Rogerborg

Third-party trying too hard to be an edgelord, I'd suspect. Well, the good news is that the meeja decided to go with the "players outraged" narrative. Deep breath, and remember that anything else said might be used against us.

A gentle reminder of the playbook for when you get a call / message from someone claiming to be a reporter from the Daily Drama, demanding that you explain why you refuse to disavow the Russian-Nazi-Nonce-Lizards infesting your hobby. 1) Put the phone down / delete the message, and block. Give them nothing, not one single word. 2) Repeat as necessary for up to 7 days. 3) The story is over.

I was amused to see a Failbook post today by UKAPU saying that the Discord for yesterday's AGM had been changed due to technical issues. Thing is, I've been a UKAPU "member" for years, regularly re-"joining", and yet I've never received one single solitary email, ever, about anything. I've been following them on Failbook as well, see-all selected, but I only ever notice a belated "Yeah, bros, here's what we decided all UK airsoft players wanted" notifications about once a year. I've also never seen it promoted on any site, group, or forum, and I'm at a loss to recall how I ever heard about it. I'm vaguely aware that someone on here is involved with UKAPU. On the remote off-chance that they're reading this, I'd have to opine that UKAPU appears to be a club run by-and-for the handful of people who run it. I've seen no evidence to suggest that it's a players' body in any meaningful sense.

It's an acute situation, but there are few real world LARPs that don't have the potential to result in offence being taken by someone who identifies strongly with the other side. We live in a multi-cultural society, and not every UK resident views UK forces as the "goodies". But for a multi-cultural society to work, we need to live in this society, not import identities and conflicts from other places or other times. That said, restraint goes both ways, and it would be a dick move to flex about your Spetsnaz costume right now. Since I don't identify as a Russian conscript or a Ukrainian partisan (and couldn't recognise either at three paces), I have no Sukhoi in this fight. My only real interest is in not having anything kick off for real while I'm trying to enjoy my own LARP. Shrugs, I guess, this too shall pass.

Ongoing might qualify as "too soon".

2008 predicted this.

Sadly, where far too many sites run their entire business, and half-termers ask "wut am best gnu 4 winr8 budget £30 2 £2500" (as an image macro). It's literally the only reason I'm on there. I mean, the first part.

Oi, you got a loicence to sell them permits? OP's big brain thinking: "Right, Nardo, I've had a stable genius idea, all I need from you is to do all the work, take all the risk, collect all the money, then send it all to me. Don't bother paying any local taxes, rents or utility bills, because obviously they don't apply to me." I'm not entirely comfortable that this lad has even got his hand on two tones.

Since UKARA is just a central register of site membership (all UKARA numbers are created by sites) I'd be minded to contact the site directly, if for no other reason than that they might come back with "Joe Bloggs? We punted him for being a mental case." Are you really that bothered though? I can point at several retailers who accept bogus "defences", or none at all, without consequence for them.

If they were demonstrably there before the date of the incident, i.e. on archive.org This is also why sites who are run a via Facebook "About" page might also be making a liability rod for their own backs. Thankfully there aren't a lot of incidents, and the Absolute Airsoft case went quiet so I assume was settled by the insurer out of court. That's what indemnity insurance is there for, to cover you when things go wrong. One thing I would highlight is that the Vowles vs Evans and Welsh Rugby Union court case has set a clear precedent that even unpair volunteer referees do owe a duty of care for the rules they agreed to help enforce. So as well as not being thanked for marshalling, you might (just conceivably) find yourself named as a co-defendant.

I'd argue quite the opposite. If it comes to a dispute, where's the record of what you actually said? This isn't abstract, it was the key disputed issue in the blinding compo case noted above. Bear in mind that reality takes a back seat as soon as solicitors get involved: they are paid, professionally, to call you a liar.

£240 of RIFs, plus Bogging Blue paint. The usual random assortment of burn-your-house-down chargers, Pinty-knock-off, BBs and mags. Mirror-posing use only, maybe. Being "given" away for only £400! (And you have to collect) PatrolBase should really start marketing these as "buyer's regret packages".

Hi, I'm sorry to hear that. We have a classifieds section here specifically for wanted ads: https://airsoft-forums.uk/classifieds/category/17-guns-wanted/

They're Walting at over 9,000! The tin badges on that Lieutenant-General-Vice-Colonel's cap are awesome. Oh, I think their pants would be filled with something, but not solids out the back... at first.

The usual suspect "BB" sites have a few, although sadly 2-toned. CYMA CM.5xx M4s are cheap, robust and ripe for tinkering, if you don't mind the cheap ToyTown plastic body.

