What are you looking for in future advancements...

[RRfireblade]

Someone makes a thread like this every year and every year later markers get smaller , lighter and faster for less money so...

Efficiency will get better but only to the point that there is a physical limit as to how little air will get a paintball up tp 300 fps.

Therefore....

Markers will continue to get smaller , lighter , (theoretically) faster , more efficient and cost less overall.

Long term will get you to smaller integrated loaders and air systems and more advanced electronic packages.

IMO.

[the mag guy]

I can tell you where the air side of paintball will eventually end up. I know a lot of you wont think this is true, but do yuor researched before you pick me apart.

CO2 will be gone, Nitro with a few exceptions will be gone. Propane is the future.
Hear me out:

If you had the same size propane tank as the generic 20 oz co2 tank, the propane tank would allow up to 50,000 shots per fill. 50,000!

Guns can now be lighter because the tank size can be reduced to hardly anything if you want to keep about a 2,000 shot fill tank.

The only reason I can't see Nitro/Comp. Air going away is because propane is very low pressure. Guns like ours (the mags owners and other HP markers) would not even think about operating on such low pressures of propane.

What to expect from this? When the wave catches on, the LP industry will start booming again. But this time when they say LP they mean it. I expect to see many more markers coming out powered by propane.

This wont be an overnight thing. Im gonna say give it 3-5 years tops before you see where some of the tings I'm describing.

As for those worried about shooting so mast it would ignite ythe propane...do your research plz before you post something like that.

The only thing I can see that would be something to consider is playing indoors in large groups with propane. 20+ people playing all shooting propane. thats a lot of gas in the air. With proper ventillation though, it would work fine.

Tippmann has already leaned towards this venture and produced a propane marker. ITs actually rather impressive.

Now another way to go is with Helium. pretty much the same thing, but a bit more efficient.
Please dont just bash this post w/o doin a bit of research. I'm serious, this is where we are ehading folks. Unless some crazy propane disaster kills the movement.

[BigEvil]

With the intergration of Blue Tooth technology into a new and more powerful generation of paintball controller boards, I would like to see fields and tournaments have to ability to "Spot-Flash" players markers with approved software. This would help limit cheater codes and hidden modes. (of course it would open up a whole new world of ways to try to get around it)

I also think that many of the adults who are avid players and have been turned off by the punk- speedball mentality will continue to migrate to scenario/woodsball and pump.

I dont think pump will ever make a HUGE comeback, but it may get trendy for a while.

Re-ball for indoors is fine, but who is going to go rake them up outside?

[y0da900]

I can tell you where the air side of paintball will eventually end up. I know a lot of you wont think this is true, but do yuor researched before you pick me apart.

CO2 will be gone, Nitro with a few exceptions will be gone. Propane is the future.
Hear me out:

If you had the same size propane tank as the generic 20 oz co2 tank, the propane tank would allow up to 50,000 shots per fill. 50,000!

Guns can now be lighter because the tank size can be reduced to hardly anything if you want to keep about a 2,000 shot fill tank.

The only reason I can't see Nitro/Comp. Air going away is because propane is very low pressure. Guns like ours (the mags owners and other HP markers) would not even think about operating on such low pressures of propane.

What to expect from this? When the wave catches on, the LP industry will start booming again. But this time when they say LP they mean it. I expect to see many more markers coming out powered by propane.

This wont be an overnight thing. Im gonna say give it 3-5 years tops before you see where some of the tings I'm describing.

As for those worried about shooting so mast it would ignite ythe propane...do your research plz before you post something like that.

The only thing I can see that would be something to consider is playing indoors in large groups with propane. 20+ people playing all shooting propane. thats a lot of gas in the air. With proper ventillation though, it would work fine.

Tippmann has already leaned towards this venture and produced a propane marker. ITs actually rather impressive.

Now another way to go is with Helium. pretty much the same thing, but a bit more efficient.
Please dont just bash this post w/o doin a bit of research. I'm serious, this is where we are ehading folks. Unless some crazy propane disaster kills the movement.

The Tippmann actually relies on the combustion of the propane, and that is where the 50,000 shot estimate comes from. Simply relying on the expansion of propane due to to a pressure gradient and absorption of energy from outside it's container (ambient temperature, and or heating elements of some design) like we do with CO2, I highly doubt could approach anything even remotely close to that. A set volume of liquid propane will expand to a gas with a specific amount of energy (pressure and volume).

At 80 degrees fahreneit, propane only has a vapor pressure of 128PSIG, CO2 has a vapor pressure of roughly 950PSIG at the same temperature.

Don't get me wrong, I think we will see great things come from propane as a source of propulsion for our equipment, but it will come from either a chemical reaction with something else, or straight up combustion, not just as a source like CO2 is.

[BigEvil]

Wide-scale propane use could attract unwanted attention. Using 'combustion' to propel a paintball out fo a gun might give some or our wonderful lawmaker friends ideas about classifying them as firearms.

Im not saying that propane will never happen, but maybe very slow at first.

[buzzboy]

As before mentioned the guns will only get marginally better. I think we should not really focus on smaller and lighter but keeping the same size/weight and making it stronger.

Field equipment should be made cheaper for the same quality. Namely chronos and air bunkers.

Paint can always be made cheaper. Or at least better deals for larger quantities. Would make me very happy.

Also equipment such as masks would be nice to see some quality improvements. Maybe more masks that perform as well as the top ones. Right now there are what, about 8 masks that just blow everything else out of the water.

[WenULiVeUdiE]

I honestly think reball feilds are the future.

Reball fields or cheaper paint.

Yes, I am fully aware paint has come down drastically in price over thepast 10 years. But I truly believe that in order for the sport to grow, it needs to cost less to play. Sure, $75 a day isn't horribly, but it certainly isn't great. Not much can be done other than rising demand, so yeah..

