Airsoft Poject I'm Workin' On

[Hex]

Hey guys,

Some of you might have seen me at a game or two with Siphon, I don't get to play nearly as much as I'd like to with my rotating roster where I work etc but I figured I'd write up something about a project I am working on you guys might find interesting so I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

So I like games like FPS's, or Laser Tag, or Paintball or Airsoft etc, but personally find they each have different problems whether it's the gun feeling like a toy with the invisible lasers in laser tag, or how easy it is for people to either cheat or get caught up the game and not notice getting hit in airsoft, or that you're just sitting on your ass playing Counter-Strike etc. So the base idea for what I've been working on is to take a laser tag system and build it on top of airsoft, so that you've got the structure and rules of laser tag hard coded and working invisibly in the background with the sting and the adrenaline of airsoft. This also allows you to get away from the whole get hit once and your dead kind of thing and move towards assigning different areas different damage ranges so getting hit in the foot doesn't tick as much damage as getting hit somewhere in the chest or head.

So at the moment most of the work I've been doing is backend coding and design work, ordered a bunch of infra-red lasers and sensors etc a couple of months ago but the shipment got lost so I'm waiting for them to send another one so I can actually play with some guns a bit. I've written a server that is hosted as a Windows service which talks between the gun clients and the databases etc. There's a lot of cool things I'm playing with like a small wrist mounted LCD screen tracking rough GPS details of you and your team mates on a minimap kind of deal with HUD information for ammo counts and HP, radio comms, etc.

At some stage I might need some help from someone who's much more knowledgeable with the guns etc to help taking things apart or fitting things into different places if anyone's interested. Otherwise, lemme know what you think, if it's a good idea or not, other cool things that could be worked in etc.

[Sneakers]

This sounds pretty cool.

How do you think you would go about having differing damage for differing body parts? It seems good in theory, but I'm having trouble coming up with how it would work without having the same issues as normal hitcalling.

Having a GPS screen with friendly locations would be amazing, and I'm guessing a lot more do-able than damage variation.

For an idea this sweet I'm sure there would be a few of us willing to help out with gun internals.

[Hex]

Dunno how much technical detail you want me to go in, and there's a lot of different ways you can achieve similar things.

For a while I was taking the infra-red cameras out of wiimotes (They're reasonably high definition/quality cameras for the price, and I didn't know if I would make use of the gyro/accelerometers) and sticking them on the end of a gun to snap to pickup IR LED signatures on vests. Now I'm working with a more tradition IR sensor vest and laser on the gun setup.

As for achieving varying damage ratios and stuff, part of it can be calculated on the gun client, have it do calculations based on whether it's a pistol or a rifle or whatever. You can assign different sensors to different areas of the body, like a chest sensors as opposed to a head sensor or knee sensor or whatever, and then do even more tuning with the sensitivities etc.

I've got a bunch of ideas but it's all stuff for much further down the line, but using all the same kinds of IR mechanics I should be able to work in things like grenades or trip mines or capturable points and objectives etc.

[Sneakers]

I was morely thinking along the lines of sensor placement. How would you attach a sensor to, say, a knee or an arm? It would have to be something that is comfortable, uncumbersome and durable.

There is also the issue of hit registration. A laser travelling at the speed of light will register a hit instantly whereas a BB travelling at 350 FPS may take over two seconds to reach its target. This becomes an issue when targets are moving in front of you. If you aim directly at them, the laser will register a hit but it is likely the target will have moved by the time the BB gets there. Likewise, if you lead your target with your shot, the laser will not be aimed directly at your target, but the BB will hit.

I really like your idea in principal, but I don't see the implementation being possible.

I would say this idea has a lot more potential in areas other than hit registration. Using the sensors for capturable points or for team radar for instance is something I would definitely like to see and is something that might be possible.

[Hex]

A lot of these are mechanics and issues I wont get a chance to play with and work around until the sensors and parts start arriving.

But the ideas I am working with and the ways I am planning to implement it I am hoping will give me a lot more control and fine tuning over different components as I'm writing it all from scratch myself. Like the issue of the speed of the lasers compared to the velocity of BBs fired for example is something I've considered, and expect will be able to tune a delay between the firing of the laser after the firing of the BB of some sort. Another benefit of tying the entire thing to a database server on the backend opens up a whole array of data collection and analysis options.

I think it should be trivial to hook the gun up to the database, get someone to stand still while you shoot at them a few hundred times at different angles and distances etc and compare what the server thought was a "hit" versus the poor testing sucker saying ouch.

