The second stick scheme gives you the added option of using the face buttons and d-pad for movement in addition to the sticks. Seems a bit pointless, but I haven't tried it yet.

I'm getting on ok with this, and that is as someone who used the Twin Sticks only on the Dreamcast.

The sticks are definitely more intuitive, but the 360 pad has enough analog sticks and buttons for the layout to make some kind of sense.

I find the Twin Stick control schemes easier, having turbo on the bumpers, as logically that is closer to using the sticks themselves. Maybe that is why I'm not finding it too tricky.

Twin Stick layout B I reckon is for people looking to mod some old Saturn/Dreamcast Twin Sticks to work with the 360 - it is the only layout that supports digital stick controls, which is what you would need.

Anyone noticed the huge 3D VMU when loading a custom Virtuaroid? It is a great Dreamcast port all told, silky smooth 1080p with a souped up matching system. Nice to see the Dreamcast logo on the back of the Virtuaroids too

I'm finding the turbo placement a bit tricky myself. It is the best place to put them but I find them a bit awkward when used in conjunction with the triggers.

It's a shame I'm having problems as, like you say, it's a stunning looking game. Like having a high res Dreamcast at last.

A universal twinstick is next on the list after my Universal Arcade stick mod.

i thought this was supposed to be a port of a previously unreleased arcade revision? I guess it could ba a DC port with the changes implemented?

From a noobs perspective VOOT is all about the jump cancel and managing distance and space properly. I started to dl this last night, will hopefully get a chance to dabble this evening.

So I caned this online last night. 40 wins and I'm now a "Corporal". The only few games I lost were against Japanese players who had modded Dreamcast/Saturn twinsticks (I messaged them to find out). It wasn't that they were more skilled but were able to consistently out manoeuvre me, as they could pull off successive jump cancels coupled with standing turbo moves quicker than I could on the pad. All the tactics they were using were things I could have done easily on the Dreamcast version with a pair of sticks. I was also completely unable to use a lot of close combat with this timing issue in effect, it was just too risky online and when you fluff it up it would leave me wide open.

The online issues are only really prevalent if you play Japanese players, if it's more local it's better. It's still a step back from the modem netcode that was on the Dreamcast version.

It needs more work really, on a functional level (plus a twinstick peripheral).

Cacky, I know we've been through this before elsewhere, but what are the definitive twinsticks in your opinion. If I mod a set, better to start with the best raw materials. Are the Saturn ones where it's at or should I be looking for one of the dreamcast versions (of which there are two iirc).

Dreamcast sticks are the way to go for 5.66, they are the closest to the arcade versions. There are being sold on Yahoo Auctions Japan but at a pretty costly price:

http://search.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/search/auc?p=%A5%C4%A5%A4%A5%F3%A5%B9%A5%C6%A5%A3%A5%C3%A5%AF&alocale=0jp&acc=jp

If you are planning on modding a par of Dreamcast sticks, count me in. I'd happily pay for them (you'll need a wired 360 pad though).

Here's a guide on how to mod the DC sticks:

http://www.oratan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16&start=0

Wow, Japanese already on the case with their modded Twin Sticks, amazing. Amazing prices too.

http://page4.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d92752176

Ordinary DC Twin Sticks 3 - 4 thousand Yen though? That seems quite good. When they crop up second hand on places like ntsc-uk they tend to be less than £50 a shot these days as well.

http://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n70097737

If enough people fancy a 360 modded pair I imagine prices will start rising from about now.

Well I've still not finished my arcade stick mod, but I'm up to speed on the wired 360 pad. My approach is to hack the pad into an adapter with a 15pin Din. Once I have this then interfacing it with a DC twinstick (or any arcade stick) is as easy as join the dots. All it would require is a custom cable with a 15 pin Din on one end and some connectors to join up with the twinstick internals.

In a nut

[stick with internals wired to a 15 pin DIN female]------

------>[15 pin DIN male wired to 360 wired pad]----->[XBox360 USB]

This has been going on for a good few weeks but the prices have indeed started to rise already for modded pairs. There's still a chance SEGA will release an official peripheral.

How would that work in conjunction with the game though? Does it map the buttons a la the Twin Stick B setup?

I have a spare pair of DC sticks sitting around actually, might as well mod those?

Yeah, sounds good. Properly modular.

The arcade stick I built as a kid was like that, I had different cables for different machines, with the controller PCB part of the interface cable itself in a little project box. SNES, Mega Drive, NES, Master System, C64, etc, nice and flexible. I only ever had one stick built, but did plan on a dual stick Robotron setup for Smash TV. Funds wouldn't allow sadly. I dug it up recently, it should appear in the banners at some point

Regarding the 360 Twin Stick mod, the DC one is better as the start button is used in game if I remember right. The problem is that in addition to this you really need the Home button and the Mic socket. Newer 360 headsets ('crown of shame') just have the mini audio jack on them, so that is all you'd really need.

