Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Moving out

I'll be migrating to wordpress.com for hosting content. The pages load faster, and there aren't as many ads. Take a look at: https://theultimatechairsofter.wordpress.com

North-East Conquest - Range 14

Another field that I've played at is Range 14; It's right outside Joint Base MDL in Browns Mills nj.

R14 is a decent outdoor field with an extremely low price($10!) for admission. They run airsoft games every third Sunday of the month, along with any extra events listed on their site. There is also a shooting range and a skeet range if you somehow own a real gun in new jersey. This field would be a good place to go if you don't usually play outdoors, as it's easy to navigate through and it's small enough to find the staging area if you get lost. There's a central 'base' surrounded by circular fortifications, which offers a lot of options for games to play.
There are a couple things to keep in mind when playing here though. HPA powered equipment is banned, and there are a couple rules regarding magazines. You are only allow to carry in one high-cap and when using the high-cap you're limited to using semi-auto only. This rule helps to prevent over-shooting which is always good. However they also require everyone to carry radios and whistles, which seems kind of unnecessary since it would be difficult to get lost in the field. Lastly, there isn't a field store available, so you must be prepared with your own equipment.

Overall, R14 is a nice field to play relaxed games at a low price.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Indoor vs Outdoor fields

In the years I've played airsoft so far, I've played in three indoor fields and three outdoor fields and I've started to notice a few things. It seems like players at outdoor fields do not take things as seriously as players at indoor fields. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; some players take the game way too seriously and they spoil the game for everyone.

 I suspect that there are two reasons for this. First, since the engagement ranges are larger at outdoor fields people are not as upset when they're hit. At close range things become hairy with minimum engagement distances, bang rules, and more painful hits. At outdoor fields, being hit isn't painful and M.E.D. problems are rarely a concern.
Second, it appears as though indoor fields attract the polarstar welding teenage dudebros and other such malcontents. I'm not sure why this is the case though; I'll need to think about that more. However I've witnessed far more arguments and near fights at indoor fields than outdoor fields.

Am I the only one who noticed this? Does this make sense?

Monday, January 4, 2016

North-East Conquest - Outdoor Xteme

Keeping the northeast conquest going, I've played at Outdoor Xtreme in Hatfield Pennsylvania last weekend.

This field is primarily a paintball field, but they do run airsoft games every other Sunday. While I was there, they were running paintball games at the same time. The property contains several fields, of which I've played on four. There are a couple fields that are mostly plywood structures while the others are in the woods, which offers a change of pace when you switch between fields. The admission is $25 for the day and they start early in the morning.

The refs were very organized as far as scheduling games and getting everyone on and off the field efficiently.(I've noticed that the refs had a schedule on paper showing which fields we'd play on at what times) I had a slow start in the morning but by the end of the day I performed well, despite only having this thing. (Also since the field is a paintball field, they have an air compressor to fill HPA tanks which is convenient for anyone who has HPA powered things)

There were two things I didn't like though. The first is that the check-in was slow. I haven't been able to pay them for at least a half hour after arriving. (and I got there early!) Note to any field owner: I want to give you money! Make this easy to do!
Also they do not have consistent rules that are in effect on all fields. I've run into a problem when we switch fields; one field has a 'bunker kill' rule, where if you can run up to a structure and pound the wall you can 'kill' everyone in the structure. (the rule is in place to keep people from shooting within a m.e.d) However this rule was not in effect in the other field we played in next (and there also was no 'bang'/surrender rule). I didn't know about this until I asked why people weren't going out from the bunker kill rule. Worse than this, there's no way to resolve close range engagements without shooting. (where getting shot at <15ft away isn't fun) This problem could be fixed overnight by picking one set of rules to apply to all fields.

Overall, it was a great day of airsoft. Maybe it has something to do with being in Pennsylvania instead of new jersey but I enjoyed playing here a lot. It might be worth taking the drive to go here more.

Below is a map of the field, showing the fields I've played in