How to set score values

[HitManHansen]

Greetings all,

Just getting started but I’m a developer by trade so I’m digging in to understand everything.   I’m doing this by 2 methods – creating my own table starting with NEW and loading in an existing table and poking around changing / adding.

But I’m seeing different ways to set the score.  For the NEW table, the Tutorials found elsewhere have where I created the AddScore() function and tied that to a display text on the backglass.    But I don’t see that code anywhere (or anything like it) in existing table script file.
Is there some trick to putting that information in a different file, different place, etc?  Is this intended to make modifying an existing table harder (or not possible)?  My may reason for asking is that seems like a great pattern but I can’t find information on how to do that.

Secondly, when I’m finally done is their some process to create a published version of the table?  I haven’t even added images and sound yet and my table file seems really, really big compared to other tables that do a lot more.

Thanks for the help and I’m hoping to be able to get up to speed and start to create some (hopefully) cool tables.  It’s fun!!  :) :)

 

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[Thalamus]

I’m not sure. But, you seems to be confused about tables that use roms and tables that are totally scripted, like older Electro Mechanical machines. SS tables and newer, communicates with pinmame, EM’s and “originals” ( fantasy tables ) doesn’t.

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HitManHansen

[HitManHansen]

Thanks Thalamus,

That must be it – I assumed (incorrectly, it sounds like) that all these tables were all created with a version of VPinball??.exe since that’s what loads when I run the table.  Yes, the table I am using for ‘editing’ has a ROM, so that information must be in those files with no ability to modify them or add additional controls to those.   Or am I missing some tool to unpack the ROM and re-create it…. :)

So were ROMs part of the older versions and not used anymore?  Is the best method to start with an empty table in VPinballX, and follow the code tutorials?  I’ve been messing a bit with both VPinball and Future Pinball.  I like the FP UI editor better, but the script editor for VPinball.  Decisions, decisions….

:)

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[Thalamus]

Rom isn’t really a file in the way you describe it as. Rom stands for Read Only Memory. Pinmame is a emulator that VP talks back and forth to, unless, as I described above. Very few that I know of posses the ability to change the roms. There is this Danish guy that does it to improve them mostly for tournament play. Turning off unbalanced features and stuff like that. Just forget it ;)

Without the rom, the table won’t be able to send or receive the signals that back and forth, so, the game won’t work. Rom is the brain of the game, so to speak.

FP, don’t talk to me about it – you’ve been warned

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HitManHansen

[Onevox]

One thing that may help with clarity: the ROM file that VPX/pinmame uses is the same game code (set of instructions) used by the real pinball machine so it’s in essence fixed. The files are extracted from the chips used in real pins and put into a zip file. vpinmame serves as a translator between VPX and the ROM.

The switch and lamp numbers on a ROM based  VPX table are not random … they are found in  the assignments in the real pin’s manual, because that’s how the pinball manufacturer coded the ROM. So if switch 45, sw45, is a top rollover that scores 2000 points on a real pin, its the same number in VPX … VPX tells vpinmame that sw45 has been activated, and the ROM tells vpinmame to score 2000 points.

Since real EM machines don’t have ROM chips on circuit boards,  all the events and scoring have to be written into the VPX script. True also for original games that look like they should be ROM games, like scottywic’s Stranger Things.

Hope this helps. If you want to do a true original, I wouldn’t start with a ROM based game script because much of the instruction is embedded in the ROM. scottywic has an orbital framework template table with much of the needed code pre-written in the script. It’s complicated to digest at first. But he’s done (is doing) a good job of documenting the process).  https://docs.orbitalpin.com/welcome

Sorry if this explains stuff you already knew.

 

 

 

Onevox

 

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HitManHansen

[HitManHansen]

Thanks very much for both explanations and both are exactly what I needed to understand what I’m looking at in each case (new vs. Edit).  I figured the ROM was the same as the machine used, just like with the MAME Arcade stuff – I just couldn’t figure out for sure that the scoring values were in the ROM and the scoring was on that side and not the control side.

It all makes sense and now I’m off to keep playing and experimenting.  Thanks for the link to the orbital pin link – I’ll check it out.

Thanks again guys!!!  :)

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