Hit Zone Checker
is a diagnostic tool for Acacia laser tag systems, to find faulty hit locations on packs.
It is written and copyright by Doug Burbidge, 2008.

The software product and any user manuals are provided "as is" without 
warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not 
limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a 
particular purpose.

Hit Zone Checker looks through your database, at the tables that show 
how many times a pack got hit, and looks for games where a pack got hit 
zero times in a particular hit location over an entire game.

Run the app.  Type in the name of the PC that is running your Acacia 
database server, or just leave it as 'localhost' if that's this PC.  
If you like, change the 'Pack must have been hit at least' value.  
Games where the pack got hit less than this number of times (for 
example, because the pack did not play) will not be counted.  Click Go.

(By the way, Hit Zone Checker does a very intense set of queries on 
your database, so I don't recommend running it while a game is in 
progress.)

Hit Zone Checker can only check the games recorded in your database, so 
it's good to run it just before you purge games, not just after.

You will see a long list of games where a hit location was hit 0 times, 
followed by a set of totals over all counted games.  Let's start with 
this totals table.

If you see a pack that's been hit 1000 times in the chest, and 0 times 
in the back, you can be pretty sure that the pack just can't be hit in 
the back at all.  The fault could be in the back board, or in the 
wiring harness of the pack, or in the chest board, or in the plug-in.  
Similarly for faults in shoulders.

Note that a laser that can't be hit could be a bit harder to track down, 
as lasers can be moved from pack to pack relatively easily.

If you see a pack that's been hit 1000 times in the chest and 10 times 
in the back, this is a clue that perhaps there's an intermittent fault.

Now let's look at the top part of the report: the game-by-game results 
for each pack.  Lines look like:

Red  2: game   1 at 10/03/2008 7:20:32 PM: 42 hits on the whole pack, but no hits on the left shoulder.

A lot of lines about a particular hit location for a particular pack 
suggests that this pack is hard to hit in that location.  For example, 
if there are a lot of lines about Red 2's left shoulder, it could be 
worth a look.  Note that this can show intermittent problems that might 
be misses in the totals table: if a vest has an intermittent wire or 
socket, it could be hittable in the left shoulder all day today, but 
tomorrow the harness could be flexed differently and the left shoulder 
could become invulnerable.

On the other hand, just a few lines, particularly if they concern the 
right shoulder or the laser, may be of no concern.  Looking at some 
sample data, it looks like a pack gets hit 0 times in a location one 
game in 40 or so, purely at random.

User feedback is welcomed.  Send me email: dougburbidge@dougburbidge.com