For what it's worth, I'm often willing to drive down to the Chicago area to attend a war.

Ok so that's three people, not enough for a war yet but I always can get some others, if anyone else is willing to make it out here, i could host this.

Sorry for late response drafted something then forgot to post it and then life got crazy but no I'm not dead

So I went looking around on some other forms. I responded to a few people living in neighboring states like Iowa and Michigan and invited them to join our war. However, it sucks because everyone seems to be at least 3 hours away from Chicago. That's going to be a major problem for many people, I can just feel it. I hope that we can pull this off before the end of spring because I probably will be moving out of state for college this summer so I won't be living in Chicago anymore.
 
That said, we don't need to rush.... But we've got to have our nerf war before then. Invite as many people as possible. Search this website for forums, even if those people live like 4 or 5 hours away. Pineapplepies: I joined that Facebook group that dude from Oregon talked about. It's an Indoor Arena, probably similar to Paintball. There's actually an event going on in a week, but I'm sick right now so I won't go. You should make an account and join: https://www.facebook...10849652421933/
 
Anyway, if you know someone that just might enjoy a few games of nerf, go ahead and ask him/her if they would be interested in joining. I've got someone that might come with me depending on when we plan out the game day. We need everyone we can get.

 
Yes, if we can drum up some more support that would be great, I have about 30 or so people who I could get to join, most of them would be younger than me though and not all of them will be available but that being said they also wouldn't have much stuff, some of the, have their own things but in terms of being well equipped so far to my knowledge that would be just me. Let's see if we can get some more people and host a war on a place that is literally begging to be used. Speaking of which, there is a MASSIVE field I could host this on, which is from one end to the other at least a 2 minute walk for a average size human so pretty large. Other than that, let's just continue and see if we can do this.
 

Just didn't want you guys to miss out on a strong group because you have the wrong idea.

Draconis we can still do this if we want, you don't always have to be so much of a downer all of them time and I have been around for some time so I have seen your posts. I still want to host a war because personally it would be preferable to be able to finally become a part of the community and to be able to quite possibly win against people much older than me

Edit:also, we have a indoor place we could do this too, not extremely large but sizable enough that it could host a small war with downwards of 30 people

Hi, I am a newcomer to this nerf war meetup website (thank God there is such a thing) and over the past few months I've been viewing the 2016 and now the 2017 Nerf War Schedules. It seems to me that most of the action is happening on either the east, west, or southern boarders of the United States of America. That is unfortunate and it would be quite an ordeal for me, personally, to have to pay for a couple hundred dollar plane ticket and fly a thousand miles just for a nerf war. That said, Is there anyone here that would be interested in hosting a Nerf War within a 2-Hour Radius of Chicago, Illinois?
 
That means no further north than Milwaukee, Wisconsin, no further south than Champaign, Illinois, no further west than Sterling, Illinois, and no further east than Elkhart, Indiana. Anything that is more-or-less the same distance as these cities (or closer) to Chicago would be acceptable for me. I would host it myself, but I have grave doubts that I could pull it off successfully as "the new guy" who has never attended a nerf war in his life. I simply don't want there to be any issues that could come up unexpectedly that would mean canceling the whole thing and have complaints about wasting everyone's time. It's not that I don't have the balls, believe me on that. Now, I am aware that there was a meeting in Milwaukee just a couple of months ago, but I happened to miss it right before I discovered NerfHaven. I am also aware that there is an upcoming war in Minnesota this April, but St. Paul is 6 hours by car and by Megabus its 8 hours+. That's just way out my range guys. But don't forget that there is also the possibility of human error and I might be just insanely blind. Perhaps there already is a war planned in the near future that will be happening somewhere close to me that I have not discovered yet. If that is the case, please just direct me to that thread. I would greatly appreciate it.
 
Thank you and God Bless.

