Soakemore 2014

Discussion of past, present, and future water war events.
Drenchenator
Posts: 258
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:56 am
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by Drenchenator » Wed Mar 19, 2014 8:27 am

I'll come again this year. I had a lot of fun last year the one day I came, so I'll try to show up a bit more.

That said, I actually enjoyed the "naval war" scenario, though I agree with SEAL that it would be better if it wasn't one-dimensional. The paper-towel thing sounds interesting, since just landing at all was way too hard a goal for the attackers.

What I would honestly like to see, however, if we were to do a naval war, would be both teams in canoes with some kind of capture the flag scenario. Everything would be on the water (the flags could be some kind of buoys). This would even the playing field for both sides, and we wouldn't have to flip roles and repeat ourselves at the end. The big problem would be how we define getting hit. If two people are in a canoe, and one gets hit, does the whole canoe have to respawn? Other than that potential issue, I think a well-planned naval war would be best thing to do on the island given the chance.
The Drenchenator, also known as Lt. Col. Drench

marauder
Posts: 3975
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2004 9:29 pm
Location: Charleston
WWN League Team: Havoc
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by marauder » Wed Mar 19, 2014 9:09 am

CTF in canoes sounds like an awesome idea. Also, I like how our name has changed to Havoc.
https://hydrowar.wordpress.com/
SEAL wrote:If you ain't bloody and muddy by the end of the day, you went to a Nerf war.

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Wed Mar 19, 2014 9:15 am

The plans and setups I proposed haven't changed at all. Each phase has one objective. What we need to do is properly introduce everyone to the bits and pieces: the flag objective, outpost objective, and attack target objective. At FF, some people had confusion over how to use the flags, so we should run these rounds separately before trying a multi-phase game.

Multiple phases can be divided up in any way needed, although to work with time limits, we need to play them as separate rounds so the time limit can be reset each phase. Objectives should probably be setup ahead of time.

There have been a number of different targets for hits. What may be ideal is a sophisticated electronic one that makes a noise, but that's also too expensive and convoluted of a solution. There's a reason none of the attempts to market anything like that have been too successful.

I like Drench's naval ideas. For hits, I think it should still be individual, with "invincible boats". The hit players can only move the boat, and when everyone in a boat is hit, they respawn.

For pure naval wars however, I'd really like to have water balloons. =p Just quick balloons you can make on the boat with a filler, as opposed to preparing a cache which would take 30 minutes.

@marauder: We need to update our name in a few places and design a patch. I'll get to it. I take it you won't be able to make it to Soakemore?
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

marauder
Posts: 3975
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2004 9:29 pm
Location: Charleston
WWN League Team: Havoc
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by marauder » Wed Mar 19, 2014 9:37 am

Yeah, most likely I won't be able to make it. MS is so far from everything and the airports are no good. As for our team, see the team forum.
https://hydrowar.wordpress.com/
SEAL wrote:If you ain't bloody and muddy by the end of the day, you went to a Nerf war.

User avatar
SEAL
Posts: 2537
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 11:37 am
Location: Charlotte, NC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by SEAL » Wed Mar 19, 2014 9:40 am

I take hits if they're direct and I can really "feel" it, even through somewhat-thick clothing. A bunch of droplets isn't enough. It's kind of hard to explain, I just go by feel (that's what she said). The problem arises when there's a LOT of droplets. There's really no way to measure how much is enough to count. But I guess that's one of the drawbacks to water warfare. Every wargame has pros and cons. The only way we could solve it would be by coming up with some kind of clothing that can detect if enough water hits you, and somehow doesn't get triggered by sweat or gun leaks.