I'd stick the 360 controller PCB in a project box with a home button and headset socket as part of it, on the end of your standard 360 wired cable, then on the other end have your short cabled 15 pin d-type to connect to the arcade stick and (later) Twin Sticks. That is about the most flexible setup you could get I reckon.

More flexible again would be dropping 15 pin and going for 25 pin, so you can wire up each switch directly to your connector as a pair. I ended up having to change to this setup to handle situations where controllers did not use a common ground for digital switches.

That is crazy, until the game was released people couldn't have been sure what control schemes were available. I'd predict that unmodded Twin Sticks will start going up in value if modded sticks actually sell at those insane prices, more people will start modding them.

You could wire it up however you liked, but Twin Stick B scheme is the only real fit, as it maps digital controls to each stick. Otherwise you'd have to do more work to interface digital switches to analog inputs mimicking the analog sticks, I guess.

The control configs were leaked a few months ago, which is when the modding started. The Twin Stick B setup uses the d-pad and face buttons as the base for each stick (which is why you can mod the digital DC sticks). It's the same setup that they had on the PS2 versions.

There is a chance SEGA will release an official pair of twinsticks for this but it's all up in the air apparently.

I bet lots that Sega don't release any 360 Twin Sticks.

The only thing that might make sense would be a limited Sega Direct release for silly money, like the Konamistyle Bemani controllers, but Sega Direct doesn't exist any more:

http://segadirect.jp/

Missed that but yeah, the Twin Stick B setup has been a standard of sorts since Marz. I had thought of a Sega Direct-esque release but like you say it no longer exists. I think the plan would be to release them via the official site:

http://vo-ot360.sega.jp/index.html

Some of those wallpapers are nearly identical to the ones Sega punted for the DC release.

Any idea who at Sega worked on this? It feels like a port of the Naomi version rather than arcade, do you think that is right?

I'd be very happy to see a steady stream of DC ports in the same style.

It is indeed a port of the Naomi version (the VMU you saw in the VR select was in the arcades, as you could use your custom online colours from the DC version on the cabinets). The team that worked on the netcode were from VF5 but the rest was internal. Very few of the original team worked on this, as most work at Square Enix now.

I'm holding out for an adaptor for my Saturn sticks... Though I would happily pay for someone to mod some DC sticks if anyone here is up to the task.

True, but for some sick reason I'm adopting the Neo-Geo pinout. Pads which don't use common ground are a ball arse.

Any idea which controllers/systems don't use a common ground btw? If it's a significant number then I will have to rewire to 25 pin - Just checked and NES, Saturn and PS1 are all common ground

If I can cover PS1 and Saturn in a similar way then that's all good as most everything else has a converter for those pads commercially available.

Sorry this is in the wrong thread really and I'm boring the shit out of everyone with this I know.

If anyone is online tonight I could be up for a couple of VOOT games using my noobhands (TM). You gits better not start skanking me with Temjin though.

Non-common ground was weird stuff - PC game port and Jaguar keypad that I can remember. I was looking at adding a spinner for T2K at one point.

You could build an interface instead to handle common ground and generate signals that awkward things expect, but that would be genuinely difficult.

Temjin skanking is what I'm all about, might be on later evening, I'll give you a shout if so. Do fancy me some SFIV and OutRun too.

Back to VOOT, the achievements are super easy to get. I have nearly all of them already, after maybe an hour's play.

Just got this comment on one of my videos:

"how do you do all those other moves"

...that's on a basic arcade playthrough too, nothing fancy at all. Just shows how much is lacking on the 360 port without sticks.

I was thinking you could probably do it with a PLA. you could even have it switchable then to activate different modes. That assumes digital only. Analogue would be comparitively more difficult.

For a spinner, you could use some sort of optical wagon wheel type arrangement like they used to have in some wheel mice iirc, no idea how it detects direction of rotation using that, but I'm sure there are off the shelf bits that could do the job. Then it's a case of detecting the rising or falling edges and using some logic to pump out the button presses. You might need a gearbox too to get the feel right...

I still need a pair of SNK LS30 rotary joysticks for Search and Rescue (SAR), and I want to build a Jamma adapter to remap controls for vertical games so I can play them horizontally (wrong I know) on my cab, rotating monitors is a pain in the sack.

Yeah, for the Jag spinner people were hacking the old Indy 500 VCS controllers. They use an optical spinner, the spec is out there, I just never had the parts.

T2K has specific support for this type of spinner, it isn't a nasty hack. A dedicated spinner controller was just never released for the Jag.

There are almost no new players left online as they've all been rimmed by Japanese veterans and scared away. The lag is pretty bad against Japanese connections unfortunately too, which is damn annoying as they are the opponents I mostly want to face.

Madbury modded my spare pair of twinsticks to use with the port and the results are exceptional. The quick step issue is fixed with the sticks and movement inputs can be undertaken with far greater consistency. Overall, dead chuffed with the results and pleased that I can finally play the best version of Oratan properly.

