Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Discussions of all varieties of stock water guns and water blasters.
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Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by marauder » Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:28 pm

I was messing around on Hydrowar, considering coming up with an overall rating for each blaster when I had the idea, "why not see what everyone thinks is most important." Whether we end up using this on the site or not, I think this would be a fun exercise.

Let's say you get 100 points and you have to allocate those 100 points to 6 factors for super soaker or water warriors to design a gun based off of. Here are the 6 factors -

Range: how far the gun shoots
Soakage: 90% output + 10% shot time and nozzle design
Field life: tap shots per tank
Rate of fire: tap shots per pump
Durability: quality of parts used
Maneuverability: weight, balance, and design


WWN Member Scores -

Marauder
#1 Splashzooka
#2 XP 150
#3 Blazer
#4 SC 600 mk2
#5 XP Pool Pumper Blaster

Cochise
#1 Splashzooka
#2 XP Pool Pumper Blaster
#3 Blazer
#4 Monster/CPS 4100 mk1
#5 CPS 2700

Duxburian
#1 Splashzooka
#2 XP 150
#3 SC Power Pak
#4 SC 600 mk2
#5 CPS 2000

Duxburian *revised*
#1 CPS 2000
#2 Splashzooka
#3 SS 300
#4 SC 600 mk2
#5 CPS 2700

HBWW
#1 CPS 1200
#2 CPS 2100
#3 CPS 1000
#4 XP 150
#5 Python 2

SEAL
#1 CPS 2000
#2 SC Power Pak
#3 CPS 2700
#4 CPS 2500
#5 CPS 1500

The Oncoming Storm
#1 SS 300
#2 SC Power Pak
#3 Lightning
#4 XP 250
#5 Splashzooka

Ben
#1 XP Pool Pumper Blaster
#2 SS 300
#3 CPS 2700
#4 Vindicator
#5 CPS 1-3-5
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marauder
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by marauder » Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:33 pm

Range: 25
Soakage: 14
Field life: 9
Rate of fire: 15
Durability: 20
Maneuverability: 17
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by c0chise » Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:40 pm

cool idea

Range: 18
Soakage: 15
Field Life: 18
Rate of Fire: 15
Durability: 14
Maneuverability: 20

I need something light and maneueverable as I'm not that strong. I also like something with a bit of field life so that it doesn't run out too quickly. The Colossus 2 fits both of these, but the rate of fire and soakage are lacking. I'd want a more robust pump and greater output, although that would affect my field life, so I'd probably need a bigger blaster... but it would need to be designed without much frills, so nothing like the monster series, more bareboned like the XP 150 but larger. I imagine that the 250 with a trigger and 8.5x - 10x nozzle would probably be similar to what fits my ratings.

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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by DX » Tue Jul 14, 2015 2:38 pm

Range: 25
Soakage: 10
Field life: 10
Rate of fire: 20
Durability: 25
Maneuverability: 10

Range and durability are my top factors, the soaker needs to shoot far and it needs to not break. I also like if it can rip off tap shots quickly and pressurize faster than it can be depressurized, or at least achieve 1:1 parity. I'm used to using 2000s, so field life can be compensated for with conservatism. Soakage is not terribly important to me as long as the stream is smooth and stays together. While I'd prefer a light, compact, well-balanced form factor, if the soaker is good, I just put up with whatever it has.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by marauder » Tue Jul 14, 2015 4:42 pm

The Splashzooka owns because of its limitless rate of fire, though high durability and range also help. The SC Big Trouble does not come anywhere close in the rankings due to its low power.

We may be undervaluing range here haha. Rob did get the 2000 though.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by HBWW » Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:03 pm

Range: 25
Soakage: 5
Field Life: 5
RoF: 5
Durability: 25
Maneuverability: 25

I need blasters that work, and blasters that work with me. I find it rather absurd that so many blasters couldn't have properly designed grips and handles while the SS 50 sits comfortably in my hands. The reliability issue comes as a consequence of our equipment being limited to toys; the parts that require maintenance simply can't be replaced in many instances, which factors into the durability factor significantly.

