Hello again Ferrit,

No problem with the delay. I'm sure you have lots of groups to go
around.

--- "ferret1963" <Brian@S...> wrote:
> Hi, David --
>
> Sorry for the long delay in replying, I had to hustle to release
the
> preliminary code for the 2nd model in the new LTTO line as the
> schedule got bumped up by a month.
>
> First, let me describe a little bit about the LTTO system to give
> everyone a framework for understanding what I'm talking about:
>
> (1) There are presently 2 models to discuss (with many more planned
> for the near future): The "Deluxe" is the initial model and
should
> be on the shelves in Chicago in July, and nationwide (USA) by the
end
> of August -- I don't know about international, but my best guess
> would be that it will also be late August. The second model, which
I
> will call the "Drone" for now, I am just finishing the development
> work on. It should be available in the US in early spring 2005,
but
> may be released slightly sooner depending on market demand.
>
> The Deluxe is NOT compatible with any previously existing forms of
> Lazer Tag (i.e., Worlds of Wonder, ESS, or Laser Challenge), but
will
> remain forward-compatible with all further items in the LTTO line.
> The "Drone" is fully compatible with the Deluxe and all future LTTO
> gear, and should also have a "hidden" mode in which it is
compatible
> with Worlds of Wonder Lazer Tag gear, and therefore also the Tomy
> Electronic Survivor Shot which uses essentially the same signal
> format.

I totally understand your need to limit the initial devices to your
own signal until you can make enough models to justify further
tinkering.

It is essential (to you) that you make your product viable as a new
product to satisfy the people that you are selling it too. Any
comments I make about doing things a different way are purely from a
LARPers point of view and you should listen to focus groups of
children if you are aiming your commercial product at them.

And as for us, there is no point you making your product talor made
for LARP and then have it not sell because it doesn't work for the
kids market. There are not enough LARPers to sustain the market by
themselves (at the moment). However, if your kit was made in large
enough quantities to have a low enough price the LARP player base
might increase a bit.

> The WoW/ESS compatability mode is for now limitted to the normal
> unlimitted-ammo, 6-hits-and-you're-out game. But I will hopefully
be
> able to add games with programmable number of hits, limitted ammo,
> armorer-recorded respawn, etc. -- if not in this second model, then
> in another one in the near future.
>
> So, this means there are really 2 "modes" to think about -- the
> native "LTTO mode" allows all of the advanced features to be used,
> while the "WoW mode" is essentially just intended to allow the new
> gear to be used as if it were older Worlds Of Wonder equipment.

So far this is great. The backward compatibility mode you are due to
release in the future will enable people to use both types of kit
when WoW stuff starts to wear out. I have no problems with you adding
your own signals as home built tag systems seem to be doing the same
thing.

However I must touch on the compatiblity thing briefly. There are
taggers out there that make home brew kit that are also developing
their own signals and your signal makes a third potential signal for
Lazer Taggers to be using. (I think Dave Bodger is one but I'm not
sure on the others).

What would really make me happy is for either you and them to release
your signal under some sort of licence so that other kit can be made
compatible with YOUR guns, or your guns can be made compatible with
their guns.

Obviously you can't make your gun produce signals that you are not
allowed to, but if you made your signal Open Source (or something
similar) then it would make your signal more likely to be adopted by
Taggers.

Your system sounds like it will do most of the jobs that a Quazar
arena system will do (apart from print out score cards at the end).
Perhaps you could write software in future that can be run on a
laptop computer that can talk to the gun and get information to print
out score cards. Then you could actually sell a future gun to Arena
type people and have an increased market. Having said that I must
point out that LARP players would have no interest in that sort of
thing. You should talk to people that run areanas and see what sort
of prices they pay for their equipment and how robust it needs to be.

> (2) The stystem uses 360-degree sensors that are integral to the
> guns, there is at present no means of adding additional external
> sensors (but this is undergoing some feasability review for
possible
> future use). These on-board sensors are fully daylight compatible,
> so they can be used indoors or out, in bright daylight, overcast,
> shady areas, dusk, or night (though Tiger recommends not using LTTO
> at night for safety reasons).

LARP games are usually adult only because all LARP involves a
potential degree of risk. Even though running around in the dark
without a light is not advisable most LARP players do it and expect a
gun to work at night.

