How much is too much

[ogre55]

So I have been thinking about the sheer density that is 20 BPS and to be honest I don't know if it's a bit of overkill.

Many if not all of us have seen the footage of the Lvl 10 E-Mag with the Richochet or HALO pumping out 20 BRS without a chop and empying the loader in less than 15 seconds. I have yet to see anyone try to use that kind of firepower on the field, and most fields do not allow people to go FA, but with the capability out there, sooner or later, they will.

Just to give an example of what 20 BPS is, it is 1200 balls per minute, a cyclic rate that rivals gatling style miniguns. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, miniguns are the super rapid firing, six barrel guns that Jesse Ventura carried in the movie Predator, and more recently, that you saw used out of the sides of helicopters in Black Hawk Down.

I have been under fire by multiple guns blasting away at 6, 8 or even 10 BPS and while expending loads of paint, I don't think they had much of chance to blast through the barricade I was behind.

So I ask, my fellow paintballers, at what point do you go from the useful to the superfluous, 6 BPS, 8, 15...

[Krazy Ivan]

I had to go with 15. Not really the excessive point, but 20 is a little too excessive. I'd say 17+ is excessive, because with that much paint being thrown your not going to hit anything better, but rather just make the opposition stay down. However would they really stay down longer than if your ripping at 8, or 10 bps? no, because it's still bps, a second doesn't change.

[personman]

Well, full auto 20 bps is crazy, but imagine what kind of snap shot action you could get with 20 bps on 3 rnd burst?

[TransMan]

Hmmm i think FA is not needed and anything over 15 is too much bt if im not mistaken Mini guns Shoot A LOT faster than 20 RPS.

[Jonno06]

15 is too much........

[marley618]

I think 15 is the limit for me. I can see somone shooting 15bps on the break if they are a back player. After that its just a waste of paint.

[RusskiX]

I don't think the question is what BPS is enough. Its all relative compared to what the other guy is shooting. When pumps started mass production, all the PGP and splatmasters were put to shame. When blowback semis became popular, the pump crowd thought it was overkill. Now electros are making the mechanical crowd wonder what limit should be placed on BPS.

The arms race is just a natural outgrowth of the technological advances made in the last 15 years. What ROF is enough? Whatever rate gives me an edge over the other guy! All things being equal, I have as much fun playing with Splatmasters as with my Autococker and Mag, as long as everyone is equally matched.

Just my $0.02

[SlartyBartFast]

If you are talking about continuous fire, I have to say even at 6 BPS you're just wasting paint.

In use as 3-round bursts, 15 or 20 BPS may indeed be a good thing.

Might be interesting to look at the reasons that most army training uses three round bursts. Isn't the M-16 and other American and NATO weapons limited to this in full-auto?

Part of the reason was simply conservation of ammunition, but wasn't part of it also linked to accuracy and probability of hitting target?

[CleenSweep]

15bps full auto is way to much. If you can pull the trigger snap shooting that fast...fine. But just pulling a trigger and shooting 15-20 (I've seen it done) is out of control.

Can you say bonus balls

[ogre55]

I can think of two ways to measure. 1) Running through or dodging paint. I have dodged single balls flying at me from across field. But having 5-10 balls flying at me it would be impossible. So when does it become impossible to avoid the paint? 5 balls, 10? Also, how thick does a stream of paint have to be to make sure that anyone running through it will be hit? Due to the slow speed of paintballs, compared to bullets, in order to hit a moving target at more than 20-30 feet you have to lead your target. Much easier to just send a stream of balls in front of your target and let your opponent run through it. What rate of fire assures that your target will be hit? I don't think anyone can run through a line of paint more than 8 BPS.

2) Intimidation. This is much simpler. Keeping your target down is important even if you don't hit him. So at what point does your target just not care how much paint you can throw? I usually use controlled bursts of 3-6 balls to keep an opponent down effectivly.

[Fanatic]

well here is my point
20 bps IS a waste of paint IF your shooting the heck off a bunker at fully auto to keep someone down.
As for the burst opinion earlier, 20bps is just not a limit but i would have to say, almost a must. I feel that when i want to shoot at a target, i would never try to unload 20 shots but a short burst of shot at 20ROF as to BPS. Thats sounds a bit weird, but i feel the faster rate of fire(ROF) to those burst shots tightens the string and increases the accuracy.(cycling the shots with min. shoot down)

I think the question should be that of rate of fire. The faster your marker cycles to put that next ball into the breach the better....

....thats just my experience

[Wheelman]

Re: How much is too much

Originally posted by ogre55
Just to give an example of what 20 BPS is, it is 1200 balls per minute, a cyclic rate that rivals gatling style miniguns

I think that the cyclic rate of a minigun is closer to 6000rpm, but I could be wrong.

[ogre55]

Cyclic rates

Originally posted by Wheelman



I think that the cyclic rate of a minigun is closer to 6000rpm, but I could be wrong.

You are not wrong. The cyclic rates for miniguns are adjustable from as low as 300 to as high as 6000.

My bad.

[CRiZO]

I agree with it being all about fair competition, personally, if both me and some other guy were both capable of 20 bps, it would be awesome, imagine the intesity of the game. The thing that would keep it from ever really being fair, is $$. For those of us who have to pay full price for paint, it racks up quickly. Whoever has more money can shoot more, that simple. Soon major paintball tourneys will have subclasses, like auto races, that way its still competiton about skill and not all the machine.

Pro > semi-mech
Pro > semi-electro
Pro > too much paint
Pro > ghetto

[TransMan]

I wouldnt mind seeing sub classes but instead of limiting it to only one type of gun it should be more like this:
PRO-Anything Goes
PRO-Semi any gun
PRO-Semi mechanical
and so forth so that if you had a semi mech you would still be able to compete with electros if you wanted to or just have limits on how much paint you can carry in each class like this:
PRO-200 balls a game
PRO-500 balls a game
PRO-1000 balls a game
and so forth so that players would have to limit there selves.