Thanks very much for testing it. If it wasn’t for finding someone else with the same experience on Pinside, I would have just written it off as poor memory on my part initially. So two people have poor memory then and imagined the same cap. It cannot be otherwise since you tested all the ROMs.
It’s definitely possible that two people can be remembering something wrong in the same way. I wouldn’t rule that out.
You’re right. At this point, as I wrote previously, I think the cap is 10B for the two-way combo. The reason is because Mwelsh tested all the ROMs and found no cap. It’s disturbing to me that my memory is flawed like this, but that’s the way of the world.
The Shadow sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it. It feels like being somewhat out of place, right.
The 2-way combo is designed to cap at 30M. But either it has a bug in the procedure taking care of this. Or, it was originally designed for a different increment step. The cap’ing will work as-is with 2.5M, for instance. But not 3M. Trust me. This is a bug.
2 Likes
Programmers do all sorts of stuff with caps. Junkyard originally had a cap on the video mode, but doesn’t anymore. Whodunnit definitely had a cap of 500M that was changed to 250M for the jackpot cap when the player has acquired the gun from the sewer or random jet slot prize and I think the earliest ROM may have had no cap at all. AFM’s total annihilation had a cap of 500M, but this was changed to 250M since players were destroying the game with TA. I’m sure other forum members can think of a lot of other ones too. So with Shadow, it’s certainly not a leap of faith to think that Brian monkeyed around with the cap from revision to revision on TS, but something got busted in the procedure and it resulted in no cap for the ROMs.
The initial production release for Shadow was L-1, which isn’t in the MAME ROM library for this game. I’m not suggesting that there is a 255M cap there, but that may be where the procedural bug originated.
That’s where Indy 500 is capped. I’ve always thought of them as being similar so it’s believable in that sense.
Interestning. What is the increment rule for I500?
I believe Loop-Turbo combos increment at 2M, starting at 10M, and maxing at 30M.
1 Like
Let me guess - it’s checking that the value is exactly 30M?
Something like, “if current value is not equal to 30M, then increase by 3M”? With a base of 10M and a 3M step, that will never be true.
No. It is a working greater-than procedure. But with some constraints. Leading me to believe that it is either made over-engineered/buggy. Or its context of use has changed. Or it is a reuse/library and its constraints were overlooked. Pitfalls that get even the best of us.
WMS Indiana Jones has a somewhat hidden, super valuable unlimited millions orbit rule. Everyone knows that INDY gives bonus x and starts flashing a “friend” in the circle of characters by the flippers. Every time you hit a lit orbit lit by an inlane, it gives you a value + completes one of those friends. The more friends you have, the higher the orbit value (each adds 2 million to a 1 million base I think.) What finally makes this so lucrative is that each orbit you hit not only resets its timer, but if your value is X, the next will be 2X, then 3X, and so on. This can be really huge. My highest orbit shot was around 120 mil or so, and there is no cap. On top of this, once you collect all 5 friends, the right ramp lights for a Loop Jackpot which is the total of all your orbits (maxes at 200 mil)
8 Likes
Pretty sure this caps at 200M. (Deep cut?)
1 Like
Tha’ts my memory