In comparison with other missiles, I find that railgun is little overpower in the following aspects.

 

1. DPS. Railgun hit causes instant damage while the missile have to travel to target before doing any damage. Missile also has cooldown while railgun can be charged right away after it is fired so missile dps is far behind the railgun dps.

 

2. Actual hit chance. While railgun has accuracy and missile does't have it, Railgun target has no warning indication that he is being target by railgun. The only railgun warning I note is the glowing light when railgun charged up which I only noted it at 10000m or lower. For missile, we have the warning sound and the evasive maneuver. If you couldn't break the missile lock, you could boost out of missile max range even when they are fired. This is an obvious case for slow travelling missile.

 

3. Railgun has the base 3 second charge time which is equal to most of the missile, However, the damage and range of railgun is much better than missile. For example, the slug railgun damage 1600 at 15000m while the concussion missile deal roughly 1000 at 7000m.

 

4. Ammunition. Missile has limited number of ammunition while railgun use blaster power pool which could be regenerate over time.

 

With that said, I think Railgun is a bit "too efficient" compared to other secondary weapon. My suggestion fix for railgun is that its charge time should be increase to 4 second, equal to that of proton torpedoes. With this, the railgun retain it's tremendous range and damage while it allow other to have more time to react when fighting gunship.

 

Anyone agree with me?

You forgot to mention the biggest drawback of the gunships railgun... namely that you need to spend the entire charge phase immobile.

 

You briefly mentioned the agility drawback, but did not emphasize it enough in my opinion... with a railgun, you can miss a target, that is flying straight ahead on you and that does not use any evasve maneuvers... a locked missile will always hit, unless you burst out of range or use evasives.... even a maxxed evasion scout.

 

not getting a warning is true... but if you are a skilled scout pilot, you will learn to know when there is a gunship nearby and if you choose to still pursue your easy prey, if you know a GS is approaching, then you deserve to get shot.

 

I do not see a reason for your 33% nerf (inscrease charge time by 33%)... and I am not even a gunship pilot... at least not primarily.

You forgot to mention the biggest drawback of the gunships railgun... namely that you need to spend the entire charge phase immobile.

 

When your target is dead, who cares?

 

The inherent problem with railguns is that they are capable of killing a target without allowing them a chance to actively prevent the damage. An experienced pilot will start watching for clues that the gunship is about to fire, but the novice pilot simply cannot. Increased charge time doesn't address this issue.

How to actively avoid gunship damage:

 

1. know that a gunship is there and got you in target (now visible in interface)... most GS pilots will not fire "blindly" at non-targets

2a. get out of sight with burst. Do not fly towards the GS directly. Fly 'around' the GS in a large single spiral to force the GS to turn faster than they can. In the charge time, a scout can fly all through the whole vision arch of a GS.

2b. get out of sight with burst. Do not fly towards the GS directly. Bring any object between you and the GS and either wait till they switched target or until you feel that their weapon power is drained and there is no charged shot waiting for you. Then turn to 2a.

3. Hit them.

4. Keep hittin them.

5. If the ref blows his whistle, hit him.

 

Or in case you are in a Flash and got evade ready, just burst right towards the gunny, pop evade, overcharge and nuke them away.. the one blast he will get off at you as max will not hit you.

Edited February 12, 2014 by JPryde

In comparison with other missiles, I find that railgun is little overpower in the following aspects.

 

Of course railgun >> missiles. Railguns are for practical purposes the primary weapon of a gunship - they are the entire reason the gunship exists. Even the dual-missile strike fighter is intended to use them as a versatile array of secondary weapons and do the heavy lifting with its blasters. For a gunship, the blasters are a backup weapon (albeit one underutilized by most gunships).

How to actively avoid gunship damage:

 

This works if you're at full hull.

 

Of course railgun >> missiles. Railguns are for practical purposes the primary weapon of a gunship - they are the entire reason the gunship exists. Even the dual-missile strike fighter is intended to use them as a versatile array of secondary weapons and do the heavy lifting with its blasters. For a gunship, the blasters are a backup weapon (albeit one underutilized by most gunships).

