XPS documentation ?

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the oncoming storm
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XPS documentation ?

Post by the oncoming storm » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:38 am

I know there was a fairly popular mod on SSC called XPS, Basically you put around 10 balloons on each PC mount of an AP gun and put the original chamber back on. The "Advantages" were that your AP gun could now shoot at any angle, and had much less drop-off than normal, also their were claims that it made blasters more powerful (one guy in particular claimed it added 4-6' onto his 105's range).

Does anyone have facts about the supposed power advantage, to confirm or deny it?

Also the all information available online comes from a forum search because SSC Ben removed the guild for it, and told people at the time.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by soakinader » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:07 pm

It's a cool theory, especially since the expanding balloon would pressurize the air around it. However, 10 balloons really isn't much, and the PC of most XP guns are individually pretty tiny already (not much room for balloon expansion)...
Also, I have taken apart several different XP's and I don't see an easy way to put 10 balloons around anything. The way the PC's attach... hrmm

I'd like to see proof or something. I'll have to take a look at the XP 150 parts that are lying around, see if there is a practical way to do this.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by the oncoming storm » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:08 pm

It's a little hard to picture for me without a physical example in front of me so I grabbed the Gorgon PC's sitting right across the table from my laptop.

Anyway, the way it works is that you layer the balloons and then insert them most of the way into the chamber leaving enough out that you can double them back past the O ring for retention. The reason the modification uses so few balloons per chamber is because the original goal was only to keep air from getting into the shot, the slightly reduced dropoff is a bonus.

In theory with few more balloons, slight drilling out of the PC insert point (It's need this to fit much more than 10 balloons per side), and a hole in the top of the chamber, the whole system could be made purely CPS.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by Andrew » Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:44 am

I tried it with one or two balloons a long time (10 years maybe?) ago in my XP70. I only did it to separate the air and water, so I could fire the thing upside down or at odd angles, but used more than one to try and make up for the lack of precharge.

In practice it's not worth the time, effort or balloons mainly because you lose the ability to precharge the PC. You can't just add a Schrader valve to the top of the PC either as the ballon will just turn inside out and get forced into the pipes feeding the PC causing the balloon to expand unevenly. If you add enough balloons you could make up for that as the pressure generated as the balloons stretch would essentially become the precharge and the air compressing in the PC as the balloons expand would just add to it but, without a hole, the extra rubber would also reduce the PC volume quite dramatically.

Drilling a hole in the PC would increase PC volume, as the balloons could expand further, and make the stream behave like a CPS but it would reduce peak performance as you're relying on elastic pressure only. Plus the balloons usually end up popping as their necks are being stretched, doubled-back on and pinched quite sharply. I'd say your better off precharging the PC and keeping it topped up with water between shots to avoid mist shots or just replace the whole PC with one from a broken CPS blaster.

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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by SSCBen » Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:14 pm

You can read the original XPS guide at The Internet Archive.

I removed the modification because it does not work very well, as Andrew suggested. A major issue I have is that this modification reduces water volume in your pressure chamber. The other issues with precharging and the balloons breaking also are worth noting. I do recall saying that you could get CPS-like performance from this modification back then, but doing that well is really only possible by replacing the entire PC, not XPS.

In terms of evidence of performance increase, it's likely that the rubber increases the pressure, and this would increase the performance. Personally, I wouldn't bother, as XPs are not meant to be high performance water guns. As I've said before, you can't upgrade a tricycle to work like a monster truck without basically replacing the tricycle entirely. The same applies for water guns.

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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by the oncoming storm » Sat Jul 26, 2014 2:15 pm

Hello SSC Ben good to see you.

I think the mod has very slight advantages on round chambered AP guns in the hands of skilled warriors, however vertical PC's like the 250's don't need it because they can already fire water at battle practical angles until the pressure drops to much to be useful. I would do it to any of my AP guns in a heartbeat (with ten balloons to replace pre-charge) if I had them open, I just wouldn't go to the trouble of opening it solely for that purpose. As for reducing water volume I don't think it would be a major problem and that the usable water volume would actually go up slightly.

Thats my two cents.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:43 am

This was a fun little mod back when I was first starting out with modding. The drop off in pressure is more similar to Water Warriors Hydropower guns than it is to CPS. I never noticed an increase in real power or range, but the power did say stronger longer. The biggest issue was the fact that the balloons wear out over time. You could probably get 3 good long fights (like multiple hours of fighting) before needing to replace them. This may or not be an issue depending on how easily you can get into your blaster. Another issue with this mod is that as your reservoir gets low you end up mixing air with water in your PC. This is not a problem with stock XPs and other AP blasters, but it is for elastic based guns.

This mod is more an issue of preference rather than right or wrong. I'm not going to do this simply because it's a hassle getting in and out of my Gorgon, and my PPBs are pretty good mini 300s so long as they are working. I'm still waiting for the funds to take them to the welding shop to get the 2 firing rods (connecting the trigger to the firing valve) welded together.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by the oncoming storm » Wed Jul 30, 2014 10:21 am

Hey Marauder quick question, what kind of balloons were you using and on what model? DX used water balloons on his XPS 310 back in the ridge-wood days and says it was dreadful.

Also, Would you personally allow an XPS modded soaker to still participate in league AP rounds?
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by SEAL » Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:26 pm

AP-only rounds have been sort of phased out and replaced with light-weapons-only rounds. In light of that it doesn't matter if you've done it or not; the gun stays in the same class. For example, an XPS 310 would still be a light primary, an XPS Gorgon would still be medium, and an XPS 300 (haha) would still be heavy.

This mod never seemed worth it to me. Yeah, you get less dropoff and the ability to fire at any angle, but that's not important enough to make it worthwhile to deal with all the issues that come with the mod. Who has ever needed to fire their blaster upside down? And typically everyone takes short shots when fighting, so dropoff never becomes an issue.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by marauder » Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:38 pm

To be fair, the ability to fire at any angle was a solid benefit back when we frequently used my tree house and the rest of ft Salamandastron. These days fighting against towers, tree houses, and tree stands is basically unheard of, and when it does happen people are rarely running directly underneath/hiding under the defenders. With that being said, this was most useful in soakfests since attackers would almost never run directly under the tree fort in any sort of elimination or score based game. It was a mod that had its time and I don't think it would be that useful now, but then again part of modding is just having fun, and so if you are going to enjoy doing this mod and playing with an XPS go for it.

I used some sort of super durable mini craft balloons, but even so you'd have to change them out every so often.
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Re: XPS documentation ?

Post by the oncoming storm » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:28 pm

By craft balloons do you by chance mean those almost invincible balloon animal ones, or something else? I couldn't find anything goggling craft balloons.
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