Being a Political Scientist, policy issues always interest me, and so i bring to you a paintball related issue that has been dancing in my head since midsummer.

Most fields restrict firing modes, but not firing rate.

So when i note the ion user on the field talking about how by the time he's done pulling the tigger 22 rounds are in the air, i just have to wonder, why don't fields restrict BPS rather than the exact firing mode.

My A5 is never going to go beyond 15bps due to hardware limitations, or my brother's AT-85 which even in full auto mode gets only 12bps.

So where burst modes and full auto modes, and their 'safe' counterparts are often of limits, while turbo modes are normally in use.


Is the danger really in the firing mode, or rather in the rate of fire?

I know SPPL rules have a BPS limit, maybe fields and insurers might consider such a safer path.


and so ends the comments of your local semi-tired liberal

Semi only makes sense. I've never seen anyone pull faster than around 15 bps, and if they can, they have god hands and deserve to be shooting faster than everyone else. Its also a lot easier to see that people are shooting semi instead of how fast they're shooting.

I understand where you're coming from but I think thats one of the beauties of paintball. When you spend four hundred plus bucks on a fun thats one of those things you're paying for is that twenty balls per second. You cant limit everyone else because your gun isn't as fast. I go play with my friends to the field and I rock a 98 ACT. Im about to buy a Mini just because its about time but all my friends guns shoot way faster then mine and I still have fun out there. Think of it as more of a challenge or save up to get you self a faster gun.

i agree with d4rk. Easier to see people shooting semi. It takes real skill to talk 15 BPS. Seriously. Try it. Most people get 12 BPS, 15 is like you are really really good, or on 5 redbulls. No one can hit 22 in semi. Ramping or FA sure, but those are illegal at almost every field.

The reason FA and ramping are not allowed is due to safety. I can stop a stream of shots in semi by stopping my finger, i phyiscally have to pull the trigger each time and can tell when i lay a stream of fast paint, and can stop on a dime. With FA or ramping, you aren't pulling the trigger each time for each ball, so you lose control. You could readily light someone up and not know it, cause you are just holding down the trigger, or walking at +3BPS for ramping. Yeah you can stop by letting go, but it isn't as fast a stop and you still aren;t really in control to what you are shooting. Insurance companys don't want people gettting hurt. By forcing you to shoot semi they are expecting you to keep control of your shootting.

I play pump exclusively, so i don't want ot hear Lego favors electros and thinks mechs suck. That is a lie. I just do believe that there is real skill involved in walking a trigger. It isn't somehting everyone can do equally. Some guys can just pelt out shots in semi with ease, and some struggle. Just the way it is.

All i can say is if you want more BPS from your electro, make sure you are using the right trigger for your shooting style. Triggers matter more then anything in how fast you fire. If it isn't setup to your style of shooting, you will shoot far slower then one that is made for how you shoot

Eh... not to sound like a know it all but everyone around here who has been playing in the national scene can shoot 15. Its almost a requirement.

Firing MODES are supposed to be accompanied by CAPS so the bps vs mode argument shouldnt apply. It just means A. your field sucks or B. they dont know what theyre talking about. Currently, PSP is limited to 10.5 bps for most divisions. I think Millennium is at 13.3 still. Neither are very fast by either means so any "overshooting" argument is nill. You'll get overshot more by a decent player shooting semi.

It is also actually easier to technically cheat with semi-auto markers. When everyone's markers are shooting the same its easier to tell who is cheating. It is why the NPPL/USPL is also notorious for cheating when theyre a semi-only league. People would have toothbruses up their sleeves and runaway bounce. Oh the 300fps and Push days of paintball...xD That is also why the emphasis on markers has gone away from speed. Most ads dont make that a priority anymore. Most people, at least in the tourney scene, dont care anymore since XBall has everyone on a level playing field.

I am sorry but on a cheating standpoint, semi-auto has tried and failed in fairness.

It's an insurance issue more than any field policy -- the insurance companies insist semi only, and because they control whether or not you're insured, a field owner has little say in the matter.

