That is my honest assessment. Aircraft carrier control panels are garbage. Would it be helpful for me to lie to him?
Even though it is harsh, I agree with this. A lot of times I just won't comment on something if I don't like it but criticism is good if you have an open mind. Recently there seems to be a lot of people jumping into this hobby (this is good!) without wanting to spend the time to learn or do the research necessary to understand what works and what doesn't (this is bad!). I also think that the ease of something like RetroPie and buying a flat-pack cabinet makes people think this is something that can be mindlessly churned out in a weekend with spectacular results. RetroPie also seems to be contributing a lot to the mentality of building one cabinet with a frankenpanel to play "everything", which is ridiculous if you know anything about arcade cabinets (or you stop and think about it for 10 seconds). I'm not saying this applies to the OP - just generalizing.
Sorry to derail the thread. OP - you are doing a nice job so far with your woodworking for the first try. You may want to rethink your control panel though. 4P will almost never get used even though you think it will and pretty much all of the 4P games are not that fun (and are all the same). You also don't need 8 buttons per player and your trackball placement looks to be too high up on the CP (good luck playing Golden Tee and not breaking your fingers or smashing the monitor glass). The 2P MAME CP has basically been perfected if you end up going that route - take a look at some of Knievel's cabinets for great examples of what works (and with switching or programmable joysticks you don't need a dedicated 4-way any more). Other than the CP layout, the rest of it looks good to me.
Good luck!
Thats more like it
I haven't still decided on the control panel, I haven't even got the wood for that yet, just because of this. I actually like the big CP with 4P controls, I personally like the look of it, but as you say, there are very few games that make use of those. Still... I like the look of the 4 player very much. Trackball is actually meant to work as a mouse, and I am not 100% sure that it will stay also.
While about the 8 buttons, I like fighting games a lot, so those are a must. I'm actually going to play even newer games like Guilty Gear Xrd on that cabinet, so you can tell there is no space for a Rasp on this project plans.
I've been lurking on this forum and others for years, before deciding to proceed and make "my very cabinet" (read "learn how to make a cabinet"), and I do appreciate a lot the time you spent on writing your post sir, I am open to critics even if it was only for the sake of discussion