I think that I haven't explained my self properly about the sensors.
It is essential for LARP games that they are not tied into a gun.
Players have to be able to walk around without a gun or even with
both hands full. They also must be able to be shot from (virtually)
any angle. You mention this again, so I'll explain why further down.

> (3) In LTTO mode, the "guns" all emit a 360-degree "IFF signature"
> which allows players to lock-on to, identify team affiliation of,
and
> receive confirmation of tags landed on other players from a
> distance. This mimics a passive system, which is to say that it is
> the TARGETTING player, not the TARGETTED player, who receives the
> lock-on and IFF information -- the TARGETTED player does no know
> another player has him locked-up (this is the opposite approach
from
> that used in the Laser Challenge gear, in which the TARGETTED
> player's gun lights up and emits a sound to alert the player to the
> impending tag).

I love this feature. But for taggers it would probably be a value
added feature as they happily manage without it at present.

> (4) In LTTO mode, this "IFF signature" also allows the guns to
sense
> the presence of nearby hostile guns -- this gives the player
> a "danger" or "proximity" warning, alerting him to the fact that a
> hostile player is nearby but not presently in your sights.

This is a great feature, but one that LARP players would want to be
able to disable.

Our group would probably want a "danger" detector to be treated as an
expensive device that player have to pay for and add on to their
sensors.

Again this is a value added feature that LARPers are happy to live
without.

> (5) The default LTTO mode game is for an unlimitted number of
> players, and is a last-man-standing-wins, ten-hits-and-you're-out
> type game. This game has unlimitted "ammo", unlimitted "reloads",
> unlimitted time, fifteen seconds of protective shields, and an
> unlimitted use of "Mega Tags" which is a system for increasing
> the "hit points" of a tag up to a maximum of four -- usefull for
> sniping situations where you'll only get the one shot and really
want
> to make it count.
>
> The remaining LTTO mode games can have up to 24 players (up to 16
in
> the games for only 2 teams), each of whom has a unique player ID
and
> so these are all fully scored games, where the players (and their
> teams where appropriate) are automatically ranked by performance,
and
> each player can view the head-to-head comparison of how many tags
he
> landed on any given other player in the game versus how many tags
> that player landed on him -- rather like the arena games where you
> get a performance printout at the end of the game. In addition,
they
> are all time-limittted games (selectable fom 1 to 99 minutes)
>
> These games include a user-customised version of the first one
(e.g.,
> you can sselct how many hits, how much ammo, etc.), the ability to
> play and score it as two or three teams of up to 8 players each,
the
> ability to turn "friendly fire" on or off in team games, and the
> ability to transfer health points between teammates in the team
games.
>
> In addition, there are games where one of the other teams
> is "neutral" (you are not supposed to tag them), and games where
> there is a specific actively-scored physical area, the control of
> which is what the players are competing over ("King Of The Hill").

These are definately "arena tag" features that you have added here. A
lot of combat only people will love these features as they automate
the rules for them. I really think that you should look into
producing a full blown arena version of your equipment further down
the line as you seem to have added all of the software features they
are likely to need. However, I'm sure they will want the guns and
sensors to be separate units joined together by a wire and have the
whole thing "crunch proof". (Features that LARPers are not really
interested in.)

> ****
>
> So, with those things in mind, let me address as many of your
points
> as I can here:
>
> > Great! VE just uses six hits and you're out in it's system
> > but I know that a lot of other groups want ammo counters
> > and different hits for different players.
>
> These are all supportable in the LTTO mode. Right now there are no
> games where different players have different number of hits, but
such
> a game could be defined without much trouble and has, in fact, been
> on our list of games to develop.
>
> > I hope ...[you haven't]... slaved the gun and sensor
> > together. We don't always have guns in our games for
> > all characters and non player characters, but everyone
> > has to have a sensor in case they are shot.
>
> In LTTO mode the two are inextricably linked (the player and his
gun
> are one), though some future accessories could conceivably serve as
> don't-shoot targets. In the "Drone"'s WoW mode, you could just use
a
> StarSensor for non-combatants while combatants had both a
STarSensor
> and a new Lazer Tag Team Ops gun -- the combatant's body sensor
would
> register hits "on the player" while the gun sensor would disable
the
> gun if it was hit repeatedly without the player taking body hits.

