indoor game fps
 

hi, I am new to airsoft'. Just played my second indoor game yesterday. I was told 350 fps is the limit originally and no exception. But lately, I was told 400 fps is fine. I just want to survey and know what other places rule is towards fps for indoor. Is 400 is too high or norm for indoor.. Thank you for yr input...

Most places limit indoor to 350 or less.
It's always a LIMIT, not a goal. That can never get stressed enough.

Usually its 350 for indoor and 400 for outdoor.

Except for pine plains/op black sheep. That's 400fps indoor/cqb...

is most places going at 350 limit? Also, what gear people use for indoor? Saw some with just google, mask t-shirt etc... Others are full gear. I guess t-shirt don't have much protection...

Most places requite full seal goggles, other than that you can show up in boxers if you want (joking) lol

350 is pretty standard for cqb in my opinion. as far as the amount of gear worn~ Depends on your pain tolerance versus how hot/ uncomfortable layers of gear make you. Face protection is a good idea- teeth are expensive to replace. And sooner or later you will surprise someone who will react with a full auto blast to your head-guaranteed. I think the anticipation of pain before you run into that room is an exciting part of the cqb game. I have seen guys wearing bomb disposal get-ups onto the field and wondered to myself that maybe cqb isn't really their game. I have also seen people playing in shorts and a muscle shirt with complete disdain for the red welts, AS with most things in life the best answer lies between these extremes and you have to work it out for yourself

350 seems to be the high standard for Canada, some places as low as 300
But depending who you play with, I've played indoors with 420 limits, some guys even ran 500+ (GBBRs with heavy ammo)
Nobody complained lol

I only wish that more indoor venues would set 400 as the upper limit instead of 350-360. It's not as bad when they allow muzzle velocity reducers (although some hosts have some massive hate against those). They work well in my experience and the FPS is stable even in full auto.

Besides that, I wouldn't mind getting shot at 5ft at 400 FPS as long as ammunition is restricted to .20

thx guys. Don't have any gear right now except m4 at 330~345 fps, mask and a pair of magnum boot. Looking forward to have buy ACU shirt and pant. Then a vest and pistal. In both game I played, I tend to stay at the back :) but lots of fun!. Anyway, I would assume 350 is the norm and anything above is just too much.

if I am using my m4 with 350, am I in bad situation playing with others with 400 fps? Just wonder if 400 is too much for indoor... Any idea? Thx.

Most places will not allow 400 for indoor. In reality, 350 is more than enough for the usual indoor paintball places. You won't notice much difference in your ability to hit something with 400 instead of 350 in such short ranges.
Heck, I played indoor games with a TM MP7 AEG that shoots 250fps and I find it plenty. Its the hopup system and good, heavy BBs (0.28g or higher) that matter more than just high FPS

350 with .20 is tolerable, with no mercy and 0 distance engagement,

This is the limit we use at TTAC3 .. we still have lots of bleeders and bbs occasionally embedded in skin.

we have had broken fingers and shattered knuckles at this FPS as well

For field games the ranges are generally much longer, and with foliage to get through you need a higher FPS and heavier ammo.

400 fps with ammo heavier than .20 will result in injury.. this tends to reduce people's enjoyment of the game.

you can play indoors with 300fps at .20 just fine.. there is no loss of performance as the engagement range is so close that even hopup in not necessary..

the issue is that most guns come stock shooting at 400 + now so you need to tune them down to play indoors and tune them up to go outdoors..

OR.. you should have an indoor set up and and outdoor set up with different guns.

ya 400fps on .25 bbs

It def ruins a lot of people's days. IMO too hot.

When bb's start shattering lenses of goggles/scopes you gotta tune it down.

It really depends on who you run with and which field you go to. My local indoor field limit is 320 fps with the group I play with, but I've known others to play 400 fps in the same field.

Eseeweb is asking this due to a recent change in the area. The rules read 0 MED @400, 430 is the max. The field is 100 ft by 200ft with alot of obstacles (so you never get an MED of 30 ft unless you're standing in the open). Any BB can be used but .25s are recommended. No enforced mercy, no gear requirement. No age limit. The age limit is determined by the paintball field, and will field anyone with parental signature. This particular field, with this particular host could potentially be running 14 year olds on the field, no vest @ 430. This particular host also claims that 400 fps indoors is "pretty much a CANADWIDE standard".

