I can tell you right now that a reduction in FPS across the board will have a lot of people angry. Here's why:
My local field changed over it's airball course to a plywood-and-nails CQB bunkerfest arrangement. It's all doors and windows, angles and walls. In the process of doing this they dropped the FPS limit to 240 - the reasoning being that because it's all much closer up fighting, having a lower energy on the paintballs will help prevent injury. The owners a very safety-minded individual, and I can't blame him - nobody wants to get sued because some kid got hurt at their field.
However, 240 FPS sucks. Markers wern't designed for it, velocity spikes are much more problematic at that speed, and it's generally hard to keep everyone shooting below that level. Most paintguns are meant to operate at a certain FPS, with some variation so you can tune in barrel lengths, paint-to-barrel matches, atmospheric conditions, etc.
Most markers are meant to shoot 280 FPS or 300 FPS. 240 is a fairly extreme drop - so much so that most of the markers at my local field need overhauls to shoot at that speed. Spyders need different mainsprings, automags need to rebalance their mainsprings and LX carriers, tippmanns sometimes need new mainsprings and have recocking issues, it's a pain in the rear. The angels and shockers that show up at the field from time to time have major dropoff, shootdown, shootup, and inconsistancy issues as well. One fellow that had come up from florida (I think) could *not* get his shocker to drop velocity down below 260 FPS, no matter what he did to adjust it. He ended up using a rental tippmann for the day - a humbling experience for an advanced player.
The physics at that speed are also drasticly different. I don't know what the dimensions of a regular airball course is, but on this field you'd be hard pressed to reach end-to end at 240 FPS, much less corner-to-corner. Ball drop is really noticible, especialy because all the windows are cut at the same height. People who are used to 300 FPS will try and shoot 240 FPS and have a hard time adjusting to the trajectory. Shooting the course at 240 FPS and 300 FPS yields a different game - shots that arn't possible at 240 FPS are at 300. Lanes that can be held tight at 300 FPS end up having a huge spread pattern at 240 FPS. The ballistics are different and it takes away a lot of the consistancy and accuracy that you get at 280-300 FPS. Lobbing balls sucks.
Another issue is paint breakage. Breaks just don't occur as often at lower speeds than at higher ones. Yes, up close you're going to see 230 or 220 FPS at impact, but when you try for midrange or longer shots you have to really pepper a person to get one to break on anything but gear or mask. Get used to that sort of effect on a field and you'll see overshooting at every range - because the balls just don't break. Another thing to think of is the increased tissue damage caused - yes, the balls are going at a lower speed, but bounces transfer a great deal more energy to the person, so it's the same effect as being hit full speed up close and having it break.
My take on safety organizations and standards is that unless one regulating body steps up and sets for safe operating limits, and then requires insurance companies to require those limits to be enforced at the fields they insure, then nobody will accomplish anything. Local fields, especially up here in Maine, are divided on what "acceptable safe practices" are. My local field, which will sit you down for a half-hour for the first mask lift, runs strict rules and harsh (fair) penalties. A large amount of the other local fields have rather lax rules, and while I don't want to point specifics out, barrel plugs, chrony speeds, and mask use isn't strictly enforced and most violations result in warnings. I havn't visited every field in the area, and everybody has their up days and down days, but I don't see the kind of consistancy from one place to the next that an overseeing organization would enforce.
My local field changed over it's airball course to a plywood-and-nails CQB bunkerfest arrangement. It's all doors and windows, angles and walls. In the process of doing this they dropped the FPS limit to 240 - the reasoning being that because it's all much closer up fighting, having a lower energy on the paintballs will help prevent injury. The owners a very safety-minded individual, and I can't blame him - nobody wants to get sued because some kid got hurt at their field.
However, 240 FPS sucks. Markers wern't designed for it, velocity spikes are much more problematic at that speed, and it's generally hard to keep everyone shooting below that level. Most paintguns are meant to operate at a certain FPS, with some variation so you can tune in barrel lengths, paint-to-barrel matches, atmospheric conditions, etc.
Most markers are meant to shoot 280 FPS or 300 FPS. 240 is a fairly extreme drop - so much so that most of the markers at my local field need overhauls to shoot at that speed. Spyders need different mainsprings, automags need to rebalance their mainsprings and LX carriers, tippmanns sometimes need new mainsprings and have recocking issues, it's a pain in the rear. The angels and shockers that show up at the field from time to time have major dropoff, shootdown, shootup, and inconsistancy issues as well. One fellow that had come up from florida (I think) could *not* get his shocker to drop velocity down below 260 FPS, no matter what he did to adjust it. He ended up using a rental tippmann for the day - a humbling experience for an advanced player.
The physics at that speed are also drasticly different. I don't know what the dimensions of a regular airball course is, but on this field you'd be hard pressed to reach end-to end at 240 FPS, much less corner-to-corner. Ball drop is really noticible, especialy because all the windows are cut at the same height. People who are used to 300 FPS will try and shoot 240 FPS and have a hard time adjusting to the trajectory. Shooting the course at 240 FPS and 300 FPS yields a different game - shots that arn't possible at 240 FPS are at 300. Lanes that can be held tight at 300 FPS end up having a huge spread pattern at 240 FPS. The ballistics are different and it takes away a lot of the consistancy and accuracy that you get at 280-300 FPS. Lobbing balls sucks.
Another issue is paint breakage. Breaks just don't occur as often at lower speeds than at higher ones. Yes, up close you're going to see 230 or 220 FPS at impact, but when you try for midrange or longer shots you have to really pepper a person to get one to break on anything but gear or mask. Get used to that sort of effect on a field and you'll see overshooting at every range - because the balls just don't break. Another thing to think of is the increased tissue damage caused - yes, the balls are going at a lower speed, but bounces transfer a great deal more energy to the person, so it's the same effect as being hit full speed up close and having it break.
My take on safety organizations and standards is that unless one regulating body steps up and sets for safe operating limits, and then requires insurance companies to require those limits to be enforced at the fields they insure, then nobody will accomplish anything. Local fields, especially up here in Maine, are divided on what "acceptable safe practices" are. My local field, which will sit you down for a half-hour for the first mask lift, runs strict rules and harsh (fair) penalties. A large amount of the other local fields have rather lax rules, and while I don't want to point specifics out, barrel plugs, chrony speeds, and mask use isn't strictly enforced and most violations result in warnings. I havn't visited every field in the area, and everybody has their up days and down days, but I don't see the kind of consistancy from one place to the next that an overseeing organization would enforce.
we should only make cars that go 65 mph and have huge oarnge bumpers and strobe lights so that pedistrians dont get hurt. Have how many pedistrian get KILLED every year?
BTW, I know how to build a cheater board for an eMag that isn't even connected to the emags circuit board. 
. Then you will see them all come crawling back to mags 
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