A starsensor AND a Lazer Tag Team Ops gun - An excellent plan with
only one minor fault: We can't get enough StarSensors. We can however
build gun circuits that hit StarSensors.

This means that your gun is not a "must have" but if you made a
sensor that would fit in a helmet it would possibly sell well.

By the way almost all LARP groups that I know of do not use the
StarSensor unless it is head mounted. Players always target the head
of their victims.

> > > (3) Physical areas like rooms or car-ports can become
> > > actively scored to make a zone of contention.
> > Sounds interesting, but how much do physical area sensors
> > cost? (a ball park figure will do).
>
> Nothing! The sensor is already in the gun. What you do is set-up
a
> transmitter that broadcasts a signal which tels all receivers that
> they are "in the zone". All of the LTTO guns currently have modes
in
> which they can serve as this transmitter, so there is nothing
special
> to buy. BTW, a "non-combatant hostage" could hold this transmitter-
> mode gun, so that the players in the game are competing for
physical
> control of the hostage (unfortunately there is no way to tag-out
the
> transmitter in the two present models, so the "hostage" is
guaranteed
> to "survive" the game -- for now! But that just needs a new game
> definition to change it).

That is a great idea. But again it is a value added idea. You still
need features that will make your system a must have (that
unfortunately are not there...yet).
>
> > > (4) The Host can set a whole variety of options...
> > That is great. How long does it take to do that? Is
> > it done with dip switches or another unit and an IR
> > signal? Can I set up one unit and copy all the
> > settings over to the others?
>
> It only takes a few seconds to program each game, the "host" player
> does this on the keypad of his gun and then the settings are
> automatically transmitted to all of the other players. All they
have
> to do is indicate which team (if appropriate) they would prefer to
be
> assigned to.

If you can set up more than two teams then referees could in future
program some guns as pistols, some as machine guns and some as
grenade launchers. The teams could allow your circuits to have
different firing rates and other things.

If you are willing to sell circuit boards separately at a lower rate
you could have a good market for this (provided your system is
accepted in the first place).

> > That sounds great. But can I turn it off? I might want to
> > give some players "unsophisticated guns" that don't have
> > IFF in them. If IFF can be turned on and off we can make
> > it an in-character "add-on" for players to buy.
>
> In LTTO mode, the IFF is central to the way the system works. I
> suppose we could possibly develop future units that DON'T have IFF
> (or which don't receive other players' IFF info until it is "paid
> for"), but that's not really in the plans right now. Still, I'll
> considere it -- maybe I can make a hidde mode that enables or
> disables IFF receiving. But this would always default
to "receives",
> and your players who had not "paid for" IFF would have to manually
> turn it off at the start of each game -- a process that you'd
> probably want a "game marshall" to verify manually. This need to
be
> default ON is because the main focus of our market will be the
people
> using LTTO in it's native mode rather than for LARPG's, and they'd
> get mighty upset if the guns could accidentally be left in
a "blind"
> mode without them realising it was set-up that way.

Of course your default mode should leave all of these things on. They
are great ideas. However, in LARP play a sensor and a gun are merely
tools that allow combat in a game. They are not the main focus of the
game and many of the rules of combat are actually outside the gun.

In our games for instance it is possible to sneak up behind someone
and shoot them at point blank range. Your IFF feature would make this
impossible.

LARP games generally have rules for what happens AFTER players are
shot. They generally need medical attention (and in VE games the
sensors, which exist in our game as protective forcefields, need to
be reset by a technician before they are turned back on).

The most attractive thing for LARP groups would be to have the
ability to turn of all of your features individually somehow. Then if
a group allows it we can use the great features you have developed
and if a group doesn't allow it we can still use your gun and/or
sensor in a game.

> > > (6) Players receive audio and visual feedback as to
> > > whether or not a fired tag landed on the target player.
> > Can we turn off this feature? We might want to put a gun
> > into "sniper" mode and not have it make the noise.
>
> Yes, both models have a soft-mute (hold down one of the keys for 2
> seconds to disable sound effects, do it again to turn them back
on).
> In addition, the Deluxe model has a switch to turn off the internal
> speaker (which everyone would be able to hear) but leave the
headset
> speaker (which is extremely quiet, the only reason you hear it at
all
> is because it sits right over your ear) turned on.

