First off I would like to say that, yes, I am making (yet another) post for Rail Gun.

As a sniper player in most games I know that a rail gun/sniper rifle needs to have the power the deal tons of damage at the sacrifice of energy and with a small, very small bullet. Because you are sending a small object through a long barrel, the barrel is going to overheat fast. I think that the batt should be "zapped" so to speak where it won't recharge for 20 seconds and the shooter can't move any faster then 30m/sec. I think this is a far advantage seeing as how everyone seems to hate snipers around here. Main objective here is to achieve a weapon that snipers can use and get a kill with, without having to comprise to much for the sniper to get away if he misses. I would also suggest that the sniper rifle come with a longer ranged radar that can only be used when the sniper rifle is in use and the shooter isn't moving faster then 10m/sec. It makes sense that you could ping farther away if you were sitting still.

Damage: 12000
Range: 3000m
Energy: 500
Reload Time: 10 seconds (can only be reloaded if the battery is at full capacity)
Velocity: 500m/sec
Ammo: 5 shots

I love the sniper idea

Nice to see someone proposing a long-range gun besides the avalon. :) Most of our current weapons max out at some stupidly low number below 1400m. d'oh. Although the damage on this worries me a little. Do we REALLY want someone to have a 500 m/s avalon with practically unlimited range? Sounds pretty deadly to me.

I forgot some things, the bullet leaves a trail that stays there for approximately two seconds, enough time for the victim to see where the shooter is, that is if the shooter misses. Also it's damned hard to tell how far away the target is since there is no real markers (Asteroids and that kinda thing) in most of the space and the HUD is hardly suited for this. I would like to see a slightly changed HUD for each special weapon (Avalon, Rail Gun, Turrets).

Rogue> It's nearly impossible to hit anything farther then 2000m with the current weapons, I got to thinking about the scale of the game, how far away everything is, how fast everyone is always moving. Through about three hours of game play I found that almost no one sat still at any one moment. It's also natural for gamers to stay on their toes and keep a look out for those pesky but skilled snipers in the tower on the other side of the map.

No. NO. Thats a one-hit kill weapon. However much you may like the gun, 12000 damage is excessive.

Uncle dave, avalon is one hit kill, and rail guns were always a pain to aim, they are not useful for close combat because you can't get 1 shot to land, unless you are REALLY skilled, but right now thats worth 1k in dmg, pretty worthless.

Also, this would not be tri mountable, so you can't do 36k dmg, which is good.

I think it should do 12k dmg if the ship has more then 12k health, if it [the ship] does not it should do (ships health)-2k

But you have to take into consideration that you're firing a minute mass (albeit at high speeds). That isn't going to do alot of damage, unless it hits something explosive..

so the perfect setup with this would be:

railgun, for the sniping and then a double sunflare or double tachyon. I prefer the double sunflare, because it doesn't use any energy.

But like you can see, if you are able to hit with the railgun, then the guy is dead in a matter of seconds. Me starts thinking about using the rocket ram.

You snipe the person, if he survives "what I bet he will", he will come after you, you just boost at him, and act as a rammer.

Minimal damage to you, maximal damage to the person.

Peaceful traders beware :(

cheers

[disclaimer: i haven't played with the newly "balanced" railgun yet]

I have mixed feelings about this. I would love to have a "real" railgun (one that is more in line with what RP is asking for)... but I fear the potential imbalance and over-use of the railgun if it were brought up to this level.

Now... I personally don't think there's anything wrong with hard-hittting and/or sniping weapons, though. The way to solve the demand for such a weapon while preserving balance isn't to nerf the gun. It's to impose limitations that make it balanced despite its high velocity and high damage. I think that for this type of quick-kill weapon to work, **all** of the following conditions need to be met:

1) There is a real risk involved in using it. I.e., very long load times, some sort of defensive penalty, etc. If shields were ever introduced, you could have the uber-railgun drain both energy and shields to 0, for example.

2) This is part of #1 but it stands repeating: Very very very slow rate of fire. Someone who is missed should be able to close the gap and fire in return before the rail is charged again to fire.

3) It is so fast that it's hard to aim. In FPS's that use rail guns, they are so precise and quick that it can be very hard to hit a moving object. In vendetta this doesn't really apply because of the HUD's ability to lead an object. So for this type of weapon I think you would need to remove the aiming/lead reticule while armed.

