So I’m probably completely wrong, but I’ve been playing both the assault railgun and the Gauss Cannon almost exlusively over the past day on my Achilles, trying to figure out which of the two weapons is better for my Achilles build…
Anyways, it seems to me like the Gauss Cannon is able to output more damage than the Assault Railgun once you get accustomed to it. I’ve gotten quite good with the Gauss Cannon and can almost equal the railgun in RoF for a few seconds (just from getting used to the weapon, not talking about engine overdrive or RoF mods like iridum heatsinks making RoF better).
Anyways, thoughts? I’ve been messing around and done a RoF build on Achilles (vandilum shells + 2x iridum heatsinks) the damage output on the Gauss is pretty incredible.
if you can connect all shots, and keep in mind that crits are a roll per shot, they look better on paper tho as a rof weapon
might be nice to unlock some burst fire playstyle with it
gauss is imho better, as you say, it is just more rounded, you feel like you need some effort to be good with it, but it delivers - still more for high alpha builds imho
i even use gauss on my tharga (and i find with that weapon it almost feels like a nicely balanced ship)
Gauss is fine on paper, unfortunately, if you get used to it, or rather get used to double shot mechanic of it, It easily beat any other weapon at the mid-long range available to Fighters.
I personally don’t think the double shot was intended to work this way, but it comes from a mix of gauss mechanics - crit+base dmg accumulation sprinkled with charge accumulation and fire rate.
If you can continuously shoot with double shots, you will out-dps the Assault railgun, even though on papers Rails have ~40% more DPS. When you do a double shot, you practically get a free shot without spending time on it.
The double shot is happening when you get double charge shot and then shoot quickly (there is like 100-200 ms window, based on how long you were charging initial shot). so you get this 2+1 action
2+1 shot takes 20-30% less time than a Full 3x charge shot by a gauss ->> huge increase in DPS
2+1 shot, with the right gear (crit/crit dmg values) will do, on average, more total dmg than a 3x charged shot.
So you ended up with higher DPS than an Assault rails while maintaining all the benefits of a gauss - higher range, higher projectile speed, alfa dmg.
Example how the double shot looks:
If not for this (imho exploit), I’d say both guns a great and fit well together