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I'm making a 1 player ~20" wide CP, looking for suggestions. 2 joys? 3 buttons?

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quarterback:

Thanks for all the replies.  I've been completely torn on the button layout and messing with it for the last day.    I guess I'm not the only one to engage in the eternal struggle between "I want to play every game known to man" and "I don't want my CP to look like a Quasicade"

The part that's killing me is the Defender layout.  Again, I'm not really a defender player but I never will be if I don't have the right layout.   So I start with a 'defender' layout and then things start getting nutty....

This was a much easier plan when I was going with a vertical setup.  I actually spent a lot of time going through the entire .55 vertical game list and playing everything to see what I wanted.  Then, because of the cab structure and size of monitor, I had to go horizontal.   I'm not against that decision at all, but because of all the new game options, I'm having to rethink my CP layout.

As soon as I realized it was going to be a Horizontal cab, I started thinking about the dual joysticks etc etc etc


--- Quote from: theCoder on November 23, 2006, 03:03:36 am ---  By replacing the 2nd joystick with a trackball, you can play a lot more of the modern games such as bowling and golf.  Not to mention it is a built in mouse for maintenance. 
--- End quote ---

I agree with the trackball statements, although this cab will be running an old eMachine PC, so things like Golden Tee are not even on the table.    But yeah, having a trackball on my other CP is a plus, although I don't play golf games and I don't really play centipede, it is cool that people CAN play centipede, and I do ocasionally play Missile Command.   The other plus of having 'mouse' control is very nice, but I'm hoping that I'll get this cab set up and just leave it (IOW, not need the mouse control)   

The big downsides to the trackball are space and cost.  It eats up a chunk of CP real estate, plus it ain't cheap.  It's not like just dropping $10 on a 4way/8way joystick.   Also, in the end, I'm more likely to play Crazy Climber, BattleZone, Robotron than I am to play Centipede.


In the end, I think I'll probably mount 2 joysticks and three buttons, play with that for a while and then see if I want to add more.   I'm waiting on a GPWiz from GGGear but as soon as it gets here, I think I'm going to want to hook things up so my final CP layout decision might wait....

or maybe I'll hook up a TON of buttons and then scale back when I realize there are buttons I never use....

AAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!  :cry:

leapinlew:


--- Quote from: quarterback on November 24, 2006, 12:04:12 am ---AAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!  :cry:

--- End quote ---

Agreed!

My only real solution was to build multiple machines.... The horror...

quarterback:


--- Quote from: leapinlew on November 24, 2006, 12:19:52 am ---
--- Quote from: quarterback on November 24, 2006, 12:04:12 am ---AAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!  :cry:

--- End quote ---
Agreed!

My only real solution was to build multiple machines.... The horror...
--- End quote ---

:D



Well, I think I've come up with an okay layout.  I'm not thrilled with the button color combination because it looks a little gumbally, but I'm not really sure how to deal with that right now and I'm guessing it'll look better if it wasn't in a plain piece of cardboard (IOW, with some art)

It gives me a Defender layout, plus the ability to play 2-joystick games, plus the right-left buttons that NoOne=NBA= suggested.

It's funny that I ended up with a variation on the 6 button layout I initially didn't even understand.  GoPodular.com was right, it's a combination of a defender/Vanguard layout.  I spread it out some because I think it looks a little better and I think it still works.  We'll see, I guess.

I may have to shift everything down a little bit for in-cab-clearance, but I'm ready for more comments if anybody has them.



quarterback:

It's already looking better, thanks to some new photoshopped red balltops (which were a big improvement almost immediately) and RetroJames' artwork :)

Before


After


RetroJames' CP that I 'borrowed' from


NoOne=NBA=:

The only problem I see is that the reverse button is going to be a big stretch.
When I built a Defender CP using a 4-way stick, I had to actually knock the corner off of the joystick with a Dremel tool to get the button to fit in a comfortable position.

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