I'd like to add that I have no problem with a 400 FPS indoors, but ONLY if you have the space to do so, ex. Black Sheep, or Rhino. You had huge empty rooms, and massive amounts of outdoor play. Also, I'd much prefer playing with quality players at 400, because I know they're not going to light me up point blank. They're going to pull pistol in close range situations, etc.

Minors? running that hot .. in close quarters... as a field owner and game host, that is in one word.. Negligent. It would never ever happen at my facility, I'm not keen on seeing my livelihood wiped out by some soccer mom suing me because little timmy got his face shot up.
Waivers are not worth the paper they are written on.. I know a personal injury Lawyer.. who said "I've never seen a waiver that I could not get around in court"

The risk is far far different from the perspective of the player vs the venue owner or game host. any one person can choose to risk it.. take that risk and multiply it by the number of players on the field ... and add several zeros.. now you get an idea of the risk to the game host or venue owner.

The field limits are set by either the field or the host...and they're what they are. That said...both of them can be influenced by constructive feedback by the players, and if they've got their heads screwed on straight they'll take good feedback to heart and make what changes they deem necessary.

In confined areas (i.e. indoor warehouses/close CQB/etc...) 300fps w/ 0.20s is completely sufficient...and you should really be converting to Joules to get a good sense of thing since we're talking about power and force vs. flight time and range of BBs. 350 is something put out there because it is (was) actually hard to find guns that shot under 300. Many shot somewhere between 310-330. The "cap" was put there as a convenience thing so you wouldn't "have" to downgrade your gun.

400 for CQB...sure. With known guys...and you'll get injuries. With new guys and random guys you will get more injuries and hear a lot more crap about it.

But it's ultimately up to the field/host. Personally I think that it's silly/stupid to have public skirmishes at 350+ in tight CQB.

And MED are bullshit. At BEST it'll be observed (and as noted already very often either the field or the situations don't lend themselves well to it). More likely than not MED will fail.

Since you're not going to be able to avert injuries by face shots, MED, etc...you're only controls are FPS, BB weight, protection (googles/masks). Another control often over looked at magazine limits and ammo loadout limits. The amount of "spraying" drops dramatically since there are simply not enough resources to sustain it.

The problem with this is, the owner is unfamiliar with airsoft, and only knows what my team and... others, have told him. He's looking to make profit, as are some of the other hosts. That profit is going to go right out the window, because we've spoken to the owner -- his insurance doesn't cover airsoft, it only covers paintball.

It'll be a huge mess if it goes downhill.

Profit is not a bad word.. making profit is fine.. but that profit evaporates quickly in the face of unmitigated liability

At XT our typical engagement range was 10-40ft back when I used to play
My UMP was 260fps reliably, and it was dead accurate and ranged the whole arena with .20s. Never had any problems with it. It even shot 200ft outdoors, just very slowly lol

FPS means nothing indoors, the extra quarter second it takes for a BB to travel 25 feet between 300 and 400fps is nothing. You can't spot and dodge BBs that fast
And no wind means no need for heavier ammo.
Outside is a whole other game, much different physics due to the addition of extreme ranges and wind.

I used to have noobs that thought a 50fps difference was huge indoors. You don't even feel a 50fps difference when it hits you, let alone in performance lol

Darkdream, thank you for clarifying my concern. I am still trying to decide if I should continue to play after the new rule become effective. It sounds like we are risking too much to play @ 400fps for indoor game. Since most indoor places are using 350 as max, hopefuly we will switch back sometimes.

Over 350 FPS for an indoor game in my opinion is rediculous.

We allow on our OUTDOOR field up to 450 FPS on a .20

That said, for example just our EAST woods is over 4 Acres 156,000 SQ feet. Read that again in cas you missed it, and think about 156,000 sq feet with a CAP of 30 guys. Last game guys vanished within minutes of the horn going.

Add in a bit of wind and vietnam folliage and ya, 450 makes sense.

A 20,000 sq foot "gymnasium" at over 420 FPS>No wind, no folliage WTF?

Have another.

I hope there is "ear protection" in place here as a bb going in at over 420fps will bust an ear canal like twig.

I'm the one hosting the game, so I feel I should contribute to this thread.

The reason I'm allowing 400 indoors is because in Windsor there are simply no other local fields and the vast majority of the new players are in the 15-18 year old range, and have one weapon. There was a recent rule switch that put a hard limit of 350 on guns, which resulted in players with new guns being turned away on their first time out playing. Many of the local regulars have neither the budget nor ability to start swapping out the springs.

