I just think that if Simon, who has been on the groundfloor of alot of the great innovations in paintball says that it isn't feasable.... then it most likely isnt.....
Has XSV changed the face of tournament Paintball forever?
- Thread starter TJ Lambini
- Start date
Jim Drew was actually number 5 on my list. And even though I don't trust a thing he does and would laugh my arse off if he was the one chosen to make a 'legal chip' if you think he isn't a very clever software engineer, then you are very much mistaken.Chicago said:
He's very talented, would NEVER let anyone see his source code, and is not a good example to pick anyway since his code didn't work on every gun he's made it for. Just go and look into the boards he did for the AKA guns...
Prevalance of aftermarket boards? Um no. There is only about 7 such companies in reality. That low a number points towards my argument. Not yours. And if you knew anything about those 'aftermarket companies', you would know that many of the boards and code etc. stems from the same people/companies...
I was trying to say that, but as usual I'm not all that concise in my rambling.Fisz said:
Chicago, once you have the video you don't have to 'prove anything' about guns being legal or not.
If more balls come out the end of the barrel than trigger pulls made, they are done.
With most of the cheater guns it's soooo obvious once you actually slow it all down.
I do have experience in paintball gun firmware, and can say that it's not rocket science. Code that works really well (things like shot timing with ROF caps, getting the best out of the eyes, removing bounce effectively without losing real pulls) is a good deal harder, but it's still not magic.
But I don't believe getting the board done, even for a wide variety of guns, is that hard part. I'd gladly do it (except I obviously count as biased in my current position.) The hard part is all the rest: convincing the promoters, the manufacturers and the players, working out which suckers get to pay for it, and then catching your cheats with it - and catching enough to make the rest think twice about doing the same.
But I don't believe getting the board done, even for a wide variety of guns, is that hard part. I'd gladly do it (except I obviously count as biased in my current position.) The hard part is all the rest: convincing the promoters, the manufacturers and the players, working out which suckers get to pay for it, and then catching your cheats with it - and catching enough to make the rest think twice about doing the same.
Never claimed it was rocket science or magic.
Do you think your work in this area is valuable? How much time do you have in say making a board for one gun?
How many different guns have you done the boards and code for?
How many boards do you have in use?
What do you estimate your costs would be to do the same amount of work for say...
Angels (all model years), Ego's, DM's (all model years), Shockers, Nerves, Intimidators (all model years), E-blades, Race Frames?
And then how much to have you be at each event to verify the code is being used?
And how much to have say a few thousand boards done for each of those guns? (obviously some style will have more boards required than others).
Do you think your work in this area is valuable? How much time do you have in say making a board for one gun?
How many different guns have you done the boards and code for?
How many boards do you have in use?
What do you estimate your costs would be to do the same amount of work for say...
Angels (all model years), Ego's, DM's (all model years), Shockers, Nerves, Intimidators (all model years), E-blades, Race Frames?
And then how much to have you be at each event to verify the code is being used?
And how much to have say a few thousand boards done for each of those guns? (obviously some style will have more boards required than others).
You wern't assuming these chips were going to be given away for free were you?
And before you say it's going to be too expensive, how much is it going to cost to have high-speed, high-resolution cameras and playback equipment on-site, and pay the people to operate it?
If there's any reason that certified chips trump camera equipment, it's that you can show the league and manufacturers how to turn certified chips into a revenue stream, whlie camera equipment is just a money hole.
As for the problems with getting people to adopt it, catching enough cheaters, etc, you're going to have that problem with whatever you do.
Also, people are citing the manufacturers not wanting to have standard board software - at this point, why not? It's not like anybody is diferentiating themelves on board software anymore - everybody can make a gun that shoots well in excess of semi-auto and 15 bps. The problem has been solved by everybody. You won't be giving away anything (especially if you're mandating true semi-auto) that everybody else can't do for their markers already anyway.