I personally don't like to have ANYTHING between my gun and head as
it gets caught on branches and obsticles (especially at night when I
can't see too well).

This is one reason why I prefer to use a separate head sensor.

> > Hmmmm. I don't like the idea of this. How can you shoot
> > someone in the back?
>
> While it IS physically possible to have a target player hold his
gun
> on the other side of his body where you (behind him) cannot tag it,
> in most such cases the target will either very soon turn one way or
> the other exposing the gun's sensor, or if they are staying
> stationary then they are probably behind a wall or barricade that
you
> can "splatter" a carefully placed shot off of into their sensor.

There are a couple of small problems with this logic:

Firstly if I am at long range and/or not making a loud noise then my
target shouldn't hear me and will probably not turn around.

Secondly I have played indoor tag and have come across player that
deleberatly conceal sensors in their gun by holding arms and other
obsticles in front of them. There is one indoor system where people
do something called the "chicken walk" and cover up body sensors as
well as sensors on the sides of the gun.

A head sensor with a 360 ark (such as a StarCap or Y-Rigged
StarSensor) lets you shoot any opponent unless they are lying down
and facing away from you.

> > At the moment many UK taggers have
> > taken WoW Lazer Tag StarSensors, pulled out the innards
> > and used a circuit called a Y-rig to put one sensor on
> > the front of the head and one sensor on the back
> > of the head.
>
> We have something similar to this on the drawing boards. PLease
keep
> in mind, the initial models and accessories are aimed prmarily at
the
> mass-market, which has shown a strong preference for simplicity
> (e.g., no extra sensors to wear) given the choice -- particularly
> since the vast majority of the "mass market battles" will be face-
to-
> face or face-to-side encounters. However, if past patterns are a
> guide, the chest-head-back sensors will be supported as soon as
there
> is a strong enough user base out there to support the R&D and
> manufacturing cost of making them.

Good luck with the mass market. I hope you make enough money from
that to keep your system going indefinately. I believe that you will
find that a separate (head) sensors and guns are the "must have"
features that you need to provide to capture the LARP market.

> > The disadvantage of an integrated unit is that if I put
> > my gun down I can't be easily shot.
>
> But you also can't score -- you've effectively simply taken
yourself
> out of the game.

You have misunderstood LARP a bit here.

Firstly there is no score in LARP. Games are more similar to table
top role playing than a shoot 'em up computer game. A player will
have an objective set to them by a referree. The objective may not
have anything to do with shooting anyone, so the player may only be
interested in not getting shot.

In a LARP game I AM still playing when I put my gun down: I'm just
not able to return fire. I need to be able to be shot.

I might be a medic giving medical assistance to someone who has been
shot. I might be defusing a bomb, hacking a computer or picking a
door lock. (In a VE game I might be fixing someones head sensor.)

So I haven't taken myself out of the game, and if your system can't
cope with that then we will probably not adopt it until you get to
version 3.

> > I would think that a lot of LARPers would prefer to have a head
> > sensor in something that fits adults and is comfortable! (IE not
> > anything like a WoW StarCap, with its hot foam and hard front,
and
> > not anything like a WoW StarHelmet, which I nearly got stuck on
my
> > head as it was too small!)
>
> lmao! I think I have a permanent flat spot on my forehead from
that
> StarCap... and the less said about the helmet, other than that it
> looked really cool in the "star wars" years, the better!

A lot of players have "cut up" StarCaps and StarHemets and mounted
the circuit boards into military style helmets.

At VE we installed Y-Rigged StarSensors into helmets and then did our
best to waterproof the entire thing so that it would still work in
the rain (or on a sweaty head).

Other groups wear Y-Rigs sensors on an elastic head band and put the
StarSensor circuit into a jacket pocket.

LARP groups would probably be prepared to buy a circuit off of you
that wasn't mounted in a helmet but could be adapted to fit into one.