It was the old hosts opinion that due to the cheap cost of springs, they just suck it up and downgrade, but the time since then has been a constant slew of people breaking their gun after opening it up for the first time or plain quitting the game.
(We had 2 people that shot in the 355-360 range told they couldn't play their first game after spending a combined $900 on guns.)

The whole incident has created somewhat of a civil war in the Windsor community. There is also the fact that our team is one of several who frequent the field, and the owner is not willing to lose the vast majority of his business to satisfy the requirements of one of our game hosts and a (quite small actually) minority of our players.

As such, I've had to pretty much take over all of the airsoft events held there. I've spent the last week trying to undo the damage this bickering has done to the local player group. If anyone here has any questions or comments, feel free to PM me.

A few notes:
-As I'm trying not to exclude anyone based on their gun, I am allowing very hot guns on the field (<430) but with MEDs greater then 50' and restrictions that would make them pretty much useless considering the layout of the area. The only guns allowed to fire point blank are less then 380, and ammo weight is restricted too.
-The field is semi-auto only.
-As for the age of the players. It is a local paintball field, the owner makes the rules about age restrictions. We have had a pretty rough time over the years with keeping a solid player base. If it wasn't for minors that were attracted to our team through the paintball field, we wouldn't have enough players to even justify booking time.

As a Game host, I dont know what to say. You have so many moving parts to this its pretty messy.

You kind of know this as you posted this above. You have 15 year olds entering the ring in a small place with 420 FPS guns. You understand this is kind of an issue as there are few if any places that allow this INDOOR and this could come back to bite you in the A$$ as the question would come up. Waiver or not. At least with 18 and older it becomes much less complex, but I am sure you are not informing a parent they are putting their kid into a ring with a gun that is shooting at "x". Nor do they even know what "FPS" is.

Honestely while this may not be the best financial advise, it may make more sense to go 18 and older at least?

I dont know....

About 70% of our current players are under 18 (almost all of the new players from this year are). We have about 6-10 regulars that have been playing for multiple years. The demographic in Windsor is quite different then most of our away games, and the play style reflects that. Very light/easygoing skrims.

Guns/players are rated on a case by case basis. There would be no way I would let a 14 year old on with a gun shooting 420. The whole 400+ thing is to satisfy an entirely different team of older players who would prefer to go 400 full auto at point blank. The groups generally don't play together, and when they do MEDs and other limits are put in to ensure everyone's safety.

It's a local shift thats happening where the weekend warriors who would ordinarily be paintballing are now taking up airsoft instead. It's also an attempt to try and draw some of the rogue groups in so they can play in a legal area (and we can charge them to play). There is a lot of backyard airsoft in Windsor we hear about, because like I said in an earlier post, the field is the only field that allows airsoft within an hour and a half drive.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that we are not a babysitting service. Parents of underage players are required to stick around after signing them in for the first couple games their children play in.

hmmm.

I understand a bit more. Sounds more like "regulars". I did forget that the area is obviously "sub 3 million people GTA".

That said, if I could offer some legal help here, (off record), I would:

1) Make sure the waiver clearly states on the top "by signing this you are waiving certain legal rights" in 3x the font in YELLOW (see court ruling of zip line operator in BC ruling)
2) Have a section acknowledging the FPS limit of the field. A specific spot to initial this.

It will help and costs you nothing.

If it was my in that position, I would say "too fucking bad" to them. Either they downgrade their guns or they don't play. You don't have the ability or know-how to downgrade you gun? Pay someone to do it. If you break it that's your own fault, and you shouldn't have been doing it anyway.

There is no excuse for many of the things you explained, and the limit shouldn't be raised because of them.

Ignore what I wrote, my appology for wasting time of some....moving on....

I played a game on Sunday, indoor with a 400FPS limit. I got a few nasty welts, but nothing all that bad.

Then again everyone there was using semi auto and avoiding mag dumping on people at close or point blank range.

I wonder if the high FPS and resulting pain might be driving some potential players away. Newbie players typically are short on gear,and just accept things as the way it's done
& given machismo and all- So you wouldn't even hear complaints about it.