I think the manufacturers are becoming much more worried about their ability to sell product, and their ability to sell product is hampered by guns that shoot too fast a lot more than it would be hampered by everyone having access to code that does the same thing the code everyone already has does anyway.
And before you say it's going to be too expensive, how much is it going to cost to have high-speed, high-resolution cameras and playback equipment on-site, and pay the people to operate it?
If there's any reason that certified chips trump camera equipment, it's that you can show the league and manufacturers how to turn certified chips into a revenue stream, whlie camera equipment is just a money hole.
As for the problems with getting people to adopt it, catching enough cheaters, etc, you're going to have that problem with whatever you do.
Also, people are citing the manufacturers not wanting to have standard board software - at this point, why not? It's not like anybody is diferentiating themelves on board software anymore - everybody can make a gun that shoots well in excess of semi-auto and 15 bps. The problem has been solved by everybody. You won't be giving away anything (especially if you're mandating true semi-auto) that everybody else can't do for their markers already anyway.
I think the manufacturers are becoming much more worried about their ability to sell product, and their ability to sell product is hampered by guns that shoot too fast a lot more than it would be hampered by everyone having access to code that does the same thing the code everyone already has does anyway.
I wrote the v3 Racegun firmware, firstly just to get semi mode working the way I wanted (single-shot buffering, primarily) and to add a couple of peripheral features like on-gun battery meter, then later to add Millennium and PSP ramping when they came along. I handed my last release back to Racegun, who had a few bells and whistles added and made it the official v4 release. I have no idea how many actual units are running it now, but a reasonable number at leastmanike said:Never claimed it was rocket science or magic.
Do you think your work in this area is valuable? How much time do you have in say making a board for one gun?
How many different guns have you done the boards and code for?
How many boards do you have in use?
What do you estimate your costs would be to do the same amount of work for say...
Angels (all model years), Ego's, DM's (all model years), Shockers, Nerves, Intimidators (all model years), E-blades, Race Frames?
And then how much to have you be at each event to verify the code is being used?
And how much to have say a few thousand boards done for each of those guns? (obviously some style will have more boards required than others).
I've done Millennium-compliant firmware for the Promaster board, which is on a small number of Promasters in use in Europe, and for a couple of other open-bolt EPs which I am still testing.
Closed bolt is obviously a lot different to open-bolt, and the code for each board is quite different depending on features available on that particular MPU and board, but I have used the same basic system and the same tricks in all cases. In each case so far I've been working with the hardware I've got, but if the MPU and surrounding hardware used for each marker is kept to the same general layout, then software development for each additional marker is reduced to tweaking rather than wholesale rewrites.
The Racegun firmware probably took me about 40 hours development, the Promaster maybe 24, plus a few days' solid testing in each case, with the odd bugfix along the way. But that Promaster board will then drop into a Freestyle and work great with a couple of settings changed. With a bit of bodging and the right wiring harness it could be stuffed into a timmy, and it would work alright, although it would benefit from a couple of hours prodding at some of the code.
I can't claim to be a competent hardware guy, so I can't really comment on what the hardware development time would be, nor what it would cost in real terms to have manufactured. Sure, I've designed and put together on breadboard circuits that, condensed to fit in a gun, work no doubt do the job serviceably (but maybe not as well as could be possible), but as with software (only more so) it's a long way from breadboard, through design and testing to manufacturing. If the core design is kept the same for each gun, then again the development time per model is reduced. Surely you've a much better idea than me what real product development costs.
I am oversimplifying here - closed bolt requires an extra solenoid driver and a completely different firing cycle; breakbeam eyes need to be treated differently from reflective; opto triggers are different to handle than microswitches, both in the hardware and in what software filtering can be done. Yes, it'd be a pretty major undertaking to cover the whole range of current tournament guns with all the minor differences like this, but not out of the question, especially with the right support from the manufacturers themselves. Want an LCD? That starts to make the added work per model far more.