> Seriously, though the initial Deluxe model is ergonomically best
> suited to young kids' hands, we have been fighting to make sure
> future models will be better suited to adults and kids at the same
> time -- and the "Drone" model is the first fruits of that, it is
much
> better suited to an adult's hands from what I have seen so far. As
> for clothing and web gear, I am a very stong proponent of always
> making this stuff at least easily modifiable with readily-available
> webbing from a fabric store, even if it is not possile to make it
fit
> all sizes right out of the box.

It is hard to make one thing that suits everyone. Good luck with it
and remember that LARP groups would be willing (and perhaps would
prefer) to buy separate gun and sensor circuits without your the kid
sized gun packaging that you are designing.

> > However as a pure combat system. You are probably looking
> > to keep the price down.
>
> At first, that is always a major concern. This is primarily a TOY,
> not a hobby combat-simulation tool, so we are under pretty brutal
> price restrictions. But again, just look at the history of all
> previous tag systems: they all start out as minimally-priced toys,
> and as the user base grows to include enough adults and other
> advanced players, the focus shifts to more advanced products with
> higher price points which allow better features to be added.

I'm crossing my fingers that you make as much money off of the kids
as possible. One thing holding this sort of game back is that you
need to have quite a lot of players to make a game fun. So perhaps
you should make a website where players can meet up and arrange games.

> > > (9) The LCD display allows...
> > I'm sure a lot of taggers will love this. But please
> > make it as damage proof as possible. If it breaks
> > easily then I won't want to get one.
>
> LCD's are pretty fragile things and there's just not much that can
be
> done about this. However, we have mounted it slightly above and
> behind where the "toggle" would be on an old german Luger pistol,
> facing rearward towards the user and upwards -- it's pretty darned
> hard to hit it on anything accidentally (though you'll want to be
> carefull to not just throw it into a duffle bag full of hammers).
It
> is recessed, providing some protection. But your point is an
> excellent one -- a nice acrylic or polycarbonate see-through
> protector would be a great accessory. I'll bring this up with
> Tiger. If they don't want to do it, I'll see what it would cost to
> have a stack made up at the local plastics store, and see if I can
> offer them at cost to people who expect to use their guns in
harsher-
> than-normal consditions.

Something that would go down with well with the LARP community is the
ability to take the thing apart and repair minor faults (something
that is not easy to do with a StarLite pistol). Please don't use non-
standard screws. A full list of componants somewhere (your website
for example) would attract users. (Many players could work out what
everything except your special ICs were anyway, but a little help
here would be treated as after sales support).

> > > (10) Sound effects can be ... through a headset worn
> > > by the player.
> > > (11) Headset also ... projects images of 3 "Alert Icons"
> > > in space in front of the user
> > The real disadvantage with guns that connect to headsets
> > is that you can not put down the gun.
>
> lol, weren't you just complaining that the integrated receiver
meant
> people could cheat by putting down the gun? make up your mind! :-D

No, I'm not complaing that people can cheat by putting down a gun.
I'm saying that in LARP we NEED players to be able to put down guns.

The idea of having WoW sensors for some players is also not workable
as a player could be "captured" in a LARP game, have their gun
confescated and be lead around as a prisioner.

A wire from my head to my body or from either to my gun is a big turn
off to me when it comes to making a purchasing decision here.

> Seriously though, the headset is optional -- you can play with it
or
> without it. All information shown in the headset is duplicated on
> the gun's LCD, and the gun has an internal speaker (though other
> players will also be able to hear it) as well. You could also wear
> the hedset but just unplug it from the gun if you needed to set the
> gun down temporarily.

That wouldn't work in a LARP game because I would then be bullet
proof until I picked up my gun again. We need to be able to shoot
people who are not pointing a gun at us.

> > Please please please, talk to your competitors and try
> > to agree on standards because if someone goes to a game
> > with 50 or 60 players they are FORCED to use compatible
> > equipment.
>
> Sadly, this just doesn't work out in the "real world" of corporate
> compettition -- I've posted a bit more about it on Adequate.com's
> lazer tag forum under "The Future of Lazer Tag":
>
> http://www.adequate.com/LazerTag/community/Forums/DCForumID3/1.html

Thanks, I'll have a look as soon as I post this mesage.

I appreciate that some people either do not want to cooperate with
the competition or can't be bothered to maintain things that they are
not currently producing.