 

And that justifies them being massively overpowered and unfun?

Edited February 12, 2014 by Armonddd

How to actively avoid gunship damage:

 

1. know that a gunship is there and got you in target (now visible in interface)... most GS pilots will not fire "blindly" at non-targets

2a. get out of sight with burst. Do not fly towards the GS directly. Fly 'around' the GS in a large single spiral to force the GS to turn faster than they can. In the charge time, a scout can fly all through the whole vision arch of a GS.

2b. get out of sight with burst. Do not fly towards the GS directly. Bring any object between you and the GS and either wait till they switched target or until you feel that their weapon power is drained and there is no charged shot waiting for you. Then turn to 2a.

3. Hit them.

4. Keep hittin them.

5. If the ref blows his whistle, hit him.

 

Or in case you are in a Flash and got evade ready, just burst right towards the gunny, pop evade, overcharge and nuke them away.. the one blast he will get off at you as max will not hit you.

 

Nice tip!

I usually play scout so I can use my speed and agility to outmanuever GS at close range. The reason I bring this up is for strike fighter. I feel that their missiles should be more competitive against railgun while I feel that the missile are balanced in itself.

 

The inherent problem with railguns is that they are capable of killing a target without allowing them a chance to actively prevent the damage. An experienced pilot will start watching for clues that the gunship is about to fire, but the novice pilot simply cannot. Increased charge time doesn't address this issue.

 

I agree with you. But I think the dev want the railgun to be kind of like silent death. So the increase charge time would still keep this feeling while making GS more careful at making shot.

The biggest issue with gunships is not their rail gun damage. It's not even the fact that their ion cannon can shred your weapon and energy pool. It's their aoe effect on their ion damage. As an experienced flier I find it rather easy to take on a couple of gunships with my flash fire, which by the way is where most of your OP complaints should be directed, it's when I'm near an inexperienced flier who has know idea how to avoid a gunships shot. Him getting hit completely debuffs me, renderering both of us as sitting ducks. I'll just say the more experienced you get at flying the less of an issue you'll find gunships to be.

And no one mentionned that a Rail can have its charged maintained (or kept charging) when an object obstruct line of sight, while a missile lock would be aborted in the same situation.

 

I've said it before : Slug Rail and Concussive missiles are reasonnably similar in use (preparation time) and effects (ignore armor, 20% bypass)... the only difference is one is aimed with long range, the other is locked with medium range. Nothing particular that justifies a damage output difference in my opinion.

 

You'd say that Gunships don't use blasters to push the damage further like a Strike would ? That's the reward for taking risk of jumping in the fray.

 

In addition, the (Slug & Plasma) rails shield damage are so high that Ion is useless of is own and needs all the debuffs and AoEs upgrades to be worth a bit. That a non-sense.

Ion cannons doesn't need to be upgraded to be worth using on someone with shields. It beats Heavy cannons by ~50%, and would even beat Burst cannons by ~33% if Strike fighters would have them.

Ion Rail should be the same. But it can't be achieved when the "regular" rails are already capable to down most people's shields in one hit... increasing Ion damage wouldn't be of any use. Slug and Plasma simply deal too much shield damage.

 

In my opinion, Slug rail should have its damage down to the level of Concussion missile (the price of being an all-purpose weapon like Concussion), and Plasma Rail should have its shield damage down to the level of Concussion and keep its hull damage unchanged (hull-destroying specialized weapon).

 

Then Ion rail could ultimately change to be a real shield destroyer and move on from its current use (maybe by changing that AoE heresy - a sniping weapon that AoE on hit... Really ?)

My dream is that Ion weapons (all of them, including Strikes') are actually real anti-shields weapons, and not some kind of energy drainers

And that justifies them being massively overpowered and unfun?

 

No (which is good because they are neither), it justifies them being more powerful than missiles.

