Electronic Tilt for Pinball Machines - Part 3

Sometimes a window for real improvements opens.Improvements which are great for all. But sometimes things get screwed up with the consequence that no improvement at all occurs.

When we get a smorgasbord of different e-tilts the same happens like on the electrical appliances market where a lot of countries failed by not realizing the importance of standardization. For the user that means nothing more than a headache when a plug doesn’t fit in an outlet. Then he buys an adapter which fits only one side. Then he buys another one adapter. In the end it works somehow but the line as a whole is buggy.

I agree that in the long run the market will sort it out. Unfortunately in some instances that can take generations. Concerning not thought through e-tilts it will probably mean that a tournament player who’s up to play can’t predict if after a player who nudged strongly he can play right away or if he has to wait until a mimicked tilt pendulum settles. So he waits for 60 sec like a moron, just like before the amazing e-tilt = zero improvement.

Ofc there are tons of people who aren’t experienced tournament players but bring great innovations to pinball. Some people are able to put themselves in another one’s shoes, others aren’t. Some can think things through, others can’t but instead need extensive experience. And some don’t even try.

Why do you focus on assumptions about my not allowed feelings while your laissez faire approach lacks of explaining him what’s good or bad? Are real improvements not worth fighting for and etiquette everything? Shouldn’t the attitude on a forum be to figure out what make sense rather then trying to push one’s view on others no matter what until it becomes a competition who can bore who to death?

The problem there is no single “What makes sense”, there’s no “right” or “wrong”, there is just a bunch of people with opinions and use cases, none of which match up with each other. It’s not like there is one truth at play. Accepting that there are different people with different needs, and approaching the discussion from that angle, letting everyone figure out what works for them, is an essential part of so many of these discussions.

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BSSH, instead of reiterating your points here, why don’t you hold a tournament using games set up the way you like them? Make all tilts loose and earplug-mod the heck out of them so they settle ASAP. See how the tournament goes, if participants enjoy gameplay more oriented to nudging and shoving. Also see how the games themselves handle it. Right now, everyone’s used to managing tilt bob movements - perhaps it takes a real world example to change minds?

Seems somewhat obvious even Stern has at least been thinking about it – SPIKE2 (and I wanna say SPIKE) coin door interface boards (y’know, the board sitting real close to the tilt mechanism?) has an accelerometer on it.

As a TD have fun calming the players’ virtual tilt pendulums on request by remote control :slight_smile:

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I’ve discussed spike/spike2 before in another thread. It seems that the accelerometer is present but unused at the moment. I presume it’s part of planned future update which could be implemented with a firmware update. It was speculated to be for ‘slam tilt’ detection but no one has confirmed anything yet.

They’re currently busy trying to usurp the patent from Gerry. You probably won’t see them attempt it until that’s sorted.

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Which boggles the mind since the Stern patent was filed a few months earlier and they are for two completely different processes. One is for a “pinball machine with animated playfield components and automatic level detection” and the other is for “tilt sensing in an amusement game device”.

Automatic levelling is written in a way to facilitate initial setup and levelling of the machine utilizing rotational components (Yaw, Pitch, Roll) derived from an accelerometer (described in detail in the accelerometer manufacturer’s application datasheet). Tilt sensing is for in game usage and measures the external applied forces in the X, Y, Z axis.

In simplistic terms … one is a bubble level and the other is a drop sensor.