However, while you are unable to cooperate with EVERYONE, if you can
cooperate with as many people as possible both your NEW gun and NEW
signal are more likely to be adopted as standard. If you become the
standard tag device/signal owner you will have one up on the
competition.

Please consider licencing your signal for free to other tag groups
(as long as they keep to the standard).

Please consider talking to the people that make home built tag
systems and making your kit reprogrammable to work with their
signals. Obviously you would have to charge extra money to provide
kit that is compatible with their systems as there is a R&D issue
here, but to capture the total market you need to convince all
taggers that your gun is not going to be another BetaMax style
system.

> However, the Worlds Of Wonder signal is now public domain, so that
> mode is accessible to all comers. That's why we are adding support
> for it, because it is still in widespread use by serious taggers
and
> we want the serious Tagging community to appreciate our new gear
for
> it's unique abilities and more-than-compettitive price.
>
> I understand that you don't want to (and arent going to) toss out
all
> your old gear just because my design isn't compatible with it. I
> understand that the hobbyist/homebrew and super-high-end gear is
> always going to have features that I can't match because of the
> pricing structure and legal issues I face in the toy industry. But
I
> also understand that the scarcity of the old gear, time required to
> build hobbyist/homebrew gear, and expense of buying the super-high-
> end gear is keeping the tagging community smaller than it should
be --
> too many kids today find it much easier to just play video games
or
> go paintballing, and that lack of "new blood" isn't good for the
> future of tag sports. I aim to change this by providing a good,
low-
> cost product that will not only be super attractive to new players
> (because of all of it's native-mode features) but also provide at
> least a basic compatability with the established serious tagging
> community so young people will get more involved in serious Lazer
Tag
> gaming again. The way I see it, they will probably want my
equipment
> for what it does, and then want the hobbyist/homebrew/advanced
> equipment for the really involved tag games and LARP's (as they'll
> get a chance to try many of these types of games with the new gear
> that they will already own). Similarly, I suspect the serious
> taggers/LARPers will see what I've done with LTTO, and find that it
> just offers too many cool new otions to NOT use it's native mode in
> some games, even if most of the time they just use it as a source
of
> new-manufacture commercial equipment for their existing WoW/ESS
games.

Apart from the issue of sticking both sensor and gun in the same box,
I think your system offers everything a tagger could need and more.

The only obsticles in your way are: price, packaging and prior
adoption of home built systems that work with Lazer Tag but not with
your kit.

It is in the interest of everyone that makes home built tag kit to
work with you to iron out the third point. The other two points can
be settled by doing a bit of market research before you bring out
your products that are aimed at our part of the market. As you are
already talking to taggers, you are probably most of the way there on
this.

> > We generally go out in the night as well as in the day,
> > and also spend time inside buildings (like scout huts).
> > The conditions the sensor has to cope with are sunlight,
> > strobing neon lights and night time. It also has to cope
> > with rain. (Because we wear head sensors they have been
> > waterproofed inside to avoid short circuits from sweat).
>
> None of this should pose a problem -- especially in native LTTO
mode,
> but my testing of the WoW/ESS compatability mode looks like it will
> work great under all of these conditions as well. As for the rain,
> you'll need to apply som sealant along the seam where the various
> body pieces meet, but it sounds like you're used to that already.

Your quality sounds great. Perhaps you should find both a LARP group
and a paintball group to try out your stuff when you have it ready.

You should be able to get some good feedback and also find out if
there is any design weakness that causes parts of your gun to get
broken.

You will also be able to find out if your system is too hard to
program, by doing this.

> > The standard battery used with the WoW Lazer Tag sensor
> > (PP9) runs out too quickly for a game so we have made
> > recharcable battery packs that have more capacity than
> > we need.
>
> The new LTTO gear seems to run about 17-20 hours of actual
continuous
> use on a set of 6 "AA" ("LR 6") batteries. Longer than that if you
> have the internal speaker turned off or the headset disconnected
(so
> there's no draw from the visual alert LED's).

That is a good amount of time for shop bought equipment to last. Many
taggers have changed batteries to things like camera batteries in
order to get longer battery life, but that wouldn't be a sensible
move for you as you want your stuff to work with "normal" batteries.

