Smartphone battle radar app

[TomFahey]

Re: Smartphone battle radar app

Im not sure id agree with you on that one. Id say about 90-95% of the players at my locals turn up with comms for even a sunday skimish. I get the sneaking suspicion however, that those sites may not be the norm. Realistically, i can only go on what i know; and i dont travel distances for a sunday skirmish, only for big games and milsims. But we shall agree to disagree on this point.

You're contradicting yourself here, as you're simultaneously implying that most people at a sunday skirmish have the capability and willingness to use comms and as an extension, team organisation, and yet in your statement below, you state the exact opposite.

Im going to address these together, as im making the same rebuttal to both. A smartphone costs a lot of money. The mounts for said phones will also cost a lot (£500-£600 is the average going rate for a new model handset). And while the cases may be shock and scratch proof (yet to see one that truly is while still preserving the touch screen functionality), theyre certainly not waterproof. Thats a very expensive risk, and one i doubt any insurer would cover on the handset.

As said above, a radio is about £11 each. You can pick them up on here for peanuts too. Cheaper than a bag of ammo in some cases. All of the cheaper ones will talk to eachother on the same channels. At much the same range as wifi. The rest is just organisation. Which as ive said, is the sticking point. Most airsofters cant organise themselves en masse. Half the time theyre not interested in tactics or team organisation, or basic squad movement. They just want to run at eachother and hose eachother down with hicaps. Which is fine. But i dont think expecting them to play tactically on the back of an app is anything other than a fools errand.

I think you'd be surprised, a lot of the appeal for playing airsoft is actually the mimicking of real military, hence the stark difference from say paintball or laser tag where the guns are simply built to "hose each other down" as you say, without having the military authenticity that airsoft weapons embody. There's a reason airsofters turn up to their sunday skirmish in combat vests and DPMs - it's the military authenticity that attracts people to the sport, and not the two I mentioned above; people want to act out their military fantasies, and so I'd argue the lack of tactics and team organisation is not due to an unwillingness to co-operate, but a lack of means. Think about it this way - there's a reason why real life militaries train endlessly to perfect their ability to carry out this sort of basic organisation effectively - if it was as trivial as you imply, there wouldn't be such a stark difference between professional soldiers and say, untrained militia fighters. I honestly think, if you gave your sunday skirmishers a push, they'd want to act in a fashion as authentic to real soldiers as possible, as it just serves to make the experience all the more realistic.

I think I'll leave my argument there with that though, as I don't want to seem bickering

[Fizzy]

Re: Smartphone battle radar app

I think you'd be surprised, a lot of the appeal for playing airsoft is actually the mimicking of real military,

In which case, use what 99% of the military use out in the field...

"Mk1 Eyeball, full team radio, and good comms drills."

[Fenriz]

Re: Smartphone battle radar app

You're contradicting yourself here, as you're simultaneously implying that most people at a sunday skirmish have the capability and willingness to use comms and as an extension, team organisation, and yet in your statement below, you state the exact opposite.

Not quite. But perhaps i wasnt as clear as i should have been. I see a lot of people with radios. That dont use them. They run around like headless chickens and engulf half the site in white hail for 8 hours on a weekend. A lot of sunday skirmishers dont massively care about tactics. And why should they? No rule about it. And if theyre having fun, fair play.

I think you'd be surprised, a lot of the appeal for playing airsoft is actually the mimicking of real military, hence the stark difference from say paintball or laser tag where the guns are simply built to "hose each other down" as you say, without having the military authenticity that airsoft weapons embody. It's that very authenticity that attracts people to airsoft, and not the other sports; people want to act out their military fantasies, and so I'd argue the lack of tactics and team organisation is not due to an unwillingness to co-operate, but an inability instead. Think about it this way - there's a reason why real life militaries train endlessly to perfect their ability to carry out this sort of organisation - if it was as trivial as you imply, there wouldn't be such a stark difference between professional soldiers and say, untrained militia fighters. I honestly think, if you gave people a push, they'd want to act in a fashion as close to real soldiers as possible, as it just serves to make the experience all the more realistic.

I think I'll leave my argument there with that though, as I don't want to seem argumentative

As i said above, a lot of them have the access to kit (more cheaply than ever these days, if you saw what a half decent comms set up cost when i started your eyes would melt), but just arent massively interested. Or if they have it, they dont use it. Most people just go to a skirmish to have a laugh with their mates, get a little muddy, blat off a load of rounds at people they dont really know, and tell eachother dick and fart jokes at respawn. And thats based on years of playing. And its fine. Im fine with that, theyre not massively hurting anyone. Im just saying this piece of kit has no real place in that for more than about 5mins. And thats completely sidestepping the more practical and financial considerations. I havent even touched on the battery life issues. Dont know about you, but i wouldnt get a full days skirmishing out of my phone running wifi and an image intensive app all day. Dont know many that would outside of the first month or so of phone life.

[PureSilver]

Re: Smartphone battle radar app

I'm surprised you seem so vocally opposed to this PureSilver, as you seem quite clued up about most new airsoft releases/forward facing technology.

I'm very interested in development and progress of airsoft equipment, yes. I think airsofters are being completely and utterly shortchanged - ripped off, even - by a near-total stagnation of airsoft design. But I still don't think this is a good idea. For one thing, the progress I want is to be made towards greater realism - and whatever this system is, it isn't realistic; nobody uses systems like this in real life.

RE the GPS and UHF comment, I don't think those would work well either, as the precision is just too low. I've seen excellent results with positioning systems using wi-fi triangulation, precision to within a metre or two at most, and given the proliferation of cheap wi-fi routers, as well as cheap wi-fi antennae, I can see a potential solution for this.