4) This one is important to preserve playability in an RPG (the other points refer more to the FPS aspects of Vendetta)... no weapon should be able to kill you instantly unless there is a way of knowing that you are being targeted. If you know that you have been targeted, you can immediately start evasive maneuvers, making a quick-kill gun much less effective.

The strict precautions against instant-kills are more of a requirement than in your average FPS because as the RPG elements of the game come to the surface, the penalties involved in death will be much greater. Right now, you die, you buy a new ship, you fight again... so an instant death is just an annoyance. Eventually, it could be VERY detrimental to gameplay.

Vendetta isn't Quake. One-shot-one-kill weapons have no place in a space combat sim. If you have a sharpshooter in the game that has 99% accuracy through 3D FPS experience, you can be certain that that person will take advantage of a one-shot-one-kill railgun. It wouldn't be fair for everyone else to have that person camp near a station and pick off anybody that comes in or leaves. I believe at one point the devs have also stated that they're trying to avoid having one-shot-one-kill weapons (with the exception of the Avalons, which serve SOME real purpose). I vote nay.

=b

I would also vote 'no'. A weapon that does more damage in a single shot than the average weapon does in a second has a huge 'first strike' advantage, even if it does in theory lower damage per second. 'First Strike' suggests that 'the player who makes the first hit will win'. If that first strike advantage is large enough that a single shot can kill the foe, the advantage is pretty absolute - I might theoretically do more damage in ten seconds than a first strike weapon does, but if the fight only lasts .1 second I'll never get the chance. Therefore, once you introduce one first strike weapon, basically you have to turn all the weapons into first strike weapons (the rocket launchers and snipers rifles of various Doom/Quake style FPS's).

There are a couple of ways to balance a large first strike advantage by making the weapon significantly unweildy. For instance, you could require that the weapon be charged for 10 seconds before it could be fired (and that it be continiously 'held' charged).

But first strike issues aside, I don't even think that the described weapon would be used as the sort of 'sniper weapon' that the poster envisions. Another poster has made the claim that the effective range of a weapon that doesn't have a prox radius is only about 1.5 times its velocity. I think this is a valid assessment. This means that the weapon would probably not be employed beyond 750m (because it would almost never hit), and because 750m can be crossed by the target in less than the time it takes to recover and fire a second time, I doubt most 'snipers' would make such risky shots. Instead you'd see alot of 'sneaking up' and making low risk shots in the 100m-200m range so as to be sure of getting a good chance at a hit.

I've got nothing against snipers, I just think that they are going to have to understand that both long range/high velocity AND high damage is too much to ask for. Compared to a typical FPS environment, we don't have alot of 'walls' and other terrain features to shorten up the range. Compared to a FPS, Vendetta is moving away from the idea of the 'frag fest' or 'deathmatch' where wracking up 30-40 kills in 15 minutes is perfectly normal play. Ships don't just respawn for free and the universe is gradually becoming much much larger than a standard FPS arena.

Ok, how to make a 'balanced' sniper weapon:

1) It can't make 'one-shot one-kill' on average ships, though it can come close. Assume that anything that can be made to do 8000 or more damage in a shot is out. Also keep in mind that if it is a small weapon, it can be quaded on the hornet and so needs to do less than 2000 damage per shot. If it is a large weapon, you have a bit more flexibility because large weapons at present can only be doubled and ships that have large weapon slots depend on the superiority of the large weapon in order to be balanced.

2) By definition, if you are to have a chance of hitting with it at a long distance it is going to have to be fast. Fast means accurate and accuracy is a huge all around advantage in the weapon, so to balance the weapon it had to have some limiting factor in efficiency (damage per point of energy) or damage per second. The higher the velocity, the more extreme the other penalties are going to have to be.

Just as a number pulled out of the air without much thought, try having each doubling of velocity mean dividing the damage of the weapon by 3 or so or tripling the energy consumption. So a 360 velocity 'tachyon' probably shouldn't do more than 200 damage per hit. A 720 velocity 'tachyon' probably shouldn't do more than 200 damage per hit and cost like 36 energy per shot. By greatly reducing the weapons rate of fire we could probably accept high numbers. For instance, the same weapon based on the gauss would do 400 damage per hit at 720 velocty at a cost of 120 energy per shot. Of course, those numbers (being pulled out of the air) probably won't be balanced right off the bat, but they would be a decent starting point.

