NPPL to attach ROF monitors to all pro team guns

[Ant_UK_Refs]

Rabies, with regards to your comment that refs can't run around reinstating eliminated players, no they can't but they can give "bodies back" so to speak if the games are being scored on + scores and -scores for eliminations. In the Race 2 format, if the guy playing on has stayed in until the end of the game, then he's had an influence on the outcome of the game and thus earns a major penalty for his team. Something needs to be done though, because we know the cheat boards are out there, you can tell which guns are cheating yet when you go to grab the naughty guns, they have fancy little programmes on the software boards to hide their ****ty modes. We're going back to the pre ramp days when every baller and his dog had such fanciful notions of being able to shoot 22 balls a second in their sleep

 

[Rabies]

I agree something deserves to be done, but I can't help feeling they've overthought it, with fancy RF dongles and whatnot. A couple of years ago I made a proof of concept device which would monitor a gun's rate of fire from outside the gun, didn't connect to the electronics in any way, and a ref on the field could see when the limit had been exceeded just the same as seeing a hit. A much simpler answer to the same problem, albeit without the benefit of real time stats that nobody's likely to make much use of. An RF-based system is prone to interference (accidental or deliberate), reliability problems, plus the person who knows if an infraction has been committed isn't in the right place to impose the penalty.

And how tamperproof are these modules? Who keeps them between games? A device connected to the solenoid could be reprogrammed to add shots itself (maybe far-fetched), or to be selective in its RF broadcasts to mask illegal guns (not at all hard).

 

[Ant_UK_Refs]

Wouldn't it be simply more compliant for the refs to be equipped with the speed trap type guns the NXL refs use? All the players accept these, and as far as I'm aware, are tamper proof so there can be no argument. Or would that be too simple a measure. I was going to say solution, but the only way to slove the problem of illegal modes is to ban the offending player(s).............then again, we'd have hardly any tournament players around and I do remember Nexus being the only pro team to refuse to install illegal boards and modes in their Nexus Cockers. I'm all for trying to gain an edge over the opposition, but Jeezus, where do we draw the line? Personally I'm pissed off with picking up a gat to chrono it and the thing going off without me even being near the trigger.

 

[Tony Harrison]

You are suggeting that money is spent on ref equipment? How dare you!

Anyway, that would be, like, copying what the PSP do.



The NPPL have got plans for the data they are going to collect from the guns.

 

[Rabies]

Catching guns on the break, when there are 5 (or 7) guns all crowded together, is hard with even the most directional radar guns. Something that specifically picks up the fire pattern of individual guns is going to prevent more breakout cheats. The trick is finding the most elegant solution to that.

And Ant, I agree that the penalty for an illegal gun during a game should be a straight ban. Chrono penalties are frequently unintentional because there is always some shot-to-shot variation in velocity, so they merit a penalty in proportion to the margin of infraction, but there is no technical excuse why ROF limits could ever be exceeded "accidentally."