Forums » Suggestions
Rail guns redux
I don't use them, but I hate that 100e/shot thing. That's just silly, and renders the weapon useless, even as a single.
I put this in a different thread, but I'm c/ping it here:
I think the solution is not the 100e/shot that has been implemented, nor is the answer specialized mine/missile/gun ports.
The answer is to specialize the SHIPS. Take the railguns OUT of general circulation. You can only buy them as a package - a tri-rail vulture with 3k hull points. The ship has NO weapon ports and only a single cargo slot. ammo costs 100 each. The ship itself is only moderately priced at 8-12kc - between the ammo, engines and batt, it will be a monetary drain on all but the most effective of pilots. The ship does NOT come with ammo, and max ammo is 60 (20 shots if the rails are linked).
Basically, you have a flying gun with virtually no armor. This is a ship of SUPERIOR skill. It's useless for pirating, a money pit for players with bad aim, and serves an extremely specific purpose - taking down high armor ships.
This solves most of the problems. Even a bus could take it down if piloted well.
Just MHO
I put this in a different thread, but I'm c/ping it here:
I think the solution is not the 100e/shot that has been implemented, nor is the answer specialized mine/missile/gun ports.
The answer is to specialize the SHIPS. Take the railguns OUT of general circulation. You can only buy them as a package - a tri-rail vulture with 3k hull points. The ship has NO weapon ports and only a single cargo slot. ammo costs 100 each. The ship itself is only moderately priced at 8-12kc - between the ammo, engines and batt, it will be a monetary drain on all but the most effective of pilots. The ship does NOT come with ammo, and max ammo is 60 (20 shots if the rails are linked).
Basically, you have a flying gun with virtually no armor. This is a ship of SUPERIOR skill. It's useless for pirating, a money pit for players with bad aim, and serves an extremely specific purpose - taking down high armor ships.
This solves most of the problems. Even a bus could take it down if piloted well.
Just MHO
NO!!!
Price is a BAD way to "balance" anything.. that just means that the people with the most money will be (usually pirates, since they get their cargo for free) the ones most easily able to afford whatever is/"was" out of balance.
as for the argument that it is no use to pirates.. all you will see is a team of pirates.. one flying this "railgun ship" and one running around in a ship with cargo space, and splitting the profit.
Price is a BAD way to "balance" anything.. that just means that the people with the most money will be (usually pirates, since they get their cargo for free) the ones most easily able to afford whatever is/"was" out of balance.
as for the argument that it is no use to pirates.. all you will see is a team of pirates.. one flying this "railgun ship" and one running around in a ship with cargo space, and splitting the profit.
Specializing the ships is about like admitting defeat.
My opinion was to move the energy to ~20 because I believed that the rail was about balanced. I think it in general better to make small changes than big ones, but alot of people whined. But, we will see if I was right about changing the energy to 100 taking the railgun out of circulation because no one would use it.
My opinion was to move the energy to ~20 because I believed that the rail was about balanced. I think it in general better to make small changes than big ones, but alot of people whined. But, we will see if I was right about changing the energy to 100 taking the railgun out of circulation because no one would use it.
Spellcast:
1) It's easy to make money in this game. Price here isn't a balance, it's a deterrent. Only skilled players can use the ship, and they already HAVE loads of creds. If they run low, they'll have to trade. In a way that's balance - any poor player that loses his ship will have to trade hardcore to be able to afford another.
2) The ONLY pirates I've ever seen work together were SF and Phoenix the day 3.2.0 came out, and their intention was more to kill golds than to make a profit. I've never seen them work together. And I don't think pirates can trust each other enough. The cargo ship gets the cargo, turns in 14 rare metals and gets 40k profit. He then sends 4k to his partner, who doesn't know any better.
Calebrim: It's not admitting defeat. A fact of reality is that there are specialized machines. They're already like that in game. Look at the Valk (fighter), pizza ship (cargo), slug (armor). If that's NOT specialized to you, what is?
And a correction. The devs upped it to TWO hundred a shot, which means the rails are now useless.
A solution to the 200e/shot rails now is to allow 60 ammo. That way a single rail and a fast batt is at least useable.