As for balloons, I always kind of thought of them as water warfare grenades; I mean, they behave almost exactly like grenades except that they explode on impact and they have a far lower hit radius (just as water guns have far less range than real guns). So with that in mind I see no reason why splatter damage wouldn't count (as long as enough of it hits). I can kind of see why you'd be against ricocheting streams counting, but I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it. Such situations don't usually arise anyway, and it'd be very hard to actually get enough water on someone by doing that. Ultimately though, I don't really give a crap. But if we do keep it so you have to be hit directly with a water balloon, that would just make them less useful and not worth using to me (except with launchers).

If we don't want to overcomplicate things, then why do you guys want to do a multi-stage naval round? If it were up to me, I would just put one (or maybe more) objective in the middle of the island someplace, and the attackers would have to destroy/secure/capture it. It would kind of play like a multi-stage round (the attackers first have to land, then attack the objective), except there's only really one main thing you have to do. Seems simple, no? I mean, if that will be too complicated for some of the newbies, then we should probably just stick to nothing more complex than like CTF or something. :p If we don't have enough people to have the naval war go all around the island, then have the offense attack one of the ends, not one of the sides. I think I've done enough ranting on one-dimensional defense games. Also, like I said, I think we should move to a backup location if there's too much wind on Sycamore Island.

I don't know how well a boat vs. boat game would work. I think 1HS or 1HK definitely wouldn't work well, but I'm not sure about CTF. The problem with that however is that the flags/buoys would float away unless they were somehow secured to something.
~Hotel Oscar Golf~

We probably won't be back, but the legacy lives on.

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Wed Mar 19, 2014 10:32 am

We still need some way to separate the game based on the event of the attackers landing. Having to respawn on a boat out back when you're already on the ground is no good. We need at least 2 phases for a naval war like we had last year, and it should be objective based so that we aren't continuously spawn raping attackers who are stuck at the boats. (Like what DX did last year lol.)

Staging the boats to attack one end of the island (as opposed to one long shoreline) would probably solve our balance issues.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

scottthewaterwarrior
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD/North West DC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:27 am

Been busy and now there is so much to respond to!

First off I explored Westmoreland Park, it is amazing! It reminded me quite a bit of Saint John's Woods (that was the first round of MOAB right?) only with less prickle bushes. The stream nearby is very clear and would be great for filling in (still recommend filling first round blasters at my house to speed things up though). It is mostly flat which should eliminate boring fights where one team camps on a hill. The battle area is trees and bushes with a lots of trails going through it and a few open spots. Most likely it will replace Carderock on that day but there are a few complications that might arise. First off when I explored it most the underbrush was still dormant, depending on how thick it gets come spring it may not work as a battlefield. If it ends up being like the southern half of Carderock (which looks awesome in the winter) but during the summer has underbrush that you need a chainsaw to get through, it would limit battling to just the dirt paths. There is also a paved trail that runs through the middle of the battlefield, if it ends up being crowded once the weather warms up it would just about grantee someone coming and kicking us out (remember kids, even a simple squirt gun is as dangers as an M-16). Most likely we will start Sunday at Westmoreland Park, but I still want to wait until I can see how crowded it gets before giving a definite answer. I also want to play test it with at least 2 vs 2 before the event to make sure it is as fun as it looks. I also want to explore Carderock more, I feel that it has a lot more potential we just didn't pick very good spots to battle or the correct gametypes for said locations.

I lot of discussion has been going on about hits, hers how I normally call them:
If I feel it hit or see it hit me, I count it as a hit. Also if a stream breaks up I usually still call it so long as the majority of the droplets hit me. Like people have been saying, it is almost imposable to judge droplets, so if the main stream breaks up, but most the droplets hit me, I still count it (I don't even bother trying to figure out if it would have been fist sized, the stream was going to hit me, broke up, and then all the droplets hit me, I'm dead.). I also count below the knees so long as I can feel the shot hit, I never count shoes just because I can't feel it there, where socks are a lot thinner. I think splatter should should count for balloons, but not guns. Splatter from a balloon is like shrapnel, since throwing a balloon is like using a grenade. Splatter from a gun though really can't be compared to anything since no real weapon is even similar to a water blaster, I just think it shouldn't count for game play reasons.

