# Coin Options

PinballY simulates a coin-op arcade game by accepting coins and converting them to "credits". Credits are added when you insert coins, and credits are deducted when you launch games. This is purely a novelty feature, for the sake of arcade simulation; the coins and credits aren't used for anything other than this accounting for its own sake. If this seems like a pointless detail to you, you're right, and you can just skip this batch of options. But if you're amused by the simulation aspect, this dialog lets you customize the "pricing model" to match your local currency and your preferred era of pinball.

The coin/credit counter is internal to PinballY. It doesn't carry over to the pinball tables you launch with PinballY. Each table uses its own internal counter, and there's no way to transfer the credit information back and forth between the tables and the menu system. That's the big limitation that makes this a novelty feature only.

## Coin slot values

The first step to setting up pricing is to specify the currency value for each type of coin that your machine accepts. The "Coin slot N" entries correspond to the "Coin N" switches you can set up in the Buttons dialog. If you have a typical US coin door with two slots that both accept quarters, for example, you could just set up all of the slots with a currency value of 0.25, for a quarter dollar. If you have a 1960s coin door with dime and quarter slots, you can set up one slot with a 0.10 value and one with a 0.25 value.

## Pricing model

The second step, after setting up the coin slot currency values, is to set up the "pricing model". This is where you specify how the currency values are converted to credits.

You can select one of the pre-defined models from the drop list, or you can enter a completely custom model. The list has entries for the most common models used since the 1980s in the US. If you select one of the pre-defined models, the price points for that model will appear in the "Coin/credit levels" box.

The key to understanding how the coin/credit list works is to know that there are two separate counters inside PinballY:

- The coin balance, which keeps track of the total value of coins that have been inserted. For example, if you insert three quarters, the coin balance will be 0.75.
- The credit balance, which keeps track of coins that have been fully converted to credits.

The information that you enter in the coin/credit list works in terms of the coin balance. The list consists of a series of price points and the corresponding number of credits.

Each time you insert a coin, PinballY adds the coin's value to the total coin balance. It then looks up the current coin balance in the pricing model list. It finds the highest coin value from the list that can be bought with the current coin balance, and it counts it as the corresponding number of credits. When the coin balance reaches or exceeds the highest value level in the list, PinballY converts that much of the coin balance into a credit balance, reducing the coin balance accordingly.

To enter a pricing model, simply enter a series of lines consisting of one coin value and one credit value per line. The coin values should be in ascending order. For example, one common model in the US is 50¢ for the one credit, 75¢ for two credits, or $1.00 for three credits. You can enter this like so:

       0.25  .5
       0.50  1
       0.75  2
       1.00  3

Note that we entered a line for a half-credit for 25¢ (the first line, `0.25 .5`). That's for the sake of giving the user some feedback when she drops in the first coin, the same way most real pinball machines would.

## Max credits

This box lets you set an upper limit to the number of credits that can be accumulated. Most real pinball machines have a limit of 10 credits or so.