1) It's easy to make money in this game. Price here isn't a balance, it's a deterrent. Only skilled players can use the ship, and they already HAVE loads of creds. If they run low, they'll have to trade. In a way that's balance - any poor player that loses his ship will have to trade hardcore to be able to afford another.
2) The ONLY pirates I've ever seen work together were SF and Phoenix the day 3.2.0 came out, and their intention was more to kill golds than to make a profit. I've never seen them work together. And I don't think pirates can trust each other enough. The cargo ship gets the cargo, turns in 14 rare metals and gets 40k profit. He then sends 4k to his partner, who doesn't know any better.
Calebrim: It's not admitting defeat. A fact of reality is that there are specialized machines. They're already like that in game. Look at the Valk (fighter), pizza ship (cargo), slug (armor). If that's NOT specialized to you, what is?
And a correction. The devs upped it to TWO hundred a shot, which means the rails are now useless.
A solution to the 200e/shot rails now is to allow 60 ammo. That way a single rail and a fast batt is at least useable.
"A solution to the 200e/shot rails now is to allow 60 ammo. That way a single rail and a fast batt is at least useable."
Err... yeah. That's it. Make a change that doesn't work and then change something else. Make a bunch of big changes at once before assessing the effects of the last set of changes properly. That's the fastest way to work a game toward a balanced state.
Not.
The game developers have been very adamant in thier desire to allow a great degree of flexibility and customibility. To make ship models with special weapons runs contrary to that intent and is a huge step to make considering THAT WE HAVE JUST STARTED THE REBALANCING PROCESS. Good grief, give the process a little time instead of making wholesale changes to the very foundation of the game model all at once.
Err... yeah. That's it. Make a change that doesn't work and then change something else. Make a bunch of big changes at once before assessing the effects of the last set of changes properly. That's the fastest way to work a game toward a balanced state.
Not.
The game developers have been very adamant in thier desire to allow a great degree of flexibility and customibility. To make ship models with special weapons runs contrary to that intent and is a huge step to make considering THAT WE HAVE JUST STARTED THE REBALANCING PROCESS. Good grief, give the process a little time instead of making wholesale changes to the very foundation of the game model all at once.
So how would -you- fix it? If you can give your response without being snarky and condescending, please do so. What you consider sarcastic wit I consider immaturity. If you disagree with my opinion, say so and explain why, without couching it inside more pseudo-superior drivel.
The rails are useless now. That's an irrefutable fact, and I don't even use them. I don't know how long it takes you to "assess things," but an hour after the update posted, it was clear to me that rails were being abandonded by the dozens. All the people who DID use them seem to have abandoned them entirely now, and my warpig seems to be the rage at the moment. I haven't seen even one rail since. Dunno where you've been, but the wholesale changes have already been made. Each rail requires not twenty percent more, but twenty TIMES the energy it used to. That's what I call wholesale. They do about the same damage as a rocket, but you can get THREE rockets out of a -single- port and -nine- from a triple-rocket setip in the time it takes to fire and reload a single rail, rockets are easier to use, and rockets don't drain the battery. That's not rebalance, that's putting a pencil on one side of the scale and parking a semi on the other.
In fact, I'm surprised we haven't seen a plethora of triple-rocket setups, except that, IIRC, you can only load 8 rockets a slot. However, you CAN arm 18 seekers a slot. Triple seekers. 9 shots, 27 missiles at what, 950 damage each? Pheer. Seekers are really only damaging at close range, but those same pilots that could hit with rails could hit with seekers. With no energy drain from the seekers they can swoop in with turbo, hit with six missiles before the opponent can register the first BEEP and turbo away, doing what, 5700 damage in one pass? A quad setup could do 7600 damage. About the same as the old quad rails (8.8k damage or so, IIRC).
The problem is that a triple/quad, linked rail did too much damage in one punch. It's obvious the devs' intention is to make them a single armament, rather than one used in quads and triples. That means more shots to kill, and copious amounts of time to recharge in which the opponent has ample opportunity to return fire or run. The energy drain means that NO other energy weapons can be brought to bear, so you're left with, instead of a triple rail, one rail and two of the various available small port missile weapons.
You can't make them track targets better - thet defeats the entire purpose of the weapon. It's only effective in the hands of a skilled pilot. If it tracked better it becomes little more than a long range, high velocity Gauss, minimalizing the differences between both weapons.
