[PHX]

Has anyone ever hosted paintball games at night? Since Halloween is a on a Friday this year, I thought this might be a fun thing to try. I figured I could tape glow sticks to the tops of masks, using different colors for different teams. I could also probably get some glow in the dark paintballs. Has anyone ever used glow in the dark paint? How bright will it glow and for how long? Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tlmiller]

Never used glow in the dark paint. Being in phoenix where daytime temps hit 115+ in the summer, all the fields here play night games.

Glow sticks to masks is the BEST way to track people that I have seen. However, you still need some lighting to avoid people tripping over everything and cracking their necks.

 

[Trbo323]

here is my opinion on what night games are like

night games are the stupidest idea on the planet, let me sum them up for you....where am i?.....what was that!?!?....OUCH I TRIPPED!...WHO IS SHOOTING AT ME!?!?!....i better shoot back! bang bang bang.....i got him!...oh wait....he got me too.....wait....he is on my team.....now we are both out!..............................................where was the staging area?

there was a few places that made glow in the dark paintballs but the problem is you basically have to keep light on them while out on the field to keep them charged, there was a kit for the halo series hoppers that was a black light kit to keep them charged but it would be really hard to find now and really expensive when it came out.

play a dusk game, not a night game if you are interested

 

[tlmiller]

Night games done correctly aren't like that. Here most all the night games have good vision, you can see the opposition somewhat even without glow sticks, the staging area is very clearly visible. You just need to go somewhere that night games are a NECESSITY so that the people that run them have taken the time to learn HOW to set them up and run them properly.

 

[Mortisdeum]

If your in the southern California area two feilds that do a good job for night games are Jungle Island & SC Village

 

[martix_agent]

air ball at night could be alright, but I will never again play in the woods at night. What a horrible experience that was.

 

[huckduck]

glow in the dark paint wont last long enough to shoot. unless you have a light on your barrel

 

[martix_agent]

The solution is UV light in your hopper, or on a light gun attached to your marker. They used to make a richochet uv light kit and sell uv guns to use with glow in the dark shells.

http://www.warpig.com/paintball/technical/loaders/ricochet_uv/

 

[toXic]

I think the longer it has been since I played at night, I keep having a distorted view. I remember it being awesome, but terrible at the same time. It wasn't completely dark outside, the moon was fairly bright, but they had several light poles up, and open/clear fields along with woods(several ponds scattered as well).

I guess the actual paintball aspect of it, it was terrible. However, it was still fun just doing something completely different. I think it helped that my team won the "scenario game". WE completely stopped shooting at people, a couple people didn't even pack markers. So we just focused on the scenario tasks and shot every now and then.

 

[martix_agent]

Capture the flag in the dark is freaking awesome. Shooting at things in the dark? Not so much.

 

[Torch]

I hosted a night game many years ago. It was in a wooded field which almost everyone involved had played on before several times in the daylight.

All of the following is my description of what was supposed to happen. At the end, I'll wrap up with what Actually happened. This will go well beyond the scope of "suggestions" and will probably spiral into a rambling mess as I think about how everything went wrong.

We made the game a sort of mini-scenario game. The game actually started before dark. Players, once signed in and waivers were taken care of, were allowed to go explore the field while me and the other staff chrono'd the rental markers and got our props ready. As the sun was setting, we called everyone together for the briefing/safety meeting and so on.

One team was given a more fortified position at one end of the field, with one heavily bunkered up area. The other team was made out to be the local guerrillas/militia and had many smaller bunkers on their side of the field and were given more free reign of where to start at. The woods playing field had a fireroad clearing on one edge, which was out of bounds and the safe zone was at the end. Each team was identified by one color of glowstick, worn as armbands. Refs and staff were identified by red glowsticks and I had also gotten headlamps for everyone working. Objectives would be identified by yellow glowsticks or other special conditions. We covered that the game would go on for many hours, and that being eliminated was temporary- They would have to exit the playing field and get their playing card punched (giving the other team a point) by the ref at the safe zone, where they could also hang out by the campfire and load up on supplies while they waited for their 'respawn' time to run out. The teams were split off to their own separate objective briefings at opposite ends of the field. Each team was given a limited number of large flashlights to use anyway they saw fit. Players could use their own lights if they wished as well.

At this point the more fortified team learned about their nearby generator station, and that their base had several lighting system which they would need to deploy. Objectives for this team included:

Setup perimeter lighting. The team was given several small spot and flood lights, as well as one set of pole mounted halogen lights. They were allowed to deploy these anywhere they wanted on their base. Naturally, they aimed them all towards the enemy's likely approach locations.

Find fuel. The generator, once started, had enough fuel for 30 minutes. The team was given a map with possible locations they might find gas cans. In reality, the generator was fully fueled and would just be turned off by a ref if not 'refueled.' The cans were filled with water to make carrying them an actual task.

Find ammo. The team's paint supply was limited to encourage them to send teams out to raid the militia ammo caches, represented by large crate like containers.

