Yeah, Alec! Change me to a definite, with at least 1 friend. Stevens is rollin' out!

Bump, and one of my friends will need to borrow a primary. Can someone bring a spare?

War's over, and it's postmortem time! Interesting bits coming your way!

- Berserker Fusion! Daikaiju! not functioning at all!
- RIDICULOUS COLD. Got frostnip on my left hand after ten minutes of play.
- Stevens army rolling out four-deep. Z80, Non-NIC Twitch, Noodles, holla.
- No gun breakages!
- Rapid prototyping the Shields game! See below.
- Slept through a train and missed one more...
- Kicking ass with a Pirates of the Caribbean pistol!
- Hanging with the Stevens crew, Cheesy, Lucian, DX, Silencer, et al
- Totally failing yet again to nail down a trade with Lucian

I want to give the Shields game type some special attention. We tested it out in a few rounds - two with one life, two with one life where you had to kneel as you counted, and a pistol round. Here's what I observed:
- Standoffs ended naturally. Players realized quickly that unless they were spread out, they would never land two hits.

- Standoffs weren't totally eliminated, since players were reluctant to take the first shot. Players who were confident in their accuracy or just reckless broke the ice by landing a hit or charging.

- Teamwork went through the roof. Players organized themselves into 'fire teams' or buddied up before rushes.

- Strategy came into play very prominently. Long-ranged players had to coordinate with short-ranged players so the latter could clean up after the former landed a shot.

- Gameplay proceeded slowly at first, then got faster as players were eliminated. The last player on a team had an impossible time.

- Short-ranged blasters, pistols, and melee weapons became really powerful. Players could continue their rush even if they were shot, and hitting someone at 10 feet could make or break a play. I cleaned up half a team using an Arrowstorm and a Warlock, and Jeff took down a few guys with an Atom Blaster!

- Players were confused about barrel taps, and we couldn't decide how to handle them. This part needs some work in the future.

- The kneeling thing was interesting, but dropping to one knee on frozen earth was torture. We ended this round quickly.

- Players still needed some time to adjust to the game. Many players' primaries took too long to reload, and players were unaccustomed to the type of strategy and teamwork needed to score kills.

- The general consensus was that Longshots would be super-weapons in this style. None of us actually brought a Longshot, so this went untested.

Bear in mind that the temperatures were EXTREMELY FUCKING COLD, which cut players' accuracy, and more importantly, reload speed. I'd definitely try this game mode when it gets warmer and players are encouraged to bring high-ROF blasters.

I'm taking the train in. Can anyone pick me up at Mamaroneck station at 9:15?

That's a hell of a mod, nice job! I wonder why no one's thought of this yet - SplitFires and 2K's have been popular for a decade...

Anyways, I've got a Splitfire and I'd love to rip this off, so now all I need is a 2K turret!

Hook an oscilloscope up across the phototransistor, run the motor full blast, and check out the amplitudes.

It's possible that the peak output voltage of the phototransistor isn't going over the microcontroller's minimum logic high voltage. If that's the case, you'll need to bias the transistor or amplify it with a fast transistor or logic buffer.

The opposite problem is possible too - at speed, the minimum output voltage might be too high to register as a logic low! If that's the case, you can use black paint or aluminum tape to block ambient light, and add a current-limiting resistor to dim the LED.

The important part is to use a scope and see the characteristics of the signal.

Some speculation:
You might be able to remove the glued-on barrel using pipe cutters, like removing the restrictors from a Longshot.
If you put a hole through the rear cocking portion right behind the white plunger tab, you might be able to band the plunger.

This really does look like the spiritual successor to the NiteFinder. It's got the barrel with a hole under it, the small N-Strike rail, and two dart holders. I wouldn't be surprised to see this sold separately from the set.

It's good to see Nerf evolving the designs a bit. They're making them more mature, better suited for office warfare etc. I wonder if the new styling cues will carry outside the Dart Tag series.

Did someone take my bayonet home with them? I can't find it in my gear.

Damn, what a weekend. As soon as this war was over, I hit the road and drove to Maryland for UMD's Dart of War. It was really interesting, going from an outdoor NIC war to an indoor HvZ-style war. LT did a pretty good job getting this organized, and we had a great continuum of Nerfers.

This was the first war I've been to that heavily featured hoppers, and they're already getting old.