The ONLY way to balance the weapon now, short of changing what has already been changed, is to allow it a larger ammo reserve, and you really have to consider that "balance" in light of the possibility that, with a ship nearly incapacitated after firing a single shot, it won't last long enough to run out of ammo.
I'll go my previous statement one better. Drop the fire rate to an even second. Since the predominant battery used is the fast charge batt, reload time isn't based on how soon the weapon will let you fire again, but how soon the battery will -charge enough- to let you fire again.
Looking ahead, this means rail users would probably drop the fast-charge battery in favor of the heavy battery, which isn't being used much by smart players. This way they can get two shots off in a reasonable span of time (their skill determining if they do any damage or not). That's 400 energy drain on a battery that only recharges at 45/sec.
After firing 2 rails on a heavy battery, it takes 4.5 seconds or so to charge enough to fire another dual volley (just under 2 secs to fire a third volley, rather than waiting for both rails to "charge").
Is that not balance? It gives purpose to the heavy battery, it makes the rail a plausible weapon, it allows the -possibility- of an EXTREMELY slow reloading dual rail (4.4 or 4.8k damage, right? 4.4 or 4.8k is a reasonable amount of damage in 5 seconds. Assuming you acutally HIT what you shoot at.), it prevents the uber-damage of a triple or quad setup, it even makes the extreme changes already made to the rail reasonable, and it puts a weapon for the skilled back into the hands of the masters -without- making it a God weapon.
That's what I call balance.
Dovetailing with this, I'd like to see the first non-weapon addition to the small ship ports. Solar collectors that will recharge the batteries, say, 10/sec faster. The balence to this is simple - that's one port not being used for a weapon.
This in turn is a balance to something most everyone has noticed. ALL the energy weapons seem to draw entirely too much power. It would allow traders to run further and faster than pirates. It makes pirates choose between speed and killing power, forcing pirates to be SMART as well as skilled. It makes EVERYONE choose between a weapon or energy. It would also be the first non-violent ship addition in the game beyond the engine and battery and hull itself. In turn, it makes the game that much more intellectual. It's a difficult choice - do I put a missile there, to deter/distract/damage an opponent, or do I put in a collector so I can turbo farther or fire less weapons for longer periods of time?
The rails are useless now. That's an irrefutable fact, and I don't even use them. I don't know how long it takes you to "assess things," but an hour after the update posted, it was clear to me that rails were being abandonded by the dozens. All the people who DID use them seem to have abandoned them entirely now, and my warpig seems to be the rage at the moment. I haven't seen even one rail since. Dunno where you've been, but the wholesale changes have already been made. Each rail requires not twenty percent more, but twenty TIMES the energy it used to. That's what I call wholesale. They do about the same damage as a rocket, but you can get THREE rockets out of a -single- port and -nine- from a triple-rocket setip in the time it takes to fire and reload a single rail, rockets are easier to use, and rockets don't drain the battery. That's not rebalance, that's putting a pencil on one side of the scale and parking a semi on the other.
In fact, I'm surprised we haven't seen a plethora of triple-rocket setups, except that, IIRC, you can only load 8 rockets a slot. However, you CAN arm 18 seekers a slot. Triple seekers. 9 shots, 27 missiles at what, 950 damage each? Pheer. Seekers are really only damaging at close range, but those same pilots that could hit with rails could hit with seekers. With no energy drain from the seekers they can swoop in with turbo, hit with six missiles before the opponent can register the first BEEP and turbo away, doing what, 5700 damage in one pass? A quad setup could do 7600 damage. About the same as the old quad rails (8.8k damage or so, IIRC).
The problem is that a triple/quad, linked rail did too much damage in one punch. It's obvious the devs' intention is to make them a single armament, rather than one used in quads and triples. That means more shots to kill, and copious amounts of time to recharge in which the opponent has ample opportunity to return fire or run. The energy drain means that NO other energy weapons can be brought to bear, so you're left with, instead of a triple rail, one rail and two of the various available small port missile weapons.
You can't make them track targets better - thet defeats the entire purpose of the weapon. It's only effective in the hands of a skilled pilot. If it tracked better it becomes little more than a long range, high velocity Gauss, minimalizing the differences between both weapons.
