Not that I’m aware of.
Sorry to bump an old post!
I futzed around with this in PinMAME, and the grid randomization indeed seems to depend on the ROM version, as @dbs hints in the rgp thread. The v0.5 ROM acts as described above with a single pattern, with the starting position shifted by some random amount. The 1.2R ROM seems to choose from three possible patterns, shifted by a random amount. The possible patterns I saw are:
- HoldBonus, EB, BonusX, CrazyBob, Mystery, SuperLoops, VideoMode, AwardBonus, 50GB
- HoldBonus, CrazyBob, SuperLoops, 50GB, BonusX, AwardBonus, EB, VideoMode, Mystery
- HoldBonus, VideoMode, SuperLoops, BonusX, 50GB, Mystery, AwardBonus, EB, CrazyBob
So you can deduce the entire pattern by knowing two or three of the awards. Pattern 1 is the same pattern as v0.5 ROM. Not sure if other ROMs are floating around. I ran out of patience to look at this more, so take with a grain of salt
Fine example of the bug yesterday at Pinball at the Lab (streamed on twitch/iepinball). Escher was the beneficiary of the bug big time (not that he needed it to win) - - 58B end score I think it was. Game starts at about 4:25 of the stream.
Mnemonic Math
Legend has it 1TB+ hard drives came out when someone at the factory held multiplied bonus on a 320GB one.
Whenever I feel like I understand this game, it ends up confusing me again.
I went through the INDISC final to understand the scoring. Here’s the INDISC game:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2379301080?t=12h40m30s
Escher Ball 1:
- Locks ball 1, slot #8 for Hold Bonus. 1 Bonus Held in stock, Bonus Held is lit on PF.
- Drains at 72M. Total Bonus 10M.
- 1 Hold Bonus consumed, 0 Hold Bonus in stock. 10M held to next ball.
- Final score = 82M.
ZMac Ball 1:
- Locks ball 1, Award Bonus in slot #5 (18M in bonus). Ball is removed from slot #9 (Viggo’s locked ball).
- Locks ball 2, Bonus X (slot #2). Ball is removed from slot #8 (Hold Bonus).
- Starts Spinner Millions.
- Locks ball 3, Hold Bonus (slot #8). 1 Hold Bonus in stock, Bonus Held light is lit on FP.
- Gets Hold Bonus from spikes, 2 Hold Bonus in stock.
- Drains at 1.15B. 18 spins, 180Mx3 from Spinner Millions. Total Bonus = 754M.
- 1 Hold Bonus consumed, 1 in stock. 745M held to next ball.
- Final score = 1.93B.
Escher Ball 2:
- Bonus Held is lit on PF (even though 0 Hold Bonus are in stock? Because bonus is held from previous ball?).
- Locks Ball 2, Hold Bonus again in slot #8. 1 Hold Bonus in stock.
- Starts Spinner Millions.
- Locks Ball 3, Bonus X (slot #2). All balls released.
- Gets Hold Bonus from spikes, 2 Hold Bonus in stock.
- Drains at 1.69B.
- 490Mx3 from Spinner Millions. 10M Previous Bonus + 1.86B Total Bonus = 1.87B actual bonus.
- 1 Hold Bonus consumed, 1 remains in stock.
- Final score = 3.56B.
Zach Ball 2:
- Bonus Held is lit on PF. 1 Hold Bonus in stock.
- Cyber Matrix clue for Zach’s grid 2: #2 = Award Bonus.
- Drains at 1.99B.
- Previous Bonus 754M + Total Bonus 841M = 1.59B actual bonus.
- 1 Hold Bonus consumed, 0 in stock. 841M held to next ball.
- Final score = 3.58B.
Escher Ball 3:
- Bonus Held is lit at ball start. 1 Hold Bonus in stock.
- Cyber Matrix clue for Escher’s grid 2: #7 = Super Loops.
