Date: Thu, 5 Oct 95 18:01:39 PDT From: dlitwin@geoworks.com (David Litwin) What is Paintball? by David Litwin ---------------------------- Paintball is a game (sport, hobby) that is usually Capture The Flag. Players fire round paint pellets (paintballs) from airguns to eliminate players of the other team from the game. THE GAME The basic rules for Capture The Flag are that two teams (of around 15-20 people each) have flagstations and flags at different ends of the paintball field (a small field is about the size of a football field and larger fields are many acres), and the objective of the game is to get the other team's flag and bring it back to your flagstation. If a player carrying the flag is hit, sometimes the flag remains on the location where the player was hit, sometimes it will go back to its home flagstation (different fields will play this different ways). Another paintball game is SpeedBall, where two teams of about 6-12 players play on a smaller, basketball or larger sized field with lots of cover structures to hide behind, and the objective is to eliminate all other team members. SpeedBall is aptly named because games are very short, (a few minutes at the most) intense and exciting. The maximum allowable gun velocity is usually reduced when playing speedball, as you tend to get many more close up hits. An interesting varriant is a Center Flag game (also called football) where there is only one flag in the middle of the field, and both teams try to get the flag and take it to the other teams flag station. This usually requires a big rush and battle to get the flag initially, and then once one team gets the flag they will have the flag pull back to a fortified postion and make attempts to get to the other flag station. The unlucky team that doesn't have the flag now has to defend their flag station against the other team. If the player carrying the flag is hit, the flag goes back to the center of the field again, and so a defending team has the opportunity to turn the game around. Paintball is a full day activity, starting around 9:00 (or 10:00 if you don't have a private game and have to wait for walk ons) until 3:30 to 4:00, which is about 8 full games. Games usually have a time limit of about 30 minutes, so if you get eliminated early in a game you don't have to sit around for long. SAFETY Paintball is an odd sport in that (I've heard, but can't provide statistics to back it up) it is safer than badmitton when the proper safety rules are followed, but quite dangerous if they are not. The most important piece of safety equipment is your facemask. This usually is in the form of a face shield attached to a pair of goggles that, on a good set, will cover your entire face and ears (although some masks will only cover the front of your face). Most important is protecting your eyes at all times when on the playing field. Once off the field at a safety station goggles can be removed, but only when barrel plug (to keep a paintball from exiting the barrel of a paintgun) are in every player's paintgun. The velocity of your paintgun (the speed at which it will fire a paintball) is never allowed over 300fps (300 feet per second = 200 mph), and on many fields these days is limited to 285fps. Up to around 285fps the more velocity a paintball has the better range and accuracy it will have, after that point more velocity actually degrades accuracy (for various areodynamic reasons). COST The cost at the end of the day seems to be $40-$75, depending on whether or not you rent a semi-automatic gun or a pump gun (like a pump shotgun). With the semi Automatic, rental charges are about $10 more and you will use up more ammo. The breakdown varries, with the cost of renting the gun and cost to play on the field different for each field, but the combined cost is almost always the same. Basic PumpGun equipment rental: $30 Cost to play, rent a pump gun, mask and some paintballs to start with (100). Basic Semi-Auto equipment rental: $40 Same as above but $10 more for the semi. Renting a jumpsuit: $ 5 This is only at Mare Island as far as I know. Not required, but nice. Ammo (per bag of 100): $ 5 The average if you buy from the field is $7.00, as some places charge $6.50 and some even up to $8.00. Most players with their own equipment will buy in bulk to get better deals (around $4.00-$5.00 if you buy a case of 2500). CO2: 7 oz $2 12 oz $3 20 oz $5 The average rental gun uses a 7 oz. A refill isn't always needed with a pump gun as they use CO2 gas more efficiently than a Semi-Auto and you don't tend to fire as much. Semi-Automatics get 200-450 shots out of a 7 oz depending on what type of gun you get. The standard rental gun (the VM68, also called the PMI 3) will get about 250. Better guns are more efficient, for example a Tippman Pro-Am gets about 350 and a Palmer Typhoon gets about 450. So if you figure a pump gun, jumpsuit and buying 100 paintballs (you will have more really because they usually give you some painballs with the rental) to start with you have a cost of: $30+$5+$5 = $40 If you rent a semi, jumpsuit and buy 500 paintballs (shoot about 600) and a CO2 refil you would have: $40+$5+$25+$2 = $72 CLOTHING Since the Bay area is pretty mild about weather, you don't have to worry about being cold, and it rarely will get extremely hot. Some people think of wearing multiple layers (pants and sweats) for bruise protection but this will make you too hot. Even if the day is not that warm, you will be running around. When I play I wear shorts and a tanktop under my jumpsuit, or if it is really hot sometimes just shorts and a T-shirt. Mare Island rents jumpsuits, but most other places don't seem to rent clothing. Dark colors are recommended, so dark jeans (black, brown or even blue) and a dark sweatshirt are good (and fairly good protection). If you have any army surplus clothing, great. Footwear should have good tread, and hightops keep nasty burrs and foxtails (when in season) from getting in your socks (not pleasant). Hiking boots are good and Combat or Jungle boots are (because they are designed for this sort of thing) prime. You will want to cover any exposed skin. This is not so much to keep you hidden, but because if a paintball hits exposed skin it can hit hard enough to break the skin (cut you). A layer of cloth between you and the paintball makes a big difference. When I play I wear a bandana around my neck to protect it (like a cowboy would wear it), and one around my head (not as important, but it keeps paint out of my hair if I get hit in the head). Light gloves are very good to have (half finger, if you prefer), as your hands don't have much other than skin and the bone, so there is not much to cushion the impact of a paintball. WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO GET SHOT And finally, how does getting shot with a paintball feel? Well it really depends on the range at which you get shot, the hardness of the paintball and whether or not it breaks (related of course to how hard it is). This means that from far away with a "soft" paintball you can barely feel it, at close range it tends to leave a bruise, and at point blank (2-5 feet) with a "hard" paintball will really smart, leave a nasty bruise and can even break the skin (cut you) if it hits an exposed area. This has happened but can generally be avoided by wearing some form of clothing around exposed areas. most any sort of cloth will break the impact and keep the paintball from breaking the skin. Before I scare anyone though, I've been hit in the neck at 6 feet range (I wasn't wearing any neck protection at the time) and although not pleasant, it didn't even bruise, showing that the hardness of the paintball makes a difference (I got lucky). If a paintball breaks, the impact will be spread out a bit whereas if it bounces you get the full force concentrated in a small area. You don't get bruised every time you get shot, so most of the time people go home with a few bruises but feel it was worth the fun of the game. (I certainly do :). ----------------------------