Main > Main Forum

Xenophobe joy with Tron

(1/4) > >>

telengard:
I finally got my Xenophobe joystick hooked up hoping I could play Tron and be able to play the light cycle stage without zig-zagging.  It still does.    :'(
My Happs trigger w/ the leaf hacks zig-zagged worse, but any is bad during that stage.

I did a little searching and it seems that Tron had a diamond shaped restrictor.  Am I going to have to buy a Tron joystick just to play this game or has some ingenious BYOAC'er come up with a way around this?

The new search engine is pretty nice BTW...

NoOne=NBA=:
Sorry for taking so long to reply to this, but I needed to get another stick to do a comparison for you.

Assuming my newly arrived DOT stick is the same as your Xenophobe (I can't be SURE until my Xenophobe base gets here next week sometime) there are two pieces that differ from a true Tron stick.

The first is a clearish rubber travel stop near the top of the base.
On the DOT stick it is set square to allow 8-way, and on the Tron stick it's set at 45 degrees to force a 4-way.
As best I can tell (since I forgot to bring calipers home from work, the opening in the rubber piece inside is the same size for both sticks.
That should mean that with some careful cutting, reorienting and screwing, you should be able to rotate the one you have to work properly.
This will involve hacking the corners off to make it fit though, so I'm not sure if it's something you really want to get into.

The other piece that is different is the restrictor plate at the bottom of the stick.
These are red plastic on both my sticks, but I'm not sure of the color on a Xenophobe stick.
That plate is set square for the DOT stick and 45 degrees for the Tron stick as well.
The opening on the one on the Tron stick is slightly smaller than the one on the DOT stick.
I don't think you'd get away with just rotating that unless you really backed off the leaf-switches and made the stick sloppier.
You could probably replace that piece with a piece of Lexan cut to the right size though.
The metal stick rides against it, so swapping to Lexan shouldn't wear anything out I would think.

If this is something you'd like to give a shot at, PM me and I'll bring calipers home to get better measurements for you.

NoOne=NBA=:
I found a partial fix for this.
It looks to me like you can use the diamond shaped bottom restrictor off a Pac stick.

I just bought one, and it looks like the bottom restrictor will fit the Xenophobe stick.
This would give you 8-way at the top, but should force the actuator to go 4-way, and allow you to play Tron without zigzagging.
I haven't actually put the parts together to test it, but I'm guessing it will work.

The only difference I can see between the Tron bottom plate, and the Xenophobe one is that the Tron plate actually has a diamond shaped HOLE for the diamond shaped restrictor in it, whereas the Xenophobe has a circular one.
The diamond shaped restrictor should drop into that round hole OK though.

I don't know what the long term wear effects will be if you do this; but, even if the diamond shaped restrictor does wear out, you still have the original square one to put back in.

I'll post an update here at such time as I actually try this.
It will need to work its way up my work in progress list though, so it'll be awhile.

telengard:

--- Quote from: NoOne=NBA= on June 04, 2004, 06:57:39 pm ---I found a partial fix for this.
It looks to me like you can use the diamond shaped bottom restrictor off a Pac stick.

I just bought one, and it looks like the bottom restrictor will fit the Xenophobe stick.
This would give you 8-way at the top, but should force the actuator to go 4-way, and allow you to play Tron without zigzagging.
I haven't actually put the parts together to test it, but I'm guessing it will work.

The only difference I can see between the Tron bottom plate, and the Xenophobe one is that the Tron plate actually has a diamond shaped HOLE for the diamond shaped restrictor in it, whereas the Xenophobe has a circular one.
The diamond shaped restrictor should drop into that round hole OK though.

I don't know what the long term wear effects will be if you do this; but, even if the diamond shaped restrictor does wear out, you still have the original square one to put back in.

I'll post an update here at such time as I actually try this.
It will need to work its way up my work in progress list though, so it'll be awhile.

--- End quote ---

Wow, very cool news.  I actually just got an original Pac-Man joystick but I'd hate to sacrifice that for the  Tron joystick.  I wonder if these can be purchased separately.

Hehe, I understand the whole priority list all too well.  I've been working on this cab for like 3 years and it never will be completely finished.

NoOne=NBA=:
I'd give it a shot with yours, just to see if it works.
Tron is REALLY bad with the zigzags.

If it does, there's a guy on ebay selling Pac sticks fairly regularly.
I'm not sure where he's getting them, but he's cleaning them up, shooting a coat of paint on them, and selling them for Buy it Now prices pretty cheap.
I picked mine up for $14.95 + $8.95 shipping.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

Go to full version