Electronic markers + electronic loaders = high rates of fire. Questing for ever-higher firepower, paintball's "arms race" pushes the rate of fire ever-higher. Raging beasts shooting 20-plus balls per second (bps) dominate professional paintball. Back home, electros of lesser cost are within the budget of nearly any player, and so are the motorized loaders needed for fast ball feeding.
Using electronic assistance, a marker's rate of fire easily exceeds the limits of mere human trigger pulls. Paintball has safety and sport rules and standards to limit velocity and rate of fire, yet electronics provide the capability of making it fairly easy, and nearly undetectable, to break these rules.
How did paintball get here? Not long after electros with multimode capability first came out, fields and tournaments continued to prohibit shooting electros in any mode except semi-auto (and many continue the prohibition today). A meeting of many manufacturers concluded with the understanding that they would stop making multimode markers after current inventories were sold. The publicly-announced agreement lasted about as long as it took the ink on the paper to dry. Electros began to flood the market in response to consumer demand. Mode capability (three-shot burst, six-short burst, full-auto) proved a key sales feature. Electronic function capabilities expanded in several ways.
Software permits dynamic changes in certain functions when an activating condition is met. This allows the electronics to affect velocity and rate of fire (balls per second, bps, ROF).
The potential for multiple head shots increases with a ramping rate of fire. Photos by Skirmish.com
Velocity can be affected because a stored value in the electronics program can control the dwell time (how long the solenoid that controls the air flowing to the pneumatics is activated). A longer dwell time allows more propulsion air to flow, which increases the velocity. The player who wants to shoot hot (over the speed limit) does not have to physically change a regulator or velocity adjuster; it's just a matter of having a programmed "secret" activating condition. For example, a trigger sequence (such as dah-dah-dah-dah-dit-dit) could cause the electronics to increase the dwell time 2 percent for each following trigger pull up to a maximum number of trigger pulls, and the velocity would rise. Increased velocity in steps like this is "velocity ramping." A non-shooting time of say, three seconds, would reset the dwell so a referee could not make the marker ramp without the secret code.
A trigger "event" is what used to be called a trigger pull. It is an actuation of the electronic circuit that causes the marker to shoot. When the triggering is set up with such close spacing that vibration from the parts that move during a shot cycle causes another trigger event, that's "trigger bounce." Bounce is usually prohibited because the rate of fire can exceed permitted limits, often appearing to be full-auto shooting. Markers with advanced electronics, for example, the DYE DM-6, Eclipse EGO, and Alien Remains, have a debounce feature that lets you set a minimum delay between trigger events that start a shooting cycle.
Balls per second (rate of fire) can be affected because a stored value in the electronic program can control how many trigger events are recognized each second. A different stored value can let the marker shoot more than the allowed number of balls per second (more shooting cycles can be initiated). Another potential is for the program to apply a shot multiplier so that after a secret activating condition occurs (such as dah-dah-dah-dah-dah), each trigger event results in two or more shooting cycles being initiated. The program could ramp the bps, for example, up to the maximum the marker can shoot, without the player having the physical ability to pull the trigger that fast. Or the program could shift the marker into full-auto mode (at, say, 16 balls per second) as long as the player keeps pulling the trigger at some low times per second (say, six times a second). The program could sense when the marker is inactive for a time (say, three seconds) and then revert to "standard" stored values that give "legal" performance. A referee could not make the marker ramp without the secret code.
Decisions To Be Made 
The increased padding in uniforms reflects a heightened need for protection.
The question today is the same question raised at paintball's beginnings: What rules must govern the sport? Safety first, and then competitive limits, must guide rules decisions.
Players have already suffered concussions from multiple head shots. Ramping velocities are reported far above the international speed limit of 300 fps. Ramping ROF can result in more hits to a person, concentrated in a small area. The potential for serious bodily injury or death rises with either and/or both kinds of ramping.
Though still relatively new, enhanced goggle systems promise increased head protection from paintball hits, plus increased goggle retention, compared with current goggle systems. (Caution says enhanced protective gear must not become a "reason" for allowing uncontrolled velocity or ROF ramping.)
There is to date no reliable monitoring equipment to detect ramping. This means no penalty system can be enforced. Referees and event producers at all levels of play admit this privately, and refer to the use of magnets, air pressure, and electronic programming that make games not only unsafe, but a cheater's heaven. Efforts are underway for new detection systems, but even if they are developed, just as with motor-vehicle radar, every policing effort meets with new ways to get around the policing machines. Referees stay one or more steps behind the truly pioneering rules-breakers. Those who create such programming know its potentials and the serious consequences that could result from their work.
Hammered-a common occurrence in the major leagues.
