right now, it seems the rail gun is silly to use. It only does slightly more damage than the gauss2, but it has NO auto targeting, it uses up big sums of energy, weighs alot, and has limited ammo.

I have some suggestions for making the rail more useable.

Either leave the stats as they are and increase their velocity to about 600-800m/s (I prefer this)

-or-

Increase the damage a tad, and give us a leading target reticle, as if you had a normal auto-targeting gun, with auto-aim OFF. That way there's still no auto-targeting, but there would be at least some kind of a guide to follow.

I've tried giving railguns a chance, and they're really just not a viable option. sure they have massive velocity and range, but in order to actually HIT something at that range win no auto-targeting, you have to get as close as one might go to land hits with an N3. so why not use an n3? I've had some success with a rail, but by the time i've nearly killed my target, i'm out of ammo... :\ very frustrating.

I just want the rail to be a better part of the game, sniper guns should always be an option in a game like this.

> and give us a leading target reticle, as if you had a normal
> auto-targeting gun,
It already does have a lead indicator, unless you'd like to tell the countless that died at the hands of my RailII EC-88 otherwise...
> I've had some success with a rail, but by the time i've nearly
> killed my target, i'm out of ammo...
Indeed, I know the feeling.
/me looks at Bryce Coulson...
-:sigma.SB

then I need to post a bug... because there's no target reticle for my rails...

I think rails are pretty fine... Maybe it could use 5 or so less energy used, or maybe more ammo, but since I only use rails as secondaries, I rarely have ammo problems. Rails have pathetic dps that if the target wants to run at 30%, they probably can get away.

"Either leave the stats as they are and increase their velocity to about 600-800m/s"

Bad idea. We don't want it to be impossible for players to dodge this. I say give us not "5 or so less energy used" but 20 or so. And increase the rail gun III to 450 speed. 1700 damage.

If not that then please SOMETHING. . . . but not mass, mass is fine.

/givemoney Devs 2c

The Railgun does have a lead indicator. Youd should check your weapons loadout. What other guns did you have at the time? The lead indicator is based on whichever gun you have in your Primary Weapon group, so if your primary was a Neut or other gun with much lower velocity, the leadoff indicator will be useless.

Good point greengeek. It'd be cool to have a different colored indicator in that case.

for the difficulty present in aiming them, their weight, and their massive energy consumption, I think that the energy need to be raised signifigantly, otherwise your paying 50 energy and losing damage for speed, which isn't a fair trade IMHO, the rail gun should be a hard to aim, all skill weapon with devestating power if you fail to dodge, you should be able to rip apart smaller ships in very few hits (6-8)(3-4 successful double barrel hits is pretty hard when you have 3 N3's bearing down on you). I was dueling a dual rail rev c once, and was scared out of my wits, until he landed his first hit, and I saw that the rails did virtually nothing to my rag, then I knew that I was going to win, even though it was only my second duel.

I think if anything, the change to Railguns should be the use of ammunition. It's a liability that makes it less than worth it. For less of a headache I could by rockets or missiles (fire and forget!) and not have to worry about a targeting reticle screwing me over. Either drop the energy consumption or eliminate the use of ammo (or increase the maximum ammo capacity).

I still find them ineffective compared to their difficulty, if you get a sucessful swarm hit, your oponent takes huge damage, double swarm, massive dammage, nearly crippling. I use my rag often with a missle boat loadout, not usualy a spammer, (there have been a few times where my opponent was skilled enough to get me to waste my ammo) but usually a calculated blow, wait till my opponent is right where I need him/her to be, and then reder a single devestating barrage upon him/her, if a light ship screwed up twice, the duel was over, 6 gemini and 16 chaos swarm is just too much to handle, but only well timed well placed shots will do anything, and the same should be true of the rail, as that is really the type of player that usues it, a player who is counting on well placed shots, that usualy use almost all of their energy, and require that their aim be spot on, sucessfully completing that task should render massive damage, if missles can render damage like that, rails should too because missles are more accurate, and more dangerous that rails, and require less energy, clearly the rail gun, being the pinacle of what it is to be a skilled fighter pilot, should be a powerhouse to make it worth the efort.

the rail gun need to be more than a space age spit ball.

I think the rails are fine... 1400 damage is nothing to bat an eye at, particularly if you have three rails lined up.

Increasing the speed to 600-800 m/s is a *bad idea*... the lessons of the past teach us that small changes are better than radical changes. How would boosting the rail's speed by 50-100% make it more of a "skill" based weapon?

If anything I could see increasing the ammo *slightly* (to 35 shots or so) or decreasing the rail's mass *slightly*.

rails do the same damage as many regular blasters, except the blasters have much higher rates of fire adn much less energy consumption, I still hold that rails are underpowered. again, little more that a spitball. 3 n3s scare me a whole lot more than 3 rails, rails shoot 1 time ever 10 seconds in a dogfight, you get 3-4 n3 shots per second. and they never run out.

