Lazer Swarm Command Center

Lazer Swarm Command Center

 

$149.99
+ Tax and shipping (for some locations)

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The Lazer Swarm Command Center is a device that allows hosting Lazer Tag Team Ops (LTTO) games from a Windows computer.

The Command Center connects to the computer over USB and uses six high powered IR emitters and two IR receivers. It is compatible with all five models of Lazer Tag Team Ops taggers (Deluxe, IRT-2X Drone, Tag Master Blaster, Phoenix LTX, and LTAR).

The Command Center supports nearly all of the game modes supported by the taggers including the hidden modes of the Drone and Tag Master Blaster taggers. You can create and save lists of player names and assign them to taggers that have joined. You can create and save rule presets with your preferred game settings (game length, number of reloads, number of tags, etc).

At the end of the game, a scoreboard is shown with the team ranks, player ranks and scores, and a grid of how many times each player tagged each other player. The scoreboard shows players names so it’s easy to see who tagged whom and how many times they tagged them. The scoreboard can be shown in a window or full screen on a second monitor.

One year warranty and support provided.

This product is built by hand in small batches. Assembly time and availability of parts may delay shipment by as long as a month. For an estimate of current lead time, please send us an e-mail.

System Requirements:

  • A computer running Windows 7, 8.1, or 10
  • .NET Framework 4.0
  • An available USB 2.0 port
  • Four AA batteries (included)
  • 2–24 Lazer Tag Team Ops taggers

Included in the Box:

  • Lazer Swarm Command Center
  • 6ft (1.82m) USB A to Micro USB B cable
  • Four AA batteries

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172 thoughts on “Home

  • Riley McArdle Post author

    raseltine There isn’t currently an API for anything like that. What would you be looking to do with something like that?
    I haven’t really explored >24 players yet. I suspect that 48 will be the practical limit just due to logistics. That is a lot of people to herd around to get a game started. I’ll try to make sure the technical side leaves the possibility open for more.
    The 24 player limit is a limitation of the protocol used by the guns so we’re stuck with that
    If by medic functionality you mean medic mode then yes, that works. And yes, I do have stock.

  • raseltine

    lazerswarm – thanks for the response, and 2 new questions below. The API thing I answered myself by downloading your program, XML does everything I need 🙂 
    I ask the 50+ because I run events within conventions with thousands in attendance so scalability is a factor, but if its a counting thing I could in theory have 4 people on a “sub-team” that get a group score so 4×24 would be fine. But we’ll put that in the unknown column.
    New questions…
    On medic, and I’m a bit new to all this so forgive me, but I assume its possible to assign limited and specific individuals to medic duty?
    I noticed reading some documentation that some of the weapons allow unlimited team players (like master tagger) while others have an 8 player team limit, is doing a 6v18 going to be feasible or will the larger group have to be broken up into separate teams?

  • Riley McArdle Post author

    raseltine For medic mode to work, both the player sending and the player receiving assistance need to have medic mode enabled. With the way the protocol works, it’s not possible to limit only certain players to be able to give medic assistance without also limiting everyone else to not being able to request assistance.
    The protocol is limited to either 24 solo players (no teams) or 3 teams of up to 8 players each. So if there are 2 teams, there can only be up to 16 players.

    Some of that could be worked around by the software but there would be some limitations. Your 6 vs 18 idea would be possible, but team tags would need to be enabled and players might get confused about which teams they are on because the guns would say that 2 players on team 2 were on team 1 and 8 players on team 2 were on team 3. On the technical side, it just comes down to how the scores are calculated.

    The other way around it would be assigning multiple players the same ID which is how the 4×24 scenario you mentioned would work.

    Just to be clear, neither of these workarounds are in the current version of the software. I do have plans though.

    The game types with unlimited players can’t be scored so they are usually a last man standing type thing.

  • TorgnyEriksson

    lazerswarm
    Regarding games with unlimited players; one awesome feature would be the ability to have a kind of ‘continual hosting’ going on, where players who have been tagged out could just reset their tagger, return to the hosting station and rejoin.
    Sure, it’d be an unscored game, but it would allow for more advanced respawn-type games instead of the standard 10-tags-you’re-neutralized-style that is currently possible.

  • Get_in_motion

    lazerswarm geenlung  That would be cool. Glad that 1) I play around our apartment complex and 2) I gave my laptop to my son. I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 = Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz in case you change your mind. I’m sure other would use Apple Mini iOS 6.1 or pare this with their phones for park/forest play. I assume connection/disconnection of USB would influence the programs sleep mode, and don’t really want to leave my stuff sitting around while I’m playing. Nice idea Geenlung.

  • Get_in_motion

    From a marketing perspective most Lazer tag guns that you use are being sold on eBay, have you thought out selling them there or Amazon Marketplace?

  • SaveChurchMoney

    How do you host a game with say 4 players on team one and 2 players on team two?  The software seems to auto-switch between teams and I see I can remove them and re-add them to a different team but is there a way just to choose which team to add the “next” tagger to?

