Wow! NXL set BPS limit

[Miscue]

The NPPL is not nearly as strict on gun enforcement as they would lead people to believe with their press releases. They are way more strict than they used to be, but there's still a major gap in testing and enforcement.

A board with cheater software that switches into an illegal mode when a secret code is tapped on the trigger (like hold down the trigger 2 seconds, release, fire one quick shot, then hold down two seconds again) and then reverts back to the legal mode when it hasn't been fired for some amount of time like 20 seconds or so (or even less, like 5 seconds.) By the time it's been carried off-field to test it will be back to legal operation.

Clap on. Clap off. Clap on, clap off. The Clapper.

[billmi]

Clap on. Clap off. Clap on, clap off. The Clapper.

My wife is devious.

A few years back I'd toyed with a voice recognition circuit, with the plans of putting it in a friend's Shocker so that he could turn it on or off under voice command - like voice print ID. Since I'd be writing the software to controll it, I could theoretically have it ramp velocity on voice command by increasing dwell time - and since the refs didn't have the same voice they wouldn't be able to repeat it at the chrono - this was back when chronoing was done after the game with the big red chronos.

Dawn pointed out a more clever plan. Have it shoot hot, unless it heard the "Beeeep" sound from the chrono, then it would drop the dwell for the next 20 shots. The first shot off was considered a "clearing shot" and didn't count against you under the rules, so the first shot would be hot, then the ones that count would be legal.

She's a tricky girl.

[Miscue]

Problem is slowing down a mechanical gun but still keeping up with electros. With an electronic gun, you can say, "do not allow this gun to shoot faster than 15bps, but let it shoot exactly 15bps" in the code and if written well, it will do just that. I can not tell my finger the same:)

So, what they are doing (and it's not like any one would use one any way), is eliminating the ability to use a mechanical marker in a game without the fear of being penalized.

I think they should make this rule not apply to mechs. The purpose of this rule is to calm down electronic markers - mechs aren't the problem.

A 15bps cap means, you can use a nice mech and have very little disadvantage if any. I prefer them over electronic markers, but it's a disadvantage against 20+ bps electros.

[Miscue]

My wife is devious.

A few years back I'd toyed with a voice recognition circuit, with the plans of putting it in a friend's Shocker so that he could turn it on or off under voice command - like voice print ID. Since I'd be writing the software to controll it, I could theoretically have it ramp velocity on voice command by increasing dwell time - and since the refs didn't have the same voice they wouldn't be able to repeat it at the chrono - this was back when chronoing was done after the game with the big red chronos.

Dawn pointed out a more clever plan. Have it shoot hot, unless it heard the "Beeeep" sound from the chrono, then it would drop the dwell for the next 20 shots. The first shot off was considered a "clearing shot" and didn't count against you under the rules, so the first shot would be hot, then the ones that count would be legal.

She's a tricky girl.

That's a lot of work!

I was thinking about one of those wrist watch remote controls, and put a hidden IR receiver on the marker. Turn on cheating = push the power button! Higher bps = turn up the volume! It would be merely for demonstration purposes: "This is what you're up against - fix the rules/procedures!" I like the idea of a standardized BPS cap that they can enforce.

[billmi]

I think they should make this rule not apply to mechs. The purpose of this rule is to calm down electronic markers - mechs aren't the problem.

A 15bps cap means, you can use a nice mech and have very little disadvantage if any. I prefer them over electronic markers, but it's a disadvantage against 20+ bps electros.

The problem with applying the cap to electronics only, is then not only does the ref on the sideline weilding the parabolic mic and the radar gun have to check ROF and bps, but now he has to spot from that distance the type of gun, etc. It's easier and more even, to make the same rule apply to everyone.

Personally I'd love to see a league where there were things like full auto with one bps and rof cap, semi with another, and 12 gram powered getting the highest fps limit - so you start building specific guns to max out their capabilities for different positions on the field. Major pain in the butt for enforcement, and something that I don't think any league out there is right for now, but I think it would push things to where the team airsmiths were also critical players on the team. That or something like fps matching with weight ratios of the gun - so super-milled down 12 gram guns would have the most range, but the heavy hitters with more air and ammo could spray out more paint, but not as far.

