Help with 4 player CP wiring

[roybfr]

I am building a 4 player CP and need confimation that my thinking on how to wire things up is correct.

The basic lay out is
4 8way Joysticks, 6 pushbuttons each
1 4 way Joystick shares buttons with P1 8 Way
1 Spinner
1 Trackball
1 Flight Stick (either PC USB or Oscar Trigger Stick Hack)
3 pairs of 2 pushbuttons for spinner, trackball, flight stick
Left and Right mouse button
1P-4P start and coin buttones (
Esc button
Pause Button
2 other function buttons
2 Left flipper buttons
2 right flipper buttons
IPAC4
OptiPAC

So to hook it all up would be
4 8 ways = 16 connections
6 pushbuttons each = 24 connections
1 4 way = same connection a P1 8 way
1 Flight stick = same connection a P1 8 way
1 Flgith stick trigger = same connection as P1  1 button
1 Spinner = on OptiPac
1 Trackball = on Optipac
3 pairs of 2 pushbuttons for spinner/trackball/flightstick each pair hooked to P1 1 & 2 buttons
2 mouse buttons = optipac?
Esc, Pause and 2 other fuctions to ipac = 4 connections
4 flipper buttons = 4 connections
1P-4P Start and Coin = 8 connections

Which totals 56 for the IPAC4

So would that be right or should I change it up.

[jub3i]

Well without putting too much thought into it, I can tell you right away that you won't need left and right mouse buttons.  That would double as the two pushbuttons you have for the trackball.  No need for two buttons for the trackball and a left and right mousebutton.

[PiNPOiNT]

you can cut back and save a few buttons also if you use the shift functions of the IPAC,  you can for instance, make your player 1-4 start buttons have a shift function that also makes them Coin buttons (eg: player 1 start + shift = Player 1 coin)

and save 4 inputs right there.  also i recommend, an "exit game" button (escape) as a shifted function of "pause game" eg: (pause + shift = escape)

try and find other useful things that you can do to save as many inputs as you can

[Witchboard]

Also, why do you have 6 buttons for players 3 & 4?  Unless you are going to use a console, which would require 8 buttons each for Playstation, I would drop 3 & 4 players to 4 buttons each.  That will save you another 4 inputs.

[roybfr]

Are there any games forth coming that are 3-4 Player that are 6 buttons? Or is it just good for consoles. I had chosen to use 6 on the 3 and 4 for astetics and some of the things that I had read suggested it for future use. I could just leave then unhooked and gain 4 connections, then if needed hook them up later, just be easier to install them now then later.

The shift for the coin/start is a good idea, felt like having 8 connections just to start the game was kind of to much. Also the shift pause for the esc sounds good too.

So that saves 8 so I would have some room for expansion. So would I be better off to have the buttons by the track ball be L and R mouse buttons or something else?

[jub3i]

They can double as L and R mouse buttons and something else.  Just have it be the L and R mouse buttons in Windows, and you can set it to be whatever you want in MAME.

[roybfr]

Cool, I will do that.

The only thing that stinks now is I will probably have to wait till after I get back from vacation to order the parts so that they dont get there when I'm gone.