3) If you want a 'sniper weapon' that can do more than just harrass the enemy with a low ammount of damage per shot, you are going to need to add other disadvantages like ammunition consumption, charging time, poor autotargeting, etc. In other words, the original rail gun is about as good as it would ever get so any weapon proposed shouldn't be better than the original rail gun.

If we were to have a 1-hit kill weapon, or even a nearly 1-hit kill weapon we could reasonably expect snipers to hang out within range of stations and pick off ships as they prepare to dock. Damaged ships would fall prey to even a nearly 1-hit kill weapon. Then the sniper would space if detected.

There is no point in discussing the Avalon in this thread. It is for frigate killing and has been nerfed to discourage its use for player combat.

Not that it matters, but some of the comments about the railgun's specs are true for such a weapon being fired in an atmosphere. Concentrate on making the weapon useful and fun first, then worry about the "science" behind it later.

The problem with a non one hit kill sniper weapon is that if you miss then you are completely fooked. I remember the railgun how it used to be, you couldn't hit shit with it if you were using it like a real sniper would (yes, I was forcing myself to only fire the old railgun once every 5 seconds, Why? becasue I'm a weirdo.) But becasue of this game's extreme hatred of sniper weapons and the lack of understanding how a true sniper would use it, I'm just going to give up, because there will always be n00bs that will exploit with it.

Speed, 500 as stated earlier. Range, 3km. Assumes shooter must be at full stop (less than 5 meters per second).

Some options.

1. Require 250 energy per shot. To load two you'd need a heavy battery, which charges slowly. Tri is out.

1a. Wherever you attempt to fire a rail with insufficient energy, you take full damage (so you load dual linked rails, fire. Your battery gets to 250, you fire - one rail fires, the other "misfires" and you take full damage from that rail).

2. Weapon speed is based on charging. Requires 250 energy per shot, and an additional 250 energy to fully "charge." Single arm, requires heavy battery.

A rail with 3k range @ 500m/sec is 6 seconds. If you fire the rail when not fully charged, not only is it slower, its range is shortened (ie, a rail going 300m/sec times six seconds only goes 1800 meters)

2a. Weapon damage is based on charging as well. Perhaps in the above example, a rail going 300k/sec only does 6-7k damage (out of a possible 12)

2b. Get rid of that awful charged cannon.

3. Target gets missile beeps and yellow and red dot/target sees yellow dot/beeps but no dot on radar.

4. Rail does not "arm" for 2 seconds after firing (1km distance). Useful only as a long range weapon.

5. If rail does not hit anything (including a roid), the shooter takes damage.

5b. If rail hits a STATION, shooter takes full damage (no station camping).

Let's say you give this rail all 12k damage as suggested. It's a one shot kill gun. But if you MISS, it kills YOU. If you camp a station, you bite it.

I also like lemming's suggestion that the rail does your ships max hull +2k, maxxed ad 12k.

Put a couple of these suggestions together you have a sniper weapon that useful only as a sniper weapon.

I think it is unrealistic to talk about a 'sniper weapon' that only goes 500m/s or less. A weapon going 500m/s won't be very useful for hitting anything at 1.5 km, much less 3km. How many shots with a tachyon do you manage to hit at >500m? A weapon with 500m/s speed might have slightly longer effective range than current weapons, but only by a few 100m. To get up into the ranges beyond 1km we have to start talking about velocities above 700m/s. To hit something at 3km with a direct fire weapon you really need to talk about velocities near 2000m/s.

As a general litmus test for a new weapon, ask yourself this question: "Would you be comfortable with having bots armed with this weapon?"

I also think that you have to be careful about giving any weapon 'gimicky' limitations.

Celebrim, I've got a little addition to your idea. The railgun's shot is a fast moving projectile that deals heavy damage per shot, but it has the graphic of a beam so that the shot is easy to trace back to the source. Not only do you have to buy ammo for the gun (maybe only 5 or 6 max), but each shot requires full power for use, and drains your battery completely (making it hard to make quick getaways, and your ability to defend yourself after taking a shot is limited). As for bots using it, I think it would add a freaky dimension to the game because that would up the skill level of the bots several notches. I can seriously see bot teamwork coming with this weapon (one shooter, one defender, one bait, etc).

wow CrippledPidgeon, why didn't I think of that, oh wait, I did.

what aobut people who would fire this thing point blank?

Why do we need a sniper weapon in a space game? The desire for one comes from people who play FPS games based on footsoldiers! I absolutely hate the idea of a sniper weapon.

Asp