You'd say that Gunships don't use blasters to push the damage further like a Strike would ? That's the reward for taking risk of jumping in the fray.

 

No, that's not what I said. I said that for a gunship, blasters are (regardless of the game label) a secondary weapon, intended as a supplement or backup. For strike fighters, blasters are the primary weapon, and it's the missiles are the supplement. A strike fighter isn't supposed to be flown with the exclusive intent of "get a missile lock", whereas a gunship's normal operating mode is to forgo the opportunity to use blasters (by getting well outside of blaster range) in order to use the railgun.

 

(And I do use blasters extensively on my gunship - I am very aggressive about jumping into melee range and dogfighting, especially on the node. About 1/3 of my kills are with burst lasers.)

 

In addition, the (Slug & Plasma) rails shield damage are so high that Ion is useless of is own and needs all the debuffs and AoEs upgrades to be worth a bit. That a non-sense.

 

False. My standard attack is a high- or full-charge ion followed by a high- or full-charge slug (this was true even before the railgun min charge requirement). Ion's extra damage to shields is a genuinely valuable increase in DPS, particularly against strike fighters, gunships, and bombers.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Kuciwalker

No, that's not what I said. I said that for a gunship, blasters are (regardless of the game label) a secondary weapon, intended as a supplement or backup. For strike fighters, blasters are the primary weapon, and it's the missiles are the supplement. A strike fighter isn't supposed to be flown with the exclusive intent of "get a missile lock", whereas a gunship's normal operating mode is to forgo the opportunity to use blasters (by getting well outside of blaster range) in order to use the railgun.

 

(And I do use blasters extensively on my gunship - I am very aggressive about jumping into melee range and dogfighting, especially on the node. About 1/3 of my kills are with burst lasers.)

 

The "you" I used wasn't directed.. it was an "impersonal you".

 

Past that slight misunderstanding, I agree that rails are actually a Gunship's primary weapon even though labelled as secondary.

But for a Strike, in my opinion, missiles become as much of a primary weapon as the "real" primary weapons itselves. Their mobility and weaponry designs unallows them to use blasters as effectively than a Scout, just like it unallows Gunships to be good dogfighters but it's less obvious than on a gunship.

In pure comparison with Scouts, the mobility difference reduces the blaster efficiency by a certain amount, and the range capacity improves the opportunities of using missiles increasing their efficiency by another certain amount. How much each one represent a Strike's damage capacity is hard to measure, but from my Strike experience (I play nearly only a Starguard), missiles are as much important or nearly as much important as my blasters. When you run out of missiles on a Starguard, you feel that your ability to hunt people is affected a lot.

 

So maybe that some Strikes don't fly with the sole intent to "get a missile lock" but each time they'll try to defeat someone with full hull and shields, they'll try to launch one.

Only using blasters on a Strike, is a opportunity matter. It has to be someone with few shields/health, or targetting someone that got focused by mates (both of these two options imply that you can't lock the missile in time - generally independent of one's will), or someone entering your close quarters and exeptionnally flying un-elusively so that you can quickly use Ion then regular cannons (Starguard/Rycer-only).

Taking down someone with full health, from medium range without missiles... That doesn't exists, unless the target is some of the worst among the worsts.

And obviously, flying a Pike/Quell without the intention of launching missiles is asking for being called a baddie.

Their lack of tank-ability (no Reactor) and absence of twin-cannons proficiency doesn't allow them at all to think of missiles as "an option". It's a must for them.

 

If I'd were to estimate the missiles' importance on a Strike it would be :

- Pike/Quell = 50%

- Starguard/Rycer = 40%

While on a scout it would be more like 20-30%

 

False. My standard attack is a high- or full-charge ion followed by a high- or full-charge slug (this was true even before the railgun min charge requirement). Ion's extra damage to shields is a genuinely valuable increase in DPS, particularly against strike fighters, gunships, and bombers.

The 200 damage increase while real is inconsistent.

