Dude I've got, like, SO much fucking flagging tape....

However I'm going to have less time to make darts than I thought. I'll make some, but not as many as I had intended.

Thank you jon for that near-illegible forum post. Like we said, Julie might come, my girlfriend Stephanie is coming, and maybe one or two other female friends of mine.

AFAIK my old site was the first to post mods online, it's impossible to know who first actually started DOING mods without posting them.

I think we're all treating Nerf and the supposed "Nerf Internet Community" a LOT more importantly than we probably should.....Seriously all, it's really not that big of a deal. If you find nerf fun great. If not, oh well.

Famine: Ok for only $80 the 4400 is pretty nice, I gotta hand it to you.

Merlinski: Exactly, that is how chipmakers sort their CPUs or VPUs into the right products. Intel doesn't produce chips for each specific speed, they produce a bunch, in several levels of quality, and then sort them according to their maximum stable speed and laser etch whichever speed rating they fall into, usually leaving quite a bit of headroom for extra insurance. Nvidia does the same thing, and so does ATI. The 9700 Pro's core operates a full 50Mhz faster than the 9500 Pro, and the memory is 80Mhz faster. Whichever chips can't reliably cut those speeds (within the insurance margins at least) are designated 9500 Pro's and their memory bus is cut in half from 256 bits to 128 bits. HOWEVER, this is only using the stock heatsink and fan. With better cooling, you can often push your 9500 Pro to near 9700 Pro speeds. Also, if not enough chips fail to make the cut (as happens more and more often the more time the manufacturing process has time to mature, and yields increase), Ati (and any other chip maker) will have to simply start designating chips at random to be 9500 Pros etc, so you stand a chance of getting a 9700 Pro-capable core. Same thing happens with Intel chips, why do you think the P4 1.6A was such a good overlocker, often hitting 50% overclocks? As always, with any piece of hardware, overclocking is a crapshoot and relies heavily on luck of the draw. If you meant quality as in defects, I assure you not Ati nor any other chip maker would knowingly let ANY chips pass with any sort of defects whatsoever.

Why is the Ti4200 a better value when it is almost the same price as a Radeon 9500 Pro and yet has only 60% of the performence?

First of all, the Geforce Fx 5800 Ultra, the highest level card in that series, would top out at 400 according to what I heard. Thats the same as what the Geforce4 Ti4600 and ATI Radeon 9700 started at.

Second, with most games you won't see a real difference between the Fx and the Radeon. The Fx, however, will pull ahead by a lot when you get to the games that will come out in a year or two.

Right now, I think a 200 dollar Geforce4 Ti4200 is your best value and performance card.

Bah, forgive me for being blunt but you know nothing.

In time, with driver optimizations, the Geforce FX will be perhaps as much as 20% faster than the Radeon 9700 Pro. In time. It's loud, expensive, and produces as much heat (60-70 Watts) as most high end processors. It's a great card if you need the bleeding edge, but it just isn't a good value at $400 when you can get a 9700 Pro for about $340. The Ti4200 is just plain outdated, and $200 is a total ripoff for it. You shouldn't be paying any more than $150 for the 128mb version. IMO the current price/performance sweet spot is the Radeon 9500 Pro (make sure it says Pro). For $190 you can get performance that is MAYBE 10% less in most applications than the 9700 Pro. Now I've always been an Nvidia fan-boy, but Ati has made great leaps in the quality of their drivers, so even I've made the switch to the 9500 Pro (which blows the shit out of the Geforce Ti4200 and Ti4400, look at the benchmarks). However if you've got the cash to burn, I'd say either pick up the 9700 Pro now, OR wait 3 weeks until ATI releases their R350 core which promises a significant speed boost to their current R300 core based line.

I've always loved Nvidia, but once the R350 comes out they'd better have a good come-back or they'll go the way of 3dfx.

Dude, those can almost all be attributed to NO or at least an NO era occurance, and that is not the sign of an old nerfer. I mean, that reaches back a whoping 4 years. Now if you had said "You've done the "destructer variant" and the ss2 STILL doesn't fire 70 ft." Well then I'd have to say you were one grizzled son of a bitch.

VACC

OMG hearing "Destructor Variant" again brings back so many memories.....I don't think ANYBODY's SS2 fired 70 feet back then, or even now for that matter.....

