I disagree. Some people are just fucking stupid. It wouldn't surprise me if someone did it with the intention of setting the sprinklers off. Also if your kit is going to be destroyed by a bit of water then you should probably get better kit (not that it means such behaviour isnt twatish)
But the discussion is about using a rif with a muzzle energy within site limits. Saying a rif can't be used just because it's got a magnifying optic, regardless of the muzzle energy shows the organisers are either incompetent or just can't be arsed. This combined with the way the rules differ between what's on faceache and the website and the way they keep changing don't give me confidence that they won't fuck it up again
AEGs/solenoid HPA guns aren't totally waterproof, but merely water resistant at most, same with the average Nuprol cases people use. You can't drown any electronically powered RIF that has the battery plugged in with in the amount of water that commercial sprinklers will let off and expect it to work thereafter, it'd be the equivalent of if you dropped it into a deep puddle and left it submerged with the battery plugged in and then pulled it out after 10mins expecting it to be fine with no shorts in the system. It's not like a rainy skirmish day when sprinklers go off pouring out hundreds of litres a minute where you just wipe down your RIF at the end of the day - and doesn't talk about things like radios, PTTs etc as not everyone can afford milspec gear from JCI as an example. I personally run mechanical as my primary is powered by a P* Kythera, and my MAX case is rated upto 1m submersion mind you - it was more overarching than that as your average joes run mostly Chinese gear that won't stand upto it.
But I digress, to put it simply, insulting people's levels of kit doesn't actually justify any argument. Stupid as some may be, irresponsibility is an entirely different thing, you're essentially just saying any players anywhere ever are liable to accidentally damage your equipment and behave like fools which if so is an airsoft thing as a whole - you can't stigmatise it to one particular event as if to say the airsofters like me and my team and the guys we run with who play there don't actually play elsewhere and don't believe in the honour of the game. You get fuckwits everywhere, you can't blame AI for that and expect it not to come off as bias against them.
And at no point have the rules stated you can't bring a DMR, just lower the power to that of ARs/SMGs/pistols as it's mostly close quarters engagements with the amount of people at the event, which is fair enough as nobody wants to get blasted by a heavier weight bb at that power that close - same reason MED is in place at outdoor sites. Rules state that in both places. Bolties and DMRs also ran at the last event in April fine, a few of my teammates run Mancraft powered DMRs and bolties, just reduce the power and you're fine. Our lads never got picked on or moaned at once by anyone. They were spot checking players on chrono at the last citadel quite stringently (Airsoft Plantation in Billericay does the same, never once had an issue there myself with players shooting hot, it's a game of honour), and although I never saw or experienced it I did hear via grapevine that a handful of players who were shooting over between both teams got sent home early on day 1 (again, this can and does happen anywhere). FB is real time updates in the social media age so not sure why it's an issue exactly; I mean, the website lags behind and should be updated sooner, we'll agree on that of course, but in reality it does seem a bit like picking hairs just to have something to pick on.
Again, if players abuse that system, they'll do it anywhere, it's not event specific- there's always the caveat that prevention methods may need to be stepped up and up and up, but based on the last event in particular they were on top of it and the only people who I've seen moan anywhere online were the greens who lost because they didn't like getting pushed back to their spawn, and despite literally getting dropped off by event organisers at the tan CP en-masse, still got pushed back again. I personally had a bit of a what's going on moment on finding and disarming a bomb that had been planted in a building we had already disarmed the prior day, where AI gave them another chance to rack up some more point. Not to mention the extra mortar strikes both days they got.
Play better and don't blame the site is my retort.
As I said above, I've had no negative engagements on a whole at any events run by them - shit happens, it's airsoft, can and does happen everywhere all of the time because of the human element within airsoft both on organiser and player levels - so can only go off of my own experience and that of the immediate people around me who have shared that experience with me directly. I'm looking forward to the event, it looks to be good, and based on my previous experience will be a lot of fun. Airsoft is what us as players make of it, sites and organisers are just catalysts to making it happen.
