WaterWar.net

I made a draft version of my homemade water gun survey. Please take a look at this survey, and offer some feedback about the survey itself, but do not submit answers yet. Please do take a look at the survey, however. This is a test, not the real survey! A few people did submit answers and I'm worried that they didn't realize this was not final.

Am I missing any important questions?

Are any questions phrased poorly?

Please let me know below so that when I run the survey for real it's better. Any responses made now will be deleted before the real survey.

Link to draft survey (DO NOT SUBMIT, just take a look at it!)

I'm going to post the final survey next Saturday night on here and some of the water gun related reddits. I might post it on NerfHaven and r/Nerf. I don't use Facebook, so it might be worthwhile if someone posts it to a few water gun and Nerf groups there. Let me know if you do so I can add some checkboxes for the different places people saw this posted at.

I intend to make another survey about water gun wars if this one goes well, too.

Responded.

marauder wrote:Responded.

Much appreciated, thanks, but perhaps I was unclear. I've edited the original post now. This is only a test survey, not the real final survey. Do you think I'm missing any questions or could phrase any of the ones I have better? I want to make sure that this survey is hitting all the right points.

Oh, I thought it was really involved lol. I can't see anything missing at the moment, but perhaps someone who's a newer member or from a dif perspective like being a nerfer or something would have better input.

Good point. I'll ask a few Nerfers I know to see what they think. Also thought I should simplify the survey a bit, so thanks for pointing that out.

Feedback:

- Add durability/maintenance as a reason to disliking current manufactured soakers.
- Willing to order online to any site that ships to the main 48 states.
- Willing to order online, but NOT by phone. (Should be an option.)


By far, the largest problem with homemades at the moment is getting the ergonomics correct, while still being easy enough to build. I think building blasters that fit into shells might work, similar to how air blaster internals going into different shells are common in the Nerf community. Definitely need triggers too.

In community wars, you may have noticed that none of us favored homemades.

Anyway, what I'm looking for may not be possible without the higher level tools that the nerfers typically have; large tools such as mills, drill presses, lathes. However, if a homemade can't be used in one of our games while being competitive with the CPS line, it's pretty useless to me. (Although if the CPS's were to suddenly disappear, homemades are our 2nd best option.)

HBWW wrote:Feedback:
Anyway, what I'm looking for may not be possible without the higher level tools that the nerfers typically have; large tools such as mills, drill presses, lathes. However, if a homemade can't be used in one of our games while being competitive with the CPS line, it's pretty useless to me. (Although if the CPS's were to suddenly disappear, homemades are our 2nd best option.)

This, except that I'm still not convinced homemades will be better than Water Warrios.

What we need is substantially improved ergonomics. If it's awkward and bulky it'll have to a) shoot 70 feet and be able to b) recharge quickly to make it worth it. While a) is possible, albeit difficult, b) is still not possible, and even then we'd be complaining about how bulky and awkward it is.

HBWW wrote:- Add durability/maintenance as a reason to disliking current manufactured soakers.
- Willing to order online to any site that ships to the main 48 states.
- Willing to order online, but NOT by phone. (Should be an option.)

Thanks for this. Durability was already listed, but I added the other distinction.

HBWW wrote:By far, the largest problem with homemades at the moment is getting the ergonomics correct, while still being easy enough to build. I think building blasters that fit into shells might work, similar to how air blaster internals going into different shells are common in the Nerf community. Definitely need triggers too.

What additional questions could cover this? I can think of a few, feel free to add more.

How important is a nozzle selector to you?
These allow you to select different size nozzles. For example, see the rotating nozzle selector of the CPS 2500: http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis ... ps2500.php
A fast operating nozzle selector is essential.
Unscrewing the nozzle to swap them is fine, but a nozzle selector is preferred.
Doesn't matter. I only use one nozzle anyway.

What length is ideal for a water blaster to you?
You can get an idea of the length of different water blasters at iSoaker.com: http://www.isoaker.com/Info/2012/10/201 ... s-2012.php
Liquidator sized: less than 1.5 feet (0.46 m)
CPS 1000 sized: between 1.5 feet (0.46 m) and 2.0 feet (0.61 m)
CPS 1500 sized: between 2.0 feet (0.61 m) and 2.5 feet (0.76 m)
CPS 2500 sized: between 2.5 feet (0.76 m) and 3.0 feet (0. m)
Monster XL sized: more than 3 feet (0.9 m)

What dry weight (that is, with no water) is ideal for a water blaster to you?
You can get an idea of the weight of different water blasters at iSoaker.com: http://www.isoaker.com/Info/2012/10/201 ... s-2012.php
Liquidator sized: less than 2.0 pounds (900 g)
CPS 1000 sized: between 2.0 pound (900 g) and 2.6 lb (1200 g)
CPS 1500 sized: between 2.6 pounds (1200 g) and 3.1 pounds (1400 g)
CPS 2500 sized: between 3.1 pounds (1400 g) and 4.0 pounds (1800 g)
Monster XL sized: 4.0 pounds (1800 g) or more

I want to make a question about handles, but I'm not quite sure what to ask.

Those are good, but I'd expand on something about balance and grips. Poorly designed grips have been a problem in the past, particularly with some water warriors blasters around the turn of the decade, although their current ergonomics are mostly quite solid. Anyway, the question would be pretty vague, something along the lines of "How important is the grip design of the blaster?" The end goal is something that works as well as possible for as many users as possible.

The length question has a huge gap between CPS 1000 length and Liquidator.

I actually don't find nozzle selectors to be diehard important, but more as a nice-to-have extra feature. Of course, this is assuming the nozzle is somewhere on the 5x-10x ballpark.

After thinking about it, I'm not sure questions about balance and grips are really needed. I suspect everyone will say that good balance and grips are essential.

I'm also going to remove a few questions, e.g., the nozzle selector one is probably not so useful. We don't really have any good alternatives to the screw-on type nozzles (whether endcap or whatever) at the moment.

I'll run the survey tomorrow. Expect a post here and some other places. Thanks everyone for the feedback, as it helped me refine the survey to be more useful.