what do YOU think the next technology is?

[FreakBaller12]

So you guys, i am just curious what is next.
FOR paintball in general, for AGD, for tournys.
Let's not go into capping bps for this thread.
Truthfully i think PSI is the next improvement, smaller working pressure, smaller tank, lighter gun, tighter set up.
Hoppers are as high as they should be, guns are shooting fast enough.

what do YOU think is next?

[Python14]

I think we'll see more advanced masks. A cool HUD would be nice.

[Brophog]

PSI is not where its at, its already come down as far as its going to.

I see possibilities in paintballs themselves. That's an area not touched too much.

Loader technology is still in its infancy. Improvements can be made there.

I see more gadgetry than we have now. More "fluff" if you will on the markers, tanks, and loaders.

If you extend the clothing idea further, a type of "body armor" may be in the future.

[Tyger]

**puts on a layer of asbesos, a layer of flame retardant gel, and a reflective heat suit**

Scenario games and big games. With Shatner backing SPPLAT attack, and many other celebs getting into the rec side of things, scenarios and big games can grow with star power alone.

Look at the customer base. Scenario / Big games are an "all day" fun. You play all you want, the whole day. You can play as many times as you want in 12-24 hours. Tournaments, from a for fun aspect, 8 games, that's all. Ok, it's diffrent, but think about the cash inflow of hte "Casual consumer". More people will go where they can get the most for their money.

And if Shatnerball is in Chicago this year again, you'll see it in action with Mancow pumping hte people to play.

Put if you want tech, I've been waiting for a HUD for years. I think radios will be integrated in more than the goggles for big gamers. I think another hopper will come out with an evern weirder feed system. And I think that goggles will be made even smaller, tigher to the face, and more impossible to wear for people with big heads.

-Tyger

[cphilip]

Lazer Tag!!!! Whoooopie!!!!! :D

[punkncat]

Even supposing that I DID know the next big thing...the last place I would tell everyone is on a public forum.
Great way to give someone else credit for your own idea.

Really I wish that I did know what direction paintball was going.I hate to see this disturbing trend towards the new flavor of the month super fast markers.I would like to see something done to improve accuracy and reduce ball breaks.I mean hey , once those eyes can't see because of a break , or you get some paint that doesn't read well , and you have a super expensive way to sample paint fill close up.

[skife]

i'm thinking the next step in paintball is Television and better ways to promote the game

[NoFearPaintballer]

for all the scenario gamers out there... better grenades

[the_next_guy_]

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86732&highlight=Feasible+Paintball+Advancements

anyway, this was my reply to that thread:
I also think that the next big advancement will be the format of the game. I would like to see paintball become more of a classic sport than an extreme one. I think improvements could be made to make it more spectator friendly. I would love to see my children play highschool paintball.

[WenULiVeUdiE]

I think it is some what going to effiecny. Many manufacturers want the abilty to "claim" that you can get 1500 shots out of a 68/4500. Although this isnt a large "popular" thing hapening, it is happening with out most of us knowing. And I hope AGD will come out a kit or something to increase efficency. Its all about the efficency, well sometimes it is. Also, many more things for scenario/big games. And people want simpler guns, the Mag for instance, and one that can stand the test of time, unlike a matrix, like a mag. People mostly want things to get smaller, faster, easier to fix, harder to break and anything that will help them have more fun.

[AGD]

Well if everyone were to suddenly give up their preconcieved notions of what is good and bad about a paintgun then this is what we could do NOW.

Run guns at much HIGHER pressures so you could make all the internal components smaller and more compact. This would lead to overall smaller guns with better efficiency.

Better efficiency means smaller tanks making the guns lighter and smaller overall.

Built in crono's that maintain your velocity at exactly what you set it to even when your tank starts running below your working pressure. This would mean that even though you we shooting a "high pressure" marker you would use it to the bottom of the tank. In order to do this you would have to have a fixed barrel but since everyone has to waist money on replacable barrels this thinking would have to change.