With that settled comes the range vs. firepower question, which are all direct tradeoffs in water wars. In other games, the dynamics are different and almost always favor range. In this case, I would still rather have the range to back it up.

I also kinda cheated. High range already equates to high soakage since there's no other means permitted by physics to achieve that. Of course, this is to achieving range via higher velocity with some stream breakup, instead of achieving it via lower velocity and superior lamination. (Although I think both factors are equally important.)
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by marauder » Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:16 pm

From now on I am going to update the first post with everyone's results. Sam, yours actually makes a lot of sense for you. What you said about the SS 50 is also funny and true. This is one issue I have with the 4100 and the Monster series. Lots of unecessary plastic to get in the way of your grip.

Range always comes with high firepower, but how much? There are several blasters that can achieve near or at 40 ft with only a 2.5x. The SS 300 and CPS 2000 have quite different outputs but achieve the same range. Your overall point is true though.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by HBWW » Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:38 pm

I'm fine with the 4100 actually; the grips are positioned to at least some sense and are appropriately sized and semi-appropriately shaped.

Meanwhile, I could ramble off a few blasters with terrible ergonomics. Tiger Shark, Vindicator, Max-D 3000. Excellent ergonomics are just as easy to name off: Flash Flood, Colossus 2, CPS 1000 and 1200, CPS 2000/2500.

I think the CPS has established the gold standard for balancing and gripping most water blasters. As in paintball where you have the air tank under the pistol grip, barrel out front, and loader in between (for counterweighing the tank to some degree), so goes in water wars where we have the pump assembly above the pistol grip, the reservoir above and behind, the PC in between above the pump, and the nozzle in front. Each component is positioned to balance each other and reduce variation of front and back heavy inbalance as the reservoir is filled and emptied. The CPS 1000 is virtually perfect at this balancing and can be comfortably 1-handed and 2-handed without loss of balance.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by SEAL » Wed Jul 15, 2015 1:32 pm

Range: 25
Soakage: 20
Field life: 5
Rate of fire: 15
Durability: 25
Maneuverability: 10

I like powerful soakers that give me a higher chance of making hits. Rate of fire isn't quite as important because with enough power, you only need to fire once, haha. I don't care very much about maneuverability, and even less about field life due to my playing style. And of course, I want something that won't break when I abuse it.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 15, 2015 3:21 pm

The funny thing is that usually maneuverability and field life are opposites. The more ammo you carry the more you get weighed down. If you choose one you typically go without the other, unless you have a truly giant amount of water like the 300 or 3200, but even then, their output is so much that field life is still just fairly good. There are some guns that should be more maneueverable but aren't, such as the Big Trouble and the Vindicator. Both aren't really that big, but the design really gets in the way. The ironic thing is that they also have pathetically tiny nozzles that allow you to last indefinitely. The Big Trouble has a quad burst, which is great in theory, except that they are 4 squirt pistol sized streams. About half the output of an SS 50 per stream, it's pretty terrible.

SEAL your results have been posted. Pretty spot on I think. You should really try the Power Pak.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by SEAL » Wed Jul 15, 2015 5:43 pm

Wow, very spot on! Though the 2000 isn't the most durable blaster in the world. (But it's also just about 20 years old.) I always wanted a Power Pak, but I would need to find one for a good price, and I couldn't really use it anywhere without a hose unless I filled it up ahead of time or made some kind of pump for it.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by HBWW » Wed Jul 15, 2015 6:18 pm

Making a SC pump is easy. Making one practical and ergonomic is not. The latter is the reason I haven't bothered deploying any for the SC blasters; it's just never worth the trouble. It's faster to fill up a reservoir and pump during the game than it is to have to operate a pump while refilling.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:33 pm

SEAL wrote:Wow, very spot on! Though the 2000 isn't the most durable blaster in the world. (But it's also just about 20 years old.) I always wanted a Power Pak, but I would need to find one for a good price, and I couldn't really use it anywhere without a hose unless I filled it up ahead of time or made some kind of pump for it.
fwiw your #6 was splashzooka, #7 monster x, #8 ss 300, #9 xp 150, #10 cps 4100 mk1/monster to round out your top 10 recommended blasters according to hydrowar ratings and your input :soakwcps2000:

