SQA, Sept. 14th

[Dominum]

I have to start this off with the obvious: the weather was fantastic. It's finally time for the airsofters that hibernate in the summer to start coming back out! It was cool in the morning and I think the hottest was 80 degrees or so, but then we played in the shade. My dad and brother both came out and played again (I've been able to get them to come out a lot more this year) and they enjoyed themselves. Joseph got some good kills in the trenches. I used the SPR DMR during the first half of the day in the trenches, the firefights were intense and I was pretty happy with how it went most of the time. The second game (deathmatch) was an exception: I hopped in a trench on the flank up by the boundary and engaged, but due to poor visibility I was looking for a way to get up higher or to the side of the brush. I noticed most of the enemy was far away and their rounds were all dropping low in the brush, so I figured no one had the range to hit us. I got up out of the trench under this assumption to find some targets and right about then I took a hard hit to the forehead. That'll teach me to assume! I yelled hit loudly but fidgeted for my deadrag and took another one to the head (not his fault, he was far away and couldn't hear me over the other noises, and hadn't seen a deadrag yet; I would have shot me again too) so I waved it around a bit so as not to get another one lol. I went and sat on some logs to watch the firefight unfold (no medics or respawns), it turns out that Adam was the guy back there with his UAR DMR. He got a few more kills (he was doing a great job frankly) before he died and the game ended. I had some other great engagements: shooting Smitty with my Glock at the same moment he shot me and one or two others with a grenade launcher; being healed by Gambler and having to jump across the road ASAP because Skywalker had a bead on us; rushing trenches with a pistol, etc. The second half of the day was fun, hunted for some people in the brush; did a capture the flag game (which ended with a rush at one of the two flags we were guarding. They didn't get far ). All in all it was a great day.

[Romba]

Morning was gorgeous, got warm later but not too bad....
I took out my Boogie Regulator goggles for the first time. They are SUPER comfy, and don't fog when you are moving but if you have to wait for a medic or are under fire and unable to move they fog right up... I am gonna try to cut some small channels in the foam, but the quest for non-mesh eyepro (for Fulda and places that don't allow mesh) that won't fog continues. Suggestions welcome.
Also had my BAR-10 with my copyrighted superglued pen-spring mod out for the first time. Only got one kill with it but it was fun stalking around with it for a game.
I was laying in the brush about 50 feet away from a group of people hoping they'd give me a shot when all of a sudden Mr. UAR guy starts shooting in my direction, so close I can hear them whizzing by. I knew he was pretty close to me and probably inside his MED but I didn't say anything in the hopes he was just messing with hop or something. Later found out he was.
I think I may have spent more time trying to fix my guns than play, (thanks to Steevo for the crimper and the assistance,) but I had fun.

My only complaint is that mixing green and tan leads to confusion. I much prefer separation of camos. One game in the trenches it turned out that we had taken out the whole other team and began a firefight with the other half of our team due to confusion.
First time at SQA was good.

[D.Smitty]

Running problem at games:

[idiot88]

My only complaint is that mixing green and tan leads to confusion. I much prefer separation of camos.

Did one color outnumber the other color?

[Romba]

I didn't think so; it's just the way it was from the beginning of the day.

[D.Smitty]

The focus was more on keeping groups/squads/friends together. As it was strictly an informal game day, that was expected. Hence the $10 cost.

[captainkirk05]

The weather felt great. Me on 4 hours of sleep, not as great. I was impressed with how well on time the games started. I had a fun time at the shooting gallery, I didn't even care to count hits. And apparently I crawled over some huge briars because my arm was torn up to pieces. Looking through our videos, there is an epic moment where Smitty uses his 40mm buck (I refuse to call them grenade launchers when they don't work like one), and hits Tigger and Dom at the same time, as Dom headshots Smitty. Justin on our team was about 10 feet behind and we could see a shower of bb's peppering the ground inches in front of him. I enjoyed the changes in pace during the day, from rapid action trench fighting, to slower squad movements in the woods later. I had fun for my 2nd trip to SQA.

