CAS Architects Paintball Trip
Oct 24th, 1999.  Boulder Creek, CA.

After yet another hiatus of paintball playing, I finally  manged to get back to the
game, here in California, where it is still 22~ in October, even in the north of the state,
and even in the lower-ish mountains where we played.  For this outing, I chose Bear Creek 
Paintball, a field that seemed the best of what there was to offer in the area.  Interestingly,
from reviews I had read on the net, it seems that there is an equation for fields around here:

  Quality of Staff (inversely proportional) Quality of Field

So, big, expansive fields have CRAP staff (arrogant, no refs, no control, pricy, etc), whereas
the fields with good staff are generally less neat-o in their terrain.  BCP certainly fits in 
this latter catagory--very good staff, and the field was good, but not fantastic.  I figured
for our group from the office, a good staff was far more important than a wiz bang field.

In total, there were 8 of us from CAS who went to play--including some principles, which was
really cool.  A few others would have liked to have made it, but were unable too.  Either way,
it is promising for the game in the spring.  }:)  I was the only 'experienced' player, and the
only one who had his own rifle.  Jason had BDUs but no other equipment, and the rest were either
first- or second-timers.  We met at CAS and trucked out to the field, finding it with little
difficulty.  Timing was right on, in fact, perhaps a bit early.

Early... well, there were already a good bunch of people at the field when we arrived.  Thus
came my first shock of the day.  A shock that I would watch evolve... these people at the field
(and the rest who showed up) were mostly self-equipped, I'd say in the range of 80% of the people
there had their own stuff.  And we're not just talking 'oh, I bought a Tippman from the store and
it should be pretty good' type of stuff, I'm talking SERIOUS tricked out 'mags, 'cockers (add Auto
to both those to get their 'real' names) and other interestings, with stainless barrells, remote
kits, huge hoppers, regulators, and I swear 50% or more were running nitro.  Yipe!s  I suddenly
felt... ancient with my PMI-3.  

Let me aside here for a moment, since I'm on the topic of guns, since it's kinda interesting.  
Since I 'left' the sport 7 years ago (I didn't really leave it, I just play way less often due
to cash/time) the hottest, newest and best guns available was the Autococker and the Automag.
At the time of the 2800-player game that I went to, they had just come out, and were brutally
nice.  Fast-forward to now, and they are STILL pretty much top of the line--like 75% top of the
line.  Sure, they've been tricked out with newer and nicer things, but the basic design remains
the same.  Interesting.  And Nitro is much more common, but not the de-facto standard.  But most
interesting are the newest guns, that are almost sick.  Sick, not because of bolt/air/barrel 
assemblies, which are pretty much maxed out with blow-forward-like bolts (or the autococker), but
by their trigger assembly.  You see, pneumatic triggers (a la mag) are no longer the greatest thing,
no now, it is _electronic_ triggers.  These things have microchips tied to the trigger and the 
release/catch.  With that comes the ability to time just exactly when to let the bolt go forward
as to create a fully automatic, gravity fed paintgun that will not chop balls by going to fast.
It's a small step to add a selector for single, 3-rnd, 6-rnd and full auto fire.  OY!  Talk about
some advanced little puppies... with a powerfeed system, you can get 14 rps or so.  That's 840 
rounds per minute!  Nuts!  

Of course, only at the END of the day did it dawn on me... I'm in the bay area!  Hey, these guns
cost 1400 bucks, but I'm in the land of the 80k/year IT bozo, who does nothing all week and who
can play paintball on the weekend (wonder what they do with the pager?) and can thus afford to
send volumes on their paintball equipment and get it all tricked out (and it's a toy--another
bay area tendency), as well as volumes on their volumes of paint (a case a day only?  pshaw!).

Some of these people had their own fill stations!

To say that we were outclassed, myself and our 7 rentals, would be an understatement.  :P  Tippman
pro-lights are not bad, but hey.  No one wanted to pay an extra 25 bucks to get a field Automag either.

At any rate... 

