An Interesting Thought on how to Control the ROF with Cheater Boards

[Python14]

Yea, If I'm just sitting around shooting, I can't really shoot that fast. But when I'm playing, and my blood is mostly Adrenlin, I can really rip. Also, I can shoot faster with a gun setup with a slightly longer trigger than most. Using the same gun with a longer trigger pull, I could shoot faster than most.

I think the only way to get around cheater boards is to just get the experts(not jim drew)and randomly audit any guns that the refs feel may be possibly cheating. Have the folks who know the electronics like they know their hands to load up the gun software and check it. If any gun is found to be "cheating" through this audit, then the entire team forfits the tournament. Just simply make the punishment so harsh that the crime is no longer worth the risk. Draconian law.

[Bucky]

Originally posted by decimator4
Well, I could be wrong, but wouldn't the adrenaline of play make u shoot faster on the feild?

just what i was going to say.

[paintball8869]

why not just make everyone use a revvy, then there's no problem becuase noone will be shooting above 11 bps

I'm still of the belief of "where there's a will, there's a way". Anyone of these rules can and will be broken in one form or another. I dont see the point of spending all this money to develop a technology to prevent cheater boards when everyone can cap their hoppers at say 12 bps, or use a similar hopper. No matter how much your gun bounces, the speed of the loader (12 bps as an example) is how fast you'll actually shoot.

[RobAGD]

Hell at this point I would just say go 15 SPS FA with a sound recorder. if the gun gets more than 15sps the team is given the determined penality.

I know I am one of those people that hwne you get me out actually playing I am way faster. Its a known joke at the field when people have see me in the shop shooting then see me play they think I have my gun set to FA

At this point just make it all FA, there isnt any shooting skill left any more its all about volume.

-Robert

[nerobro]

Well, I think audio would make it hard to single out one gun on the field.

Go ahead, train refs to "spot" really fast guns. Seeing someone with a "cheater" board isn't that hard. All I think we really need is a trigger output jack. heck it doesn't even need to be a jack, Just a contact on the outside of the gun.

If someone is thought to be cheating, a $5 device could be rigged up that would count gun cycles, and using a governing body determined debouce setting, debounce and count shots.

it would be cheap to start, cheap to enforce, and easy to enforce.

the jack and wires could be installed by the average inept paintball tech. And because it would lead directly to the trigger switch, (or output line on a HES or eye) you'd get raw trigger data, untainted by boards software.

Basicly you'd be enforcing a mandated debounce level. So if there is a guy or two who can get 20bps, they get to keep it.

[thecavemankevin]

how about this, or for big events anyways.

get some form of camera and atatch it to random players barrels. that way the audiance can enjoy a barrel view up on the jumbo tron and this camera can also monitor the bps. if it goes up to an alarming amount have the reff check the board.

kill two birds with one stone, catch cheaters and give spectators a real neat and unique view of the field.

[Mango]

I'm with magman007, have bluetooth enabeled boards or some other wireless techology and a central computer with each player on the field marked. The bluetooth could transmit when each board is in use and the rof at that moment in real time. It's not impossible with todays technology. Then you could just look at a realtime list of each person and whats going on. If need be, the refs could shut down everyone on the field, etc.

[Aegis]

Golf has the "Iron Byron", which can swing a club at exactly the same speed through the same path time after time. It is used to compare clubs.

How about a paintball equivalent, a machine that can pull at a certain rate and measure shots vs. trigger pulls.

[dinger]

**WHOOSH**

is the sound that was made when that went right over my head

[Blazingace]

There would have to be a variance to it. I know that when I play I shoot faster than justmessing over the chrono. Adrenaline jacks up my rate, not some stupid gun cheat.

[felony]

Originally posted by paintball8869
why not just make everyone use a revvy, then there's no problem becuase noone will be shooting above 11 bps

I'm still of the belief of "where there's a will, there's a way". Anyone of these rules can and will be broken in one form or another. I dont see the point of spending all this money to develop a technology to prevent cheater boards when everyone can cap their hoppers at say 12 bps, or use a similar hopper. No matter how much your gun bounces, the speed of the loader (12 bps as an example) is how fast you'll actually shoot.

