Originally posted by Booya39
I'm glad you asked that question because that is exactly the question I brought up. Their response: it's directional so they can point it right at a certain gun and read only that gun, none of the surrounding noise.
They compared it to a device they use in some movies (in spy scenes) where you point this thing at some people in another room/building (separated by glass) and you can listen to what they're saying though a headset that is plugged into the device. Not sure what they call this thing though. The people I was talking too aren't at the pinnacle of technology so might be steering me in the wrong direction.
First of all, a radar isn't going to pick up sound, it can pick up where you are, or where your paint is flying (and how fast). Radar isn't directional. It's a sound wave, and as with all waves, they diverge with distance.
Likewise with a microphone (ultra-cool spy-like listening devices or otherwise) - anybody fancy looking up how a directional microphone works? It still has to pick up the sound waves, and if as LJ says, two players are next to each other, they WILL get it wrong.
LJ - the laser in the laser version doesn't use the laser to detect the sound - it's just for aiming with. It still suffers from having a farly wide angle of detection - but usually it's fine because you're listening to an entire window or something.
Incidentally, was anybody at the chrono tent in Toulouse on the Friday morning? They had 2 chronos working fine, albeit slowly, making everybody late for their games. Some bright spark brought another two chronos and put them on an extra table. These were now too close together, which meant nobody could chrono because the readings were all over the shop (from guns left and right of you).
