Why don't those tekno geeks make a marker with built in chrono?

[Urban]

I would like to see it but I don't believe it's practical or possible at this stage.

The smallest handheld chrono's would be a nightmare to make even smaller and fit them into a marker somehow.. markers seem to be getting smaller.. the new shocker looks tiny, and x-mag is tiny.. no room in there for more electronics with current technology.

It also has to be easy to calibrate and impossible to fiddle.

Nice idea but not entirely practical now.. or is it? Someone tell me different..

Urban

 

[raehl]

Common problem with p8ntballer...

Too many people here can't view a situation from any perspective other than the tournament perspective.

Realize that "it doesn't work in tournaments" is, by its nature, a stupid reason for anything not directly related to tournaments. Tournaments are a tiny fraction of the sport (as measured by who buys stuff).

- Chris

 

[Weakest Link]

Originally posted by Urban

Nice idea but not entirely practical now.. or is it? Someone tell me different..

Entirely practical. All you do is have the companies that make it calibrate it and then lock it, so it can't changed (if need be anyway that stops people getting to it, totally closed off. Then all a player needs to do is calibrate their marker until it fires safe. Now there is always the possibility that the accuracy of the built in chrony might decrease. In which case make it mandatory for them to be checked by the manufacturer every so often. At this stage, if it appears that someone has tried to tamper with it, make sure that someone is notified.

But yeah, its quite practical.

 

[Urban]

Common problem with p8ntballer...

Originally posted by raehl
Too many people here can't view a situation from any perspective other than the tournament perspective.

Realize that "it doesn't work in tournaments" is, by its nature, a stupid reason for anything not directly related to tournaments. Tournaments are a tiny fraction of the sport (as measured by who buys stuff).

- Chris

Fair enough, I'll put my hands up for that one.

In my defence, it is common for most people to tend to base arguements around what they know or believe they know.

In the UK I believe that the tourney scene is where the money gets spent by the players with regards to markers and kit... about the only thing the average UK recballer buys is paint. Internationally that may different.

Outside of tourney's I suppose we have rec ball, and I'll include scenario and big games in that to keep it simple.

Within that catch all group we have two main parties, the players and the site owners.

For site owners buying markers that include a chrono may be a tempting idea but it would depend on how much it pushed up the cost of the marker... every extra bit spent on the markers eats into the profit margin of the site. Apocalypse own a rec site and we chrono'd the site markers when we first got them and check them on a regular basis. Would we have spent the extra to get markers with built in chrono's? Probably not as it requires little time and effort to chrono the normal way but I suppose it would have depended on the price difference.

For the rec players perspective I would have to leave that to someone who has experience of it in the states; recballing is bigger over there than it is here and maybe the players do purchase their own markers. Whatever the situation, cost is going to be a deciding factor on which marker to buy... would U.S. recballers pay extra for a self-chronoing marker?

We seem to have two different discussions going on here...

One is purely "would a chrono on a marker be a good idea?", and while I agree that it is a nice idea I do not see your average recballer paying for it when it gives them nothing extra "in game" and do not see your average tourney player paying for it when they will still be chrono'd by marshalls anyway prior to playing.

The second discussion has made the leap to self-regulating markers. These, I think, will need to have a calibration feature which I believe can, and will, be fiddled with regardless of whether used by a rec or tourney player. With that in mind, rec-sites will still have to traditionally chrono players who bring their own markers and tourneys will have to do the same.

I still remain to be convinced that a built-in chrono is a worthwhile thing to pay for... regardless of how you play paintball.

Urban

 

[manike]

It was done years and years ago by PneuVentures (the guys who made the original Shocker for SP). It was called the Cyber 9000 but it never made it into full production. There are supposedly a few floating around though...

Oh and yes then SP went and patented the concept of a 'feedback loop' to control an aspect of the marker... not as if it was a common idea already...

 

[Gadget]

I doubt you'd ever be able to do away with a centrally controlled chrono for tourneys.

If they released a marker that could self-regulate its velocity - how long do you think it would be before someone released a shady software 'upgrade' that reported lower fps than it was actually shooting, or that increased velocity depending on how you were pulling the trigger *cough*turbomode*cough*.

It would so easy to exploit and so much harder for marshals to catch (similar to rumours at the moment that some teams have markers which 'take over' the firing for you mid-game).

There's always the possibility that manufacturers could standardise on a tamper-proof board which locked itself at 290/295fps.....but lets face it, it didn't work for the '13bps max gentlemens agreement', so why should this be any different?

The only advantage I could see is that it would make it easier for people to set their markers up at home - but what would you rather do, pay an extra £50 every time you buy a new marker, or pay £100 once for your own chrono?

I think adding additional on-gun complexity (and possibly weight) is a bad idea.

 

[Dark Warrior]

So we are thinking of fitting every marker with something similar to a VLocity Chronograph at a cost of about £150-200 forget it. Something else to go wrong.

 

[ChiZZerS]

if they made a gun with a "thingy" of somesort
witch dose not let you fire over 300fps
(and it could be regarded as a safety feature and then you could get it for no extra cost )

but besideds it would probably be big & make your marker look ugly..

 

[SuperNova]

...maybe I can be political too

I personally think that players should be able to regulate the shot fps to 300 themselves. The government have set a legal velocity for the paint to be shot at and it should be abided by, for the simple reason that over this limit can do serious damage especially as safety equipment is only tested to stop balls going that fast (or at least leaving the barrel that fast).

It seems stupid to me that players will put other teams in danger just to get their paint firing a bit straighter.

We should all be able to be trusted but unfortunately some people put their own personal ends in front of lives in the most extreme cases.

In response to the original post, if anyone can design something to regulate a chrono, no matter how light and small it could be, there would always be a player akin to those I have just mentioned who would alter it to give misleading readouts.

On the tournament side of things there must be a regulatory body to stop idiots from endangering players who just came for a brilliant day paintballing.

On the recball side of things to keep costs down the site owners would most probably keep costs to a minimum, as many people have already stated, so a chrono per marker would prove an expensive gamble for any r&d marker department - as Manike mentioned:

It was done years and years ago by PneuVentures (the guys who made the original Shocker for SP). It was called the Cyber 9000 but it never made it into full production.

I trust myself and would like to trust the rest of us, but as long as there are players hellbent to the point of lunacy on winning I am thankful we have marshals and site owners alike to take care of our safety.

 

[TOOLE]

or your marker explodes, leaving you with no arms

mask would allow you to keep your eyes