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Tron-like flight stick

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Xiaou2:

shorthair,   Actually, Mame is Supposed to emulate the controls exactly as the games
inputs were in the arcade machine.   However,  many times it strays from  this to
allow us to use other control input methods.

 The real game used only two leaf switches to raise or lower the vertical aim.
Its "time based"...  meaning:  That if you (for instance) hold "up" instead of just
clicking up once.. it will continue to move the aim'er up more than one notch
in the game. 

 While the game might be able to use a trackball to aim,  its not exactly as
good of an idea as you might think.   A trackball does not work very accurately
for spinner games because you may want to only move horizontally and actually
have moved a little vertically at times...  thus causing you to fall short on your
desired horizontal distance.   Try playing Arkanoid with both a spinner and a
trackball, and you should immediately see the differences between them...
and know why DOT did not use a trackball for its main control method.   


 Now, If you seperated the input so that you used a spinner for  left/right..   and
a different optic for up/down... you would have to make a 2nd spinner to
control it.  The best way to control it, would be to use your foot and roll it..
however, i could see that as being a bit awkward.

 IMOP, it would be better to allow to have mame use a pot to control the
up/down.  This would allow precise defined pedal movements.   However,
that is not mames goal... so it wont happen.   The next best thing, is what
I originally suggested.

Edit:   Hmmm, I supposed there might be an alternative solution...   Maybe
if you can use some sort of  "analog Joystick to mouse control "  converter
program...  you might be able to control the vertical movement much more
fluidly.   Still... ive not tested it, and it might not work as expected.. if at all.

 

shorthair:

X: yeah, I know. I'm not into the original design but what makes for the most effective control. True, the trackball can be sloppy but I remember it being decent. As for a pedal controlling up/down, just make it optical. I recently tried a TT2 and my god was that thing fine and accurate. Randy was right that you don't need a weight on it. Tempest was a one-finger (or thumb) affair. Although I doubt you would need something this high resolution for the pedal, I'm sure it'd be more than satisfying.

ark_ader:


--- Quote from: shorthair on June 25, 2007, 08:32:11 pm ---ark_ader: I looked but didn't find it. I don't recall you giving a brand name so I didn't come up with anything. I think the problem with any of these is the play in them, and if they aren't centred then they will move some direction and in this kind of setting you're always having to compensate for this. I think afterburner and maybe some others (games I don't play often but the stick was cheap so worth putting them to) used analog sticks so I'll use it for that. Easier to just get an original type digital flight stick. Which I did.

Xiaou2: actually, Mame is supposed to be able to use the trackball in DOT, hence the vertical axis for up and down shooting. I swear it worked a long time ago, but it isn't now, regardless of Mame version. Kinda a bummer.

But, you'd want the pedal to do the normal graduation so you could actually aim specifically vs letting up in either direction relative to where you're wanting to aim. The trackball function facilitates (or faciliated) this.

--- End quote ---

Sorry mate its a logic 3 Tornado.  And it self centers!  :D

Xiaou2:


 Shorthair,

 Making a pedal optical for such a game inst such a good idea.  The reason,
is that the thing will lose calibration because the game does not keep track
of where the pedal is.   Even if you could make it work with this game, it
wouldnt work well for other games.

 Such a pedal should be either  Switch based, or pot (analog) based. 
(or a mix of both at the same time)

 As for not needing a weight on a spinner.. that is pure opinion.   There
are games that feel and control much better with a weight.   


isucamper:

So I find myself building a Tron themed cabinet (http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?publicUserId=5723357&bId=8767158) and at one point I figured I could get away with using a Happ Top Fire in place of a Tron stick.  Fortunately, my extended prototyping phase pointed out that it just wasn't going to cut it.  Also, somewhere along the line I decided to fully support Discs of Tron with GGG's super High Low spinner.  That was the real clincher, as the Top Fire's single button wasn't enough to handle Discs of Tron's 2 button next generationnishness. 

I found myself asking... man, I really wish I could find a Tron like joystick that had a slightly lower profile than the old Tron sticks and Happ's heavy duty flight stick, and that would somehow be magically functional with both Tron and Discs of Tron.  Of course, the answer lied in these forums all along, I just had to get searching for it. 

I just ordered the F106 from megamacs (the 108 is absolutely unfindable), and I'm thinking I want to get this thing mounted in my cab as it is with no hacking done to it.  MAME now supports analog to digital mapping, so I'm hoping I can support both Discs of Tron's run of the mill 8 way functionality and Tron's goofy restrictor based 4way/8way hybred.  Then the stick could also double as a realish flight stick (not sure how good it could possibly be for 9.99, but we'll see). 

So I don't want to do anything half-arsed, I want to bottom mount this thing.  Any ideas of how I'd do this?  I'd really like to not hack it, as the square restrictor that's built into the plastic looks like it'd be perfect to combo up with MAME's analog maps to get decent functionality with both games. 



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