Downpour 2013 Review

[SEAL]

Not going to type up a whole full-length war story for this. Instead I'm going to go over it and mention what I liked and what I didn't so we can use the information to make future wars better. I would like everyone who attended to pitch in, and anybody else who might have ideas. This is probably the last time I will host a war for a while, but others can utilize the knowledge gained for their own efforts.

What I learned from this:
-It's better to simply have a "playlist" of games for each day instead of a super-precise schedule; we only ended up using my schedule to determine how long the rounds should be.
-Just because you can get something done fast, it doesn't mean everyone else can.
-Trying to predict how rounds will turn out ahead of time is pointless; the reality is almost always vastly different.
-Apparently there is such thing as too much fighting for some.
-Games must be adjusted to suit the number of people; we were having battles over huge areas with only six people, and a lot of the time we couldn't find each other.
-Fighting with the same people over and over starts to get a little dull; we need new members to shake things up.
-Fighting in the pouring rain sucks.
-Even if you think you've made something (like game rules) clear, you should double check.
-Unless a person tells you their exact plan and when they're arriving, don't count on them coming.
-Malfunctioning equipment can drain all the fun out of a battle.
-Never ever name a war "Downpour".

I'll go over the games now. Here's the original schedule:

Friday, July 26th:

Arrival time-nightfall - Dinner, hangout, setup, etc.
Nightfall - OHK and Zombies @ campground (other rounds to be decided on spot)

Saturday, July 27th:

8:00-9:00 - Wake up, go to Dug Hill, eat breakfast
9:00-10:30 - OHK @ Main Forest
10:40-11:00 - OHS @ Thunder Gulch (if the OHK game ends at least 20 minutes early, we'll have two rounds where the teams switch sides)
11:20-12:20 - CTF 10-flag (5 per team) @ Mirror Forest
12:25-12:55 - Lunch
13:00-13:30 - OHK @ Pines (light blasters only)
13:40-15:40 - OHS @ Mirror Forest (starts whenever the OHK round ends; end time doesn't change)
16:00-17:00 - Domination @ Lost Chasm
17:15-17:35 - OHS @ Unclimbable Rocks (XP-only)
17:45-18:00 - Team soakfest @ Dumping area (weird guns only)
18:15-19:15 - Pack up, go to Wilson campground
19:15-20:15 - Dinner, setup, etc.
20:30-21:30 - OHS @ campground
21:30-whenever - OHS switches to OHK (@ campground), end time flexible
After "whenever" - Hangout, campfire, etc.

Sunday, July 28th:

8:00-9:00 - Wake up, go to Dug Hill, eat breakfast
9:15-9:45 - Chaos OHK FFA @ Expanse
9:50-10:20 - CTF @ Thunder Gulch (light blasters only)
10:25-10:40 - HTL @ Junkyard Mound (XP-only)
10:55-11:10 - HTL @ Junkyard Mound (XP-only)
11:25-11:55 - Soak 'n' Destroy @ Junkyard
12:00-12:30 - Lunch
12:45-13:45 - OHS @ Thunder Gulch (XP-only)
14:00-14:30 - VIP @ Main trail area
14:30-15:00 - Setup for next round
15:00-18:00 - Multi-stage objective game @ Entire park
18:15-19:15 - Pack up, go to Wilson campground
19:15-20:15 - Dinner, setup, etc.
20:30-21:00 - Sideswitch game @ campground (weird blasters only)
21:15-22:00 - Manhunt @ campground
After 22:00 - Hangout, campfire, etc.

Monday, July 29th:

Possible games after all awake, to be decided on spot
End of war

Night OHK, Friday:
This didn't work well because of a miscommunication. I told the other team to start in the forest away from the campsites, but apparently I didn't make it clear enough because the other team started in the woods on the other side of the campground and we never found them. Thankfully the forest was rather clear and devoid of anything to trip on because it was incredibly dark. The fact that I arrived at the campground way late didn't help things; as I was unable to do much scouting.

Night Zombies, Friday:
This was fun. We did it around the shower building and in the fields nearby. It would've been better if it had been darker, but the lights on the building compromised it a little. Most of the hits happened around the building itself, with few in the field. Scott went into the bathroom to refill one time and that ambush at '11 was replayed. DX was the last one to survive due to minimal risk-taking (the rest of us were kind of goofing around), and we ended up chasing him down and Scott suicide-rushed him to end it.

OHK Round 1, Saturday:
We shortened the round to 45 minutes because of time constraints, which certainly didn't help things. My team hunted all over the forest, while the enemy stayed hidden in the exact same spot for the entire round, so we never found them. There really wasn't much to do about it, though a smaller battlefield would've probably helped.

OHS Round 1, Saturday:
This was our classic Thunder Gulch round. It worked a little bit better than last year, but it still wasn't as fun as the first time. The enemy team attacked this time, and actually made it up onto our side before the round ended. This was the first battle where I got to use my 2000, but the results just made the round annoying for me. For some reason, almost every time I fired, the f***ing valve would only open a little ways, resulting in a weak stream lobbing out to maybe 30 feet. Occasionally the valve would work properly and the glorious 2000 blast would finally come forth, which was when I actually made kills. If it weren't for that I would've enjoyed the round a lot more.

