The railgun is an interesting addition to a universe dominated by neutron blasters. I think it'd be a lot of fun if there more guns like it (ie. high speed with little or no auto-aim). A Railgun Mk. 2 that travels a little slower, but has a 2 degree auto-aim arc to be a bit more accurate. A large railgun that fits in a large weapon port that deals more damage and travels faster with far greater weight penalties. A rapid fire railgun that deals half the damage at twice the firing rate. Things like that to add some spice to the mix.

In addition, some area effect energy weapons might be fun. A pulse gun that you charge and it blasts an expanding energy wave (or wall) that dissipates as it travels away from the ship that fired it (of course, such a gun would not have auto-aim). The small versions only shoots a weak, narrow blast. Low level large versions shoot a larger, more powerful blast. High level large versions shoot a powerful, extremely short lived blast that radiates in all directions. Things like that that large ships can use to combat smaller, faster ships. The main reason why I'm suggesting these is because while I want to be able to shoot ships who use macros to barrel roll faster than they should, throwing off the auto aim. An area effect gun that could hit these elusive targets would be fun, but they'd be greatly limited in range (the narrow gun can shoot 300m, the wider gun shoots maybe 200m, and the 360 blast only 100m or something).

I want a solenoid cannon. Large, heavy, super-slow fire rate, kills almost anything in one shot, no auto-aim, eats 200 energy per shot and has uber-high velocity.

Pidgeon: I agree that there is _alot_ of room for new 'sniping' weapons of various sorts.

I also agree that some short range weapons which can punish mindless barrel rolling are also in order.

In fact, I'm trying to compile a list of 100 or so weapon suggestions. Some of your suggestions - like the area of effect energy weapon - are already on the list. Some of the others I might can be talked into, so first let me give my criticism of some of your design.

1) "Railgun with better auto-aim": Most of the time, this wouldn't be all that helpful. I think railguns already break the autoaim to a certain degree because the lead on the target needs to be less than suggested in order to hit. I don't know if the autoaim actually compensates for the extreme speed of the railgun. In any event, I've gotten in the habit of keeping my autoaim turned off. Because certain tactics like barrel rolling throw it off entirely, I've decided that its a crutch much like 'arcade mode' and that I best learn to aim without it - especially with a slow cycling weapon like a rail.

My preference is that better versions of the rail be more energy efficient.

2) "Heavy Slot Railgun": Absolutely. But it doesn't need to be all that heavier than a regular rail. I think large slot weapons need to be strictly superior to small slot weapons.

Another large slot railgun variation that would be cute would be a 'charged railgun' that combine the properties of a railgun with a charged cannon. Giving a large slot railgun a harsh limitation like charging would let you do something not far from Chao's solenoid uber-cannon (solenoid? solenoid?).

3) "rapid fire railgun": I have problems with ammo consuming weapons that are going to need 120 or so ammo before they become really interesting. Rapid fire is almost the opposite of careful aiming. Rapid fire is a means of compensating for inaccuracy. I really like the rails 'pure' design as a weapon. I've got some different ideas for ammo consuming weapons with moderate cycle rates.

solenoid cannon? The only problem that I have is with the name: solenoids don't actually fire anything. They push or pull a rod through a set of coils. Like a gauss gun, just with less power necessary.

i would love a super long distance very very fast rail gun like weapon for large ports

imagine sitting in a rag and pecking away at a valk from 2000m through the zoom view, sure the valk would be able to escape easily but valk players are arrogant and would surely try to come near you as you continue to wear them down from a distance!

Charged railguns would need some exterior-visible effect to indicate the ship in question was charging... I can just see someone working out a wonderful new way to grief by loading up some ship with these, then charging them up all the way and just hanging around waiting for someone to get near enough they can unload multiple high velocity rounds of flaming death into their hull.

soltis: it could be like the alternate fire on the rocket launcher in UT2004, as soon as it's charged, it's fired, so in effect, you can release to fire anytime before it's fully charged, but as soon as it's charged it fires automatically

Or it would work like the charged cannon, where it constantly drains energy until you run out.

Starfisher: at which point it automatically fires.

"soltis: it could be like the alternate fire on the rocket launcher in UT2004, as soon as it's charged, it's fired, so in effect, you can release to fire anytime before it's fully charged, but as soon as it's charged it fires automatically"

Terrible idea.

It would make the weapon near useless, since it's very difficult(or impossible) for most people to maintain a bead on a moving target for more than a second or two(especially against a human pilot), and if the chargeup time is more than a few seconds, it would be extremely frustrating to use if you missed because you had to evade a rocket volley right as the weapon fired. Besides, it's not a logical thing to impliment, which ruins immersion.

Starfisher: it does not charge forever; the charge cannon we have now actually stops draining once it reaches max charge.

Solenoid (or coil) gun:
http://www.powerlabs.org/multistagecg.htm