The circuitry of paintball- I can't see any other major advancements other than the upcoming Bluetooth boards.

As my general thought on upcoming markers, it will merely follow the automotive market. Cars mainly get aesthetic face lifts for the new year with some minor mechanical changes.

Meh, we'll see...

[behemoth]

Reball fields or cheaper paint.

Yes, I am fully aware paint has come down drastically in price over thepast 10 years. But I truly believe that in order for the sport to grow, it needs to cost less to play. Sure, $75 a day isn't horribly, but it certainly isn't great. Not much can be done other than rising demand, so yeah..

The circuitry of paintball- I can't see any other major advancements other than the upcoming Bluetooth boards.

As my general thought on upcoming markers, it will merely follow the automotive market. Cars mainly get aesthetic face lifts for the new year with some minor mechanical changes.

Meh, we'll see...

I talk about paintball, and people are like 'Wow, i wanna try that, what does it cost.'

soon as you say 'Admission is 10, and paint is 60 for 2000' they say 'Nevermind.'


-- Also, big evil, you'd have to make an outdoor feild with netting, and some sort of gutter system around the outside of the feilds,with a slight pitch to the feild. so the reballs would collect themselves, if a few got stuck, the players walking off, or the refs could double check the feild real quick, and kick them towards the tape.

It dosent seem all that complicated to me.

[Hexis]

Reliability, Consistency and Efficiency. In that order.

[Nutsnyomowf]

I honestly think reball feilds are the future.

QFT i've believed that since i first played at one.

You might as well play AirSoft.
Oh yeah I say we leave it be paintball is in a great state the way it is.

[pito189]

I would like to see field improvments.

Better overall fields. Quicker times between games is always my biggest complaint. Socializing is fine, but when I pay my money I want to play as many games as I can.

I think making tournaments ultra efficient. Getting people to their fields on time, know exactly when you are going to play and at what time would be a big improvement. Especially at the smaller regional tournaments. Some kind of system designed that would allow for the tournament organizer to input teams, and then have a projector able to display them on a screen, also have a printed times sheet for each time. Making it affordable for the smaller tournaments to use would be nice.

Dedicated fields with built in bunkers. Every morning the person opening the field comes in and presses a button and the corresponding field rises out of the ground and inflates itself. Fields could be playable in 5 minutes and taken down the same way. Setting up airball bunkers blows.

Making fields more user friendly. Bathrooms, tables, everything that you would expect at a stadium at any other sport, but just fails at paintball fields.

[eadtf]

[dahoeb]

a marker thats not full of orings....that would greatly increase reliability and reduce maintenance. make a marker that requires 1 oring or less and actually performs good. i know this is probably wishful thinking but it'd be nice.

a mech (doesn't have to be a mag necessarily) that can shoot as fast as an electro would be great as well (cough *deadlywind/PTP* cough cough).

standardized threading for all markers, not just for barrels, but for everything would be convenient. that probably wouldn't really be a technological "advancement", but it'd be nice.

[FiXeL]

I don't think there is anything more efficient than gravity feed. Granted, manufacturers could make a feed system that would feed balls from a stock-like magazine but the loading system would make the marker expencive and to me it seems a bit hard to make with a acceptable payload. I rather stick a warp next to my marker so i would not have a hopper sticking out. (assuming this is the reason why you mentioned a stock fed magazine) Ok, even gravity feed has been a thing of the past with force feeders like the Halo, Vlocity and Qloaders. (does warp classify as a force feeder?) But the principle is simple and it works, why bother with somthing complicated that possibly could break down?

Also dropping the .68 cal paintball to a smaller one does seem a good idea because you can hold more paint in the same volume of the loader, but it also would mean the mass off the ball would be less, so it has less energy. In that case the deviation from wind would be alot bigger, so im not sure that's the way to go even if you increase the muzzle velocity.

Propane has a promising future in paintball, but it will take some years before the first semi markers will be out there. The Tippmann C3 tends to heat up while rapid firing, and this problem should first be tackled before developing a semi marker. I'm really looking forward to this technoligy, even though it will probably be classified as a firearm in the country i live.

One future advancement i sure hope will happen is that manufacturers stop hyping their products, but i guess that's wishfull thinking. I really don't care how light it is, how fast it can dry fire, color lcd screen, bluetooth inside, or intel inside for that matter. I just want a gat that shoots straight. :)

Sorry for any bad spelling, i'm dutch so don't complain. I'm doing the best i can. :P

[PumpPlayer]

I'll post my thoughts before reading the thread so as not to be influenced in any way.


I think that with as many people are playing now and as many different marker types as there are, the big market is going to be in production customization.

The custom market has a lot of demand but a true scratch-built custom gun is very expensive and your choices are limited. Sending an existing marker out for custom work is a real pain and it can take years to get a marker back once you send it out.

I think the best way a company can capitalize on this growing and unanswered demand for custom work is to have production customization. Simply by having many different choices in a few different areas on a marker can give you the potential for hundreds of different setups. Possibly thousands or tens of thousands. Furthermore, the cost increase for each upgrade can be very low because it doesn't force anyone to devote special time to your marker.


Take a look at the Phantom as a small example of production customization.
There are different valves, feeds and grips that all come standard. Choose a stock from 4 different types or none at all. Different barrel lengths and finishing options. Clear or black parts, small or large, C/A or 12-gram setup, etc. When you're done, you can select from over 100 color choices. All at reasonable cost.

The demand for aftermarket parts is huge and I think it represents the desire for customization options. The new electro markers hardly have any options to them at all besides a choice of maybe a few different color schemes.

By offering options on new equipment, you let people have a chance to custom-build their marker and you can really capture a huge portion of the market with that.