Trigger systems that would accomodate ALL of your fingers for "4 finger walking" pushing the fire power into the 30 BPS range.

Pre-load bolt systems that chamber the next round while you are firing the first elliminating ball feed lag.

Pressure feeding loaders that feed balls from anywhere into your flamethrower. OOPS we already have that, Warp Feeds....

Electronically timed millisecond on/off valves that would completely eliminate regulators. Lets see, we can take off the tank reg, then the vert reg and oh yea the LPR too. You would have to be ready to put all those manufacturers out of business.

Very high speed two shot bursts where the 2nd ball would draft close behind the first ball for greater accuracy. The first ball would disrupt the air column and leave behind a turbulent wake. The turbulence would disrupt the laminar flow that leads to vortex shedding on the 2nd ball. Disrupt the vortex and improve the accuracy.

No real gun with any state of the art firepower shoots from a clip. Clips are so 1900's. Real guns in all the worlds militaries use a belt feed from a huge magazine. We still love our cute little pods and hoppers and fashion matched pod belts so we look good when we are posing on the field. Maybe someday we will get with the program and use a backpack that could shoot a case of paint non stop. Oh yea, we have that right now too but no one wants it.

And last but not lease an electronically timed, high pressure marker without regulators could plug into a laptop, test itself and tell you exactly what's wrong with it.

This is just one possible reality, most likely not to be part of any of your futures. Have fun with your pods.

AGD

[f3rr3+]

the extra little stuff... i think all the basics are pretty much worked out... i really do hope im wrong tho

[Koosh]

They make concept cars in the auto industry... Why doesnt AGD try out a "concept gun"?

Of course there are millions upon billions of dollars at Ford, GM, and Daimler Chrysler's fingertips... if only it were at AGD's...

[Miscue]

Is there a commercially available backpack loader? I would LOVE to have one. Or, are there instructions on how to build one somewhere?

[NoFearPaintballer]

Originally posted by AGD

Trigger systems that would accomodate ALL of your fingers for "4 finger walking" pushing the fire power into the 30 BPS range.



Mr. kaye you can make alot of $$$ of that idea

no we need Xray vision goggs

[Python14]

Backpack loader would be cool. Especially for scenarios.

[Jonesie]

Originally posted by AGD
Run guns at much HIGHER pressures so you could make all the internal components smaller and more compact. This would lead to overall smaller guns with better efficiency.
Better efficiency means smaller tanks making the guns lighter and smaller overall.

I want this.


Originally posted by AGD
Built in crono's that maintain your velocity at exactly what you set it to even when your tank starts running below your working pressure. This would mean that even though you we shooting a "high pressure" marker you would use it to the bottom of the tank. In order to do this you would have to have a fixed barrel but since everyone has to waist money on replacable barrels this thinking would have to change.

And this...


Originally posted by AGD
Pre-load bolt systems that chamber the next round while you are firing the first elliminating ball feed lag.

And this...


Originally posted by AGD
Electronically timed millisecond on/off valves that would completely eliminate regulators. Lets see, we can take off the tank reg, then the vert reg and oh yea the LPR too. You would have to be ready to put all those manufacturers out of business.

This too!



Originally posted by AGD
And last but not lease an electronically timed, high pressure marker without regulators could plug into a laptop, test itself and tell you exactly what's wrong with it.



I'd LOVE to see this! :D

Seriously, I would love to see AGD put together a "concept" gun that would turn the paintball world on its head. The only problem is that with the current state of the industry, it would be deemed too radical and AGD would again be stuck with a bad stigma...

[hitech]

Originally posted by Miscue
Is there a commercially available backpack loader? I would LOVE to have one. Or, are there instructions on how to build one somewhere?

That was my first thought when I got a warp. I'm not sure how to get it to work at extreme angles. And I don't have enough discretionary funds. ;)

Tom, sorry I missed the what’s next at AGD talk. If I’d known I wouldn’t have them talk me out of coming by the hotel. ;)

[TraXeR]

I think the next technology SHOULD be a built in talking system in masks so teams don't have to yell and and exhaust themselves more than they need.