A list of conversions on a website would be welcomed by LARP players
keen to adapt your kit. Obviously any mods invalidate waranties etc.

> > Range of weapons varies as many taggers hand build weapons
> > using toy riffles, various large lenses (often an inch
> > across) and all sorts of focal lenghts. Some people stick
> > with a WoW StarLite but others have automatic guns. In our
> > group we prefer long range weapons to have narrow beams and
> > wide beam weapons (grenade launchers) to have short ranges
> > and slower firing rates.
>
> Since you use such a variety of "weapon" types, I think the LTTO
gear
> (in either LTTO or WoW mode) should fit in well with your games.
My
> initial testing seems to indicate that in WoW mode the LTTO gear
will
> tag WoW and ESS sensors further than the WoW/ESS gear will tag the
> LTTO sensor, but that's probably just a wiring issue that I can
> resolve soon.
>
> LTTO gear has a beam angle about halfway between the original WoW
> Starlyte (+/- 1.5 degrees) and the Tiger Lazer Tag (+/- 6 degrees
or
> so). We are using beams of about +/- 3.5 degrees. In WoW mode,
the
> firing rate is currently limitted to essentially the same as the
> original Startlyte pistol, but if time permits I may add a rapid-
fire
> mode like in the Starlyte Pro rifle.

I like your beam width, there may be some players that want wider
beams (for grenade launcher style weapons or even grenades or
claymores) most of these people would want to take the circuit out of
your packaging and put it into something else. If your circuit is
able to cope with this (ie it doesn't break when you open the gun)
then I think it would have good appeal.

> > I believe that most UK groups use WoW. However I think there is a
> > Laser Challenge community in the USA.
>
> There are both WoW/ESS and Laser Challenge communities here in the
> US, but neither seems to be as active as the UK community. As
> mentioned before, I can't pursue Laser Challenge compatability at
> this time for legal reasons, but hopefully we can all find common
> ground on the WoW/ESS signal format and then develop it from there.

If your IC is programmable by the user then the Laser Challenge
community will probably buy your kit and hack the circuit to get it
to work with their existing LC stuff.

While I am not suggesting that this is something you should be
promoting, the ability to reprogram the signal in your circuit would
also appeal to the homebuilt tag industry over here, as some of them
are already working on ideas like "grenade shots" that cause a sensor
to take several hits in one go.

I think that your stuff will sell a lot better if it is open source
for this reason. It is up to individuals and groups that want to use
their own signals to make sure that they don't use any signals that
they do not have a legal right to use. As long as you only provide
information to adapt your guns to homebuilt UK Lazer Tag groups that
are willing to work with you, I don't see that you would be doing
anything wrong. (However this is not legal advice, and is only *my*
opinion and not the opoinion of Virtual Eclipse)

> > If your gun signal is generated by a digital circuit then
> > perhaps you could make that bit open source (or user
> > reprogramable) so that players or groups of players
> > could change the signal to any other system they want
> > to use.
>
> It is generated entirely in the microprocessor, but unfortunately
for
> cost reasond that processor is entirey mask-programmed ROM. For
that
> matter, it is die-bonded to the board and covered under epoxy, so
> there's no way to get at it to modify anything.
>
> While I could not in good conscience disclose all the details of
the
> advanced LTTO features and how the communications protocol supports
> them, I am pretty sure it would not be a problem for me to disclose
> the basic tag and IFF beacon signals we use in the default game.
For
> that matter, though, all of the communications details (or at least
> enough information for a clever hacker to figure out the rest) will
> be available to the public once the patents are published.

I'll look forward to seeing that (after you are protected). I suggest
that you issue a licence to use the signals (similar to the OGL
licence that Wizards of the Coast use for their role playing system).
In this way any groups that use your signal would have to acknowledge
that you are the legal owner of the signals. But freedom for anyone
else including other commercial people to produce compatible
equipment would be a REALLY REALLY attractive feature!!! I can not
emphasise this enough.

If you provided a free licence that made future tag games work
together you would get a lot of respect from taggers. Don't forget
that if you own the system you can name it and even require people
that licence from you to put your website address on their products.