Now here are my complaints. As most know I like to detail these so fixes can be made in the future.
Hit calling was disgusting. I do not believe in “shoot’em till they call it!”. For one, I would run out of bb’s trying to get some of these terminators to call their hits. Two, that is how people get hurt, and leads to overshooting of players who are playing fair. A few bad apples ruin it for everyone, as other players start refusing to call hits from players who should be out, it becomes an epidemic. What I do believe in is referee action. Remove the bad apples from the game so the rest of us can have a good time. I didn’t complain to authorities at the game because we had one single referee/admin who had no way of knowing what was going on at every place at every moment. I have a few highlights of these terminators on film, I will see about making a Youtube tribute to their no hit calling awesomeness. Thankyou to the players who were honorable in their hit calling, I remember all of you and have the upmost respect for you as players, as I saw some of you calling what I would imagine to be some the softest long range bb flicks ever.

Game administration was lacking. I would expect the rep of a game that has been listed for weeks now to bring his game book, but apparently it was lost after lunch. The games before lunch proceeded smoothly, the breaks between games were short but sufficient. After lunch, we spent a huge chunk of time, 20 plus minutes, listening to the rep try to figure out what a good game to play is. While the field fee is $10, realize that some of us are driving 2+ hours away, spending $40+ on gas, and want to get their playing time in. Not getting enough playing time is one way to ensure some people don’t come back. I also don’t consider that manhunt game of 30 vs 4 actually playing anything. It’s called walk around aimlessly looking for bright colors for however long (the 4 guys hiding had Hawaiian shirts), and most of you won’t see any action. I’m sure it was exciting for the 4 guys hiding, but for the rest, we just sat on a log and waited for the game to end.

Game types were “meh”. Even though there was some weird objective to win given, it was never really one that was attainable. The real objective to most of the trench battles- Shoot something. There was no way to win without the admin fudging the mechanics mid game to get it over with. It was a stalemate shooting gallery for both sides. Not saying it was no fun, but it would have been more fun if there was a reason to actually try to win instead of just increase your personal kill/death ratio. And then the manhunt game I previously mentioned. And as for the last game, it would have been perfect had the tan team spawn not been right on a flag we had to take.

SAFETY. It wasn’t there. There is this illusion of safety at the field (and all AOSC games for that matter), but let’s be honest it’s not there. This is why I never take off my eye protection on these so called cold fields. Hence why I also ask many shooters closer than 50ft who hit me what their MED is. The mags out, eye pro off rule is not implemented safely. Most people remove magazines, and a few people don’t. At this time everyone has their eye pro off. We end up yelling at those with mags still in, and they reluctantly remove them. The funny thing is, none of the mag’less guns are safe. Most still have one bb in the hop up, ready to shoot out at the pull of a trigger, or the shorting of wires as we heard at one game. The illusion of safety leads to careless actions that can endanger others, as I’ve seen too many people “dry fire” a bb out of their safe and empty gun while on a cold field. As safe as you want to be, always realize there are one or two people not following the safety rules, while being extra goofy playing with their guns and endangering everyone around. This situation is created by a lack of enforcement of rules, and bad timing with taking eye pro off as players are still emptying hop ups and mags. I’m not jumping on just this game’s rep on this issue, it goes for every AOSC game I’ve been to, and not to just bash on the hosts but a lot of this rests in the hands of the players, who many do not care for the safety of their fellow players, meaning the admins must turn into big meanies and get strict with them.

