New Stern Pinball Arcade: AC/DC Kickstarter is FULLY FUNDED!!!

[HotHamBoy]

It's all to do with the engine having to run at 60 frames per second. How long does it take for a ball to roll down a flipper? Less than a second, for sure. For the sake of argument, say it takes 1/10 of a second for the ball to roll down a flipper when it's released from a trap (I've not timed it and it's likely very wrong). That's 6 frames. So there are really only 6 possible positions the ball can be in when you flip.

Hmmm, that's pretty interesting. I certainly hadn't considered that either.

Still, the physics in Timeshock definitely feel more "wild." I would really love to know how they do it.

 

[Ben Logan]

Ditto. Is Pro Pinball locked at 60 fps? I know VP achieves higher framerates (you can get an indication by pressing f11).

 

[thefly0810]

So since the development costs are much lower, maybe they could use that extra money to, I dunno, cover the license costs themselves? Nah, they'll just do a kickstarter and then charge way more than usual for the table. Seems legit!

Lol. So true Jeff. I want know what Farsight strategy for future big licenses is going to be when one of these Kickstarters fail to meet their goals.

 

[Metalzoic]

I thought someone was joking about them doing yet another Kickstarter.
The answer from me is hell no. Just the fact that they're asking for money again, and this time for a new platform separate from what we've already bought from them, makes me pretty angry.
I'll never support another KS of theirs regardless of what the table is.

 

[Kolchak357]

If the price is going to be $10 and a $10 Kickstarter pledge gets you the table, then you can pledge $10 and not feel bad about donating to yet another Kickstarter. In my eyes it's just a preorder that helps make a great pin (AC/DC) happen.

 

[crazyflipperfingers]

If the price is going to be $10 and a $10 Kickstarter pledge gets you the table, then you can pledge $10 and not feel bad about donating to yet another Kickstarter. In my eyes it's just a preorder that helps make a great pin (AC/DC) happen.

+1. Exactly. I don't think I'll ever understand all the negativity around here. I guess the haters just gotta hate.

 

[Jeff Strong]

If the price is going to be $10 and a $10 Kickstarter pledge gets you the table, then you can pledge $10 and not feel bad about donating to yet another Kickstarter. In my eyes it's just a preorder that helps make a great pin (AC/DC) happen.

That's a good way of looking at it.

 

[BStarfire]

Pretty much a pre-order. A set amount of dollars will have to go to pay the license so they want to ensure they have enough interest/sales to justify paying for the license.

It reminds of the boardgame world where games will sit on P500 lists until they get a set number of orders (usually 500 for physical games). This ensures that enough sales will justify the expense of producing a minimum number of copies. Some games reach it quickly, others could take a year or two, but it also ensures the games with the most demand get made first.

That wouldn't be a bad way to do pinball tables... polls are easy and everyone votes, but voting with pre-orders would really show where the demand is. Put up a big list of tables and as soon as one gets over some threshold, it gets made next... if more than one over when next table is to be made, use the one with the highest total, then re-evaluate the following cycle. This wouldn't work for licensed games that might have additional fees and need regular kick-starters, but would be interesting to see.

 

[vikingerik]

Still, the physics in Timeshock definitely feel more "wild." I would really love to know how they do it.

High spatial resolution. A ball resting in a hole or on a flipper does not sit at exactly the same coordinates every time, as in TPA. It will be fractions of a millimeter different based on how far it sank into the flipper rubber or how exactly it rattled into the hole. Because the initial conditions aren't exactly the same for every eject or flip, Timeshock doesn't suffer from the railroad problem that TPA does even if it's running at the same 60 Hz input frame rate. And this wildness is fully natural and emergent, not crudely simulated by artifically varying the ejects as TPA's later tables do.

Timeshock also gets ball spin (almost*) correct which no sim other than Pro Pinball really does, and that's another degree of freedom, another dimension of wildness. Not only is the ball's position infinitesimally different on each eject or flip, so is the spin it picks up from that kicker or flipper. And that spin makes the ball's next point of contact and reaction that much more chaotic, and so on.

