What is the 9th generation of laser tag equipment?

 

RGB headband

The 9 generation was simply a breakthrough in the laser tag industry, primarily due to the creation of an RGB headband, which has the following main advantages:

• one of the coolest features of the new headband is the so-called multi-zoning. It means that each of the 4 blocks of the player's hit sensors located on the headband has its own independent vibration motor, which acts only at the moment when the specific hit sensor registers a hit. Thus, the headband vibrates only from the side which the player was hit from. This allows the player to determine the direction which they were shot from and quickly take cover.
• the headband has got independent bright diodes for each hit sensors block, and each of which can glow in any color and with any brightness.  It means that now the business operator can adjust the color of the headband, which, for example, can match the color of the player’s team, background level glow, which, for example, is useful for games in the dark and has 15 brightness levels to highlight the player or indicate which team they belong to. The headband also has settings for the duration of the glow after the hit or after the player’s in-game death.

• in addition, the RGB headband has got additional glow modes that display certain functions of the player during the scenario, for example, it glows in different colors if they carry a virtual flag in the flags scenario, it is green if the player has become a Zombie, or yellow if the player has been assigned as the Terminator .
• for the first time this headband has a separated t control and battery modules, evenly distributing the mass on the player's head. This provides both additional comfort and no fatigue even during long games, and reduces the risk that the headband will come off the player's head during fast head movements or while running.
• weight distribution allowed to increase the battery volume and provided the possibility of its use up for to 48 hours without further charging. At the same time, the total weight of the headband remained small (only 7.8 oz.)
• the headband now has its own power indicator, which will allow the user to understand when it needs to be charged

• the RGB headband consists of two layers, which are connected with Velcro fasteners. The inner layer is made of AirMesh, and wicks sweat and allows for air circulation, as well as dampening the external electronics on the head. This layer is detachable and machine-washable.

The outer layer, on which all the electronics are located, is made of a moisture-repellent material that does not allow moisture to penetrate into the electronic components.

New production mechanisms

Automated assembly made it possible to significantly reduce the size of the control board and eliminate the failures that are possible with manual soldering. We also coat the boards with a special compound that seals away from moisture.

Software

The online configurator, which is accountable for setting up playsets and gathering score data after the game, is available on Windows platforms starting from version 7 and higher and on almost all modern Android-run smart phones and tablets. This made it possible for both business operators and individual players to customize their kits and download scores anytime and anywhere. The software also includes a system for ranking players depending on their game results and receiving various medals like "the sharpshooter"or "the die-hardiest", etc.

OLED display

In the 9th generation, the game kit is provided with a simple, but high quality and reliable OLED display, which allows the player to receive information about their status, number of lives left, magazines left and much more. The display does not glare in the sun, requires a minimum power to consume and is usually installed on the left side of the laser tag gun, which is quite convenient in most cases.

                             

Switching fire modes on the laser tag gun

The new 9th generation electronics made it possible to mechanically control the current electronic options of laser tag guns and install fire mode switches on some game kits like on real guns. The user can lock their weapon with a safety catch or put on semi-automatic or full-automatic fire.

Anti-cheat system

Players will be players and you can't fix them. And don’t need to either. Everyone wants to win one way or another, so shooting at the enemy with their own head hidden, shooting from around the corner and other tricks when the player hides their hit sensors while shooting are not uncommon.

But now it's become a thing of the past. In the 9th generation, in the base (except for pistols with built-in optics), one more hit sensor is also installed in the emitter system.  It means that the player can always be hit exactly from the side where their tagger is directed. In this case, the operator can set in the settings a different effect from hitting the gun in its hit sensor (weapon damage or hitting the player).

In addition, starting form 9th generation switching off headbands leads to a in-game death of the player.

Prism and parallax optical systems

Along with the 9th generation, we have released a new prism optical system, which outperforms older system in terms of range of fire by 20%. Because we always care about backwards compatibility, those systems that were released after the launch of 9^th gen, such as parallax and parallax 2.0 are also compatible with it. Such systems provide an additional 30% increase in range of fire. Both systems are certified as 100% safe for players.

At the same time, the power of IR rays in each system can be set from 1 to 100% to control the range and accuracy of playsets, as well as to avoid ricochets indoors, resulting from the reflection of the IR beams from various surfaces.

Rich functionality

 

Sounds. The 9th generation, based on the new processors, also received functionality in the form of 61 incorporated sound effects, from the sound of a shot and dryfire, to the zombie growl. Moreover, custom sounds are also available to users, so the business operator or the player themselves can turn their tagger into a space blaster, or even record their own shout for virtual wounding.

Presets. In the 9th generation, we created the so-called presets, which are most widely used in large scenario games, when players level up like computer game heroes. The principle here is simple. Operator upload certain sets of parameters to all guns via Bluetooth, and then activates them with a command from the remote control at any time. Thus, if there is a gradation in the game, for example, with 50 lives, 5 magazines, and 600rpm fire rate, and then the next gradation level with 100 lives, 10 magazines and 800 rpm fire rate, then you can initially flash taggers with these presets, and then activate the presets from the remote control after the player completes the tasks necessary for level up.

Feedback. The 9th generation made it possible to add several different feedback systems to taggers, this is a standard feedback based on a vibration motor, a stronger feedback based on a solenoid and even a blowback kept from original airsoft models. Standard feedback is linked to certain events (shooting, hit, running out of ammo), which can be enabled or disabled in the laser tag configurator.