Finally someone else near Chicago. Hate to tell you man but I really don't know if there is many people out here who nerf. I am here, am located around Northbrook/Glenview, and even have an amazing field out here that would work. Only problem is I don't know who would be interested and I am not crazy into modding and only have some basic things so would be outclassed by anyone experienced. Personally, if you and I can stir up some interest I would be willing to host it even though I likely would be younger than most. So if anyone is around Chicago area or would be willing to come out to Glenview/Northbrook, or if someone more experienced would like to run it and I can provide the field, then we would be able to pull this off.

How have you guys not found the big CNW group on Facebook?  Many of the members can also be found here, and they usually post the war threads here, but most of the planning is done on the FB group.
https://www.facebook...hicagonerfwars/

 Draconis I don't have Facebook, plus there should be a war for people like me.
 

Hey! Well what do you know... People responded!
 
I'm sorry for not responding quicker, I didn't think I would get any responses within the first couple days. I'm not really familiar with how many people we would need for a war. I assumed about 10 or 15 would the minimum for it to be worth it. We still need a few people, but it's a start. Thanks for agreeing to host, Pineapplepies. Like I said, I've never done this before and I don't know any other players so really you 2 guys are going to be the ones that invite other players, decide what rules we will play by, what guns we are going to use, and if mods are acceptable or not. The future is in your hands....
 
Just for yall's information, I have the following guns: The Vulcan Minigun, a Recon CS-6, The Retaliator, 2 Hammershot Blasters, and a Nite Finder Pistol. Some of these guns are a few years old and unfortunately don't work as well as they used to. Also, I have about 150 random darts for use. If we manage to gather enough players, I'm probably going to go shopping for some nice guns before the war.
 
I live in Norwood Park neighborhood in Chicago. I feel kind of bad for HQRSE CQCK that has to drive 5+ hours from Rochester, Minnesota. When I saw that I couldn't believe it. That's a pretty insane drive just for a nerf war.  It just goes to show that us "Nerfers" are far and few between and we've got to make the most of every war. So lets kick some Fuckin' Ass with this war!

Wow ok so maybe I don't have as few things as I thought, I have all of what you have plus MUCH more and most of mine are modded if possible. I am also sorry for not responding quick, didn't get this until I got back from a trip. Ok so I mean as I said above, I still feel like we should attempt a nerfhaven run one because I don't have Facebook. I mean we could get some people from that group too. Other than that still seeing if anyone else is willing to come, reply to this if you want to come

 

I'm not trying to discourage you from hosting your own war.  Unfortunately, yes, I feel like I have to be a downer, because people get a little short sighted sometimes and need a reality check.  It isn't personal.

      Fair enough, I can see why you would want to say that, and hey that's fine to be a downer just don't go around saying things along the lines of "don't do this because there is another group and you guys have a bad idea" because that can be picked up like how I did which was I thought you were trying to discourage us from doing a war. 

      My point is though I have been itching to get involved in the community and quite possibly run something myself because we have a perfect location and a bunch of people that would come.(As i mentioned I can get up to 30 people by myself)

 

It looks like you've been around this site for a while and are pretty active as of late. I was curious if you knew anyone from our area that could join this war, or anyone from the west coast that has contacts near us. There's obviously a great nerf scene on both the east and west coasts, but in terms of the Midwest: every major group is scattered at least 2 or 3 hours away from Chicago i.e. Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Iowa City, Dayton, etc. As you see there hasn't been a huge response from since the posting, kind of odd for the 3rd largest city in America. I've a feeling that maybe all we need is some advertising to get people's attention. What do you say man?

 

Also, Jim, I find it funny that you could be my dad. No disrespect or nothing, it's just a little weird and funny. Its good to see that age doesn't take the fun out of Nerf for ya. Hopefully I'll be the same in 20 years.

Yeah, at this point I think it may be smart to post a thread about this. I will do that right now in fact and we can continue this there, but I feel like it would be smart to put this in a place where people know what we are talking about by the title. I think that would be ample advertising and would get us somewhere, and think why we haven't gotten anyone is because few people check every thread.

