Looking for feedback on a 4 player CP

[lordoxide]

Hey all,

Looking for feedback on this. The design is for a 4 person CP, this is my first attempt. Important games are fighters, Goldten tee, and classic 4 players like TMNT and Simpsons.

Hardware:
4x Sanwa JLF
Seimitsu 30mm screw buttons
3" Happ high lip trackball
Opti-wiz for happ
X-arcade BYO 4 player controller kit

Image attached.

[Scassidy24]

Nice artwork!    Make sure the joysticks for 1st and 4th player are not angled. They should be on the same angle as 2nd and 3rd player.  So that "up" is directly toward the screen.  Just comes down to mounting.  Other than that I can't help


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[lordoxide]

Scassidy,

Thanks for the feedback, here is the final design. It was way late in the game that i realized the player 3 and 4 needed to be angled at the screen.

Thanks,
Tom

[Ian]

Perfect!

[dgrams2000]

Looks good.

Here are other things to think about, depending on how much room you have....

Differences between this and mine are (and I wish I had a picture of it, but I am sitting at a car dealer in the waiting room, waiting for my car to get fixed...)

1) Coin buttons and Start Buttons for all 4 players.  On mine.   Coin buttons and  1P & 2P starts are necessary...
But maybe in a 4 player setup... ninja turtles, d&d, AvsP, etc...  You dont really need start buttons because the start buttons are the player buttons.
Coins are needed tho.      I just did Coin and 1/2/3/4P start buttons for each player.  I think Gauntlet uses both the coin and start buttons for all players.

2) Found out after a bit that I wanted buttons on the CP for the following functions:  Pause/VOL+/VOL-   So I have 3 buttons right of the trackball for that

3)  Buttons left of the trackball for mouse movement...  L/R mouse and added a 3rd so I can do like missile command.

4)  I added a 'right' stick for player 1/player 2  setup so you could play games like SMASHTV or  Robotron  or Crazy Climber....

[BadMouth]

3)  Buttons left of the trackball for mouse movement...  L/R mouse and added a 3rd so I can do like missile command.

4)  I added a 'right' stick for player 1/player 2  setup so you could play games like SMASHTV or  Robotron  or Crazy Climber....

Gonna disagree with those two.
While it's nice to be able to use the trackball as a mouse, having buttons post as mouse buttons causes problems in some front ends and emulators.
Especially if other people or kids will be using it. 

The few dual joystick games aren't worth cluttering up the CP and making trackball play problematic.
You can use the P1 & 3 joysticks for the dual joystick games or use 1 & 2 if playing them single player.
While not optimal, it's useable.

[dgrams2000]

As far as the dual sticks... that was just a personal preference.
I made sure to lay everything out to minimize any issues with being in the way of the ball.  The ball was more important than dual sticks.
So if the ball would have been impacted, I would have removed the 2nd sticks from the panel.
I know games for that are limited, but I really wanted it.  I love dual stick games.
(I texted my kids at home to try to snap a picture of the  control panel and machine for me...)

The only time the buttons left of the ball are used are for windows use and missile command... (well, and to rotate left/right for golden tee)
Other than that, the 3 buttons do not cause any issues.  does not affect my front end.  using 3d Mame front end.
I have it set up to work with my 1P stick and buttons to walk around the arcade and click on a machine to start.

I'm just throwing ideas out there to think about.
That's all.
Lordoxide's layout is perfect if that is what he wants. 

[dgrams2000]

Here is a picture of my CP (before I got rid of the tube monitor and added an LED tv...)




Here is another picture, after I added the flat screen TV....     Not a close pic of the layout, but it will do.

[lordoxide]

Thanks for all the input guys!

My plan for the coin buttons is one of 4 options but I haven't decided yet:
1.) Front lower box buttons, don't care if they get press accidentally, just more "money" in
2.) No buttons, Free play for all i can
3.) Script that makes P1/P4 do a coin in first, then start second.
4.) Coin door, with matching buttons above

I've gone back and forth alot mouse buttons, I think I've decided to map start player 1 and start player 2 (or player 1 button 5/6) to mouse1/2 via the Optiwiz, then map those to their corresponding function in mame.

We play golden tee fairly hardcore, so I don't want to have the buttons near the trackball (i'm already worried about pause/exit)

Gotta decide what to do with Volume or Save, I didn't think about those, hmmmm

Thanks,
Tom

[Cynicaster]

Thanks for all the input guys!

