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Check your table levels, people

PBrookfield

PBrookfield

Resident Uneconomical Repair Representative
5Years
Joined
Mar 23, 2017
Messages
1,341
Location
Wolverhampton, UK
I've been getting proper fooked-off with pinball entirely the last month or so, mostly because all I've had a chance to play has been Black Rose that I have on loan - my F-14 is in the middle of last-minute attempts to fettle it solid enough for Pinfest.
Game after game of absolutely dire, shoddy performances, no enjoyable ball feel or reactive play, highest scores all 40m at very, very best on a game that I can normally demolish.

After a spectacular 7mil credit, I have a complete rage-quit freakout and pull off the glass and start prodding everything, looking for something to blame. Then I spot a 6.9 degrees table angle with my phone.

Fixed that crap right away and my first credit I instantly hit 140m and an embarrassing amount of whirlpool loops.

Can't believe just how utterly dead-feeling the game played, and how impossible it was to avoid the outer lanes on ANY rubber bounce. Seriously cannot believe it. And I can't believe how much it was robbing the joy of pinball from me!

Less than half a degree was all it took to murder a game with good rubbers, solid perfectly aligned flippers, ultra-clean playfield and all metalwork adjusted to provide buttery feeds.
 
Black Rose is a game that has to be set up just right.
Once tweaked it can be a awesome game and produce some big scores, if not set up just right and it can be a pig of a game.
Glad you got it playing better, now start sinking those ships and aim for the billion, my best is just short at a mere 960 million.
 
Some games are just like that - but I thought I was able to spot when a table was vertically off on levelling; it's obvious on F14 for example.

I'm just taken aback by how subtle the change is, but how huge the change in feel is. Leaving aside the nondescript 'dead' feeling, the difficulty was high because rebounds that normally bounce you around and out of the inlane/outlane gutters became outlane gutter magnets.

And of course Black Rose has a couple of ways to roll back down a metal ramp that is aimed absolutely perfectly at the right outlane. Screwing up your skill shot even a touch too hard and go up that ramp even partially, perfectly down the outlane it goes, nothing you can do about it. Awesome stuff.

Whereas even a complete pinball neophyte knows if a machine is not level laterally... or maybe I'm just far, far worse at this hobby than I think I am, lol
 
cloudburst said:
FWIW I find the Pinguy app inaccurate - just in case you use it.

Great UI but the actual angle measured is at odds with the iPhone’s inbuilt spurit level app and any other 3rd pary app I’ve tried.

CB
Click to expand...
I use a pretty ropey, unfiltered app that just gives raw angle data from the phone sensors, because as a PC programmer I have a snobbish, elitist distrust of app programmers. It's a cheap phone to begin with so I take the measurements with several grains of salt and some guesswork, and measure all over the damned table as well as in different orientations. Despite the 'fudge factor' of the inaccurate tool, it worked well enough to confirm that I wasn't going (completely) bonkers and that the table was vertically too steep by about half a degree, and bringing that back in line sorted it out.

The root problem is that the Black Rose in question is in need of some new leg plates, and it's also on carpet right now... so a shifting angle after setting is to be expected, and not forgotten about like I did.

When I decide to use something more reliable, I'll probably upgrade to a proper digital spirit level.
 
Totally agree with your view that accuracy can be inversely proportional to complexity when certain programmers are involved.
I say that as a result of working as an assembler language programmer and also more recently as a commercial heli pilot who had to understand and plan around raw input and potential errors with regard to instrumentation in real time :-)

CB
 
cloudburst said:
FWIW I find the Pinguy app inaccurate - just in case you use it.

Great UI but the actual angle measured is at odds with the iPhone’s inbuilt spurit level app and any other 3rd pary app I’ve tried.

CB
Click to expand...

I used Pinguy when I first started but soon found out it's way out. And I'm not even mildly OCD about levels :)
 
So here's a thing - should a number of us contact the Pinguy developer? It's a bloody good UI and would be a great app if this was fixed (and it may be a simple fix)?

CB
 
cloudburst said:
So here's a thing - should a number of us contact the Pinguy developer? It's a bloody good UI and would be a great app if this was fixed (and it may be a simple fix)?

CB
Click to expand...

I'd be happy to get hold of the source and do it here if thats an option. Got a building with ios devs in it. Or just do a new app when we have time.
 
I need an alternative to PinGuy now, mainly because I've bought a thinner case for my phone (iPhone X) which means the camera protrudes further than the back of the case - if that makes sense. Putting the phone flat on its back means the top of it is raised higher, and it is uneven.

All I know is that it's thrown out all of my calibrated PinGuy settings, assuming they were right to begin with.

I also can't work out from the PinGuy UI which leg I'm supposed to change. I mean, it's obvious if the pitch is shallow and the front legs are already wound all the way in that I would have to raise the back - but in terms of cabinet twist I'm not sure whether I should be raising the back left leg, or the front left leg, etc.
 
Last edited:
Durzel said:
I need an alternative to PinGuy now, mainly because I've bought a thinner case for my phone (iPhone X) which means the camera protrudes further than the back of the case - if that makes sense. Putting the phone flat on its back means the top of it is raised higher, and it is uneven.

All I know is that it's thrown out all of my calibrated PinGuy settings, assuming they were right to begin with.

I also can't work out from the PinGuy UI which leg I'm supposed to change. I mean, it's obvious if the pitch is shallow and the front legs are already wound all the way in that I would have to raise the back - but in terms of cabinet twist I'm not sure whether I should be raising the back left leg, or the front left leg, etc.
Click to expand...
Put your phone on a coaster with the camera overlapping it. :)
 
Durzel said:
I need an alternative to PinGuy now, mainly because I've bought a thinner case for my phone (iPhone X) which means the camera protrudes further than the back of the case - if that makes sense. Putting the phone flat on its back means the top of it is raised higher, and it is uneven.

All I know is that it's thrown out all of my calibrated PinGuy settings, assuming they were right to begin with.

I also can't work out from the PinGuy UI which leg I'm supposed to change. I mean, it's obvious if the pitch is shallow and the front legs are already wound all the way in that I would have to raise the back - but in terms of cabinet twist I'm not sure whether I should be raising the back left leg, or the front left leg, etc.
Click to expand...

If I trusted the accuracy of Pinguy, I'd just say put your iPhone X, in its new case on a flat surface and recalibrate it. So is it is sitting there in a wonky manner on top of its little protruding camera, it will regard itself as being totally flat.

CB
 
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