Hey, I was searching even further through the older forums on this site and found this Chicagoland Nerf Facebook group: http://nerfhaven.com/forums/topic/27300-scsnw-presents-frozen-foam-n-foliage-il/?hl=chicago 

 

 The link advertises a war that happened last November in Romeoville, but maybe we could use it to invite some people that have attended one of their wars? I can do it myself, I have an account.

Yes, use that, use anything you can, we just need people, I don't care if we get 60 people or 6 people, we just should get a war up and running because I would like to meet the community.

So I recently have gotten really into nerf, but unluckily I have not found any groups around my area. I was also looking into possibly hosting a war since I live near a massive field that could be used. Anyway, if anyone is around the area and would host a war/join one I create please tell me.

Could you hook this up with a system, and or could you possibly code this to regulate the flywheel speeds and then furthermore control the thing with dials, that would make this FDL-2 but open source AND in a much smaller and versatile package which would be groundbreaking.

The fdl2 has dials for Firesign mode:semi, burst, full auto. And rof control. This cannot be done with the mechanicly pushed stryfe.
Whoops on the dart counter meaker. I thought that would have more attention as one of the coolest things.

  
That's not what I mean, I meant that it would be similar to the FDL-2, and as opposed to having electronically powered pusher, I mean this system or make a dial that can manipulate the voltage going to the motors, and modify the speeds, and potentially have something that can be control the fps.

Yeah the work involved to make it a 'counter' was kind of trivial so I din't highlight that feature, but yeah that should be given more emphasis given it's the most important part of it. Also, I called it a 'round counter' in my post, not an 'ammo counter'. Rounds/ammo... same difference... though "round" seems like the more appropriate word. When I hear the word 'rounds', I'm thinking darts in a clip... when I hear the word 'ammo', I'm thinking darts in a scavengers bucket. IDK, LOL!!!
 
Pineapplepies, that's the first I've heard of 'FDL-2'... I'll have to look in to that. As far as controlling flywheel and feeder motors, I think both features would stay within range of the 328p. The select fire feeder motor thing would require probably 4 GPIOs (2 switches on a dial => bits for 4 modes, a feeder position switch, and motor driver output), and some simple logic fed from the remaining rounds variable. The flywheel could be controlled with a logic level FET (I'm a big fan of those) and analogWrite() I believe, since that uses Timer0 and the IR sensor is rigged to Timer1. Not 100% sure, but one problem I forsee with using Timer0 analogWrite(), is it may introduce some error in the RPM measurements (which gets micros() from Timer0). I think the errors would be negligible though, and if they weren't then maybe analogWrite() can be ported to use Timer2 for this project (I've ported a servo lib to another timer on an unrelated mega based project... wasn't that hard to do). With 3 analog inputs left, adding a 'flywheel speed dial' to that would be trivial.
 
Now my mind digs deeper down the rabbit hole... how about developing a PID loop to set actual FPS with the dial... that would be tight!!! We could get the flywheels smart... make them adjust up/down depending on what FPS is coming out the other end.
 
Anyhow, my time to work on code can be hit/miss depending on my work/family schedule. This is open source code, and I'm no expert coder. There are many things that could be done more clearly/efficiently, on top of adding desired features. I haven't shared on Nerf reddit... I figure one place is better than 2, and Nerf Haven seemed the best spot for this. That said, I might put this on github if there are other dudes wanting to work on it.
 
At the moment, it compiles around 84% progmem with the useless splashscreen, and 69% without the splashscreen. That leaves plenty of 'hard drive' to add features. SRAM is at 82% with or without the splashscreen, but so far the heap hasn't crashed on me. Before I was using float arrays, 90% SRAM, and that was crashing. So, when we start talking about adding more to the data tables (like current, etc...), or expanding the max clip size, we may run in to the limit of the 328p. That said, I've got some extra esp8266's. I think the code for that would be even simpler, since the ide has built in esp stuff that does better than 65nsec (so no need for input capture, and direct port probably won't be necessary). That would make for a much more compatible and easier to read code, but I enjoy squeezing blood from rocks.
 
