Mod Night Tonight!

I'm working on both Nerf and Laser Tag gear tonight with a few friends.  Projects to work on range from Arduino-run laser tag boards for the LTX with custom sound effects to repairing my broken OMW Longstrike Massacre to whatever else we feel like!  Click the "T³ Chat" Button in the upper right side of the menu bar to weigh in on what we're doing!

Star Wars Lazer Tag

Naboo Attack Lazer Tag System (circa 1999)

Star Wars.  It's popularity is undeniable.  And yet, with all these epic laser battles around, you've gotta wonder... where's all the Star Wars themed Laser Tag blasters?

Quite simply, they already happened.  Back in the late 90s, Tiger Electronics released a few Star Wars themed sets compatible with their Lazer Tag-brand that was out at the time.  While they are not directly compatible with any of the new Lazer Tag-brand gear that's out now (LTTO, LTX, LTAR), they can be used in special hosted settings with the LTTO Tag Master Blaster and LTTO Drone under the "WoW Mode".  Still, they're neat looking blasters and I've been able to find a few pieces.  Enough to make a review of it!

One of these pieces is also the core of a commission project for a friend across the pond as a wedding gift.  I'm excited to work on it and turn this E-5 Battle Droid blaster (the bottom one pictured) into a fully functional LTX blaster.  More details in the video below of this series of laser tag blasters.

 

MILES in Training

A friend linked me this on the new Tactical Tag Facebook Page.  This soldier is a British Paratrooper wearing a Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System or MILES, for the purpose of an Anglo-French exercise. MILES gear is being used with British paratroopers and French airborne cavalry on a joint exercise to develop their urban fighting skills.  The sensor coverage on this soldier is EXCELLENT, better than any other setup I've seen thus far.  Military sensor coverage usually isn't this extensive, but the fact that this guy is essentially covered in sensors (they're those black domes all over his uniform and helmet) tells me that there's someone involved with their training program that's good with designing modular gear.  While the sensor systems we hope to build won't be this extensive, it is great to see the MILES gear still being utilized to this day, and to great effect!

To view the full article, visit Strike-Hold!

Urban Taggers: Law & Order

The more I look at that logo from Urban Taggers, the more it seems like that dart on that head was fired from the fellas at Hasbro.  For several weeks, their doors on the blog have been closed, roped off by the Nerf Police who stand guard with their Elite Blasters.  I'm not trying to paint a stupid picture, but rather point out that whatever Urban Taggers has been showing us is already a product-to-be.  I don't understand what all the hoopla is about UT getting the inside scoop on new blasters and creating a lot of POSITIVE hype for them.  Nerf's advertising fellas haven't exactly delivered in terms of getting us news on blasters, as evidenced by products getting on shelves long before any sort of commercials are released or news from their "Nerf Nation" Facebook Page.

Pause has already reported on Urban Tagger's latest insight to their legal dilemma with Hasbro, which just makes me more frustrated.  I've dealt with folks in the legal realm and it's nothing to get excited about.  Quite the contrary.  Even if UT does manage to reopen the blog, there will likely still be a close eye on them that they'll have to consider.  Working under that sort of pressure could take the fun out of it which is, lets face it, the whole reason anyone has a blog or is in this hobby.  It's fun!  It's also fun giving back to the community, something UT has done so well over their 18 month trek so far.

This whole ordeal has had me thinking "Well, I broke the news about the Pyragon.  Why haven't I been maliciously attacked by Hasbro?"  First, my thinking is that I found the information legitimately off of Hasbro's website.  Secondly, when I released the information, I sourced where I got it from and didn't put my name on the photos I released.  Urban Taggers has always put their "Stamp" on their news and, while it has likely gotten them a lot of attention and kept folks from claiming the information as their own.  In doing this, ALL of the leaked information that Hasbro has their panties in a twist about has a direct line back to Urban Taggers.  In gaining popularity like that, they also made themselves very easy targets.

When I released info on the Pyragon, most of the folks who got the info that knew me or knew of this blog gave me credit.  There are other sites out there that have just taken off and run with the images that I posted about that.  At first, I kind of regretted not putting some kind of label on them to claim them as information from this blog, as it would've been great PR.  In light of this series of events, I'm kind of glad I didn't.  I'm not trying to make an example of Urban Taggers at all or to say that labeling their information was wrong/came back to bite them in the rear, but rather learning from this situation so other hobbyists and blog owners like myself don't get burned in the future.

I really do hope that UT escapes this without any major problems.  However, I'm having a tough time imagining that things will return to normal in the wake of Hasbro's legal team.  It's likely that one of the best sources of Nerf News out there could get snuffed, which is a shame.  Hasbro should be PAYING Urban Taggers for all the great work and reviews and PR they've gotten for their gear, not punishing them.  If we had decent news from Nerf about upcoming stuff, things would be different.  But they don't fill us in on upcoming blasters until it's pretty much already out there.  I hope, regardless of what happens after this settles down, that Hasbro realizes the support Urban Taggers gave them.