It worked for us earlier (1992-95) with the HK style terminator games 430-480fps indoors to the point where a seperate group of newcomers establish stock Marui gun fps only (280fps)

The field in question is 100ft by 200ft with inflatables and constructed "buildings" throughout. If you encounter a situation where players are on either side of these buildings and turn out face to face, we're talking less than 5 feet. It's going to be near impossible to get even a 30ft MED unless you're standing in the open and shooting down the length of the field. In the case you're behind one of these buildings for cover, with a larger MED, and someone steps out, you're going to pelt them in the face.

I got shot by my own boyfriend at this field from less than 3 ft because I walked out from behind something, calling my hit, hands up and he just had no vision of me. Hit me across the knuckles, causing my hand to swell to the point that I couldn't pull the trigger anymore. This was at a 350 hard limit, and he wasn't aiming at me, he was aiming down field. This is only one example of the many things that could happen. We already had someone chip a tooth at the field when 350 was a limit.

I don't understand the need for change, springs are 10$. And there are more than four players in the Windsor Area who could change the spring, without damage to the gun.

Fantastix... stop raising the FPS because you dont want to replace a $10 spring. buy a few extra and have em on hand, you know full well 400+ fps indoors is pushing it... now your at 430? cmon man relax and play the game

ive got pellet guns that shoot under 450 can i bring them? or my .22(cb shorts) is only 600 where does it stop?

set a limit and stick to it 350 fps indoor and 400 fps outdoor
thats plenty fast enough

Also, seriously what is the point of 400fps at point blank range? Are you trying to get people hurt? I've seen bb's have to get dug out of skin at less than 350fps.

400fps in close quarters is just re-goddamn-diculous. You ought to know better.

I've played and ref'd enough indoor CQB games to know that wearing anything less than full-skin coverage and full face protection is stupid. Partially because you just end up hurting yourself by having your arms shredded, and partially because you can't trust anyone to play safely, especially when they're new.
New or inexperienced players will, on average, nearly exclusively use full-auto and aim for 'headshots' because 'headshots are cool'. Some people of all relative skill levels also get scared and/ or frustrated and tend to retaliate in an uncontrolled over-aggressive manner when they're butthurt by losing.

Requiring full face protection and strongly encouraging long sleeves and padded gloves topped off with a 350fps limit isn't about accounting for what safe, positive players can handle, it's about limiting the amount of damage a moron or overwhelmed newbie can do.

I've played high-limit CQB with no cage against guys whome I've trusted and I was just fine. I would not, however, walk into an arena with people I didn't know and had not played with before without suiting right up and knowing all guns had passed a crono.

Sorry for bringing up an old post, but I'm reasonably certain that minors in Canada lack the capacity to even sign a legally binding contract, and anything they do sign is voidable by the minor at any time, so the hypothetical soccer mom wouldn't even need a lawyer to sue the shit out of an airsoft field where a minor was injured.

If the field FPS limit is too high for you, then don't go play there. Simple as that. You don't have to bash the host and the field. This is looking like another ASC Flamefest

I want a 'like' button for that comment

Wow. How dare we have opinions based on experience on the subject.

when we went to pine it was 400 indoors with semmi auto as the rule caught over your out. i have played a fair bit indoors and it was always stressed 10 ft mercy head shots were not favored but if the only target you got was a pop up head then . i have and many of my team members been shot with hot guns , no mater what the field fps is someone will try to slip it in. i after playing the few years every weekend even outdoors all winter cant tell 350 fps and 400 fps apart, they all hurt real bad in close. we have scars, bruises, damaged teeth lumps and dings its part of a sport being new " i was there" doesn't mean bubble wrap me, veteran players. if a rule is set fallow it this game is about the honor system. if you don't like the way a game is played at a location for any reason you can say "hey at this field we do it this way would you mind?" if the answer is no you don't got to play there. play with respect for the other shooters if you don't want to be hit 2 feet away with a 450fps don't do it. I"m sure others will be ready to comment about my lack of whatever. its about going out and having fun , shoot like you want to be shot. resect your pears and eat cake.
thanks
didn't mean to go off
dave

I'll never go for a head shot if i don't have to, but sometimes it's all you got.
I feel bad about it indoors or out, but you know it's possible to get shot in the face or other sensitive areas in airsoft, whether on purpose or by accident.
PPE is your own responsibility, not the person shooting you. If you don't want to get shot in the face with 400fps, wear full face protection.

