[vinti6674]

It's important to recognize the limiting factors of paintball.
Only after addressing the issues will the sport progress.
AKA my list of grievances:
1. Range
2. Accuracy
3. Variety
4. Cost

We can see from these four areas alone that one crucial aspect must be changed.
And that is the paintball itself. There is a reason why paintballs are getting smaller.
And its all about the math.
1. Smaller paintball (with same mass) = less drag = longer range
2. Smaller paintball = less angular momentum = more accurate shots
3. smaller paintball = less volume = greater freedom in gun design (economical shotgun)
4. smaller paintball = less material = cheaper

Haven't really done a full analysis but those were just some ideas off the top of my head.
Discussion?

[MMMerc]

vinti6674, on 10 April 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

It's important to recognize the limiting factors of paintball.
Only after addressing the issues will the sport progress.
AKA my list of grievances:
1. Range
2. Accuracy
3. Variety
4. Cost

We can see from these four areas alone that one crucial aspect must be changed.
And that is the paintball itself. There is a reason why paintballs are getting smaller.
And its all about the math.
1. Smaller paintball (with same mass) = less drag = longer range
2. Smaller paintball = less angular momentum = more accurate shots
3. smaller paintball = less volume = greater freedom in gun design (economical shotgun)
4. smaller paintball = less material = cheaper

Haven't really done a full analysis but those were just some ideas off the top of my head.
Discussion?

You forgot to mention the .50 has alot less range, there's a trade off here.

[vinti6674]

MMMerc, on 10 April 2012 - 09:32 AM, said:

vinti6674, on 10 April 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

It's important to recognize the limiting factors of paintball.
Only after addressing the issues will the sport progress.
AKA my list of grievances:
1. Range
2. Accuracy
3. Variety
4. Cost

We can see from these four areas alone that one crucial aspect must be changed.
And that is the paintball itself. There is a reason why paintballs are getting smaller.
And its all about the math.
1. Smaller paintball (with same mass) = less drag = longer range
2. Smaller paintball = less angular momentum = more accurate shots
3. smaller paintball = less volume = greater freedom in gun design (economical shotgun)
4. smaller paintball = less material = cheaper

Haven't really done a full analysis but those were just some ideas off the top of my head.
Discussion?

You forgot to mention the .50 has alot less range, there's a trade off here.

I'm pretty sure its because its lighter. I haven't actually compared the weights but if the mass was the same then I'm pretty sure it would fly farther. Probably needs a denser fill.

[brycelarson]

vinti6674, on 10 April 2012 - 10:24 AM, said:

I'm pretty sure its because its lighter. I haven't actually compared the weights but if the mass was the same then I'm pretty sure it would fly farther. Probably needs a denser fill.

You're missing something - the smaller the sphere the larger the ratio of surface area to volume. Smaller paint with the same fill is a worse projectile, not a better one. It has a lower sectional density - therefore a poorer ballistic coefficient.

All of your arguments about paint size are based on the idea that you would be keeping mass the same. This creates a bunch of problems. The safety standards are based on the mass to diameter of .68 paint. Increasing density while decreasing size effectively increases impact per area - "penetration". A 3g .68 ball and a 3g .50 ball will have equivalent kinetic energy on impact - but the .50 would spread that impact over a much smaller area - therefore increasing physical damage.

Yes, a more dense small projectile would be superior to a paintball - but that doesn't mean it's safe.

oh, and weights of 50 cal seem to land in the 1.2g range.

This post has been edited by brycelarson: 10 April 2012 - 10:40 AM

[Toat]

Why on earth when .50 cal came out did people think you still needed to shoot at 300fps to be safe?

The reason 300 fps is the limit for .68 caliber paintballs is because of their mass, you need to fire a .50 much faster to get the same energy of a .68@300 fps.

That is what killed the hopes of .50 from the begining imo.

[Eskimo]

oldnewb, on 07 February 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Just curious, what's it like to be overshot with .50cal? I know many fields are introducing .50cal for renter games, but I've never even SEEN the stuff shot around here. Could a field set some rules like, "full size hoppers for .50cal, mag fed, tac caps, or 100round loaders for .68", and see better player retention?

its almost painless. in comparison to a regular paintball at the same distence.

You still get hit. yes. And it breaks yes. but the sting lasts for at most 20 seconds.

I'f I ran a Field everyone would be shooting .50 cal Use the mech spyders for rental guns. Easy to clean and use. lots of paint being shot. alot less pain. great stuff.