I think the new technology WILL be a faster shooting marker. As long as there's people who think ROF=win, ROF will increase. Really sad actually.

[Tyger]

Ok, lemme go see if I can find Sgt. Splatter's "Auto-Loto-Balls"....

EDIT : FOUND IT!!!

http://www.ussjustice.org/pastevents/2003/spplat/SergantSplatter-2.jpg

Stolen brazenly from : http://www.ussjustice.org/pastevents/2003/spplat.htm from SPPLAT Attack 2 :)

-Tyger

[NoFearPaintballer]

This is tech for agd
Software and cords to flash your own board and customize it!

[GT]

Originally posted by AGD
Trigger systems that would accomodate ALL of your fingers for "4 finger walking" pushing the fire power into the 30 BPS range.

that idea is ok. The problem here is trigger. I am still floored as to why we are still using a trigger. most finally tuned death machines have the trig set so light the weight of the trigger sets the gun off.

Why are we not using pressure sensitive pads in the grip frames instead of triggers?

[JuggaloDave]

Originally posted by NoFearPaintballer
This is tech for agd
Software and cords to flash your own board and customize it!

this has been addressed before. they run the risk of the flash stuff being altered by ppl and making they marker unsafe, plus, they prolly want to keep they software to themselves, cause god know what would happen if say, sp or the like got ahold of it.

[spantol]

Tom, with every last bit of due respect, there's a reason those notions are widespread--marketing. Similarly, there's only one way that those notions will ever be overturned--more marketing.

If you build it, and you properly market it, they will come. Indeed, the theme for such a campaign could very well be "Challenge your assumptions."

Aside from that, all of that stuff sounds good to me. Are you taking pre-orders?


Originally posted by AGD
Well if everyone were to suddenly give up their preconcieved notions of what is good and bad about a paintgun then this is what we could do NOW.

[JuggaloDave]

Originally posted by gtrsi


that idea is ok. The problem here is trigger. I am still floored as to why we are still using a trigger. most finally tuned death machines have the trig set so light the weight of the trigger sets the gun off.

Why are we not using pressure sensitive pads in the grip frames instead of triggers?

i would like to see something like this. like a tap screen, like they have compu screens at work that touch(heat) sensitive, only problem there would be gloves, and if you got the screen dirty, it could be to tempormental, but it would be vary cool

[Tyger]

Originally posted by gtrsi

Why are we not using pressure sensitive pads in the grip frames instead of triggers?

I think the old "Tournament" rules committee said that a button was prone to noise, and the rates of fire would be too dangerous.

Oh, wait....

Seriously, they were going to TRY a button trigger, it was nixed by rules committies for some reason. I might be right on too...

-Tyger

[Joni]

Originally posted by AGD
Built in crono's that maintain your velocity at exactly what you set it to even when your tank starts running below your working pressure. This would mean that even though you we shooting a "high pressure" marker you would use it to the bottom of the tank. In order to do this you would have to have a fixed barrel but since everyone has to waist money on replacable barrels this thinking would have to change.

Well, looks like it's already patented
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=3&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=paintball&s2=gardner&OS=paintball+AND+gardner&RS=paintball+AND+gardner

edit: I didn't even notice at first. It's a SP patent! :D

[luke]

Originally posted by AGD
Well

Run guns at much HIGHER pressures so you could make all the internal components smaller and more compact. This would lead to overall smaller guns with better efficiency.

Better efficiency means smaller tanks making the guns lighter and smaller overall.

Built in crono's that maintain your velocity at exactly what you set it to even when your tank starts running below your working pressure. This would mean that even though you we shooting a "high pressure" marker you would use it to the bottom of the tank. In order to do this you would have to have a fixed barrel but since everyone has to waist money on replacable barrels this thinking would have to change.

Trigger systems that would accomodate ALL of your fingers for "4 finger walking" pushing the fire power into the 30 BPS range.

Pre-load bolt systems that chamber the next round while you are firing the first elliminating ball feed lag.