I really like some of the ideas being thrown around for the naval war, here are my latest ideas for it.
First off, as much as it sound fun, boat vs. boat is very dull. The problem is that the boats have very little mobility, with equal weaponry, it becomes a matter of who ever comes in range first dies (often with both people hitting the other at the same time). Even my friends, as bad shots as some of them are, could pick each-other off quite easily. If the beach landings go well, I'd say we try boat vs. boat CTF since we will be all set for naval wars anyway, all my boat vs. boat battles in the past have never gone that well, but they were always soakfest so CTF might be different. One note for all naval wars, boat vs. boat or otherwise, the limit will be 2 people per boat. Unless the extra person is very small (were talking less than 100 pounds here), having 3 people in a boat makes them even less mobile and very prone to capsizing. In my last naval war with friends, both boats with 3 people ended up flipping themselves in the first 5 minutes. What would actually be the most ideal is to have every one in single man kayaks with a water gun mounted to the front, I really see no way of doing this though.
We really need to get what counts as a hit worked out before the war. I think my friends are capable of following the rules (DC Sam has really matured a lot since last year), but if we can't even agree what a hit is, how are we going to explain it to them?

Current plan for the beach landing:
In order for it to work at all it needs to be a calm day (no/little wind and slow moving river), we also need at least 11 people. The landing zone will be the bottom 1/3 or the island, basically below the southern most dock on each side. The round will be done in two stages, with a short pause in between to refresh the newbies of the rules for the next stage. Stage 1: Attackers are in boats with 2 people each armed with anything goes, the defenders get light primaries. The attackers must establish a landing zone (get the boat ashore without both people getting hit) and then attack the defenders. The defenders have three lives, the attackers have unlimited but must re-spawn at a landed boat or if still in a boat go out 50 ft and try to land again. Once the all the defenders are out the attackers win stage 1. Stage 2: Attackers start at any of the landed boats and if hit may re-spawn at any of them, the defenders can re-spawn anywhere. Both teams now get anything goes. The gametype is soak and destroy, the attackers must destroy two targets scattered around the lower 1/3 or the island. When both targets are destroyed, the attackers win. The winner of the whole game is which ever team gets the shortest time for both the 3 life OHK landing and soak and destroy. If for some reason the naval landing doesn't work out (whether from bad weather or it is just boring, the attackers will just pick a spot on the lower 1/3 or the island as there spawn point and play skip the landing part of Stage 1).

So that is it for now. Like I said, I want to scout Westmoreland Park after it gets warm just to make sure it is going to work. There are also a few other parks I plan to scout before the war plus more exploration of Carderock. The Island day will most likely be just that (other than the night war at the school) just because it is a little hard to get to, but there is no reason why we can't go to more than one location on the second day. All the places I am exploring have parking lots within 5 minutes of most the battle areas, and they are all within 20 minutes of each other and my house. If one location doesn't work out, we can get any of the others on the list in at most half an hour.
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:30 am

Having to switch weaponry will likely confuse the newbies. "Wait, we switch now? What's a 'light primary'?"

Also, if the first boat lands, it's pretty much over because the other boats can easily land next to it. There will be a lot of spawn camping there. We'd have to readjust the spawn rules, which could complicate things. On the other hand, having a series of attack targets to hit or knock over saves some hassle.

Boat to boat battles aren't much good without water balloons, or at least without a lot of Stream Machines. I guess we'll have to see how that goes if we play it.