The sport of paintball, like all sports, needs sports limits for safety and for fairness in competition. When secret cheating methods determine who wins, a sport has no integrity. NASCAR engine inspections are exceedingly thorough with severe penalties for evading the rules (cheating), to maintain NASCAR's integrity and reputation. Paintball should have such strict controls. Football does not allow crackbacks, pulling on a facemask, radios in football helmets, and so on; baseball restricts baseballs and baseball bats; and golf restricts clubs and balls. Sports regularly mandate safety equipment, and limit competition categories by age, weight, height, and other factors. Amateur athletics restricts its events to prohibit pro athletes from competing. Paintball needs to develop its own overall plan, considering these issues and making responsible decisions for the future.
In the 1980s, paintball debated whether the dual 12-gram modified Sheridan KP-1 should be allowed in games. Constant air caused a huge debate. In the 1990s, debates centered on semi-autos and goggle standards. Any time something pushed the technology envelope, concerns were raised about safety and sports limits. Paintball's electronic age, similarly, brings with it not only undetectable methods of breaking the sport's rules, but also and more importantly, greater threats to human safety.
Rec-ball players do not need or want, or accept, extreme physical punishment and pain. As with ice hockey and football, few choose to risk life and limb the way the pros do. Subjecting recreational players to abuse due to uncontrolled ramping will drive them away from our sport-and destroy its economic base.
Everyone agrees electronics brought much change to paintball. The debate rages over the limits, if any, to be enforced for safety and the sport's integrity.
APG readers hold very strong opinions about these issues. Not a single player so far has written to support velocity ramping. Many universally condemn it. A few players wrote to support controlled rate of fire ramping, with a cap at about 15 bps max. Many expressed deep concerns for the sport's future unless paintball establishes enforceable limits on firepower. At 25 bps, the result is 1,500 RPM (rounds per minute).
{mospagebreak}
The following e-mails illustrate the mainstream opinions many readers expressed in letters to CO2 Mail.
The Other Guy 
Torched! Bunkering a player or shooting a player at close range is now a paint explosion.
I really think that all the big tournament players are ruining the sport of paintball. Putting ramping boards in their receivers? Shooting hot? Shooting at full-auto speeds? Come on. Why do you play paintball? For fun, right? Well, so does the other guy, and you can't really stop a string of paintballs that all come out in a second's worth of time. Believe it or not, it hurts getting hit with that many paintballs. This sport is about individuals competing, not machines! -Joshua Bombard, Warren, Vermont
A Paint Explosion I referee at the national level, and see the results of ramping. Bunkering a player or shooting a player at close range is now a paint explosion. It is an out-of-control exchange. Goggles are pushed off of players' faces by just the paintballs hitting in succession. Where a single or double paintball hit to skin will not cause tissue damage, several hits can tear the skin and cause severe damage that is lasting. When these markers leave the field and wander into "safe" areas, they are an even bigger threat. People are not wearing masks in those areas and a simple neoprene barrel sock can be shot off with just one ball; what about a dozen or two? Innovations make paintball a cheater's heaven. Now, not only do officials have to worry about players wiping, wearing excessive padding, fighting, swearing, rule enforcement, but now they have to monitor marker activity as well as player behavior. -"Tops"
Semi-Auto Only 
Field designs can lead to close, multiple hits.
I read through "Ramping-Friend or Foe?" [by Marc Gottfried, APG, Dec. '05], and it leaves me in a bit of a state of dismay. I just cannot see how you can now accept "ramping" as any less of a safety concern than trigger "bounce." Both take the responsibility for safety away from the player and create a state of mind that the (marker) is playing the game and not the player. It just seems to me that you are now putting the stamp of approval on something that not long ago was considered cheating as well as a severe safety issue. In short, shouldn't we, as players, have to be consciously responsible for and physically participate in each and every ball that comes out of the marker? Then we can compete in a manner that actually tests our game skills.
Semi-auto ONLY, in the strictest sense of the term, is all the rules we need in the promotion of a safe and exciting game of ball. True semi-auto allows for plenty of firepower to sweetspot a lane and minimizes the potential for abuse when the action gets up close and personal. It is not a matter of the rate of fire that concerns me, because the human nervous system will take care of that; my concern is for the concentration of fire at close range when in full-auto/ramping mode. Consider for a moment the highly publicized Chris Lasoya incident, where he hammered a young player with about 12 shots to the head and excused his actions with, "but I only pulled the trigger four or five times." Let's face it, you just can't do something like that without intending to and you should not be able to escape responsibility for your intentions with equipment that falls within the posted and accepted rules for professional-level play.
Goggles are engineered to the international speed limit of 300 fps, a limit that ramping velocities can exceed.
Let's try to keep the game safe and sane and maybe keep it alive for the long-term. If paintball is ever going to be considered for an Olympic sport, the equipment is going to have to be limited in such a way as to test the players' full range of game skills and attempt to take luck out of the picture. So, you'll have to shoot at the opponent in the "lane" instead of shooting the lane and hoping the opponent will run into the line of fire. After 21 years in the game I still find it more effective to play the game and not the marker, and remain concerned for the safety of myself AND my opponents on the field.
-Glenn Palmer, Palmer's Pursuit Shop, Sacramento, California, www.palmers-pur suit.com
Your opinions on any paintball issues are welcome at co2@actionpursuit games.com.
