Retrofruit

Rest well my friend, hope all is well up there.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who used to program for Electrocoin whether the next statement is true but I was told once that as far back as the original Bar-X the entire sequence of spins was pre-determined to a given percentage. The machine had a number of tables to select from so if a player went off track and missed a few wins it would simply select a slightly higher percentage pay table for the next sequence to bring it back in line. This is why hold after nudge could spin in the "wrong" win, sometimes hold after nudge on X would spin bars for example, and sometimes there was some strange behaviour like hold one bar and the other two would spin in - entirely consistent with a pre-determined selection for the reels. Chuzzy kits changed all that of course and made the outcomes variable and introduced things like three holds which the originals would never do. I wonder if the Magic-7's era behaves the same way?

As I posted on the other thread you started it is likely just making the same decision each time based on the variables it is working with. As there is no intelligence there it's just a+b=c every time. If you go the wrong way on the gamble does it still spin the same number or does it change the number and let you win? i.e. it determined that you will win the gamble or is the number determined. I think many machines have some logic that says if you go hi on an 11 it won't necessarily spin a 12 if it wants you to win (but it might if you repeat the process) whereas it will always spin a winning number if you go lower, so an element of "odds" if you will. A lot of MPU4 Barcrests 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12 were pretty much always winners (1/12 always obviously) unless the machine had just given something like three holds on 7's and some MPU4 BWB builds the number reel would only spin 4 or 9 in normal play. It is my understanding that to make JPM games a bit more unique they programmed some randomness into the code so you might hit a decision where the machine doesn't want you to spin a third JPM symbol for £3 but the randomness kicks in and if it selected that symbol it will still land it, similarly on the hi-lo. I have seen some unusual behaviour on JPM's before where it may suddenly just spin three of a kind out of the blue and any value not necessarily jackpot, but even when dead it may suddenly spin triple bars out of nowhere. Unfortunately I don't know anyone from JPM to confirm.

Yes similar to the Chinatown RAM I posted that you can hi-lo out in £2. As long as you follow the pattern of holds the sequence is always the same and you can always get the win and hi-lo it out. Doesn't necessarily mean it's "fixed" just that the decision making process at that time always favours the same outcome so no pseudo randomness built in like JPM? So what happens if you don't hold the 3 and 2 on the plum and apple does it force it back in or is it then off on another path? I have had something similar with EastEnders, I was saving the ram regularly until it got so desperate it literally spins in three 7's direct. However I noticed there were always two outcomes from that position, either the 7's spin in or you get the feature that always goes to Fruit Stall and repeats for the same amounts. I guess where there is decision making logic if the machine is at a point where the outcome is weighted heavily in one direction it is always going to take the same decision, at least until the player changes the outcome by making a different decision, like holding or not holding something.

What you are describing seems to be exactly how pots work except in this instance the pot wouldn't be increasing it would always be a fixed value. To ensure long term (and it would have to be very long term) percentage is met for the 10% pot you would also have to ensure that when triggered it was always awarded and couldn't be rejected either by choice or mistake plus there is the issue of triggering when it coincides with another win but that would seem easy to solve on a compensated machine. I understand where you are coming from and in this simplistic scenario it would appear to make sense, it really depends how balanced the rest of the game is because if we were applying this to say a Money Mad Mushroom type game of £100+repeat players would be expecting this a lot more often than up to £4000 in it would probably have to occur maximum every £1000 or less.

Go for however you think is best to highlight it. Natural play is preferred from a machine perspective as they play silly in test mode but if it's to simplify showing the setups by test nudging there is no harm, then play in normal play to get as many as you can in the alloted time?

Please re-upload the one you did that you wanted me to watch as I didn't get a chance before you removed it.

Great words Reg Wow a year already - doesn't time fly. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were discussing this. I found out late at night and was straight out of bed and back on the PC. They say time is a great healer and for me that's more about remembering the incredible achievements Chris made. As time passes it becomes more about the joy the emulator brings than the sadness of passing. I know Chris wouldn't see any sense in staring into space when there is work to be done, Edit mode is after all just a click away. Hope all is well up there Chris.

A nod to the designers at Insomniac here, a couple of the strangest weapons from Ratchet and Clank are the Groovitron glove which causes your enemies to dance in an uncontrollable but satisfyingly choreographed way and the Sheepinator which turns the enemy into a sheep (obviously). The design effort that went into the Groovitron deserves an award with every enemy having it's own dance combination and in many cases the enemy will utter some kind of insult at you at being forced to dance!

I agree with this (Club Pink Panther). In my limited experience of this machine it won't allow a straight gamble to the top and will always die when you gamble from £50, even in test mode (when you aren't forcing it to win). Not as bad as the others from this era that won't allow a gamble past £25. Not that the top feature is a guarantee of jackpot either, unless it's set to 5p/£75 (£75 being the minimum top). It will flash "GETAWAY CAUGHT" on the alpha and when you hit collect it will award another win if it stops on GETAWAY. It will consistently give you less than JP, e.g. £150 or £200 instead of £250. The only way to guarantee £250 is if the triple bars come in (never seen it) or collecting four Panthers for cashpot when maxed. I haven't tried a straight force every gamble to see how it would react (I don't really have the patience) but as it can't force collects on you other than boosting straight to the end or awarding panthers for cashpots I can well imagine it could run way under percentage. To be honest I haven't played it a lot, it's a pretty awful machine at least from reset - just multiply the frustration of never landing on anything on Rovers Return / Instant Win and multiply it by 250! A shame because the sound package is great for Panther fans and the jackpot ditty is fairly decent (Pink Panther unique) but unlikely many people got to hear it in real life as these number trail based progressions are just annoying. In case anyone has their interest piqued I attach it for your aural pleasure. ClubPPJP.wav

Absolutely, no real version of Solid Silver ever had this nudge trail, but because the DX was done from the flyer it's had the wrong trail since birth.

If you are talking about real life payouts there is a hardware solution to this, or at least used to be. When tokens went all cash there were a number of machines that had no cash roms, some Project Coin machines for example. These were fitted with a small board that counted the solenoid firing and when 5 token fires were registered it would fire a pound instead. When less than 5 fires (e.g. the 80p in a 4.80) there would be a slight delay, then it would fire the appropriate number of 10p's instead. I doubt these boards are still available but it wouldn't seem too hard for someone electronically minded to build something similar to count the pulses and therefore "upgrade" old machines to be able to pay in pounds? There would still be long payout delays as the machine "pays" lower coins and these are counted and converted to hopper spins though.

Not being a pro-player I don't have much to contribute to this thread, but just to say I have been playing the stunning A:E layout of Reno Reels a lot recently. If it's happy then it just won't land on Bust. If you get to the stage where you are forced on the feature never collect the super feature always go for Blackjack, as 9/10 times you can just keep twisting yourself into oblivion. Occasionally it will force a straight 21 on you which is autocollect but it is consistently the best way I have found to bin yourself off with no win. You can door open/close if a feature is forced but depends how it's forced. If it just spins straight in then after reset it will just spin in again so Blackjack is a good out.

Barcrest Games Bond - presumably pissed because Maygay got the licence!

If they are older, converted layouts (like 5.1 and earlier) a lot of designers didn't use the "Notes" function and would often tell you the keyboard shortcuts on the forum thread they released the layout on! Great at the time but not now... You can check the buttons yourself in edit mode for the assigned shortcut, in these instances there was usually some logic to it for the extra trails like pressing C for cash, N for nudges etc.