- Cyber Matrix clue: #6 = Crazy Bob’s.
- Locks ball 1. Chooses slot #2 hoping for Award Bonus, because that was Zach’s hint. But instead gets 100M.
- Cyber Matrix clue: #1 = Award Bonus.
- Drains at 3.96B.
- Previous Bonus 1.87B + Total Bonus 2.09B = 3.96B actual bonus.
- Final score = 7.93B.
- Spinner value = ~4.41B from 49 spins = 90M per spin.
Zach Ball 3:
- 0 Hold Bonus in stock. Bonus Held is lit at ball start.
- Locks ball 1. Wants slot #2 for Award Bonus, but it’s occupied. Chooses slot #3, gets 100M. Ball in slot #4 is released (Jason’s lock).
- Locks ball 2 in slot #1, Touch Tone Multiball. Ball in slot #2 is released (Award Bonus).
- Locks Ball 3, chooses slot #2, Award Bonus.
- Score was at 3.83B.
- Previous Bonus 841M + Total Bonus 976M = actual bonus ~1.81B. Score now at 5.66B.
- Bonus Held light is no longer lit on the playfield.
- Drains (ball, plastic, and screw!) at 6.68B.
- Previous Bonus 841M + 1.27B Total Bonus = 2.11B actual bonus.
- Final score = 8.79B.
- Spinner value = ~3.78B from 18 spins. 210M per spin.
I was confused by ZMac scoring his Previous Bonus on the final drain despite having used all of his Hold Bonus (notice how the “Bonus Held” light is not lit when ZMac drains ball 3). In my mind, the moon logic of the game wouldn’t score the Previous Bonus here because you had already used it up on the Award Bonus, but that’s not the case. This lines up with Cayle’s tip about it always being safe to collect on ball 3. So if I understand right, the behavior is:
- If you have a Hold Bonus in stock when the ball drains, a Hold Bonus is consumed and the Previous Bonus value is updated. Otherwise you will get no Previous Bonus on the next ball.
- Award Bonus also consumes a Hold Bonus, but does not affect the Previous Bonus value.
- If you have bonus held from a previous ball, you will always score the Previous Bonus from collecting/draining regardless of your stock of Hold Bonus.
- So for example, if you get a Hold Bonus with 100M bonus on ball 2, you can Award Bonus any # of times on ball 3 and it would give you the 100M Previous Bonus each time.
- Hold Bonus is never useful on the final ball.
I was trying to pay attention to the “Bonus Held” insert on the PF, but really it seems buggy/incorrect:
- It doesn’t correctly indicate if you have Previous Bonus (notice it’s not lit when ZMac drains Ball 3, but Previous Bonus is still scored).
- Nor does it indicate if your current bonus will be held to the next ball (notice it’s lit at the start of Escher’s Ball 2, but if he were to drain at that point, it wouldn’t carry over because he has no Hold Bonus.)
In a multiplayer game where multiple players lock balls, what order are the balls removed from the grid? Is it last in, first out, excluding the player’s own locked balls?
Other interesting things I learned from this game:
- Even though the first grid is the same for all players, the subsequent grids are not the same.
- Based on the info in this post, Escher theoretically had enough info to know where Award Bonus was when he locked a ball on Ball 3, if someone were crazy enough to memorize those patterns. (It was the 3rd pattern in that post.)
- Gb, combos, etc. are also part of your bonus and are also affected by the Hold Bonus bug, Naturally this is isn’t much compared to spinner, but it’s still value even if you don’t manage to spinner it up. For example, ZMac’s 9 combos on ball 1 add ~950M to his final score, which is definitely helpful in a match play game.
I would love for you JM masters to correct any misunderstandings I have Sorry for the long necro post!
better to put the game in comp mode and disable glove?
100%
fantastic breakdown and tracking. JM is a fun, zany game with its Hold Bonus and Award Bonus intricacies.
Fuckkkkkkkkkk no.