The ONLY way to balance the weapon now, short of changing what has already been changed, is to allow it a larger ammo reserve, and you really have to consider that "balance" in light of the possibility that, with a ship nearly incapacitated after firing a single shot, it won't last long enough to run out of ammo.
I'll go my previous statement one better. Drop the fire rate to an even second. Since the predominant battery used is the fast charge batt, reload time isn't based on how soon the weapon will let you fire again, but how soon the battery will -charge enough- to let you fire again.
Looking ahead, this means rail users would probably drop the fast-charge battery in favor of the heavy battery, which isn't being used much by smart players. This way they can get two shots off in a reasonable span of time (their skill determining if they do any damage or not). That's 400 energy drain on a battery that only recharges at 45/sec.
After firing 2 rails on a heavy battery, it takes 4.5 seconds or so to charge enough to fire another dual volley (just under 2 secs to fire a third volley, rather than waiting for both rails to "charge").
Is that not balance? It gives purpose to the heavy battery, it makes the rail a plausible weapon, it allows the -possibility- of an EXTREMELY slow reloading dual rail (4.4 or 4.8k damage, right? 4.4 or 4.8k is a reasonable amount of damage in 5 seconds. Assuming you acutally HIT what you shoot at.), it prevents the uber-damage of a triple or quad setup, it even makes the extreme changes already made to the rail reasonable, and it puts a weapon for the skilled back into the hands of the masters -without- making it a God weapon.
That's what I call balance.
Dovetailing with this, I'd like to see the first non-weapon addition to the small ship ports. Solar collectors that will recharge the batteries, say, 10/sec faster. The balence to this is simple - that's one port not being used for a weapon.
This in turn is a balance to something most everyone has noticed. ALL the energy weapons seem to draw entirely too much power. It would allow traders to run further and faster than pirates. It makes pirates choose between speed and killing power, forcing pirates to be SMART as well as skilled. It makes EVERYONE choose between a weapon or energy. It would also be the first non-violent ship addition in the game beyond the engine and battery and hull itself. In turn, it makes the game that much more intellectual. It's a difficult choice - do I put a missile there, to deter/distract/damage an opponent, or do I put in a collector so I can turbo farther or fire less weapons for longer periods of time?
Yup I definitely see the adding non-weapons to weapons ports as the biggest step forward in ship customization. In fact it might even be the final word in ship customization. (well except for customized flame jobs going down the side of my Hornet or a hairy, green, airbrushed snout on my Warthog) I for one would utterly abandone the small weapon port on my trader Centurion for anything that behaves like the alternator on a modern automobile. Xochiluver remarked on this balancing act very clearly if you read the bottom of his last post... "choose between speed and killing power". I might even give up a Large weapon port for an extra battery... or in fact I might be trading in a Serco Prometheous armed with two secondary thrusters in the two smalls, a battery recharger accelerator in the large port, and only an adv. gat. or something in the other large port for defense! It would be great IMHO.
In the end when I customize my ship I hope people are asking questions like: What the heck do you have hiding under that hood Captain??!? And I can say strange and ambigous things like: "2 nuts and a bowl cherries, some spare Earthly Summers discs, and a time bomb, and a case of skunked pan-galactic gargle blasters." Other options for people that are more aggressive to say in reply would be "You're Mom's welfare check", or "Why don't you come here so I can show you?", or "/me drops the hood to his space jallope on so-and-so's head while he's snooping"
whatchoo think?
In the end when I customize my ship I hope people are asking questions like: What the heck do you have hiding under that hood Captain??!? And I can say strange and ambigous things like: "2 nuts and a bowl cherries, some spare Earthly Summers discs, and a time bomb, and a case of skunked pan-galactic gargle blasters." Other options for people that are more aggressive to say in reply would be "You're Mom's welfare check", or "Why don't you come here so I can show you?", or "/me drops the hood to his space jallope on so-and-so's head while he's snooping"
whatchoo think?
Well, after reading all of that, I still don't even know how you would fix it, because of statements like:
"The ONLY way to balance the weapon now, short of changing what has already been changed, is to allow it a larger ammo reserve, and you really have to consider that "balance" in light of the possibility that, with a ship nearly incapacitated after firing a single shot, it won't last long enough to run out of ammo."
Well, yes, I do think that would be a problem. Ammo consumption is never much of a disadvantage if you never run out of ammo before the fight is over, and ammo consumption was always one of the rails drawbacks otherwise. If anything, if we are not going to increase the ammo capacity on the sunflare and other small slot ammo consumers, we could afford to lower the ammo on a rail. But all such changes should wait until we get the energy mess straightened out.
You yourself say that the limiting long term factor on the fire rate is energy recharging. That cycle rate is at best 1 per four seconds assuming that using turbo costs you no energy or that you don't need to use turbo during a fight. (60 ammo would by the way be 4 minutes of continious firing.) A single rail with a fast recharge battery is now a weapon that does over the long term about ~525 damage/second. This is roughly one third the damage inflicted by a single ion blaster. About the only less effective weapon in the game is the small homing missile, and even it wins if both players just stare at each other and fire.
You will see a plethora of triple rocket setups the longer 3.1.1 lasts. I'm already using a dual rocket setup and have been since 3.2.1 began. (In fact I was thinking of using a dual rocket setup on a case by case basis in 3.2.0, after experiencing a poor performance from rails vs. advanced gatlings.) Before the change was made I was talking to several vets who discused going to an all heat seeker setup. Nothing that has happened regarding this change wasn't predicted by me and other people. I personally think that the chorus of people calling for the rail to be 'balanced' at 200 energy ought now to shame facedly apologize to the devs and the community for wasting our collective time.
I agree that the quad rail and to a lesser extent the triple rail has a 'first blood' problem (by that I mean he who shoots first wins) against an unprepared player, but we are by no means limited to a single solution. One of the classic and simpliest solutions to the 'first blood' problem is to require a charging time before the weapon can be used. For seeking weapon they typically require a 'lock'. I personally don't want that for the rail, but it is a possibility that I bring up to show you that we are by no means at a 'ONLY' situation and your insistance that we are is just another sign to me that maybe you aren't on top of this problem.
I don't know if you realize this but alot of players other players I've talked to have been using the heavy battery all along. I guess I'm one of the 'stupid ones'. When the change came I didn't have to change out my battery when I changed my rails to rockets. I have a heavy battery in my Valk and always have because I mounted a combination of rails and a tachyon. I generally have always prefered to mount a heavy on a ship intended for fighting and having more than 2 weapon slots. IMO, the fast battery is better on traders and ships with few weapons to feed. And even with a heavy battery on my Valk I changed out from rails and so did apparantly all the other veteren players.
It has occured to me that the reason all the direct fire weapons are nerfed is that the devs can use thier suckiness as an indirect means of enforcing weapon diversity (ei more like 3.1 with one energy weapon, one rocket, one homer, ect.), which isn't a bad goal at all. If that is what they want and I have reason to think it is, I doubt we are going to see the rail unnerfed. It wouldn't be my approach but I do admit it is a thoughtful and worthy one. Then again, just because we won't see the rail unerfed doesn't mean it can't be made less spongy.
It seems pretty obvious to me that having had the rail unbalanced 'too powerful' at 10 energy, and unbalanced 'too weak' at 200 energy that there is a fairly large bracketed area in which we can all but garauntee there is a balance or near balance available which we should try to reach before tweaking any second property of the weapon. Most of the veteren players seem to think this land of perfect balance lies somewhere between 80 and 100 energy. The idea there is I think to make sure that the quad rail only gets 'one bullet'. I'm a good deal less conservative, and think the rail would have enough drawbacks at as low as 45 energy _if_ we were going to slightly improve the utility of the currently underused weapons like rockets, gauss, etc. The important point is that the quad rail setup with all of its first blood issues is feasible under both scenarios, but like any good 'sniper' weapon you better hit with your first shot because your advantages would quickly disappate with your energy.
And finally, I've got a long list of non-weapon enchancements I'd like to see. There is a thread with a list of nearly 100 somewhere around here. I couldn't imagine which I'd like to see 'first', and ultimately that decision is the developers anyway. My understanding is that they are looking to improve the navigation interface. I suspect that we will eventually get various types of non-weapon ports.
"The ONLY way to balance the weapon now, short of changing what has already been changed, is to allow it a larger ammo reserve, and you really have to consider that "balance" in light of the possibility that, with a ship nearly incapacitated after firing a single shot, it won't last long enough to run out of ammo."
Well, yes, I do think that would be a problem. Ammo consumption is never much of a disadvantage if you never run out of ammo before the fight is over, and ammo consumption was always one of the rails drawbacks otherwise. If anything, if we are not going to increase the ammo capacity on the sunflare and other small slot ammo consumers, we could afford to lower the ammo on a rail. But all such changes should wait until we get the energy mess straightened out.
You yourself say that the limiting long term factor on the fire rate is energy recharging. That cycle rate is at best 1 per four seconds assuming that using turbo costs you no energy or that you don't need to use turbo during a fight. (60 ammo would by the way be 4 minutes of continious firing.) A single rail with a fast recharge battery is now a weapon that does over the long term about ~525 damage/second. This is roughly one third the damage inflicted by a single ion blaster. About the only less effective weapon in the game is the small homing missile, and even it wins if both players just stare at each other and fire.
You will see a plethora of triple rocket setups the longer 3.1.1 lasts. I'm already using a dual rocket setup and have been since 3.2.1 began. (In fact I was thinking of using a dual rocket setup on a case by case basis in 3.2.0, after experiencing a poor performance from rails vs. advanced gatlings.) Before the change was made I was talking to several vets who discused going to an all heat seeker setup. Nothing that has happened regarding this change wasn't predicted by me and other people. I personally think that the chorus of people calling for the rail to be 'balanced' at 200 energy ought now to shame facedly apologize to the devs and the community for wasting our collective time.
I agree that the quad rail and to a lesser extent the triple rail has a 'first blood' problem (by that I mean he who shoots first wins) against an unprepared player, but we are by no means limited to a single solution. One of the classic and simpliest solutions to the 'first blood' problem is to require a charging time before the weapon can be used. For seeking weapon they typically require a 'lock'. I personally don't want that for the rail, but it is a possibility that I bring up to show you that we are by no means at a 'ONLY' situation and your insistance that we are is just another sign to me that maybe you aren't on top of this problem.
I don't know if you realize this but alot of players other players I've talked to have been using the heavy battery all along. I guess I'm one of the 'stupid ones'. When the change came I didn't have to change out my battery when I changed my rails to rockets. I have a heavy battery in my Valk and always have because I mounted a combination of rails and a tachyon. I generally have always prefered to mount a heavy on a ship intended for fighting and having more than 2 weapon slots. IMO, the fast battery is better on traders and ships with few weapons to feed. And even with a heavy battery on my Valk I changed out from rails and so did apparantly all the other veteren players.
It has occured to me that the reason all the direct fire weapons are nerfed is that the devs can use thier suckiness as an indirect means of enforcing weapon diversity (ei more like 3.1 with one energy weapon, one rocket, one homer, ect.), which isn't a bad goal at all. If that is what they want and I have reason to think it is, I doubt we are going to see the rail unnerfed. It wouldn't be my approach but I do admit it is a thoughtful and worthy one. Then again, just because we won't see the rail unerfed doesn't mean it can't be made less spongy.
It seems pretty obvious to me that having had the rail unbalanced 'too powerful' at 10 energy, and unbalanced 'too weak' at 200 energy that there is a fairly large bracketed area in which we can all but garauntee there is a balance or near balance available which we should try to reach before tweaking any second property of the weapon. Most of the veteren players seem to think this land of perfect balance lies somewhere between 80 and 100 energy. The idea there is I think to make sure that the quad rail only gets 'one bullet'. I'm a good deal less conservative, and think the rail would have enough drawbacks at as low as 45 energy _if_ we were going to slightly improve the utility of the currently underused weapons like rockets, gauss, etc. The important point is that the quad rail setup with all of its first blood issues is feasible under both scenarios, but like any good 'sniper' weapon you better hit with your first shot because your advantages would quickly disappate with your energy.
And finally, I've got a long list of non-weapon enchancements I'd like to see. There is a thread with a list of nearly 100 somewhere around here. I couldn't imagine which I'd like to see 'first', and ultimately that decision is the developers anyway. My understanding is that they are looking to improve the navigation interface. I suspect that we will eventually get various types of non-weapon ports.