As for board verifying, it shouldn't require anyone of great qualification to do at events, if designed properly. A laptop plugged into the board could verify the program (or at least verify the program's ability to authenticate itself), and a visual inspection where necessary would ensure that the board hadn't been tampered or augmented.
What's my time worth? Well let's just say it'd take a lot of sales for me to quit my day job. My philosophy so far has been selfish - I want the best software I can get on my gun, within the rules, and once I'm happy with that I can worry about if other people might want it too. If I was trying to operate as a business then I'd have to approach things very differently to how I do.
That's a depressingly insightful comment.Chicago said:
And a terrible way to select one strategy over another, which about guarantees which the leagues would jump at
Hi guys, so Robbo gave me a call and I've spent the last 2 hours reading this thread!
Thanks for all the interest and concern, I can honestly say that we have never had cheater boards in our guns and I believe we are one of the few top Pro teams that can say that.
I would love to take credit for changing the face of paintball, sadly I can't I'm just a regular guy on a regular team trying to live a paintball dream. In regards to the "checkbook" paintball basically we, as a new team, saw a gap and an opportunity to do something new and different and ran with it. If paying players is bad, I don't want to be good!!
For those of you that support us, thank you very much, for those of you that don't support us... thank you very much, at least your talking about us.
RT
Thanks for all the interest and concern, I can honestly say that we have never had cheater boards in our guns and I believe we are one of the few top Pro teams that can say that.
I would love to take credit for changing the face of paintball, sadly I can't I'm just a regular guy on a regular team trying to live a paintball dream. In regards to the "checkbook" paintball basically we, as a new team, saw a gap and an opportunity to do something new and different and ran with it. If paying players is bad, I don't want to be good!!
For those of you that support us, thank you very much, for those of you that don't support us... thank you very much, at least your talking about us.
RT
Baca Loco said:I wasn't planning any additional comebacks so no worries on that score and while it may be true the conversation has a limited audience I'd hope that for at least a few it would offer a twist on the typical cheaters suck/ what me cheat? back and forth. But maybe not.
If pragmatic (or relative) considerations are in fact the foundation of morality then it really is no different from cultural training or even whim in which case it isn't worth making any particular fuss over.
Ya know Paul, when intellectual Paintball debates get reduced to semantic pursuits, we really have lost sight of the original propositions, but I do understand the need to sometimes clarify details .... I think this is a great example of over-intellectualising but it makes fascinating reading..if only for a select few
Rich, I think you are being way too modest, I think what you have done is dragged us all screaming into the new professional era and as you say, you saw an opportunity and took it.....but it ain't all about cheque-book management as you know, there is a fair degree of sophistication being applied to your team that includes areas such as training, man-management (and all that entails), sponsor acquisition and management, media representation...the list goes on.Rich T said:Hi guys, so Robbo gave me a call and I've spent the last 2 hours reading this thread!
Thanks for all the interest and concern, I can honestly say that we have never had cheater boards in our guns and I believe we are one of the few top Pro teams that can say that.
I would love to take credit for changing the face of Paintball, sadly I can't I'm just a regular guy on a regular team trying to live a Paintball dream. In regards to the "checkbook" Paintball basically we, as a new team, saw a gap and an opportunity to do something new and different and ran with it. If paying players is bad, I don't want to be good!!
For those of you that support us, thank you very much, for those of you that don't support us... thank you very much, at least your talking about us.
RT
Dynasty took Paintball to new levels in terms of play, XSV have taken us further up that ladder and have managed themselves into a position where they can now not only look below toward Dynasty but their last result in XBall affords them a similar position with regard to the Russians and that is one hell of an achievement.
Who couldn't respect that ?
Rich has a 100% pragmatic take on pro Paintball, he will win, he'll take no prisoners on the way and if anybody thinks he is doing things any differently from any other highly successful coach and owner in any other, more established sports, then think again.
He was a great pro as a player and now he's maturing into a great coach/ manager in what seems like a seamless transition.