instead of making them drain 100e instantly when you shoot how about making them drain that energy over the time they arm so firing rails doesn't use up any energy but rearming them drains the required energy over the 1.6 seconds they take to reload.

while this kinda makes sense, I think from a game mechanics perspective, it might be more fitting to have them operate like a charge cannon, where the battery is drained while preparing to fire, immediately before firing.

OP's idea is awesome. I'd take this approach: a charged rail will fire when its port is fired (without draining energy) and then enter an uncharged state. In an uncharged state, when the rail's port is fired it will drain the battery for 130 energy at 30 energy per second or something like that before re-entering a charged, fireable state.

I think it would be a fun change to experiment with, and might make rails fun chase weapons.

no. you should not be able to fire four rails at once from a fast charge. say what you really mean and quit trying to be deceitful about it.

Interesting, but what about first shot?

Rails are magnetic "cannons", they use electricity as propellant, so, they require energy to shoot.

But one could add batteries or capacitors to store the energy. Batteries are not adequate, leaving the capacitors. Since they tend to lose charge relatively fast, the weapon could have a "loading time"...

Weapon displays BLUE/cold as unloaded. Pilot fires weapon once. Instead of shooting, it loads its capacitors, using all charge during (rate-of-fire)sec to fill 300 energy units. Then it appears red, and ready to shoot. If shot, auto-reload. For safety and quality it unloads the capacitors after 99s.

It results that it requires one 'shot' to 'load' rails. Once loaded, it shoots continuously at (RoF). If not shot again in 99s it discharges and require another reload time, what uses 300e.

It also results that grouping rails make them load slower, thus reducing their RoF.

About 4xRails, its grid should be 8 or 10. It requires lots of energy. Or the above implementation, that makes possible to use 4 of them, with reduced RoF.

no. you should not be able to fire four rails at once from a fast charge

Why no? The only ship with 4S ports is hornet. It would be fun chasing setup :}

-1 Sorry, Spidey. That seems to me like paying for the gas after you drive.

the idea is just that rails run on capacitors that recharge after shots because of the insane burst of energy the rails need to fire.

As I proposed above, shorter for impacients:
-Rails must "load capacitors" before each shoot. When shot, it auto-reloads.
-The more Rails you have, the slower they reload (when loading more than one gun at same time)

-1

Like Shedu said, this is paying for the gas after you drive it.

I could go for this idea if the cannon required charge prior to it's initial firing, and did not auto-reload after-wards (think Plasma Cannon from the old Colony Wars games). Charge it up with reduced energy draw for a longer charge overall and then let it fire, but nothing automatic.

Actually it would make sense for it to be precharged before you leave the station, just as how your ship starts with a full battery charge.

the point is that rails should need to drain the cell over 1.6 seconds for 100energy before the rail fires or fires again instead of instantly draining it.

Rails weigh in between 800kg and 1500kg its not nearly as effective as any blaster or rocket sunnies weigh less don't need energy and do almost as much damage as a Mk3 rail... Oh and that the're really hard to land at distances longer than 200m and drain half a battery per shot.

-1 (still)
To me... it still makes no sense (which may not be all that surprising. I need Ikea style instructions to chew gum) . You're firing, then using energy?

If you're going to suggest something along this line, then suggest a one-time or a rechargeable cap-bank that takes up a S-port and eats some grid (but do it in another thread, Alloh).

I'd think a 1500kg ADV Rail module would include capacitors, 'du. This makes a lot more sense and would lead to rails being a viable weapon for more than 'let's screw around for fun' duels and furball backstabbing.

Shedu and others, what I proposed is it NOT using energy -after- shooting, but *before*. One must "load capacitors"*before* shooting. It takes 1.6sec for a single gun, and takes longer for more rails. Loading drains the power cell.

And this energy is wasted/lost if gun is not shot. Few minutes after armed, it discharges. But when shot, it auto-reloads.

Instead of it auto reloading, I propose that if you hit the fire button without it being loaded, it then begins the loading process. It would be way cooler if you could chose when to reload then to have it automaticly drain your battery for 1.6 seconds

RL rail gun works:
* http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/11/navys-prototype-rail-gun-projectile-hits-mach-7-at-33-megajoule/

* http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/23/gauss-gp-219-electromagnetic-pistol-fires-steel-projectiles-sil/
features a bar display to track "capacitor bank charge progress"