Hi, i do seriously like the style of this gun but using it basically means i am cutting down on my efficiency.
I think it could do with a little tweak, as it is a knife fighter weapon and therefore at best in ranges where other weapons put out massive dps it should be able to be on equal footing.
I belive buffing its “recharge rate” to fire the 3 shot load* and tighten the spread a little could do the trick.
*id say double the speed it takes for each charge. basically reducing the time it takes to fire a burst by 2/3.
*edit*
It could also do with a new name, rapid fire is vastly misleading.
It has it uses, but if i need the machete-ae(onyl ship with railgun spreaddecrese) and 2 of those spreadreduce+the implant to make its accuracy anything to be remotely close to usefull in a real fight.
No thanks.
I love the idea of a “space shotgun” but its abysimal in any real combat situation.
It is the best close range weapon. I’m using it constantly on my interceptors and fighters. High alpha strike is more valuable than sustained dps. However, sustained dps is good too.
Sure it is a good close range weapon, but the amounts of time its power was of use to the amounts of times i a saw full load on beforementioned loadout fly straight AROUND a target do not weigh it up…
*edit*
Another “buff” could be that spread is based upon the amount of shots loaded, less shots equal more accuracy, making it a viable dogfighter choice.
I do agree, it does need a bit more love. As it is now, it is not rapid enough for use as a pursuit gun, and it charges up too slowly for the shotgun effect. One possible suggestion is the ROF affecting the shotgun charge time. From what I can see now, ROF doesn’t reduce the shotgun reload time, making the heatsink mod slightly useless.
The spread isn’t very bad, The weapon works for tech 2 and 3 but it would be nice if instead of a charge, just make it so that the spread increases the longer you fire. Slow RoF is fine by me, but waiting for a charge can be annoying. I like the weapon myself but its just sluggish to be honest.
Railguns aren’t particularly great right now. Probably the weakest of the weapons.
Biggest problem for them is simply hitting. Projectiles move far too slow, to be effective, particularly when mounted on frigates. You can’t effectively track and lead smaller ships with frigate railguns - part of the reason everyone flying a frigate mounts lasers instead. Solid dependable damage is better than maybe some damage.
I fly an Alligator-M with T2MIIMil Rapids on it. The only reason it even works decently for me is because the frigate mounts six of those things, so I can suppress any small inty’s that decide they want to get personal. But even then, it’s a crap-shoot if I miss on my opening salvo.
IMHO the projectile speed need to be increased, the spread needs to be decreased, and the range needs to be increased. I don’t mind the reload too much, unless I’m fighting something that takes more than two shots to kill. Like another frigate.
All Railguns are shlt right now, there is always a better weapon choice out of Plasmas or Lasers for every use.
Only way to get an even remotely useful Railgun is to spam crit chance with the crit damage implant at T3/T4 but even then it will be utter crap at shooting anything with shields.
there is always a better weapon choice out of Plasmas or Lasers for every use.
This is the main problem. Rails have better projectile speed than plasma, but not as good as lasers, so if precision is your thing, you pick lasers. Rails have better dps than lasers but not as good as plasma, so if you want to pour out dps you pick plasma. At the moment rails are middle-of-the-road, and players tend to go for the weapon that min-maxes their playstyle, which is never rails.
What they really need is unique selling points that differentiate them from plasma. The “RF” railgun is the most unique of the railguns, in that it fires a shotgun blast, which is totally different to the short range plasma and laser weapons, but unfortunately because it’s underpowered in general it’s the one that gets most flak. Personally I think the last thing it needs is to be turned in to a kinetic clone of RF plasma (because then why would you use it instead of RF plasma?). I’d embrace the space shotgun ethos and make it fire the full charge up effect instantly on click (because delayed firing in a dogfight is a problem because things change fast), reduce the fire rate and balance the damage to compensate.
Though, if nothing else reduce the recoil because not being able to hit a dreadnought at 500m after the 3rd volley isn’t very useful. Oh, and rename it.
It needs a large burst of pellets. Given the low rate of fire, extremely short range and lower damage, it needs to fire out a much larger spray of pellets to be equal to Hail plasma or pulse lasers.
Both of those are continuous fire, and plasma has the added benefit of having em/ke damage, while lasers are instant hit. For the rail guns to compete, they need faster pellets and more of them.
How about its capable of 4-6 quick bursts but after that it has a ‘reload’ time. Seems like it would do amazing alpha damage initially but kind of sputter out. On frigs the number of bursts would be less since they can mount 4x or 6x weapon modules.
Like Interceptors can do 6-8 quick bursts before reload
Fighers 4-6
Frigs 2-4
Not sure if this is preferable but that was my thought. . .
I didn’t like RF Railgun at all but maybe all rail weapons should fire a main projectile (most ‘true’ to aim point) and smaller projectiles that spread like in a shotgun pattern that does secondary (and less) damage. And change it from long reload type to a ‘magazine reload’ type gun where you could spam 4-6 projectiles at a reasonable RoF then have a longer ‘reload’ time. This would make all railguns as a somewhat unique weapon rather than being similar in behavior to plasma.
They are definitely on a knife edge to be worth switching to Plasma.
The only reason I use them on one of my two Fighters is that with the meta game favouring EM its often the shields that are down and the hull needs finishing off which they do very well.
I’ve tried Rapid, even with all the spread reduction and projectile speed modules/implants…they just weren’t competing with an Interceptor with Plasma. I actually had a better time using Scatter Lasers with the spread reduction mods.
I’d really like to be able to use Rapid Rails in a close-up Interceptor knife fight. It seems like where it should be.
Plasma is too good right now. While it has the slowest projectile speed, at close range it isn’t an issue and it has much higher DPS then any other group. They really need to change it’s alt damage type from KE to Thermal. Lasers should have the option to deal KE, EM or Thermal, but continue to have the lowest DPS since they autohit.
Railguns need more pellets at close range, and an overall increase in projectile velocity. That way you have the following breakdown:
Railguns: High spike damage, medium accuracy, better against hulls.
Plasma: Constant damage, low accuracy, better against shields.
Laser: Low damage, high accuracy, average against all types.
A laser equipped ship would be able to pick the most effective damage type, but would lose the 5-6% damage buff for the ability. Given the resistances would vary about 15%-30% across different types, it would be a good trade for the attacker to use lasers. This would have to be compensated by lower overall DPS, since the laser ship would never be at a resist disadvantage and has an easier time hitting an opponent.
I dont even get why its called rapid fire. I remember a while ago i was very excited cause I though rails were so cool and rapid rails would be amazing but when i entered a match with them I was disgusted. Rapid fire means shoot fast, not worthless shotty. I would be so happy if they nerfed the dps but amde it as rapid as rapid fire plasmas.
I dont even get why its called rapid fire. I remember a while ago i was very excited cause I though rails were so cool and rapid rails would be amazing but when i entered a match with them I was disgusted. Rapid fire means shoot fast, not worthless shotty. I would be so happy if they nerfed the dps but amde it as rapid as rapid fire plasmas.
I dunno about nerfing the DPS to help make it more viable, the DPS of that thing stinks to high heaven as it is, if I gotta perfect aim every shot to make it worth while then screw this noise, I’ll pick up the rapid fire plasma, EM to Kinetic is a better damage change than thermal to kinetic.