Electronically timed millisecond on/off valves that would completely eliminate regulators. Lets see, we can take off the tank reg, then the vert reg and oh yea the LPR too. You would have to be ready to put all those manufacturers out of business.

Very high speed two shot bursts where the 2nd ball would draft close behind the first ball for greater accuracy. The first ball would disrupt the air column and leave behind a turbulent wake. The turbulence would disrupt the laminar flow that leads to vortex shedding on the 2nd ball. Disrupt the vortex and improve the accuracy.

No real gun with any state of the art firepower shoots from a clip. Clips are so 1900's. Real guns in all the worlds militaries use a belt feed from a huge magazine. We still love our cute little pods and hoppers and fashion matched pod belts so we look good when we are posing on the field. Maybe someday we will get with the program and use a backpack that could shoot a case of paint non stop. Oh yea, we have that right now too but no one wants it.

And last but not lease an electronically timed, high pressure marker without regulators could plug into a laptop, test itself and tell you exactly what's wrong with it.



AGD

Tom, I DARE YOU to build this gun! :D :cool: :p

[Toranaga]

Not to bring up an old topic, but I would be really interested to see why AGD hasn't created this marker, at least as a prototype/one time model.

If you could preove these claims for a good price then I think that people would slowly flock to AGD.

Thanks

[WicKeD_WaYz]

Originally posted by Toranaga

If you could preove these claims for a good price then I think that people would slowly flock to AGD.

Thanks

the key words there are good price. I think that would be hard to do at this point. Take an xmag, add all of the above mentioned things, alter the look some, and tell me you could slap a somewhat reasonable price on it. I highly doubt it. Plus if AGD decided to do this and mass produce this kind of marker, considering the high prices, it would be a big financial risk.

[Toranaga]

true, but the feeling I was getting fro mAGD in his statements was that this could be done for the same price we pay now for a good high end marker. Imean take the part about eliminating the regs, thats (excluding the mag) taking off 2 or 3 regs and hundreds of dollars. Also Im sure adding a 12 in piece of aluminum into the design plan of any marker wouldn't be that difficult (it seems to me that making the threads correct would be more difficult).

Also, what Tom said about electric valve, agian the feeling I was getting from Tom was that it would be a cheap or reasonably priced alternative.

I dunno, just rambling now.

[ramenjames]

Tom if you make that marker i would be the first to buy it

[Dryden]

Hmm, I think the most telling statement that everyone missed is this one.

Originally posted by AGD
This is just one possible reality, most likely not to be part of any of your futures. Have fun with your pods.

AGDIt is possible, but who is going to buy it?

With all due respect to all the members of AO, I expect Tom realized long ago that he and his staff can't make a living selling Warp Feeds to the same 100 customers over the Internet. :) There has to be something that's not just revolutionary, but looks sexy too.

My question, either for Tom or whoever, is why deal with compressed gases at all? If we eliminate the single most unpredictable element, and replace it with a constant, aren't we half-way to eliminating pressure constraints and flux in paintball velocities?

If a tool as tiny as a Dremel can achieve rotational speed of 35,000 RPM, why not use twin electric motors or a belt as both feeder and propulsion? I'm thinking of something on the scope of a pitching machine in batting cages and tennis courts. If these machines can hit 100mph+, what is the impediment to miniaturization for paintball use?

Again, drawing from the precedent of the Dremel as a model of size v. power - it can't be cost. Is it heat, noise, power source, etc?

[spantol]

If it worked as described, was priced competitively, looked pretty, and was marketed properly, who wouldn't buy one? I see far more pros than cons when comparing Tom's Gun-of-the-Future to the current market leaders.

Offhand, I would guess that the forces involved in the "pitching machine" design would be too much for a paintball, but I'll defer to someone that has done the math.

[Brophog]

Probably all those things.

First off, the air for the most part is not the problem, provided its regulated properly. I can get most of my markers +/- 2 with consistent paint on CO2. That's a deviation of a little more than 1% which to me is perfectly acceptable.