Highlights!
- The Iron Man Super Soaker getting a hopper and raping face. Perhaps too much face. I might put one of Tantum's homemade OPRV's to tone down the power.
- Lucian insisting on having showdowns with me each game, and getting his ass kicked each time!
- Attack and Defend, with attackers using stock darts. It was actually well-balanced. Stock darts in drums work surprisingly well!
- Finally seeing Lucian's "improvements" to my L+L. It's so ostentatious. I love it!
- Lots of CtF! 10-year-old Asian ninjas kept sneaking through our defenses!
- Homa-sexual wimping out
- Traded away the Batman Belt Blaster, which people at the war could actually wear!
- Ace's AUG HBAR SNAP
- Switching teams partway through an Attack and Defend
- Getting a gnarly thumb blister, and repairing the damage with Band-Aids and e-tape
- SUPER HOT! I drank almost a gallon of water. Lucy's dad dumped the rest on his head.
- Not a single gun breakage
- Thanks for using Slug darts, people. I only got two welts, and they were from the only person using slingshot darts.
- Skipping darts across the water!

I'm heading up to UMD for Dart of War directly after JSNO.
I have room for a few people, if anyone wants to split gas money.
The guy I'm staying with at UMD has room for a couple more, so if you want a ride, get in touch.

This was one of the most challenging wars I've ever fought. The brutal weather tested our endurance, broke our blasters, and buried our staging area. 

 

Thanks to Aeromech for running a tight war. He finessed some tense situations with park security and a news reporter, and even gave us bagels and bologna. Downtime between rounds was short - maybe too short, with all the N-strike mags that needed reloading.

 

It was ridiculously cold. Anyone without layers of outerwear and heavy gloves froze to death. In irony blyat, Sentinel Master Race cyka destroyed by Russian winter, blin. Many Sentinels were lost today. Our brave comrades were rearmed by Van - your service to Republic will be remembered.

 

The cold destroyed lots of blasters. My Sceptor leaked, homemades lost their seals, 3D-printed parts fractured, flywheels slipped. Even tactical gear and duct tape failed.

 

My new Rapidstrike was a beast. It handled the snow like a champ and mulched my opponents. The only real issue was that the cold weather made my LiPo's voltage drop, and the blaster thought it was out of charge and disabled itself. Worse, Van's Frankenblaster outranged it and he ate my lunch again and again. Damn you Van!

 

My gray Drats (not darts, drats) were basically invisible in the snow. Not only couldn't I confirm hits, I lost like 150 of them.

 

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a great war, helped shlep my huge loadout, and helped get my goddamn Centurion out of my apartment.

 

Also, ice froze into my beard and made me look like a manly-man. Here's what the girlfriend thought.

 

No, it was actually in the snow, I have it, just remind me before the next war. It's a little worn out from being in the melting snow for two days though.

 

Woooooooooo!!

 

You should come to the next NYCNO. Everyone should. 

Defend the Playground was Effeminate.

What's up with the Effeminate? Is there a new word filter I don't know about?

Also, Numa (and anyone else who took video), can you try to get me the original files of any video footage you took at the war? I'd like to make a montage.

I have some leftover parts from my Rapidstrike mod. PM MEEEE if you'd like me to bring any of them to the war for trade or sale:

• MTB Rhino motors
• MTB Honey Badger motors
• Worker Stryfe extended mag release lever
• Worker Rapidstrike extended pusher arm (new in package)
• Worker serrated flywheels (new in package)
• 3D printed ABS Rapidstrike extended mag release lever
• 3D printed PLA JSPB3D C5 sights
• 3D printed PLA GoPro tactical rail mount
• Modulus collapsible foregrip
• 0.75" aluminum pipe (drop-in replacement for rifled false barrels)
• 16ga silicone wire
• RFID tags (about 1" circles, as thick as a credit card, formatted NDEF)
• A stock Centurion (w/ 7 darts)

I'm looking for Sledgefire shells, Recon ladder sights, 22-round Worker mags, a one-point sling, Accustrike darts, Koosh darts, a stock Sentinel, and the Modulus bayonet knife.

 

EDIT: Added subtle emphasis to the "PM me" part

I'm taking an Uber to the war from NYC's West Village. Anyone want to split a fare?

Sounds good to me. Sign me up. The Stevens Crew (5+) might show as well, but we won't know that until the date gets closer.

EDIT: Depends if my parents replace the car my brother decided to crash. Gears, is there a train station or something nearby?

Are FVJ's ok? I don't think I'll be able to get Koosh darts in time.

I may not be able to get there because of snow.

It shouldn't start snowing until 10 or 11. Get moving earlier and you should be OK.

 

BONUS! Here's my gear for the war, minus the Sceptor that's down for repairs.

I'm running the "Biotic" Sceptor from last time, as well as my new Rapidstrike superstock project.

 

Hopefully some of you bring superstock too, so I can get some fair testing!

I'll probably be able to make it. I'll ask the Stevens crew if they're interested.

Skype Name: zackfreedman
Real Name: Zack
Call me: Your Royal Highness

The Longshot Carbine Formerly Known as Sholef

Shield usage is steadily becoming an interesting addition to Nerf games that i've attended recently.

