A must read - PA rule change for the 2005 season

[stongle]

Originally posted by FAMINE
Screw you matey

1. Yes - Something needs to be done about marker cheats
2. No to making it legal for all! - This is not the soloution for all paintball players. The proposal would cover all UK markers of which tourny markers make for a tiny portion.
3. A lot feel there is a safety issue involved.
4. A lot feel it will slow the game down into just a paint fest
5. A lot feel there is no way this should be imposed across the country, no probs with individual tournys taking it up. (people would then have a choice to attend an event with or without this rule)

1). This is a "proposed" solution, please come up with an alternative. The fact were already at a defacto situation where a hell of a lot of guns would fail "true" one shot one pull seems to be missed completely by your argument. Please do not claim that you have set all ip Apocs guns up to be True Semi, have you Robot verified this? Why not have an honest test, leave all you guns alone and lets get a Robot and see how many pass, we'll see exactly how good the existing semi only rules are then. People here such as manike and matski, who are involved in gun manufacturers and design (and hence their opinions count for a lot), already state that guns have some form of storing or stacking of shots, so we're here already no?
2). That's a weak argument, just cos it's legal doesn't mean you have to do it. It's legal to smoke, I don't. it's legal to drink, but I know people who don't so your point is what? If you have a sizable portion of players who want to play pump, semi only, then form your own league. As it stands Apoc does not play the PA, which is the only series in question at present. Its allowing freedom of choice surely, and ensures that players do not fall fail of the law. What would happen if a anally retentive copper or HO official had an axe to grind with paintball and decided all guns with an adjustable debounce had FA capability, what then?
3) Ramping is not Full Auto. The gun cannot be fired without volitional intent (I think you're misled as to the concepts). This should lead to a lengthening of trigger pulls if anything as you don't have to sustain the same amount of pulls. Here's an example, my old Dm4 passed every bounce and chrono check pre-game, more than once it started firing itself in a safe area. Completely legal gun under the current rules, but wind activated, BRILLIANT!
4) Potentially at a Novice level yes, but which group of ballers do you represent? At higher levels, X Ball etc is already utilising very similar concepts (what you think the guns being shot on an X Ball field are legal???), they don't stalemate! This Rule change changes the skill set required, and removes the emphasis on pure overwhelming firepower advantage making it fairer for all. Your argument may be true for the Novice level you represent, but it holds no water at Am and above.
5) It's not imposed, it's a choice. refer back to my point 2. People still have Pump only events, have and put on your own semi only event. No one forces you to do this (also it's probably impossible for 99% of players to actually sustain a meaningful 15 bps, and this ruling is about sustained not Peaks in ROF). A sizable proportion (majority either way is unproven, your claim of 40 players may be the only 40 in the UK who object), want this change. This allows freedom of choice either way.

You objection to every argument in favour of this change is limiting choice for all, and ruining any chance paintball has of becoming a sport.

 

[Andy]

so would these 40 or so people you 'represent' be tournament players?

what if this only happens in the pa for now , How will it affect you?? as you don't play the pa right.

i dont think safety is really an issue for those who have seen nxl its not like the people are getting mowed beyond belief there is going to be ref's to stop all the overshootin. the only person who gets overshot is strongle

Every sport has to evolve and progress as time goes on if it works it will work well alot of people want a level playing field

We need a small poll on this to so we can see how many votes would be for and against this, i know its obviously not going to be everybody but would be nice to see what the numbers would be.

 

[Steve Hancock]

Well i was going to put up a poll...

but the option is missing. Aren't we allowed to post polls anymore? If so the FAQ need to be changed as they have a secion telling us how.

 

[Gadget]

Sorry to drag this back erm....10(!) pages, but wanted to check a couple of things Manike mentioned in response to the 'enforce revvys for all' idea.

Originally posted by manike
That will only work if you don't mind everyone having different max rates of fire.

You will in effect give an advantage to one gun manufacturer over another.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I'd have thought that we were already in that situation? Whoever has the most money tends to have the faster marker and loader (or in many cases, whoever has the loosest morals) - I can't see how restricting the speed of the loader would give any gun manufacturer an advantage? Surely it would do the opposite and create a level playing field where virtually ALL markers were capable of hitting the highest ROF supported by the loader? No amount of dodgy software coding would be able to make one marker fire faster than the loader can feed?

