Do you think the Happs Super is a good in-between?

[blueoakleyz]

I'm referring to the shape of the knob/stick part so if there is a better equivalent from ultimarc or something then I'd probably get it, when the time came....but
if someday in the future I were to make an arcade cabinet with a mame computer and wanted to run a wide spectrum of games, from pacman/galaga to Mortal Kombat 1-3/street fighter to MK4/Tekken1-5, do you think a Happs Super would be a good compromise?

Fans of Galaga and Pac-Man would feel best with ball top while fighting game/modern game fans are more used to the tear drop/oval elongated stick... Does the Super fit the bill for an in-between? Or does it come up short on both ends?

I'm wondering if I were to outfit an all-around mame machine with balltops only, would it be too much of an extreme? Hard to play modern games with? Should I just go with the super? And to the same extent, if I went with an Ultimate would it be too extreme to play Pacman on? (I'm using ultimates for my PS2 arcade which will play Pacman/Galaga as well as Mortal Kombat/SF which I'll be making soon) or do you all think the games of yesterday are pretty much universal?

Does the super have a ball-top feel to it at all? Or does it pretty much strictly feel like the latter.....
I'm thinking however I should probably wait to use a ball top for a dedicated machine to something like Galaga.

[paigeoliver]

I use nothing but balltop joysticks. That is not an extreme at all.

Oh also, there is no stick that plays Pac-Man well that also plays mortal kombat well. One is VERY 4-way, very short throw and the other is very 8-way long throw.

The super feels NOTHING like any balltop stick I have ever owned. In general the happ/il sticks feel very little like classic sticks at all. They have their own distinct feel which is mostly characterized by the fact that they have larger diagonal areas than primary areas.

The best all around sticks I have ever found are the Wico balltops, the ones that use the microswitches. Note that these haven't been made in 10 years, so you will have to search around a bit.

[Gunstar Hero]

The only 8-way stick I've ever had any luck playing 4-way games with is the P360, and that's just cause it's pretty tough to accidentally hit a diagonal with it... it does really suck for Q-Bert tho.

As for ball vs. bat tops, it's all in how you feel about it. Go with what you like more, and honestly, it's not THAT big of an adjustment between one or the other. Once you get your hand around it, it's all good either way!  

[paigeoliver]

Most 8-way sticks are fine for most games. It is just some particular games which require the older high quality sticks and simply do not play well with the shoddy modern sticks.

Case in point, robotron. My Neo Geo JAMMA cabinet has the cheapo japanese balltop sticks on it, the kind that came with it. They are fine, play everything with them. They seemed great up until the point I tried my Multi-Williams boardset in it. I scored a measly 65,000 and it felt all wrong.

Fast forward. Same MultiWilliams board, Happ bat sticks. Still felt wrong, this time I scored 150,000.

Well used (but functional) short handled Wico leaf sticks. 200,000

Spring style Wico microleafs upgraded with Heavy springs with long handled balltops (these are in my current opinion the best sticks in the world). 380,000.

Having several JAMMA cabinets makes it easy to check this sort of thing out. The reason I score the microswitch based Wico's as better than the leaf based ones is because they also have that precision required for doing fighter special moves. Leaf switch joys don't have that because all the corners generally aren't the EXACT same size on a leaf joy.

[blueoakleyz]

So yeah I guess it's gonna be hard to truly replicate it (if it truly is a big deal since it's all just for casual fun) until I dedicate a machine to Ms Pacman and get a true balltop/4way.

But super should suffice for basically all games right? or for that matter, ultimates...
damn happs needs to colorize the supers

[Minwah]

If you seriously want to play 4-way games, you won't be happy with Supers.  They are fine for 8-way games, but for 4-way forget it...

[blueoakleyz]

I saved creating a new thread so I hope this gets answered, but

if I were to use it for ONLY Pac-Man and Galaga, what is the closest on the market joystick I could get?
I'm thinking of creating an alternate control panel for my upcoming PS2 Arcade

also, does the very feel of a balltop when playing ANY game interfere with modern games? same q? for the reverse

[paigeoliver]

Um, if you are ONLY playing Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga then get the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga stick. I have several of them, Happ has them, so does Bob Roberts.

Galaga plays fine with ANY stick.

[Lilwolf]

IMHO Supers aren't the best for fighting games (you mentioned a few).  They dont' have 'corners'.  When you turn them in a big circle, its smooth.  Its very easy to move from back/crouch to just back without knowing.

Comps and Ultimates (comps are better) do and I like them for fighting games.

Supers are GREAT for older games (especially gyruss and timepilot).  

And I think they all suck for 4way games.  I would rather use a keyboard then a super or a comp for a 4 way.  

JStick is probably the best 1 joystick solution.  I haven't heard the differences to Omni one.  But JStick are alway ranked well.

[R-city]

Im also looking for an in-between.  Has anyone tried the T-stik plus for fighters.  The short throw part doesn't seem too good.  I was thinking the J-stik, but the square range of motion looks strange (from the video on retroblast).

[blueoakleyz]

I think Competitions might be a good in-between now, with an emphasis on modern games such as fighters.

However I just realized/found that Happs has carried Ms. Pac-Man sticks all along and I was just blind and never saw them so this was exciting news to me. I also had the idea for a 2nd project, someday I'll make a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet, put a computer + 19" TV in there and make it dedicated to old-early/mid-80's games like The Pac-Man games, Galaga, various Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros. Donkey Kong etc.

[blueoakleyz]

Oh also it says you can only install a Ms. Pac-Man joystick through metal, is this because of the thickness? while other games have 3/4" wood, Pac-Man has a thin metal plate? Could you just use 3/4" MDF/wood and then rout out a square hole underneath the joystick location so that it has the same thickness as the arcade/metal panels?

[paigeoliver]

I always just make a mounting plate for them. It is easy to do.

[Sasquatch!]

So the moral of the story here is that paigeoliver sucks at Robotron.  

[blueoakleyz]

I always just make a mounting plate for them. It is easy to do.

mounting plate? can u give more detail, im not sure how that works

[paigeoliver]

Um, you mount the joystick on a square piece of metal and mount the metal on the panel. You can even put an overlay on the mounting plate. When I did my Golden Tee panel I used the same grass overlay on both the control panel and the trackball plate and it looks great.

[Minwah]

JStick is probably the best 1 joystick solution.  I haven't heard the differences to Omni one.  But JStick are alway ranked well.

I'm surprised how few people use J-Stiks - I can't rate them highly enough

[_Iz-]

JStick is probably the best 1 joystick solution.  I haven't heard the differences to Omni one.  But JStick are alway ranked well.

I'm surprised how few people use J-Stiks - I can't rate them highly enough

I originally built my cab with supers and I just redid the control panel with jsticks. The difference is like night and day. I couldn't be happier with the jsticks...