28 replies to this topic

[Oni Kadaki]

Cmdrmack, on Feb 7 2008, 09:43 AM, said:

CaptainSlug, on Feb 6 2008, 10:52 PM, said:

It's quaint and novel and it does at the very least perform much better than all of the other previous blasters that used an inverted plunger. However I'm not inclined to recommend it nor do I particularly like it...To me it's just a neutered Longshot. I'm not really fond of the Longshot either because it too has the box magazine, is overly bulky, and isn't at all accurate. But at least the Longshot shoots far enough (when it's not jammed).

That's an excellent review Slug, made me think a little harder about the impulse to get one. I can't help but think that this thing might have more potential than what we've already seen.

Are there any fans of Box Magazines and Longshots that can offer a rebuttal?

Also, would this be allowed in a Pistols Only war?

I'd offer a rebuttal, however, as I previously implied, my friends and I all use guns that are modified extremely lightly, if at all; as such, Slug and I are talking about very different play environments. However, allow me to do a more detailed tactical analysis, at least in terms of my local, stock, metagame.

First off, in my circle, the maverick is the benchmark against which all properties of all other guns are measured, and is by far the most common gun to be facing down (I know the maverick is unpopular, to say the least, on these forums, but that's a discussion for another day). As such, do not be surprised if I use it as a point of reference in my discussion.

When dealing with stock guns, the two largest factors (skill set aside for a moment) in determining who will survive any given encounter are capacity and rate of fire (Note that by capacity I mean the amount of darts that can be fired before a manual reload is required: as such, a maverick has a capacity of six, a nitefinder has a capacity of one.) In my experience, even relatively powerful stock guns can be dodged by a quick opponent, making the ability to shoot again while they're in the process of repositioning their body and regaining balance invaluable. The maverick and its ilk (The firefly, the DTG, etc.) were all good at this, but also suffered from a common weakness: an atrocious reload time. Once you've run out of ammo with a maverick, suddenly even an opponent with a nitefinder can fire faster than you, complimenting the advantages they already had in range and accuracy. For a long time, the one exception to this rule was a friend of mine who had a maverick with replacable cylinders (and about five cylinders total). Then the longshot came out.

In my review of it on nerfhq, I summed up the longshot as being a larger, more powerful, and, most importantly, faster-reloading maverick. Though that is a bit of a simplification, for many of us, the longshot was a godsend regardless. Once I managed to get my hands on a few extra clips, the longshot quickly replaced the rapidfire 20 and magstrike as my primary of choice, and even my beloved maverick spent the majority of its time in my custom holster. Indeed, the ability to switch a spent clip out for a fresh one and refill it during a lull has proved valuable at several wars (once again, mostly stock weapons,) at least for me. Further, when raiding a target's house for my assassin game, the longshot is my first choice when expecting heavy resistance. now, onto the recon:

Despite the longshot's inherent awesomeness, it did have some pitfalls. As I said in a previous post, carrying it on campus, for the purposes of assassin, was largely impractical. For this reason, my maverick has had a place in my bookbag for a long time, however, this brings us back to the issue of reloading a maverick. Enter the recon: In its basic form, slightly larger than a maverick, when fully assembled (including crossfire on the underside,) all the power of the longshot plus an insurance policy in case they try to take advantage of the small window you do give them as you reload. Also note that the "laser" helped me make an otherwise impossible shot last night, as I was firing at a very awkward angle and couldn't have acquired my target without it (I was firing from the driver's seat of my car, while parked in a parking lot. My opponent was in front of the car, and, as a result, I could not see where I was aiming.) Now, I do admit that the recon has pitfalls: when the front barrel is attached, though the range sometimes seems to improve, there are also times when the dart flies as if it were made of lead. That said, the recon's ability to act either as a primary or a fairly concealable defense weapon, or anything in between, makes it one of the most formidable stock guns i've seen in a long time.

Lastly, with regards to the amount of darts that can be carried, as previously said, my harness allows me to carry four clips at a war (I only have four clips, so I haven't had the opportunity to try to carry more). In my experience, in wars of about twelve people, six per side, I have never needed more than three clips. because of this, I would rather have the rapid-fire capability granted by the clips than a large volume of darts which must be loaded one at a time.

[jwasko]

I don't own an RC, nor have I ever handled one. However do have an LS which (for purposes of these next assertions) is, I believe, experience enough.

First of all, I don't see why you can't have a good "sustained rate of fire" on a turreted gun. Captain Slug, after the UMD war, asserted that he didn't like his +Bow's turret because it "took too long to reload [all of] the barrels" The thing is that you don't have to reload all of the barrels at once!

At my first (and so far only) war, after trying out several weapons in my arsenal I decided to use my turreted AT2k. Now, in the (indoor) environment that we was playing in, there was a lot of cover to be had. During one skirmish, I spent a considerable amount of time behind a door. It was a two-door deal, where one was open and one (my cover) was closed. On the other side of the door was basically a no-man's land where I would have been hit pretty much instantly from two or three different positions who all had good cover of their own.