> > We have a medical system where people get randomly injured
> > in specific locations after they have been shot several
> > times. If we could integrate something like that into a
> > sensor it would automate stuff for us, but that would be
> > a one off program for just our group.
> > We would love to have a box that plugs into the sensor
> > (either with a physical connection or IR) to act as a
> > medical diagnosis unit and show the "injury" that a
> > player has suffered.
>
> Actually, we have a capability of doing something sort-of like
this --
> the creation of "hostile active areas" which can randomly fire
tags
> at players, including only at players of specific teams (e.g., an
> area-denial smart mine). This capability is not used in any of the
> existing games, but all of the LTTO gear will know how to
understand
> and react to these area signals should they encounter them from a
> future device.
>
> In addition, in our Team games there is a selectable capability for
> players to render "medical assistance" to one another. However, it
> may not be quite what you are thinking of -- what it does is allow
> one player to transfer some of his health points to another player
on
> his team who is either (A) in imminent danger of being tagged-out,
or
> (B) needs to be built-up into a "bulldog" for attacking a strogly
> defended enemy position. There are some limitations to this mode,
> explained in the instructions for the product.

If you do release some of your signals to the tag community down the
line then we would probably create a circuit that would bump up the
hits in a sensor one at a time and use that as a medic box. This is
assuming that you didn't want to sell one yourself.

> > Our sensors also represent "forcefields" in a VE game and
> > we use another device to reset the forcefield. If we could
> > program some code into our own hats to do that then we
> > would have those big grins.
>
> Hmm... I think you could do the "forcefield" thing by having a
future
> accessory (already planned for) that could generate the "hostile
> active area" which would seriously tag any player trying to cross
it -
> - but which, if you repeatedly tag it first, would be disabled for
> either a fixed period of time or until a "tech" came along
> and "repaired" it. It's avery interesting idea, definitely a
> different way of interpretting the active areas than we had
> originally envisioned.

As far as I know the "forcefield" idea is mostly used by Virtual
Eclipse (who designed the rules system to fit around the Worlds of
Wonder equipment). Some other groups treat the sensor as if it
doesn't exist in the game - so they have medical rules but not sensor
fixing rules.

If LARP groups could do something like download our individual LARP
rules onto a gun by using an IR port plugged into a computer then we
would love the system. This would obviously mean that we would have
to be able to get the gun operating system or some sort of gun
modifcation program off of you to change things.

> > I know that some taggers are interested in grenades that
> > do multiple hits in one go or even knock someone down
> > instantly.
> > This could either be done as a grenade launcher/bazooka
> > type weapon or a bomb that a player must defuse.
> > So if your hit system could tell the sensor how many hits
> > to loose a lot of people would like your system.
>
> That's already in there. AT present, there is a mode (Mega Tags,
> already mentioned) where you can "piggy-back" extra hit points onto
a
> tag before firing it. In addition, some future "weapons" will
> naturally fire more powerfull tags. Land-mines, hand grenades, and
> some really really cool area denial weapons are on the drawing
boards
> already, but I can't say too much about them just yet. Suffice to
> say, we have spent a TON of time imagining what people will want to
> do with the new capabilities we have added, and we plan to meet
those
> needs!

If you do produce these things in the future, please be aware that
land mines as such do not work very well in tag as the beam goes
upwards and usualy misses head mounted sensors. "Explosives" need to
either go bang in mid air or be tied up in the air where they can hit
sensors.

I love this meta-tag idea in your new system. Obviously your new
system will not be of any use to us until we can get all the older
people to convert over.

:-(

However, it is a great selling point for you to have. As long as you
can work around the minor requrements that we NEED, I think that you
will have a lot of interest over here.

> > That is all I can think of, but I'm sure there are other
> > people out there that can tell you more.
>
> Thank you VERY much! It's a great help to see what everyone is
doing
> with the existing gear, what they wish they could do with it, and
> what ideas you've come up with that never even crossed out minds.
I
> can see I have even MORE months of long nights ahead of me as I
> prepare the future "infernal devices"!

Thanks for taking the time to talk to people in the tag community. As
far as I know you are the first commercial person to actually do this!
I hope that your product is very successful and that you then go on
to develop both "LARP" and "Arena/Paintball" versions that make your
system THE replacement for WoW.

David Shepheard
Webmaster
Virtual Eclipse