An Intro to Outdoor Laser Tag

Outdoor laser tag is a new, unique sport, which brings excitement and enjoyment to a wide range of customers.

Laser tag is unique from paintball and airsoft because laser tag has significantly longer ranges.
Outdoor laser tag is unique from indoor laser tag because of the ranges and the way the field in constructed, which allows outdoor laser tag to have significantly more teamwork and use of tactics.

At its core, Outdoor laser tag is simple. Each player has a laser tag gun and sensors. Each player tries to hit his opponent by shooting his gun at the opponents sensors.
Sound simple?
Well, it can stay that simple if you desire, especially for the younger kids.

But like any sport, one player always becomes better than the others. Soon everyone else is trying to learn new tactics to keep up, and surpass. Tactics give rise to strategies, and pretty soon you have a real sport.

Let's break this down, and learn how to play outdoor laser tag.

Aiming

Firing a laser tag gun can be simple or hard. It's simple if you sort of point the gun towards your opponent and pull the trigger. But... the chances of you hitting the opponent are low.
(If you have a lot of young kids on the field, just set their Steradian guns for unlimited ammo, and let them have fun!)

But to get really good at outdoor laser tag, you need to learn how to aim.

The first thing you will notice, is that Steradian outdoor laser tag guns do not fire a visible shot.
In paintball, you can see the ball, and see where it hits. You then adjust your aim to get closer to your target. This is something unique to paintball and other low velocity guns. Correspondingly, your opponent knows how close you were to aim when a splat appears on the tree beside him, and in some circumstances he can actually see the ball and dodge it.

Of course, Steradian outdoor laser tag fires an invisible beam at the speed of light!

What does this mean to you as a marksman?

Like any shooting sport, it pays to be accurate on the first shot.
You'll want to practice with your favorite gun, learn the sight system, and be able to pull up and hit your opponent on the first shot. The player who can do this the best will have a major advantage in any game.

Outdoor laser tag guns have a certain width to the beam that is projected. See the illustration below. To increase you chance of making a hit, aim at the Sunband sensor, worn on the head. The Steradian beam spread is tight enough to be challenging, but wide enough to be fun!

To help imagine what the beam would look like if we could see it, look at the graphic below. The red circle represents the IR beam shot at a player. As you can see, the further away your target is, the more carefully you have to aim!

Starting a game

For your first game, divide the players into 2 teams. Each team has it's own starting point at opposite ends of the field. Use either radios or an airhorn to start game play. If you want, also set a time limit in your Scenario Master game, to automatically terminate the game after a specified time has elapsed.

Teamwork

The most common laser tag game has two teams. Teams can be nothing more than a collection of people on the same side, or they can give rise to true teamwork. A team that employs teamwork will always beat a comparable team without teamwork.
A good way to introduce teamwork is to pair up people. Now two people are watching each other's back, and their success in the game directly depends on their partner staying in the game.
As players advance, they learn how to work as a team, even across the whole field. Radios are an essential accessory for this.

Tactics

Everybody has a unique way of playing, but there are several tactics that will let you rise above the rest:
Know where your enemies are not. This will give you a safe place to run when you get in trouble.
Know who your teammates are. Use different armbands, hats, or uniforms to identify teams.
Attack from two sides. If you are too close to your teammates, your opponent can hide from all of you at once. If you approach from opposite directions, you can pincer your opponents and give them nowhere to run to.
Maintain a minimum distance from your teammates. Traveling in a tight group lets your opponents see you all at once. By staying spread out some of the group can continue to maneuver after making contact with the enemy.
Keep your eyes and ears open at all times. Finding your opponents before they find you is key to success in laser tag.
End of game
When a player is tagged out, s/he should head directly to a respawn point or the pre-defined "Dead Zone".

Now... starts another fun aspect of laser tag: gossiping about who shot who, how one person hid so well, and what is going to happen next game!

A note about the completely eye-safe Steradian gun beams.

Steradian laser tag is based on infrared light, or IR for short. IR is the same as normal light, but with a longer wavelength that our eyes are not sensitive to. We use an IR LED (Light Emitting Diode) to generate the IR, and then we focus it with a lens to create a beam of IR that can travel great distances. Our Sunband sensor detects this IR, and registers a hit.

Remember... Steradian does not use real lasers in our guns. 
So... why is it called Laser Tag? The name appears to have stuck because LED Tag just didn't sound as cool! But our use of IR LEDs combined with our industry-leading SunplayTM sensors lets us offer eye-safe guns which can shoot amazing distances.

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All of our equipment is custom-made in the U.S.A.
For current prices contact us today!