That being said. I'd welcome owners, but yall wont be on the field with the .50 cal. I got money to make. you get a different field.

50.cal Rental field would be set to 280 FPS.
.68 would be 280 FPS.

I'd purposely set the limit for rental the same as owners.

This post has been edited by Eskimo: 11 April 2012 - 05:19 PM

[brycelarson]

Toat, on 11 April 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

Why on earth when .50 cal came out did people think you still needed to shoot at 300fps to be safe?

The reason 300 fps is the limit for .68 caliber paintballs is because of their mass, you need to fire a .50 much faster to get the same energy of a .68@300 fps.

That is what killed the hopes of .50 from the begining imo.

there are a few reasons. first the ASTM standards don't currently specify a different safe speed. This means that anyone who shoots faster than 300 fps is rising lawsuits.

Second, trying to implement multiple safe projectile speeds is really tricky. It's bound to cause problems.

[cockerpunk]

Toat, on 11 April 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

Why on earth when .50 cal came out did people think you still needed to shoot at 300fps to be safe?

The reason 300 fps is the limit for .68 caliber paintballs is because of their mass, you need to fire a .50 much faster to get the same energy of a .68@300 fps.

That is what killed the hopes of .50 from the begining imo.

also, regardless of muzzle velocity, 50 cal will lose speed faster then 68 cal. so you have to add WAY higher muzzle velocities to get similar at range velocities to 68.

small, light, round projectiles are just bad fundamentally. smaller and lighter doesn't make things better.

[Eskimo]

cockerpunk, on 12 April 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

small, light, round projectiles are just bad fundamentally. smaller and lighter doesn't make things better.

However, They are fantastically Newbie Renter friendly and not to mention Help the newbs overcome the fear of getting hit really quickly. Add some bravery to the mix and enjoy.

While they shoot a bit less far. and while they don't break at distances. A well set-up renter field encourages fire fights at medium distances and .50 cal is a hell of a lot easier to get hit by in the head or accidentally overshot then .68 cal.

That being said however. I'd take .68 cal over .50 any day.
ON the same note, I'd love to Try a .50 cal pump. Like a Really small phantom or something. holds 20 balls in the stick feed. gets 60 something shots per 12 gram.
Oh the lightness. And the quietness ninja sneaky sneaky. aggressive playing to the max.

[Troy]

Eskimo, on 12 April 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

ON the same note, I'd love to Try a .50 cal pump. Like a Really small phantom or something. holds 20 balls in the stick feed. gets 60 something shots per 12 gram.
Oh the lightness. And the quietness ninja sneaky sneaky. aggressive playing to the max.

This is a very good point, I would have a blast with that kind of setup.

[Eskimo]

Right? the kingman chaser/eraser/marker/tag thingy pistols are a good step in agressive playing. And I'd honestly use one. IF the velocity could go past 260.
they are like what? 79.99 on sale for a 12 round mag fed pistol that gets 60 shots per 12 gram. and the barrel is overbored like a car in a tunnel.
Toss a 0.45 barrel on it. watch efficiency rise. and make extended 15 round mags. OH the pure joy.

This post has been edited by Eskimo: 12 April 2012 - 01:29 PM

[rntlee]

Eskimo, on 12 April 2012 - 01:28 PM, said:

Right? the kingman chaser/eraser/marker/tag thingy pistols are a good step in agressive playing. And I'd honestly use one. IF the velocity could go past 260.
they are like what? 79.99 on sale for a 12 round mag fed pistol that gets 60 shots per 12 gram. and the barrel is overbored like a car in a tunnel.
Toss a 0.45 barrel on it. watch efficiency rise. and make extended 15 round mags. OH the pure joy.

Can't change the barrel on a Kingman pistol...it's machined in the receiver.
A bunch of us had them at one time...they're a hoot indoors or on a really small field when everyone's playing with .43 cal

[The_Hyren]

vinti6674, on 10 April 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

We can see from these four areas alone that one crucial aspect must be changed.
And that is the paintball itself. There is a reason why paintballs are getting smaller.
And its all about the math.
1. Smaller paintball (with same mass) = less drag = longer range
2. Smaller paintball = less angular momentum = more accurate shots
3. smaller paintball = less volume = greater freedom in gun design (economical shotgun)
4. smaller paintball = less material = cheaper

Smaller balls of similar mass are going to be an issue. In essence, they cause more damage to targets because the force of impact is spread over a smaller area. .68 balls are chrono-ed at 280-300fps for safety reasons and my guess is that a smaller but similar weight ball would need its velocity scaled, which makes it less useful ultimately.

