Ramping - Robbo's Article in PGI 195

[Ben Frain]

Originally posted by duffistuta
Yet.

These things are not static Ben - before 1988 you could own a self-loading rifle in the UK; post Hungerford, they became illegal.

Pre Dunblane you could own a handgun, now they are illegal.

There have been several air rifle incidents in the UK recently - odds are air rifles will go on-ticket very soon.

Now, are there more lethal weapons legally available than handguns in the UK? Of course there are. Legislation doesn't necessarily make sense - especially when you've got the Daily Mail screaming out alarmist headlines and working people up into a frenzy ever 5 minutes.

Are Paintball guns potentially lethal? Yes. Are ramping guns more likely to cause a fatality than non-ramping? Yes. If this happens, how long before Paintball guns go on ticket or are banned? Not very long.

Ramping increases the potentiality for Paintball to get banned or heavily regulated. That is unarguable.

Now, whether you think becoming more heavily regulated is a good thing anyway, or is worthwhile if we can play with ramping guns, is another question altogether.

OK, all good points, I can appreciate that side of the argument more.

Chicago what's to stop people just swapping their board back over after it's been checked etc in the staging area? Or are you proposing some quick check before each game?

Agitating loaders are where it's at - come on people - what's wrong with agitating loaders only? Instant ROF limit, next to no cost (certainly not for the organisers anyway).

Read the article now and whilst I agree with many of the sentiments I really don't think the human element is good enough to decide whether a gun is ramping or not. You will just get oceans of pissing and moaning from players who will say 'I was pulled unfairly etc'

Also, what happens when you confiscate the marker, decide it's actually ok? Do you just give it back to the player?

Ref: 'oops - sorry! play on player'
Player: 'But ref, the game ended two minutes ago whilst you were firing my marker to check for ramp, what's more whilst you were checking for that their player got hit 5 times but played on and ran straight past you and shot the rest of my boys.To be honest ref I am not altogether happy with the decisions you just made'

The big problem was never 'ott' ramping (like the article mentions) as I always found this got picked up on. The problem last season (I can only speak domestically because I aren't up to the standard of you big boys) was the helping hand that standard software was giving (14 shots for 11 pulls etc). This was the main reason a ROF cap was introduced.

I do feel that we are in a worse place now than we were 12 months ago with gun cheats (again UK only). Enforcable rules are what's needed and the means to police them. I don't think the semi auto rules provide that, I don't think the current ramping rules provide that (without enough of the radar guns) - agitating loaders on the other hand...

 

[skullicious]

^what chicago said^

 

[jotajotaZ]

Originally posted by Ben Frain
Chicago what's to stop people just swapping their board back over after it's been checked etc in the staging area? Or are you proposing some quick check before each game?

RFID tags in the boards. Cheap, quick to detect.

 

[Ben Frain]

Originally posted by jotajotaZ
RFID tags in the boards. Cheap, quick to detect.

Excuse me? Sorry, what are they?

 

[duffistuta]

Originally posted by Ben Frain


Read the article now and whilst I agree with many of the sentiments I really don't think the human element is good enough to decide whether a gun is ramping or not. You will just get oceans of pissing and moaning from players who will say 'I was pulled unfairly etc'

I agree, we had a lot of heated discussions about the piece in the office - there's certainly no consensus of opinion between Pete, myself, Beaker and Ant.

I think what really muddies the waters is that there are 3 diverse arguments going on:

1. What is best for Paintball in purely sporting terms. (Key subset arguments being whether ROF is an appreciable skill or not; whether too much paint in the air damages the game at a basic level by affecting movement; what will make the sport more TV friendly; and what is actually enforceable, so we can have a level playing field and therefore a sporting encounter as opposed to something else).

2. Safety considerations.

3. How the authorities and insurers are going to react.

And at present there is no obvious solution that comes close to covering all the bases. Well, no solution that stands a cat in hell's chance of being accepted.

