Starting my own Fighstick, need help!

[docvader]

Hello everyone, first of all, I want to apologize for my basic english! :P

I'm a completely noob at Skullgirls, and fighting games in general (last fighting game I remember playing is Tekken 3 on the arcades, and that was ages ago).

But now, I have acquired some interest in the genre with MK9 coming to Steam, but didn't really enjoyed it because of the laggy on-line play. But then I bought Skullgirls, and I liked it (I'm still learning how to play :P). The thing is that I am having a hard time with the d-pad of my good ol' 360 controller, so I decided to build my own fighting stick (I always wanted one, but now with this game I finally have a reason to do it haha).

I am lazy as hell, so I considered to buy a good one instead of building a mediocre one, but importation fees in my country (Argentina) are ridiculous, so it would cost me way more than it's value, whether if I buy it here (if I can find one) or online from X country.

Enough Yada-Yada.

This is the stuff that I'm going to use:

Generic buttons + cherry switches:

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"Asahi Seiko" Joystick (it claims to have platinum contacts, but I doubt it) :

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The first problem I faced is how to get an adequate placement and distribution of the buttons. After a little Googlin' I found this layout:

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And using the same measures, I put the buttons on a piece of cardboard to see how it's gonna look:

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I don't know if the layout I used it's some sort of "standard" for fight sticks, but I found that the buttons are far away from each other, but I'm not sure about getting them a couple of millimiters closer. There are another layouts out there so I can test them, or should I stick to this one?

Also, is that joystick-buttons distance right?

Thank you, and sorry for the long post, I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

Cheers! :)

 

[TiredOcean]

I'm not an experienced stick modder - the most I've done is replace buttons and joysticks on a Madcatz SE and Hori RAP 3, so I have a lot of respect for you starting totally from scratch! (Also
respect for your English - it's actually rather good, but sorry in advance if this post is hard to read :/)

I don't know if this is the site you found when searching, but Slagcoin's site is generally recommended to those trying to build their own stick. I was reminded of this since you actually got that template from this page on his site! It's a lot of information, so I'll give you my opinions on three of the most popular joystick layouts:

"Straight"/"American" 8-button layout

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• Terrible. Not suited to the human hand at all. Do not even consider using this unless you're incredibly nostalgic for old-school western arcades.

"Viewlix" 8-button layout

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• This is the layout you found. It's named after Taito's Viewlix arcade cabinet, where this layout was used. It is an incredibly popular layout due to MadCatz's widespread adoption of it, causing other stick makers (Qanba, and even Hori) to follow suit.
• As the first two buttons are tilted, this allows the player's hands to assume a more natural position, so it's better than the Straight layout. However, and this *is* my opinion, the lack of curvature around the entire layout means that your hand needs to come in at an angle, and I feel for some games this is a (very small) disadvantage in comfort. Plus I think it's not as aesthetically appealing as...

"Astro" 8-button layout

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• THE BEST. The layout is based on Sega's "City" line of arcade cabinets (the most popular of which was the Astro City), and more recently by Hori for a fair amount of their arcade sticks. This layout has been used for more than 20 years for two reasons:
• It's ergonomic. If you lay your hand on it it's amazing how each button is centred on each of your fingers. This makes it so comfortable compared to Viewlix (in my opinion, of course).
• It's beautiful. This might be a bit subjective, but to me the way the Astro buttons are arranged, along with the joystick next to them, is the true image of arcade gaming. :oops:

So... there you have it. [sarcasm]A totally unbiased evaluation of the layouts that you should choose from.[/sarcasm] But don't let me stop you if you decide that you prefer one layout over the other; don't forget you can check Slagcoin's site for ideas.
If you feel stuck, another good place to check out is Shoryuken.com's Tech Talk forums: they have a ton of guides, they can offer advice, and who knows, some of the arcade sticks posted there may give you some inspiration. ;)

 

[docvader]

Hi TiredOcean. I don't really remember where I got the Viewlix layout, but it wasn't on Slagcoin's site I guess, so, thanks for the link! It's a lot of useful information.

As for the layouts, I like the Astro one (can't say Dave Grohl didn't help :P), since I wasn't really confortable reaching the 2 last buttons on the right side with the Viewlix layout.

And, acording to Slagcoin's, the reason why I felt that the buttons were to far from each other, it's because I was using 24mm buttons on a layout designed for 30mm Sanwa/Sanwa-like buttons, so I got that issue solved too!

Thanks.