Yet another control panel critique

[vorghagen]

In the process of building my first MAME cabinet, based around Ultimate Arcade II plans. I've used a big piece of cardboard for a control panel mockup: 4 players, Omnistick & 6 buttons each, 4 start buttons, no coin buttons as I'm going the coin door route.
Does anything stand out as needing adjustment?
Thanks in advance.

[leapinlew]

Whats the point of buttons 5 and 6 for players 3 and 4?

Are joystick 3 and 4 angled towards the screen? If so, is that what you want? You won't be able to play 2 player smash tv or total carnage with that setup.

With that much CP space - you may want to consider a few admin buttons - at least coin buttons. Chucking quarters into the machine loses it's charm after a while. People just want to open the thing up and get their quarters out to put back in.

You really should get a trackball - thats where the most fun games I have are.

[More Cowbell]

Nice start. Seems like a lot of wasted space in the middle there. Also, has it been established whether any 4-player games need six buttons? I don't believe player 3 and 4 will ever need all of the buttons.

[More Cowbell]

Dammit Lew! You took all of my suggestions. 

[vorghagen]

OK, first, the buttons.
I thought I'd put 6 buttons for all players just to look consistent but the more I think about it....... no. Guess I'll take those four extra buttons and make them coin buttons next to the start buttons.
The two outside joysticks ARE angled toward the screen. Hadn't thought about Smash Bros, Karate Champ etc. I'll look into that.
Trackball is something I definately want to add (hence all the extra space). Would you suggest dead centre of panel or slightly to the left between the centre two joysticks?
Thanks heaps for the pointers, luckily it's only cardboard so far.

[leapinlew]

dead center or your whole cabinet will explode.

[vorghagen]

Explode huh? Well, I don't want that happening. Guess it's going dead centre.

[Green Giant]

1.  Have you tried playing with that setup, smashing the buttons for a while, yet?  The so called ergonomic design is not quite as nice as it sounds in most peoples heads.  So try it out and see if you prefer that or straight 6 buttons. 

2.  You might think of adding a 7th button on player 1 &2.  This is done for neogeo games that use the bottom 4 buttons. 

3.  You will probably want to bring down those player buttons closer to the controls.  Then on the top of the panel you can fill in some of that real estate with admin buttons, namely exit and pause.

4.  If you want to maintain the look of a true panel without the coin buttons, just place them on the bottom of the control panel.  It will no doubt have plenty of room underneath for some buttons.  Did it on mine and it looks great, plus it gives me the option of disabling them with a switch forcing my friends to shell out some cash.

[javeryh]

My $.02:

1.  I like that you are going for an ergonomic button layout but I've found that it's way more comfortable using the attached layout instead of keeping the middle button raised.

2.  If you add a trackball make sure that one of the joysticks isn't in the way

3.  I'm not sure what the dimensions are of that thing but it looks HUGE.  I'm not a fan of 4P panels but a lot of people are so I won't go into that but yours seems much bigger than a lot of the other ones I've seen.

4.  I also think you should scrap buttons 5 and 6 on P3 and P4 as well as not angle the joysticks

5.  Are you going to be using the 4/8 way switchable Omni-stiks?  I'm not a big fan of the visible mounting plate but I guess you could work around it if you notch the CPO for the lever... seems like a pain though.  I prefer a dedicated 4-way on there somewhere or something that is switchable like the t-stik or better yet the ultimarc 360 that you can map to do whatever you want.  I've found that most people who play on my cabinets don't grasp the concept of switching from 4-way to 8-way for more accurate controls - they just want it to work properly.  This is why I LOVE the ultimarc 360 - it makes the different control setups a non-issue.

6.  Spinner?

It's good that you are doing a cardboard mock-up to get a feel for things...  Good luck!!  

[Shattered]

A little more food for thought; Will you really use the four player setup?   

I had a four player setup for almost three months and used it once.  I found that I used the two player setup the most even when I had four or five friends over.   When two were playing the others were chilling, drinking, watching some vids etc.. 

What I did was remove player 3 and 4, move the player 1 and 2 a bit further and installed the trackball and spinner in the center.   This gave me more shoulder room around the panel as some of my friends are in the 350+ lbs range.   As was already mentioned the spinner and trackball opened up more games.   

As for the 6 buttons on p3 and p4, how many games use those?  If you're going to keep them, I would second or third the opinion to lower the button count.   

[vorghagen]

1.  I like that you are going for an ergonomic button layout but I've found that it's way more comfortable using the attached layout instead of keeping the middle button raised.

I made a 1 player panel from scrap wood with this layout to use until the cabinet is built and it seems to be pretty comfortable so I'm sticking with it.

2.  If you add a trackball make sure that one of the joysticks isn't in the way

That's why I thought I'd shift it to the left a little, but apparently this will make my cabinet explode.

3.  I'm not sure what the dimensions are of that thing but it looks HUGE.  I'm not a fan of 4P panels but a lot of people are so I won't go into that but yours seems much bigger than a lot of the other ones I've seen.

46inches across. So it's not quite as huge as some 50"+ ones I've seen.

4.  I also think you should scrap buttons 5 and 6 on P3 and P4 as well as not angle the joysticks

Agreed. The more I look at the mockup the more I can't understand why I wanted them there in the first place.