Of everyone who's posted an opinion in this thread, only SG has actually played a goddamn game with the shield, so he's the only one who knows what the hell he's talking about. For the record, the gun/shoelace/equipment hit rule is there to prevent arguments and keep the game moving.

Anyways, SG, does the presence of shields really disrupt the game enough to merit new rules? Does it create deadlocks and turtling? Most importantly, is there ever confusion/arguments about whether a shot hit the shield or the player?

You get four mini Airtech tanks for your money. Intriguing. Definitely the biggest trigger mechanism I've ever seen, at any rate.

I might be there. I think the next day's the first day of college. If I do show up, I'll bring cookies.

Food for thought:

Do you really need to hit things as hard as you can with this?

100% agreement with Fome.

The new Nerf swords are already dangerously dense. Further stiffening them is the equivalent of trying to tank expand or airflow mod a singled titan.

The Fury swords like the one this guy's working on are a lot squishier than the Marauder and Warlock. Even if you get slashed full-throttle, they really don't hurt.

Remember, folks, it's more fun if you hit them with the flat side of the blade. SMACK!!

Someone left behind a slick NiteFinder with a distinctly-colored battery cap. More info Here.

High-five to Nerf's kick-ass PR people. You girls rock.

Also, no socket for barrel extensions?!

That's pretty damn cool. You might also be able to make a hop-up by putting some sort of small, friction-y piece on the end. When the ball flies out, it catches momentarily on the piece and gets some backspin. That's how hop-ups work in that game with plastic pellets that Nerfers aren't allowed to acknowledge.

If you're going with the whole backspin idea, use some dimpled practice golf balls or fuzzy miniature tennis balls. The textures are designed to catch air and get gnarly spins.

Can't wait to get shot by that thing.

You should paint the rest of it with 50's Japanese monster movies art. A video would be good...

It's going to get a hammered-gold paint job, and the side sticker will be replaced with a piece of a Godzilla movie poster. It needs to wait, since spraypaint doesn't come out well in cold weather. It will eventually get a video, though.

Couldn't you just take a heat gun to some CPVC and bend it so it fits in the shell? This would remove the need of an elbow and cut down on the dead space.

I suppose I could. That will eliminate the elbow, but how would that save dead space? Also, getting the length of the CPVC segments is pretty tricky.

If somebody in the future wanted to try and keep everything in the shell, it would make much more sense to just use some type of tubing that is already flexible.

I don't think that would work - the rotation mech is actually braced against the upward air pipe. Normally, it's held in place by a green bushing on the missile tube, but once this mod is performed, the air pipe serves this purpose. I feel like a flexible tube would jam the rotation mech and eventually get sliced through, but definitely give it a try!

You should try to give it wings

All in good time...

Now that I have your attention, I'd like to show you a Berserker with the air tank hooked up to the turret - the two blasters 'fused' together. 20 shots, 4B ranges, and all that good stuff. I also replaced that gawd-awful handle with one from the Longshot Front Gun and installed a little somethin-somethin in the middle of the turret. I dub this thing... DAIKAIJU! Means 'giant monster' in Japanese.

This mod is dedicated to Muttonchops, who mentioned the original idea at Apoc 09. Soon afterwards, he took a 3B barrel to the face, meaning that someone up there did not want this blaster to be made.

It's a little tough to pull apart and reassemble, so this isn't a true write-up. I'll touch on the interesting bits, which will hopefully be enough to make your own.


Here's a pic of the internals. The air goes out of the top of the tee, through an elbow, and into the top barrel. A cut-down neoprene washer helps prevent some air loss. I tore out the now-obsolete springer components.


This is the bread and butter of this mod. In a stock Berserker, the missile-launching post is attached directly to the air tank, and serves as the spindle for the turret. I sawed off the entire barrel, down to the blast chamber itself, and replaced it with a CPVC tee. Note how the tee is cut down to lie flat on the blast chamber - this ensures that the turret actuator can move correctly.

I plugged up the end of a piece of CPVC and inserted it into the tee to serve as a new spindle. To get the actuator to fit, I enlarged the hole to fit over the tee. A few wraps of electrical tape eliminated the wiggle room. I added an extra spring to the ratchety thingy so the pump could apply more force to turn the turret.


To kill the air restrictors, I used a 1/2" spade bit to annihilate the entire contents of each barrel. To fill the dead space and create a better seal, I hot-glued a segment of stock dart into each barrel and melted off the excess with a high-speed Dremel. Not the best solution, but it worked.
I replaced this with a new turret for rearloading action!


To get the air pipe to fit, I had to cut a slot in the shell and clean out some of the plastic. It's pretty straightforward - just grind away till it fits.