I remember when I'd root through every box (yes, box) of megas at TRU trying to find "Magnums" for my SS2. I recall when I first fired a Ultimator I thought the world was ending or something.

Yea there was the girl pole dancing, the girl sun bathing on the picnic bench, the girl that Jon brought, and Jenny who actually kicked ass the entire war.

Vacc is right though, a 45 person war is just plain not fun. It's an experience certainly.....I'll have to agree with Cxwq that with the people around us and their maturity and skilly levels, and the area we play in generally, 14-20 people is absolutely perfect. I wouldn't want to be in a >20 person Nerf war again I don't think. I certainly wouldn't want to run one.

I definately want some of that stuff. Let me know when the shipment comes in.

PVC wouldn't work right, all of the air would be let out in one burst. The reason the PC air tank behaves the way it does is because it's made of rubber and expands. You'd need to find a similar material to make an airtank out of. The rubber is at least 1/4" thick too.

That still wouldn't help much, as it wouldnt' change the volume of air delivered per pump, which is what I'd be trying to improve on the AT4K.

And you meant a "Nerf" Katana, right, Vacc?

No he meant "Katana" as in a "it will cut you in fucking half and was invented in Japan" sword.

....ok look, about the condom hat, I've told you before, the spermicide makes my hair all frizzy.....

Ok, so the AT3K arrived a few days ago and the AT4K arrived today. I havn't taken apart either yet, but have been considering mod possibilities on them and bouncing some ideas off of Cxwq. Here are my first impressions of the guns STOCK:

AT3K: Unmodded, it has NO power, nothing. It gets literally 10 feet on 3 pumps (any more and the overpressure release valve kicks in). The overpressure valve in this gun (at least in mine) is very weak, and will let air out after about 2 1/2 pumps. Plug it, and you should see a exponential increase in range and power. Replace the barrels and the gun should rock. I do not at all doubt claims of 80' flat with brass barrels. The barrel rotation mechanism works like a fucking BMW, I've abused it in every way possible, pumping REALLY fast and hard, pumping very very slowly, holding the trigger and just pumping over and over, and it's never skipped or failed to rotate once, it's clean and reliable. Definately exciting since I plan to replace the barrels with 5" brass ones, as near as I can tell it should definately not have any problems. The handle is pretty small, my pinky kinda falls off, and the trigger keeps pinching my finger a bit, but nothing major. The pump handle has a VERY short length of travel, and the handle is smooth so if your hands are sweaty you'll have a hard time holding on. I'm going to slap some grip-tape on it and that should help. If you want to replace the pump you'll have to watch out for the barrel rotation mechanism catch, as I think it's a mechanical latch that rotates the barrels. Overall the gun is compact, sturdy and (once modded) should provide decent power and accuracy, with great reliability. This will probably become my new main gun.

AT4k: This one just came today, but my opinions on it are pretty clear. I was actually pleasantly suprised. First off, it's big. About the size of a older model SM 3k, although a lot of that size extends backwards past the handle. The handle BTW is huge and very comfortable for people with larger hands, it actually really feels like the handle of a rifle or something, and the trigger as well is larger and easier to use. The pump however is even worse than on the AT3K and grip tape is practically a necessity to pump with any ease. Suprisingly enough the AT4K unmodded has about twice the range of a unmodded AT3K, with much better power. Still not powerful enough for most nerf wars, but you probably wouldn't get slaughtered with 12 shots at your disposal. The overpressure release valve seems a lot tighter on the AT4K. The barrel rotation mechanism works very well, but just doesn't feel quite as sturdy as the AT3K's, and you have to move the pump handle ALL the way forward to engage the rotation catch, which during very fast pumping could cause problems by not moving the handle forward enough. It's definately reliable enough for stock use, but put 12 5" brass barrels on there and I just doubt it would work as well. However once Cxwq gets some of that PETG tubing he mentioned in the Trading forum, that stuff may well prove to be perfect due to it's incredibly light weight. My dream mod for this gun would be to replace the barrels with PETG tubing and replace the pump with a larger one, such as a Powerclip's pump as per Cxwq's suggestion. With the approximately triple air capacity of the PC's pump over this one, you would only need one pump per shot, effectively turning the AT4K into a 12 shot pump action shotgun/rifle. It would be awesome. You would however need to make sure that the new pump handle would still make the barrels rotate properly. Overall I wouldn't say it has the "everyman" gun potential that the AT3K has, but properly modded the AT4K may well put a great many people in their place on the battlefield.