You will also slow the rof down VERY significantly.

Granted, but I why is that bad? 10-13bps used to be considered 'fast' - just because we've briefly tasted far higher ROF doesn't mean it's unthinkable to go backwards. Of course I can easily see that the powers that be (i.e. the paint companies) would squeal like stuck pigs.

Also, before you could do that you would have to define the 'functionality of force feed loaders'.

Both the warp and Halo were developed and LEGAL under the old definition of 'gravity feed systems'. The only system that isn't is the Q-loader.

Definitely, however I'm not talking about implementing some half-arsed rules about 'oh you can use x,y,z loaders', I'm talking about there being ONE loader which is tournament legal.

The governing body come up with a design for a agitating gravity-fed loader (let's pretend it's the 12V revvy for ease, although of course that's patented etc).

The loader would have a fixed size and shape, a fixed paddle design, a fixed power source (2 x PP3) etc etc and only be available with TRANSPARENT shells.

This design is then freely licensed to any company that wishes to produce it - with the caveat that they cannot make ANY changes to the design. Players are free to purchase from their favourite vendor (BE, Odyssey, whoever).

You then have the situation where every player on the field would be running identical loaders - something which is easy to enforce.

The loaders are transparent, so any modifications to the shell, batteries or paddle could be spotted instantly and there's only so much you can do with tricky wiring or board logic to speed up an agitating loader, thus preventing the hard to detect electronic cheating which we're currently up against.

You'd suddenly have a completely level playing field - even the cheapest marker would be able to cut it on the tournament field, people could faff with their debounce settings all they like, but once they hit the performance ceiling of the loader, their £1000 marker and ramping-cheater-board wouldn't do them a bit of good.

New players would be able to join the tournament circuit far more easily - costs for both competetive markers and paint bills would be hugely reduced - the sport would grow even faster.

The key emphasis of the game would be on accuracy, speed of movement, team work and not on volume of paint.

Marker development would move away from the constant futile pursuit of speed and focus on efficiency and chop-prevention. Top end markers would no longer be expensive because of speed, but because of build quality, or weight, or the number of shots they could get from a tank, or their consistent velocity.

The ONLY way to maintain a standard measure and enforcement of a set ROF is at the gun.

Yes, the only way to set a specific ROF is at the gun - however it's perfectly possible to set a ROF ceiling at the loader. Sure some people would still use ramping code or go full auto, but the advantage gained by doing so would be miniscule - when someone with a bone-stock marker would be capable of pulling that many shots a second without cheating.

I just cannot see any downsides to this idea from a player's perspective. I'm sure there are people out there who'll come up with the 'wahhhhh but I wanna shoots fools at 35bps cos it's so kewl!" argument - but let's face it....personal gratification or progressing the sport....which is more important?

 

[Matski]

Originally posted by Andy

i dont think safety is really an issue for those who have seen nxl its not like the people are getting mowed beyond belief there is going to be ref's to stop all the overshootin.

Amen, I feel there is a major lack of understanding about this issue, the changes are not as 'apocalyptic' (poor jk i know) as some think. Change is never perfect, but the suggested solution has more pros than cons for maintaining the legitimacy of paintball as a fair sport, and not some circus where code cheats are effectively 'out of reach' of the officials/judges.

Manike has more technical expertise on this than anyone else on here, if he hasn't come up with anything better- I doubt Famine et al ever will..

 

[Hatts]

Originally posted by FAMINE
Any news on how far this process is down the line?
Is it still just with the UKPSF, or is it with the HO (if so could you please lemme know the dept its going through)

Now have a good 40+ players wishing to place an objection.

Famine,

I'm not quite sure why but you seem to be pushing this an issue with the UKPSF.

Before you get on your soap box and start having a pop at Steve for not consulting with UKPSF members let me make it quite clear it is not Steve or the UKPSF that is proposing these changes.