5.  Are you going to be using the 4/8 way switchable Omni-stiks?  I'm not a big fan of the visible mounting plate but I guess you could work around it if you notch the CPO for the lever... seems like a pain though.  I prefer a dedicated 4-way on there somewhere or something that is switchable like the t-stik or better yet the ultimarc 360 that you can map to do whatever you want.  I've found that most people who play on my cabinets don't grasp the concept of switching from 4-way to 8-way for more accurate controls - they just want it to work properly.  This is why I LOVE the ultimarc 360 - it makes the different control setups a non-issue.

I think you mean the Omnistick prodigy with the lever above the control panel, in which case.... no. My ones are the standard omnistick which are switchable from underneath. 8-way, 4-way, 2-way, even 3-way and 5-way is possible.

6.  Spinner?

Still not sure about this. At the moment I'm leaning toward leaving it off.

Thanks heaps for all the tips. Invaluable!

[javeryh]

5.  Are you going to be using the 4/8 way switchable Omni-stiks?  I'm not a big fan of the visible mounting plate but I guess you could work around it if you notch the CPO for the lever... seems like a pain though.  I prefer a dedicated 4-way on there somewhere or something that is switchable like the t-stik or better yet the ultimarc 360 that you can map to do whatever you want.  I've found that most people who play on my cabinets don't grasp the concept of switching from 4-way to 8-way for more accurate controls - they just want it to work properly.  This is why I LOVE the ultimarc 360 - it makes the different control setups a non-issue.

I think you mean the Omnistick prodigy with the lever above the control panel, in which case.... no. My ones are the standard omnistick which are switchable from underneath. 8-way, 4-way, 2-way, even 3-way and 5-way is possible.

You have to actually go underneath the panel to switch them?  I really wouldn't go that route - no one is going to want to do that in the middle of a party or something (including yourself).  Nevermind the fact that no one will even know or care that pac-man should be played with a 4-way joystick instead of an 8-way (even if you have a fancy instruction card or lay it out on the launch screen).  They will launch the game and play it with whatever the restrictor plate is currently set to and either not care or think that it controls a little funky and not quite as precise as they remember... 

A few years ago I think this was a necessary evil but there have been a lot of advancements recently - like the t-stik/mag-stik which switches from the top by twisting the joystick or something digital that just knows what to do based on the game that is launched.

[xmenxmen]

You can also consider scrapping button 4 on the 3rd and 4th player as there is really no game that use them on a 3 or 4 play setup.  I have one and have had to use them.  Definitely something to remember is that you will need 4 coin buttion or slot as most multiplayer games require their seperate button.  So in your case if you get a coin door, it must have 4 slot.  Hint....coin button much easier and cheaper..., but u can still have the coin door for the 1st 2 player. 

And if space becomes tight, I would move the 3rd and 4th player closer to the 1st and 2nd player.  Why?  I tend to allow more space between 1st and 2nd player as they get used the most, so a little crowding around when playing 4 player game is fine. 

[quarterstringer]

Since you have so much CP space, put your hand on the lower buttons and see if feeling the edge of the CP annoys you while playing. If it does, you have enough room to move everything up to give you more area to rest your wrist and palm.

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

You can also consider scrapping button 4 on the 3rd and 4th player as there is really no game that use them on a 3 or 4 play setup. 

Actually, both D&D games (Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara) are 4-Player, 4-Button setups. 

Granted, that's only 2 games, but they are really fun games, especially with 4 players going at it at once. 

No one has asked if vorghagen plans on adding any console emulation to his setup yet, either. . .  that might affect things.

[unclet]

quarterstringer:
Good call .... I was going to mention the exact same thing.  I would believe you fingers would get pretty tired if you could not rest your palm down on the control panel while playing.   Personal choice I guess, but I like to rest the palm on the panel so I moved my buttons up just for this reason.

I would add pinball buttons to the side.   You can look at my 4-player control panel to see how I did it ..... to give you an idea.

http://unclet.arcadecontrols.com/

[vorghagen]

No one has asked if vorghagen plans on adding any console emulation to his setup yet, either. . .  that might affect things.

In fact, yes I am planning on adding console emulation. But even then I can't think of many 4 player games that require 6 buttons each.

Since you have so much CP space, put your hand on the lower buttons and see if feeling the edge of the CP annoys you while playing. If it does, you have enough room to move everything up to give you more area to rest your wrist and palm.

I've actually already moved them up from where I had them originally. I'll be mashing the buttons on this mockup for a while to see if they need to be moved further.

Also, pinball buttons were going be added to the sides, but since making the mockup I realised when playing my hands will be outstretched to each side of the 46" panel. Not comfortable at all. So now I'm looking for some way to mount them near the front 2 corners, but still facing outward.

***BUILDING A MOCKUP IS THE SMARTEST THING I'VE DONE YET. I THOROUGHLY RECOMMEND THIS***

[unclet]

I understand you do not want to have pinball buttons on the ends of a 46" control panel, this is why I recommended you have a look at my 4 player control panel design (which is 56" wide) to give you an idea.

[vorghagen]

Unclet, I really like how you've setup those pinball buttons.  :applaud:If I can find another big chunk of cardboard I may try something similar. Either way I've now got a few more ideas about how it could be done.
Cheers.

[unclet]

Just giving you an idea .... since I like playing pinball .... and a lot of people with 4-player control panels do not think about that design.