Yes, the pump will work the same regardless of batteries - to a point. A 550 stinger motor (just an example) on a pump pushing through an orifice will draw considerably more amps than the same pump running a much smaller motor pushing water out of a wide open outlet, and the 550 will drain the same battery as the smaller pump faster. Just food for thought.
I can test the gpm of a pump in less than 3 minutes. Maybe not as fast as sticking a rod into an outlet. But there is no way around a gpm limit, unlike many ways to get around a restrictor outlet.
You got that backwards Mike, there is no way around the limits a restrictor imposes, but many easy (change the throttle setting) and possibly inadvertent ones around a gpm limit (especially with a huge outlet, shifting from laminar to turbulent flow comes to mind). There is no possibility of cheating, intentional or unintentional, with a restrictor. Physics stops you. Cheating with a gpm limit would be too easy, and you could never be positive it wasn't happening. I do not see this idea of a gpm limit as a smart move for the health of the hobby. There is also no benefit in a 5 gpm restrictor pump, when 2 2.5 gpm restrictor pumps do the same job for 17% the power, and are not likely to catch fire. You are not limited to 1 pump either, if you give up a cannon. I don't know of any pumps in use in ships that get even as much as 3.5 gpm. Two off the shelf pumps from either vendor would beat that. MWC guys used two pumps for years. If you want to lower GPM, mandate a smaller restrictor. If you really want to increase sinks and have more fun, go do some target practice on a 2x4. Check your aim. Make sure your BBs don't travel in a 10 degree cone. 80% of captains miss 80% of their shots. You are very likely in the 80% If you think you spend too much time patching, build a cruiser or a pre-dreadnought.
I was curious if this was plausible. I'm still new and only witnessed a battle but it seemed like that was possible even with the different allowed tubing sizes and everything. Saw this too: "If you really want to increase sinks and have more fun, go do some target practice on a 2x4. Check your aim. Make sure your BBs don't travel in a 10 degree cone. 80% of captains miss 80% of their shots. You are very likely in the 80%" I can't wait till my boat is in condition enough to do practice. I had thought this would be the secret to success: practice. I've already idealized some students to trade shooting and taking hits if I could finish my boat and begin a convoy ship for target practice. Or... a 2x4 could work too.
GPM would be much harder to enforce. I guess the question I have is what is the problem? Do we want more sinks, less damage,less tech. If it is sinks then cut the restriction back or what the heck just get rid of pumps, Less damage then do the same and cut back on mag capacity. If it is tech then I believe you are mistaken if gpm will make it easier. Many will ( just like what Sniper said) tune their pump to the inth degree to get the gpm down to the fraction of a sec. This will also introduce a variables that are constantly changing, such as battery voltage, motors "breaking in" water consistency and probably more. BANZAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO NATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Restrictor outlets are easy to get around. Case in point: Last summer a captain designed an outlet that legally had a 1/8th hole (and no other outlet openings) that could pump 5+ gallons a minute ... a 40% increase over the best outlet restricted pumps then and today. Luckily, he felt that was a bit much compared to all other ships and shelved the project to avoid the general gnashing of teeth the completely legal outlet would have caused. GPM can be wiggled around and dealt with in the same manner as ship speeds. Sometimes we have to trust captains to do the right thing and enforce the ones that are caught cheating. The real point is this though: with a GPM limit, anyone can use any motor, pump, battery, outlet, etc combination as long as the gpm limit is met. I'm not advocating gpm for fast gun. But it is a rule in AoS. And in Treaty combat where it has worked out quite well. And in some big guns clubs also now that I think of it.
This. This right here is the problem. Why shouldn't a "surplus" 550 can (you know, like the ones sold by Strike & BC mounted to their PUMPS) be competitive? Because somebody has more time, money, and /or know-how and that means he deserves to put a major league baseball pitcher in for his 8 year olds' little league team? You completely missed the point of the gpm argument. It is to even the playing field by measuring a actual parameter (volume of water moved per minute) vice a single element of that equation (pump orifice diameter). Just an fyi: I got into the hobby while a college student. I have run the same BC pump, unmodified, in all my boats to the present day. (12+ years). Hyper-competitive I am not.
That pump had a second inlet opening, which is illegal. Of course you can get better results if you don't follow all the rules.