  • SaveChurchMoney

    Also, i think a very cool feature which should be easily available to do in software is “handicap”.  Sometimes players are at different levels (a 8 year old VS a 19 year old) and it would be nice to have a handicap function for scoring — so lets say at the begining of the game we can click on that tagger spot and create a handicap (like +100points which would add 100 points to their end score or x3 which would x their score by 3)…  Is this possible for a next version as it seems like it would be a simple add on to just have the software do the math after the match and rank the players accordinly (if any had handicaps).  This could be done for teams as well,

  • scottf93

    SaveChurchMoney  Sounds like you are setting your taggers to solo and then joining. In this case, the host (whether Lazerswarm or a Lazer Tag tagger) will auto-assign to balance the team numbers. When joining the taggers to the system, set the tagger to the team you want: Team 1, Team 2, or Team 3. We have used the Lazerswarm on many occasions for games where the teams are far from balanced (3 vs. 8 for example). How you select the team depends on the tagger. For LTX, team is determined by where you move the on/off switch (solo, team 1, team 2). For LTAR, tap the reload lever until it says the team you want (Team 1, 2, 3, or solo) then press/hold the lever to join that team. For the older taggers, you select join and then use the up/down button to select your team and hit OK. Good luck and happy tagging! 🙂

  • scottf93

    SaveChurchMoney  I know this is on their development radar but I suspect it will require some work on the hosting interface (at least it would take me a while if I were coding it). For our club, one of our veterans big advantages is the ability to put a lot of tags on a target in just a few seconds. Unfortunately, it is often the newer players that may stand still trying to figure out what is happening while their “life” is draining away. For the moment, we have been using “Slow Tags” in hosted games where we have new players. This results in the taggers only being able to be tagged roughly every other second. This can help level the playing field and results in new players staying in the game a lot longer. We would use the ability to handicap the regular players or boost the abilities of certain players not only to level the field but also to help with hosting numerous other types of games. Our club has used slow tags in the Laser Swarm and it worked exactly as it should. 🙂

  • SaveChurchMoney

    scottf93
    Would handicapping take much coding?  For me, it would seem a simple equation before showing the scoring results.  I am talking about handicapping in scoring, not in “life”.

  • scottf93

    SaveChurchMoney scottf93 Oh, I got it now. FYI, I am not involved in the coding, just a satisfied user of the product. That said, I do have a programming background. Just making an educated guess, I would think there would still be a bit of work. Right now, the interface allows all taggers to join based on game parameters set before you start hosting the game. Where I would imagine there is a bit of programming to designate which taggers get special treatment and what that treatment is (whether just altering scoring for the tagger or editing its tag/shield attributes).

    It seems to me that there would have to be a screen similar to the join screen (currently shows 24 greyed out boxes that un-grey when a tagger joins to a particular slot). In your case, probably a check box. For me, probably a couple of text boxes.

    My programming background is a bit rusty so perhaps the effort to code such a feature is not as much as I think but there is also finding the time do work on it. 🙂

  • Riley McArdle Post author

    scottf93 SaveChurchMoney Not only does a new UI need to be made so that users can design new game types, but the existing UI needs to be reworked so that users have control of which taggers will be given which role. The backend needs to be be redesigned too to be able to keep track of all the settings and who gets which ones. The backend also needs to be redesigned to even be able to give different settings to different players.
    Finding the time to work on it is difficult right now. I’m in the middle of launching my own mobile laser tag party business.

  • scottf93

    lazerswarm scottf93 SaveChurchMoney  I figured it was worst case on the coding. Been there and done that. 🙁 I look forward to updates/rewrites as time permits. 🙂

    Mobile laser tag party business sounds exciting. Good luck!

  • RMA83

    scottf93 lazerswarmSaveChurchMoneyIt all depends on your own requirements. You could take the XML and run a script to rescore those you want to handicap, i.e. remove 10 points etc. But since there are so many dynamics there its probably best to do it yourself for now.

  • Wakketoeke

    Hi!
    Planning on playing some games soon, first time with the command center… Can anyone answer me this: Do you have to re-enter (and rename for that matter) all the players after every game played? Or is there a simple reset-option, where the scores remain but you can start a new game (of which the scores add up to the previous scores after that second game)?
    Pieter

  • Riley McArdle Post author

    Wakketoeke You can make player lists and use them from game to game or even session to session if you save them. When players join a game, you can drag their name from the player list to their tagger.

    Unfortunately, due to how the protocol works, there isn’t any way to identify taggers from one game to the next. So, you will have to assign names to taggers each game.

    Cumulative scores are not currently tracked, but that feature is definitely high on my list.

  • Riley McArdle Post author

    SaveChurchMoney Nope. I’ve just been busy with other stuff over the summer. A major update to the Lazer Swarm software is my project for this fall/winter.

  • scottf93

    Riley, two thumbs up on the latest update release!!! 🙂 We use the LazerSwarm yesterday with 18 players and bumped into the need for scroll bars. Thanks for the patch!!! 🙂

  • tyorob

    Hey, I’ve recently ordered one but a quick question. I have 24 LTARs. Is it possible to do 12v12 of still only 8v8, 8v8v8 and free for all 24 players?

  • Riley McArdle Post author

    tyorob 12v12 is not currently supported. The LTTO protocol only supports teams of up to 8 players. I am working on making the software more flexible so that I can work around this limitation, but it will take a while.