Continuing about safety, I would like to note I and two others were shot by a red tagged gun, meaning a 100 ft MED. And I was shot from 40 ft away, full auto. Luckily he had horrible aim and I only took a glancing hit. I addressed the player about his actions, and also addressed the game admin at the scene. I heard the game admin say something to another player, but nothing to the player violating this essential rule of safety. As game administrator and event representative, one of the duties is to ensure rules are followed, especially those directly concerning the safety of the event attendees. I would like to know what action, or non-action was taken on this player? I do not wish punishment for this player, but I do want to know if the admin even cared to talk to this player, or make attempts to prevent another mishap. I know from the past that Dom has required players to use a 0 ft MED pistol for breaking MED’s, was there similar action? Or was it ignored?

It is unfortunate if this offends anyone, but realize that since the badge of the AOSC was worn on this event, it is being criticized as such. Yes I had fun and enjoyed myself out there, but I was looking forward to much more than what I got out of the day.

[Felix]

This was an AOSC game?

[CLERIC]

This was an AOSC game?

Yes this was a scheduled AOSC game, Felix. Sorry you couldn'tmake it.

[Frost]

The guy with the red tag shooting full auto was an interesting case. I chrono'ed him myself on 2 different chronos with a 2nd person verifying. His gun would at one moment shoot 197 then spike to 500. Thus He WAS TOLD that he had a 100 FOOT MED AND SEMI ONLY. I thought the game was excellent. It was a very leisure and fun game. And 10$ field fee is awesome. The gameplay was fun. And the game was exactly like it was called skirmishes.

[Star_folder]

I'll get to a more well done AAR eventually, but I feel these issues should be addressed now. I also want to start out apologizing for the block of text below, feel free to skip it if you wish; it's directed at Captainkirk05.

Now here are my complaints. As most know I like to detail these so fixes can be made in the future.
Hit calling was disgusting. I do not believe in “shoot’em till they call it!”. For one, I would run out of bb’s trying to get some of these terminators to call their hits. Two, that is how people get hurt, and leads to overshooting of players who are playing fair. A few bad apples ruin it for everyone, as other players start refusing to call hits from players who should be out, it becomes an epidemic. What I do believe in is referee action. Remove the bad apples from the game so the rest of us can have a good time. I didn’t complain to authorities at the game because we had one single referee/admin who had no way of knowing what was going on at every place at every moment. I have a few highlights of these terminators on film, I will see about making a Youtube tribute to their no hit calling awesomeness. Thankyou to the players who were honorable in their hit calling, I remember all of you and have the upmost respect for you as players, as I saw some of you calling what I would imagine to be some the softest long range bb flicks ever.

First off, I do look forward to seeing those videos. Second, I'm sorry you had such an issue. Third, hit calling was brought to my attention twice, once in the morning on two fellows, once in the afternoon and I witnessed it once. I'll touch more on this in a sec, but if you have an issue, there were many AOSC reps on the field you could have spoken to about this, if not mentioned something to me myself. I don't know of an issue if no one complains, and this, sadly, is one of those things that can only be dealt with when it happens.

Game administration was lacking. I would expect the rep of a game that has been listed for weeks now to bring his game book, but apparently it was lost after lunch. The games before lunch proceeded smoothly, the breaks between games were short but sufficient. After lunch, we spent a huge chunk of time, 20 plus minutes, listening to the rep try to figure out what a good game to play is. While the field fee is $10, realize that some of us are driving 2+ hours away, spending $40+ on gas, and want to get their playing time in. Not getting enough playing time is one way to ensure some people don’t come back. I also don’t consider that manhunt game of 30 vs 4 actually playing anything. It’s called walk around aimlessly looking for bright colors for however long (the 4 guys hiding had Hawaiian shirts), and most of you won’t see any action. I’m sure it was exciting for the 4 guys hiding, but for the rest, we just sat on a log and waited for the game to end.

It was, I didn't do a good job. Honestly, I'm surprised there aren't more people complaining about the game or how the day went. We did actually start late, and lunch was much longer than it should have been, partially my fault, partially because no one moved when I tried to get people back up to play. After lunch, when I realized I had left my afternoon's props up at the parking lot, I attempted to radio in the truck driver, but could not raise him, thus, I improvised. In a previous game day, many people had a great deal of fun hunting one team, so much fun, in fact, that we did it twice that day. Perhaps, instead of sitting on a log the whole game, you could have tried to find those guys, changed your attitude to have a little fun. If you'll remember, those 4 brightly colored guys won that round.