But addressing the original topic (technology limits/stagnation). I'd like to think that stagnation is due to the more and more limited number of minds producing new tech. If you look at the number of companies that used to make stuff versus today, its pretty different. There aren't little companies coming out with radical designs, like ATS, AGD, ICE, etc. Some of my favorite and the most interesting markers is history were made by these kinds of companies, who fathered cool markers like the Automag, AT85, epic, revenge, sovereign, etc. These days when I see a new company I only find knock offs of popular designs, NOT NEW ONES.

Blame it on the status of the global economy or super company bullying or whatever but that's my 2 cents on stagnation in paintball today.

If your not familiar, look some of these up, really cool markers:
ATS AT85 - Full auto without RT or electronics. ~25 round box mag fed using a chain drive
ICE Epic - bolt-less design, more well known than most
Southern Pneumatics Phoenix - Never mass produced, rotary bolt
Arrow Precision Sovereign - Cocker variant with the ram built into the bolt, side slung 3 way

[The_Hyren]

cockerpunk, on 12 April 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

also, regardless of muzzle velocity, 50 cal will lose speed faster then 68 cal. so you have to add WAY higher muzzle velocities to get similar at range velocities to 68.

small, light, round projectiles are just bad fundamentally. smaller and lighter doesn't make things better.

Yea, by volume 50cal is 60% smaller (~2.5 50cal to 1 68cal), so figure mass scales similarly, so ~750 fps to have similar momentum. And when mass is down 60% but cross sectional area is only down 40%, so the same force imparts 33% more acceleration. Hence less range and more cross wind problems.

[UV Halo]

The_Hyren, on 12 April 2012 - 09:03 PM, said:

...But addressing the original topic (technology limits/stagnation). I'd like to think that stagnation is due to the more and more limited number of minds producing new tech. If you look at the number of companies that used to make stuff versus today, its pretty different. There aren't little companies coming out with radical designs, like ATS, AGD, ICE, etc. Some of my favorite and the most interesting markers is history were made by these kinds of companies, who fathered cool markers like the Automag, AT85, epic, revenge, sovereign, etc. These days when I see a new company I only find knock offs of popular designs, NOT NEW ONES.

Blame it on the status of the global economy or super company bullying or whatever but that's my 2 cents on stagnation in paintball today.

If your not familiar, look some of these up, really cool markers:
ATS AT85 - Full auto without RT or electronics. ~25 round box mag fed using a chain drive
ICE Epic - bolt-less design, more well known than most
Southern Pneumatics Phoenix - Never mass produced, rotary bolt
Arrow Precision Sovereign - Cocker variant with the ram built into the bolt, side slung 3 way

I believe that the current lineup of markers is the result of market darwinism. Meaning that we, the customers drove the manufacturers to produce markers with the features we wanted, in the most cost efficient manner.

Tom Kaye got out because AGD couldn't compete price-wise with the folks making entire guns out of aluminum and delrin (interestingly, time has shown that those guns are largely holding up fine if manufactured well)
ATS markers are very finicky and not very efficient
The Ice Epic doesn't have the ROF that most players desire
I don't know too much about the Phoenix but, something tells me it didn't make it for very logical reasons.
The Sovereign couldn't keep up with the ROF of electro's.

The bottom line is that there's only so many ways to arrive at a projectile leaving the barrel at 280-300FPS, and an ROF greater than 12 balls per second, with reliability, ease of maintenance, and a price low enough to turn a profit on the resulting volume of sales. The required technology has dropped low enough so now we have multiple manufacturers producing very similar designs with the major differences focused not on performance but, on the user interface/feature level.

[Teek]

This doesn't really count as a technological improvement I guess, but I hope more companies take... different directions with marker aesthetics. I think it's only been recently when I've really started looking into picking up a couple of old guns, and got my Timmy Alias (oh yeah, and when I saw the sexy marker thread) did I realize how bland many modern guns feel, in my opinion. Not necessarily bad, in fact I love a few Ego 11 and DM12 designs, but often this is more due to color and paint style rather than the milling and body work. Like UV said, I think the current market feels narrow because we made it narrow, and I believe in the race to try and go for the last few performance advantages, specifically in cutting down weight, we've really hampered the variety of marker designs. Milling can vary a bit, but ultimately they all look like variations of fairly similar platforms, without the variety that guns like automags used to offer, or the variety in design of autocockers. My Alias has a lot of unnecessary weight, but I think it's totally worth it because it's a damn fine looking gun.

