Hey, everyone's already said what I'm going to say but:
-If you're going to run with an empty hopper, don't hit the 50. You're within bunkering distance, and this past weekend, I bunkered someone off the bat at the Pan Am 7-man when I saw that he wasn't going for the sub and he tucked into his bunker when he saw me, without pointing his barrel out. Plus it's really hard to reload if you're in a low 50-bunker and one or two people are on you. I know the reasoning behind an empty hopper, I just don't agree with it. Many times, I catch people being sloppy as they hit their bunker and take them out. Also, on games that I rock, in the first 30 seconds I've fast crawled to the other teams side of the snake and taken out three people...after knocking over a ref getting in my way (why is knocking over a ref getting to be a habit with me?). Kinda hard to fast crawl if you're reloading, and kinda hard to push your mirror in, when someone tells him that you're crawling and he tries to come around to shoot you out before you get to his bunker position. Also, kinda hard to push him in, if you're both in the snake and crawling as you try to do a crawling bunker while both your backmen are trying to keep you both in.
-To me, the half empty hopper for a runner is crazy. I'm a bouncer (I bounce when I hit the ground or a bunker...sometimes multiple times) and I will break balls in my hopper if there's room for them to move around. If I break a ball in my hopper, I'm almost useless unless I can still fire without chunking balls (Heh, heh...Forced Mode is "god" for me at that point...unless the paint is really thick). If I have the time, I dump the whole hopper and quickly dump a single pod in and start firing again. Actually, I'm frequently guilty of overpacking my hopper to prevent breaks...I'll either burn out a motor or miss my first few shots, curse, flip open my lid, give my gun a flick, and close the lid and shake, and shoot again. If you want to stagger your loading times, then either force yourself to reload when your hopper is half empty and set the pod down at your feet (or right next to you if you're low) or just pause when your hopper is half empty and look, look, look. Forcing yourself to run dry seems a littly dingy to me. What happens if someone pulls a move right when you run dry. Remember what I said I did in the first paragraph?
-I actually carry too much paint on me most times. I normally carry 6 pods if I'm playing insert or if I'm laning, or if my primary is a standup bunker of some kind, or a large bunker. If I know I'm going to crawl, I carry only 4 pods. Sometimes I play short and lane, just to change things up, before I hit my main bunker and I don't like idea of running short. Also, carrying extra paint doesn't slow me down. I only drop pods when they may be exposed due to what I'm doing.
-I tend to use about 5 pods in 5-man, 1 pod in 7-man, 6 pods in 10 man, yet I won a 5-man NPPL playing backman with only 3 pods (two were only 100's, the middle one was a 140) Go figure
Ray