BCP has only one field.  It's moderatly large, and has some half-decent terrain, including some hills,
some cliffs, and a river bisecting down the middle,and along one side.  (www.bearcreekpaintball.com to
see it).  Sounds good, but you could see one end of the field from the other relatively easily.  Add
to this that you play on the same field _all day long_ (though with differing scenarios) and it gets
a bit old after a while.  And while the field-owner denied it, I'd say whomever has the 'far' side 
of the field has a distinct advantage--there is hight, a great hight from that side of the field, and
Sun-Tzu I'm sure would agree that being uphill is always an advantage.  That's not to say flanks are
not possible, they are, but really only from one side (the other side has this monstrous cliff that
is very tough to climb, and we near well all got eliminated trying to make it up that sucker, and
slipping away while doing so.  Add to that a rather funky curvature in the field at that point...).
Underbrush wasn't too heavy, but they had errected a series of barricades/forts, with moreso moved
logs and stumps to make many a bunker-like area.  More on how this all played a bit later on... 

The other disadvantage of the field is that, again being only one field, the fact that there are rich
paint-throwers, and that it never rains--this thing is COVERED in paint and shell fragments.  This
actually made some of the field slick (traction wise) from paint.  Hrm.  

The staff, however, were good, and I give them credit for many a thing.  Topping it off, this has to
be the best field I have ever seen reffed, BAR NONE.  The refs were EXCELLENT.  Being a small field
helps, but there always seemed to be a ref around when you needed one, doing paint checks, calling
people out (and warning everyone that an eliminated player was coming through), these guys were
not afraid to wade into the thick of things to keep tabs on it all.  Hats off to them.  Its somewhat
refreshing to see.  Paintball is an honour sport, but it never hurts to have a good pair of overwatching
eyes.  (This also prevented ugly incidents like my last outing)

The field was also very strict on it's safety rules.  Goggles on at all times once onto the field, 
barrel plugs in whenever not.  I saw a few people forced to sit a game for breaking one of those rules.
Everyone chronied before every game, and if you were over 280, tough.  (I never did get to ask why 280
and not the more customary 300--I would like to know)  I fired 281 once, and had to turn back to do 
some minor adjustments.  Overall, it was perhaps a taaaaad anal to the point of excessiveness, but I
would far prefer that to the other extreeme.  No fully-auto weapons allowed either that day.  The two
teams were split up as evenly as possible with rentals/non-rentals.  By asking, we were all put on the
same team.

I was fortunete to have been loaned a friend's VM-68 Magnum setup, from which I pilfered the Venturi bolt
and his Smart Parts 2nd-gen ported barrel.  (the red-dot sight, alas, could not follow too }:)  I got my
tank filled the day before at I&I sports (yes, the same) to let it warm up before game day, plus a little
quick-disconnect thingee for my line that would allow me to no longer scratch the hell out of my tank trying
to put it in the holder.  I was ready.  I did have to change the 4-way valve once on-site (bleah) but 
otherwise, the gun cycled smoothly.  But disturbing in the morning--I was getting TONS of smoke (well, CO2),
enough that I couldn't see where my shots were going, and even more disturbing was a bit of dry ice that 
would appear in my lower bolt chamber.  Hey, with 2 expansion chambers, this should NOT be happening, unless
my talk was overfull and I was drawing some liquid or something.  It did clear up later in the afternoon.  
Maybe I need an anti-siphon pin or something, not sure.  It seemed weird--I don't remember this ever happening
before I sent the gun back to Air America for repairs on a leaking seal on the expansion chambers.  Hmm.  
Have I only played on colder occasions since then?  I'm not sure.  

It was hard to guage the performance of the gun (and it's new parts) because of this, as well, the paint we
were sold had (take a guess!  dammit is this a trend for me or what?) dimples in them.  Dammit!  Certainly,
I didn't seem to be firing all that great, either in terms of distance, or in terms of accuracy.  I tried
the day with both barrels, finding both to be about equal (if the standard bull barrel louder) but doing some
deliberate tests at the end of the day made the SP the winner in accuracy.  Obviously, trying both bolts would
have been painful to do.  So... I don't know.  I'm not sure if there is something wrong with the gun, or
just the paint that day.  I only splooged once, which is good, and normal.  

