Paintball gaming system w/ GPS anyone?

I had a topic, apparently in the wrong forum, so I'm going to continue it here.  The original post was at:    http://www.tippmann.com/forum/wwf77a/forum_posts.asp?TID=171 097&KW=thezephyr

Since then, I've put some pictures of the prototypes up online at http://www.zephyreye.com/gallery2.htm . I'm still chasing a couple of bugs down, so they don't show any gaming, but the series of pictures should help you see how the game is setup. If you don't see a peice of setup you were expecting (e.g. field borders, etc.), it's probably because I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm hoping to be able to show some simple gameplay by the end of next week, along with some video if I can get it to look decent with my digital camera. 

Let me know what you guys think.  Is it worth pursuing?

- Brad

Gaming is the primary purpose of this "paintball gaming system". If it didn't do the gaming part, I wouldn't be wasting my time - I would just use a Garmin.

The ability to set up gaming styles and extremely different methods of scoring is the concept I am trying to get across. While it can be used as you said, like a simple player locator, that's really nothing new and nothing special. Please see http://www.zephyreye.com/gameplay.htm to get a little better perspective on the main purpose of this device.

- Brad

The size of the ZephyrEye unit will be the same size or smaller than a Garmin Rino.

 - Brad

You're not alone in that opinion, but from what I've seen, you're not in the majority.  A lot of paintball players, and a lot of video game players, like the idea of being able to add video game style gameplay to paintball.  This will get a lot of people off their couches and out onto the field, which is good for them and for the sport.

And you're right, a lot of scenario players are very interested in being able to locate team members and/or squads.  Later down the road, there will be lap-top software that will allow a scenario commander to move his squads around tactically.

The tactical messaging is just an extra feature that since there's a transmitter on the device, I decided to use it to send tactical messages around as well.  The GPS hardware in each device shows each player their location, and helps them locate and accomplish tactical objectives.  It keeps score, sets up boundaries, makes sure everyone starts from starting locations, etc.  These new styles of gameplay probably shouldn't be directly compared to what you're used to playing.

 - Brad