[MMMerc]

First off, i'm proud to say goggle huds may be on the way, check it
Second off, I agree that the paintball projectile is crappy and needs improving, and also agree in the decline in the innovation in gun aesthetics (sorry i have no input for either at the time). However:

I do remember how someone talked about smart jerseys earlier and i believe i thought of a way to input that into professional clothing and what not. Simply using a wire system that will snap on a direct impact from a paintball, disconnecting will disrupt the small electrical flow through it, sending a alarm to a ref or another authority, that the player has received a direct it.

Much like those impact stickers that the myth busters use, these will break only at definite direct impact. To avoid breaking when diving and what not, they will avoid the back of the elbows and front of the knees since there are not many hits there any how.

Still kinks to work out, but good idea i believe.

[Teek]

-Taz-, on 09 April 2012 - 09:52 PM, said:

The_Economist, on 05 April 2012 - 11:09 AM, said:

Your idea is solidly within reach of current technology. Competitive fencing has had reliable electronic scoring since the 1970s. Wireless technology is used at the highest end of competitive fencing and has been for more than 10 years. It would not be hard to design a jersey that detects paint and impacts and then (wirelessly or otherwise) signals other devices such as guns, indicator lights, and scoreboards.

That fencing "technology" is just the sword completing a circuit, which in turn registers as a point for the fencer, at least that what it appears like. For paintball it would be a little more difficult to establish a connection without putting a conductive substance into the ball itself.

Also to whoever brought up the new NPPL chips, I believe those are just RF sensors that have a longer range than Empires kits so that NPPL can see the cycles a second from each gun. I don't believe they can actually control what mode the marker is firing in

Well, paintballs already have water in them, I wonder if that could be used as the basis of a conductive paintball to complete a circuit? I don't think impact sensing would be good, unless we could really pinpoint a range where most paintballs break without significant error. Given the variety of conditions that can affect how a paintball breaks, I don't think this is realistic, but who knows. More sophisticated bounce/break testing (featuring paint storage experiments, and padding effects) could be very interesting.

The other problem (for me, at least) is making this more accessible. I think you could probably get a big, complex set up for tournaments not far into the future, but I think there are plenty of other methods to control wiping or playing on in tournaments. There are more refs, who are under closer scrutiny, and video technology could even be used. Although I think most people view advancements in paintball through the tournament lens, I believe this would be put to much better use in rec ball, where reffing is generally less effective, but wiping can still be very damaging.

Again though, it really only makes thing more complex, so I'd settle for a tournament system as a proof of concept.

[Troy]

Teek, on 20 April 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

Well, paintballs already have water in them, I wonder if that could be used as the basis of a conductive paintball to complete a circuit? I don't think impact sensing would be good, unless we could really pinpoint a range where most paintballs break without significant error. Given the variety of conditions that can affect how a paintball breaks, I don't think this is realistic, but who knows. More sophisticated bounce/break testing (featuring paint storage experiments, and padding effects) could be very interesting.

I think differentiating between a break and a bounce would be hard, to say the least if impact is the standard you are going by.

Now, if you came up with a two part chemical solution that allowed the use of a clear liquid in a paintball, that would react to something on a jersey/glove/mask and change color or fluoresce... THAT would be cool. You could make it to where wiping only spread the activated area, making it painfully obvious that someone was cheating.

[Teek]

Troy, on 20 April 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:

Teek, on 20 April 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

Well, paintballs already have water in them, I wonder if that could be used as the basis of a conductive paintball to complete a circuit? I don't think impact sensing would be good, unless we could really pinpoint a range where most paintballs break without significant error. Given the variety of conditions that can affect how a paintball breaks, I don't think this is realistic, but who knows. More sophisticated bounce/break testing (featuring paint storage experiments, and padding effects) could be very interesting.

I think differentiating between a break and a bounce would be hard, to say the least if impact is the standard you are going by.

Now, if you came up with a two part chemical solution that allowed the use of a clear liquid in a paintball, that would react to something on a jersey/glove/mask and change color or fluoresce... THAT would be cool. You could make it to where wiping only spread the activated area, making it painfully obvious that someone was cheating.

True that to the first.

The second is a very interesting idea...