Rescue a friendly pilot. Sometime during the night, a ref entered the base saying that a plane had crashed and the pilot had survived. If possible, they were to rescue him. I actually forget what bonus they got for this, it was probably a point value. The person playing the pilot was allowed to hide himself on the field at the time the objective was announced. He was given a PGP pistol, one reload, and instructions to hide, move, or shoot anyway he felt he needed to survive. The militia team was also told about the plane crash, and to eliminate the pilot character if possible.

Locate spare generator parts. The militia team had the ability to knock out the generator (and the lights). The home team had one player who was given the role of engineer, and could fix the generator exactly one time, at penalty of his time, provided the parts were available.

The big objective was that if their main base was overrun and the flag taken, they had lost the match.

There were likely some other objectives for point values on there also.

The other team, the militia, had basically the other side of the coin for each mission.

They were tasked with protecting the fuel depots and the ammo caches, hunting and killing the pilot. They did have the lead role on a few objectives also, one was capturing the computer from the wrecked airplane, represented by a PDA and some other items. One player on their team was given hints for the password of the, and if the team cracked it there was another bonus. The fortified team was supposed to destroy this item at the crash site, or if they got there second and it was gone, then find and recover it.

Their main goal was to enter the base and take the flag from it, without having their own team completely eliminated. To make this easier, they had the options of destroying the generator station, which was both unlit and not part of the main base and much harder to defend. The machine could be fixed once by the home team, but after a second failure to defend it, the base would be left in the dark the rest of the night.

:hug:Here is the actual experience of what happened.:hug:

I got shot. A lot.
The other refs got shot. A lot.
While discussing an event with another ref, on the tape line, our bodies covered front, back, and side with red glow sticks, we both got shot some more. Eventually we decided this was no longer accidental, our rage meters tipped off the scale, and we sent every player we could see off to respawn. We were shot at much less after that.

While setting off smoke bombs along the perimeter, I overheard a conversation between two players: "What's the smoke? What's that smell? Are we having S'mores on the safe zone campfire?" To be fair, we made the smoke ourselves and it did smell like burning sugar...which is what it was.

Someone was taking the marker glow sticks off the objectives and sticking them to trees. Play pieces were getting lost.

No one could really see each other. Looking back, we should have planned this to go with the full moon cycle or something. It was early spring and there probably would have been enough light through the bare trees. Because of the visibility, anything that made noise was a target. Broken sticks? Shooting. Leaves rustling? Shooting.

Someone else shooting? More Shooting. Maybe not even in the same direction.

One clever player (I'm kinda disappointed no one else did this) had put one of the handles for the large flashlights on a long stick. As he moved this around (required both hands) the other players would shoot at it, and his two friends would return fire while still hidden in the dark. His plan stopped working when he wandered close to the main base and the defenders flipped the large floodlights on him. I can imagine the sinking feeling he suddenly felt when that happened.

Some people had more fun than others. I don't even remember who won.

The number of people who asked me to help them find something, usually personal property, was staggering.

The day after, the staff had to go out into the woods and find a lost rental gun, some hoppers, ammo caches still with pods of paint in them, and so on.

If you've ever hosted a game before, imagine everything that can go wrong. Now imagine it going wrong in the dark. It was fun, I'm glad we did it. It's been almost ten years since then and I don't yet have a desire to do it again.

But I would go play in one, maybe.

I wonder what we would have done of those SpyKids toy night vision things had been available back then, and if we would have let anyone use them. They're pretty cheap to buy, and they do sort of work well enough.

As for glow in the dark paint, we didn't have it. The system used to use the UV hopper such as Martix pointed out already. There may be one now like an airsoft system I once saw- a silencer looking barrel attachment with a sound activated strobe light inside of it to charge each glow in the dark ball as it is shot. Not sure if that's a thing for paintball or not, but unless everyone has them what's the point? There's a saying that 'Tracers work both ways', as it were.

 

[Trbo323]

Night games done correctly aren't like that. Here most all the night games have good vision, you can see the opposition somewhat even without glow sticks, the staging area is very clearly visible. You just need to go somewhere that night games are a NECESSITY so that the people that run them have taken the time to learn HOW to set them up and run them properly.

you are in the desert, im not surprised you guys can still see alright but most people that is not the case, if anything a dusk game would sound pretty similar to what you guys are playing at night, Iv played a few dusk games, they are pretty good, you are limiting vision without just canceling it out completely and honestly, around me if you go play in the dark you are going to trip over stuff......a lot. Pacific northwest fields rarely have very good paths around them, stuff grows too fast and it rains too hard to really keep pathways clear of debris.

One of the camps I worked at played a night game for staff, it sucked....hard and they even had tiki torches lining the field to get some light in. I ended up tripping and falling in a 4 foot deep trench losing my mask in the process

 

[PHX]

I think I have been convinced that hosting a night game will not work out. Although reading about Torch's scenario definitely makes me want to play something similar.

 

[Torch]

It was just SO much more work than any other game we ever put together, mostly because it was dark...and if you had used a light, you were going to get shot at.

If you have a good team of people, you can probably do anything. Keep in mind that means the quality of players also.

Oddly enough, my friend sent this to me while I was out tonight. Seems similar on concept to what you've asked about- a halloween/horror themed night game. Zombie Paintball