I hacked off the Oompa-Loompa-scale handle, ground the tabs off a Longshot Front Gun handle, cut a slot in the shell, and Fly Tier's Glued the handle in. Fits like a glove. The topmost screw on the new handle will be covered by the Berserker shell, so remove it first.


I drilled a hole in the LSFG handle's trigger tab, bent the longer firing pin to fit, and installed it all. The trigger pull is just enough to set off the blast chamber, and the internal extension spring makes the trigger spring unnecessary.


The finishing touches - A King Ghidora 'hood ornament' and ten feet of PETG. Why PETG? It's nice and light. Why not 20 feet? Because 10 feet is all I had!

Here's some gun porn for ya:



Check out Version 1.1, with rearloading and a basketball pump!

This mod took around six hours over two days and cost about $35, including the Berserker.

This station always takes requests! You suggested, I listened. I present to you... Daikaiju! Mark 1.1! Now with 100% more basketball pumps and rearloading!


Mmm, Spalding. I sawed off the pump tube and glued this puppy on with a big wad of epoxy putty, a la Rork's Mega Missile Decrapified. The tank's full in 2.5 pumps, 3 if I feel like living dangerously.


A close-up of the rearloading hole. To prevent losing darts, I made this chute out of thin aluminum plate.


According to your mom, size matters. My blaster is four feet long. What about yours?

Rearloading and a pump replacement do seem to be pretty popular requests. Because of the sloppy way I closed up the turret, rearloading is impossible, but I could add it if someone would give me a replacement turret (wink wink).

I'm still trying to find a good place to drop a new pump. Any ideas?

Sights can come in handy if you can't aim down the barrel. I can't aim my Super Soaker Iron Man without the optics:
http://nerfhaven.com...showtopic=20068


If you really want to be tacticool, airguns have less recoil and barrel climb than springers and will work better with scopes. You probably won't hit anything beyond 50 feet anyways, regardless of what's duct-taped to your gun.

Edit: GAH! Accidental necro!

Very nice job this thing is now a beast.
9/10, (doesn't have the wings...)

Agreed, when are the wings going on? I keep checking this thread, waiting.

I was kinda kidding...
Have you put the other 10ft. of PETG in yet?
I couldn't really tell by the pics.
If this was mentioned I apologize.

Unfortunately, OMC's not stocked with PETG, so this thing's stuck in half-barreled limbo. If someone's willing to sell or trade ten feet, shoot me a PM.

There's definitely a lot of interest in those wings! I was planning on waiting til the springtime to add the wings and give it a paint job, but I could move my schedule around a bit. Keep your peepers peeled.

I think he is reffering to the straw mod on the mav: Putting it inside the plunger tube, in this case the CPVC. Wrapping it in tape a bunch of times and gooping it into the cpvc connections might improve ranges.

I thought about that, but decreasing the inner diameter would also restrict the airflow. While the elbow puts in a lot of dead space, the 4B tank also moves air very quickly. I'm not sure on this - does the restricted airflow outweigh the dead space?

Just for clarification, you pump the gun, cycle the shotgun style grip at the front, and then fire?

Exactly! The pump action is still fully functioning.

Maybe I missed something...but you removed the spring plunger system? I don't see why you would do that... My (unfinished) version leaves it in the center but adds a Marvelous Salvo to the turret for a Seoul Style Smackdown.

Why didn't you leave in the spring system, but just direct the BBBB part to the top of the turrect as you did? it would allow for both, since one fires from the top, and the other the bottom. The only problem is barrel length.

I took out the springer for a few reasons. First, there's no way that pissant little plunger tube would manage to get a dart down a foot of PETG. Second, it would make the blaster harder to pump. Third, it increases the number of breakable moving parts. Finally, the LSFG handle doesn't have two triggers.

And of course you'd add a Marvelous Salvo to it, Seoul. You put Salvos on fucking everything. That's a really good idea, but 20 isn't a multiple of 3! That kind of thing bugs the crap out of me.

April

[url=http://nerfhaven.com/forums/topic/27628-nyc-nerf-ops-5-foamcoming-saturday-april-29th/]April 29 \[NY\] NYC Nerf Ops 5: Foamcoming[/url]

This sounds too complicated to implement at a real war. It's too difficult to measure range on the field, and many players only have one primary. At a highly structured Nerf war (Oxymoron!), this could work, I suppose. Some suggestions:

- Range penalties should use a logarithmic scale. The difference between 30 and 50 feet is negligible, but the difference between 80 and 100 feet is game-breaking.

- Players should only be ranked by their highest-point-value blaster. From what I've seen, it's prohibitively difficult to carry more than one primary, and merely switching between a primary and a sidearm is borderline impossible. The power difference between a player with two +Bows and a player with one +Bow is probably nonexistent.

Moral of the story: Play the Shields game type!

Don't worry, there's always Lanard.

I love it!