What's the best "precision" trackball?

[The cranky hermit]

I want to get a 3" trackball for games like Centipede, Snake Pit, and Missile Command. I also want to use it for FPS's like UT2003; maybe even more so than MAME. I'm not quite as interested in golf/bowling games, although I certainly will play them from time to time. What's recommended? Urebelscum recommended the Happs Highlip, but it sounded like that was under the assumption that I was going to play golf and bowling games for the most part.

Also, what size/shape hole needs to be cut for a trackball?

[Sephroth57]

how would you play UT with a trackball? if you used it to move it wouldnt be as accurate as arrow keys and then how would you look around and fire with your other hand?

[Donger]

You'd get pwned if you used an arcade trackball for UT2003.  Even if you could practice to the point where you were aiming accurately with the ball, the fact that you can't use any buttons with your trackball hand = less control.

[JustMichael]

A 3" trackball is not recommended for 1st person shooters.  The size of the trackball makes it much harder to make the quick and sudden movements needed in such games

[Tilzs]

This cab builder seems to have trackball under control for FPS

[grafixmonkey]

oooh that O.J. looks like it'd really enjoy being inside that keyboard!

You'd have to have either mad trackball skills, or play against easy bots to do anything in that arrangement.  Don't forget you have to move that hand that's got three fingers on buttons and one on the trackball...

However, you could make a box cover that fits over the trackball and the buttons above it, and gives you a surface for an optical mouse.  I've thought of doing that for my machine just because it'd be awesome to play Jedi Knight on that 27" screen I just got.

[The cranky hermit]

Crap, I shouldn't have used UT2003 as an example. Bad example. Think single player FPS, instead, where lower difficulties means more tolerance to slow reaction times, and you can quicksave/quickload whenever you like.

So, what's the best trackball for that? And if you're still convinced that a trackball is never acceptable for FPS games, then think Centipede and Missile Command instead.

[Xiaou2]

 I think youd be better off with a 2.5"  as they roll faster and longer. (better design - placement of rollers is closer)

 as for better precision, i think you possibly could change the optical disc with ones that have more slits in them - and use mouse optics/guts rather than happs and thier optics.

 you could also mod a pc trackball and use real arcade bearings and rollerbars instead of thier lousy generic ones that slow things to a crawl.

[paigeoliver]

I always played FPS games with a trackball back in the old days. Logitech Marble "Mouse" has always been my gaming trackball of choice.

Although you can reach your mouse buttons just fine with a 2.25 arcade trackball with the mouse buttons close by. That is what came factory installed on my Solitaire machine.

[JamesS]

I hope the Arrow Key thing was a joke.

If you play against people or good AI and use the Keyboard, you are dead.

I could always tell them in Quake and Quake 2, they would turn in a slow fixed rate, I would strafe around them at the same speed.  They would die and I would look them up again.

Best to use a good mouse, Logitech is my preference.

[eightbit]

I used to use a trackball in FPS games and while I was never the best online I was better than most of my friends when we played LAN. I quit playing multiplayer PC games 2 years ago because there were to many people cheating! #$%^&*!

[JamesS]

I had been accused of cheating on occasion.  When I hear something and know exactly where that is.  But I have seen people accused, followed them in watch mode and never saw them cheating.  I did see one guy cheat though.  My goodness, spin shoot, spin back running multiple times without missin.  I may do that once twice a game.

And when we had lan parties, we would play Capture the Flag and it would be me vs the other 5 people in the room.  Was fun killing them when they had my flag and pushing it slowly back to my room to cap their flag.

But I just do not have the time to play it enough to still be good.  Plus Evercrack er I mean EverQuest took over my life for a couple of years.

[grafixmonkey]

It does change the situation a lot if it's FPS games other than UT and Quake etc. that you're playing.  I'd bet that System Shock 2 would be awesome on a cab, as would any of the Jedi Knight games.  The Jedi Knight games might even play so well you could built an arcade machine just for them.  Trackball, analog joystick w/ 2 or 3 buttons, and a bunch of illuminated buttons in circles around the trackball for force powers.  It'd look great.

I don't think you'd need a particularly high resolution trackball to play those games.  I think what you do need is a joystick that has at very least a top fire button, if not a button each for fire, alt-fire, and jump.  An analog joystick would work well because they have accessible buttons for all the actions you'd need, and it gives you analog control over your walk speed.

I have a first-person game called Gothic installed on my cab, and it plays pretty nicely with the Happ 3" trackball I have in there.  I do agree that the 3" would be too heavy for your typical FPS game, which is much faster paced than Gothic is.  I think some others to consider would be GTA and Vice City, Jedi Knight games and System Shock 2, the Thief series, and possibly Tomb Raider games (who knows, when played on a cab they might not suck...), and any of the PC role playing games.  Except the massively-multiplayer-online-RPG games.  Those should never be played, ever, by anyone, unless under duress.