Super Soaker Central

• Subject Type: Battle Concept
• Subject Level: 2 [Fairly Basic]
• Degree of Complexity: 1 [Very Simple]
• Recommended Progression Levels:
• NP: Firepower, Progressive, Hardcore [All]
• PP: Standard, Advanced, Hardcore [All]
• Recommended Game Type Families: OHK, OHS, OSF, FFA [All]
• Recommended Battlefield Types: Natural, Semi-Natural, Suburban, Urban [All]

Tap-Pump is a method of tap shooting. It is incredibly easy to learn, yet is relatively unknown on the field of battle. Tap_pump can be useful in all water wars, even soakfests. What if you could go a whole war without ever running out of pressure, AND last over an hour without refilling? With the Tap-Pump strategy, you can, very easily.

Tap Shooting

Tap shooting is really simple. All you do is "tap" the trigger [or quickly flip the ball valve on a homemade] briefly when you want to fire. This sends a very short stream, saving you water and using very little pressure.

Tap Shooting in one hit games.

In OHK/OHS, you want to achieve kills with as little water as necessary. Sending a full pc worth of water in one shot is such a waste. You'll only get 2-6 shots like that in any manufactured water gun [and still not very many in a homemade with even a huge backpack]. However, tap shooting may give you over 15 taps to every full pc. You could have over 75 such shots, depending on the gun, each one just large enough to score a kill/point.

Tap Shooting in a Soakfest

If you tap shoot in a soakfest, you can work around problems like having a weaker gun with less output. If an enemy unloads a 10x stream on you for 4 seconds, they will have to pump back up. Meanwhile, you can tap shoot at them without fear of retaliation. Plain tap shooting doesn't work that well in a soakfest, but tap-pumping can work wonders.

Tap-Pump

Tap/Pump combines tap shots with pumping so that you constantly remain at or near full pressure and constantly have a full or near full pc. What you do is take a tap shot, then pump a few times [like 1-3], take a tap shot, pump 1-3 times, take a tap shot, pump 1-3 times, etc. Depending on the gun, you can fire 2 or 3 more tap shots in a row before the pump back up, but no more than 4 if you want to keep the amount of pumps very low. If you remember to take the quick pumps between each shot, your gun will stay at full pressure every time you need to shoot! The few pumps take so little time that it is as if you didn't take them, especially with the 1 shot, 1-3 pumps ratio. On my CPS 2500, I Tap-Pump at a 1:1 ratio, which makes it totally impossible to wait for me to run out of pressure. The next shot is ready with full pressure in the blink of an eye. There's time to take the pumps even if you are being rushed. Usually only seasoned veterans employ Tap-Pump, but once you know how, anyone can. It can be useful to all players of all experience levels.

Tap-Pumping in a Soakfest

You might say it is pointless to use this method in a soakfest. However, it can be smart in the right situations. If an enemy likes shooting an entire pc of water in one shot, they must spend time pumping all the way back up. Say they are using a CPS 2500. That will drain all of their water in 4-6 shots. If you tap-pump, you'd be able to shoot the enemy constantly until your entire reservoir is empty. Ultimately, the enemy ends up more soaked than yourself, since you can outlast them and soak them while they pump. Full pc shots often empty a gun in less than 5 minutes. Tap-pumping might not empty a gun after 20 minutes.

The Concept of "Reservoir Shot Time"

Reservoir shot time is not a true measurement. This stat tells you how long your reservoir "lasts" and is the number of taps the gun can shoot. If reservoir shot time is 120 taps, then the gun will "last" for 120 individual tap shots. This can never be a time measurement, as the time it takes to use those shots varies. A player can go an entire war without refilling if they just tap shoot. The amount of fighting in that war affects how long the reservoir will last—the more fighting, the more shots are usually taken and the quicker it goes.