CTF, Saturday:
I had to shorten this round a bit as well, which probably just made things worse. The battle took place in between Thunder Gulch and Lost Chasm, which was a pretty large section for 3vs3. I went on attack most of the time and I never saw a soul until I got to the enemy base. The flags were in a pretty tough location guarded by Firebird with a (working) 2000, so none of us could get any. chief tried to go for our flags once, but I hid by the cliff wall right under his feet and blasted him from below (that was before my 2500 trigger started sticking), although I got myself hit in the process. I actually liked the round, but it would've been better exponentially with more people. Some people had a problem with having to climb in and out of Lost Chasm (picture a supersized Thunder Gulch), but we're supposed to be, you know, hardcore...

OHK Round 2, Saturday:
This round was great at first. It was held in an area filled with small pine trees which offered more than enough concealment, similar to Sycamore Island but without thorns/nettles. Stalking the enemy through the pines was awesome, but once we found them the excitement sputtered to a stop. The enemy team had taken up a position outside the pine forest on a small hill, and were pulling a Hold the Line scenario. We couldn't hit any of them before the round ended. I also smashed my shin on a log while dodging a shot from DX. I think the round would've gone better if we had stayed in the pine area. I wanted the round to be a stealth-based hunt with ambushing, but it only started out that way.

OHS Round 2, Saturday:
This was supposed to be a long range 2-hour battle, but due to our numbers we shortened it and started closer (we basically walked in opposite directions for a few minutes). I was still hoping it would have the same characteristics as a longer round, but once we found each other we stayed in the same place for the entire time; an old concern I had about long rounds that DX brushed off because his wars were of the hit-and-run type. It wasn't quite the case here. On the plus side there was so much action that some of us emptied our reservoirs before the round was done.

Domination, Saturday:
Once again, our numbers made it necessary to modify the original plan. Only 3 capture points were used instead of 5, and the time limit was about half of the original. And wouldn't you know it, this was the best round of the whole weekend. It started out a little slow, with the enemy getting to the middle point first and defending it, but my team got our act together and came at them with enough offensive force to take over the point. We held it for a little while, but right before the end I got blindsided by Drenchenator because someone wasn't covering him... I myself was busy with DX. Once that happened everyone else on my team got hit and the enemy recaptured the point and held it in the minute or so remaining. It was still one hell of a round, though all of the action took place at the center capture point; neither team attacked any of the starting points. I would definitely like to see more of these rounds in future wars.

OHS Round 3, Saturday:
The end of the day was nearing and people were getting tired, so this round was a good way to end things. It was close-range and a short walk from the pavilion. I hoped it would be as action-packed as the last round of '12, but it wasn't quite so. For some weird reason, it was very hard to hit anyone in that place on top of the rocks. Maybe it was because of the light blasters (we didn't have enough XPs for XP-only, so we changed it to light guns only), because it is harder to hit people with 2X streams, though that wasn't a problem last year. At least this time nobody tried to cheat by claiming that "you didn't feel it because the stream is small, but it totally hit you".

We didn't do the soakfest because we were running out of time and nobody really cared anyway. Unfortunately my parents were late delivering pizza to the campground so we didn't have time for night wars. Drenchenator left early Sunday morning and chief wasn't feeling well so we were down to 5 people then. Almost all of the rounds that I planned were designed for at least 8 heads, so that coupled with the obnoxious weather forced me to compromise and fall back to small-scale OHS/OHK. This was the most disappointing for me, and I decided that I simply didn't want to do this anymore.

HTL, Sunday:
This was the only round on the schedule that we ended up doing, and it was probably my least favorite. The round would take place at a large mound in the Junkyard area, which was capped by large bushes and thick underbrush. I was hoping for a unique, almost stealth-based twist on HTL, but as with most of the things I hoped for, it didn't work out right. Instead of hiding in the bushes, the defense stayed standing out on the only open part of the mound. I tried to sneak through the bushes several times, but for some odd reason it didn't work. The rain poured the hardest of the weekend during this round (before and after it slowed down), which made for a very miserable time. We stopped keeping track of hits because we were getting hit by water every second. Unless you saw the stream hit you, there was no way to tell the difference between water from the sky and water from a blaster nozzle. I'm still curious as to how it would've turned out if the conditions were perfect with more people and more use of the concealment.

OHS Round 4, Sunday:
We did this in the same place as the third OHS round the day before, but with heavier weapons. There wasn't much to the round, but it was fun. I could be wrong, but I think it was my best round of the war statistically (though I've stopped caring or keeping track). We fought so much that my 2700 ran out of water, and then the trigger cracked even with my reinforcement, and caused it to stick. That was the last primary I had that worked, and now that it too had failed me, I developed a strong hatred for water guns. That is probably the last thing you'd expect to read on this website, but it's true. I love to fight, but none of the manufacturers are willing to produce blasters that will compete in a serious war, forcing us to spend money on 15-20 year old hunks of plastic that are constantly breaking down when you need them. Imagine trying to play baseball with bats that constantly break and gloves that get the webbing ripped out if they catch a hard-thrown ball. You love the game but the equipment necessary to play it ruins the experience. I think that once I get my mechanical engineering degree, I'm going to just make myself the ultimate blaster. People have said this before, but homemades are the future. It took this war to make me realize that it couldn't be more true. We just have to move on from these ancient, impractical designs. I saw Drenchenator's Riptide at this war, which I believe is a step in the right direction. Once we can improve the reliability of such designs, homemades may finally make appearances in serious battles.