I am sorry you feel you didn't get your money's worth out of the game, with the long travel times, and the longer weights after lunch. That is my fault, and I apologize.

Game types were “meh”. Even though there was some weird objective to win given, it was never really one that was attainable. The real objective to most of the trench battles- Shoot something. There was no way to win without the admin fudging the mechanics mid game to get it over with. It was a stalemate shooting gallery for both sides. Not saying it was no fun, but it would have been more fun if there was a reason to actually try to win instead of just increase your personal kill/death ratio. And then the manhunt game I previously mentioned. And as for the last game, it would have been perfect had the tan team spawn not been right on a flag we had to take.

Every objective I gave was attainable. I know it seems impossible for one team to take the other team's one and only respawn, but it's happened, many times actually. The last skirmish day we had at SQA, one team succeeded in taking the respawn. Hard objectives are sometimes the best way to get people to sling some plastic. As you saw, that's exactly what the purpose of the trench battles were, shoot something. The captive game was poorly thought out, I thought the teams would perform one way, when they didn't, either one of them. That just resulted in a flat stalemate. I attempted to change stuff around, but you are right, I should have just called the game. Personally, I don't like games that involve HVT, but a friend requested it, and in place of another death match variation, I decided to go with that scenario instead.

As I said before, the manhunt was due to lack of resources, and because it had been overwhelmingly popular at a previous game. As for the flags, that was also very well liked this go round, and again, a product of improvising. In an attempt to get the next game going as quickly as possible, I had some helpers place the flags, as I went over the rules. I had no idea where 2 of the 4 flags where when I placed the teams on either side of the field. But even knowing where the flags are, I don't believe I would have placed the teams any differently, the green team had equal advantages in comparison with the tan team. However, next time, I will place the flags in better locations, along with having a little better ruleset for the scenario.

SAFETY. It wasn’t there. There is this illusion of safety at the field (and all AOSC games for that matter), but let’s be honest it’s not there. This is why I never take off my eye protection on these so called cold fields. Hence why I also ask many shooters closer than 50ft who hit me what their MED is. The mags out, eye pro off rule is not implemented safely. Most people remove magazines, and a few people don’t. At this time everyone has their eye pro off. We end up yelling at those with mags still in, and they reluctantly remove them. The funny thing is, none of the mag’less guns are safe. Most still have one bb in the hop up, ready to shoot out at the pull of a trigger, or the shorting of wires as we heard at one game. The illusion of safety leads to careless actions that can endanger others, as I’ve seen too many people “dry fire” a bb out of their safe and empty gun while on a cold field. As safe as you want to be, always realize there are one or two people not following the safety rules, while being extra goofy playing with their guns and endangering everyone around. This situation is created by a lack of enforcement of rules, and bad timing with taking eye pro off as players are still emptying hop ups and mags. I’m not jumping on just this game’s rep on this issue, it goes for every AOSC game I’ve been to, and not to just bash on the hosts but a lot of this rests in the hands of the players, who many do not care for the safety of their fellow players, meaning the admins must turn into big meanies and get strict with them.

Safety is always an issue, not saying I'm ignoring it, but at the same time, I can't spend 5 extra minutes between each game making sure everyone has their mags out and chambers cleared. I announced cold field when it appeared that everyone had mags out. Something I encourage you to do is to say something, speak up. Ask those people you see with mags in to take them out, if they talk back to you, get an admin to enforce it. You won't get in trouble for respectfully enforcing rules at SQA. While I had other "helpers" they only do so much, and as you pointed out, I am only one man, I can't see everything all at once.