We just had a similar problem with raising our fps limit to 420fps here in Mb. Some people are worried about an extra 20fps, and that everyone will now have 400fps guns. Well everyone already had 380-400fps guns, 20fps isn't going to do much more damage at our typical engagement range of 60-200 feet. And if you weren't worried about your face at 400fps, why would you suddenly be worried at 420fps?
It's not like everyone is going to buy new springs just to up 20fps lol

And to add insult to injury, there are only 4 times I can recall of someone EVER complaining about a hot gun on the field and having them chrono their gun. All 4 times the gun was under 350fps. Yet I know of a dozen times when someone had a 'hot' gun (by 10-15fps) on the field, and nobody ever complained about it.
Point being, if you get shot in the thigh, doesn't matter if it's 350 or 450fps, still gonna hurt like hell from 20 feet.

The issue is the energy impact not the FPS; and the fact that the are parents who are dropping kids off, signing waivers, who dont know jack about this, onlu adds more complication.


FPS Joule
350 1.13
375 1.30
400 1.48
425 1.67


350 FPS to 400 FPS has a 30% increase of impact force (energy) with no loss of power as most shots are fired at close range. No wind. No leaves, grass etc. This is compact close quarters battle.

425 FPS is a 47% increase in energy from 350.

I am failry certain, the shot in the leg will feel different from a 350 gun vs 400-425

Agreed Trev.

Comes down to what you're willing to take really. I don't use mesh, never have, and being shot in the face has never really bothered me. I've been smoked with .28's at less than 15ft. without skin breaking and I just keep my mouth closed when in play (force of habit from fighting).

Hell, in all my years doing airsoft I've only used full seals a few times. Just purchased some new ones because more fields are getting really strict with that rule, but since I was 14 I've never caught one to the eye while wearing ballistics, and I seem to get hit in the head very often.

Personally I would rather take those shots than getting hit in the ear lobe from 30-100ft.

My point in all this being: People are sensitive to different things in different areas. As ThunderCactus put it; personal protective equipment is each player's responsibility. If you don't want to bleed from or be picking styrene from your face after a CQB match or even large field milsim, wear mesh or another mask. If you have a tattoo on your forearm you're worried about ruining, wear long sleeves. It's common sense to protect yourself from things you want protection from. Unfortunately in my young age I have realized that common sense just isn't all that common.

However, I digress..

So misinformation about the field doesn't spread anymore, I'd like to reiterate the actual field limits.

-Field is semi-auto only. Max bb weight is .25, but use of .2 ammo is recommended.
-<380fps No MED
-MED increases by 15' for every 10fps beyond 380. Hard cap of 430.
Guns over 400 are only to be used in special scenario games to avoid abuse of MED.
-Players under 18 may not shoot over 380.
-Full face protection required for players under 18.
-Headshots are strongly discouraged and players are required to lower weapons while turning corners.

In the last 3 games, we have only had 2-3 people shooting over 380. All major issues were concerning hit calling and other usual bullshit.

if you can afford to buy all your gear..guns,vest,mags(sometimes cost more then the fucking gun) and allt he other crap if you can afford to buy that i think you can afford a freaken spring....they are not that expensive....

Some people like myself are not comfortable telling the host that they don't like the way things are done and will simply not go. Some of you recommended this behavior but it doesn't give the host a chance to accommodate, if they are even willing to. You've gotten this community's view maybe you should hand out surveys after games and have an online one to make sure you're not losing players because of high fps.

Actually the reason I "took over" is because the sudden enforcement of the strict 350fps rule drove away a large amount of our player base. I'm hesitant to post in detail, but the opposition has been very very vocal from a small number of people. The people who immediately returned after the implementation of the current rules outnumbers the players complaining by several times, and my current problem is a matter of the field not supporting as many players as we have been getting.

I find all the players are becoming more of a safety concern then the fps rating because of the volume of fire (even on semi auto) that can be focused on people in the open.

Edit: I am working with the field hosts to modify the layout to allow for increased player count.

Agree 100%. The FPS limits are in place for a reason. Hosts with experience know what the acceptable limits are. If people can't be bothered to downgrade their springs then they can play elsewhere. People get too caught up in having a high FPS in their guns. IMO there isn't much need to be shooting over 350 for CQB and 400 for outdoor games. A 50 fps increase wont make a huge difference in effective range anyways there is other ways of going about that. There is no need to give people massive welts/bleeding shots. Other players will appreciate you not possibly injuring them or their equipment.