It was the PA that proposed this rule change and as a member of the UKPSF approached Steve to ask for his advice and to contact the HO on our behalf to see what the response would be in regard of the proposed changes to tournament paintball.

You say that this ruling will affect the sites as well? I do not quite see why every site is suddenly forced to run out and exchange their 7 to 9bps rental guns for 15bps ramping, bouncing monsters and I will be very surprised if you see site gun development ever get anywhere near that. In my experience electro's are too expensive for rental use and the mechanical blow back semi will never attain these kind of rates of fire so I really do not see the issue. And even if they do, you still have the choice NOT to do it.

Regarding the safety issue... I am still waiting for one well reasoned explanation as to how or why this proposed ruling is dangerous. Enlighten me. Someone. Please.

You have voiced your objection but have yet to offer an alternative. Again I say offer me and the world of competition paintball a viable, workable alternative to the rule structure which can not presently be enforced and I'll listen to it.

Incidentally I had a piece of kit demonstrated to me yesterday that means not only can the proposed ruling be enforced effectively, it is inexpensive enough so that potentially every ref on the field could have one and get ROF and rate of ramping just by standing in close proximity to a player without the player even being aware that he's being checked... the future is here

(... and to answer a question I get asked a lot... the PA is primarily concerned with the promotion and presentation of competition paintball as a sporting activity and it's priorities focus on the media and public awareness. The UKPSF is primarliy concerned with the legalities and technicalities of keeping paintball legal and safe. The PA does not, nor does it have any imntention of trying to re-invent the same wheel that Bully already has in working with the home office, police and insurance companies.

To that end the PA is in fact a member of the UKPSF because it very strongly supports the hard work and effort that Steve puts in... and it saves me a hell of a lot of headaches.)

 

[manike]

Originally posted by Gadget
Sorry to drag this back erm....10(!) pages, but wanted to check a couple of things Manike mentioned in response to the 'enforce revvys for all' idea.

Not all guns have the same cycle time. (real measured times below, but I'm not telling you which guns).

Gun A cycles in 20ms.

Gun B cycles in 50ms.

Loader takes 55ms to feed the ball in.

Gun A gives you a max rof of 13.3bps.

Gun B gives you a max rof of 9.52bps.

Using gun A gives you a (13.3-9.52)/9.52 = 40% advantage increase in rof as compared to using gun B...

Does a 40% advantage mean a completely level playing field?

It's not far off the % advantage from cheater software, so what are you helping?

If you want a LEVEL playing field you HAVE to measure at the end of the barrel, for BPS and Velocity. That's what it comes down to.

 

[Wadidiz]

Simon and Russell,

According to you, in a pinch, could I hand a player who is unsure about his maximum ROF a standard Revvy and tell him he's good to go?

 

[Gadget]

Originally posted by manike
Not all guns have the same cycle time. (real measured times below, but I'm not telling you which guns).

Simon- cheers for expanding on that, however I don't believe those figures are relevant to a realworld scenario.

An agitated loader is likely to be hitting around 13bps/77ms peak - but would fluctuate wildly so it's impossible to accurately predict the cycle time for the loader. It also doesn't take into account any lag induced by ball detection systems on the markers.

If, in the realworld someone fancies taking the two markers you've used as examples and attaches a 12v revvy to them, sets em to full auto and empties the hopper I doubt we'd see much of a difference between the two.

But that's digressing from the main point, which is limiting ROF - which this does.

If, in practice, people did suddenly find that markers with a 50ms cycle time were hideously slow, then we'd be in exactly the same position that we are today - where people with slower markers would need to upgrade, however we'd have the benefit of an established ceiling for ROF which could not be broken regardless of how quickly markers cycle.

It's not far off the % advantage from cheater software, so what are you helping?

The difference is that it would be a measurable figure, out in the open. People would be able to run their markers over a pukka chronograph, get an accurate bps figure and KNOW how their marker compared to others. The cheater boards might induce a similar imbalance, but it's not one that we can measure - it's wrapped in secrets and lies and causes a great deal of ill feeling - we'd be far better off than we are today.

 

[Matski]

I don't see the relevance, who uses revvi's anymore?........