Exemples :

1 - my Strike has 1450 hull and 1440 shields wheither you use Ion then Slug, or Slug only, two shots will kill me.

2 - A random Bomber has 2000 hull and 1680 shields. A slug hit will not wear all of his shields in one shot, 80 will remain. But the two next shots will down both the remaining shields and the hull (3200 damage potential). A Ion will down the shields in one shot, and may start damaging the hull (170). But Slug still won't be enough to one-shot the hull (1830 remaining hull vs 1600/1760 potential)

So be it a Strike, or Bomber, you always need the same amount of hits to kill anyone. So even if your first hit of Ion effectively deals more damage, its efficiency is abysimally low.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Altheran

No (which is good because they are neither), it justifies them being more powerful than missiles.

 

Railguns are already more powerful than missiles because of their inherent lack of ammo. Ask any strike pilot what they would do if their torps suddenly had infinite ammo and couldn't have their lock broken by engine abilities -- suddenly no one would be running anything else. And if that's what gunships were, I would probably be fine with them, because as you say, that's all they can do.

 

Add in almost 50% extra range, almost 100% increased damage (depending on target's shields etc), the ability to hold a shot while the target's not in LOS, and a secondary railgun that does absolutely stupid AoE CC, and I don't see how anyone can rationally claim that railguns are balanced.

 

I've seen you repeatedly state that railguns are primary weapons, not secondary weapons. That's fine. Everyone who's ever seen a gunship in action knows that. That justifies railguns being more powerful than missiles, but it doesn't justify them being overpowered or broken.

 

As for unfun: it is zero fun to be sniped out of the air with full shield by a target I didn't know existed. It is zero fun to be sniped out of a dogfight because I couldn't break off long enough to engage the gunship. It is zero fun to sit around with zero weapon power, zero engine power, and zero shields, waiting for the next railgun hit to finish me off. And the whole concept of a sniper -- sitting way back out of danger taking pot shots -- is inherently more predictable, and thus less risky, and thus less interesting, than dogfighting. Furthermore, while power and cooldown management is essential for strikes and scouts, it's almost a nonissue for gunships.

 

Gunships serve the vital role of moving a conflict off of a node or capital ship. Unfortunately, they do so in a way that introduces a multitude of other problems comparable to Atlantis sinking under the waves.

 

(ps when weapons with base shield penetration had their damage nerfed slug was completely untouched, lol)

Edited February 12, 2014 by Armonddd

The 200 damage increase while real is inconsistent.

Exemples :

1 - my Strike has 1450 hull and 1440 shields wheither you use Ion then Slug, or Slug only, two shots will kill me.

2 - A random Bomber has 2000 hull and 1680 shields. A slug hit will not wear all of his shields in one shot, 80 will remain. But the two next shots will down both the remaining shields and the hull (3200 damage potential). A Ion will down the shields in one shot, and may start damaging the hull (170). But Slug still won't be enough to one-shot the hull (1830 remaining hull vs 1600/1760 potential)

So be it a Strike, or Bomber, you always need the same amount of hits to kill anyone. So even if your first hit of Ion effectively deals more damage, its efficiency is abysimally low.

 

Except not all shots are full charge (in fact most aren't). Things are more granular than just "number of full-charge shots needed for a kill".

Except not all shots are full charge (in fact most aren't). Things are more granular than just "number of full-charge shots needed for a kill".

 

But the time saved for not needing 200 damage is what ? 0.2s ? With the 0.3s saved from Ion's full charge you can't say that you save a lot of time...

In the other hand, Ion cannons compared to heavies will deal from 50% up to 100% more raw damage depending on actual range, better firing arc, lesser accuracy penalties. They down a shield arc in 1s chrono, while some Heavies would take 2-3s to do that because of damage and accuracy issues.

The time saved with Ion cannons is substential. With Ion Rail it's not.

Except not all shots are full charge (in fact most aren't). Things are more granular than just "number of full-charge shots needed for a kill".