Continuing about safety, I would like to note I and two others were shot by a red tagged gun, meaning a 100 ft MED. And I was shot from 40 ft away, full auto. Luckily he had horrible aim and I only took a glancing hit. I addressed the player about his actions, and also addressed the game admin at the scene. I heard the game admin say something to another player, but nothing to the player violating this essential rule of safety. As game administrator and event representative, one of the duties is to ensure rules are followed, especially those directly concerning the safety of the event attendees. I would like to know what action, or non-action was taken on this player? I do not wish punishment for this player, but I do want to know if the admin even cared to talk to this player, or make attempts to prevent another mishap. I know from the past that Dom has required players to use a 0 ft MED pistol for breaking MED’s, was there similar action? Or was it ignored?

It is unfortunate if this offends anyone, but realize that since the badge of the AOSC was worn on this event, it is being criticized as such. Yes I had fun and enjoyed myself out there, but I was looking forward to much more than what I got out of the day.

I spoke with the player concerning the 100ft MED mishap, and spoke with the people that chronoed the gun. While marked with a 100ft MED tag, the reasoning behind this was because the gun chroned several low numbers, we are talking sub 100, and then had one unusual spike above 500, while most of the time giving an error. The Admin nearby told the people running the chrono to give the man a red tag because of his strange chrono readigns. After speaking with the man, I found out it was a stock gun, one that I have a great deal of experience with, that that exact one of course, but with the same make and model. Due to this information, I let him go with a warning. Should I have been stricter on him, probably. But there are many problems here, one of which was why a gun that chronoed over the full auto limit was allowed. This is something I will deal with, and make sure situations like this don't happen again.

This game was not originally an AOSC game, but a simple skirmish day put on by SQA. When the AOSC's plans dropped out, they asked SQA if they could use that day to host an AOSC game day. SQA agreed, but the game plan was not changed because it had already been announced that it was going to be a $10 skirmish day. Skirmishes are meant for local players, not trying to discourage you from coming out, just realize that skirmishes are skirmishes, they aren't OPs.

Now, aaaalllllll of that said. I'm glad to hear that you did have fun. I hope to see you out there again, lol, even if it's not on a skirmish day. We do do larger operations, just not very many of them. I want to apologize if it sounds like I'm trying to dodge issues, or if I even sound apathetic in some areas. I assure you, I'm not. This weekend was unusually difficult for me, and it showed in my planning and how the games were run. I've run many games, and have been doing it for years. I really am a little surprised more people don't have more negative things to say about the weekend. I guess the excellent weather put people in a great mood. Again, I want to thank you for your input, a thousand "you did great's" aren't as valuable as one "you could have done better here's", I appreciate your tough judgement.

[captainkirk05]

Thank you for your response Starfolder. To be honest, I perceive my criticism of the game types of the day as merely my opinion/preference, and not a factual "OMG it was awful!" statement, since I know many others enjoyed them. I put my opinion out there in hopes that other people chime in and agree/disagree, thus influencing the plans of future games. If your field was closer to my address, I probably could have cared less about the time gap between games later in the day. I understood it was a day of skirmishes, which in my mind I was thinking Redfox or PBC style game days. I think my disappointment was from a variance of how skirmishes are held at those fields, which are listed as skirmishes but are more like mini-ops, compared to SQA's. As for attainability of objectives, I was exaggerating a bit, and they were possibly attainable (I was referring to the trench games only when I brought it up). Doing it without the support of most of your team, eh, not quite as attainable. So on my team, it seemed fairly unattainable

As for hit calling, I did not realize there were other admins I could have called on, my mistake. When on the field I often find it futile to complain about hit calling, as the general response is "keep shooting them". I can complain on the field, but where is my proof? Plus I usually give the benefit of the doubt when I think I've hit someone at first, but looking back at our footage I feel confident we were hitting these guys (possibly on their Kevlar vests, so that means they stay in). Hopefully exposing such players will convince them to play honorably in the future.