My home field has both a "semi or pump only" and a 12 BPS rate of fire limit. They do not restrict your gear selection (unlike the SPPL type rules which require a slower hopper to enforce the rate). Usually they ignore ROF (play it by ear - you know when someone's hitting 15 instead of 12), but if there's been cause they'll do a random "check every electro" since we have a few sponsored players that can really get those fingers going.


Personally, I can hit 12-13 on the rare occasion I want to. Doesn't bother me either way.

As mentioned in the opening, i was a bit tired when i typed this, but i should have mentioned the field allows ramping but restricts other firing modes.

The rules say semi-auto + pump only, but most people with electros are using some form of ramping, maybe this is a problem with the field.

Oh and about my own rate of fire, when i got my egrip (new style) i tested all the modes (including a test of the safe full auto slowed to 8bps) but then settled on the Auto-RT mode.

Is it that the field allows ramping, or is it that they just don't enforce the rules?

Hmmm... I don't know about where everyone else plays, but my home field has a 15bps cap as well as not allowing ramping, full auto, or burst modes. And they enforce it. My promaster is set to semi capped at 15bps and my SLG is actually capped at 10.5bps in semi, so they don't have a problem with me.

EDIT:

So the current NPPL/USPL league games are uncapped semi-auto? If so, that's kinda lame in my opinion.

to be honest i can't be sure with that one.

http://www.uspaintballleague.com/events/wo...pionships/rules

7.01

Wow, that's pretty stupid. I mean, I can't think of anyone I know (off the top of my head) that can shoot in semi faster than 15bps, but you would think they would at least cap it to deter the cheaters.

*shrug* I can think of people that can do it, maybe not consistently but they can.

Anywho, its why capped ramping is the way to go. =]

To each his own. I personally like semi or pump, but that's just me. I can see the benefit of capped ramping for tournament regulation purposes though.

As I said before, if the NPPL cant even enforce their own rules on semi-auto only, I doubt rec fields can. I see no realistic benefits for semi-only fields. If you want to play semi go for it, but I know of way too many ways to cheat and way too many people who can shoot beyond caps for there to be any arguments for semi-ONLY.

Pump should be capped too

Semi FTW. Maybe have designiated games or something for 3-shot...

When I first came into paintball and it said, 15 bps. I was like "yea right". It's impossible to shoot more than like 10 balls in one second. I was wrong

From an insurance standpoint, I guess, it makes sense to cap the ROF.... you would think.... I'm sure there's some obscure legal clause in some obscure binding document that guides those decisions.

On "To Each His Own" -- actually, shouldn't it be "To the Owner, his own?" Players definitely have their opinions (I'm all about the anarchy, but I'd be pretty pissed if some nub got 55 bps on full auto and just sat on a lane all day). But it all comes down to what the field owner, and his insurers, think.

I personally don't mind a little bonus-ball. I've seen people lose their cool over it (I, of COURSE, never lost MY cool over it), but I think that depending on the setting you should probably just accept that it can happen to you. But I totally understand that field owners don't get to play "tuff guy," and the rules have to be safety-oriented.... still, good sportsmanship shouldn't *have* to be a rule, in theory.

Ok, bad choice of words.

I was referring that field owners (or players, in event of an outlaw game or the owner allowing the players to choose) can decide what works well for them.

I wouldn't play in a "55 bps full auto" event, but someone else might? Who knows, but it's good there's choices.

In a perfect, cheater-less world, I personally prefer semi over ramping because it makes the ROF another skill instead of just technology. Adding a cap for safety or other field owner decisions is just setting a limit - and even if you're fingers exceed the cap, it's easy to program the marker to only fire at a maximum of the cap.

While my home field isn't cheater-less, I have yet to see anyone intentionally trying to exceed the BPS cap, and I've only seen a few instances of players trying to use another firing mode (one banned from the given event) to gain an advantage. So maybe my "semi is fine" attitude comes from that experience.

Speaking of rate of fire, I shot an Ego10 on 23bps ramp the other day. It was amazing.

I'm glad they went back to the old style for 10s...