The big distinction between WiFi and GPS/UHF is range. The aforementioned £11 Baofeng will go for literal miles; even under ideal theoretical conditions 2.4GHz WiFi tops out at 300 feet. That means you have to have repeaters, which gets very expensive very quickly if you've got a large area to cover. For example, Ground Zero's 150 acres (over 6.5 million square feet), were it a perfect square, would be over 2.5km on each side; with each repeater needing to overlap two more for triangulation you'd need over a hundred of the things; imagine trying to literally wire a forest, too. So-called 'long-range WiFi' techniques (parabolic antennas and such) yield narrow beams that don't intuitively seem applicable for this sort of exercise. The truth is that WiFi was designed for data transmission, not for geolocation; it's been co-opted for that role by mobile phones (solely to avoid the expense of GPS chipsets) but the design parameters were never intended for precision triangulation. GPS, Galileo and GLONASS were, and they work acceptably well. GPS assisted by ground stations (DGPS) can yield accuracy of 10cm; vastly better (and cheaper over a reasonable distance) than souped-up internet routers.

How about when you have groups of players who don't know each other? I don't think I've turned up to a single skirmish before where every single player was associated with a sizeable group of others, and the entire team had compatible comms (what's the maximum number of walkie-talkies sold as a linked set? 10? 20?).

If you're using 'walkie-talkies' in the UK, you are legally obliged to use the eight channels designated by the PMR446 standard. If you bring an appropriately programmed radio (i.e., one using these channels) to a skirmish you ought to be able to talk to everyone else there, even if you've never met them before.

Yes, but I'm willing to bet my left nut that there's a protective case out there somewhere that's intended to survive a BB hit, and can do so, time after time. How do I know? There's a massive ruggedisation market, often using military grade technology...

I actually have one of the most rugged cases out there for the iPhone (LifeProof frē) which is shock, dust and waterproof. It's also soundproof, which makes hearing what I'm saying over the phone somewhat challenging, but no matter. What it is not is BB proof; the hard plastic shell is fine, but as Fenriz's video demonstrates, the screen needs to be sufficiently exposed for the capacitive technology to work, and that makes it vulnerable to concentrated impact. You can either protect the touchscreen or use it; it's one or the other.

[Fizzy]

Re: Smartphone battle radar app

But I still don't think this is a good idea.

Where as I think it's a 'fantastic' idea, really! I can see so much scope for this, it could make Airsofting much more entertaining!

Problem is, I don't think it's a realistic idea, for the reasons already stated

[TomFahey]

Re: Smartphone battle radar app

Puresilver, I must admit, I can't see this being useful in the example you gave of Ground Zero, one of the largest sites in the UK, and in fact I don't think this would be that useful for woodland in general, as visibility of approaching players is a lot better than in the corridors of a CQB site, and so it's a lot easier to identify who are enemy players and who's on your side, making the radar map a bit obsolete. I can see this being used in FIBUA/CQB sites, where the engagement area is much smaller, but visibility is restricted, which normally causes a lot of the confusion and chaos in Sunday Skirmishes. In fact, the main use case for wi-fi positioning is actually in hospitals and in short range applications, for example assisting Google Maps in giving you an accurate position reading while navigating on the pavement (which would have been impossible with GPS alone). This sort of short range use would see the greatest benefit from this app.

I'm afraid I don't know a lot about DGPS - I'm a physicist, not an engineer - but you yourself stated the problems with using GPS - poor signal reception indoors, as well as noise due to metallic structures. I mentioned wi-fi positioning as it is actively used as an indoor alternative to GPS, and is a cheap and readily available solution (unlike DGPS) that could be implemented for perhaps greater precision with an app like this.

In terms of the screen protection, I actually imagined a case that did not allow use of the touchscreen, as the app would provide the user with everything they needed on the display similar to a HUD. I'm not sure if Cybergun intended to go with this approach, but I know there are certainly cases available that have screen protectors strong enough to protect against a BB (without use of the capacitive touch). If adjustment of settings in the app is absolutely needed, there is always the possibility of external control surfaces, such as bluetooth/wi-fi keyboards, as well as USB controllers.

I think the main thing to take away from this is the possibility of a different experience when airsofting. I understand that you may have reservations about its functional performance (ability to protect the phone, well thought out approach to rules, positioning precision), but it seems pre-emptive and perhaps foolish to second-guess these factors when 1. The functional operation has not been evaluated 2. This thread is interested in the idea and potential of such a system, as opposed to any given implementation.

I do accept that some people may find other elements of this undesirable, such as the effect of "removing yourself from the action" and appreciate their opinions. I would, however, like to reiterate - knocking the idea at a functional level is a bit silly, as none of us have any realistic knowledge of how such a system would work, and my interest here is purely in looking at it from a mainly conceptual level. In that vein, I'd like to perhaps "re-guide" this thread onto my original intention by listing the benefits I can see this system having:

1) Players who are usually not able to co-ordinate themselves, either due to lack of equipment or unfamiliarity with other players/the site will now be able to benefit from the higher level of tactical awareness that seasoned players have when using radio comms, using LAN comms.

2) Players now have enhanced tactical awareness due to real-time updates of in-game objectives and team positions, as well as their position on a dynamic map, at a glance.

3) Extra dimensions of gameplay, using features available in the app, such as unlocking of "UAVs", which in turn could allow marshals to better balance/extend the game. Other features could have a wide variety of uses; a push notification system could notify team members of updates in the game, as well as also be used for health and safety purposes, such as to alert all players to a ceasefire, as well as flag the location of injured players, for use of marshals/first aiders.

4) Ability to have a meaningful command and control structure.

These are the benefits that I can think of at the moment, and I welcome anyone else's contributions, agree or disagree...I do think it may be helpful to cohesion though, if anyone who's interested in further contributing to this thread laid out their approval/objections/thoughts in a similar numbered manner.