Since I imagine a lot of people will be opening up new Lazer Tag Team Ops sets this Christmas morning, I thought I would say:

"Welcome to the world of Lazer Tag!" I'm glad you are joining us, and I am sure you will be very happy with the new system.

I have received a number of questions over the last 6 months or so regrding the way the system works, feedback about problems people have had with it, and so on. I'd like to address as many things as I can think of here, in case anyone is having problems. I'll use a "Question-and-Answer" format to keep it simple:

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1.
Q: I put the batteries in, but it doesn't do anything when I pull the trigger or press the buttons (or, there is just a meaningless display that does nothing). What's wrong with it?

A: Probably the processor chip has "locked up" from the intermittent contacting of the batteries when you first slid the tray in. This is very easy to fix, just press the little recessed "RESET" button in the middle of the 6-button keypad just below the LCD. A ball-point pen or unbent paperclip will work just fine for this.

Also, make sure the battery tray is ALL the way in before installing the battery door -- the bottom of the battery door has a little "hinge" feature that should be INSIDE the Tagger whe the screw is installed, as shown in the photos below:

Correct closure of the battery door:
http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/Deluxe_Battery_Door_--_Correct.jpg

Wrong closure of the battery door:
http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/Deluxe_Battery_Door_--_Wrong.jpg

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2.
Q: The instructions are too long. Isn't there just an easy way to play Lazer Tag with this thing?

A: You bet! The instructions are long because this new Lazer Tag does a LOT more than the old ones ever did -- so there is definitely a "learning curve" for getting used to the advanced features.

The good news is, you don't have to use any of them to just play a game of Classic Lazer Tag, or "LTAG" as I call it. Just do the following:
(1) Pull the trigger once to wake the Tagger up. It should make a power-up sound and display "LTAG" on the screen.
(2) Pull the trigger again to start a 10-second countdown ("T-9, T-8, T-7" etc. on the screen) with a beep every second. Take up your starting position during this countdown.
(3) When the countdown finishes, the tagger will say "Good Luck!" and you will be in a regular old Lazer Tag game, the kind where you are out when you take 10 hits, you have an infinite number of shots and unlimitted time, and the winner is the last player not tagged out. You can tell how many tags you have left until you are out by looking at the "TAGS" graph on the left side of the screen.

You will need to "reload" after every 10 tags fired -- this is easy, just pull back on the forward handle to reload. You can see how many shots you have left until you need to reload by looking at the "AMMO" graph on the right side of the screen.

If you hold the trigger down constantly or otherwise fire too many tags in too short of a time, the Tagger will "overheat" -- this is just a simulated overheat, there is nothing wrong with the Tagger. This is just done to keep players from "hosing down" the other players in the game with continuous tags.

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3.
Q: Do I need to wear the HUD in order to play?

A: No, it is optional. All of the conditions indicated by the lights in the HUD ("locked-on to an opponent", "scored a tag on an opponent", and "tagged by an opponent") also have unique sound effects, and in addition are displayed as icons along the top edge of the LCD.

If you just don't like the way the HUD feels, but want to have access to the indicators it contains, see question 13 below.

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4.
Q: The game is over but it won't turn off or start a new game. How do I make it shut off?

A: Press the "2ndF" and "CANCEL" buttons at the same time. I find the easiest technique is to press the "2ndF" button (center button on the right) with my thumb, and then roll my thumb up and over the "CANCEL" button.

You can also just press RESET as descibed in the answer to Question 1.

But also read the note at the end of the next question, regarding turning your Tagger off during Hosted games.

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5.
Q: What is this timer at the end of the game when it says "GAME OVER"?

A: That is an anti-cheat timer. It keeps running for a while after you are tagged out, so you can compare it against other players' timers -- if they have cheated by resetting their Tagger part-way through the game and restarting, their timer will show less time than yours.

Note that in LTAG games this timer counts up from 00:00 to 99:59, but in Hosted games, it counts down from the game duration to 00:00. If you are playing a Hosted game and are tagged-out before the game ends, do NOT turn your Tagger off until you have been debriefed by the Host Tgager and received your rank. Shutting down early will prevent your scores from being tallied and will mess everyone elses scores up too, so it is very rude to shut off you Tagger before the debriefing.

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6.
Q: I keep bumping the SIELDS button and turning on the shields by accident. How do I turn them back off?

A: Just press the SHIELDS button again to turn them off immediately. If you don't like to use shields at all, you can use them all up right at the start of a game so that then the SHIELDS button won't do anything but make a "buzz" sound when you hit it by accident. In the Hosted games, you can define games with no shields and it will work the same way -- the button will just buzz if you bump it accidentally.

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7.
Q: How come I sometimes get tagged right at the start of a game even though nobody tagged me?

A: Because I messed up. Please accept my appologies. There is a bug in the code in which, if you are tagged-out at the end of an LTAG game by a burst of rapid fire tags, it still remembers the first one to arrive AFTER THE ONE THAT TAGGED YOU OUT and saves it until the start of the next game. Then you get hit with that one.
The good news is, this is very easy to avoid: just press RESET before the start of each LTAG game, and it will clear out all remembered tags from the previous game.
Alternatively, you can start up an LTAG game, let the T-Minus countdon finish and the game begin, and take the "phantom hit" that was waiting. Now just turn the Tagger back off (see the answer to Question 4) and then restart it for a new game -- the old "phantom hit" will have been used up and you can play in peace, such as it were.
Finally, this problem ONLY affects LTAG games -- none of the hosted games are affected by this bug, they work just fine.

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8.
Q: How do I aim this thing? It doesn't seem to hit anything.

A: The sights are a bit unorthodox. There's a long story behind how they came to be on the left side of the Tagger instead of on the top, but I won't go into that right now...

