300 fps or 280fps

[pupster01]

ok i know its not like me to bring up a serious issue but heres the first

i think we all know about the issue of running markers at a lower 280fps rather then 300 for health and safety reasons after the tragic loss last year

Its been remarked by a number of players that since this has been introduced they have noticed the following:

1 the number of bouncers has increased

2 the number of muggings has increased

3 the acruacy of markers has reduced

it seems that the general feeling of the players i have spoken to is that the lower ball speed has led to more close play.

added to this they also comment on how many more welts they are noticing. as we all know its the ball that doesnt break that does damage.

ok now to my point

as the lower pressure was implomented as a safety measure maybe its time to rethink as it seems to be having the opersite effect.

i just wanted to get a bit of feed back from other players on this issue.

 

[}{y8ri|)]

300fps

Tragic loss last year??

 

[jeevusmaximus]

Velocities

Are you saying you would prefer to go back to 300fps?
Is it that you would rather not play so close or you want less bounces therefore less bruises?
For me, I would rather have 300fps in the woods because I usually play back and defend but on Sup'air, I understand its much closer in general and I think it seems to make sense to lower the velocity on those fields.

 

[Collier]

The problem for me personaly having a chrono limit at 280 was I had to chrono at 250-260 I don't know why but the angel just wouldn't hold the consistancy if I tried to chrono at 270, after picking up alot of penalty points for hot guns the decision was taken to chrono lower I.e. 250 fps to be on the safe side, I'm sure you can imagine the fun I had as a back player shooting at this kind of velocity.
To be honest I could never understand the mentality for lowering the speed, in one of the arguments for lowering it was said it would promote 'closer' play i.e. more mugging's, and thats safer??
At the time the rule was announced players said that the lower chrono limit would encourage more bounces and thats what has happened but on top of that players are having to overkill slightly to ensure they get a break.
All in all not really a safer option.
Surely a better idea is to enforce the use of proper protection i.e. head and throat protection.

Paul.

 

[Liz]

Originally posted by pupster01
ok i know its not like me to bring up a serious issue but heres the first

i think we all know about the issue of running markers at a lower 280fps rather then 300 for health and safety reasons after the tragic loss last year

Its been remarked by a number of players that since this has been introduced they have noticed the following:

1 the number of bouncers has increased

2 the number of muggings has increased

3 the acruacy of markers has reduced

it seems that the general feeling of the players i have spoken to is that the lower ball speed has led to more close play.

added to this they also comment on how many more welts they are noticing. as we all know its the ball that doesnt break that does damage.

ok now to my point

as the lower pressure was implomented as a safety measure maybe its time to rethink as it seems to be having the opersite effect.

i just wanted to get a bit of feed back from other players on this issue.

I don't really see how lowering the velocity can actually cause any of these things. The ball doesn't give a more painful welt from a bouncer because it's going slower, it's more painful 'cause the force isn't dispersed by it breaking.
Bouncers aren't just caused by a lack of velocity - a ball may bounce at very short range whereas another will break at long distance from the same initial velocity, though the ball that has travelled further must be moving slower due to air friction. The only factors that I think could affect whether a ball breaks or not, above of course a minimum velocity which is much below 280fps, are the ball shell & consistency, the surface it strikes and possibly which part of the ball hits the target (e.g. on/close to the seam).
You're very unlikely to persuade me that a lower velocity on it's own will decrease accuracy, just don't see how this could be. There have been many threads on accuracy & I've never seen velocity brought up as a factor.
I would hazard a guess that the number of muggings has increased due to there being more aggressive play nowadays.

I don't really see the need for running much above 280 these days when just about all tournaments are 5 or 7 man in arenas; the only field I've played recently where I can't reach from one back line to the other was the Hyperball field at Nottingham which is really a 10-man field in size. I always used to chrony around 280 - 285 even in the woods, & didn't have a problem then.

Sorry to sound rather negative here, but I just don't think reducing the velocity 20fps can have much of an effect except maybe reduce effective range by a couple of feet.

 

[Collier]

But its not just 20 fps lower in some my cases I normally chrono at around 285 and use the 15fps as a buffer, accuracy is decreased simply because of effective range i.e. because the ball is travelling slower it will drop sooner.
Bounces are increased because they are travelling slower unless they are hitting somthing solid e.g. pods, marker etc...

Paul.

 

[pupster01]

Originally posted by Paul_collier
The problem for me personaly having a chrono limit at 280 was I had to chrono at 250-260 I don't know why but the angel just wouldn't hold the consistancy if I tried to chrono at 270, after picking up alot of penalty points for hot guns the decision was taken to chrono lower I.e. 250 fps to be on the safe side, I'm sure you can imagine the fun I had as a back player shooting at this kind of velocity.
To be honest I could never understand the mentality for lowering the speed, in one of the arguments for lowering it was said it would promote 'closer' play i.e. more mugging's, and thats safer??
At the time the rule was announced players said that the lower chrono limit would encourage more bounces and thats what has happened but on top of that players are having to overkill slightly to ensure they get a break.
All in all not really a safer option.
Surely a better idea is to enforce the use of proper protection i.e. head and throat protection.

