"limited amount of ammo" .. erm.
I suggest dropping the rails weight to match that of the sunflares.
I also suggest that the rails make up for their 100% damage and 8x base speed of the sunflares by having 1/3d of the sunflares ammo.

Or perhaps that should be 1/8th ? ;)

Um. Rails need no nerfing. They are a skill-dependant weapon already.

Actually, if they are reduced in energy consumption, they -do- need further drops, and I think ammo would be a splendid choice.

And are you really opposed to having the rails and the flares at the same base weight? In this case, that probably means dropping flares down to railmkII weight, or so.

I never complained about weight reductions... But I doubt that rails need an energy usage reduction. They're nice as they are.

I'm with roguelazer on this one... leave the rails alone.

leaving the rails as they are it is wholly unlikely they will get used, thats fairly evident but the almost total lack of rails in combat except by a very few pilots.

start with the weightreduction, and then look again in a week.

small steps guys, remember all the nerfs and overpowered balancing that occured otherwise.

cheers

~150kg weight reduction, or 50~100 damage boost, but nothing major. It's great as a support weapon, or even primary if you have another player helping you.

It doesnt need a damage boost, it needs an energy reduction, the weight is not the problem, its the fact that if you choose to use rails, you also choose to basically immobilize yourself if you wish to attack.

Tramshed: rails have always been a defensive weapon. Traditionally they are used by someone who backpedals away, forcing the enemy to boost to get in close - when the enemy boosts, you have a straight line to rail them.

They're not supposed to be attack weapons. That SHOULD be the role of sunflares and company. Rockets are dedicated attack weapons that allow for boosting and shooting at the same time, energy weapons are multi-purpose and rails are defense. You can't have everything do everything, or one weapon will emerge as the only good one and then the game sucks.

Or rails are used as the last 2 hits when someone runs from an energy battle (plus several hits while in the battle if the fight becomes long ranged).
If they're going to get anything more than 5 energy reduction, they should either get their damage and/or ammo reduced. However I wouldn't be against an energy reduction of 5, that could be tested.

I still think it a good way to measure effectiveness of weapons is to check if the weapon is being used at all. I haven't seen players using rails in a long time. If they are to be a complementary weapon, it should be way lighter. If they are to be the main weapon, they should be more powerful.

I use rails all the time in PvP. No one uses rails to bot because they are an ammo based weapon, and you run out of ammo very quickly.