How many buttons for a DIY spinner/trackball controller?

[grizzly]

I´m about to buy parts for building a regular arcade stick.
And have been thinking about spinners (probably go with a mr spinner) and trackball.
Since i have very limited deskspace where i game i will build 2-3 standalone arcade controllers (arcade/spinner/trackball).

So my questions is.
How many buttons do a standalone spinner controller need?
How many buttons do a standalone trackball controller need?

If most games only use 1-2 buttons and 1 game use 8 i probably build with 2!

[WolfgangBlack]

Buttons are cheap, go for four.

[Morfious]

Start
coin
3 action buttons

I can't think of a game where you would need more than 3 buttons unless you are playing driving games with the spinner.
(Quick google search states that there is a Star Trek game (Star Trek: Strategic Operations) that uses 4 buttons)

Missile command would use 3 buttons and a trackball.
2 actions buttons would cover you for 95% of the games, 3 would be 99% and 4 would be overkill.

If you plan to play driving games with the spinner:
gas, brake, shift up, shift down, view controls, turbo etc

[grizzly]

Thanks for the answers.
I think i go for 3 then.

Dammit looked up star trek and it looks fun so 4 it is
4 + start/coin that is.

[lomdar67]

What will you using for a trackball?

[grizzly]

Not really sure about trackball since i have not really looked into them more then a quick glance, but it will probably not be any of the smaller ones.
Looked a bit more about spinners and the mr spinner seems pretty good and cheap.
And it will be about 2-3 months before i buy any spinner/trackball.

I did ask about buttons since i´m going to order buttons and a stick soon and since i order buttons already why not buy all at once.

[felipus]

I went with six buttons. 4 on top and 2 for start and coin. (I left some space for a trackball in the middle of the case.

[WolfgangBlack]

Very nice, I like it!