Custom robot transmitter and a few robots (Rpi, nodemcu and arduino)

Hi good people!

I have alot of robotic projects,and now I'm trying to make the one remote to control them all.

I have a lasercut box with a raspberry pi 3 inside, with the original 7 inch touch display, there is also two 3 axis joysticks. The touch display will do everything that I can't do with the joysticks. I currently have a quadroped robot using Phoenix Code controlled with a PS2 joypad. The interfacing on the touch display will be made in Kivy and python.

Right now the project is stagnant beacuse of some wireless problems. How should I connect the remote to my robots? My first thought was to let the Rpi3 talk to one NodeMcu (esp8266) at the time, I'll might use mqtt to handle the protocols and chatter.

My problem is, shuld I make the Rpi3 the access point, and all the NodeMcu's connect to this Wifi network, or should I make the NodeMcu the access point, and the Rpi3 connect to that? How do I deside if this is the best way to do it, and how should I do it? 

If there is another way to do it, I'm very intressed in other solutions also!

Please people, help me deside! I have decision anxiety right now!