[AGD]

We are waisting time discussing this rule, we should be thinking about the next way to cheat. If we are the first to use the new cheating methods we will win and after a few years it will be legal anyway.

SO lets see...

Microphone/speaker in the grip that puts out an inverted sound wave to cancel the nose of the gun firing. If the refs mikes cant hear anything you can shoot as fast as you want!

Well if they notice there is no noise, you could always produce false noise bursts to bridge the gap between shots.

If that sounds strange you could just noise cancel the shots ABOVE 15 bps.

Or how about an echo chamber built around the barrel that smooths out the shot noise into so low a frequency that it cant read it properly?

Oh here is another one! A microphone in the handle of each gun listens to your teamates guns firing and syncronizes the shots. ALL guns on our team shoot at the same moment and hence the judges cant identify individual players.

lower the velocity on the gun every other shot so the judges mike doesnt hear the extra shots.

Put out high frequency bursts of noise while your firing so the ref sees you shooting 100 bps on his equipment. THEN YOU GET TO ARGUE WITH THE REF THAT HIS EQUIPMENT IS FAULTY! Got to love that one, you get to cheat and ***** at the same time!

Tune your barrel to sound like a ball bouncing off a bunker. That way you can blame it on the other team! "Judge you were reading the bunker you idiot!"

In the last seconds of the game have your buddies in the stands jump up and start screaming with noisemakers that simulate guns shots. Let your teams guns rip at any rate to win the game.

Use the gun timing to short stroke the bolt every other time and NOT load a ball. Shoot the gun at 30 CPS but only fire 15 BPS. Go up to the crono and demonstrate this for the judge and tell him "my gun just sounds funny but this is how it shoots 15 BPS" Go on the field and let em rip, they will never figure it out.


Soon to be taking orders on my new book "Tom Kayes Guide to Tech Cheats" on Amazon.com

AGD

[1ofkind]

^^^^^^^^^^

Wow... AGD... wow





Anyway I like this rule, I was starting to lose faith in fair compention thinking all the players in the upper divisons used "cheater's boards". I'll tell my friend to hold off on the new chip for his alais timmy because it only goes up to 15 bps, it makes him sad tho .

[Digits]

Brilliant! I feel like cheating now.. but meh I doubt this will pass around anywhere else other then the NXL.. I mean ramping and all that crap has been legal in the NXL for a little while now but the NPPL won't even allow 3-5 extra shots out of 30.

[Miscue]

We are waisting time discussing this rule, we should be thinking about the next way to cheat. If we are the first to use the new cheating methods we will win and after a few years it will be legal anyway.

SO lets see...

Microphone/speaker in the grip that puts out an inverted sound wave to cancel the nose of the gun firing. If the refs mikes cant hear anything you can shoot as fast as you want!

Well if they notice there is no noise, you could always produce false noise bursts to bridge the gap between shots.

If that sounds strange you could just noise cancel the shots ABOVE 15 bps.

Or how about an echo chamber built around the barrel that smooths out the shot noise into so low a frequency that it cant read it properly?

Oh here is another one! A microphone in the handle of each gun listens to your teamates guns firing and syncronizes the shots. ALL guns on our team shoot at the same moment and hence the judges cant identify individual players.

lower the velocity on the gun every other shot so the judges mike doesnt hear the extra shots.

Put out high frequency bursts of noise while your firing so the ref sees you shooting 100 bps on his equipment. THEN YOU GET TO ARGUE WITH THE REF THAT HIS EQUIPMENT IS FAULTY! Got to love that one, you get to cheat and ***** at the same time!

Tune your barrel to sound like a ball bouncing off a bunker. That way you can blame it on the other team! "Judge you were reading the bunker you idiot!"

In the last seconds of the game have your buddies in the stands jump up and start screaming with noisemakers that simulate guns shots. Let your teams guns rip at any rate to win the game.

Use the gun timing to short stroke the bolt every other time and NOT load a ball. Shoot the gun at 30 CPS but only fire 15 BPS. Go up to the crono and demonstrate this for the judge and tell him "my gun just sounds funny but this is how it shoots 15 BPS" Go on the field and let em rip, they will never figure it out.