[Hex]

Also don't know how plausible this would be, so does anyone wanna weigh in on how hard it would be to get some kind of servo to flick the safety on or lock the trigger when you're dead?

[PepsiCo]

Kind of on the same page as sneakers. I think there are too many variables affecting hit registrations. Everyone's guns fire at different fps and even then each gun can vary fps from very little to dramatically from shot to shot. Also having a delayed laser shot to compensate travel time of Bbs is flawed in the fact that there is no guarantee that the gun will be pointed where the Bb should hit after being shot, not to mention how would it MITcompensate for varying distances?

I know I don't quite get all of the ideas and logic behind this but the feeling im getting is that you'll end up needing a government grant, research facility and a team of MIT graduates to pull it off. But do give it a shot as I reckon if it's done, it will be epic, except for trying to convince everyone to buy and equip these contraptions...sounds like it will cost a fair bit. Easier to keep shooting those who don't call hits til they have massive welts on them.

As feedback, I reckon the GPS is more plausible.

And if you need to shoot at people im willing to volunteer

[Hex]

Yeah, I absolutely expect to encounter and have to deal with a whole slew of different problems, but you'll hit stuff like that regardless of what you're working on.

My sort of end goal visions are to set up as a sort of franchise and sell support contracts etc. The idea is you either turn up to a forest or CQB arena or whatever that is fully set up, like you would go to paintball or laserstrike or whatever.

You turn up, you pay whatever the entry fee is or scan your little membership card or whatever to log in, they give you a jacket or vest or whatever with all the shit you need, couple of magazines, primary, maybe a sidearm, etc.

Either turn up and play against whoever is there at the time, or book a day for you and a bunch of friends to play.

One of the things I'm personally more excited to play with is the database, which in theory once everything is "working"(regardless of how plausible it all may or may not be ) is the option then for full stats tracking. You've played 20 games, you've fired 2000 rounds, accuracy 47%, won 58% of the games you've played, ranked 86th out of everyone who's ever played there etc.

For some background info, my credentials etc if anyone is interested. I code a lot, do a lot of software development in my free time. I work for a software development company that deals in logistics solutions, think like when a courier delivers something and then have you sign the screen on the device etc. We write that shit, and each solution is for a customer with 1000-80000 devices out in the field in use. So I'm hoping I will be able to give it all a decent crack, got heaps of ideas, dunno which ones will or will not make it into the final product, or if I ever even a achieve a final product but it should be a fun project.

[Sneakers]

Electrical safeties are easy enough... Compared to the rest of what you're doing anyway.

[Mr TaniFa]

Didnt read all the stuff ,big words make head hurt UGh UGH !! ,this may be inspiring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-Ide24zbqY

and check this out , this guy had way to much time on his hands but hats off to him anyways

http://www.plecterlabs.com/catalog/article_info.php?articles_id=93

[Hex]

Those T-Cubes look pretty bad ass, but I assume it's all closed down and proprietary though. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of individual components and whatnot out there and working already, but would be cool to have a complete working setup and all talking to each other

[Mr TaniFa]

I like the concept of being able to track your team on screen ,ie one person has full veiw of the team on a screen but the rest dont,he could issue orders via comms go north 200m then east 100m etc, would be a fun element from a tactical sense.
Im sure their must be cheaper ways to rig gps to players.

Also a mandatory GPS display channel for hunters could be a interesting bussiness to establish might save a few people being shot.Somthing I had an idea on ages ago but too lazy to follow it through as it would have to be mandatory to make profit.

Also I saw you mention laser tag,this was somthing I researched after the quakes as there wasnt much to do so I thought about starting a new one up,however I found I enjoyed shooting people with bb guns more and joined airsoft instead.
This is by far the most interesting one I found for investing in by far,a little more reasearch is needed but I was by far liking this outfit the most at the time.
I think the coolest thing is the wifi to PC for stats etc,you may get some ideas from this format


http://www.lasermaxx.com/

[T8TY]

sorry man lasers dont work in the forrest cant break through wood grass or leaf

[Mr TaniFa]

Hey T8ty ,been meaning to catch up gives a visit some stage so I can grab ya new address, indoor or outdoor constructed cqb only I hear you on that one T8ty,Im still tempted to start it up just to get another cqb location made incase we lose our one to redevelopment in the future.
Dreams are free but its always at the back of my mind Im getting bored of being retired

[Hex]

Lasers aren't the only option, and neither is a forest. I get what you're trying to say, it just seems a little bit like a defeatist attitude though, if you know what I mean? If you simply say "that wont work" without even trying you'll never find what DOES work.