With Paintball guns, are CO2 powered and compressed air powered the same thing?

There are a lot of guns that can use both but definatley are not the same. If you have a gun that shoots both and you use co2 first and then the compressed air (or HPA which stands for high pressure air) you will see that the co2 shots tend to go all directions while one with hpa will go straighter. But be careful in choosing a gun if yoy get a co2 tank because some of them ONLY run on HPA because with co2 (since it is cold) will freeze the internals of your gun and will cost quite a bit to fix. If you are starting i recommend going with a CO2/HPA gun and buying a co2 tank and then when you know you want to keep on playing the sport then upgrade to an HPA tank and then maybe an all HPA gun so it shoots even better. I wouldnt recommend using up so much money in your start because paintball will get pretty expensive so you have to be sure you like it before you start spending your money on it

Theyre notthe same. Paintball guns can shoot either with CO2 (carbon dioxide) or compressed air. CO2 cans are usually much cheaper. However, CO2 is often unreliable, youll get much fewer shots, and you have to pay to have the tanks filled. Compressed air containers are more expensive (compressed air is stored ata much higher pressure, therefore the tanks are more expensive), but much more reliable, and youll get alot more shots. You also dont need to pay for compressed air, but its a little bit harder to find some place to fill compressed air tanks. The compressed air tanks in my opinion are worth the extra cost, so if you have the money, invest it.