OHS Round 5, Sunday:
We did this one in the dumping area where we played HTL in the past. This round was set up similar to HTL with one team starting on the hill, and the other (mine) starting on the ground. I was forced to use chief's 2500 thanks to all the issues with the rest of my arsenal. I flanked the enemy by running up the hill to the side, but we couldn't do much. For some reason I just could not hit Scott at all. I don't know what it was, but for the whole war I seemed to have an easier time hitting everyone else (not counting DX who's just good at dodging) except him. So that round was meh. I think we shouldn't do HTL-type games unless we have more people. It just doesn't work with small numbers.

Single-sided CTF-type round, Sunday:
This round was a little embarrassing, but if I look at it as kind of a soakfest, I guess it doesn't matter. Basically we had to defend that stupid wooden train from the other team, with water guns placed on each car for them to take. We used light-CPS, which was kind of refreshing. They don't seem to be as problematic as the bigger guns, though my 12K's pump still leaks a bit for reasons unknown to me (it looked perfectly fine when I looked at it, and I even added an O-ring to help things). The round was actually pretty exciting, but I wasn't to thrilled with how I couldn't dodge very well because I had to stay within certain boundaries. In fact one time I slammed my elbow into the caboose while trying to evade a shot from Firebird's 1021 (which is actually quite brutal in small-CPS rounds; it could easily hold its own in anything-goes); I didn't get hit but I couldn't lift my arm for a few seconds. The offense eventually won, with Firebird taking 3 of the 4 guns. Aside from the stupid pump, the 12K is definitely a lot of fun to use; with a 2100 nozzle, it gets much more output than a stock 1200.

We didn't have time to fight anymore. Now that I look at things, I guess the war wasn't that bad. The reason I got so dejected was mostly because I had really high expectations, the fact that it rains at every single one of these, and that all my primaries are malfunctioning.

List of problems:
SS 300: Leaks out of what appears to be the valve area, which also appears to be the absolute hardest spot to get to.
CPS 2000: The valve has a 75% chance of not opening all the way; no idea why.
CPS 1500: The pump handle snapped off again.
CPS 2500: The trigger gets stuck because I guess I didn't file down the casing enough when I reinforced the trigger.
CPS 2700: The trigger defied my reinforcement and cracked again, causing it to stick.

The whole group. Like MOAB, every participant was a member on here.


Thanks for coming guys.
-SEAL

[marauder]

I still really wish I could have been involved. If you want more people you can always invite my nephews, but then you'd have to take a step back from how hardcore it is. We just need to change our expectations.

Domination sounds like a really good game type, and I had a lot of fun with Zombies @ Hydropoc, so I'm not surprised that y'all did too. I think we should play zombies more often. Hide and go seek type games may have a big role in our future game book. I always had fun with them growing up, and although they aren't like a typical battle, there is a lot of incentive to force action. Would you consider playing some type of round related to CTF at Thunder Gulch? I had 1 Vermin War where flags counted for 10 points and hits on people counted for 1. Therefore everyone was going for the base and you weren't terribly afraid to get hit, but there was still a little more consequence to being hit than just having to respawn. In regards to large battlefields vs small number of players, why don't we confine teams to a small area until first blood is achieved, and then the whole battlefield becomes open?

Got any more pics?

[HBWW]

What you just said about our equipment is precisely what I've been trying to say again and again and again for so long, but can't get some others on our board to hear out. Stock water blasters started derailing in '03, and now the last car of the train is about to come off the tracks. Some of us keep trying to deny the fact that there is no future in the SS brand, and that WW is very rarely, if ever, going to produce more blasters that meet our needs. At least your 2700 broke at the trigger instead of the valve itself; use sheet metal and epoxy, do it right, and you can get a decently lasting solution. Always, always, always test rigorously and insist on perfect functionality. That last bit of plastic that wasn't grinded down will only be a minor annoyance when testing, but can cost you entire wars when not fixed. I wish there was a better solution; stainless steel parts, composite plastics, high pressure internals, but there's not, and we're stuck with those 1998-2002 blasters with nothing else to pick up the slack.

[DX]

I suffered from primary woes as well, although not to Seal's extent. My 2 best 2000s still had unknown pressure leaks from the valve despite my best attempts to locate the problem. One of my 150's sprung a small leak from the pump, although that was still pretty usable. It leaked less if you kept the pump in while fully pressurized.

However, this war drove the nail in the coffin as far as my future arsenal plans go with 2000s. The moment I am able to build a CPH with the same level of performance and usability as a 2000, they are so out. I love my 2000s, but they are breaking down one by one and this is not sustainable long term.

On the other hand, the 1200 roared back into my long term arsenal. I used to be worried about having a huge gap between the 2000 and 1000/1200/2100 in my arsenal, but now the 1200 has stepped up to fill in the gap. Now, I feel better about not needing a 1500, 2500, 2700, or MX in the top class. Hopefully I'll have less reliability issues when I only need to maintain 2 CPS models, the 2000 and 1200.

