Why don’t old boards limit bps

[JasperStout]

With mechanical and low bps formats becoming more popular, I’m having dye check if my pm8 will be flashable to 5.5bps. It doesn’t look like it’s possible but I’ll put out an update In the dye section is I get an unexpected yes.

Is there a reason why Lower bps options weren’t very common until recently ? The UL boards are adjustable In single digit increments and top out at 30bps which is very very high. But on the lower end it’s just 10 bps. And my old frenzy alias board didn’t have any options at all just 15 unless you shut the eyes off. It had all sorts of other options you could adjust but BPS wasn’t one of them. Even the old ego LCD boards had a pretty high bps minimum if I recall. Are lower limits tougher to program or something? It seems like a feature most rec ballers would want in order to save on paint. I remember when the tournament limits kept lowering each year from 15 to 13.3 to 12 and then to 10. Why didn’t they give you a wider range of options? It was like every single company too as far as I can tell. None of the older boards I remember allowed for limited paint modes except for maybe the smart parts “billy ball” boards

[Jordan]

Recballers don't buy the latest and greatest electros when they're brand new, tourney players do... so manufacturers cater to tourney demands, which until fairly recently didn't require very low BPS limits.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Can some explain to me what .5 or .2 of a ball is? Ive always wanted to ask this question for years.

[Cdn_Cuda]

It’s when it chops and only that portion of the shell shoots. The rest is jammed around your bolt.

[ATBen]

It's to make sure no one is shooting too fast. So say they want players shooting 10bps, you can go to 10.2 even to 10.5. However if a ref tags you with a clock in the game and 11bps come out cuz you had it at 10.5, you'll still get the penalty. Most OPL players here set to 10.2 or 10.3 just to be safe, but there are a few i know that go right to 10.5.

[Chuck E Ducky]

It's the buffer area when measuring how much time between shots. So the .5bps / .2bps is to give a ref the hard stop for tournament rules. Not all boards set at say 10BPS will shoot exactly 10BPS. Chronograph can pick up the difference between 10BPS and 11BPS the .5bps / .2bps is for the margin of error. Newer stuff can ride that thin line closer with faster processing power, but paint quality has gone down hill so it often negates that.

[Lotus]

IIRC these old electros were made in either 15 bps or 13 bps, 13.33, or even 12.5 bps were popular.

As such, what manufacturers did was add all the adjustment you could want for that ROF. Since these were done with individual clicks/beeps and not with a display, they typically have something like (this is completely made up, but I've seen countless boards like this):

x clicks: x bps
1 click : 14.9 bps
2 clicks: 15 bps
3 clicks: 15.05 bps
4 clicks: 15.1 bps
5 clicks: 15.2 bps
6 clicks: 15.3 bps
7 clicks: 15.33 bps
8 clicks: 15.4 bps
9 clicks: 15.5 bps
10 clicks: 10 bps (this is where it evens out and blips matches bps so you no longer have to consult the chart/manual)
11 clicks: 11 bps
12: 12
13: 13
14: 14

...and so on.

This gave players a ton of adjustability to fine-tune their ROF near the (at-the-time) tournament cap while at the same time preserving higher blips to a 1:1 ratio to determine ROF, which was easy to remember and didn't require people to consult a manual.

In other words, no one foresaw a world where we would want to set the ROF to something like 5, or 5.5 back then so they used those settings for finer controls at the then-current tournament ROF limit.

I know the pain. I have a PM8 myself that I wish could do something as precise as 10.2 instead of 10.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Im still completely not understanding any of this. Im sticking with mech.

[Toestr]

Can some explain to me what .5 or .2 of a ball is? Ive always wanted to ask this question for years.

Its for ramping. If you maintain the ramp for long enough for the decimals to equal one, then you will get how ever many extra balls as you have made ones, in addition to the shots you actually pulled.

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[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

So 11bps if you got fast fingies?

