Actually, Captain, I meant this area-

o.o
blue scout ?!
I WANT one.

oh, I see.

Personally if I were going to be going back and forth that much I'd find a different option (as opposed to keyrings), but I suppose having never built an Arachnaphobia II of my very own my opinion there doesn't matter.

oh, and *insert innuendo about how good imaseoulman is at making the pumping motion very quickly*

You have got to be shitting me. This is basically the ultimate weapon, with a six-pack shotgun blast and twin long-range punch. With that much ridiculous in one place I'm half expecting you to come back next week with a clip mod. ._.

Internal pics would be much appreciated. On the subject of keyrings, you're just using the magstrike trigger for air transfer, right?
So a firing cycle would be
i- pump for half of eternity
ii- hold MS trigger for a few seconds
iii- move fingers to SM keyring triggers/detonator triggers and wait for shot
iv- fire
and then you could loop back to ii but you prefer to just use the SMDTG's after a single round of SM firing...
so basically you don't have to worry about switching triggers incredibly fast, since the majority of time should be spent with no trigger contact (pumping/noncombat situation) and then in combat most of the time would spent on the keyrings waiting for a clean shot.

personally I'm confused as to why the squared area behind the clip exists at all. Is that bracing for inevitable tank attachment?

I need to get into a HvZ game, but Central Ohio, me being able to drive and unavailability have caused me to mod

I was pretty sure I'd heard OSU had an HvZ game going, but I haven't followed up on it... guess I ought to.

No, obviously. The only way you could get away with that sort of thing would be if the hobby was already massive.
Besides, there's already shirts, albeit really ugly shirts.

I can easily see this becoming a hot-button issue.

If you're running a small to medium scale war, up to probably 25-30 a side, there's likely to be enough action to keep everyone busy. when you get into the 20s and 30s on a team, then sometimes it'll be slower at some points of the battle line and other places it'll be very intense. In airsoft and paintball, at least, usually "squad radios" are available for use only past 25-30 per side unless the playing area is very large to simulate fog of war. I suppose NERF is more relaxed about mil-sim than the aforementioned sports, but still. There's a certain degree of awesome lost when you're texting your buddies across the band of trees with "R U DEAD?!". I mean, half of the fun i get from woodsball is not knowing where the fuck the other team is, so every corner is an adrenaline rush.

I guess it is really up to whoever is running the war / what has been agreed upon by participants, but unless you've got a lot of ground to cover or a lot of people to keep track of... just not worth the effect it has one the game. Organize into squads for bigger games, send runners, have a system of hand signals.... hell, if you're in enough trouble that you need to let your team know right now you're probably not gonna make it worse by yelling.

What technical difficulties?
Some of it was me setting it up in a position and the other times it was Raven.

Either way, for the most part you're very good with the filming aspects. The only shot that was questionable was the face-edited one
As for technical difficulties, my primary internet-access point is behind a public school filter, so youtube/myspace/etc. are blocked. I'm basically limited to what i can get to through proxies until I get home; more of a personal issue than a widespread thing, but I feel the other points still stand.

In 3 you can equip different armor sets, including this one (Close Quarters Specialist or some such).

Agreed, that very much resembles a NF

omega-

The Lock 'n Loads [sic] is quite possibly the most accurate pistol I have ever used.

Nothing extraordinary here, but there doesn't need to be to have a good mod. I liked the video write-up, but due to technical difficulties and the on-site factor I still prefer images and text. Who does all the filming, since as far as I'm aware you only have two arms?

well, I'll be in Allentown in July, but I won't have any free time then anyway.

Are any ohioans thinking of attending? particulary Lynx or the UC clanners?

revise/edits in blue

Remember that old NERF blaster you have lying around? The one you occasionally use for inter-cubicle warfare? It turns out that a group of enterprising hobbyists known collectively as the Nerf Internet Community (NIC) have taken a liking to modding their NERF weaponry- taking apart the blasters and customizing them with beefed-up components. With a little help from the NIC, you could easily be tagging the guy ten cubicles away.

To begin, you'll probably want to visit one of the numerous dedicated NERF modding websites. nerhaven.com has been in operation for x years since it replaced the [landmark/hobby-founding/revolutionary.. i don't know, I never saw it] website nerf online, and has an extensive catalog of over z "write-ups", illustrated guides to turbocharging your dart blasters. Also to be found at "the haven" are articles, videos, and a community that provides helpful tips, tech support, and commentary for fellow "Nerfers." No holds are barred in the foam arms race as Nerfers remove built-in air-restrictors, replace barrels, and craft their own darts or blasters. Some apply weathering and custom paintjobs or other 'cosmetic' mods to complete the package- one NIC member's NERF recreation of the Lancer rifle from popular Xbox360 game "Gears of War" was recently seen on (insert most prestigious of places lancer appeared here). "Nerfers" routinely double or triple the stock ranges of their blasters, but what truly makes the hobby what it is occurs after the last pieces of duct tape are in place.



intro rewritten to be more concise. If you're going to explain stefans later, don't do it partially now. nerfhaven introduced as a case-in-point, inferring more sites like it, making the hobby seem more widespread. Ending transitions into the nerf war paragraph well.