Night OHK, Friday:
It wasn't clear where we had to start and I didn't know the terrain, so we started on the other side of the campground in a circle of trees and bushes. As it got dark, we'd be able to see the enemy coming from any direction, so it was very advantageous. The enemy had a huge advantage in that they live in that area and are used to the utter lack of light pollution. It was so dark that I couldn't see a thing and was very unwilling to go out and hunt blind in OHK. We eventually left to search the perimeter of the field and time expired.

Night Zombies, Friday:
Chasing him down is a bit generous. I could have held that high grass field in a 1 on 5 for quite a while, nobody wanted to get too deep into it. I suicided into Scott when people got bored.

OHK Round 1, Saturday:
This one is kinda my fault. My team hid in the best ambush position in the whole playing area and had no incentive to leave it (again, a problem with OHK more than with the round's setup). Also, I thought we were positioned much closer to the main path than it turned out.

OHS Round 1, Saturday:
My team attacked, hoping to draw the enemy down to the middle to engage. They stayed on their side, so we attacked the most gradual place where it was possible to get up there. Scott flanked wide right and when they rushed to fight him, we got up on our side, and then we had them in a pincer.

CTF, Saturday:
The problem with this round was that it was designed for larger numbers. 3 on 3 was way too small in a huge area. Also, it was almost impossible to get down at the enemy's flags and then get back up alive. Lost Chasm is MUCH steeper and taller than Thunder Gulch. I snuck around to the left, but Scott was there, and neither of us could hit the other in the vast space. I couldn't go around him and then down while he was still alive, so eventually I gave up.

Jon and I then battled Scott at our base and everyone ended up dead in a very confusing rush. After the battle, we spent a long time trying to figure out who hit who, but the footage was inconclusive. It was decided that Jon and Scott hit each other, canceling out me and Scott hitting each other right after that.

Later, Brandon showed up at our base, but was unable to get any flags. Keith popped up and he had to retreat. We got him in a 2 on 1, and I hit him after a lot of skirmishing. The round ended early with no one able to get any flags.

There is a difference between being hardcore and being realistic. I couldn't attack and support Keith while the enemy knew where I was and I didn't want to leave Jon in a 1 on 2 if they decided to go around, since our base was easy to attack and easy to get out of. You jump once to get out of Thunder Gulch, but you climb to get out of Lost Chasm.

OHK Round 2, Saturday:
This would have worked well, but I thought the enemy's starting position was much closer than it turned out to be. We moved along the right and then into the middle of the pines. With no sign of the enemy, I was much more cautious when we got into what I thought was their side of the playing area, and moved up to the hill to try and spot them. We did spot them, all the way over to the left, about double the size of the space I thought we had to work with.

When they melted back into the pines, I stayed at the base of the hill because I didn't want to get snuck up on and ambushed, which still almost happened. I know what was intended in the design of the round, but the strategic reality is that once one team is out of the thick stuff and one team is still in, they are stuck on the outside. Then, we backed up the hill because duh, height advantage beats concealment in that situation. Again, I play OHK much more conservatively than OHS.

OHS Round 2, Saturday:
We stayed in the same place mainly because neither team was able to overrun the other. Action generally does not move across the field in a long round by choice, it moves by necessity. One team gets creamed and runs away to regroup. Or, people get low on water and teams run away to refill.

The terrain influences decisions to maneuver - in neutral ground, like the forest between Thunder Gulch and Lost Chasm, there is no need to reposition much. Lots of movement happens when one team tries to get an advantage or get rid of a disadvantage in terrain.

Our teams in community wars tend to be far less athletic, which is not a knock on anyone, just how it is. Modern wars and historical wars are apples and oranges. Ridgewood wars had huge amounts of movement, but almost everyone came from a sports team. The vast majority of my team in 2006 and 2007 was composed of track runners and other very physical, half-blood nerds. In some wars, I was in the bottom half of the team speed-wise and fitness-wise. I remember some earlier wars where my general lack of fitness hamstrung our tactical capabilities while Waterbridge ran circles around us.

If you want to not fight in the same place every time, you need a team capable of moving long distances, quickly, as one unit that thinks as one unit. I am wary of trying too many maneuvers when I can't even get people to perform position switches at the necessary speed or straggle up Saugatuck Mountain several minutes after the enemy and I have arrived at the top or don't heed repeated warnings to be careful in range and then get hit when it could have easily been avoided.

We're not on the same page mentally or physically and you absolutely have to be in a long round. Sometimes, we are on the same page, like how the Seals ran into Paine and ambushed my team on the Laurel Ledges. But, often we are not on the same page, like the run for our lives at St John's Woods, and that can have disastrous results.

One of the reasons the negative effects are not felt as hard as they could be is that Ben and I (and now Scott) do our best to absorb them in the defensive zone. If you get hit, we will take on the extra enemy in zone coverage until you return. Repeated use of zone keeps the battle in the same place, because it stabilizes the lines. I don't want to be overrun, so I go into zone over and over to make sure enemies can't number crash my line. This role was absent in my old wars, and one reason it's tougher to push a team from wherever it's positioned in community wars.

In all honesty, a community team would get creamed in a long round by the 2006-2007 RM or 2005 Waterbridge or many of Ben's teams/enemies. We're older, smarter, better duelists, and better outfitted than those teams of old, but we're not tougher, more physical, more patient, or anywhere as cohesive. These little things make a huge difference.