As much as I agree with Chicago, it's no good just blaming the players - you've got to blame the industry facilitators too. There are plenty of people who wear both player and industry hats who bemoan the situation whilst actually being part of the problem (that's not aimed at you in Particular Mr Chicago, BTW).

 

[John C]

Does anyone else think Robbos article is a couple of months too late to make any kind of impact?

The ball started rolling last year and now the Millenium series has adopted ramping most people will want to play and train with the same firing modes as the 'Major League' tournaments they play

 

[duffistuta]

No disrespect to the Millennium, but they change their minds quicker than Markus Nielsen changes teams...and if Pete is voicing the thoughts of a silent majority (which I don't think he is, but I may well be wrong) this might mobilise some sort of action to put pressure on the promoters...all you need is a handful of the right Pro teams saying 'we're not coming unless you go back to semi with sensible testing' and it'll happen.

 

[Baca Loco]

Originally posted by duffistuta
I agree, we had a lot of heated discussions about the piece in the office - there's certainly no consensus of opinion between Pete, myself, Beaker and Ant.

I think what really muddies the waters is that there are 3 diverse arguments going on:

1. What is best for Paintball in purely sporting terms.
A--(Key subset arguments being whether ROF is an appreciable skill or not;
B--whether too much paint in the air damages the game at a basic level by affecting movement; what will make the sport more TV friendly; and what is actually enforceable,
C--so we can have a level playing field and therefore a sporting encounter as opposed to something else).

2. Safety considerations.

3. How the authorities and insurers are going to react.

And at present there is no obvious solution that comes close to covering all the bases. Well, no solution that stands a cat in hell's chance of being accepted.

D--As much as I agree with Chicago, it's no good just blaming the players - you've got to blame the industry facilitators too. There are plenty of people who wear both player and industry hats who bemoan the situation whilst actually being part of the problem (that's not aimed at you in Particular Mr Chicago, BTW).

I won't comment on Pete's article as I've yet to see it but I can respond to Duffy's post, so I will . . .
A. The answer is, it's not under current circumstances nor would it be in an ideal semi-only enforceable universe as long as the rules allowed for the present diversity of markers. The reason this is true is because you can't validate the "skill" involved across the spectrum if the players aren't using essentially the same equipment. Is the guy with the flying fingers shooting a Spyder just slower than the guy shooting the Timmy or DM5? Don't know, do we, but if you're going to value shooting fast as a skill then that "playing field" ought to be level as well.
B. NO. Argue it all you want it simply doesn't. Will it in practice affect some players and some teams? Yes, but that's on them not the volume of paint. Should field designs take issues of officiating friendliness and paint volume potential into account? Again, yes, but volume of paint alone, at least at the levels we've seen, isn't a problem.
C. best current answer is the NXL. Sadly it's run by TJ's chimps
D. In response to Chicago's previous post in the world of pay to play it really isn't that important. Where it matters is in the elite pro leagues that have pretensions of becoming real and viable Sports. Those are also the only arenas where there is pressure exerted across the board to act on the issues being discussed because it actually matters whether or not the fundamental game is fair or not. In pay to play as long as the teams keep showing up there is at best mixed incentives to act.

 

[duffistuta]

No argument from my on any of that, El Loco. And I think Pete's piece will leave you unconvinced too.

 

[jotajotaZ]

Originally posted by Ben Frain
Excuse me? Sorry, what are they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID

Basically, a tamper-proof wireless way to identify something. If you store the tag inside the board in a way that it is impossible to remove it without altering the board, there is no way that someone could enter a field with a non-approved board.

The boards are checked at the entrance of the field with a simple scanner (no need to open the marker).

With this (and assuming that we are all ready to pay for these boards as long as they're not outrageously expensive... we are raped already with the ID cards, why not a little bit more?) you can get an enforceable "no funky boards in my field" policy with a reasonable cost.

This does not take care of the trigger bounce issue, but maybe that can be taken care of by a robot (unsure of this, I know the robot won't work at detecting maliciously hidden ramping modes... does it work with good'ol' mechanical bounce?).