Now with the liquid guage thing....I actually can see some use for it, I mean it tells you if you've pumped or not and thats not bad, but does it detract from the air pressure of the shot? Or is the liquid guage a different pressure system than the main pressure tank. I don't want to drain the fluid to get more tank space, I want as little tank space as possible (within reason) to maximize the overall pressure. Can I just bypass the liquid tank entirely and connect the hose directly to the pressure tank? Would that help/hinder? What about other mods you've tried or would want to try to the AT3K or AT4K? Discuss.

I hate Counterstrike with a passion, I don't really feel like going into why, but I'm absolutely addicted to Day of Defeat for HL. That and Tribes 2 eat up the vast majority of my game playing time, the rest being taken up by Battlefield 1942, Quake 3 (RA3/CPMA mods), and UT2003 (at lan parties only really). Day of Defeat I'm pretty good at most days, but I WILL kick your ass in Tribes 2, it wouldn't even be fair. I play as Spoon in any game online. These days I usually play a hour or so of Tribes 2 a night, usually at either the "=A= Hizzaus" or "5150" servers.

I installed Natural Selection like a month ago and STILL have not had time to play it. I've read the online manual and it looks awesome, is it really fun to play? I'm also worried about it's learning curve. It looks like it could have a learning curve almost as high as Tribes 2.

Whoever gets them will look like a major dork.

And whoever does in fact get them, will be referred to explicitly as "Major Dork" by myself. It will be a dark day indeed for that unprepared soul.

H2H would never work for us out here on the West coast. Not only would the majority of us (myself included) think it's stupid, but we also get a WIDE age and skill range playing in the same battle. If I, at 200 pounds and 20 years old, came at some 80 pound 13 year old with a huge PVC and foam sword......well it just wouldn't be fair. Though it WOULD be satisfying......

Yea I found that I had to rely a LOT on my sidearm at Apoc since I was the ONLY person using an automatic, and was therefore VERY out-gunned. Fortunately my sidearm has similar range as half the main guns there, but poorer accuracy and longer reload time. Better than nothing though, I got more kills with it than I did with my PC.

I know, I used two clips when I used the PC so I know what you're saying, the problem is that theres not always time to switch clips and re-pump in a heated situation. You're right, you should always pump as you go, and I would, but if you're taking on several people and you're firing several bursts at a time, you don't always have a chance to repump after each burst.

Really, we could argue this all day, I think in your size wars with your gun a sidearm isn't as necessary (although I'd still use one, but thats just me) as it would at a war the size of most of ours.

The problem with the PC is that you have ONLY 10 rounds, then you're pretty fucked if you're in the middle of a firefight. Yea you can do 2 shot bursts etc, but at the LANOs when you have 20 or 30 or even 40 people fighting, the firefights can really overwhelm you're ammo/air supply and without a hold-off weapon to have while you're reloading, you'll get rushed. However in a smaller war, that may not be as big of an issue as you can more easily disengage from the battle for a bit.

Sidearms are vital really. When I used a Crossbow, it provided a hold-off weapon so I wouldn't get rushed while reloading. When I used a PC, it provided a backup when I had spent my clip and didn't have time to pump the gun (it also, because it is a brass barrelled Splitfire, provided a longer range shot than my PC). Now that I'm switching to a brass barelled At3K (it looks like), I probably won't use it quite as often, but it will still be usefull in ballls-out charges, pistol wars, and a general feeling of security. With a well made holster/harness, it should never come out. I can run full speed, jump, dive etc without the gun flying out, and small (1 cm or so) sections of smaller diameter brass at the base of the Splitfire's brass barrels hold the darts in very tightly, so they don't fall out.

It's 9am-5pm. Hope you guys can make it, if not we'll definately see you at the next war.

I doubt blowing the darts down is going to work. You have to really jam the dart into the narrow section, blowing just won't be hard enough. Like I said, you'll figure it out.