Yup. Full, robust V3 gearbox. With an M100 spring, 6.01mm x 110mm (off the top of my head, it might be 105mm) barrel but otherwise stock air seal components, mine is currently shooting at 0.95-0.97J (320-324 fps) and is an absolute blast to use. They're not magic. The motor really wants upgraded, the two-piece trigger has a lonnnnng pull, the hop isn't great, and the consistency is all over the place - my working theory is that the barrel isn't held in place securely enough, although as part of rewiring to the rear, I've deleted off the front fuse holder and the bracing piece that held it, so I may have done that to myself. I've never found an 11.1V that will fit in the battery tube, although you can get a small mosfet in behind a short 7.4V. But all that goes to illustrate that there are load of things that you can do with them.

Agreed. The cheap CYMAs are robust, but the plastic is very toyish. Contacts are under £5, that's not a concern in airsoft terms, but my CM.516 (Big Dragon M140 motor, M90 spring) overspins and double-shoots on semi with 11.1V. Using 0.28g+ BBs, with the hop adjusted for them? If you're lobbing site 0.2g without dialling the hop in then that's not the G36's fault.

It's a tough one. On one hand, airsoft sites are more of a weekend labour of love than a profitable full time business, and it's always tragic when landowners kick sites off after site "owners" have sunk most of their income into developing them. On the other hand, we are paying customers and there's a certain expectation of a minimum quality of service. I'd far rather that a site employ a head marshal / chief cat-wrangler who is actually good at and enjoys that role than buying a bunch of props and trinkets. On the 3rd to 6th hands, everyone's an expert in principle, but it takes a special sort of determined masochist to actually run an airsoft site, so I try not to get too judgey or mental over it. Maybe give it a 2nd rental in good weather and see if it's improved, it really does come down to the people and the mood on the day.

Maybe if owners would stop saying such great things about them... Agreed on the SMLE's, and let's hope that PatrolBase get a load of them.

I've come to believe that the tone of the day hinges on the morning brief, and more particularly who gives it. It's startling how big a difference there is between someone reluctantly mumbling meandering and mugging their way through a brief on the assumption that the day will run itself, and a no-nonsense "This is how it's going to go" brief by someone who actually enjoys herding the cool cats. Like any job, there's a very specific set of skills that makes a site run smoothly, and I think I've identified it.

Area-66 are meandering in that direction by asking people to show them "OMG cheetar cot" videos before publishing them. Ultimately their sanction is to tell clickbait drama llamas to not bother coming back, but as always with airsoft "rules", it's all down to enforcement of that, rather than "why I oughta" fist-shaking rhetoric.

Sadly, you've listed some of my pet peeves, which seem to be common at most sites. You only missed marshals hanging out in groups and InstaFacing on their phones. YouTubers and airsoft "celebrities" produce heavily edited videos showing a rather selective view of airsoft, sometimes bordering on staged or fictional. And, yes, there are generally a bunch of people who aren't massively engaged in the objectives (if they even listened to the brief), or sometimes even with playing airsoft at all. But you'll have good days and bad days. For example, the timekeeping at Biohazard today was actually pretty decent, and we did get told who'd won each game, which was nice. It really comes down to the players and marshals who show up on the day, and whether the numbers suit the site. The good days are great. It's a pity you didn't enjoy Bunker 31 as looks like an interesting site, sort of outdoor-CQB. I don't think you've got a lot of other options up there - it's quite a trip to Tazball, Viper Strike or Evolution, and I haven't played at any of them, so have no particular recommendations to give.

"Everything in my loadout is completely authentic."

That I know of. Under at morning chrono, or under when tested in play? I've never seen them test anyone during the day, and given the way morning chrono was run today, I'd wonder if even in-game chrono would be done with site 0.2g rather than taking their word on what they're shooting. I mention this because I spotted some grey BBs on the floor and I've only ever seen those in heavier weighs than the 0.25g limit. Eh, it was an OK day, I maybe just need to get my fitness level up and dump some of the pointless gear. I've become everything I mocked.

I've had better days of CQB. Taped versus no-tape teams, and I was on the taped one. Try spotting the absence of something in the dark in the 2 milliseconds it takes for them to spot your red-and-white hazard tape. Barely audible muffled, muddled briefings. 2 out of 3 tracers crapped out. Pistol mags were giving up or gassing out all day. And to end it all, a cracked nail and bruised finger through a padded glove from a speedyboi who must have teleported to get to where he was lying in wait. Maybe the eddies in the space-time continuum effected his regulator, because as we all know, HPA players never, ever nudge them up during the day even when the site is lax and laissez-faire and would never, ever catch them. [More generic grumbling and muttering] To be fair, the actual play was OK, the games all worked well enough (once people figured out what had been briefed), and it was nice to catch up with @Musica. Maybe I'm just getting too old experienced for CQB.