My plan for the coin buttons is one of 4 options but I haven't decided yet:
1.) Front lower box buttons, don't care if they get press accidentally, just more "money" in
2.) No buttons, Free play for all i can
3.) Script that makes P1/P4 do a coin in first, then start second.
4.) Coin door, with matching buttons above

I think the most universal of these options is to just put them on the front/side of the control box (i.e., not on the top panel) near the respective player positions.  Make them the same color as the control box for a clean look.  This is what I did on my 2P panel, and honestly, with the overhang of the top panel and the button color matching the box (black, in my case), you really have to squint to even notice the credit buttons are there.

[lordoxide]

Here is another question I have, I really wanted pinball buttons, but with a 47" wide 4 player panel the underside box is going to be 44", that is far to wide to put the buttons on the side of the box. Anyone done anything creative? I was thinking on the bottom of the box, or making hand sized cutouts in the box so that the pinball buttons sat on basically inset on the box. It seems like it would be awkward to put them on the front of the panel box, near where I am planning to put the coin buttons.

Thanks,
Tom

[Mike A]

Forget the pinball buttons. You are trying to do too much.

[yotsuya]

Forget the pinball buttons. You are trying to do too much.

Agreed. Make something that does it's one job very well, not something that does many things in a poor manner.

[harveybirdman]

if you haven't printed the CPO yet, lose the words "Multicade" and "Mame"

[lordoxide]

Their already printed, I am actually building 2 cabinets, one for me, one for a friend. I had some personalized branding there, and needed to generalize it for the discount on ordering two (they needed to be exactly the same). I tested the design with nothing in the corners or extending the coins out, i just didn't like the way it looked.

Thanks,
Tom

[dgrams2000]

Forget the pinball buttons. You are trying to do too much.

Agreed. Make something that does it's one job very well, not something that does many things in a poor manner.

If you look at my pictures above, I did the pinball flipper buttons on my smaller 'defender' cabinet setup. (which I don't have anymore...)
I liked that, but back at that time - there were no good emus that ran pinball decently... Or my PC just sucked.

On my large machine, I thought about pinball as well.. but as the others have added... it just would be awkward and is too much.

I used the red button and blue buttons for my P1 and P2 controls to do pinball flippers.
Does not have the authenticity of having them on the side... and feel IS important.  But you can't do everything.

I also thought of putting a spinner on my CP, but it would just get to clunky with stuff...

[lordoxide]

So based on this feedback, before I go adding too many things to my CP. Is it possible to do the following:

1.) Take button 5 & 6 from player 1 and wire them as mouse 1 and mouse 2 with the optiwiz, the map those in Mame to button 5 and 6, so in mame they will work as intended, but in windows they will allow me to use the trackball as a mouse with button clicks?

2.) Assign maybe the same button 5 & 6 and button 1 & 2  of player two as pinball flippers?

I haven't gotten to the point of mapping yet in Mame so I don't want to make a wrong assumption.

Thanks,
Tom

[dgrams2000]

So based on this feedback, before I go adding too many things to my CP. Is it possible to do the following:

1.) Take button 5 & 6 from player 1 and wire them as mouse 1 and mouse 2 with the optiwiz, the map those in Mame to button 5 and 6, so in mame they will work as intended, but in windows they will allow me to use the trackball as a mouse with button clicks?

2.) Assign maybe the same button 5 & 6 and button 1 & 2  of player two as pinball flippers?

I haven't gotten to the point of mapping yet in Mame so I don't want to make a wrong assumption.

Thanks,
Tom

1) You can use mouse buttons as mame button inputs, so... yes. That should work.  Like I had mentioned, I use my mouse buttons on the Control Panel as inputs for Missile Command.
2) As long as your pinball application can map keys... AND use mouse buttons as a flipper (which you would want to test first...)  then, yes...

Have a layout planned out, and test it in your software if you have any doubts before you build. 

[PL1]

2) As long as your pinball application can map keys... AND use mouse buttons as a flipper (which you would want to test first...)  then, yes...

The easiest way I've found is to piggyback the default VP keys on the overlapping MAME keys using the "backwards wiring" method like "MAME Button" and "MAME Button 2" below.




Scott