Intro & Questions.

[Tumerboy]

Hey guys, I'm new around here.  Still in the planning stages on my future cab.

I have a couple of questions, and have done searches and read through much of the FAQ but didn't see these really covered.  So I apologize if I've missed it somewhere. . .

I often see people with buttons on the sides of their CPs (usually 2 per side?)  Are these for Pinball?  Does Pinball on a stand up, usually horizontally oriented screen really work very well? Or are these for some other purpose?

I'm looking to make a 2 Player CP but I'd like to still play 4 player kind of games like TMNT and Simpsons.  In the FAQ they pretty much just said to build a 4 player CP, but I don't want to.  Can I put a Player 1 & Player 3 button over the left, and a Player 2 + 4 over the right, and still map the controls such that the right player could choose either?  Or can my buttons only be mapped to a single player's controls?

Similarly, I see most CPs have 4 separate coin buttons.  Can I consolidate that down to 1 button that enters coins for everyone? Or is that a bad plan for some reason?

Thanks in advance
-Nick

[Gatt]

1.  Yes they're often for pinball,  it works,  but it's not as...authetic...as one could wish.

2.  There's a number of ways you could map the buttons such that a player could use either set,  both through software or hardware,  but tbh it's kinda pointless unless you're going for lefty-friendly.  But yes,  it can be done.

Honestly though,  if you *really* want 4 players without building a behemoth panel,  build two little ones and wire the controls in the second one to players 3 & 4.

3.  Yes,  you can consolidate it down.  There's a couple games where it matters though,  Gauntlet cares about where the coin was inserted.  So does Rampage IIRC.  There may be others.  So be aware,  if you consolidate it,  you're either going to be using the keyboard or a few games aren't going to be kind to you.

OOps!  Almost forgot...Hi!  Welcome!

[Tumerboy]

Cool thanks!

To be clear, I'm not trying to get actual 4 player on a 2P console. I want 2 sets of controls, but still want to be able to play as Raphael in TMNT if I feel like it.

Thanks
-Nick

[Gatt]

Cool thanks!

To be clear, I'm not trying to get actual 4 player on a 2P console. I want 2 sets of controls, but still want to be able to play as Raphael in TMNT if I feel like it.

Thanks
-Nick

Well,  the easiest way to do that really would be to tab to the game control menu in Mame and reassign the controls to player 3,  rather than try to find a way to wire it up to do it.  Doing it with the hardware isn't going to be the easiest of things,  because even if you have a set of buttons for player 1 and player 3,  your joystick is still assigned to player 1,  and if you rewire it to be both joy 1 and joy 3,  it may prove to cause weird problems.

[Desolis]

TMNT has a version made for 2 players which allows you to select your character. This may solve your problem.

Edit: Though I suppose it really wouldn't as you'd be limited to 2 players. Sorry.

[Tumerboy]

Ya, I'm not worried about having 4 simultaneous players.  I'm fine with 2, I just want to make sure people can select other characters in things like TMNT, Simpsons, Xmen, etc.  If this isn't easy, it's not a big deal, I was just curious if it was something that could be accomplished using 2 sets of controls.

[Desolis]

You should be set then. All of those games have 2 player cabinet versions. Gauntlet does as well. Which makes me happy, as until I just checked I didn't know that it did 

[Tumerboy]

Awesome! Problem solved. . . Once I uh, legally own all of those 2P versions. . .