 

False. My standard attack is a high- or full-charge ion followed by a high- or full-charge slug (this was true even before the railgun min charge requirement). Ion's extra damage to shields is a genuinely valuable increase in DPS, particularly against strike fighters, gunships, and bombers.

 

But it happens enough of the time for it to be worth mentioning, you would agree?

Railguns are already more powerful than missiles because of their inherent lack of ammo. Ask any strike pilot what they would do if their torps suddenly had infinite ammo and couldn't have their lock broken by engine abilities -- suddenly no one would be running anything else. And if that's what gunships were, I would probably be fine with them, because as you say, that's all they can do.

 

1. Ammo is frequently a slack variable (in the linear programming sense).

2. As a practical matter engine abilities break both missile locks and railgun shots regardless of the formal power, because for missiles they will usually take the person outside the arc or range and for railguns it is much harder to hit someone mid-roll (not to mention the 30% evasion buff during the roll!).

 

Add in almost 50% extra range, almost 100% increased damage (depending on target's shields etc), the ability to hold a shot while the target's not in LOS, and a secondary railgun that does absolutely stupid AoE CC, and I don't see how anyone can rationally claim that railguns are balanced.

 

Very easily: because they aren't supposed to be equal in power to missiles, and would in fact be brokenly weak if so. Railguns require you to be motionless and scoped (i.e. you must have much greater situational awareness than with missiles), can't be used simultaneously with blasters, and require you to actually hit the target, rather than just keep the target in a firing arc. In addition they can be evaded.

 

The comparison with missiles is just useless because missiles and railguns can't substitute for each other and are used in completely different ways.

 

I've seen you repeatedly state that railguns are primary weapons, not secondary weapons. That's fine. Everyone who's ever seen a gunship in action knows that. That justifies railguns being more powerful than missiles, but it doesn't justify them being overpowered or broken.

 

Fortunately, they are neither overpowered nor broken.

 

As for unfun: it is zero fun to be sniped out of the air with full shield by a target I didn't know existed.

 

Blah blah this canard. One-shots are rare and even if special code were put into place preventing a shot from ever fully killing you from full hp/shields (leaving you at 1 hp) it would not significantly affect gunship power or playstyle.

 

It is zero fun to be sniped out of a dogfight because I couldn't break off long enough to engage the gunship.

 

There is no difference between this and being shot out of a dogfight with two other fighters. You shouldn't be able to win 1v2 at equal skill. If there is a gunship around you don't have to engage it, it is possible to fly evasively and use cover. In the worst case, you have to disengage, just like you would have to if confronted by two fighters.

 

I know this is possible and reasonable because I do it all the time.

 

It is zero fun to sit around with zero weapon power, zero engine power, and zero shields, waiting for the next railgun hit to finish me off.

 

You shouldn't ever do that. You should be heading to the nearest cover. I regularly escape ion lockdown in my gunship by reaching cover or getting just enough engine power to BR before I'm killed by a followup shot.

 

And the whole concept of a sniper -- sitting way back out of danger taking pot shots -- is inherently more predictable, and thus less risky, and thus less interesting, than dogfighting.

 

Only against bad pilots. Against good pilots being a gunship requires very fancy flying to open enough distance from your opponents to get a shot off. There is no "way back out of danger" - a scout can close 15km to weapons range in seconds.

 

Furthermore, while power and cooldown management is essential for strikes and scouts, it's almost a nonissue for gunships.

 

Hahahahahaha yeah no. Power and cooldown management are absolutely essential to gunship piloting. Very carefully shepherding your engine power, BR cooldown, and dfield cooldown are crucial to actually accomplishing anything when pursued.

But the time saved for not needing 200 damage is what ? 0.2s ? With the 0.3s saved from Ion's full charge you can't say that you save a lot of time...

 

0.2s is the difference between getting the shot off and having the target fly behind LOS / out of range / too far away from your firing axis to hit reliably through tracking penalty.