Facebook Page Launched!

Social Media is becoming increasingly effective to reach people these days.  I of all people should know this, since the Omaha Laser Challenge Association (a group that I've been running for 6 years now) utilizes Facebook to spread the word about events that we host.  That page reaches over 100 members who are automatically notified of games that are hosted by the OLCA.

So, to better reach Nerf and Laser Tag enthusiasts, I've launched a Facebook Page to promote the blog through this.  I'll be posting my bigger articles on this blog but I'll be using the FB Page to do smaller updates like "Shelf News" and other smaller stories.

Go check out the page!  Hope you enjoy it!

Massacred Internals

So I was trying out that neat way to prime the Longstrike with a Massacre kit installed that I saw on The Document.  It was working out great... until the polycarbonate parts failed.

The video in this post explains all that has happened.  I've been very light in my usage of this kit, only testing it out for ranges and performance so far (as seen in my Longstrike vs Longshot vid).  It's been less than a week that this kit has been installed and after all that testing that Orange Mod Works did with their Massacre kits before releasing them, this is probably just as frustrating for me as it is for them.

It broke right at the point where the bolt sled meets the plunger tube.  This is very disappointing to say the least, but I blame the 6kg spring more than I blame a poor quality product, even WITH the warping issues the bolt sled still had (as evidenced in my previous video).  That spring is just unnecessarily overpowered for something like this.  Now I get to see this quick customer service that I've read so much about when other folks have had failing kits.  I've seen stuff replaced by OMW really quickly, so I'm hoping I have a similar experience.



Looks like I'm not the only one with this problem either.  Wira SevenSeven posted a similar image.

They call it the Tag Master Blaster

This is less of a "review" of this legendary Laser Tag blaster and more of it's involvement in the laser tag group that I've been running.  Before I got into Nerf, I had been an avid and active fan of laser tag, starting a group called the Omaha Laser Challenge Association in 2006 to plan and organize games.  I had been tagging long before that too, but it was mostly casual get-together with friends.  Like the group's namesake, we used Laser Challenge-brand gear.  Even with the Lazer Tag Team Ops gear on the market at that time, we chose to stick with our older seasoned Laser Challenge equipment for our games.

We knew that Lazer Tag Team Ops and Laser Challenge weren't directly compatible, but we did learn of a way to integrate the systems together.  That's about the time that my friend picked up one of the most coveted LTTO blasters: The Tag Master Blaster.  By disabling a beacon that all LTTO blasters emit, we were able to use the Tag Master Blaster in Laser Challenge games.  It's "hit signal" was able to land tags on our Laser Challenge gear, so we were able to utilize it just by disabling that beacon (which would normally hit Laser Challenge gear and will essentially "kill" the user holding it).

Still, the TMB was super accurate, able to hit folks from hundreds of feet away (max range that I saw it used was around 800-900 feet).  The tricky thing about the TMB is it's how tight of a beam of light you have to work with.  You have to be VERY accurate with this blaster at just about any range, as there is almost no spread to it's shot.  This means that if you're running around the park with it, trying to one-hand fire, you'll probably miss every time.  This is why, despite it's size, the TMB is very much considered a "Sniper rifle" or "DMR" when it comes to laser tag.

The other neat thing about this blaster is it's rocket.  Much like a Nerf Titan, you pump the handle in the stock of the blaster to fill up an air tank that fires a foam rocket that has 4 IR LEDs mounted in it.  Upon firing this rocket, it sends out a "hit" signal in a 360 degree radius that can be very handy in clearing out opponents that are closer to you.  It can also be thrown instead of fired, to be used much like a grenade would be in a game.

The first LTTO/LTX game with the OLCA

For several years, the TMBs in our group were used for Laser Challenge games but after we got our hands on enough LTTO and LTX gear, we  decided to try something the OLCA never had before: a full Lazer Tag-brand game.  It took all the gear we had to run this game and we enjoyed it enough to continue pursuing the purchase of more LTTO and LTX gear.  The TMB was able to fully realize it's power in these matches as they became more frequent.

The only problem with the TMB is that because it's an LTTO blaster, it has to be "Hosted" to use teams settings, unlike the grab-n-go nature of the LTX.  With our arsenal of LTXs at our disposal, the TMB is used less frequently because of this Hosting requirement.  Usually the TMBs are only used in games large enough that we need to tap into our smaller collection of LTTO gear to use them.

Regardless, the TMB has been a sought-after blaster for ages because of it's comfortable desin, accurate nature, unique rocket launcher (only laser tag blaster to have one), and reliability.  They're tough to come by these days but they're still compatible with the LTX and the new LTAR system coming out in Summer of 2012.  This means you can still expect to see this legendary laser tag blaster making appearances at games for years to come!