it can exclude possibilities.) It doesn't mean anything can happen. Otherwise, you could roll a die (a random number generator) and get a picture of Bing Crosby instead of a number on a side of the die. (You can argue that dice are not purely random, but for a normal person, the result of dice rolls would be extremely hard to predict.)

A limited set that can be infinitely large? You're the one that invented jumbo shrimp, aren't you?

Regardless of what term you want to use, I think we all pretty much agree that adding more variation would greatly help TPA, if implemented properly.

Yes. This. Thank you.

 

[netizen]

A limited set that can be infinitely large? You're the one that invented jumbo shrimp, aren't you?

I think that was Bubba, but the reference may be to one of Zeno's Paradoxes

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

A limited set that can be infinitely large? You're the one that invented jumbo shrimp, aren't you?

When I mean "limited set," I mean a set of all possibilities within certain criteria--that is, a limit. A good example would be all real numbers between and including 2 and 3: There is an infinitely large amount of real numbers in that set, but it is limited in that it does not include any numbers smaller than 2 or greater than 3.

You can put limitations on infinity and still have infinity.

In this case, you could say, for instance, that a pinball bouncing off a standup target from a certain angle can bounce off between, say, 20 degrees to 22 degrees, with any angle within that range being possible. There are infinitely many angles within that range, but the range itself is limited.