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Rails

May 22, 2025 Rodo Solalis 34000 link
Looking on how unpopular railguns are (and they're got for PvP!), it seems logical they need a rebalance to make them better for fights. Ready for comments like "You don't understand the game, newbie", "Stop begging and learn how to play", "At least get all them to say something" and others.

Rebalancing railguns:

1st variant - changing parameters. In example on Railgun mkI:
Speed: 400 -> 700 m/s (now not much difference, VERY easy to dodge)
Damage: Upped to 2k (Compensation for low ammo)
Auto aim: 0,5° (to be needed in ideal shot)

2nd variant - ammo system.
As Railgun's description says - ammo: 48mm Xitricite. The suggestion is to make different bullets, based on material, like:

Ferric ore - metal bullets. 700 damage, 1300 m/s
Van-Azek - Van-Azek bullets (wow, original). 1000 damage, 1000 m/s, medium ones
Xitricite + Ferric - Xitricite bullets. 1400 damage, 700 m/s
Pironic ore - Pironic bullets. 1800 damage, 500 m/s
Sammic ore - Heavy bullets. 3000 damage, 200 m/s Can be used only from mkIII Rails.
All bullets can be bought in barracks or Capitol (except for Sammic) or manufactured from ore.

Differences between Rails:
Caliber:
Mk I - 30mm
Mk II - 48mm as base
Mk III - 60mm
Advanced - 85mm

All rails have basic parameters like 0.5° aiming, ammo count (Mk I the less), basic bullet speed and damage (pluses with Bullet stats), reload rate and inertia after shooting (Advanced in ex can turn the ship on 30° based on its location on ship and ship's mass, as missile explosion)
May 24, 2025 incarnate link
Speed: 400 -> 700 m/s (now not much difference, VERY easy to dodge)

"Easy to dodge" is completely dependent on your individual latency (ping). We're a global game, with a single "server" and game universe used by everyone. So, making weapons that can be "very easy to dodge" by someone on hardwired internet on the eastern US coast is not the same as someone in Europe, let alone Asia. Even cellular connections alone add a non-trivial delay.

Looking on how unpopular railguns are

We don't really aim to balance based on "popularity". It's fine for weapons to have a respective niche. Railguns do get used, and have value in particular circumstances. But, they're supposed to have a lot of tradeoffs.

If we make a weapon so good that everyone always wants to use it, then we've basically failed to balance it properly.

The railgun is intended to allow a considerable standoff distance, but without such DPS as to make it trivial to gank someone from across a sector without giving them any opportunity to react.

So, going to Rule #5, how does this Suggestion "improve the game as a whole"? Like, I have no problem with specialty bullets that can be manufactured, but why do we want to increase the DPS so drastically?
May 25, 2025 Lord~spidey link
TL;DR: Railguns... more ammo... yes... explosions good!

I'm going to take this opportunity to inject my railgun changes i've been pinin' for.

Every variant superior to the mkI all get roughly ~50% extra ammo and the mk1 gets ~100kg or something taken off to give it a slight edge on lighter spaceboats (symbolic more than anything but hey) they're extremely situational and only really shines in a gank where you can respawn nearby to come back with a full tube/rack of ammo, this change would give them a little bit more staying power.

This change isn't that drastic it wouldn't make them less niche but it would help towards making them viable in events like the nation war or in other instances where there's an extended firefight that punishes for dying for instance a group engagement over a player capship.

Applying railgun damage is really hard so increasing the ammo isn't going to have a huge impact on their utility but it'll make the stupid-high mass feel a bit more justified.

for the sake of simplicity:

Rail Gun: mass 800 >700kg
Rail Gun MkII: ammo 30>45 units
Rail Gun MkIII: ammo 15>25 units
Rail Gun Advance: ammo 10>15 units

these small changes would further differentiate rail guns by making the mkI marginally lighter than the mkII in exchange for ammo and energy efficiency
the mkII would remain as the best all around railgun sporting the most ammo at the expense of doing little damage relative to the mk3/adv, the mkIII would remain as the unloved middle child sitting between the adv rail's damage and the mkII's ammo count, might be worth considering dropping the energy requirement to 50 to give it a niche as the most efficient railgun which would suddenly make it very interesting on a greyhound, and lastly the mighty advance rail would become slightly better in it's role of being the best railgun at the expense of mass the small change wouldn't make it busted by any means but it wouldn't hurt.
May 27, 2025 Infinitis link
Please, also ensure the Concussion Railgun is not forgotten.
May 27, 2025 Lord~spidey link
Oh right, yeah give that one 300% more ammo!