When asked why he enjoyed the hobby, one longtime Nerfer replied “you get to think like an engineer, and act like an 8 year old."
'liked' is a weak term, don't use 'nerf' as the verb twice, introduce quotes better... a good quote, but could we rephrase it? i.e. - when we asked one longtime nerfer what his favorite part of the hobby was, he replied,'thinking like an engineer and then acting like an 8 yearold.'

Adults and teens prone to DIY find plenty to love in the NERF world, and with NERF blasters still found in stores today, Nerfing can be a great way for parents to connect with their children.

goooooood. *maniacal finger-twiddling* reference the parent-child connectivity bit as much as you can. throw in the healthy outdoor activity bit, and we've got a winner. the only thing better than this is if there were some study indicating nerfers performed better on the presidential fitness test or in school.

Apocalypse, Armageddon, and Reckoning are not the names of proffesional wrestlers – they, along with the Yellowstone Area Nerf Outing, (other big war) and (other big war) are what hobbyists refer to as "NERF wars." Nerfers organize into teams to play capture-the-flag or "team deathmatch" much like paintball or airsoft enthusiasts, but instead of dedicated facilities the low-impact NERF hobby requires only a local park or rec area - some NERF wars even take place indoors. Wars also serve as the proving ground for all the ideas that seemed so great on paper Nerfers can test their worth and determine if they deserve to be known as one of the greats. Of course, there are multiple ways to gain respect in the NIC. Forum-goers who modify and create their own Nerf-like blasters out PVC and lawn sprinklers (referred to as homemades) are often revered just as highly as those “gods” of the fields. (nice transition to the 'prominent NIC members' paragraph.)

"blasters" in place of guns, "tag" instead of shoot.. I'm not aware if there are actual terms used for this like paintball's "marker", but to avoid negative connotation it should probably be done.
I've tried to refocus the essay so that nerfhaven is a case study of an entire community, which it is, technically.. nerfhaven kinds of stands alone above everything else, though. It's probably best to liken nerf modding to more familiar/accepted forms of customization/pimping ( comparing to the drift racing community is probably a decent one, except that many drift events are illegal/have scantily-clad females, so parents might not want that)
there are too many rhetorical questions. You want the reader to infer that you have some authority on the subject- if you ask the reader too many things he or she gains control of the topic.
I left the introductory sentence the same, but depending on who the article is targeted to that might need changing. If we're just targeting DIY-ers then some of the more basic introduce-the-idea-of-modding stuff is probably unneeded, but if we're targeting parents buying toys for their children then the cubicle stuff is possibly unrelated. I think the target demographic for NERF is teen/young adult males, so cubicles probably aren't the best reference, and they probably have some familiarity with DIY-type activity, so this most likely needs additional editing for that. I kind of seesawed on whether to capitalize all of 'Nerf' - i think we should, since 'nerfing' is actually an Internet term now; you know, "rogues got nerfed last update" or "mods need to nerf mythril swords, they do way too much damage."

um.. more later when I feel like it, I guess.

my NF sort of has rifling just from sanding out the CPC barrel so my darts would fit, but I doubt it does anything.

For rifling to work the ammunition would need to expand and be pressed into the rifling grooves, which frankly I don't see stefans doing. Sure, you could find expanding foam to stuff in the barrel so that this worked, but your gun probably wouldn't have enough power to get the dart out of the barrel. If it were going to work, I'd say it would need to be on a Titan or Big Blast or somesuch.

a bit of my nerf area in the basement.


1- My first mod, a CPVC'd NF. Spring replaced with a handyman spring, some epoxy on the inside for minor reinforcement, rubber splicing tape around the plunger head. Also integrated a SSPB-type Lanard thing i picked up for a few bucks on an aisle end at Kroger. The SSPB is also CPVC'd. I sanded out the inside of the main barrel to replicate PN's NF barrel.

2- The shell from the lanard SSPB thing. From what I can see of people similar NF's I had to dremel away more of the shell to fit this kind in. I had been using the circular base of the NF's barrel post as a firing button instead of just the purple shaft there, but it came un-epoxy'd.

3- An SSPB-type thing I picked up at Sonic years ago- it had bizarre triangular screws, so that shell got pretty mutilated, but I do have an intact one if anyone wants to see. Seems to get better range than the stock SSPB's I have.

4- Gutted Lanard push-pull water gun. Must be useful for something.. thoughts?

edit- before someone asks, ranges unknown.