Can you get some photos of Westmoreland Park? Seriously, it's 2014 lol.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

scottthewaterwarrior
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD/North West DC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:57 am

When I did boat to boat it was with stream machines! The problem with using balloons in boat wars is if you miss it wont pop and will float downs stream and pollute the river. The Stream Machines I had were knock offs so it might work better with real ones. I'm want to try boat vs. boat, but I'm just telling everyone not to be surprised if it ends up being boring. I don't think switching weaponry will be much of a problem. My plan was to have the anything goes guns already filled and up in the tree house ready for stage 2. As far as what a light primary is goes, this is one of the situations where it would be helpful to have the community veterans teach the newer players. Light primarys will not be a problem, but many of my friends will probably end up with Vindicators for the anything goes rounds since I don't have many large CPS guns. After the failure of last year, I am kind of planning the whole naval war from scratch so if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

I haven't taken any pictures yet since I want to wait until it warms up a bit. Around here, the look of a battlefield can be drastically different between winter and spring/summer. I also don't have a good way of uploading pictures to WW.net other than the built in uploaded which only lets you do 5 low quality pictures per post. I am tempted to make a flicker account just to use for water war pictures.

I really wish the old tree house was still standing, the new ones is way too defensible. The old one had more gaps to shoot people in and could be flanked on 3 sides (the 4th being 20 feet from the river). Unfortunately the old one got to unsafe and was taken down at the end of 2012. I'd rebuild it, but I don't know the first thing about building tree houses and it would probably fall down once the first person climbed the ladder.
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

marauder
Posts: 3975
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2004 9:29 pm
Location: Charleston
WWN League Team: Havoc
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by marauder » Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:03 pm

You can use biodegradable balloons and then you won't have to worry about pollutions.
https://hydrowar.wordpress.com/
SEAL wrote:If you ain't bloody and muddy by the end of the day, you went to a Nerf war.

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:05 pm

Almost all water balloons are biodegradable, and decay faster than tree leaves. However, animals do not choke on tree leaves... I need to do more reading on the subject before using then in water or on nature preserve sort of places. However, if we're not making bucketfuls of balloons, I don't see any harm being caused.

I recommend imgur for photos. Most other image hosts have been trash in my experience.

Haven't encountered a 5 image limit. The size limit is sufficient for viewable quality photos.

I'd imagine building a treehouse is simpler than building an APH lol. Wood planks, hammer, and nails.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

User avatar
SEAL
Posts: 2537
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 11:37 am
Location: Charlotte, NC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by SEAL » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:07 pm

Wow, Westmoreland sounds pretty promising. I hope we get to use it. If all the parks in your area get too overgrown in the summer, maybe we could consider moving Soakemore to spring break in the future?

If Scott's done boat vs. boat and it was dull, then I don't think I want to do it. I don't even know what we'd use for a flag anyway. I am game for doing the beach landing now that we've improved (at least in theory) the setup. I don't know about your idea of splitting it into two stages though. I'd still rather keep it all one game with no pauses to switch stuff around. My idea is just to do Soak 'n' Destroy (with however many targets; doesn't matter) where defenders get light primaries and attackers get whatever, and the attackers simply have to land and destroy the targets. Once the attackers land, they can use the boats as spawn points. I don't think the defenders need limited lives if they have a weaponry disadvantage. However I think the respawn times should be somewhat long (like a minute). I mean, I don't really care about this so much, but I personally think it'd be more fun and flow better if we did it this way. It should be simpler too. The attackers' only goal is to destroy the objects; they just have to do it from the water.

I definitely think having multiple potential warsites is a good idea in case something happens and we have to leave one of them. I'll say it again; I don't want to play at Sycamore Island if it's too windy. Don't want every round to be a race to the upwind side of island and have teams stack up there.
~Hotel Oscar Golf~

We probably won't be back, but the legacy lives on.

