Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Season 6 off to a great start!

Each year the OLCA gets it's massive Laser Challenge Armory ready for weekly use during their "Fight Night" games held over the summer.  Season 6 started on May 9th and had a cookout one hour before the games to kick things off.  We even had one of our players show up and play a few games in his Stormtrooper armor (just finished this Spring).  It was a great way to start the Fight Nights for the summer!

The park the OLCA plays at has a small Gazebo atop a hill overlooking the area with two grills.  Normally, cookouts are held to start and finish the season as well as to commemorate the Anniversary (June 6th) and the day before Independence Day for the US (July 3rd).  Cookouts are potluck and are always a hit with the players.  It's a nice time to socialize before you're gunning folks down.

Those that have built custom blasters have been cleaning house this year.  Two of our more outstanding players (pictured to the left) have been especially important to gaining victories for their teams and have kind ot started a friendly rivalry between themselves.  Sundawg, pictured switching from his combat barrel to his sniper barrel, has a modified Nerf Recon that gives him quite the edge in Combat.  So far, he's the only player to have developed a modular barrel system for his blaster.  It's very powerful and deadly.
              
Eleri at'Xalien was one of the original founders of the OLCA and has always been noted for his strategies and long-range precision.  He used to wield an LTTO TMB but now has been outfitted with the Longstrike Carbine (modified Nerf Longstrike).  This blaster has an excellent range and potent RoF, the fastest of any blaster in the group.  You're generally lucky if you manage to catch him at close range, but even then he has a great sidearm to take care of you. 



Me and the LTX DMR

 I've managed to get some combat testing in on some of my newer blasters, mainly the LTX DMR and the RE-Spectre.  Both of them have seen extensive use the past 3 weeks.  The LTX DMR is nearing completion and just recieved a sight on it that I tested out on the 23rd.  This GREATLY improved it's performance and I was finally able to aim it correctly to make full use of it's long range capabilities.  The RE-Spectre could use some more fine tuning and additional development, but still worked great as a mid-range combat pistol.  I've got ideas on the drawing board to continue to expand it's abilities.

Testing out the RE-Spectre


We are now 3 weeks into the OLCA's 6th Summer season and attendance continues to grow at each game.  This is typical for our group to see.  At the Season Opener, we only saw 18 folks whereas we just had 28 show up for yesterday's game.  I wouldn't be surprised if we're back at 30-35 in June again, but attendance is known to fluxuate from season to season.  Either way, I hope this has been a good insight to what things are like for the OLCA.  It's been fun to see it grow!

Turnout for May 16th




4 comments:

  1. I can see a multitude of different blasters here, and I'm curious how you 'programme' them all to be compatible? How does one program a LC vest to be compatible with registering hits with a Phoenix LTX? What level of gameplay do you do? Are u bringing the Lazer Tag blasters into an LC environment or vice versa?

    Thanks mate

    Pocket | Urbantaggers.com

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  2. No programming needed, my friend. We use the Laser Challenge system as our core and anything else that happens to land tags on those sensors. LTX and LTTO Blasters can land hits on most older LC gear. The users just have to wear a LC vest along with it since the LTX and LTTO domes don't accept hits from LC blasters.

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  3. Hi, another question I thought u might be able to help me out with regarding the Phoenix LTX- one of my blasters seems to have this really weird habit of resetting on its own during battle- really frustrating and we can't work out why it's happening. Any thoughts on why and how to fix it?

    Cheers:)

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  4. Power Resetting can be a complicated thing to fix if you're not used to digging into electronics. The insides of an LTX are pretty complicated and one of the downfalls I find of newer laser tag systems is that there's just THAT MUCH MORE that can go wrong with them.

    The first thing to see is diagnose what causes the power to reset. Does the blaster take a jolt? Maybe even as simple as getting picked up or tilted in a certain direction. If it's motion that causes the reset, it's likely a loose connection that needs to be found.

    If it's not that and the blaster randomly resets itself without outside interference, it could be a power issue, but I'm assuming you've replaced batteries on it. If it's anything beyond replacing batteries or finding a loose connection, there's not a whole lot you can do. Let me know what you find out.

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