Paintball

No offense taken my friend. Paintball markers, like any accessory, are purely a matter of personal taste (sometimes politics/sponsorships)

The only time when the high end electronics are worth-while are during tournaments. Literally, one missed shot can be the difference between an opportunity for first or an opportunity for third (as was the case at my last tourney), so one can ill afford to chop/break a ball in one's gun thereby jeopardizing the accuracy.

None of the stock markers come with the truly high-end stuff, however, you have to purchase additional aftermarket boards/chips. Fortunately, these things are quite affordable compared to the marker itself. In NPPL, the league that I play in, you can only use semi-automatic mode, so if your marker fires more than one ball per trigger pull, than your team loses the tourny and the player using that marker is suspended for an entire event. This rule was put in place once the NPPL recognized that teams were using software to make their markers bounce/ramp deliberately. What this means is - say you are pulling the trigger at 10 bps, the gun has 60% ramping, so it fires 16bps. This rate of fire varies according to your pulled ROF.

With these new rules in place, software companies have recognized an untapped market, so they work night and day designing software to go around this rule, which technically doesn't break the rule but bends it to it's threshold. My marker has a thing called shot-synchronizing technology. When the trigger bounces, the recoil resets the microswitch and as gravity pulls the gun back down ever so slightly, it trips the microswitch again, thereby firing two balls on one pull. Shot-synchronizing technology recognizes bounces on the microswitch but doesn't fire the ball immediately, it fires the ball in the next 1/15th of a second, so it essentially makes it a lot easier to sustain a 15bps rate of fire. The ROF is adjustable, of course, but 15bps seems to be the norm. There are tons of other rules/modes of fire for different tournament series, but I elaborated on the NPPL because that is the one I focus on.

 

Wow. Things have definitely changed a bit, then... very interesting.

I've been considering picking up a new marker for a while, but I need to do some more research to see what would work for me. I don't have the time to really get back into the game, so it would mostly be for friendly matches between friends, and maybe the occassional trip to a local indoor field. Is it safe to assume that the current mid range markers are pretty much the equivalent of the older "pre-computerized" () high end markers?

 

Depends on your definition of mid range. There is quite a big price disparity between mid range electronic markers and mid range non-electronic markers. The most expensive non-electronic marker is probably around 500 or 600$, while the most expensive electronic marker is around $1350.

If you have your heart set on a pneumatic marker (non-electro), then there are many fine options in the 150-400$ pricerange. Pneumatic markers are by and large the same, almost all operate in the same general manner.

With reference to electronic markers, however, for the casual player there is very little noticable difference between a $200 Smart Parts Ion and a $650 Smart Parts Ion, or even a $1400 DYE DM6. Most casual players opt for the low-end electronic markers (Ion) because they tend to be reliable and more competitive against high-end markers. No one likes to show up to a gun fight with a knife, so to speak