The balls are the number one element causing deviation, but lets look at your idea further as it has more uses than just consistency. The fact that you could go out there with perceivably less weight and play longer is a big plus in my book.

[WenULiVeUdiE]

Originally posted by Toranaga
true, but the feeling I was getting from AGD in his statements was that this could be done for the same price we pay now for a good high end marker.

From what I know about wholesale prices and business stuff this could probably be sold for a little more than Xmags. But some of these things that Tom has talked about like the sensors, is going to be on the Nerve, assuming it comes out. And sadly there is a patent on it currently :( . But forget the patents for the sake of this post. I dont think that it costs 1k to produce Xmags. If so AGD is very daring. I think it may cost around 500 or less to actually produce the gun. But this is one that Tom can step in on. He owns it so he would know for sure.


Andrew

[spantol]

I've just done some quick math here. It's been a long time since I've taken a kinematics class, so I've had to dumb this problem way down, possibly to the point where it's no longer appropriate. Someone please correct me if I'm way off.

It seems to me that one of the main hurdles here is going to be the amount of force that has to act on a ball. In the current system, the ball has forces pushing it the whole time it's in the barrel, say 8". If the ball were being propelled by a rotating motor, all of the force would have to be applied almost instantly, and over a much smaller distance. I'm going to call that 2" for no reason other than it makes the math easier. Again, this is one hell of an abstraction.

For a ball to accelerate to 91.44 m/s (300fps) in 8 inches, its average acceleration has to be 130.65 m/s^2. It'll do this in .350 seconds. Since Force equals mass times acceleration, the force acting on the ball, is 130.56m, where m is the mass of the ball.

For the ball to accelerate to that same speed in 2 inches, it's average acceleration has to be 2090 m/s^2, and it has to do that in .0437 seconds. That's sixteen times the force we're currently subjecting paintballs to.

Again, I'm using the most simplistic math possible, but I think it demonstrates that this is much easier said than done.



Originally posted by Dryden


If a tool as tiny as a Dremel can achieve rotational speed of 35,000 RPM, why not use twin electric motors or a belt as both feeder and propulsion? I'm thinking of something on the scope of a pitching machine in batting cages and tennis courts. If these machines can hit 100mph+, what is the impediment to miniaturization for paintball use?

[spantol]

...And I just realized that I screwed up the math. Stupid unit conversions. Redoing it now.

Still, way, way more force involved in the rotating motor case. :)

Edit:

8" distance yields an acceleration of 20574 m/s^2 in .0011s, 2" yields 82296m/s^2 in .0011s. Still a big difference.

[FreakBaller12]

with these motor ideas,
i would think we dont use them for 2 reasons
1. it would burn out to quickly, cuz of the high shot of bps, cuz then it could be endless high bps, and if the motor burned, it would not be pretty what it might do to your board if it is close by.
2.nitro and c02 can eb refilled easily, inexpensively, correct me if i am wrong, but isn't it one of the most abundant gases on earth?

[Brophog]

Sure, both the HPA and CO2 fills contain cheap and abundant gases, that's why we currently use them.

I agree that the biggest issue is acceleration on the ball. The expansion rates of CO2 and HPA are quite slow in comparison to the force we would need with a motor system.

What if we used a longer tube for acceleration though. Either further out the back of the marker, or down the barrel. After all, without the gases needing room to expand, the barrel's prime purpose is thwarted. I think we could use this distance as a runway of sorts.

My thought on that though is such an idea could cut down on cycle times a bit.

[spantol]

How are you proposing to start the ball moving? If it's from spinning disks, the ball stops accelerating as soon as it clears those disks. A longer barrel would mean that you'd need to be spinning those things even faster to make up for the energy you'd lose from friction. You can't use the barrel as a runway unless you have a force acting on the ball the whole way down.




Originally posted by Brophog
What if we used a longer tube for acceleration though. Either further out the back of the marker, or down the barrel. After all, without the gases needing room to expand, the barrel's prime purpose is thwarted. I think we could use this distance as a runway of sorts.