*Timeshock's ball spins only on the vertical axis, not properly on any arbitrary axis in 3D space. BRUSA and FJ added that capability and also the ability for the ball to slide without rolling, which is also an important aspect of how real balls react to real flippers. Retrofitting that into Timeshock is on the list of Ultra things to do but they haven't gotten to it yet. Although my personal opinion is that BRUSA and FJ actually go a bit too far and Timeshock's version is the most fun and playable.

 

[Ben Logan]

Vikingerik -- How do we get you to consult with our friends at Farsight? Brilliant description. How do you know all this stuff? Fascinating reading. If Farsight is truly "passionate about pinball" as they state in the most recent Kickstarter video, surely they'll need to implement a physics engine with the degree of granularity you describe. Pro Pinball is certainly the one to beat (or match, even!).

 

[vikingerik]

And now, I don't undertstand why FS stated they had to tweak each table physics one-by-one, if it doesn't even change some ball paths.

Here's what I think happened. I think they intended to retrofit the finer flipper behavior that we see on new tables into the older ones. That would require table-by-table tweaking to make sure all the shots were still makeable. And then I think they never did that, but just retrofitted only the drop and live catches (because that didn't need table-by-table tweaking because it doesn't affect shooting), and decided to call that "Physics 3.0" anyway. And people believed that and never realized Farsight didn't follow through with the earlier intent because nobody studies railroads in the depth that I do.

1st point:

When I meant "bounciness", I talk about the ball bouncing on a flipper, when you try to catch it.

With 3.0, the ball sticks more easily to the flipper rubber (which makes feel it heavier), with old physics, the ball itself bounces like a rubber ball.

This I agree with. But only new tables since Xenon behave that way. The bounciness was never changed in old tables pre-Xenon*. The proof is that the same railroads still exist.

In other words, "Physics 3.0" consists of both drop/live catches and tweaks to flipper smoothness and bounciness. Only the former got applied to the old tables. But Farsight has been claiming "3.0 on all tables" even though that only includes the catches and not other tweaks. That's why I'm skeptical of any promise for "physics 4.0" meaning anything for older tables because 3.0 really didn't.

And also, Farsight did adjust a number of older tables to fix impossible shots like AFM's right ramp. This doesn't have anything to do with either the catches or flipper tweaks of 3.0, but people conflate it because it happened around the same time.

*Except for maybe Addams Family. I seem to remember Farsight specifically mentioning 3.0 physics in Addams before applying them to all tables. Addams may have gotten the real 3.0 flipper tweaks, but no other pre-Xenon table ever did. (I don't have any evidence on railroads from Addams pre or post Xenon release.)

- Addams Family PS3 - Old physics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ri8KD62C-8
- Addams Family PC - Physics 3.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9COpCBQGqVM

It's obvious that the PS3 ball is more floaty.

On PC, the ball gains velocity when it drops down to the flippers from the top of the table. On PS3, it always have the same velocity, just depending on the initial power of the flipper shot.

I'm not convinced. It doesn't look like it bounces any more off the flippers. It kinda looks like it does drop faster, but by a small enough margin that the perception could be attributable to differences in frame rate or lighting or video capturing or whatever between the platforms. It's also hard to really tell because both of those players mostly whack at the ball instead of ever letting it bounce.

I'll believe it if there's solid evidence from well-defined railroad conditions. Show me an eject that bounces differently on different versions or platforms (ideally on something other than Addams), and we'll need to see it a few times to account for eject variability. Do we have that in these or any other videos?

 

[vikingerik]

Vikingerik -- How do we get you to consult with our friends at Farsight? Brilliant description. How do you know all this stuff?

I know the Pro Pinball stuff because I was on the playtesting team way back when for Timeshock and BRUSA, and Ade mentioned most of that to me directly.

And Farsight probably knows or could figure out most of what would go into sophisticated physics like Pro Pinball's. They just don't have a business need to care. They need to put their resources into pumping out the tables monthly and developing SPA. That's what sells tables, not physics.