Affirmitive..

I agree

I like

Makes sense..

No company would let it happen though.. everyones gonna make the money.. greedy people suck

[SeeK]

Stealth assassin, I've been advocating limited paint format for years. It would make budgeting for tourneys easy and allow sponsors to know how much the would need to spend for a tourney among other benefits.

I think nerobro is more on the right track. It's impratical to build any system into current guns because what do you do to guns that aren't electro?

What I'm proposing is a marker Black box.

The device would need to use two audio triggers because it's the easiest to fit on to any marker. The output sound of the attached marker could be recorded before start. Even if one mic picked up other sounds the amplitude and magnatude of the sound event would be a signature of the marker and they should be equal on both mics. This should be consistent throughout all ROFs. Even if it did pick up stray sounds it would not match unless you put the other barrel right up against it.

I'm no electronics expert but it shouldn't be hard to build a small recorder for 2 channels and a timer for about 30 minutes of data. Maybe it will use a beam interruption system or beam reflecting (although we still have problems trying to detect things bouncing off of paintballs). How about a micro RF inferrential system that detects a mass passing through just to be exotic?

The only thing you need to record is either a timestamp and the event or continually record the audio. Wireless monitoring would be nice but just increase the power requirements and complexity. The data could then be returned to the judges for computer processing similar to a Holter monitor to record cardiac events. You could do wireless transmission of the sound but then you run into problems of 10 people per field multiplied by many fields.

You could then write the software to spot sustained ROFs beyond a threshold that seemed reasonable (ie hitting 16 bps for 2 or 3 seconds consistently would be impossible but maybe 16 bps for a second would be possible).

Since you have all of the data you could review all of the shooting patterns and even graph it for everybody to see.

This would also lead to quantifying player characteristics and the start of player stats. Now you have ROF and efficiency (shots per elimination) that you could use to compare one player against another. This is what TV viewers would be looking for to follow certain players through team changes.

[nerobro]

Mechanical guns don't have the ability to "add shots" each shot with a mechanical gun DOES require a trigger movement. And checking a RT for f/a is a very simple task indeed.

[magmonkey]

as long as they record the owner of the marker shooting it over the chrono and not the ref i think it is fine
it would be a cap but not in the general terms if you can shoot 18bps over the chrono with a board that is not cheating feel free to do it on the field but if you cant at the chrono then why were you able to on the field

it is kind of like bracket racing
beat your opponent without beating your own time


I love the blue tooth idea it would make things easy, but you would have to align an entire industry that can't even make up its mind on barrel threading

I get checked ALL the time for fa on my emag the board is semi only it is just that i am really used to the trigger

[Duke Henry]

It really depends on what the sport is trying to become. If Paintball is trying to become a better "Extreme" sport or fringe sport or whatever, then I would argue that using standardized equipment is not a good idea.

However, if the goal is to become something that appeals to everyone (i.e. a sport that most people can pickup from the masses) - standardized equipment is an interesting idea that I have thought of in the past which should eliminate this problem.

People have been making the point that players will argue that they won't feel "used" to their guns, and won't be comfortable using something "foreign", etc. Now, I understand this argument, but I disagree. When we see teams switching gear when they get new sponsorship, where is their argument? Furthermore, I would argue that the majority of players at the "upper" levels should be able to reach a base familiarity with any marker - given the time to practice and play with such gear.

I really believe that using standardized equipment is the way to go to eliminate this problem of cheater boards. For example, if we used the Emag as an example, you could allow the teams to adjust the trigger in whatever way they want, and just to be sure you could consider flashing the board with new software just in case someone messes with the board. However, I think this is a bit much, and should only be done if someone is found messing with the board.

Standardized equipment is the way to go. I am sure I am in the minority here, but it helps to level the playing field between cheaters and non-cheaters.