Staged flippers

M

mattenno

New member
Aug 17, 2012
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Has anyone figured out how to do staged flippers? This is a MUST HAVE for all upper-flipper games...without it, you can't utilize strategies to the fullest potential! Especially on games like Twilight Zone and Whirlwind!

I'm using an Xbox 360 controller on my PC. There should be a way to program it to only flip the upper flipper if I keep the trigger pressed in half way.
 
Sean DonCarlos

Sean DonCarlos

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Staff member
Mar 17, 2012
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Stuart, is there any way to make the trigger threshold between a staged flip and a full flip a user-adjustable setting? When two-stage flipping was introduced to PS3, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth because players had to jam the triggers all the way down to get a full flip, and it only took a few minutes of this before players' fingers started to hurt.

Something like:
- Lower Flippers Pressure: 50% (adjustable between 25% and 75%)
- Upper Flippers Pressure: 75% (adjustable between 40% and 90%)

I have no idea how practical this is (and I should also note I'm pulling the percentages above from thin air) - I've never programmed for a controller - but it seems like a good opportunity to avoid repeating a previous problem.
 
Stuart Webster

Stuart Webster

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Apr 24, 2013
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Right now it's set up for:
- Lower flippers: any detected input
- Upper flippers: ≥ 60% input

As for making it user adjustable, I set it up for PC with this in mind. The upper flipper threshold can be adjusted between 0% and 100%. It just requires interfacing it to the user. I could just have it be a slider, but then there's no real way for the user to "see" where that % actually is on their controller within our app. Hmmm...
 
Last edited:
Fungi

Fungi

Active member
Feb 20, 2012
4,888
2
Stuart Webster said:
Right now it's set up for:
- Lower flippers: any detected input
- Upper flippers: ≥ 60% input

As for making it user adjustable, I set it up for PC with this in mind. The upper flipper threshold can be adjusted between 0% and 100%. It just requires interfacing it to the user. I could just have it be a slider, but then there's no real way for the user to "see" where that % actually is on their controller within our app. Hmmm...
Click to expand...

Greater than 60% is too high. It should be like how real pinball is, the fact that many people don't even realize that the flippers can do this.

They're not set up as:
"Press harder to activate the upper flippers"

They're set up as:
"Press lighter to NOT activate the upper flippers"

Did that make sense?


The PS3 failed in that it was set up like the former, not the latter.
 
smbhax

smbhax

Active member
Apr 24, 2012
1,803
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Rather than going on a pressure percentage as it is now--which doesn't really feel right, at least not on PS3--I wonder if it could somehow be simulated better if the circuitry of games with upper flippers was itself simulated more accurately; as far as I understand it, "staged flippers" were really just kind of an incidental side effect of how the wiring was arranged. As for how it actually works, there are various pages purporting to describe that on the internet; for instance, to excerpt just a bit from Steve's Bally Page:

When you push the flipper button, the lower flipper goes first because the path to ground for the upper flipper has not yet been established. When the lower flipper hits its EOS switch, just as I mentioned above, the low power coil is introduced as the NC contacts open. On a properly adjusted EOS switch, immediately after the NC contacts open, the NO contacts should close. When they do close, the upper flipper coil will have a path to ground and will energize. Just as with a single lower flipper, the upper flipper has its own EOS switch, which is normally closed. So only the high power coil is energized and the flipper will flip. Then the upper flipper activates the EOS switch, opens the contacts, and introduces the lower power coil to the circuit. This lowers the total resistance on the upper flipper (just as the EOS switch did for the lower flipper) allowing the player to keep the flipper in the up position for an extended amount of time.
Click to expand...
And in general the game would really benefit from more accurate simulation of how the flippers of various different eras and manufacturers actually work; right now they all feel the same, which is simply not correct. Who knows, a more accurate simulation of their wiring might even make stuff like live/dead catches more feasible.
 
JPelter

JPelter

New member
Jun 11, 2012
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smbhax said:
Rather than going on a pressure percentage as it is now--which doesn't really feel right, at least not on PS3--I wonder if it could somehow be simulated better if the circuitry of games with upper flippers was itself simulated more accurately; as far as I understand it, "staged flippers" were really just kind of an incidental side effect of how the wiring was arranged. As for how it actually works, there are various pages purporting to describe that on the internet; for instance, to excerpt just a bit from Steve's Bally Page:


And in general the game would really benefit from more accurate simulation of how the flippers of various different eras and manufacturers actually work; right now they all feel the same, which is simply not correct. Who knows, a more accurate simulation of their wiring might even make stuff like live/dead catches more feasible.
Click to expand...

I don't really see the benefit to that compared to the difficulty in making it. I mean purely from a player's perspective on a real pinball table staged flippers will also be just different pressure percentages. You don't think about coils and whatnot when doing that, you just ease up a bit to let the upper flipper down.

Then again maybe I'm not the intended audience since I never saw the problem with the staged flippers on the ps3 version either.
 
smbhax

smbhax

Active member
Apr 24, 2012
1,803
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But it isn't exactly just pressure, is it? There's a certain timing involved with when the upper flippers actually kick in, and that's what gives you the wiggle room, not pressure, because the flipper switches themselves aren't really analogue. At least, that's what it sounds like to me; it's very possible I'm reading this stuff wrong.
 

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