Again, I don't mean to come across as overly critical of anyone or single anyone out. It is what it is and I find our wars to be tons of fun, in many ways more so than the wars of old. But, in all honesty, I think we want some things (long rounds with action all over the field) that we can't yet handle. And that's not about turnout, it's about cohesion and fitness. Can we still have successful long rounds without these things? Absolutely, but they need to be designed very well. I'm not quite sure how to set the parameters, but there is always a way.

And I am sorry if I've managed to offend anyone about their fitness. I'm just frustrated when I play very well in such horrible shape…I mean honestly…I haven't had such a terrible level of physical fitness in 10 years. I can't finish a 30 minute run at friggen jog pace and don't deserve to go 12 and 0. You guys should be wrecking me in battle right now, Scott can almost run me down on a grass field. It's not gonna get any easier…I want to get back in peak shape and re-learn a devastating, fluid fighting style where you constantly run around the battle like Ben, but lash out and strike suddenly the way I do now. In other words, you move hard and never need to stop moving. Anyway, end of rant.

Domination, Saturday:
I also agree that this was the best round of the war. Not because my team won, but because of how intense it was and what it cost to win. After holding the middle base steadily, the enemy waited for one of the Andrew deaths to make a push that forced us to give it up. I kind of desperately ran around them on the left while Keith dueled Scott on the far right. Despite getting us into that situation, it was Andrew who fired the clutch shot that got us the base back. Once he hit Brandon, I was able to hit Sam and change the flag, Scott was too far away to cover. After that, they engaged the enemy farther up and I went to try and refill. I was only able to get 1/4 of a PC in with my cupped hands, but it was enough to help hold in the final minute. I'm also glad that I brought the 1200 as backup, cause one of my teammates ran out of water and was able to switch to that.

OHS Round 3, Saturday:
I liked this round, despite not hitting anyone. It's just really fun to use the 150, I enjoy using that more than the Gorgon.

HTL, Sunday:
I don't really care that it poured the whole time, although I was kinda useless once my glasses got soaked and I couldn't see anything. I was able to hit both defenders by climbing through some thorns and stuff and then there was confusion over whether we could go up and if I should go back down to let them respawn. I ended up going back down and nothing really happened after that. Brandon tried to go up and didn't make it all the way, Sam got hit a couple times on the ground, and we were unable to make any more headway in the rain.

OHS Round 4, Sunday:
I did well in this round with the stock 1200 again. Number management was really important, setting up 3 on 1 or 2 on 1 with one enemy and keeping the other out of supporting range.

OHS Round 5, Sunday:
I liked how this wasn't HTL, but set up like it so that the team of 2 had a chance. I hit Sam with the 2000 when he wasn't paying attention. He almost hit me a couple times while I was trying to play a very wide zone covering Scott. It got even tougher when Scott started to run out of water and was not shooting back as much, but we held on somehow.

Single-sided CTF-type round, Sunday:
It was silly, but still kinda fun as a soakfest with actual objectives. Jon hit me a bunch of times cause the train cars provided no cover from angled streams. This is one thing that makes water wars very unique among shooting games. Barriers as tall as yourself are still nothing.

Ultimately I don't really care that the turnout was low or that the weather backed up the war's name. It still gave us valuable experience, fun, and insight into how to improve community wars. Brandon did a great job hosting and trying to keep everyone on schedule, to the extent possible.

[the oncoming storm]

Homemades like the riptide and cloudburst are the best hope we have for long term, we are finally at the point that we can make practical homemades I'm working on a bow action water gun, and after that my next gun with be an APH based on the cloudburst.

[SEAL]

marauder: I didn't get many more photos because I was busy trying to move things along. I have some team photos and one or two random shots of us refilling or something, but that's about it. DX, CA99, and Scott got video footage though.

CA99: I haven't really participated much in the technical discussions because as you know I prefer just plain fighting, and I don't know much about engineering water guns yet. I'm going to have to take some courses before I begin planning out a combat-worthy primary. Until then, It's back to the workshop I guess...

DX: The reason you don't get hit that much is because you're agile and good at dodging. I don't think you necessarily need to be in good shape to do that. I play baseball, I've ran over 6 miles (and I was gearing up for 9 at one point, but went to Soakemore instead), and I lift weights (though I admit that I'm not as fit as I was during baseball season), but I'm still kind of clumsy and slow. The reason I play defensively most of the time is because I don't have enough faith in my agility to rush someone and dodge all their shots while also landing a hit on them. Although I don't think I've ever seen someone who can do that successfully more than ~75% of the time. Most hits in water warfare occur when someone screws up or gets ambushed/blindsided.

I definitely agree with you on team cohesion, which was one of the things I liked about doing rival teams; it's hard to fight with people you don't know well, or with people who don't have much tactical skill. I remember in some of the battles I would sneak around to the side and distract an opponent, but my teammates never took advantage of it. When you have permanent teams you can really get to know your teammates and go over maneuvers together. This would work best if you had local teams, but as far as I know that's only happened a few times in community history, and it's certainly not going to happen around here.