 

[Ben Logan]

You've been around TPA longer than me. I'm still relatively green in regard to TPA (but not to pinball in general) so I'm taking their word for it this time around.

If Physics 4.0 isn't Timeshock good in terms of quality, I'm embarrassed to admit I'll be depressed for a few days. Like when your favorite basketball team loses the playoffs.

Thanks Vikingerik for your super informative posts...

 

[Terminator]

I'm out of this KS, as i dropped $100 for gold backer and Dr. Who. I'd prefer if AC/DC came in TPA app rather than a separate Stern app.

Doesn't make digital pinball unified. GL though...I'll spread the word.

 

[wolfson]

holy macaroni,i just pre ordered,NO MANS SKY,ASSETTA CORSA and bought a new Thrustmaster wheel after playing the living daylights out of the old wheel !!! I will put some mulla towards ACCA DACCA table,cant wait !!!!

 

[wolfson]

money in,like Kolchak said $10 for 1 table is like a pre order,i agree,$30 for 3 tables,it`s a pre order for me.and LEICESTER CITY and SIR CLAUDIO RANIERI,WELL DONE for giving us the GREATEST FAIRYTALE EVER IN SPORT!!!! I still pinch myself,money doesn`t buy everything.and thankyou CHELSEA for taking those vital points off SPURS !!!

 

[crazyflipperfingers]

In other words, "Physics 3.0" consists of both drop/live catches and tweaks to flipper smoothness and bounciness. Only the former got applied to the old tables. But Farsight has been claiming "3.0 on all tables" even though that only includes the catches and not other tweaks. That's why I'm skeptical of any promise for "physics 4.0" meaning anything for older tables because 3.0 really didn't.

I think you are correct about the implementation of "Physics 3.0", but as far as "Physics 4.0", there doesn't appear to be any promise of it being put into the existing TPA tables. What I understand from the AC/DC kickstarter is that they are going to be able to implement "4.0" only for the new Stern Pinball Arcade application. I gather that the reason is that since they can now dump the emulator for the game code, they will free up resources for the new physics and therefore it would not be possible for the existing TPA tables. They have obviously announced several tables from TPA are getting released on STPA, and I would expect the new physics on those and any others they decide to bring into the new app in the same way they did when going from Williams Hall of Fame to TPA.

 

[kinggo]

Am I the only one who is more happy because of confirmed season 6 than this? I'm not that much into Stern's, didn't have the chance to play them all but from those I did, RBION, POTC, Spiderman and LOTR are the only ones I would gladly always come back to. And since I don't have high hopes that this will be much different in terms of physics/graphics when it comes to android I'm more happy for some old ones from Williams/Bally.

 

[Extork]

Am I the only one who is more happy because of confirmed season 6 than this? I'm not that much into Stern's, didn't have the chance to play them all but from those I did, RBION, POTC, Spiderman and LOTR are the only ones I would gladly always come back to. And since I don't have high hopes that this will be much different in terms of physics/graphics when it comes to android I'm more happy for some old ones from Williams/Bally.

Think of it this way kingo, it won't just be FarSight making the recreations of newish Stern tables, it will be FarSight + Stern. The physics will be there. This is just speculation, but I'm guessing it'll be top notch. $10 per table is going to be high even for the average TPA player. That's my only concern. The hardcore fans might be the only ones shelling out the paper money. Even if it is really really good. Also, Stern has put out some great pins, even if you've only played a few. I commend them for holding the torch while everyone else went under. I have high hopes for this ap. Maybe the 'only real life ponball players won't buy it, because it's not real pinball'. But I think they are going to give us a high quality product. I might be wrong, and if they are only going to hold themselves to the standards of TPA, I'm not sure $10 is worth it. That's just a number being thrown around. I'm just worried that the higher price is going to scare away the average TPA user

 

[David T. Melnick]

+1. Exactly. I don't think I'll ever understand all the negativity around here. I guess the haters just gotta hate.

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Yes! Living in hate is gonna get one no where fast eh.