WaterWar.net

Back in 2013 or so, I proposed "time-to-target" as a useful statistic that's practical in Nerf. It's also practical in water wars. In this case the target would be located X feet away. Most practical I think would be time to maximum range, though this is debatable.

After browsing through the Soaker Media archives, I can see that DX proposed a similar idea back in 2006 (corrected from 2011):

https://waterwar.net/archives/sm/t603.htm

This is one area where water blasters differ from actual combat weaponry. Given that it takes an appreciable amount of time for the water to reach the target, it makes sense to compare water blasters on this. You obviously want your blaster to fire faster than your opponent, and ideally fire faster than they have time to dodge. I don't actually know what the numbers are on this, but I'll be taking some measurements later this year.

I think stream velocity is a better stat, since that's what affects how fast your shot gets to its target, and is independent of how far away your target is. I know DX had a chronograph at one point, but if I remember right it wasn't extremely precise. I suppose you could derive an average velocity from time to maximum range, but that might be a pain to measure accurately. Either way, stream speed is definitely a very important stat, and one that has been largely ignored by the community over the years, except in occasional random threads like the one you posted.

Speaking of that thread (from 2006 actually, not 2011), most people there seemed to think that it's better to know time-to-target than velocity, but I disagree. Knowing that your blaster's shot will reach the target in exactly 2.31 seconds won't help you in battle. I've always maintained that stats are strictly for comparison purposes. i.e. blaster 1 hits 38 fps while blaster 2 hits 45, therefore go with the second option if you value speed.I mean, you can compare target times too, but again, I think that stat can be misleading.

This is one of the main reasons I ended up using the CPS 1000 over the Vindicator. They both have the sane range of around 40ft, but the 1000 fires the water at a higher velocity. The Vindicator has better stream lamination (likely the reason it can compete for range) but other then the rare case of high wind, that isn't anywhere near as important as shot velocity.

The Vindicator also had a smaller volume pump then the 1000, yet is actually stiffer to operate. I think ease of pressurization is another overlooked stat of water blasters, at least for those of us who aren't totally ripped!

The low velocity of streams makes them difficult to measure with a chrono, but it does provide some reference point.

I suspect the important stat is going to be far more nuanced, and that soakers/nozzles can be optimized to minimize time-to-hit at different ranges. The obvious tradeoff of velocity is stream lamination and a balance would have to be found.

I still have that Chronograph and it's practical to use with streams (not fully-water*proof*, but resistant enough that it survived a testing session with a CPS 2000). FPS as a soaker stat may not end up being too useful, since there's a very narrow band of results pretty much every current soaker model would fall between. How much better is 48 FPS vs 50 and 52? Not nearly the difference that 48ft of range would make vs 50 or 52...

It would be fun to just measure several blasters and see how much of a variance there actually is. We won't be able to know unless we try.

As far as time to target, wouldn't you be able to measure that using a camera with a very high frame rate?