Paul.

paul thats my feeling

in order to have a marker that is not hot i need to crono to about 260 that way i allow for spiking.

liz you mention velocity. this has to be tied into the issue of breakage. if a ball is traveling slower the force of the impact will not be high enough for the contained liquid to break the shell. Though i totally understand you point on this we only have to look a car breaking distances to see that the highter the speed the more momentum the object carries. it works on a curve. i personally feel that the faster ball breaks better. i agree that a ball hitting you at 280 will no doubt freak as well as a ball traveling at 300 but at 20 meters they will have decelerated again parabolically the ball going at 280 will loose more of its speed so will be less likly to break..

if im talking tosh please budda, robbo anyone with access to the info please come slap my wrists.

as for close play there is a feeling that its now necessary. this has to increase the chances of injury. im not saying i want the faster ball or not im just see that the opinion of you people is and see how the land lies

"peace and love"

Pup

 

[twinkle toes]

Liz , this is just my opinion , and I do know where you're coming from in your post........but.

The ball doesn't give a more painful welt from a bouncer because it's going slower, it's more painful 'cause the force isn't dispersed by it breaking.

That is correct , but because of the reduced velocity , the CHANCES of the ball bouncing are greatly increased. Even if you only drop the velocity by 20fps.

I don't really see the need for running much above 280 these days when just about all tournaments are 5 or 7 man in arenas

I always used to chrony around 280 - 285 even in the woods,

O.K. so with the limit set at 300fps you would set your marker at 280. So to give you the same amount of safety cushion , with the limit set at 280fps , you now have to set your marker at 260. At this velocity , you start to increase the chances of bounces even more , and you seriously decrease the effective range of the marker , promoting closer play , and as mention before , an overkill policy as well.

Sorry to sound rather negative here, but I just don't think reducing the velocity 20fps can have much of an effect except maybe reduce effective range by a couple of feet.

In reality , I think you'll find that the range is reduced by a lot more than a couple of feet. I think its more likely to be 5-10 Yards ( 15 - 30 feet ).

I think the velocity should be left as it is. 300fps. I know the reasons that it was reduced in the first place , and it was a tragic accident. But lets not go over the top on making changes for safety , that are not actually having a posative effect , in fact they are making things worse for injuries ( according to statements earlier ). I'm not saying this rule does at the moment , but lets not spoil the game that we all ( and Ken also ) loves so much.

I hope I have not offended anyone , and I appologise if I have. These are just my personal thoughts on the subject.

Ta very much. .

 

[Liz]

pupster01

Of course I understand that if the initial velocity is lower then the terminal velocity over the same distance would be lower therefore having more chance of bouncing, but I still think the majority of bouncers that welt are caused at least as much by other factors - if I can get a ball to break on a back opposition player from my back position or someone on the break playing at 280 (as I do), I doubt that it's the initial velocity causing a bouncer when you mug someone.

Maybe I'm being a bit nitpicking, but "in the old days" we played on much bigger fields as most tourneys were 10 man and of course we had the 300fps limit. With the much smaller fields we normally play on these days, dropping 20fps shouldn't really be a problem.

"But its not just 20 fps lower in some my cases I normally chrono at around 285 and use the 15fps as a buffer, accuracy is decreased simply because of effective range i.e. because the ball is travelling slower it will drop sooner."
It's the same for everyone though, if you can't reach their back player then they can't reach you either.

 

[Beaker]

You'll wish you hadn't got me started on this!!!

I have to say that lowering the speed to make the game safer is (to me) the worse way of doing it.

Bounces.

If a ball breaks it will disapate the majority of it's energy in that acton. A bounce will mean that all of the momentum/inertia of the ball HAS to be absorbed by the object it's hitting (the player). A paintball shell takes a certain amount of force to break (the amount of force it absorbs). if you lower the velocity you are lowering the initial energy of the ball and therefore reducing the likelihood of the ball having sufficient force to break when it hits the target. Therefore you increase the number of bounces and a bounce is more likely to cause injury than a break

Accuracy

The slower speeds mean that the balls don't travel as far. Therefore to achieve the distance you have to increase the angel you shoot at. Plus the lower momentum means the balls are more likely to be affected by wind etc.

All this amounts to players thinking they must get closer in order to ensure they get breaks.

I have spoken to several players who say that the tourneys with lower limits result in in many more muggings and close play which is exactly what this misguided rule is meant to prevent.

Oh - and who actually decided on 280 and not 275/260?? and what was the exact reasoning behind it? it seems to be a very arbitary rule.