Thursday, May 21, 2009

MS Bitburg layout

This post will be limited to discussing some basic shooting options OTB (in keeping with recent How-To xball posts) because anything else would surpass my boredom threshold and your attention span. But before we get started there is also a disclaimer and a recommendation.

Disclaimer: actual position of bunkers extremely important and your results may vary--if the field is poorly set-up. And while I claim to almost always be right there is a statistically negligible margin of error involved in any claim.

Recommendation: check out Warpig's virtual fieldwalk as it can be helpful in visualizing the angles and lanes. If you haven't seen it before you've been missing out.

The Bitburg layout has fairly limited breakout options so with a little creative guns up play it should be possible to both keep the opponent guessing while giving yourself a little extra laning help. Looking at the field diagram there are 6 shooting positions. Beginning with 3 & 4, the home shooters, each side has two predominant shooting lanes. Snake-side they are inside and outside the line of pins. D-side they are inside and outside the MT. The snake-side outside lane is a pick'em lane in that a runner can be going either corner or snake and the distance between them forces the shooter to pick a primary target. The same is true of the D-side inside lane in that a runner moving thru that lane is either going corner or D1. The most difficult of the 4 "home" lanes is the inside snake-side lane where the shooter must be fast and accurate. For anyone who can get it consistently they can deny an OTB move into the pins and potentially catch sloppy runners going either corner or snake. (I say sloppy because running well defined lanes ought to force the shooter into the pick'em dilemma.)

Positions 2, 5 & 6 are dead zone spots. A dead zone is an area seemingly out in the open but largely "invisible" (or only exposed from very limited points). Playing a dead zone isn't a free pass however as players are in motion across the whole field. Most of the time it's a matter maintaining a lane but still knowing when to move. (It's also important to sometimes have an assist from a teammate to make a dead zone lane a safer option.) For example, position 5 laning crossfield (snake-side) ought to be matched with a D-side home shooter laning the inside the MT lane. It's important to keep in mind dead zone shooting isn't a stationary option. And a very useful skill is the ability to shoot one lane and be aware of incoming paint from another angle.

Position 1 simply shows one option for using position 2 as it leads naturally into 1 while allowing the shooter to maintain a dominant lane.

The only caveat is to precisely check what the M blocks. It may in fact take some options away and allow for others but in any case needs to be examined with respect to the dead zone positions.

Anyone who plays this layout is encouraged to comment.

11 comments:

TGunner said...

It's good to see you posting about Euro affairs too Baca. You coming over this year?
Just a couple more shots for you..
If the #4 stands at the gate he can shoot between the Can and the Temple on the dorito side to kill the Temple runner or to catch the #6 in the open sloppy.
#4 can also shoot through the M towards the snake side MT to shoot the #2 or atleast put him off.
Word

papa chad said...

"And a very useful skill is the ability to shoot one lane and be aware of incoming paint from another angle."

like gun one way, head the other? that's always made you look like such a good player..
you maybe mean elite paintball senses or just moving your eyes, though.

Mike said...

Try awareness? Peripheral vision?
Good post, I liked it. Quite informative.

Why don't you do some like this for the PSP layouts? ;) Like Chicago.

Anonymous said...

Mike, Baca has done PSP layouts before. Im sure that he is doing the layouts in the order that the events are. Chi-town is next, I would guess.

Baca Loco said...

It's now papa chad, is it? Congrats. Mike is in the ballpark. The tricky part is staying on point--doing your job--and being able to separate enough of your attention to stay alive as well.

Mike/Anon--there's a little something on Chicago from a week or two ago that should still be up on the main page if you scroll far enough down. Otherwise it's easy to find in the archive for May. And, yes, I'll probably do another Chicago layout post before the event.

TG--probably, but not for paintball unfortunately. If the MS had scheduled their open event a little better...

Thanks for the comment. As the blog has turned out to have a strong topical element it's easy for me to do U.S. stuff but not so much on the Euro or rest of the world stuff. (That requires a bit of help so I'm always glad to hear from folks from all over. hint, hint)

Yep, absolutely on those additional shots. I considered including the other potential lanes for the home shooters as they are a natural progression but left them out for space considerations and clarity. Glad you added them for anyone interested.

papa chad said...

thanks, Mike. Yep, it's papa chad now.
when did they turn the M back in the correct direction? I remember them having it facing the crowd, but I've been way out of the loop with Millenium... good thing they changed it back.

Anonymous said...

Played the "5" position, and got - on average - a kill per breakout last weekend (missed my shot once, but got 2 in another point)..... but I was shooting somewhere entirely different that you suggest Paul.... I'll tell you where, when the event is over :P

Nick Brockdorff

papa chad said...

I wonder if it's easy to shoot through the m.

Janek said...

Paul, I think you have a typo in the title, especially considering you wrote the name of the town correctly later down in the post.

Someone's gotta tell the kids at propaintball.com they need to learn to spell :D

Baca Loco said...

Thanks, Janek. Indeed I do. Mountain not fortress. I'll fix that.

Hey, Nick. Howdy stranger. Glad you stopped by. No suprise. There are certainly a few more options than I listed. I'll expect to hear from you again after the event. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul

Yeah, not really frequenting P8ntballer anymore, for obvious reasons ;)

Hit me up with an email: mail@uglyducklings.dk