Since I was being forced into medium-range sharpshooting, I stayed behind cover and (quite leisurely) kept up a near-constant, medium rate of fire using one barrel of my turret. I would load and pump, lean out and fire, reload and pump, etc. Now, I couldn't hit a thing, but it seemed to keep the opposing team back. Meanwhile, if/when they decided to rush I knew I would have at least 3 darts in the barrels that I wasn't using.

When I did find myself in a situation in which I needed a higher ROF, I used all three to four of my loaded barrels. But, when I had emptied those barrels I didn't say "Oh, I'd better reload all of these right now when I should be shooting people!" No, I reloaded and fired then reloaded and fired the same barrel. If I got a quiet moment, I would reload two or more barrels of my turret in case of another rush.

Of course, blasters like the Mav and DTG have auto rotating turrets. However, this doesn't really change a thing. If you use up a whole turret's worth of darts just reload the next barrel in line. With the Mav, you can reload the second-to-next barrel without even opening the turret and then you can pull the trigger once, cock, and fire. With this method, you can have as good a rate of fire as a NF (or LNL, etc).

You can easily reload a partial MS or PC clip (from the top down, and then push it all the way down before firing). It may not be quite as effective as a whole 10-shot burst, but it's better to get one or two shots off than trying to reload the whole clip when there's no time to do so.

An LS-type box magazine, unfortunately, is fairly time-consuming to load even a single dart into, due to the fact that you must remove the mag, load a dart, and then replace it. That's why you bring at least two mags: you can always swap in the second one and then reload the first while you use the second.

In order to correct this pitfall on my LS (to which I did Angel's modification), I made the 9/16" brass barrel able to turn 180 degrees so that the half-pipe's opening is facing upward. In this configuration, it is very easy to load and fire a single dart in an emergency when your magazine is empty, or while you keep 5-6 darts in the magazine as a reserve against rushers (what I plan to do).

So, in summary: most turrets, and MS/PC clips can easily be loaded and that dart instantly used; there's no need to reload all 50 kajillion barrels while someone is coming at you. Box magazine-fed blasters are more difficult to use this tactic with, but with Angel's modification the LS can be loaded both directly and by the magazine, with nothing but a quick spin of the barrel to switch between the two.

As a side note, it looks like the Recon would be very easy to single load as long as you don't have an extended barrel on it; just cock it and close the bolt, then shove a dart in from the muzzle. It may not get quite the range of a NF, but you should be able keep up with a NF's rate of fire just fine even without an infinite number of pre-loaded magazines.

[CaptainSlug]

If you're so close that you can shoot someone reliably with a Maverick, then you're also probably close enough to just run up and tap them.

I wouldn't really be interested in participating in any wars where only stock guns can be used, so I've never had to contemplate weighing which gun is better than which when stock. The guns I buy stop being stock as soon as I've ripped them out of the packaging.

jwasko, on Feb 7 2008, 11:09 PM, said:

Captain Slug, after the UMD war, asserted that he didn't like his +Bow's turret because it "took too long to reload [all of] the barrels" The thing is that you don't have to reload all of the barrels at once!

That was the problem with that specific turret design which was a prototype I threw together in one day. I had experience the same functional problem when using the Doomsayer at HBH. There simply were not enough exposed rear-loading turret barrels at any one time to make sequential reloading possible.
A turret with too many barrels can become a bit of a crutch that slows you down. In both weight and having your mind distracted with keeping track of how many shots you have left.

It's more than possible to get a good sustained rate of fire from a turret, and I'm working on it now.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 07 February 2008 - 11:34 PM.

[precisionnerfer]

I know everyone just loves it [/sarcasm] when I contribute to arguments but if I may....


It sounds to me that the recon, once fully modified, should be WAY better then a DTG, mav, FF, or even a NF and LS for me, due to the following factors:

1. It is a small primary when reduced to bare-bones size.
2. Once fully modified, I believe we could squeeze a consistent 60" from it.
3. It has clips. You can buy as many as you like, and clip them to your belt. Let's say you had four, fully loaded clips. That's 24 shots before reloading.

Now, I believe that the main argument has not been about range or size, but mainly about the box-clips. I have no trouble loading these at all with my LS. What you do is have an empty clip on your hip, and tuck your primary under your armpit and draw your primary, cocked and loaded with your left hand. Then, reach into your dart holders and simply slip the darts in. If you practice it doesn't really take that long. The ideal circumstance would be to have the primary loaded as well, while it's in your armpit, so if they do blitz you or something, you can drop the current dart you were loading and have 7 or more shots at your disposal, in under a second.

Yes, the reload time is longer then a turret, when you try to reload the clip, but using the above method, it can be safe and useful. There is a bit of time in NERF when you are not under fire, so if you bring four clips, you can reload an empty one while keeping your weapons at hand at the same time, whereas with a mav or other turreted guns your primary would be mostly disabled, as you would be loading it's turret.