First Cab controls question???

[gavinshull]

   Well gonna make my first post and try to get some info for the controls so i get my board mapped out. Was gonna use this as a basic layout and decide what i needed from there.
Some of my questions were using the U360 joysticks for played 1 and 2 i can see but is it necessary for players 3 and 4? What games would use this?
Also using 7 buttons for players 1 and 2 and 4 buttons for players 3 and 4,possibly need more for players 3 and 4 for any reason?

A little info may help plan on playing Mame and some of the older systems Atari - N64 I also want to have the capabilities to add a PS3 system to it down the road. Would that be possible with this setup of joysticks and buttons , i do believe i need to hack a controller to do this, but do i need more buttons?

[paigeoliver]

Redo, the 3rd and 4th player sticks should not be angled. Period. Every beginner makes that mistake. They should face north like the other sticks do. Some little part of your brain is thinking about gamepads and thinks they should be angled and you probably even saw pictures of a few machines people built where they did that. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. If you angle your sticks the whole thing is ruined. I am sure some helpful person will chime in and argue that THEIR angled sticks are awesome. But that person is wrong. Original machines didn't angle them, not even gauntlet where you would actually stand all the way on the side of the panel.

The 7 button combined Neo Geo and Street fighter layout is awkward to play on in real life and isn't worth doing. I have the same layout on my main cabinet. If you still want that layout then make the 4th button go on the right of the Streetfighter layout instead of the left (it gets in the way on the right).

Button layouts that are not curved are easier to play on, particularly when playing the fighting games that actually use all the buttons.

You do not need more than 4 buttons on the 3rd and 4th player (may not even need 4, at the moment I can't recall a single 4 player 4 button game). Gauntlet Legends could use the U360s, as can a few of the other modern 4 player games, but overall there are not many games that would need them at 3rd and 4th player positions.

That spinner is poorly placed.

Putting a playstation in there introduces a lot of complexity for very little return on your time, money and wiring investment since very few playstation games are designed for arcade controls, and as far as I know there is no easy way to interface those U360s to a playstation (I could be wrong on that, never researched it).

[yaksplat]

I like the 7 button layout that you have, i have the same on mine. 

Just curious why you have two sets of mouse buttons, and why a middle mouse button?

You should probaby move the spinner somewhere else, imagine using the spinner with your right hand and buttons with your left.  That could be tricky in that setup.  Also, if you ever plan on using a small steering wheel with the spinner (lot of fun), make sure that there's enough clearance from the joysticks.

If this panel is hinging on a box below it, make sure that there's enough room so none of the controls hit the wall of the box.  This goes for the u360's where the usb cable hangs out the lower left an additional inch or so.  I wasn't sure if the blue and black lines were handling this on the design.

Straighten out the p3 and p4 controls, angled != good.

[paigeoliver]

If you are doing dedicated trackball buttons then you might as well do 3 of them, as you will need 3 for missile command.

[gavinshull]

  Thx for the info guys. This was a map of the controls on Project Arcade 2 ,seemed a simple setup that had everything i needed.
So the player 3 and 4 joystick and buttons put them straight on and where would be a good spot for the spinner ya think? Also buttons for the trackball i assume were for left handed players so probably not of a lot of use to me,so they could go bye bye. 3 buttons needed for missile command ,that something i need to add near the trackball ? if so where

[paigeoliver]

The two sets of trackball buttons you already have are what I was talking about using for missile command. If you have the real estate there is no real down side to having them on both sides of the trackball. But make the row straight, don't curve it. Ergonomic control layouts like that can take a bit of getting used to and guest don't always get enough play time to get used to it.

Player 3 and 4 you can leave the buttons where they are, just turn the sticks so they face the same way as the other ones.

You have that spinner right behind a joystick, that is your problem there. Move it around some, or perhaps even put it in between player 1 and 2 near the front, it should be short enough to not get in the way of the trackball and can share buttons with player 1.

Finally, your panel is almost 4' wide, which is cool if it is for a showcase style cabinet (control panel on one pedestal and monitor on another), but not so cool on a more standard cabinet.

[yaksplat]

I have a pair of dedicated mouse buttons above the trackball.  For missile command, i just use the top row of p1 buttons

[paigeoliver]

Also, if you are going with a panel that wide then you don't HAVE to have anything be behind anything else. You can put all the controls right up at the edge of the panel so you don't have to reach so far.

[gavinshull]

Ya it is going to be a standard 4 player type cab, i just need to make the control box removable to get through doors and such. Maybe moving the spinner over the player one buttons and trackball over player 2 would work better or opposite way maybe.

[paigeoliver]

Mess around with it, try a layout where you put everything right up at the edge. You don't actually need any space between joystick bases and buttons (most SF2 machines had the buttons right up against the joystick base), and even your buttons seem a bit far apart.