Hello everyone, as someone interested in this cool little hobbies, I have some questions regarding the rules of construction, specifically rule 8. As well as just a general question No water belts, double hull areas, watertight compartments, or other construction techniques may be used to defeat this rule. This rule is clearly aimed at creating water tight air pockets. But I can't help but but think, why not use the same compartment scheme as titanic (never thought I'd say that)? This is not an air tight compartment, and would not prevent sinking. However it would prolong the life of a sinking ship that would normally sink bow or stern first. By allowing water to flood one compartment at a time. A small water channel underneath would allow some water to get to a pump, so you aren't just holding a bunch of water. A bit dodgier, but adding a bulkhead that does not go all the way to the bottom, would not be water tight, but in the event the ship begins to lean towards the bow or stern it could trap air. Furthermore, gyroscope and a counter weight? Why do you all use CO2 when compressed air would be easier to fill, and you could cut a huge amount of weight by using a ninja super light. Air is also just lighter than CO2.
Intentional positive buoyancy is not allowed, generally, and the ship has to actually sink. On co2, it really isn't that clear cut. Some use air, some co2. you won't see a weight improvement. Older thread but there is a good test partway down..https://rcwarshipcombat.com/threads/co2-vs-compressed-air.442324/
I know some club members in our club, I think Jeff, were working on a air compressor. It seemed pretty small, I've never seen it myself, and it could be used.
You cannot have an internal structure designed to flood and prevent or significantly delay the water from entering the rest of the ship (IE a pseudo water tight bulkhead or like the Titanic, bulkheads that do not fully compartmentalize the hull) If you compartmentalize the internals in such a way that they control overall flooding to keep the ship afloat, that is what that rule is to prevent. You will find that with all but the largest of ships, interior space is rather hot real estate. Adding structures like that would be an enormous hinderance to planning the internal systems. The ONLY advantage CA has over CO2 is consistency in shot to shot pressure. And that only really matters when you are at a chronograph or at a field. You would need a 57ci 4.5k tank to equal the standard shots per tank of a 20oz. A 68 4.5k DOES. NOT. FIT. A 48 3k does but you get about HALF of the shots per tank. I am building one of the larger ships and none of my 68ci tanks will fit under the decking.
Welcome. For new people starting out I recommend watching some recent battle videos and looking through some of the build threads - that might help give some more context as you're reading through the rules. If you're considering building a boat I recommend trying to see some boats or an event in person - much easier to answer all the questions in person, learn why people build things a certain way, etc. Based on your location I'm probably the closest active battler to you, so feel free to reach out if that interests you. To your specific questions, everyone in the IRCWCC uses CO2, there are some drawbacks but there are mitigations for those drawbacks, weight of the bottle isn't a big deal nowadays because of battery technology. Regarding bulkheads or baffles, generally you want to be able to get water to your pump efficiently, having it pool up in certain areas would hurt list/trim and make the boat sluggish - this is in addition to a general prohibition on using features to regulate how much water can come into the boat. You can control how the boat sinks with waterchanneling, so no need for gyros or counterweights. I made a video on waterchanneling if you have more questions about that. https://rcwarshipcombat.com/threads/building-an-rc-warship-videos.446640/
I think this answered most of the questions. It's very strange to hear any praise at all for co2. Because I'm pretty much used to just trashing them at any given point, because they're cheap and air 3ks cost about as much, and are easier to fill . Can't you only hold a few hundred shots? It's nuts to me because I'm used to getting about 2k balls out of a 68. Are you just trying to avoid filling up? Some air compressors are small, but to fill to 4500 would take a decent compressor, and wouldn't be cheap.
I might take you up on that once this whole covid thing is over, or maybe if we were both vaxed, but im pretty low on the list. Otherwise im not far from you
What we've found is that you get more shots in our application from the same size tank with co2 than with air. Keep in mind that lots of ships run really small tanks, of the 2.something, 3, 5 , and 7 oz sizes. on cold days I get about 100 rounds out of quad half unit stern guns with little margin, on warm days, there is more margin on 2ish oz of co2
I plan on running HPA only because I am already set up to do so from my days as a paintball gun tech. Thats said, CO2 refill stations are significantly cheaper than an HPA cascade system ($2-$300 vs $5-6000) which is one reason they are so commonly used. Yes, most ships carry between 200 and 300 rounds just like a paintball gun. And from years of experience, a 3k tank will last about that many rounds on a paintball field. The issue is you don’t want to be performing surgery between sorties. Just patching and redeploying. Taking out the tank isnt difficult if you have everything laid out well, but you are still pulling parts of the boat out and disconnecting hoses and regulators.
I'm going to admit, I have not read through every single post here regarding the HPA versus CO2 discussion. But if you would want to run HPA in a boat at one of our events, you would need to bring your own HPA compressor/charge station. If it's an electric compressor, most ponds don't have utility hook up for you to plug in and run it. If it's a gas engine setup, that will get old by hour 3 of a 10~ hour day at the lake. @darkapollo also nailed my other concern which is the cost difference between a refill station for CO2 and a compressor or some sort of refill station for HPA. All told, HPA would definitely be preferable for a larger hobby like paintball. Because you don't need to absorb the support equipment cost. The paintball field does, and then they pass that cost onto you the consumer via field fees etc. And I'm sure once you've paid off the initial equipment purchase HPA cost is just the electricity etc to run the compressor vs constant CO2 tank deliveries. In our boats with the physical size limitations and whatnot, we seem to have a pretty good system currently with the CO2 tank and 150 psi regulator. it's been a really long time since I played paintball seriously, but from what I recall the HPA tanks are a good bit larger. I could only see myself fitting one into the biggest of boats, but I'm sure the technology has evolved since then (15 years ago).
