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Critique on Control Panel Design
madruk20:
I think after some testing I'm going to roll with 6 buttons for P1 and 2, and experiment with the 7th button Neo Geo style tomorrow. I honestly didnt like having to rest my pinky on the very far buttons when playing. The spinners above the joysticks work great the problem is you run into a "wall" trying to use the trackball in the direction of P2 with the joystick and spinner if you're very aggressive (I think you mentioned this already).
If I put the spinners about 1 1/2" above the top row button 2 on either side it gives you room to put your wrist between the joystick and buttons to reach the spinner on your left hand, and then use button 2 + 3 as needed with your right wrist resting on the open space between the P1 buttons and trackball and and for P2 the P2 buttons and open space. Works fairly well standing or sitting. We played about 2 hourish off and on and I didn't feel any discomfort so I might have found our sweet spot :o Even played Ikari Warriors fairly well using the spinner push button for fire and grenade for pull! This also gives you around a 120 degree angle to go ham on the trackball without hitting anything. When I say ham I mean throwing your wrist in a ridiculous dramatic fashion so I think the distance is ok for average use.
The issue with doing 7 buttons is your left wrist more than likely will rest on the 7th button reaching the spinner if its drilled in the normal style i see usually (with it being a thumb button), so I guess I'll have to see if thats tolerable. I'm going to drill a small straight hole mockup for P1, P2, and the trackball/spinners to try it tomm.
BadMouth:
While I don't like the appearance of 8 buttons and rarely use my 7th button, if you are going to be heavy on the PC/Steam games you may still want that many.
It's been a long time, but IIRC Mortal Kombat X required me to map 8 buttons before exiting the button mapping screen so I had to temporarily jump an extra button wire because I only had 7. The mapping was for a combo or something that wasn't needed to play, but I couldn't exit without mapping all the action buttons. IIRC Castle Crashers also used all the buttons. Although I installed them I eventually quit playing anything that required more than 3 buttons (outside of fighting games) because it didn't feel very arcade-y.
This was a long time ago when the games first came out, there might be workarounds now.
javeryh:
I just got glasses so maybe I'm way off but that rectangle above the trackball is not centered on the trackball.
madruk20:
Ha yeah its definitely off, that's just a mockup though of the panel not actual dimensions (I hope).
--- Quote from: BadMouth on August 06, 2024, 06:55:40 am ---While I don't like the appearance of 8 buttons and rarely use my 7th button, if you are going to be heavy on the PC/Steam games you may still want that many.
It's been a long time, but IIRC Mortal Kombat X required me to map 8 buttons before exiting the button mapping screen so I had to temporarily jump an extra button wire because I only had 7. The mapping was for a combo or something that wasn't needed to play, but I couldn't exit without mapping all the action buttons. IIRC Castle Crashers also used all the buttons. Although I installed them I eventually quit playing anything that required more than 3 buttons (outside of fighting games) because it didn't feel very arcade-y.
This was a long time ago when the games first came out, there might be workarounds now.
--- End quote ---
Yeah I'm still messing with it but 8 buttons really throws off the spinner setup as well depending on how you use it. If you have 8 you cant rest your right wrist/arm very well while sitting, but I think I'd rarely sit down to play spinner games to begin with. Trying to play Arkanoid/Tempest sitting even when the spinner was placed "perfectly" drove me nuts :banghead:
Definitely can feel the difference in precision between the Spintrak and the GRS push/pull too.