I can't think of any other s-port blaster that does 1400 damage.... unless you mean damage per second but that's not necessarily a good thing to rate a blaster's effectiveness on, for two reasons:

1) You have to take into consideration the "first strike" effect. Often times an opponent which you haven't engaged will not be paying attention, giving you one free shot. 3x1400 is a much better first strike than 3x600.

2) When you're in a dogfight, dps would be a good measure of effectiveness if every one of your shots hit. However, you're more likely to score a single hit once every 20-30 seconds or so. A good pilot can avoid random blaster spray, so dps actually doesn't mean as much as you might think in PvP. A fast, well aimed shot on the other hand is far more likely to score a hit. Combine the railgun's 400 m/s velocity with its 1400 damage, and you have a killer PvP weapon. It's only two drawbacks are that it's heavy, and tends to run out of ammo.

who cares about small or large port, the devestator for the large port does 1600. 200 more than the rail, at half the energy with no ammo restriction and "good" auto targeting. more damage, less energy, not only with auto targeting, but with good auto targeting, an no limit on ammo, you can just hose down your target with this thing, with very little aiming. all the rail offers is speed, and i don't think its enough

I will gladly take on any plasma dev ship you want in a dual rail vult and you may see what I mean.

@ Dark_Pheonix: Yeah that weapon setup is good vs bots but not good against agile ships since the velocity isnt nearly as good.

Besides the only ship with a large port that can really dodge the rail cannon is the Warthog. If you miss any other large port ships then you need to aim better.

THe Devastator is just to easy to dodge to be worthwhile especially over somehtign like the Gat Turret.

I dont think that the railgin needs any beefing considering it is a small port weapon that has a high damage rate and moves fast and even has a high range. I dont see how anyone can say to make it better. I mean if the rail cannon is being made better then what would the large weapons get for improvement. I think that the Gat cannon could use more damage too if the Rail is getting a boost ;)

Dark Phoenix, that was me (Alamar) you met, right? well, no offence, but I really sucked that time. I want revenge. :-)

I've taken down two loaded rags with rails, both with some ease. you used your swarms well, but I should never get hit by them, really.

anyway, my suggestions towards the rail stand. we need HVL Rails, High Velocity Lightweight Rails:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9256

my original suggestion was:

Damage: 600
Velocity: 550m/s
Autoaim: just like the rail
Shot size: just like the rail, maybe even smaller
Reload time: 1.3s
Ammo: 45
Energy: 55
Weight: 600

the general consensus seemed to be that 550 was too much, I'm not quite sure, but maybe. you'll have to hit more often with this weapon since you have half the damage but only 50% more ammo. it's not an amazing first strike weapon, but it can become quite a dueling weapon.

the original railgun is pretty good if you've got the mojo when you're playing. trust me, I have probably used it with the current ships more than most. it is however extremly difficult to use well, and if you're just a little bit off (or your foe has a wee bit lag) you're not going to make it happen.

the railgun isn't a weapon for large combats, it isn't a weapon for people who doubt their cool under fire, it isn't a weapon that forgives _anything_ you fsck up.

it is however, by far, the weapon I love to use. because it's all up to you to make it happen with the shots you have.

that being said, you can't (with 99.99% certainty) win against a few layouts and pilots with rails. this however isn't a weakness of the rails themselves, it is usually a testament to the pilots
in question -- apart from one case, which UncleDave worked his way through very well.

it is scary though, I have sunk both Vultures and recently a Rev C with my rails. the Rev C pilot wasn't very good (but damn is he learning fast), but hitting his drifting Rev C at 920 meters was quite a trip. people who don't know me usually make that mistake, at 850+ meters they think they're safe to think for a few. you're not, you have 2.3 seconds at 920 meters. *blipp*

oh, and http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9241 might be interesting. :-)

My biggest complaint against the railguns, is their energy requirements basically makes it so they have a 2 second delay per rail - if you have 2 railguns mounted, you're going to have to wait 4 seconds before you can shoot again. And if you're trying to use a quad-rail Hornet, you need either a medium or heavy battery, so you've got about 9 or 10 seconds of thumb twiddling before you can fire another full volley.

So, what I'd like to see, is say a railgun that has its own built-in capacitor to provide its energy requirements. It would have a higher delay (I'm thinking somewhere around 5 seconds), but a lower energy drain (say 50), so you could mount 4 in a Hornet effectively. Probably also bump the mass for this railgun up to 1100kg, and drop its damage to 850 or so.

Never use rails alone.
One of the most commonly hated layouts (because it works sometimes) is LMine or Prox and 2 rails on a SCP. People usually have to stop to shoot mines =). But if the other person aims just as good as you do, I'd bet energy weapons would win.