Will we ever get software settings for the machines that had them in real life?

[Ammonitida]

FarSight, give us the software setting options for the tables that had them. You already emulated the hardware chips so adding the software settings should be very easy. These options can be very important for competitive play. I recall that this was planned for the initial release so what happened?

 

[Richard B]

You're not alone - this has been mentioned and noted in the general wish list thread.

 

[Dan]

Hear hear.

 

[superballs]

I think this would be nice too.

 

[Pinballfan69]

I think it would be essential if there is tournament style play. Most of the machines that were used at PAPA disabled extra balls etc and made the machines a bit more difficult with having to shoot targets multiple times. It would be interesting to see this kind of setting in TBA.


Zen's tournaments I did enjoy as it lasts a week however, some of tables with the inclusion of extra balls, sometimes ended up as marathons IMO.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Even if full operator adjustments cannot be done for whatever reason, being able to play the tables in their Tournament Mode states (extra hard difficulty, no extra balls, tightened-up tilt settings, etc.) would be a very nice feature. Maybe even separate "Tournament" leaderboards?

 

[Dan]

I sure hope somebody from Farsight is reading this.

 

[RKade8583]

They see. If nothing else, they have to have seen the wishlist thread... Whether they can or will do? That's something else entirely. I, for one, hope for harder tables because I fear the day I become so good that I can marathon for hours on end.

 

[Epsilon]

Add me to the chorus of those who would love to see this. Honestly, I think it's a matter of design considerations more than anything else as far as Farsight is concerned. Considering that they have Steve Ellenoff (the guy who wrote PinMAME), it's hard to imagine there are genuine technical barriers, at least with respect to the Williams tables. It's mostly that they need to develop an interface for navigating it. It's a little different than what Zen does with Pinball FX 2, which is a construct totally of their own creation that merely imitates the Williams DMD menus. There's a lot of cryptic stuff in actual Williams settings that FarSight would probably want to have some control over, and they'd probably want to shield players from certain other things. If the simulation engine itself wasn't designed to have all of the hooks that PinMAME does with VP, that could present other issues. For instance, the game presently is obviously designed with the assumption that the machines are all set to Free Play. Full menu access would presumably let the player require money to be inserted, and if that were the case, the game would have to be modified to allow credits to be inserted via virtual quarters, etc.

But one of the greatest things about TPA and similar products is giving you the sense that you own these recreated machines, and it would be fantastic if that included operator-level access. Having the ability to set the number of balls, tilt warnings, adjust various gameplay settings to be easier or harder (at the expense of disabling high score posting, of course) would be fantastic, along with having the ability to see the audits, that give you expansive stats of all kinds of various things. I really hope FarSight finds a way to make this happen.

 

[spoonman]

I would also love to see this option. I want it more to listen to the tunes and sound effects on newer machines.

It's sort of strange that ZEN has this option since they aren't necessarily going for realism, and yet TPA is nearly a full scale pinball simulator and it does not.
I think Farsight said something about not wanting to add it because it would be unfair for high scores/trophies, but ZEN makes it clear that highscores will not be counted when
the settings aren't set to the machine default.

 

[bavelb]

TPA shuts of highscores when you turn off TILT as well/

 

[spoonman]

TPA shuts of highscores when you turn off TILT as well/

Thank god!
I could play some of those WPHOF tables with tilt turned off forever.
On a few of them, when you lost a ball, you could shake the table until the ball came back up through the L/R lanes!

So unfair to others who weren't using it.

 

[Dan]

How incredibly boring pinball would be, if you knew you couldn't lose.
I seriously hope you are trolling.

 

[Ammonitida]

Please give us these settings, Farsight. There are way too many extra balls on Riply's. Besides, your emulations will never be complete without them.