I'd like to take a good case of paint, some time, a chrony, a target, and just see what's up with my gun in 
a controlled environment sometime... we'll see.  :P

Alas, the rest of my performance for the day wasn't much better than the gun's.  I, quite frankly, played most
poorly.  To boil it down, I had _NO_ situational awareness.  Without it, I am very hesitant, don't move much,
and generally get eliminated by people I don't see.  Worse, I can't pin down (haha, bad pun) WHY I lacked 
an idea of everything.  I'm certain not knowing the field was a bit of a hindrance (esp. when people were
trying to call out contacts around features, or suggesting moves in the field, by calling areas the 'crows nest',
'the ridge' or 'the house') but at OSG, I only played there twice and felt I had good awareness (and had two very
good, kick-ass days.  Just before I sent my gun back for repair, grump).  I just had trouble seeing anyone 
this time, and with new goggles that weren't fogging over... I'm at a loss.  Heck, I'm not even sure how much
of a difference cammo made or didn't make on this field, given the distances, the amount of paint cover, and the
numerous bunkers, but boy was I not seeing well.  This resulted in a situation most similar to my last paintball
excursion--foxhole freeze.  I would get into a position, and would stay there, not moving much, or awaiting
others to move so I can get an idea of what the situation was.  I was not often in an initiative taking role.
And damn that sucks.  

There were exceptions--I did some creeping alongside the riverbank early on in the day, and together with the
rest of my group, we tried the 'cliff' flank (with the results described above), and there were a few other
moments, but for the most part... well.  In fact, one of my more successful games had me not moving, just hanging
back by the flag station.  Mind you, that position was advantageous in that you could see pretty much the whole
field, but still, it was frustrating.  

Amusings from the day... 

I got eliminated semi-early in the first game of the day, trying to see what was ahead and catching one full
on the nosepiece.  SPLAT, right over the new goggs.... grumble, grumble, clean, clean.  Next game... SPLAT, 
gogged _again_.  Fortunetaly, that was the last time for the day... 

The cliff climb attempt was amusing.  It wouldn't have been hard to pick us off from where we were, at the
bottom of that most steep cliff, had someone poked his head over the ridge.  Fortunetaly for us, there was
only one defender, and he hunkered down behind a barricade to one corner (but near the edge) which made it 
a slower process of our elimination.  Unfortunetaly, we were effectively trapped.  First Jonathan, then 
myself tried to make our way up that cliff to take the guy out in the bunker, not caring if we were eliminated
in the process (take one for the team), but the cliff beat us.  I got nailed from behind/side from a relatively
long distance (I'm guessing) as I effectively stayed in one spot while trying to run up this thing.  :P

Given the single field, there were good attempts at variations, including different flag stations (which they
tried to call top/bottom, as if it was anything different than normal, just minor field orientation change),
centre flag, straight elim, flag carriers with bells (ie, give the flag/bell to one person, who had to get it
to their side), etc.  It was when we were on the bottom for the top/bottom set that had me hanging back and
able to pick off a few people... the best game insofar as elims for me, with 3 nailed from moderate range.

Actually, I only ended up getting 5 for the whole day.  (two in one game, 3 the other)  Considering I got
4 my _first_ time out 10yrs ago, with a rental, this is somewhat depressing };)  In turn, I got eliminated
in about half of the games, and in two games, I didn't even fire a shot.  Bleah!  

It was really cool to see the rest of the guys from our firm, though, for they had no qualms about wading into
the thick of it, in many ways, moving more than I.  For relative newcomers, they didn't stay trapped all that
often.  A few were covered head-to-toe in mud by day's end. }:)  And all certainly had a blast. 


Not sure what else to say.  While it was a fun day, I wasn't in the groove that would produce any cool moments
for later retelling.  A second time out where I haven't felt as good as I have in the past--I truly hope I'm 
not losing my ability to play.  Now THAT would suck.  }:)  Hopefully I'll be able to start going a bit more
often, and maybe I can regain something.  I'm also eyeing new weaponry, but gimme a break--the cost of living
here is so high, there's no way I can afford anything like that, for a sport I can only play rarely anymore.

Last thing I do want to mention is that by mid-morning, there were likely 45-50 people at the field, and
that made for one crowded playing environment.  Which makes my inability to see anyone all the more perplexing.

Oh yeah... welt count is only one this time, just beneath the left arm-pit, where I got smacked from behind while
on that dang cliff... :P



So, good day, but personally unsuccessful.  Oh well.  Maybe next year.  }:)

Oli