Reloading by shooting off-screen with Act-Labs lightgun

[GamingGreg]

Does anyone know of a good way to make reloading work by shooting off-screen (such as in Area51), when using an Act-Labs USB VGA lightgun?   I did a search of the board and all I could find was that it was mentioned as a problem, but no solution given.  I can shoot at just inside the edge of the screen and reload, but that takes too much time (because of the accuracy needed).  Also, using the alternate button on the gun (right mouse button) doesn't work either.  

If there's no way to get shooting off screen to work, is there an alternative, such as mapping the right mouse or other key somehow?

[TheGatesofBill]

Area 51 you say? Here, have a ctrlr ini. I think it originally came from AnalogMame.

Code: [Select]

# This file is for Area51 and clones
# It's for mapping PC lightguns (such as ActLab's USB & TV guns)
# offscreen shoots as reloads.
# It also adds the extra feature of letting you use any button for
# reloading that the original game didn't have, good for playing
# with a keyboard or analog joystick.
# Player Button 2 is hacked to the reload button for these games.

# Note: depending on your OS and mouse driver it is using for the lightgun,
# the reload button might be seen as mouse button #2 or #3.

# This file is the same as maxforce.ini and area51mx.ini in this folder


# Analog+ added reload buttons
# uncomment one for each player and, if needed, remap as needed

# for lightguns with reload button as mouse button2
#P1_BUTTON2              "MOUSECODE_1_BUTTON2"
#P2_BUTTON2              "MOUSECODE_2_BUTTON2"

# for lightguns with reload button as mouse button3
#P1_BUTTON2              "MOUSECODE_1_BUTTON3"
#P2_BUTTON2              "MOUSECODE_2_BUTTON3"

# for keyboard reload
#P1_BUTTON2              "KEYCODE_LALT"
#P2_BUTTON2              "KEYCODE_S"

# for analog joystick
#P1_BUTTON2              "JOYCODE_1_BUTTON2"
#P2_BUTTON2              "JOYCODE_2_BUTTON2"


########

# Official Mame Inputs: for shooting
# uncomment and remap as needed
#P1_BUTTON1              "KEYCODE_LCONTROL | JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1 | MOUSECODE_1_BUTTON1"
#P2_BUTTON1              "KEYCODE_A | JOYCODE_2_BUTTON1 | MOUSECODE_2_BUTTON1"


[Popcorrin]

I am just curious, how does this ctrlr.ini file fix the shoot offscreen reload problem?  I know it works because I use noname mame but I was just wondering how?  Great derivative by the way.

[Howard_Casto]

It doesn't.... actually the ctrlr file istelf is pretty useless as by default mouse button2 is mapped to p1 button2


But the area51 source code has been hacked in these builds to give "reload" an extra input.  (button 2)

Since the act-labs guns automatically press the second mouse button when you fire off-screen, it bypasses the emulation issue all-together and lets the gun do the work.