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:10 pm

SEAL wrote:I don't even know what we'd use for a flag anyway.
Duxburian wrote:I can bring the Outpost sticks if you want to try that gametype again...
Those made good flags too!
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

User avatar
SEAL
Posts: 2537
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 11:37 am
Location: Charlotte, NC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by SEAL » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:38 pm

For the naval game? I would think that we'd need something that floats (like a buoy), but at the same time won't float away downstream.
~Hotel Oscar Golf~

We probably won't be back, but the legacy lives on.

scottthewaterwarrior
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD/North West DC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:12 pm

I didn't really think of the floating away part, on a lake it would work, but I now realize a CTF naval war wouldn't work. If the next island up wasn't so overgrown in spring, I'd say we should do a battle between the islands! Changing it to naval war to only one stage, simply soak and destroy, would be OK in my book. I had it the way I did because I actually thought it would be easier for the newbies if they only had to focus on one objective at a time. Having the targets in range of the shore would kind of destroy the whole idea of having a beach landing though. The idea is that after the boats land the attackers must move inland to get the targets.
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

User avatar
SEAL
Posts: 2537
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 11:37 am
Location: Charlotte, NC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by SEAL » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:30 pm

The targets would still be inland a ways. Basically the attackers have to force their way onto shore, then assault the objectives. The defenders would be pressured to keep the offense from landing and becoming a serious threat due to the weaponry imbalance. On paper it sounds like a lot of fun and the defense should have their work cut out for them (a good thing).
~Hotel Oscar Golf~

We probably won't be back, but the legacy lives on.

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Wed Mar 26, 2014 7:05 pm

We can make buoys by taking something that floats, tying it to a string, and tying that string to a rock. It's just a matter of positioning to get the string length to match the depth.

I like the idea of fighting between two islands, but it sounds like a potential coordination nightmare, and either people are afraid of the overgrowth, or there's really a LOT of it lol. I, for one, would be curious just to see what it's like.

Having both teams start on boats on opposite sides of the island could work too, then trying to storm it. But the boat part is pointless because there won't be much, if any combat action against either or both teams boats.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

scottthewaterwarrior
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD/North West DC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:03 pm

CA99 wrote:We can make buoys by taking something that floats, tying it to a string, and tying that string to a rock. It's just a matter of positioning to get the string length to match the depth.

I like the idea of fighting between two islands, but it sounds like a potential coordination nightmare, and either people are afraid of the overgrowth, or there's really a LOT of it lol. I, for one, would be curious just to see what it's like.
Boat vs. Boat CTF = no. It would take too much time to set up. I am up for trying new things that may or may not work, but not if they are going to take half an our to get everyone ready.

The other island has a LOT of undergrowth, it goes all the way around so there isn't even anywhere to land the boat just to explore it! Around here there are two main kinds of undergrowth: a few small bushes and plants scattered here and there or so much that you have to cut your way through, the other island has the latter. The edges of the northern end of Sycamore island are also like this making it very difficult to have people trying to land on that end anyway.
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by HBWW » Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:47 am

I was just offering a setup idea for those who want to play it, but I agree that this setup is too complicated. Naval wars in general tend to have that issue, which is why I suggested against any light primary rules and finding other ways to counterbalance.

My vote is, if we can't use a single water balloon on Sycamore, then we need to shelve any boat to boat battling. I'm open to changing that if we end up getting shields in the boats lol, but shields make the already difficult process of counting hits even worse.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

Discord: m0useCat

scottthewaterwarrior
Posts: 941
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 pm
Location: Bethesda, MD/North West DC
WWN League Team: Catskill Mountain SEALs
Contact:

Re: Soakemore 2014

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:09 am

The thing people complain about with the balloons is not so much about the pollution, but because having yellow, red, and blue pieces all over the place looks bad for a few weeks. If we used camo colored balloons it would probably be fine, but I'm just worried that if I get any complaints again that they might not let us doing again in 2015. It's a really laid back place, so I'm probably just being paranoid, but I still don't want to risk it. And the light primaries thing shouldn't be a problem, that will actually be worked out the night before. When we lay out what guns to bring we will make sure everyone has two guns, one of which being a light primary. If my friends can't figure out which is a light primary between the two guns they brought then they are REALLY dumb!

Anyway I need to know when this is happening soon so I can reserve the island for that day, does May 23-26 work for everyone?
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests