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Railgun Interceptor

Aug 23, 2008 Aramarth link
Damage: 100
Velocity: 450 m/s
Energy: 2/blast
Delay: 0.1 s
Mass: 700 kg
Auto-aim: None
Ammo: 400
Level: 11/11/-/-/- (I would like this to require the 100 pk badge)
Grid usage: 8

With the introduction of this weapon, an entirely new brand of VO PvP tactic could emerge; the mid-dodge hyper-accurate ammo-limited pop-shot. Yes, it is high velocity, and yes, it has a lot of ammo. But in the end it really doesn't have a lot of ammo. You only have 40 seconds of firing time with each of these weapons. Use it wisely. To kill an scp, you would need to land 200 hits, or fire accurately for 20 solid seconds. Rather obviously, two will be better than one. You'd only need 10 seconds of perfectly accurate burst to finish that scp or moth.

A modern fighter jet only carries enough ammo for a 15 second burst- or several smaller ones.

And a version for the 500 pk badge:
Railgun Interceptor MkII:
damage increase to 250
mass increase to 900
ammo decrease to 200
Aug 23, 2008 Pointsman link
Overpowered. :)
Aug 23, 2008 Capt.Waffles link
I would love to see an ammo oriented mini-gun, maybe large port. This is pretty close to that dream.
Aug 23, 2008 vIsitor link
Personally, my advice would be to stick something like this on a Capital ship, rather than as a fighter weapon. Would make a good point-defense turret.
Aug 23, 2008 Aramarth link
Overpowered? You've got to be kidding me.

The only way for this to be overpowered is if your target is sitting still. Anyone moving will easily dodge 3 shots out of every 5. Any energy user knows how often we hit empty space as opposed to metal. Now your total damage is already down to 16,000, which is not enough to kill the heaviest ships in the game, including the moth.

I don't think people realize how hard it is to hit with a railgun. You need 60 hits to kill a freebus with this gun. Someone tell me again how hitting 60 times with a railgun just to kill an 89 is overpowered? In two years of VO play, I haven't scored 60 railgun hits.

The balance for this gun, as with the current rails, is in the ammo restriction.
Aug 23, 2008 Scuba Steve 9.0 link
This is...an interesting idea. I can't say for certain if it's underpowered or overpowered without playing with something actually like this.

Looking at the DPE, it's easily twice that of any other small port energy-using weapon in the game1, outclasses everything but the railgun(another hybrid ammo weapon) in speed, and is both lighter and has more damage potential than sunflare rocket launcers. However, compared to most other small port weapons it's also somewhat heavy, which would make it difficult to put on ships that are used in one-on-one high-collared combat. On top of that, there's no autoaim either, which means that it would take a decent amount of pilot skill to utilize well.

I really don't see this being used by duelists at all, but more to be mixed with or replacing sunflares as king in hit-and-run combat. In this aspect, it'll probably end up as the bane of anyone in a behemoth or a type of bomber, but without a decently skilled aim it'll be mostly useless against light and possibly medium fighters. The grid usage precludes it from being used on a valkyrie tri-config, so for hit and run combat a one flare 2 I-Rail setup would be preferable. The flare could be used to preserve energy as well as disorient the target, while this gun to eat away at their hull.

Also, it would be a poor choice for pilots in anything with more than three ports, which makes its use limited on heavy fighters and bombers.

However, looking at the pure damage per second this weapon puts out, it falls short of nearly every small port weapon, including the noble government issued plasma cannon.

I think, given the stats here, it would be a great weapon for two-port assault ships like the Vulture, Rev-C and IBG, and possibly even the much maligned TPG Raptor, but only in the context of short hit and run operations. As-is, considering the combination of stats and grid usage, it seems to me that it's a very interesting weapon with a lot of potential and should definitely be tested out; it'll be hard to tell whether or not it's balanced unless it's used in the field. Comparing it to other weapons, it seems balanced, or fairly close to that to me.

1 I'm generally excluding the Charge Cannon from these comparisons.
Aug 23, 2008 zamzx zik link
I think we should try it....even if just for a one time event....
Aug 23, 2008 Aramarth link
This is a pretty radical departure from the standard VO weapon. The storm I created on IRC defending it was pretty telling anyways.

To make it more normal, we could just increase the damage, energy, and delay while reducing ammo. For instance, 300 damage, 25 energy, .15 delay, 100 ammo. That makes it on par with current rails (scaled down in damage&drain). Looks a lot more like other VO guns. Looks just as useless in a chase ship as ever. Looks boring.

The low damage was how I justified the low energy usage, which is essential to make it worthwhile in a pursuit.
Aug 23, 2008 Pointsman link
My guess is that the short duration of advantage it would be an annoyance to all parties involved. But. It's intriguing.
Aug 24, 2008 Surbius link
This should hit the Test Server first to be determined since this is radically different.
Aug 29, 2008 SuperMegaMynt link
Does it make the current rail guns obsolete?

I proposed similar stats, whereby it fires more frequently, at less damage, for more energy, with infinite ammo. The idea was to make a beam weapon worthy of Vic Viper.

Ammo justifies making it stronger, but at 450m/s, it almost makes the lower variants of rail guns pointless.