The Ideal Control Panel Setup

[cpetzol2]

I am getting ready to build my first arcade, and I just had a couple of questions.

What is an ideal layout for a control panel. My arcade is going to be in a Frat house, and open to the whole house, so, I want the panel to be able to function properly, in as many games as possible, without have to mess with input settings. I want my panel(and arcade for that matter) as user friendly as possible, so I am not constantly getting asked how to do something, or why something wont work.

From experience, does anyone have a layout that they used that is just extraordinary, works for a majority of games, and with minimal techincal difficulties.

I dont need a crazy control panel with Flight Simulator Joysticks and Laser Guns. I just want a 2-4 person control panel, that has enough buttons to handle most games, but not so many buttons that you have to have a piece of notebook paper next to them so you know what they all do. I guess basically, what is a good number of buttons per player that would cover 90% of games ( I just threw that number out there, I dont know if that is very practical or not)

Thanks for your time

[Kremmit]

If your putting it in a frat house, then you'll probably be able to scare up 4 guys fairly often, so I'd go with a 4-player panel instead of two.  Players 1 and 2 need 6 buttons, 3 and 4 can get by with 4. 

Lock all the admin buttons and the keyboard inside the machine, because dumb drunken frat boys who don't know what they're doing will screw things up when you're not looking.

Many people like to make the center two spots players 1 and 2, and the outside players 3 and 4.  That way, the spots with the best view of the screen are the ones used most of the time.

Some people like to add an extra button on the bottom row for players 1 and 2, just to more accurately cover the standard NeoGeo layout.

If you line all 4 sticks up in a row insted of angling the outside players back, then you can use all 4 joysticks to play 2-player SmashTV.  Makes for a very wide control panel, though.

One dedicated 4-way stick will make 4-way games play better, but dumb drunken frat boys may not know when to use it. 

Trackball?  Trackballs?

Spinner?  Spinners?

Fancy joysticks like the Mag-Stik Plus, Prodigy, 49-way, and U-360 will just confuse dumb drunken frat boys if they have to switch modes, or if somebody else leaves them in the wrong mode. 

Remove games that don't work properly with the controls you've got; they'll just piss people off.

[BamBam]

cpetzol2,

I just fired off a couple of CP samples to your email, as I can't figure out how to upload an image into this reply.
Goodluck.

John

[GoPodular.com]

I'd go with:

P3/coin3               - P1/coin1              - P2/coin2              - P4/coin4
                                             PAUSE BUTTON
Joy3 (4-buttons)  -  Joy1 (7-button)  -  Joy2 (7-button)  -  Joy4 (4-button)

Keep the joysticks all in a line for SmashTV.  Make a second cabinet at a later date for trackball/spinner games.  You'll want a nice golf setup and a couple spinners for racing.

[releasedtruth]

Lock all the admin buttons and the keyboard inside the machine, because dumb drunken frat boys who don't know what they're doing will screw things up when you're not looking.

Someone's bitter they weren't invited to frat parties perhaps? 

[ahofle]

Another suggestion if you're using an iPac keyboard encoder.  Disable the shift key function for the player one start button (or map it to another button).  All too often when I have people over playing coop games, someone accidentally presses player 1 start at the same time someone presses player 2 start and the game exits.  I'd have a dedicated exit button instead.

[torez]

I guess someone likes to say "dumb drunken frat boys" alot.  I'm not going to point fingers, but ... *cough*Kremmit*cough*  

[javeryh]

I'd go with the Project Arcade set up but expand it for 4 players.

[diverdown]

Another suggestion if you're using an iPac keyboard encoder.  Disable the shift key function for the player one start button (or map it to another button).  All too often when I have people over playing coop games, someone accidentally presses player 1 start at the same time someone presses player 2 start and the game exits.  I'd have a dedicated exit button instead.

Since you are in a frat house this is very good advice.

[Kremmit]

No, I partied with enough dumb drunken frat boys to know that the machine better be idiot proof.  Unless this thing is going in the Lambda Lambda Lambda house, that is.

[cpetzol2]

Ok, I appreciate all of your guys' responses, most of them were helpful. On the same note, what are common buttons used other than joysticks and the player buttons. Some of the ones I have been thinking about using are reset, exit, and pause. WHat else are some good buttons, or does that depend on the front end I pick, since navigation menus may different from FE to FE.

Thanks.

[GoPodular.com]

It depends on the FE and what encoder you're using.  You can use shift functions to have multiple uses for the same button(s).  I played for years on a two-player panel that had zero admin buttons.  I used an original (read: old version) I-PAC and was careful not to hit the P1 and P2 start buttons at the same time because that would exit the game.  Of course we accidentally did from time to time. 

For our panels, we only have 2 "admin" buttons with the PC cartridge.  The suggested uses are "pause" and "exit" and then use the P1 start for starting a game under the FE.  Any configuration changes would be made with a keyboard.  Of course that's just how we do it, the buttons can actually be assigned however.

[javeryh]

If you want it to be user friendly it might help to at least have a few admin buttons that are properly labeled.  I think P1 Start, P2 Start, Coin 1, Coin 2, Pause and Exit to Front end are the essential ones but that's just me.

[Kremmit]

Fratboy jokes aside, if other people are going to be using this thing unsupervised, I wouldn't want anything other than pause and exit out where they can reach it.

[GoPodular.com]

Oh yeah, you'll need P1 Start, P2 Start, Coin 1 and Coin 2.  I count these as must haves, so I didn't include them in my list of admin buttons.