[marauder]

Everyone please take a step back from the edge. It's clear that we need to reevaluate our exceptions. Not just with the fighting as CA99 and DX said, but with soakers as well. Are we seriously going into crisis mode because a CPS 2700 has a broken trigger or because a $65 2500 has a messed up firing valve? We need to remember these are toys, and if you don't like that word then think of them as cheap sporting equipment. If you bought a $30 pump action paintball gun from wal mart and put it through 13 years of intense fighting, in the mud, in the rain, etc. you'd also end up with cracked, broken, or just plain worn out parts. I'm sure some of you are thinking, "but my CPS 2000 cost me way more than $30," yes, but it certainly never retailed for the price you paid for it used. A $160 CPS 2000 may be worth $160 to enthusiasts like us, but it doesn't change the fact that it was made by a Toy Company for less than the $30 it retailed for.

I remember the year I joined the community there was some grumbling in the community that Super Soaker would never make a blaster as powerful as the 2000 and things were on the downturn because the 2700 was a step down from the 2500 and the Monsters were weak. Even xNeverFaceDefeatx wrote an article on Guts 'N Glory about how Super Soaker didn't understand what we wanted in waterguns anymore and how we may be facing the end. A few more years went by and the attitude became even more prevalent with discussion of home mades overtaking the battlefield and stock blasters going extinct. Well guess what? We're still here. And they're still here. It's 2013 and I can buy NIB XP 270s, SC Power Paks, CPS 2500s, and SC 600s, or CPS 1200s on ebay. That's not something I could do 10 years ago. It's 2013 and we've had what - 1 hit made by a homemade out of how many community wars and battles? It was a celebrated feat when someone made the first ever hit with a waterballoon launcher. And the funny thing about that first hit is ... it was by chance. It wasn't even a direct hit. The waterballoon skipped off the surface of the lake before it hit someone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that a limited availability of good soakers online is better than massive availability in store. I'm not saying that you should stop making home mades and launchers. I'm not saying that you're wrong for being upset that your guns are breaking down. I'm just saying that it's not the major issue you think it is. If your trigger is cracked you can reinforce it, or replace it with one from a gun that's even more broken, or you could make your own out of metal. Or you could just buy a new CPS 2700 for $30 on ebay. Once I returned back to base from every mission I went on overseas the first thing I did (after getting hot food and a shower) was to clean my M4 and whatever other weapon I brought with me. It didn't matter if I had fired it or not, I cleaned it. Got out all the dust. If your blaster breaks on you in battle I don't think it's the manufacturer's fault after 13 years of hard use. Perhaps we should examine all the moving pieces of our blasters before a big war. And after that, if they still break, well sometimes that happens and we have to get used to that. I trained a lot on clearing out jams with my m4, but I also trained on transitioning from my m4 to my 9mm in the event that my m4 went down. I criticize some old, now gone, board members earlier in this post, but they did had the right mindset on how to deal with this. When I went to Dominator War 2 I noticed XN carried a screwdriver and some other pieces with him at all time - and a sidearm. Yes, it might be somewhat clumsy, but he had a backup plan. After that war, my team always had a designated tech man who carried a few tools with them in battle. If your gun goes down in battle don't stick with it. Do whatever you can to get a new one. Scott has the right idea when he hordes those Crickets or caches guns. DX had the right idea when he took all those guns to the top of suicide hill at Umstead.

SEAL, I'm not picking on you, I wasn't there, I'm just using what happened with multiple people to bring up ideas and a few examples. Also, please don't think I'm trying to make huge parallels between my military training and water wars, those references were heuristic in nature and for analogous purposes only. I'll get to my thoughts on the tactics later, but seriously, this is not the end of the world. We need to be able to roll with the punches. We need to realize that sometimes we take these things a little too seriously. CPS guns aren't going away anytime soon. Perhaps in 10 or 15 years, but by that time we will have common access to 3D printers. Printers which will be cheaper and better than what we have now, which can scan and duplicate stock parts in various plastics and or metals. By that time the CPS patent will expire. Who knows if BBT or Super Soaker will do anything with it, but it will expire. By that time I expect home mades and launchers to be more practical. I truly think we are making progress in that area but I think you are truly crazy if you think homemades will replace stock and modded blasters in the next 2 or 3 years. Stock blasters will be around for a while.

[Drenchenator]

SEAL, thanks for putting this together. Overall, I enjoyed coming and definitely think it was worth the 6 hour drive I had to make to get there. I did get hit the most, but this was also the first war in which I had hits (I had 2 total). That's a huge success for me!

I do think we need to get more people. That's probably the only logistical critique I could make. It was pretty hard for me to schedule coming, but I pulled through and figured it out. But that was in large part because I wanted to come. We need to figure out a way to make a large number of people want to come, and then it will be really awesome.

Stock water guns were never made with the best materials, so it's actually pretty amazing that they have lasted this long in the first place. I think homemades will help, but only if you have tons of money and time to burn. I've spend 300 dollars and at least 50 hours building and designing Cloudburst, and it's still not finished. Until we come up with a foolproof, flexible, and cheap homemade design, stock blasters will continue to be our best option. That said, I still find it annoying that all my stock guns continue to wear down.

[SEAL]

Who's going into crisis mode? I think the reason most of us are frustrated is because the modern water gun market forces us to hunt around for high-priced 15-year-old blasters that break down often. If you could actually buy powerful blasters in stores, then everything would be a whole lot easier and we could focus more on just enjoying the game. I believe the reason homemades have never broken through the threshold is because we lack innovation. Aside from Drenchenator and JLspacemarine (and maybe a few others who I'm forgetting), everyone just sticks to the same old APH design with the super-tall PCs and PVC ball valve trigger (I too was guilty of that). We seriously need to move on if we expect homemades to truly take over. Like Drenchenator said, we need to come up with something that's cheap, reliable, and relatively easy to build. I plan to do my part when the time comes, but for now I don't have spare money or experience.