200 rounds is a single hopper. My back guys aren't even making it to their bunkers before they dump 200. I'm not even really sure what to say about that. I don't usually shoot more than 500 on a long point, but I can run multiple points on the same tank. I can understand not wanting to do surgery though. Even just swapping a tank would be annoying. Not to mention the hydro cost after 5 years. The SLs need to be tossed after 15 years. I will tell you new air tanks are amazing, not sure when carbon fiber came into the mix, but the super lights started coming out at around 2009. As far as size generally most people use a 68, but in our world you wouldn't be concerned about it in terms of air capacity for the most part because that's secondary to the physical size for comfort. for a 68, if I use the inline popet engine I'm getting around 3500 shots. With a spool probably 2200 if I pushed it. But you could absolutely get something at 50, 40, or even as small as 15 if you wanted something smaller. They're so prominent that you can kind of pick what size you want.
I think you're missing a point here we are not as concerned about mass as volume, generally. For space constrained ships, the cannon with air would have to volumetrically use approximately 60% less gas at 165 PSI absolute with hpa than co2. the numbers get a bit less unfavorable for hpa (20 to 30 percent)when you start considering the temperature drop of CO2, but provided you run a siphon or tilted tank,when your space constrained CO2 wins. CO2 has some very real issues with freezing and drawing liquid from the tank but we've mitigated them in practice here.
I was talking about on a dinky 47 3k which is about the same size as a 20oz. I remember 15 odd years ago when I got my first HPA tank, a 47 3k (which I still have... and it has 2500psi in and I cannot remember when I used it last!) being very disappointed that I was needing a refill after EVERY GAME. I didnt carry a pod pack at the time so I went in with a hopper and that was it. Most players who are in the long game are into 4.5k tanks which is going to give you at least a bag and a half on a standard 68 4.5. My wife has a peanut 50 4.5 for her Mini and even that is just a touch to thick to fit under the decking of my Bis. As you can see from the pic below, the 47 fits, but barely. The 68 is above the subdeck and is lifting the superstructure up. Anywho, the point is, even the largest ships cannot or will be a very hard fit for a tank larger than the tiny 47 3k and that will limit the effective firepower of the ship because you COULD potentially run out of air with rounds still in the magazines and no body wants that :-D
CO2 logistics for a hobby the size and scale as this favor it over HPA. Getting a big tank of CO2 for a weekend is pretty easy to do anywhere in the country, getting a setup to get good HPA fills pondside at every event is a lot harder/more expensive. Saying a HPA tank is easier to fill than a CO2 tank is technically true but having done both i'm not sure it's a big enough difference to really make a big practical difference, it might speed up turnaround time a little but getting CO2 fills typically isnt what delays the start of the next sortie/battle anyway. Shot to Shot consistency is also a lot less important for a couple of reasons, we're typically shooting a matter of inches up to a few feet, and our guns already shot WAY harder than they need to in order to put a hole in 1/32" balsa. We're not trying to hit someones shoulder that's just poking out from behind a dorito on the other side of the field. Our ROF is significantly lower than paintball. We're willing take our toys and dunk them in ponds a few feet deep, how many people do that with a nice marker? Have you ever taken a brand new never been to the field marker and dunked it under water for 5+ min then pulled to out to check everything still worked right? That's not unheard of in this hobby. We're really rough on our toys. Adding in a HPA tank with it's own reg and a dedicated fill port add failure points without significant upside. Historically switching to CO2 was a lot easier than switching to HPA when they had to stop using Freon back in the "dark ages". Until HPA shows itself as either as easy or easier to use than CO2, or it shows some other big upside that we haven't seen yet, it probably wont gain a whole ton of traction in the hobby.
I would have thought the weight was important. But I guess with the water supporting it, it doesn't matter. Never seen a 3k that small before, I guess there's a reason why. My friends are paintball players and therefore broke, if the gun goes down they can't even afford to fix it...also we're bougie... I think the modern guns could take it for the most part, reliability has improved greatly in the past 2 decades. Running out of ammo would be shameful. I guess at that point you become a meat shield. Interesting... Thank you for your time
You live in the local area. The guys on the East Coast are very knowledgable and would gladly help you set up your first ship if you choose to build one.
I'm certainly thinking about it. But for now, it's best wait to get vax'd. I'm worried though because the hulls seem seem to be only made by a few people, and first strike looks like they are in a rut because of the rona too.
Battlers Connection and ModelShipsAhoy are still alive. Strike models has been gone for a while now. I don't know if any of the laser cut hull people are still laser cutting (I am not), not sure about Mark. Same uncertainty with the independent hull makers. There are plenty of options left though.
Any interest in making your own? What ships interest you? What countries? I strongly recommend -not- trying to build one of the big-name battle ships like Iowa, Yamato, or Bismarck as a first ship. They get expensive quick.
I don't have a soft spot for battleships thankfully. I was hoping for Alaska, because she's got some nice lines, even if it is design gore. As a back up, maybe Salem. There's a couple other cruisers out there, but those two are what comes to mind.
