VFTD last posted this happy little rant back in 2011 and it seems like it's time to post it again. I'm beginning to suspect the lunatic fringe yammering about semi-auto will never disappear--until or unless paintball can turn back the clock and restore true semi-auto--but until that time the least I can do is periodically mock all the true believers who eschew reason and rationality in order to enjoy twitching their fingers.
There is one subject that drives me to the brink of gleeful homicide--the blindly willful utter nonsense spouted by the "semi-auto" advocacy crowd. This includes a few friends of mine so y'all please feel free to delude yourselves that little bit more and believe I mean everybody but you.
It started when I was skimming a long thread at the Nation–yes, I realize I brought it on myself-- devoted to speculation about the (then) upcoming changes at the PSP. A few posters just had to toss in the opinion that what the PSP needed was preferably uncapped semi-auto. Everybody is entitled to an opinion–even an idiotic one–but this particular brand of paintball superstition is like being a member of the Flat Earth Society and really believing the Earth is flat. Or participating in Renaissance festivals because you are convinced you really are Richard the Lionheart reincarnate.
Hey Tulip, you're nutty as a fruitcake!
If you've been living in a cave maybe I better explain. Like Knights of the Round Table (or in this case, the Empty Head) there are some die hard fantasists forever chasing the semi-auto Holy Grail of one pull, one shot. True semi-auto (as if such a beast existed in the era of the micro-processor and electronic gun) is a swell dream but fails to correspond with reality. The truth is the majority of diehards don't actually understand how their guns work even if they can use the right words to construct a coherent sentence. If they did they wouldn't be Knights of the Empty Head. For starters their trigger pull doesn't actually discharge their marker. The proprietary software in the micro-processor on their board 'reads' a signal from the switch – which can be any one of a number of different types of switches – and decides what to do about the received signal and the result can vary as widely as the parameters of the software allow. And, of course, within that process the micro-processor tells the gun when to shoot, not you. Then there are the assorted forms of actuation that are 'mistakes.' Stuff like bounce, both mechanical and switch. Every software package in the business has filters designed to minimize, to varying degrees, the 'mistakes.' But guess what. All you semi-auto is a skill clowns set your filters to the lowest possible 'legal' setting because, miraculously, your skill improves when the filters interfere as little as possible.
And it's even worse than you know because there are manufacturers who swear on your mother's life that their software is pristine and innocent and would never intentionally add a shot or three or six. After, of course, offering the standard pious disclaimer about user error. Yet it does–and many of you like it that way because you've worked ever so hard to develop your "skill." Still, these disciples of the true semi-auto continue to insist that semi-auto is pure paintball and that ramping is an evil corruption despite the indisputable evidence that all electronic guns add shots and the only real quibble is over the definition of intentional and unintentional.One thing we can agree on is that if such a thing as true electronic semi-auto existed in the modern game it would be better than capped, ramping guns. But the place you gotta start to see that happen is with sufficient standardization across the manufacturers so that the gun you're shooting is essentially identical to the one Joe Bob is shooting. At that point you can reintroduce the idea of skill again. And trust me, most of you semi-auto worshipers wouldn't like that one little bit.
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7 comments:
Then why does psp have it in the rules that the first three shots must be in semi auto? I shoot my gun in capped semi and definitely have it set up more bouncy than ever, since refs don't care any more.
Isn't it just cheaper insurance because the guns are not true one pull full auto? If so, it's at least comical that you guys tell us semi auto is a pipe dream, while telling the insurance company's that we shoot X balls in semi auto before 'ramping kicks in'
Anon
The point which you kindly make for me is that there is effectively zero, nada, no difference between claimed semi-auto and ramping as both add shots. And to insist that somehow semi-auto is somehow superior is simply nonsense.
Coach, speaking of lunatic conspiracy theories, any truth to the rebirth??? of 5 man and 10 man "old school" and leaving only Champs and D1 as the race to divs ???
While I am not privy to the inner workings I am extremely confident that ain't gonna happen.
I completely agree, whilst I was fairly proud of the rate of fire I used to be able to achieve in 'uncapped semi' I was at no time under the illusion that it was purely down to the speed at which I was able to twitch my pork sausage like fingers. Moe a function of fine tuning the trigger stroke and switch actuation to get more shots out of my gat! Having recently attended an 'old school' 7-man event it was apparent not only who could actually play paintball, in the sense that they were field aware without having to resort to sideline calls and could communicate with their team mates (not unsurprisingly it was mostly those players who regularly participate in woodland tournaments). But, also; those that had their guns set up with a ridiculous amount of either mechanical or trigger bounce, something that the referees, who had little if any real experience of semi auto events, seemed unable to counter!
As for the first three shots in semi, I always believed that was to minimise the effect of accidental misfires.
@Anon:
It's a legitimate issue of safety. People accidentally hit their triggers when they don't intend to, and in those circumstances we only want one accidental shot that the barrel blocking device can handle.
The kind of not-really-semi-auto that affects game play and is essentially impossible to regulate is when someone pulling the trigger at 6 bps has a gun shooting at 15 bps. That's an entirely separate "semi-auto" issue than making sure accidental discharges are single-ball.
I know you've already seen the news Baca, and I'm only posting this to gloat a teeny bit. The return of semi-auto.
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