I'm really glad people enjoyed the war, even if I thought it could've been better. I always wish we could have wars similar to those DX and M4 used to have, but I guess that's just not an option for now. We need to brainstorm ways to make wars more enjoyable in the future. I'm thinking of creating a thread on that sometime.

[the oncoming storm]

while not the cheapest, the Cloudburst/Riptide core is the best chance we have for making highly battle practical homemades.

[HBWW]

Some people had a problem with having to climb in and out of Lost Chasm (picture a supersized Thunder Gulch), but we're supposed to be, you know, hardcore...

Hey, I've been practicing a lot for that by playing Super Mario World, yet I still had trouble climbing them...

Anyway, I'm just gonna copy/paste the layout of DX's post and inject my own thoughts.

Night OHK, Friday:
Good thing we only had two of these rounds, where no encounters actually happen. I don't know how anyone enjoys spending more than 30 minutes per game camping or hunting for the enemy and finding nothing. (Then again, this IS coming from the urban water warfare guy.)

Night Zombies, Friday:
And there it was, after the embarrassing death from Scott's Vipers, I got my semblences of urban warfare moments around the bathouse. I got about 3 or 4 kills after becoming zombified, although I did have a 12k and got hit by a Sneak Attack square in the face once, after badly aiming from fogged up glasses. Fun game nonetheless.

OHK Round 1, Saturday:
This was the second boring round. We went near the enemy, then left without realizing it, then the game ended. The end.

OHS Round 1, Saturday:
Pretty standard round. I made a few mistakes and got hit at least once over it.

CTF, Saturday:
I decided to save my energy and stay defending the flags. I kind of wanted to sit this one out. Overall, an uneventful match save for Chief running around and harassing me lol.

OHK Round 2, Saturday:
This was actually kind of interesting. Lots of fighting, movement, and shooting, but no hits from either side. Thanks to DX's sharp eye, we spotted the other team at a good time.

OHS Round 2, Saturday:
Was this the round where one team had the unfair height advantage? I managed to exploit that and keep DX back.

Domination, Saturday:
I was worn out as hell before finally reaching the Lost Chasm. Once getting in the game however, my tiredness fell aside and I fought. I didn't put that much effort into it, but I naturally went up and made the pushes I had to. Still, I was unsuccessful in a last-ditch attempt to change the flag, but it was one of those intense heat-of-the-battle moments that I play this for.

OHS Round 3, Saturday:
I concur with DX about the 150. Love the click of that trigger.

HTL, Sunday:
Of all the times I've in the rain, this was the only time where it really made a huge impact on identifying hits. Coupled with low output blasters and streams coming from up high didn't help at all.

OHS Round 4, Sunday:
Scott and I came to be better friends this war. We grouped together to fight DX, Firebird, and SEAL for this game. My play was to try to keep one side of the group of 3 occupied, and I got a few hits this way. Unfortunately, I was not that great of a brother in arms, as Scott got chased and hit several times, struggling to adapt to the 2500's aim. I completely did not see that coming, as I've never thought much about changing blasters. (Although my aim was never that great anyway, which I always compensated for via more tap shots or short sustained shots.) At one point, I got driven out of the battlefield by clumsy mistake, but was allowed to sprint back in later on. Combat against DX was dynamic, but not as intense as facing Firebird's 1021. I almost got fully hit several times, it was too hard to tell. I ended up not counting them since the center of the shots did hit the blaster. Trevor (my friend who was at Soakemore) says I cheated after I showed him the GoPro footage today. I probably did.

This is the second time I've failed as Scott's teammate on a team of two, the first being at MOAB's first night. Sorry, Scott.

OHS Round 5, Sunday:
I thought this was HTL. It was setup as one with rules on movement, wasn't it? Weird. Anyway, here I experienced how a few simple mistakes can be. Bad shot patterns and timing from poor intuition and thinking resulted in shots that never hit a target as fast as DX. I ended up thinking too much about what to do when switching to the left side of the battlefield to fight Scott in the woods, and didn't consider the fact that I had to actually run far to get out of 2000 range, which is where I got hit.

Single-sided CTF-type round, Sunday:
I was really horribly adapted for this game and made a lot of stupid moves. It was frantic and demanding due to the very close ranges. I could blame the game setup very easily, but I should've re-thought how I moved about and maintained my distance. (And maybe packed a few water balloons; I think they would've been at least a bit useful for this round.)

Without a doubt, I got better at this war. Less goofing around with water balloons/WBL's and other toys, and more moving and shooting. The scores don't seem to completely reflect this though.