Kevin

Yes, that's what I meant, I mean find a way to allow this to control or post how you can control the speeds of the motors. Some people may not think it's useful, but when you get into the area of FDL-2 performance you may not want to give some nasty welts so you can turn down the speed. My other idea with that was that if you are in a really long battle you can limit the voltage going to the motors, so if you only get one 2s pack you don't burn through your battery too fast. And yes, that's exactly what I meant, finding a way to control fps.

Hey all, wondering if anyone knows of any 3rd party, aftermarket, or non-hasbro darts that work with nerf megas.
My mega bigshock is now one of my favorite nerf pistols, especially after removing the AR, dart post, adding omw 7kg retaliator spring, and worker barrel adapter. It shoots mega darts, elite darts and rival balls really hard and far. But mega darts are faaaaar from accurate.
I would LOVE some mega sized koosh, or waffle, or fvj/fvn darts.
Any of you know of anything besides crappy nerf mega darts?
Thanks!

So there is a long story, and I will start off by saying DON'T buy those rayethion darts, someone didn't read the post, those are elite size darts. Now you have two options, one is a serious don't buy, they are crappy, jam, have terrible foam and I have tried all mega darts. Out of these, only 2-3 work. The other one, is made out of regular foam and SILICA gel, pay attention to that, because it's important to make sure you don't get the crappy one. The crappy ones are made out of EVA and soft plastic, don't buy those.

Now, i wouldn't exactly recommend these darts, but neither would I say don't buy these, it's an odd case quite frankly. With these, they whistle MUCH more than regular nerf darts, at the cost of durability. They won't last as long as regular nerf megas, and not every gun will fit these perfectly. Only the rotofury seems to have an issue with this though.


Here's link for 120 at 12.99:https://www.amazon.c...Nerf mega darts

I've had these reccomended to me http://www.ebay.com/...xIAAOSw8-tWYHcR
 
Haven't bought them yet but thinking about it .

Yup! These are with sponge and Silica gel so I can promise you these are the same as mine, feel free to buy mine or those.

 

 

 

 I'm confused. What's an "Ultimate" blaster mod writeup? 

 

In general, though, if you build a blaster and you take the pictures and you write the instructions (i.e. don't copy and paste), you're eligible. Ideally, if your mod is based on someone else's work, you at least have something a little extra to make it "yours." Even if that's mostly an aesthetic addition.

 

Also, be sure to credit whoever your work is based on.

He is refering to lorddraconials way of calling his "everything basic" type mods, for example: a non-cut, non-painted firestrike with increased seal, padding, spring, ar and lock removal, and nothing besides that. It's a maxed out blaster without any shell painting, reinforcing, or crazy additions, and excludes anything related to replacing or improving parts. It's a extreme sleeper if you know what that is, no modding can be detected unless you look very closely or note the slightly different spring.(In fact this is honestly sort of overpowered in some cases because you can bring it to a stock only war and have it pass for a regular blaster, and the preformence isn't enough different to get you kicked out, but enough to provide more range).

 

 

Heh heh, sorry for not explaining that part... What I meant was, all the basic, easy modifications in one big write up (ARs, better seal, spring upgrade, no deadspace, lock removal, reinforcements, and a paint job).
Hope that clears it up... Sorry for the confusion.

Bubba, i would caution you on making a ultimate blaster, because Jwasko said you have to change at least something something to not plaugerize, and as you know drac has MANY videos out there. However, my suggestion would to be is do what you asked about, and then put something crazy, or add some special features and or cosmetics to make it earn more points, because every point counts!

 

 

Jwasko, so let me get this straight, are modded water blasters allowed? And like do you have to have an amazing paintjob or colors to get a lot of points in the aesthetics category?