Sorry you won't be there on Sunday dude, I'd love to nerf with you guys again. Either way I'm glad you guys will be at the next ones. I was hearing reports that you guys didn't nerf anymore, but I refused to believe it. :>

Hey Josh whats up! Glad to hear from you guys. Check the thread in the nerf wars forum on the upcoming Feb. war in Irvine and let us know what your plans are! I'd love to see you guys there, it'll be rockin.

Vacc, have you considered how you're going to load both brass barrels? If it's a muzzle loader you'll need a foot long ramrod and god help you trying to do that in the heat of battle with two barrels. If it's a breech loader, you'll have to make sure that with the breach closed the barrel is totally re-sealed, without a hunk of the brass missing. IMO, the best method for your over-under Cbow idea (which I like very much), would be to have the gun "break" in half, just like a over-under shotgun, and load the darts from the base of the barrel. This would however exclude a telescoping brass barrel, but thats ok. Maximum range probably isn't your primary goal with this. You'd have to fashion a barrel coupling which would couple the tubes from the pressure chambers to the barrels, kind of like I did with Wolverine, only you'd have each pressure chamber going to it's own barrel, not combined into one like I had. Something that re-seals itself when the gun is locked. You're a smart guy, you can figure it out.....

I just talked to Barney, he's definately in. He said he can give you a ride Zack, no problem. I also told him to talk to Nick and Paul, we'll see what they say. Hot damn, I'm getting a tad excited. Rock!

What did that mean? My pump works fine, it's just that the tank is rather fragile.

He means properly glued PVC can hold a LOT more air pressure than you're pump can create. Like 300 PSI or so. You're not going to get much above 150 PSI with any bike pump or anything AFAIK.

Yea umm I'm not (and never was) out of nerf. I just was really REALLY busy at college last semester and just didn't have the time to organize any LANOs, or post on shitty boards. I'm here at NH now because I know Cxwq has his shit together and can run a nerf site that won't become ghey-sauce.

>sneaks up behind Vacc, rubs poop in his hair, runs away very quickly<

Cxwq: I've only got enough FBR and to be bringing around 60 brass micros. Any way you can send me some more of the FBR we use? I've got plenty of weights and glittery glue, and I should have some free time to make a bunch of darts.

Glad to hear you're in (almost) for sure Box, it'll be cool to hang with you again.

Oh, and to ALL nerf war prospective attendees: Please for the love of GOD take your TIME and make some QUALITY micros. The average quality level of any micros not made by Cxwq or I at the wars is akin to just shooting handfulls of poop. Make some darts that will HIT something. Thank you.

Correct me if I'm wrong Cxwq, but homemades aren't allowed AFAIK. I'm suprised they're so uninterested! You'd think they'd jump at the chance to play in a war I'm not running.

Cxwq: Not sure about Hubbard, I havn't talked to him in months, but I'll call him. As long as he isn't working I think he'd come. Jenny will be a no-show however.....

EDIT: Also Cxwq be sure to add John from San Diego (he had the PVC backpack powered PC), along with a few of his clan mates, though I'm not sure how many exactly. I told him to email you or post on the boards. I'd say we'll get 20 people for sure. If you remember we actually got MORE people to show up than had RSVP'd for Armageddon last summer. God I don't ever want to run a war that big again.....Just too crazy. In my mind, 20 is the perfect number. I'll bring the flagging tape!

Well I just ordered me a AT3k and AT4k, I'll let you know what I think when the guns arrive, I have to say I'm rather excited about brassing the 3K, if what you say about it not interfering with the barrel rotation is true.

Excellent! Nice to hear from you again Steve, I was about to email you about this.

Oh Cx, also count on me bringing two of my friends from college, my girlfriend, and hopefully her friend from Thousand Oaks. Also maybe another guy who emailed me recently, I'll let you know.

Does anybody know how to contact the Desert Storm guys? I KNOW they'd be up for some nerfing.


EDIT: Damn it seems like we can't have a <20 person war if we TRY.....

OMG, look at the size of the 4k's pressure tank! That's ridiculous. It also looks insanely complicated, but I'm pleased that the air tank and barrel rotation mechanism is all fused into one piece, it looks pretty sturdy. The 3k looks interesting too. Does the 3k need manual barrel rotation, or does it do it automatically?

I'll be there for sure. BTW, any of you used the Airtech 4000 personally? Email me with your thoughts on it. I need a new main weapon, and I want more range than a PC. Can the Airtech 4K be brass modded?