[russc]

Take 10.2 bps and invert it. You get 0.098 seconds per ball, or the frequency at which you are firing.

[Toestr]

Like Lotus said, there just wasn't the need. Mech tourneys weren't as popular as they are today, and there is really no other reason to use a mode you can outshoot so easily.

On a side note, when playing regular tourneys are you required to play with the specified ramp modes, or can you have something with limits under that mode. ie if the tournament was using a 12.5 bps ramp mode, would I be allowed to set it to a 10 or 11 bps ramp mode instead? Or a semi auto mode with a cap under the ramp Mode's limit?

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[DavidBoren]

The decimal is like the 9/10 cent at the gas station... for normal people, it means nothing. For the gluttons, addicts, and abusers, though, it adds up fast... in paintball, the decimal rewards excessive use of ramping with bonus balls. At the gas station, big tanks reward the government and oil industry with more taxes from lots of those 9/10 cents adding up.

But, to answer the OP's question... slow rates of fire don't eat paint. Selling paint is part of the business model.

[Jordan]

I've read somewhere that there was an attempt at a ROF moratorium early on... all the big guys, like SP, AGD, WDP, etc discussed voluntarily capping ROF to a number (I think 13bps) in an attempt to bring the game back towards its roots but I believe one company decided to ignore the "gentlemens agreement" so it was ultimately abandoned.

It wasn't always all about paint sales... companies used to care about paintball.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Like Lotus said, there just wasn't the need. Mech tourneys weren't as popular as they are today, and there is really no other reason to use a mode you can outshoot so easily.

On a side note, when playing regular tourneys are you required to play with the specified ramp modes, or can you have something with limits under that mode. ie if the tournament was using a 12.5 bps ramp mode, would I be allowed to set it to a 10 or 11 bps ramp mode instead? Or a semi auto mode with a cap under the ramp Mode's limit?

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I want to know the last question too. If you can't set your angel to 10.2 or whatever? Could you just set it at 9 or 10 and its still legal?

[fullofpaint]

Here's the current NXL rules. In short, no penalty for a lower rof, it just needs to meet the same activation and sustain settings.

Markers may enter ramping on the fourth trigger pull following three semi-automatic trigger pulls, as long as the time between each trigger pull does not exceed 200 milliseconds (5 trigger pulls per second).
2.1.1.1. Markers may then remain in ramping until the time between any two consecutive trigger pulls exceeds 200 milliseconds.
2.1.2. If at any time the trigger is not pulled within 200 milliseconds of the previous trigger pull, the following three shots (minimum) must be in semi-automatic.
2.1.3. Markers shall fire no more than one paintball within a 95 millisecond (10.5 bps) period of time.

[Lotus]

Shoot, I did not know that NXL got rid of the PSP style 1 second timeout. I've been out of it too long.

[cellophane]

With mechanical and low bps formats becoming more popular, I’m having dye check if my pm8 will be flashable to 5.5bps. It doesn’t look like it’s possible but I’ll put out an update In the dye section is I get an unexpected yes.

weird- I can't comment on the original post but I can on all the replies...

anyhow- if Dye can't flash the board, you might be able to find a Tadao board. They don't have the lower settings originally, but you can mail the board in and get it flashed to include the lower BPS.

[JasperStout]

weird- I can't comment on the original post but I can on all the replies...

anyhow- if Dye can't flash the board, you might be able to find a Tadao board. They don't have the lower settings originally, but you can mail the board in and get it flashed to include the lower BPS.

Good idea I’ll keep an eye out for a UL Tadao board

[GreenMan]

yeah, there really was just *no thought* about players who didn't care to shoot that fast back then, hard to understand it from our perspective now.

if you had a marker that didn't shoot that fast, you were left behind, plain and simple. it was elitist and lame, and we are still suffering for it.

not trying to be too pessimistic, i love paintball, i just still resent that era of pushing the sport to a more expensive, intense format.