As far as equipment goes, nothing there is by any means easy. An M4 is designed to be field stripped, a CPS 2000 is not. One is expensive and built to last, specifically for combat, and the other is a toy (as Marauder mentioned). Like I said, at least it was the trigger on the 2700 that broke and not the pull valve, but once that pull valve goes (and all of them will eventually, as will 2nd-stage check valves), the blaster's nothing but spare parts. Want to replace the pull valve? You might as well build a CPH, take the stock blaster's bladder, and K-mod it to hell. The alternative is to keep buying blasters again and again, hoping the parts that break in different blasters happen to be the "right" ones that allow two broken blasters' parts to be combined into one working one (good luck with that between marks). Yeah yeah, the CPS's are still around after 15 years, but as DX mentioned, not only is this unsustainable, it's downright expensive. The pull valves aren't even maintainable or repairable on almost every blaster, at least without perfect sawing skills and ridiculous amounts of epoxy.

Thing is, we need to adapt and work with what we have as well as know that what we have can easily go away at a moment's notice. We are close to hanging on a thread here and can only get out of this via technology and homemades. Constantly buying CPS 2000's is not a practical solution at all, but neither is leaving them out of the armory. The CPS patent expiry is almost completely irrelevant at this point, but BBT has worked small miracles before. I'd expect to see an ergonomic version of the Vindicator at best when that happens, which would bring a blaster at the capabilities of a 1000/1200/2100, but still leaves the gap of the 1500/2500/2000. The thing is, while current APH's/CPH's are no match on a 2000, we need to make them so, and the sooner we can, the better.

As far as homemades go, I'm not 100% onboard with the complex designs; the ones that have more parts to break and tend to have issues in general. We need to be careful when taking a modular, ergonomic design to these, and I think we need to avoid rough cut, bad handles which tend to be worse than 2nd gen homemades (basic APH/CPH designs), as well as ensure easy disassembly and maintenance. I'd rather have no trigger and a free pump if it means that the whole thing is solid and reliable, with a valve I know will open and close perfectly every single time and a pump that's easy to maintain.

[HBWW]

More pictures.

[marauder]

When you decrease the size of some of the screen shots from the movies they actually make great photos and avatars. I'm still looking forward to the movies.

[HBWW]

Done. Avatar is up.

Off-topic: Scott, here's your new profile picture/avatar. (From Soakemore.)

[scottthewaterwarrior]

I actually want to use that! Only problem is that I can't figure out how to link it!

I agree quite a bit with what people are saying. This is part of why I wanted to have BBT only round (which didn't happen) at soakemore. Other then my 3200, just about everygun used at my local wars in the past has been from 2003 or newer. It is quite possible to have wars with non CPS weaponry. I agree that it is quite annoying when the guns you have spent a lot of money on don't work, but I really don't think homemades are the solution. Just look at how much time it took to set them up at Soakemore, and how effective did they end up being? I really think that we need to be looking more at what can be done with what is readily available. CPS 2500/1500s are very pricy, but a K-moded 1200 can be almost as effective for a fraction of the price. Water Warriors are not as powerful (even the HP ones) as the Super Soakers of old, but one thing they have done right is the ease of repair. One of the biggest issues I have had with super soakers is getting them apart. I have yet to run into a single water warriors gun I couldn't open, and of those, only one that I haven't been able to repair. While I would love for them to make guns that last for ever, I think we should be focused more on how hard they are to fix when broken.
This rant kind of went in circles, but I've had a lot on my plate lately and my head still hasn't fully stopped spinning.

CA99: Don't worry to much about "failing me." When I battle I care a lot more about having fun then winning. Winning is nice, but if I can't enjoy myself while doing it then what's the point? I know this war was a bit of a letdown due to the small attendance, but it was still really fun hanging with everyone.

[marauder]

I would say that you've obviously never opened a Vindicator before but I know you have. That took DX and I forever to get opened up.

[SEAL]

The homemades at Soakemore aren't exactly the types I was thinking of. A design like JLspacemarine's CPH (my favorite homemade) is what I have in mind for the future. I don't remember them taking all that long to set up at the war though, and I'm not talking about the launchers, just the blasters.

I've decided I should attend more Nerf wars. Maybe DX and I can generate enough publicity to boost attendance in future water wars. Unfortunately school is coming up soon, so I don't know if I'll have the time. Engineering classes are tough.

I love all these photographic avatars by the way. I think they look much better than a simple logo or something.

[DX]

For Scott: http://www.waterwarfare.com/images/scott-avatar.jpg

Now you can have a photographic avatar, too!

[HBWW]

I had to split the pump cap on the Vindicator to get it opened. I noticed one of the ball valve control levers' plastic whitening due to stress incurred at MOAB from lack of valve lubrication earlier; once that gives way, it will be super annoying and time-consuming to fix. The valve arm on my Tiger Shark already broke about a year ago and it's nothing at all close to a trivial repair.

Scott, I'll resize the pic and give you the link (you can just attach an image here and direct-link it, just don't direct-link to any image here from other sites). DX must've miss-linked his version of it lol, it's returning a 404.

As for homemades, the CPH/APH did not take that much time to setup, at least once the intake tube was cut and the backpacks filled lol. You're only talking about the WBL's; those will always take a long time considering the fact that you have a whole bucket of balloons to fill. Scaling back on water balloons saved a lot of time and energy at Downpour, heh. =p

I'd like to partake in NIC wars too, but I'm less enthusiastic about posting on NH. I'd need to get to know the community better to get a gauge of how many Nerfers would actually be interested in water warfare.

Edit: Nevermind lol.

[DX]

DX must've miss-linked his version of it lol, it's returning a 404.

That's weird, because it works for me.