Quote:
Originally Posted by FirestormX
I disagree on that part, assuming you're talking about the gun/marker. Airsoft gearboxes are based on a 20 year old design, and all we really have is a company in Japan making guns for the Japanese market, and a bunch of Chinese companies cloning that tech. There's no real steps forward.
I have this discussion with a chairsofting coworker sometimes, who's been playing paintball for 20+ years, and he talks about how annoying it is to look at airsoft gear. He's watched the evolution of paintball over the past two decades, meanwhile airsoft is barely moving. He'll talk about how he'll listen to an episode of airsoftology, and when they say something like "hey, did you see this new thing that might be coming out? It's pretty exciting", and he wants to yell at them "yeah, it's called a such-and-such. The technology has been around since the 80s", or something.
The G&G PDW came out, with its adjustable velocity, and that's considered a selling point. You buy a $400 gun, and not only is it accepted that something will break within a few games, but it's expected. People are debating and explaining things about air compression, barrel diameter, and whatever - meanwhile paintballers have gone over all that a decade ago. (That was a bad example, but you get the point)
His analogy is that it's like airsoft and paintball came up together, and paintball got more popular, and thus had a bigger player base, was more profitable for manufacturers, etc. So a lot of the technology grew through paintball. The same stuff that could be applied to airsoft with no problem, but it's like airsoft manufacturers are too proud to glance over at what paintball is doing, so they either reinvent the wheel (rarely), or just reproduce a v2 gearbox over and over.
So in that sense, paintball is much better. Manufacturers are improving their guns. New ideas and designs are coming out every few years. Paintball is continually innovating and evolving.
Airsoft is relatively stagnant.
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This is a very good point, but also keep in mind the same thing with copying designs has happened in paintball, you have all sorts of clones of tippmans and spyders flooding the paintball market, and its because its a reliable design, many starter airsoft guns use a V2 gearbox and MOST are M4's, this is the same with paintball having mostly Tippmanns or spyders just starting to play.
i also see however that there is a large disparity between advancement. The thing that could truly make Airsoft More interesting would be a incorporation of paintball technology into airsoft. could you imagine first strike airsoft rounds? the range on AEG's already rocks but imagine a TM VSR-10 Shooting 425 with .43 gram First strike Pellets. could you imagine the possibilities of that, 300+yard Range, Full use of long range scopes/optics.
Or Possibly having a GBB with a pneumatic firing mechanism giving you a 1-2-3-4-5-full auto round firing function with the flip of a switch. Using a regulator and hi pressure air stored in the stock in a small tank like the milsigs.
adjustable regulators and boards to give insane rates of fire with hi pressure air. I feel that high pressure air is the future of airsoft and paintball. Very little firing inconsistencies, high discharge rate, easy to refill and can be compact.