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For when you absolutely, positively, got to stun every zombie in the room - the [completed] Chaotic Shortbus

This is the Chaotic Shortbus - three flywheelers with the triggers linked internally such that pulling the trigger fires a dart from each magazine simultaneously. It's seen use in several games of HvZ at the University of Waterloo and in various nerf wars across Toronto, and I think it came out very well.

It was made from a Demolisher and two Stryfes, plus parts from a Recon Mk2 (forebarrel), Rapidstrike (stock), Rayven (rail), Titan (muzzle devices) and Rotofury (internal forebarrel).

This was an unusual experimental build. I had originally planned to use it with magazines with secondary notches in order to allow a fast “reload” by tapping a mag upwards - but in practice, I’ve found that this style of blaster works best when used almost like a conventional single-magwell flywheeler expect that fresh magazines can be inserted more quickly due to not needing to remove the old nearly-empty one first.

This solves a dilemma that magfed blasters face in HvZ. On one hand, you always want at least enough darts in your mag to survive a charge - but on the other hand, reloading early will chew through mags. Being able to split the difference by inserting a new mag while still being able fire the darts in the old one is very nice.

The main lessons that I’m taking from this build are:

  • Weight matters. A heavy blaster will make you more tired over the course of a long game.

  • Being able to fire if surprised while reloading is nice - but having a quick (and non-distracting) reload procedure is even nicer.

  • Having only two magwells would have been almost as good as having three, while saving bulk and weight.

https://torukmakto4.blogspot.com/2015/01/something-bit-crazy.html

https://torukmakto4.blogspot.com/2015/06/it-has-name-now-progress-on-chaotic.html

https://torukmakto4.blogspot.com/2016/06/misadventures-with-painters-tape.html

https://torukmakto4.blogspot.com/2018/04/chaotic-shortbus-functional-completion.html

https://torukmakto4.blogspot.com/2019/03/chaotic-shortbus-further-tweaks-and.html

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