Question for Mark

[ErnieB]

When selecting custom pins for a tournament, if the course only has 4 sets of pins (0 - 3), which pin is actually used if the tour creator selects 4 - 17?

Also I noticed in the tour I created (MFP I*) under course conditons on the home page list, the pins are classified as random instead of custom. (you probably already knew about this)



* If you've wanting to give the MOD an honest try but were previously put off by maniac pins, give this one a try (MFP = MOD Friendly Pins), but watch out for the iron-like properties of the tall grasses in round 1.

[lstouradmin]

If the pin does not exist the game defaults to pin position 0. And no, I didn't realize that custom pins were listed as Random.

Thanks!!

Mark

[UncleDunc]

Ernie, Thanks for bringing this up, I noticed it as well. There is one more tweak I'd like to see... As you are setting the pins, you need to do each one (hole by hole) individually, it's kinda time consuming. If there were an option to: "Set all pins to" it would require a 19th drop down, but boy would that be nice. I don't mind going through the courses that I'm going to use and seeing how many sets of custom pins there are for each course. If over time though, we created a database that could be used by the Tournament Directors showing the number of custom pins that are available per course, on a web page perhaps, that would solve the problem without having to modify each course on the list. Also, in game, under View Conditions, it assigns a difficulty based on your pin selections, I bet alot of folks would like to see that the designer had picked custom pins in that field.

Just spitballing, so Ernie and Mark, whaddya think?

UncaDunc

[FixAmer1st]

One thing to watch for when setting up Events using Custom Pins is that some courses, even though the pin list shows all 17 pins available, might only have pin 17 on just a few holes. The same goes for the other high numbered pins.

Just selecting all Pin 17 setting, if one does not watch the individual holes closely, will have the holes that do not have a pin 17 use the last pin setting that the course was played with. For one player it might be 0 and others it could be any of the existing Pins.

I run into this all of the time when setting up events for my CPU Tours. If a hole does not have the Pin I want to use I specify what Pin number is to be used on that hole.

Jerry

[ErnieB]

I like the set all pins to X option as long as care is taken to ensure the course has the same # of pins on each hole as Jerry explained. I think another handy feature would be the option to "clone" a tournament so that the custom pins don't have to be re-entered should one decide to offer a tour for all difficulty levels to play.

[Larry_Warrilow]

it would be nice if there were a standardized automated four round set of hole locations for every course that used every part of each green during the week, but this doesn't appear to be in the cards.

i only put up one event per week, but i go into practice chipping mode and choose the four daily hole locations green by green after examining each green and all the pins from various angles. ideally each nine will have 3 front, 3 middle, and 3 rear hole locations, whatever their difficulty. i also keep records of the locations so that i won't have to repeat the process way down the road when i reuse the venue.

it is time consuming (some weeks it takes well over an hour), but i enjoy working out an interesting hole location plan for an entire 72 holes. not everyone will want to spend the time, but it's a guaranteed method of achieving the widest variety of pin positions, and avoiding those that are particularly unfair. lw

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[ErnieB]

Yes, it can get very involved, but I too think it's fun to set up. If you aren't doing so already, I found it helpful to set to panoramic mode and under custom pins select View All Pin Positions. I place the ball in practice mode at the front of each green (within the flightpath of an optimal approach shot) and, if needed, rotate so as to see all the pin positions at once. Every now and then there will be a wide green and this won't work too well, in that case I move the ball along the perimeter until I can see them all, keeping in mind the original flightpath to the green. Then it's a matter of using the breakline indicator and yellow thermometer up to 3 feet around each hole to determine fairness (lol). I find most courses it takes longer to set it up when creating the event than it does to scope out 4 or more likely sets of pin positions.

It would also be a handy feature if we could create an LTS file and upload it to the create tour area to transfer the bulk of the settings (pins, tees, gimmies, etc).

[Larry_Warrilow]

E, i'm doing pretty much the same thing, but i have the grid on and use the aiming pole to check relative grade for each hole location. a 1.06 mod f/f hole location should have less than a 2" drop in elevation from 10' above the hole to be usable. the other pragmatic test is: if a skilled player can leave a ball short of the hole from a lie above the hole, the location is usable.

it's possible that not all my past choices would be 1.06 f/f usable but i would guess that most of them would be. hopefully some of us can put together a database of tour event usable custom hole locations that would gradually expand to cover all tour courses, and would become available to not only the arcade event creators but also to the regular lspn tour events. lw

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