spray and pray vs. accuracy (long post..)

Ok, Sarge14 was the reason I decided to make this little shindig. For a while now, I have seen various posts about how speedball players have no accuracy, drop buckets of paint, and can hardly hit the broad side of a barn. By the same token, woodsballers with their so called accuracy, and claims of 3 shot bursts ruling the field, all sum up to make me wonder...which technique really works better?

Here is my take on it. Note the I have VERY limited speedball experience.

Spray and pray:
This is a bit of a misnomer. With the decent accuracy of most guns at short range these days, your average 10 round burst will go in a reasonably straight line. It is possible to shoot ropes and hit within inches of where you are aiming.

Blind firing is a bit different, but most fields frown on that quite heavily.

Sure, using this technique, you will need a large supply of cash. But in such a fast paced and enclosed environment, firepower does dictate movement. You don't move to predict angles so much as reacting to areas that are being plastered with paint.

"Accuracy":

Ok, woodsballers and old school crazy mofo pump speedballers play this card a lot. "Why do you need 20 bps, when I can get you out with one?" The answer for this in speedball is fairly obvious. Suppresive fire, posting angles, whatever it's called. Every shot has a purpose. Most are not even meant to take out the opposing team. The purpose is to deny the opposition the ability to move and work the angles to their advantage. The team who does this most effectively will win.

On the other hand, there is the woodsball element. Playing woods requires patience. Flanking is king. No sense blazing off 30 shots just to hit the guy whos rump is sticking out behind that tree. Or is there? More than likely, no. If your first few shots go wide, you will be very surprised at how much skinnier the guy will get. The remaining balls will bounce harmlessly off.

However, one of the key failings I notice when playing woods, is that when a player tries to move up, their rate of fire is slowed considerably. This generally alerts the other player of your intentions, and they will react accordingly. That then leads into working in pairs, aka ambush/flanking/cool stuff/whatever. One guy drills a hoel in the other team's trees, while the stealthier fellow bounces up the edges of the field and outlfanks them. The role of each is inherently different. Starting a firefight behidn enemy lines is a BAD thing. The flanker will want to use minimum firepower to maximum effect, hopefully a 2-3 shot burst for each target, since most will be distracted by your friend with the itchy finger.

To sum up this absurdly long post, here's the deal from my side of the line. Speedball uses 'spray and pray' which isn't really all that random or innacurate, to secure angles and enable pushes up the field.

Bunkering is generally a 2-5 shot thing, because you can get in trouble for overdoing things. That right there required at least a basic semblance of accuracy. Also, kinder players will generally aim for a pack or mask when they catch someone with their pants down.

Woodsball uses firepower to distract the opposition. One or more players use any means necessary to keep the other team from knowing what's up. Trees offer surprisingly good cover, and unless you get sloppy, it is a rare player who gets shot out in an even firefight. Flanking is the name of the game here. Using stealth and light firepower, you can roll the other teams flanks very easily working in small numbers.

This is the longest post I have ever done. Word. I may have drifted off the main topic a bit from tiem to time, but I hope you got the general idea of where I was going. Maybe.

Ok so basically, discuss spray and pray vs accuracy, and their functions within speedball and woodsball.

Good post. Pretty much covers it.

i like to hug the flaks, maybe rush the center, i guess that depends on the situation. if i have good cover in the back i dont mind getting a team mate to rush the center while i cover.  most ppl i play with will trust me to watch there backs and pin the other team down.

i was just wondering where u were going with the 'accuracy' part in the original post? u didnt really mention anything about it other then u dont really have it in woodsball?????

I play both speed and woods but no matter what i tend to conserve my paint (Cant afford not too ) and i do all right.  Just cause the name says SPEED dont mean you got shoot 30bps most places i played my 4-5bps worked just fine and was plenty fast as plain old supressor fire. 

I dont know speeds nice but i ont think it is as nessesary as your post seemed to make it seem.

