Archived Ideas

This week I actually started tooling around with plans for my Swarmfire.  To really get an idea of where improvements need to be on a blaster, I think you've gotta literally have it in your hands.  You can attach gizmos and mount hardware all you want, but at the end of the day, if the layout isn't right, it'll just clutter up the blaster and work against you.  Many times, this means a blaster isn't exactly a "one size fits all" type, and I'm sort of okay with that for one or two blasters.

As such, messing around with this Dart Tag warrior made me remember the last time I worked on one.  Back on March 11th of 2011, around the time when the Swarmfire had just hit shelves in the US, I did an "Amped" video with this blaster hooked up to a DC-Regulated Power Supply.  It was kind of my first hint at the beauty of this blaster.



I think one of the more desirable things about the Swarmfire platform is the simple fact that it combines two common methods of modding Nerf blasters.  It's got a direct plunger system, which is easy to upgrade and work with.  On top of that, it's got an electronic rotating barrel and auto-fire system that can easily be upgraded with more power.  Plunger mods and Volt mods.  It's one of the few blasters that has both of these under one shell.  I'm going to focus on making both of these elements better both performance-wise and in their ease-of-use.

The second throwback video was my "ammo storage mod" that I used.  One of my first Nerf videos I ever made, so it's a little grainy and painful for me to watch... but it's still something I find useful about the Swarmfire: all that extra space to mount stuff.  Not just darts, but helpful equipment.  Many folks utilize the Swarmfire as an extra turret or to minimize, but I plan on making use of this rifle-style design because I just enjoy using a larger rifle during games.  Maybe a reflex sight, a camera mount, perhaps even some kind of in-built holster for something tiny like a Jolt... there's a lot of space there that can be utilized.

The only trouble with the velcro ammo storage is that... well... the group I play with normally just uses Elite darts now.  The old streamlines, whistler, suction and velcro darts aren't really used anymore.  The whole advantage of using this system was for making in-game ammo pickup easier.  The idea will take some retooling if I am to make it work for current games that are mostly using nothing but Elite darts.

This week is really just planning stuff out and seeing what will fit and what will be helpful.  Then it's a matter of finding the right parts to put together on this to build it up.  ...and then I need to test the RoF out on my boss, of course.