I believe much of my disappointment arises from the labeling of the day as an AOSC event. I have been playing with the AOSC for over a year now, and have come to expect a certain formula from the games they run. So to be honest you just redirected my disappointment towards the AOSC. As I said, I was criticizing the day as an AOSC event. If it had been clearer about just how informal the skirmishes were going to be, there would have been no surprises, and all I would have complained about was the long break at the end of the day and the MED issue, or my group may have chosen to stay home and there would be no complaints. When I buy a box of Oreos, I expect Oreos inside the box. AOSC put brownies in an Oreo package. Not saying brownies are bad, and I would go for it if close by, but not if the Oreos are closer and brownies are way off (weird analogy off the top of my head).

As for safety issues, mostly the mags out rule, it is an ongoing concern that when I get complainy, I address it. One man administrating a game cannot babysit 40 adults with guns. I wrote this for awareness purposes. Trust me, at games we get on to players all the time about mags out, no shooting in the parking lot, no shooting people without eye pro (I've seen it), it goes on and on. It is airsoft culture to be generally unsafe with non-lethal, yet permanently blinding air guns. One recommendation I would suggest to the airsoft community is to require everyone to look around at all others to check mags and empty hop ups before anyone is allowed to remove eye pro, and not in opposite order.

Thank you for shedding some light on the MED situation. Knowing that was the case I am happy with the action you took, though since I was left out of the loop on the field I had no way of knowing hence my questioning. Looking back my wording looks a little aggressive on this MED topic, sorry I didn't intend for it to appear like that.

As I said earlier I do not want the rows of criticism written to show I did not have fun. I did, but it wasn't exactly $40 worth in gas. In my opinion, the AOSC should have made their event day disappear if the plans fell out, and let SQA advertise it's skirmish day as exactly that, a local relaxed skirmish day at SQA, instead of the AOSC trying to brand the day with its name and confuse players like I and the rest of my team on its contents. The reason we were so eager to come out was because of our last game at SQA in March or April. It was an AOSC game, and we had a blast at it. So when we showed up, we were expecting some of the same, just chopped into smaller games. The AOSC branding did this, as I knew from the non-aosc post game chatter from your previous games that it was generally toned down and very relaxed for your non-AOSC skirmish days.

All of the misinterpretations of the day being out of the way, the only thing I feel you could have done better about is the gap between the manhunt game and the last game. Expectations drive people, they drove me to write my previous post. AOSC, shame on you for branding their skirmish day, but props for having built a decent reputation for your events (at least all the ones I've been to).

[Star_folder]

I'll try to start cutting this short, lol. And now that I've written it, it's not in order at all.

You can't go completely blaming the AOSC, I am a rep, and I was running the game, as such, it's still my fault you weren't entertained.

MED violations are never something to be taken lightly. I had a Co2 pistol rip a hole through my shirt and into my back from 20ft away last spring because of the idea that pistols don't need to be chronoed.

I'll see about making some more in depth games to mix in when/if we ever have another AOSC skirmish day at SQA.

[SteevoLS]

I took out my Boogie Regulator goggles for the first time. They are SUPER comfy, and don't fog when you are moving but if you have to wait for a medic or are under fire and unable to move they fog right up... I am gonna try to cut some small channels in the foam, but the quest for non-mesh eyepro (for Fulda and places that don't allow mesh) that won't fog continues. Suggestions welcome.

I think I may have spent more time trying to fix my guns than play, (thanks to Steevo for the crimper and the assistance,) but I had fun.

Goggles: http://www.airsoftgi.com/product_info.p ... ts_id=6708 < If you can find those in stock, try those. They worked great for Matthews and I at Red Storm.

Gun repairs: You're welcome. I spend more time fixing guns than anything else when I do actually come to a game.

I will be posting the pictures I took whenever I find my chip reader. I got some great closeups of Skywalker.

Mental note: Next time I'm going to take the Jeep down a big hill I should probably make sure my transfer case shifter is working.

[Romba]

What kind of goggles did you use those with Steevo?