[Brophog]

Sure, sure. I agree, you couldn't use a "pitching machine" type setup if you were going to slowly accelerate the ball.

You'd probably need to use a plunger type system that would accelerate the ball down the length of several inches.

[Dryden]

All very good points.

My reasoning for thinking not to use compressed gas though is that it is dangerous, unpredictable, and the container is heavy.

I know a motor seems far fetched, but it's also not going to explode with 4500psi of force when it's 6 inches from your head.

I don't have any statistics to cite, but I speculate that a great number of paintball related injuries, after eye injuries and general sports injuries (e.g. sprained ankle, knees, etc) are caused by a mishandling of CA and CO2.

Now, as far as motors go, there is plenty of room to think outside of the box there too.

For example, when you're ready to play, you power the marker up. The motor has already achieved it's functional speed before you even hit the chrono. The firing mechanism doesn't 'fire' the marker as much as it 'nudges' a paintball into the already operating device.

Instead of a copper-coil motor, how about linear induction? Use magnets?

Thinking of the design of a pitching machine, what if the firing mechanism were several paddles on a rotating wheel, like a steam boat? Think of a lacrosse raquet, on full auto.

The more I think of the 'Dremel' motor, it doesn't work because of noise and vibration. I couldn't imagine holding what amounts to a power tool for hours on end.

I dunno. It just seems to me that if magnets can get a two-ton roller coaster car holding 40 people from 0-60 in one second, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure a way to propel a 1 oz paintball a few hundred feet! :)

[Brophog]

The fact the paintball weighs 3 grams and is so brittle is the problem.

With the roller coaster, you've got a lot of weight to move forward over the course of several feet, moving relatively slow (60 mph). The momentum of the car greatly assists you in this case once you get the car moving.

In the case of a paintball, we've got less than a foot to get a 3 gram object up to 300 ft/sec (204 mph). Since we have very little mass to work with, most of our force is coming from initial acceleration.

That's what spantol is alluding to. The force necessary to move the paintball 12 inches is very high. The chief problem here is not crushing the paintball.

[Woodsmen]

Originally posted by TraXeR
I think the next technology SHOULD be a built in talking system in masks so teams don't have to yell and and exhaust themselves more than they need.

They have the Sportz Com from JT; it has two plugs, one for the walkie-talkie and another for a Mp3. they are pretty tyte, you just have to watch the wire and make sure the plugs are in right.
http://store.yahoo.com/actionvillage/059-2100.html

but ya I think the next step will be promotional stuff to get more people playin, like cheaper paint or cheaper home setups for teams or clubs like filling stations or cheaper or easier course setups like sup' air

[Woodsmen]

if yall are talking bout what I think yall are then tippmann's flatline barrel does that, it gives the ball a back spin which is good so the ball kind of "rolls" off of leaves for scenario play and has longer range, but after a certain range the ball begins to rise, kind of sailing.
http://www.tippmann.com/systems/flatline.asp

but then again I might be totally off the subject

[TSalPaintball]

Flatlines suck, you can pretty much catch the ball in your hand by the time it gets to you. I have never had more bounces in my life then after the time I played with a guy who had a A-5 with a flatline. I would like to see smaller, higher pressure markers out there.

[WenULiVeUdiE]

I have played against and with a Flatline. And it is only an optical illusion that you can catch the ball. At the extreme distances you will get many bounces. But one if the reasons it seems to float and go very slow is that the ball is going very strait and isnt wobleing at all. So all you see is a non rotating sphere going through the air. This will give you the impression that it really is floating. But I may be wrong, but I dont think I am. But we odnt want to get into a flatline thing, its not worth it. But a high pressure gun that is smaller would be nicer.


Andrew

[member#10,261]

Originally posted by the_next_guy_
I would love to see my children play highschool paintball.

holy shnikies!

highschool paintball would be so dam fun, but unless it happens by spring I will never have a chance to do it (senior:D ) But I could always become a coach;)

[Zumina]

a mask HUD isn't that far away, http://www.motionresearch.com/products.htm

what it would display is the question.