I'm not interested in maximizing things. I think if someone develops something game changing, then it is time to address it in the rules. But I like damage. To me, that's the point of the hobby, dealing it out and taking it. I love a good battle and I'd love to see a couple of battle lines slugging it out yardarm to yardarm. As long as yall think the current pump rules won't interfere with that I'm not about to rock the boat.
Incorrect. The internal resistance of the battery has a significant impact on the voltage drop under load. All batteries are not equal, if they were my 1993 electric airplane would have flown as well as the electric airplanes of today. It didn't, it would barely get off the ground. I battle Treaty, so I'm used to GPM pumps. My pumps with their $1.50 motors are dead reliable and draw less than 6 watts. For Age of Sail, we are concentrating on the sailing part of it, so I see a big electrical system as the antithesis of what we are trying to achieve. With the GPM rule I could put a 2000 mAh battery in an Age of Sail ship and expect to have 2+ hours of battling without recharging.
Mike The pump outlet was viewed by many as illegal. One the pump had 2 inlets which is illegal. If discharging water past the restrictor is legal then what is the point of the restrictor. If that was legal then I could place countless "non pumps" and pump water through the restrictor in boat and have the second outlet pump water outside the ship. Not legal
It was an outlet design similar to an atomizer or a sand blaster, tested for informational purposes but never used. Consensus was the lift tube constituted an additional inlet and outlet.
I was absent for the formation of treaty, so if I'm wrong, please tell me, but wasnt some of the thinking there to cut down on the damage required to sink a boat? That's part of my concern with a gpm restriction. I don't want to have to burn limited funds/time/negotiation with SWMBO to get to an event and sink right off. I'd rather be on the water longer, even if it means more time patching.
Hold on, guys. You completely missed the point of using a GPH limit for Age of Sail. While I agree with the purpose of GPM limits in general, there's an entirely different reason for them in the Age of Sail. Unlike Fast Gun, which fights to the death no matter what, AOS allows a skipper to strike his colors. There were a number of reasons behind this, ranging from the historical inaccuracy of sinking ships in combat during the age of sail to concern about rigging and sail damage while recovering a sunken ship. When I wrote the rule for limiting pump GPH, I structured it so that the limit only applies prior to striking your colors. The idea is that if your ship is clearly sinking, you should strike your colors, then kick your pump up to full throttle and sail back to shore.
Internal resistance of the battery is irrelevant when comparing a pump design, you measure the voltage and amperage under load to figure the pump wattage, not the no-load battery voltage. Hmmm airplane analogies. The output power to weight and stored power to weight ratios for batteries changed a bit in the last 22 years? Motors got a little more torque now? OMG, They fly better as a result? But you are arguing we should keep the old motors and the NiCads, because flying new stuff is hard to figure out or too expensive or might require a little experimentation? I'm not arguing against GPM limits for AoS or Treaty, I think it is an appropriate metric for both. But the guys in this discussion are mostly fast gun and are talking about it as it would apply there. I think the conversation drifted away from the original question which was: Why GPM is used in AoS?
Something to keep in mind is that most clubs that limit pump output based on gpm also have a rate of fire restriction which slows the rate that the ships take damage. Treaty has a rate of fire restriction, but it is max 2 rounds per second, which is still pretty quick. Another thing to remember is that nobody in the hobby wants to hit the water and get sunk right away (as you have expressed), so the gpm rates are set in a way that they are sensible based on the format and expected damage to allow for fun game play and occasional sinks.
I get that. But the problem isn't about whether the ship sinks, at least for me. It's the point at which the ship is out of the fight. At a very basic level, you're sunk when water in > water out. By defining a hard number for water out, you've more or less fixed when a ship is out of the battle. Now, I'm not arguing that ships shouldn't sink(or in AOS, strike at some point), I'm just concerned that the gpm system reduces that time, and restricts some design flexibility. Like I had said, I think it's cool if a captain has the ability to put more emphasis on damage control in terms of weight/space etc. With a gpm limit, the same amount of holes (roughly, since there are variations in skins/hole types/etc) will sink a first rate as a sixth. The only difference is the time that it takes to occur, based on hull volume. That thought doesn't sit well with me.
