Sarge Joystick Mapping ideas?

[caver01]

I'd love to play Sarge with friends, but I opted to skip tank sticks in my portable 3-sided cocktail cab. I do have 4 Supers, so I COULD map them normally, but I would need to take my hands off the sticks to fire.

One thought did occur to me: create an odd mapping for a single stick:
I tried mapping L/UP to RIGHT on my joystick, and R/UP to LEFT on my joystick. Then, both L/DOWN and R/DOWN to DOWN on my joystick. This odd configuration lets me use a single joystick, steer and reverse, but I can't drive straight forward! I guess I could do the opposite and have no reverse which might be better.

I know, it's really crazy, but if I could just get LEFT on the joystick to send the game L/D + R/U and RIGHT to send R/D + L/U, I could rotate the tank left and right as you would expect. Then, of course, LR/U for UP on the stick, and LR/D for DOWN on the stick. That would effectively translate a two-stick control to a single joystick. Does anyone have any ideas for achieving this? I use the IPAC-4 controller and I am running XP.

<EDIT>
Well, I did a little messing around simply with MAME key mapping and I now have it figured out. I am actually surprised this works, but I can now play Sarge with single joysticks using this setup:

In-Game Tank Sticks        Single Joystick (multiple key mapped)
 Right/Up                          UP + LEFT
 Right/Down                      DOWN + RIGHT
 Left/Up                            UP + RIGHT
 Left/Down                        DOWN + LEFT

This configuration gives you very intuitive movements, allows straight forward, straight reverse, rotation in place, and forward and reverse turning, although the reverse turn is not at first intuitive, it's more control-oriented and that helps you think about what you are doing.

Sorry if this is totally old news, but this odd key combination seems to make this game at least VERY playable without a special CP with expensive tanksticks. It leaves your second hand free for fire buttons. Is everyone doing this and I am just late building my own cab? Or is this news to some of you?

[u_rebelscum]

Old subject, but not mentioned often, and I couldn't find the old old thread.

I'm more finicky about this, and have a more complicated map that includes nots (shown as '!').  IIRC, it goes:

R/U         U ! R or L ! D
R/D         D ! R or L ! U
L/U         U ! L or R ! D
L/D         D ! L or R ! U
Edit: see my next post.

Nots are done in mame by tapping twice in same direction.  So for mame's right_up stick, go to it in the game's input remap menu, select with enter, straight up on joystick then quickly two taps straight right, wait until mame displays up not right, then enter again, left once then quickly two taps down.

If below was a joystick, mame will output to the game's two sticks:

|^   ^^   ^|
y^   ||   ^y
|y   yy   y|

'y' is down, it's the closest I found to arrow down, '^' is up, and '|' is neutral.


There's another simpler map that swaps the two diagonal downs, but that don't make sense to me.

[RayB]

No tank sticks:
;-)

[caver01]

IIRC, it goes:

R/U         U ! R or L ! D
R/D         D ! R or L ! U
L/U         U ! L or R ! D
L/D         D ! L or R ! U

U_rebelscum,
Thanks, but it did not work for me. First of all, this 'not' configuration is something I never knew about. You are right, I don't think it comes up very often! I had no idea you could do that. It does make deciphering the logic somewhat of a mind game!

Anyway, I followed you exactly, and got the 'not' settings entered exactly as you described, only this resulted in my tank unable to do stationary rotation. I totally appreciate what this advanced setup is trying to accomplish, but I can't figure out by looking at where the problem is. My mapping matches your note, so if you are doing this from memory, I can understand if something is accidentally reversed somewhere.

My brain is melting with this config, but if I look at it long enough, maybe I can find the error. Any chance you could double-check your mapping in MAME?

Again, thanks for the details! Are there other games that work better with unique mapping (or negated input) like this?

[u_rebelscum]

... Any chance you could double-check your mapping in MAME?

You're right, the downs above are wrong.  Fixed:

R/U         U ! R or L ! D
R/D         D ! R or R ! U ! D
L/U         U ! L or R ! D
L/D         D ! L or L ! U ! D


Or, attached is a ctrlr file compatible version of the above that I tested in vindicators.

[caver01]

Awesome! Thanks for taking the time. Tired it. Worked great! I really am surprised that I will be able to play this game so easily. Tank sticks are cool, but with this level of control, it's hardly worth the investment. My friends will be pretty excited about this.

I will have to give Vidicators a look.

[u_rebelscum]

...My mapping matches your note...

D'oh, so the '+'s you used are ors.  I thought they were ands (and couldn't figure it out).

...Are there other games that work better with unique mapping (or negated input) like this?

Not many OTTOMH.  Qbert (and other diagonal 4-ways) on an normal 8-way can use ands.  I've tried partial rotated also, for both diagonal and normal 4-ways games & 8-way sticks, but it doesn't feel "right"; not bad but not perfect.

qbert:
game    your joystick
up         up & right
right      right & down
down    down & left
left        left & up

partial rotated (left):
up         up ! left
right      right ! up
down    down ! right
left        left ! down

I've tried using nots on hacks on mame, but not to good success.  Examples include:
- "fixing" wow's (Wizard of Wor) look vs move hack, but the player would take a single pixal step when using nots instead of the current hack.
- true raw 49-way joystick devices (each axis as 4 digital switches) in 8-way & 4-way games.  (With the 49-way to analog encoders out there now, hack not needed anymore, anyway.)

[caver01]

Opps on the notation of my mapping. I used + before really even knowing about the boolean combinations you can make. At this point, I don't know if mine were ORs or ANDs. I am guessing they were ORs.

[NoOne=NBA=]

Opps on the notation of my mapping. I used + before really even knowing about the boolean combinations you can make. At this point, I don't know if mine were ORs or ANDs. I am guessing they were ORs.

They have to be "OR".
If they were "AND" then pushing straight UP would have no effect.

[jasonbar]

R/U         U ! R or L ! D
R/D         D ! R or R ! U ! D
L/U         U ! L or R ! D
L/D         D ! L or L ! U ! D

+1 hooray for U Rebel Scum!  Unless anybody has a panel with 16 top-fire sticks lying around, Tank 8 is impossible to play with genuine controls.

With my 4-player frankenpanel, at least I can get 4 players shooting the bejeepers out of each other, using this handy control programming.

Thanks!   

-Jason