It seems to me , that Frozen / Sniper has outlined the similarities in speedball and woodsball , both use supression fire , both play angles .

Spray and pray ,may be best described (IMHO ) as sustained supression fire , not necessarily pointless , but can be a seroius drain on the pocketbook as well as the on-hand resources in a game .

I , unfortunately , have not had the opportunity to play any woodsball for more than a decade , but when I did  , the firefights rivalled anything in Speedball . My first experiences in PB were mixed , WB/SP , and it seemed the emphasis in Woods was for stealth , ambush , and accuracy . in speedball nowadays it seems like laying out a wall of paint , bunkering , and generally a lower emphasis on skill with a higher value placed on Firepower . Woodsball tactics seem to work in speedball , and Vice -versa . thats what I have seen .

Accuracy is a Virtue in any game , and when you're shooting 30+ BPS , it's hard to aim decently ...

Heh , I've asked this question more than once , so, I'll ask it again , just throwing it out there for everybody to kick around , when considering speed , how much is enough ?, lol, I never heard anybody claim they could duck a rope of 10 BPS !! (much less 5 BPS  )

Point given there Frozen , lol, but next time you out goofing off , have somebody put 2BPS out at Yer bunker , THATS hard to get some snap shooting off from, unless a person is bling Edit: Blind ;firing ,it takes approximately 3/4 of a second for your brain to recognize a target and send a voluntary muscle signal out to your body to take any specific action (learned that in a ,Umm mandatory driver's Ed class I had the pleasure of being invited to some time back ) .

Anyway,, target aquisition and execution , applicable to either speed,or woods , takes some time . lets say 1/2 sec.. snapshot one , get a look see , snap 2 , snap and shoot (hope he didnt move ) .

The reaction times of your oponnent are the same , so , he cant react to your snapping out and firing , until you've gotten back to cover ,unless he anticipates your actions , I see a lot of anticipation shooting in speedball , and unless you are really close ,it seems to be a matter of luck , hence the term  , Spray and Pray .

Bling firing , heh <edited from above>

Edited by Shadowminion

speedball isnt always abouting getting someone out on every shot. hitting bunkers and covering lanes sometimes does more for your team then popping someone. if you can keep a person in thier bunker while  your front man/men move up its very helpful....course hitting them is always accepted, but just because a back player uses a lot of paint dosnt mean he is always missing. 

I like to put it this way.

People who play woods ball think that speedball takes no skill and anyone with a fast gun can obviously do well. 

I would bet that if any of these woodsballers who think like thatgot a DM4 and played a game of speedball aginst any experienced speeedball team with pump guns, the team with the pumps would win.  They are two different games with totally different ways to play. 

Shadowminion wrote: . in speedball nowadays it seems like laying out a wall of paint , bunkering , and generally a lower emphasis on skill with a higher value placed on Firepower. Woodsball tactics seem to work in speedball , and Vice -versa . thats what I have seen . Accuracy is a Virtue in any game , and when you're shooting 30+ BPS , it's hard to aim decently ...

I have to agree and disagree with you on this one. Exspecially the part that I highlighted in blue. The skill that is more emphasised in speedball is not so much of where you put the ball, its where YOU are, and how you got there, not where the BALL is going, and to a point how fast it got there. When you have 10 to 20 (5 man to 10 man teams) people trying to get to one itty-bitty flag, on an itty-bitty field, and get it past another 5-10 people (the other team) movment is key, and player position is key. You have your back players dumpin cases of paint, and your front players just trying to stay alive, its all about movement and knowing where the other team is, cutting the angle, controling the key bunkers. And to do so, you need volume of paint, or its going to be really easy to move into those spots. So its not really a fact of us speedballers using a case a paint to eleminate one player. Its all about movement and positions. And for that lucky time, accuracy for when a player messes up, sticks out a little to far, and you get to tag him. Other then those its all about the bunker.
Thats my 2 cents on the subject.