None at the moment - money is tight and doing a mech prototype or 3 just isn't in it till we can get a new board and get back into the market. That being said, new board prototypes are due in 2-3 weeks.Josh, what's a rough idea of how many mech kits you manufactured or sold? 10% of stock?
It is high priority though after that. After one gets tuned in it can be used in several different markers, including the 'Mags.
Josh Coray
J4 Paintball
Lead Design
www.j4paintball.com
If it shoots reliably...I'm gonna guess around 1 in 4
I would be amazed if it was anything approaching that percentage.
I mean, once the product hits the buyers key basic requirements (ergonomics, looks, feature count, warranty, support, shot characteristic, efficiency etc etc) how many of those buyers then care about what the drivetrain is and how it works?
Dear boy, I work at Planet Eclipse, don't you know..
In years past there has obviously been a decent amount of platform loyalty, from platform to platform there were noticeable variations in reliability, efficiency, ease of maintenance, shot characteristic, etc. But asking how much of that was the drivetrain and how much was the rest of the gun would probably be difficult for even a professional market researcher to tease out.
Idunnolol
I agree with your general sentiment, but I struggle with the tactical implications of it. I don't know how much people really care about the specific function of the engine, however, I do believe certain attributes of the engine drive perception or even simply the branding. I'm not really picking on PE specifically, so I'll use dye here... They have the fuse core and the fusion core. One is an air sear and the other is the LPR driven balanced spool. Is one REALLY better than the other? IDK, but the fuse is marketed as better, so if you ask, most people would say the fuse is a better system. Within empire's line, I'd argue the axe kit is better than the v16 yet they're marketed differently. So, it's just a lengthy way of saying that I think it doesn't specifically matter what drivetrain is in a gun or the operational attributes. I think it is simply important that they ARE different and are marketed along with the other aspects.
Actually does a driveline even matter now? 15 years ago, you had the fundamental base, say a 2k2 timmy. And through various itinerations of body styles it was slightly massaged through the line till the 2k6 series 4 guns, it was changed through the subsequent generations to what is the same but vastly different. The principles are all the same(poppit opening a valve, etc) but have qe gotten to a point were it doesn't matter much? Please correct me if i am wrong, but the Geo line from 1 till now, has all been different. It is a spool but improvements where made to them to be better than previous models.
Yeah, and I think there should be enough visual segregation that people can clearly see the difference. "Basically the same" in paintball gets repeated as "the exact same." I am not sure how you get enough visual separation with where you are now on the gamma, but maybe you could ICE coat it or something dumb like that to provide perceived value.