Soon to be taking orders on my new book "Tom Kayes Guide to Tech Cheats" on Amazon.com

AGD

Ha, I was thinking a lot of the same stuff. We'll have to see how they actually implement their solution. Then you can figure out better what the limitations are of the system, and exploit them.

What a microphone detects is not proof that a particular marker was fired. There is competing sound on the field and off the field. I don't care how supposedly good this microphone could be. I find it similar to the idea of a lie detector/stress test - you may have a read-out, but can you really conclude anything?

Another thing is: Creating additional sound when an opponent is being sound checked, incriminating him - maybe by shooting his bunker, which makes a lot of noise. "Why is everybody shooting that one guy's bunker? Whoa, he got pulled for shooting over 15bps!"

And I seriously doubt that they'll have one mic per person, they don't even have one ref per person. It becomes a matter of keeping track of where the microphone is.

Then, if he's on you - shut off your hopper. Dry fire at some crazy speed, like mentioned. He can't call you on shooting 20, when the thing also registered 40+ - which is a bogus bps.

Off the break, everyone is shooting fast, everyone relatively close together - you can't tell one marker from another.

Shoot your bunker in front of you! Two sounds, one shot! Lower your dwell to purposely shoot slow, so there is more time in between the shot and hitting the bunker.

I'm pretty sure that there are so many situations where this device would have faulty read outs, everyone would be aware of this, nobody would trust it, and argue that they are reading 15+ bps because the device is imperfect - and there is truth in it. I can almost guarantee if they use this type of device, there will be ongoing controversy when any decisions are made based on what the device detects.

[billmi]

Soon to be taking orders on my new book "Tom Kayes Guide to Tech Cheats" on Amazon.com

AGD

So where's this been the last umpteen years that you could have been putting radar signal generators in guns to give a false 300 fps reading on doppler radar?

[billmi]

Brilliant! I feel like cheating now.. but meh I doubt this will pass around anywhere else other then the NXL.

PSP is considering it, pending it being shown that the on-field monitoring equipment can be developed to a point where it is reliable.

I mean ramping and all that crap has been legal in the NXL for a little while now

NXL has never allowed ramping until this last event. Teams cheated and got away with it because the NXL did not have good off field testing, and had no method for checking firing modes on field, so players were able to cheat by using hidden methods to activate ramping modes on field, even if there gun were to be checked off-field.

but the NPPL won't even allow 3-5 extra shots out of 30.

NPPL has a very good system for checking gun operation off field. However, it doesn't scan gun software for hidden modes. It can only test the mode the gun is in when it is set on the test stand. It's a huge leap forward in rule enforcement, because it allows a standardized test for things like physical trigger bounce, or overly reactive triggers, or velocity ramping caused by the way regulators interact (like on the Automag RT.) That's all something that had not been standardized in the past and ended up largely to a referee's opinion, that would vary from referee to referee, and from event to event. The testing they are doing should be in place in most serious leagues.

The NPPL has no system in place to catch players who switch into illegal modes on the field by a hidden means. So while ramping is not legal there either, they are much in the same position the NXL was - with no way to see if players have a gun that is ramping shots during a game.

[MikeRosenthal]

Unless the testing staff has the ability to verify what software is loaded into the circuit board (not practical under current market and technology conditions)

I've been wondering myself why this hasn't been instituted yet.

My Solution would be this. Every electronic board needs a port that allows its ROM image to be read out to the testing device. All makers of electronic boards must submit ROM images to the Ruling Body for testing. Once an image is "VERIFIED" a MD5 signature is generated from the image. At tournament day either your ROM image matches one of the signatures in the Ruling body's database or you sit your *** out.

THis would require practically no investment from board makers since the technology is already on the boards. THey just need to make it easier to get to the port.

Alternatively the board makers could move to Removeable BIOS chips ala Motherboards.

At Game Day you hand in your marker, they put in a pre-approved BIOS chip. And off you go.

Thoughts?

[hitech]

The cheater boards would just be external then. They provide trigger "inputs" to cause the marker to fire.