HBWW wrote:Making a SC pump is easy. Making one practical and ergonomic is not. The latter is the reason I haven't bothered deploying any for the SC blasters; it's just never worth the trouble. It's faster to fill up a reservoir and pump during the game than it is to have to operate a pump while refilling.
We should do this sometime just for the sake of science, and because we may find ways to alter the initial design to be more ergonomic after we've built it.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by HBWW » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:40 pm

I've built one out before after spending quite some money in parts. I left off on having to find a suitable quick-disconnect system, and none of the options were particularly satisfactory if I recall correctly.

We need more specialized parts and structures, I think. Ideally I'd like some compact, mid-flow check valves.

That said, we have some limitations to work around. A hand-sized pump would be very slow for large bladders and also difficult to operate unless attached properly to the blaster. A floor sized pump moves a lot more water to fill the large PC's, but it is a full size floor pump after all.

I ended up deciding it wasn't worth it. I do have specs for building 1/2" sch 40 pumps and 1-1/4" sch 40 pumps though, and connecting them all together is pretty simple; just need source tube to check valve 1, then check valve 2 to your SC inlet. The original fitting I used for the VHS is still working and still available at my local Home Depot stores. (3/4" threaded plug; you simply drill a hole in it.)
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by SSCBen » Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:49 am

Range: 36
Soakage: 0
Field life: 29
Rate of fire: 14
Durability: 7
Maneuverability: 14

Edit: I missed the part where these weights are for manufacturers, so I want to note that right off the bat. These weights are for my own designs.

I tend to use homemades, and durability has never been an issue for me aside from bladders. Replacing a homemade bladder is pretty simple. So, durability has received a low rating. Maneuverability is not a major issue for me either because of my speed, and while I'm not a fan of recharging, I don't think rate of fire is that important either as most people tend to retreat to recharge anyway.
HBWW wrote:High range already equates to high soakage since there's no other means permitted by physics to achieve that. Of course, this is to achieving range via higher velocity with some stream breakup, instead of achieving it via lower velocity and superior lamination. (Although I think both factors are equally important.)
That range and flow are highly correlated is a major issue, and is why I rated soakage zero. You basically get high soakage by getting high range whether you want it or not!

I can see a few different approaches to getting around this. Let's assume we have a nozzle and flow system that delays breakup as much as possible. After that, the main thing to do is test to find what pressure and nozzle diameter gets the maximum the range-to-flow ratio (or efficiency, or whatever you want to call it) for the particular range you want. Pretty boring testing, but you should see at least some small improvements in this.

The other approaches are more speculative. The one I think holds the most promise is the use of hollow streams. Fountains that want to shoot high but save water use these. Unfortunately what I can find in the scientific literature about these types of nozzles is basically worthless. Probably will have to do some tests on my own to see if this actually works (I'm not sure). I think a major disadvantage of this approach is that the stream will be blown around by wind easier. I have some other ideas and a new nozzle design that combines them, but I'm not going to share them right now because they're too speculative.

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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by HBWW » Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:57 am

Interesting. However, aside from being blown around by wind, there is the concern of wind resistance in general. I still need to hit the chronograph with the soakers, but a hollow stream doesn't seem ideal for high velocity either.

I think the topic of range vs. velocity warrants further study. Is a blaster with an effective (stream breakup) range to 25 ft with higher stream velocity more combat effective than a blaster with an effective range of 35ft but at 3/4 the velocity? Velocity vs. stream breakup is one of the defining features of water wars.

RoF and shot time should almost be treated as one factor with considerations like these.

Regardless, combat effectiveness in this area is not quite a science yet. That said, I'm not completely convinced that optimizing for the most laminate streams possible at the highest breakup range possible is the ideal scenario.