Even with noobhands the twinsticks make this 100 times more enjoyable. Definately worth the hassle if you have a set laying around.

Yeah, really glad I had my spare sticks done. It's so much better than the pad.

SEGA twinsticks are on the way |o/

Yeah, I covered this on insert credit:

http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002635.html

The sticks are going to be made by Hori and cost 30,000 yen (!)

That's a lot of money. I'm thinking I might offer a DC stick modding service for around £50 incl. return postage to UK and purchase of a new 360 wired pad. To import the official sticks is going to be painful at the proposed price point.

I did a mod for Squarepusher a couple of weeks ago. Personally I think that this mod was of a professional quality and I'm now confident that the mod is repeatable to a very high standard.

The mod requires me to completely strip the 360 wired pad and physically mount this in the twin stick housing using 3 screws and the original PCB mounting points. I then make up 5 fly leads to connect with the twin stick wiring loom and solder these to the 360 pad PCB. Finally I add an optional guide button. My mod as a result is completely reversable and I return the original pcb and dreamcast cabling along with the modified sticks. The only permanent physical alterations are the hole for the optional guide button and a couple of unecessary locating lugs that have to be snipped off inside the twin stick case to mount the 360 pad.

I think that's a good idea, as the sticks you did for me are spot on in terms of input. If anything, I think the Hori sticks may not be as good as the DC ones. Simply because the Sanwa parts they'll use are more like the original VO's in the arcade; these won't work very well on Oratan 5.66.

Cacky, if I want to pimp this what are the best places? I'm thinking I could go with the normal forums ntsc-uk etc., but some of the more VO specialist sites might be a better bet.

Reckon if you sell via ebay people will find it.

Hmm that's not a bad sugestion. That way I can control numbers if demand is there. I can't be dealing with modding too many sticks simultaneously as it's reasonably time consuming.

Something good came out of this after all. Now to get hold of a DC stick!

More than happy to sort you out if you can source a twin stick and mail it to me. I think Genkivideogames did have some when I looked a few weeks ago.

NeoGAF would be a good port of call (other than eBay obviously). Oratan.com might also be a good idea but they've already got guides up on how to do the procedure.

Cacky - What do you make of these Hori twinstick criticisms? http://kotaku.com/5290033/heres-your-300-stick-to-play-a-15-game

Are they right?

Madbury - How much you thinking of charging for a DC stick mod? I may be interested.

No, as has been pointed out at Oratan.com...

This isn't an issue, since the analog stick input will be designed to be digital instead. I modified the analog trigger buttons for use with the digital weapon buttons on my Twin Sticks, and I can assure you that it works fine.

Since this is an "official" controller, I bet that Microsoft had something to do with the crazy control scheme (i.e. having ABXY as the right stick is too confusing, since you need those buttons for menu navigation).

Do you think they've been designed that way to raise compatability with 360 games across the board then? That would presumably make the high price tag a little easier to swallow.

Compatibility? Not sure what you mean by that, as only Virtual On really uses this kind of set-up.

Kaladron. I'm going to fix at £50, which includes the purchase of a brand new MS wired controller circa £18 and return postage, which is around about the £8 mark.

The rest is for materials and time. The mod requires between 40 and 44 solder joints depending on whether you want a guide button or not. Also I have to completely strip the 360 pad, which takes around a half hour to do right as I have to desolder both analogue sticks and remove the trigger units. The pad PCB also needs drilling to mount it into the twin stick housing and trimming to shape as it's slightly too wide. In short it's a bit fiddly, but the end result is worth the effort I believe. I will post up some pics when I can to illustrate what I'm talking about.

At the moment my preferred method is to use the pads digital inputs, but if you prefer I could mimick the official controller setup. As cacky says all it requires is the additiona of a few resistors. Having said that it seems more sensible to go for the type B arrangement, which negates the need to add additional buttons for dashboard navigation.

I just mean that if you wanted to use with another game (for some crazy reason) then you could do. The same way that the GH guitars will work on more than just rhythm games and will operate the 360 menus.

£50 sounds like a damn good price, considering the labour and specialist knowledge involved. I may be in touch.

He did, and I'm ecstatic about it! Very professional job, and reversible too (although I doubt I'll go back to 5.45 anytime soon). Only problem now is that my Live subs have run out, so I'm playing solo for now... >.<

I don't see why it wouldn't, as the modded sticks use a very similar layout and they work just fine.

Regarding guitar controllers, that is more a feature of the way MS licenses and adds support for a new controller rather than anything else - no matter what type of controller it is, the A button is always the A button.

You can extend that to anything else weird too, quiz controllers, flight controllers, arcade sticks, wheels... can't think of much else.

...except Microsoft guidelines differ from region to region. With some instances where certain guidelines are wholly unique to one region, this is especially true of Japan. Hori are normally good at making sure that they find the middle ground however, so it shouldn't be an issue.