1. Ammo is frequently a slack variable (in the linear programming sense).

 

I admit my ignorance; I'm not sure what this means. I do know that it's an important consideration for a pilot.

 

2. As a practical matter engine abilities break both missile locks and railgun shots regardless of the formal power, because for missiles they will usually take the person outside the arc or range and for railguns it is much harder to hit someone mid-roll (not to mention the 30% evasion buff during the roll!).

 

You can very, very easily hold power until they go back to moving normally.

 

Very easily: because they aren't supposed to be equal in power to missiles, and would in fact be brokenly weak if so. Railguns require you to be motionless and scoped (i.e. you must have much greater situational awareness than with missiles), can't be used simultaneously with blasters, and require you to actually hit the target, rather than just keep the target in a firing arc. In addition they can be evaded.

 

I never said they should be equal in power to missiles. I said they should be balanced. That's very different. If you can't understand the difference, I'm done.

 

The comparison with missiles is just useless because missiles and railguns can't substitute for each other and are used in completely different ways.

 

Any time you get hit by them, you'll compare them. They're fired differently, but they have similar effects.

 

Fortunately, they are neither overpowered nor broken.

 

Seriously? I write up paragraphs explaining why you're wrong, and this is the response I get?

 

gg wp no re

I admit my ignorance; I'm not sure what this means. I do know that it's an important consideration for a pilot.

 

It means "not the binding constraint". For example, if you usually die before using up all of your ammo (or with bombers, if you can easily reload before then) then ammo is pretty much infinite. Given the amount of ammo in the game and the fact that every kill also results in a death (geometric average k/d ratio = 1 ignoring suicides) this will usually be the case.

 

You can very, very easily hold power until they go back to moving normally.

 

Railguns rapidly drain weapon power and doing this kills your sustained damage output. I only do this in the case that I expect the target to emerge from an obstruction in the next second or so; otherwise I just release my charge (by un-scoping) and then wait a moment to re-charge the shot.

 

I never said they should be equal in power to missiles. I said they should be balanced. That's very different. If you can't understand the difference, I'm done.

 

There is no sensible balance comparison with missiles in the first place! Missiles are a complete red herring.

 

Any time you get hit by them, you'll compare them. They're fired differently, but they have similar effects.

 

Your argument has now devolved into contentless semantic quibbling.

0.2s is the difference between getting the shot off and having the target fly behind LOS / out of range / too far away from your firing axis to hit reliably through tracking penalty.

 

Okay. It may avoid that situation...

But what are actually the chances of a Gunship losing LoS during that time, and would have not failed due to the Gunship's reaction time (plus latency) or because the target broke LoS during the reload time (the time before you can charge again) ?

 

I don't try to say that Ion rail brings no advantage (damage wise), but the one it bring is unworthy of notice.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Altheran

The problem with railguns is they outclasses every type of weapon, not just missiles.

 

For instance a slug does more damage per hit than a HLC and cluster combined and on top of that has more range than HLC and cluster combined. And to sweeten if further railguns don't suffer from having to deal with leading targets and don't lose damage with range.

 

Ion rail is a whole other beast in and of itself. As a scout getting ion is a death sentence since it diszbles regen for 6 seconds and by that time I've been slugged. After getting hit by ion the only thing a scout can do is pop Dfield, pray to RNG, and hope the gunship suffers a massive lagspike. There are almost no opportunities to find LoS and without boosting there is almost no chance of a successful evasive pattern.

The rail gun is also extremely accurate. I know several gunship pilots that get 80% accuracy on average. It should take more skill than that.

Railguns ARE a better weapons than missiles. The trade-off is that you can use a missile while also using your blasters. Missiles are true secondary weapons.

Railguns ARE a better weapons than missiles. The trade-off is that you can use a missile while also using your blasters. Missiles are true secondary weapons.

 

I think that being able to use both primaries and secondaries is the trade-off of taking risks by putting oneself in front lines.

The trade-off of not being able to use primaries because of range, is the range itself. It should not be damage.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Altheran