Anyway, you get used to the side-sights pretty quickly with a bit of practice. Some players prefer to rotate the Tagger to the right and hold it "Gangsta Style" like in the movies, which does work pretty weell but you need to agree with the other players whether or not this will be allowed (because it blocks most of the tags coming from your left side when you do this).

Also, there is a sighting scope accessory coming out any day now -- the "Accessory Kit" will cost $14.95 and have an illuminated-dot type of scope (commonly called an "Aimpoint" or "Red-Dot" scope) and a "Thunder Pack" which vibrates a little bit when you fire and a whole lot when you get tagged. All future LTTO models have the sights along the top where they belong, by the way.

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9.
Q: It still doesn't hit anything. What am I doing wrong?

A: Make sure the Indoor/Outdoor switch is set to OUTDOOR for maximum tagging energy.

A: Also remember, just because you don't HEAR the "you hit them" sound, it doesn't mean you missed -- sometimes the other player pulls their Tagger out of your line of sight (or you move the point of aim of your own Tagger) before there was time for their Tagger to send the "you just hit me!" signal back to you. It will all be scored correctly at the end of the game, though, because each Tagger reports back how many times it GOT hit, not how many times it thinks it hit somebody else.

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10.
Q: I am hosting a game, and it takes too long for the game to start. Why does it take so long, and can I change this?

A: The Hosting Tagger waits for 60 seconds after the last succesful Joiner before it automatically starts the countdown. This is to allow time for you to explain how to join to new players and take them through the process. Once everyone has joined, you can force an immediate start to the T-Minus countdown by pressing "2ndF" and "OK" together on the Hosting Tagger.

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11.
Q: I am trying to host an OWNZ, 2TOZ, or 3TOZ game but it never starts the T-Minus countdown, it just says "ADD: 01" and counts down from 59 to 0, then says "NO GAME" and drops back out to the LTAG screen. What am I doing wrong?

A: The Zone games (OWNZ, 2TOZ, and 3TOZ) require a minimum of 3 Taggers. The first Tagger (the Host) becomes the Zone over which the players are competing, and a minimum of 2 more player Taggers are needed for the human players.

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12.
Q: We hosted a game, and somebody shut their Tagger off after they were tagged out (or bumped their Tagger too hard and made it reset), so now we can't debrief them. The Host is stuck waiting for them to be debriefed. What do we do?

A: Wait until it is definitely just them that the Host is looking for (the screen stays stuck on "FIND" and showing the missing player's Player ID), then press CANCEL to "boot" them from the game. Please note, as mentioned in the answer to question 5, that this will possibly mess up the scores for the remaining players so the individual ranks may be juggled around a bit if there is one player who tagged the missing player a disproportionate number of times.

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13.
Q: The HUD hurts too much to wear, but I WANT to use it. Can it be adjusted?

A: Yes, it is fairly simple to do. All you have to do is "cold-form" the plastic by bending it far enough at specific points that it will take a permanent "set" in a new shape. The plastic will discolor a bit, turning a sort of milky white color right at the spot where you bend it, but this will not hurt anything. Just take your time and do these bends GRADUALLY, stopping to check along the way that it is bent far enough but not too far. Beding it back after bending it too far may cause the plastic to fatigue (become weak) or snap.

In each of the pictures below, please take care to make sure you do not stress the optical section that sticks out on a bent post from the left side (same side as the over-the-ear speaker) -- if the optical part gets bent or broken, there is no easy way to fix it.

Bend the bridge OUTWARD, to make it flatter across your brow (this reduces the squeezing on your temples):
http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/Bending_HUD_--_Bridge.jpg

Bend the strap that goes over the left ear inwards, making the entire HUD a bit more round in shape (so you don't have to pull the strap so tight to keep it in place):
http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/Bending_HUD_--_Left.jpg

Bend the strap that goes over the right ear the same way, for the same reason:
http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/Bending_HUD_--_Right.jpg

For the more ambitious, check out the LINKS section of this ggroup and look up the mods that have been developed by the IndyLazerTagClub -- one of their people made a great modification to mount just the optical part of the HUD onto a ballcap!

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14.
Q: Are there any other models or accessories available?

A: A new model, called the IRT-2X (or "Drone") is coming out any day now. In addition, an "Accessory Kit" containing an aiming scope and a Thunder Pack (as mentioned in question 8) is also due out any day now.

More new models and accessories are scheduled to come out over the next several years -- probably 3 or 4 new items each year.

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15.
Q: Is this set compatible with Laser Challenge or any other gear?

A: No. There are a number of legal, technical, and business reasons why we could not do this.

For enthusiasts of "old-school Lazer Tag", the IRT-2X Drone model will be compatible with the Worlds Of Wonder ("WoW" for short) Lazer Tag equipment from the 1980's, and by extention all of the gear that is comapatible with WoW.
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16.
Q: My question wasn't answered here, where can I go for help?

A: There are lots of places to get help!

Hasbro's official Lazer Tag website can be found at:
http://www.lazertag.com

You can also join this Yahoo! group (don't worry, I don't spam) and post a question here -- you'll get an answer straight from the inventor!
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LazerTagTeamOps/

But the BEST thing you can do, is become part of the online Lazer Tag community.

I heartily recommend the Lazer Tactical Action Games Message Board:
http://www.lazer-tactical-action-game.com

And also, be sure to check out our LINKS page at the left, there are a number of good groups around the country, and we expect a whole lot more of them to spring up in the next few weeks!
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LazerTagTeamOps/links

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Thanks again for buying and using Lazer Tag Team Ops gear!

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year in 2005!

-- Brian Farley, a.k.a. TagFerret
Moderator, Yahoo! Lazer Tag Team Ops group