Tac-Ops Indoor Airsoft

[Matt]

6,000 square foot indoor facility.

5063 NE 122nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97220
Park Rose Plaza between Sandy & Airport Way

http://www.tac-opsairsoft.com/

[Steve]

This is a smaller venue. If you are looking for hardcore CQB action, it probably isn't the place for you. On the other hand, if you are looking for some fun recreational indoor airsoft, it's a pretty good little shop.

The players tend to be in the 13-17 year old range, and their dads. The rental guns are mostly G&G M-4's, with a few short JGs. Eyepro is full-face paintball masks, with mesh goggles. Games last about 7 minutes at a go, and on the weekends it's pretty busy. Plan on playing two to four games an hour, with a good bit of downtime between. Pricing structure is similar to laser tag, with the option to pay for a number of games or to pay for a block of time.

Gameplay is fairly standard. They run a mix of scenario games. Almost all games are semi-auto only. House chrono is a hard 350 FPS with 0.2s. House guns are pushing 320-330 FPS. The ranges are short enough that a 280 FPS gun stays very competitive. Field fees cover rental guns, masks, and ammo. Rental guns are set up with hicap mags. Training bangs are not generally allowed, nor are M-203s. The field is strictly non-bio, and if you are bringing your own gear, it's a good idea to bring ammo, since they don't always have it available for purchase.

The average skill level of the players is pretty low, which is to be expected from a crowd of mainly 15-year olds. Most games are semi-auto only. There is a pretty strict safety kill rule inside of 10-15 feet. You do see a good bit of hacking. However, they put two+ refs in the arena pretty much every game. I've had very good results quietly pointing out folks who don't call their hits to the refs, and they are very responsive as long as you aren't an a$$ about it. Most of the time, folks end up hanging out along the back walls shooting at each other from longish range across the arena.

The arena is mostly carpeted, which seems wonky at first. However, I've yet to lose traction or go skidding on a coating of pellets. And having a little bit of padding between concrete and my knees has been something of a godsend.

Lighting in the arena is fairly dim, and is a mix of colored lights. Basically, about 60% of daylight, shaded to reds and greens. Tracer units work remarkably well in the lower light.

The play field has two staging areas where players enter the field. The layout is very much not a traditional shoothouse layout. There are no rooms, or doorways / doors. Cover takes the form of wall segments, generally L-shaped wall sections. There are a number of pallet-sized wooden crates as well as some 4' fake trees. Again, not a place for hardcore CQB.

The owners and staff have been unfailingly friendly and polite. Haven't run into douchebag staff. The customer base tend to be fairly decent sorts as well. You get the occasional douche, but they are surprisingly rare. I'm pretty sure that a large part of why they are rare is because nobody takes the game too seriously, and "winning" isn't really stressed much. The staff put a lot more emphasis on having fun, and it seems to work pretty well.

I've only seen a handful of folks using their own gear or wearing cammies. Most of the customer base falls into the "jeans and hoodies" crowd. I usually show up a couple of times a month to unwind and get some non-competitive trigger time in. I typically play in street clothes (5.11's) and back it with a light chest panel, and haven't felt too out of place. However, I've seen other adults in cammies and full battle rattle, and they get some pretty weird looks from the parents in the lobby (like, "stranger danger" kind of looks). The atmosphere is more Chuck-E-Cheese than the typical AP crowd. I've seen a lot less in the way of ego and asshattery than I would have expected from an airsoft place.

What it's not (at least on the weekends):
A dedicated shoot house set up to handle serious CQB training.
A place to show up with a full stack, decked out in matching camo, running plate carriers, helmets, lights, and comms.
Someplace to rock low-caps. All the rental guns use hicaps.
A place to develop or practice real-world skills, or even serious airsoft skills.

What it is:
A decent place to get some recreational airsoft trigger time in.
A gateway to introduce your friends / siblings / cousins / significant others to the game in a more relaxed atmosphere.
A place to take the kids, where the atmosphere is definitely more family-friendly than the typical airsoft skirmish.

The target demographic is definitely the younger set, and the facility caters toward them. It's been a great place to get some relaxing "shoot some fewls" time in when I need to decompress from school. It's definitely not a serious, competitive environment, which (strangely enough) brought back a lot of the "fun" that I used to get playing airsoft with friends, before we started treating airsoft CQB as training time for real-steel CQB. I've even been able to drag some of the guys I used to run with that burned out on airsoft back into the fold.

[Snipesava]

They've started a "Pro Night" (which I myself regularly attend since I live close), where most of the serious players show up, and we run different game types (that you can with the small environment) on full auto. So if you're looking for more serious action with the older crowd, show up Sundays 6p-8p, bring $10, a gun and bbs (or buy a bag there).
It's a small business and the staff is pretty friendly and pretty much will let us run our own games on these nights while they clean up and such. So if you live in the area you should stop buy on these nights.

[$tealth]

I went to Tac-Ops' Homeschool night last night. Only 4 others showed up, I don't know if they were regulars or not, a couple of them seemed like they'd been there before. I can't say anything about the regular crowd, but the ones that showed up looked like they were between 13-15, and one kid who looked like he was 10-11. I felt like the only "serious" player there, but as I said, it wasn't the regular crowd. I wore a light jacket and jeans, my chest rig, face hugger, and drop leg holster. I also brought my own gun and mags. I didn't feel too out of place. 3 of the others had on most of a set of cammies.

The one staff member who was there was very friendly.

The scenarios they had were fun, even with the small space. The way they had it setup, it didn't feel quite as small as I thought it would. However, It felt like if there were more than 5 people on each team it would get very crowded very fast. I also liked how they had the spawns setup, they had 2 different entryways into the arena from the lobby, each leading to each teams spawn.

At first I thought I would have a hard time with the safety kill rule, simply because it is very controversial and some people don't obey it all the time. But since it was required and not optional, and they clearly stated it as such, it was easier to deal with because everyone knew that it was required and that you would be dismissed from the arena without a refund if you disobeyed it (at least that's what they told me).

Overall I had a fun time and would rate it a 7/10, simply because it's so small. I would probably go again, if it wasn't very busy. It's about the same driving time as it is to the OAA from my house, so it's not particularly far away.