There is a less scientific way to test that though: take two blasters of the same shell/reservoir/etc. but with different stream breakup ranges and velocities and put them to the typical WWn test: The duelfest.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by SSCBen » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:34 am

I hadn't realized that fountain company has data for the hollow jet nozzles. Comparing the hollow stream to the regular one, it seems that the hollow one does much worse in terms of flow rate needed to get a certain height. For example, to get a height of 5 meters, you need 12.3 L/min for the best regular nozzle and 288 L/min for the best hollow one! Maybe their streams are too hollow? Either way, this seems to be evidence against the idea. I guess fountain people want nice big looking streams, and getting that without having an extremely high flow rate is efficient to them. (I'll email the company I identified to see if this is correct.)

As for the tradeoff between velocity and range, I don't know which is more important. In Nerf I've talked about "time to target" before, which is how long it takes the dart to reach a target. I think this is more important than range in Nerf, because the ranges all tend to be longer. Having a Nerf gun that shoots 100 feet is not that much better than one that shoots 70 feet, I think. Basically every Nerf gun has good enough range. But if your dart can hit your target before they have a chance to respond, that's valuable. I don't think time to target is as important in water guns because the range is so low, but it's still clearly important.

Your idea for a test would be interesting, and I think keeping track of war statistics could help clarify which features are most important. Right now we're mostly speculating. I'm not really sure we could ever figure out what's really "most important" or whatnot, largely because it depends on each player's strengths and the war site. Some strategies might work for some groups and places and others might not.

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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by HBWW » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:49 am

Time to target is probably the main factor on why some Nerfers prefer air blasters over springers. Ranges are too variable and take too much effort to measure, which is why I prefer going by dart specs and muzzle velocity only.

For water wars, there's a concept I like to call the "sphere of influence" (taken from iSoaker's circle illustrations to show a given player's maximum range where they can still hit someone), although obviously it's not quite a perfect sphere. The vertical element of this "sphere" it is important because engagements can take place at varying elevations.

The sphere has gradients as well, of course. If you're familiar with how light is simulated in a game engine, it works just like a point light that casts shadows. At the far end of the sphere, you can theoretically hit someone but the likelihood of doing so is extremely low based on what they're paying attention to and their experience. I recall distinct moments where I've been hit by such a shot, and have seen footage of it too, where DX is in an elevated position with a 2000 and launches a stream all the way over after the target player is under the false impression of being out of range.

The sphere eventually reaches some hard-points where being hit is virtually guaranteed. With player variables held constant, these points depend on the RoF and velocity of the stream once stream breakup is not a significant factor. A CPS 2000's hard point is pretty clear; it's where you can't move out of the way before the PC is emptied. An XP 150's hard point is less clear; it's constantly throwing out tiny little shots, each one very easy to dodge individually, but combined together there's a good chance one of them will hit you.

I think this is the factor that gives water wars the most interesting combination of power and RoF. From an output standpoint, they're almost the same thing; you're shooting a lot of water to hit further ranges or shooting less to cover a wider area and conserve. Our hit rules do not account for stream volume as much, which means powerful blasters waste more water due to outputting far more volume than required to make a hit.
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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by jja » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:01 am

in my battles i have found that "time to target" matters quite a bit and that range influences "time to target". This is from observation of fighting opponents roughly 9m away from me, at this point i can shoot basically flat with my CPS 1000 so my stream only travels the distance between us, at about 9m a NSS shot blast must fire at an angle, this means the stream must travel further, so will take longer. This means i have more time to dodge an on target shot than my opponent does.

with equal range, shot time, output and skill, i could see stream velocity being a key deciding factor.

it would be good to have data on stream velocity for as many blasters as possible.

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Re: Most Important Factors - if You Decided

Post by the oncoming storm » Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:28 pm

If I hadn't been of a trip this week I would have been right on top of this, but my iPod sucks. anyway

Range: 25
Soakage: 10
Field life: 10
Rate of fire: 20
Durability: 15
Maneuverability: weight, balance, and design 20
If you ever bother reading these, I worry for your mental sanity. :oo:

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