Padding & Protection

First of all, prepare to slide and shoot on your knees because in reality - it seems some bunkers are meant for midgets, so being tall doesn't really help you in paintball.  Definitely wear knee pads, elbow pads, shin guards, chest protector, bounce cap or paintball helmet, protective cup, and neck guard.  The protection with regards to protecting the extremities are for sliding protection and not being hit by paintballs.  Paintballs travel at 285 meters per second so it wouldn't help anyway, it's still going to hurt if you get hit up close.  The protective cup is to protects your future children and bounce cap or paintball helmet serves to lessen the impact of a head hit and also to lessen the impact of free flying paintballs making it bounce instead of splat; this will keep you in the game longer.  The neck guard is to protect your Adam's apple and also keep you from getting in trouble with your girlfriend/boyfriend.  When you get hit with a paintball in the neck, the bruise looks like a hickey!  Most newbies also get hit with bonus balls after initially getting killed, because paintball veterans feel a duty to instill respect in the veteran's skill.   In other words it's a type of hazing done at the paintball fields.  What this means is that most newbies like to cheat by wiping paint off instead of honorably getting off the fields, because they feel cheated having not stayed in the whole span of the game, however this only due to their inexperience and not their overall incompetence.  Instead of shooting once, most newbies pull the trigger an exorbitant number of times to hit their target; this leaves their target with 'bonus balls'.