Rail guns are the worst weapons in game, worse than the mining lance

[Agony_Aunt]

Now that I've riled up the rail gun fans, i'll ask what could i be doing wrong with them?

I've tried to use them before, but never been really impressed, but wanted to give them a fair chance.

So, I've got a keelback and my idea was to use it as a ship where i'll either fly the slf or the ship and wanted to do something different with the weapons. Since max size weapons are 2, i thought, let's slap some rails on it. After all, when NPCs use rails they are pretty effective and I remember how often i saw PvPers use rails. High skill, high damage weapons right? Ermm...

So, i've got 4 rails, 2S + 2M, and super pen on them all, so should be great for trashing internals when shields go down, right? Right?

Now, i've tried this thing at nav beacons and CZs, with a range of ships and ranks, and... well, they totally fail to impress me.

In Nav beacon took ages to take down ships.

Go into CZ for the last test. More hull, but want to practice module sniping.

Viper Mk2... blasting away at it, tricky little thing to hit, all over the place, but when i land a hit... pfff... a bit of damage. Erm... ok. Let my Elite NPC have a fly instead. Hop into the SLF to watch. NPC is hitting away, a lot better than me at being on target as well. After a while, the Viper does go pop.

Ok, try something bigger, easier to hit. Let the NPC do their thing for a while. Chieftain. Shields go down fairly quickly, but NPC is shooting away, on target, but burning through the relatively limited ammo.

Finally i get fed up of waiting, and good news, its now drifting. It finally lost thrusters, hull down to 60%.

In the hot seat, can't miss now, its drifting in a straight line and shields are down. Target the PP. Not much ammo left, but surely now i can finish it.

Shoot... shoot... hull drops by maybe 1 or 2 percent per volley. PP takes almost no damage, despite being targetted, despite being on target, despite the PP on the Chieftain being really exposed. Oh no, 2 of my rail guns have run out of ammo. Now i'm doing less than 1% damage per volley. And now I've run out of all ammo.

Even the basic gimballed beam/MC combo would have destroyed the ship in a tenth of the time.

Is there something to rails that i'm missing, or do they just suck that bad? Limited ammo, super pen is less than super, and against ships with extra hull, like in CZs, they just seem extra useless.

 

[aardappelianen]

im no expert and i suck with rails too but i know that convergence is key and rails have micro gimballing like any other weapon but it only works at a certain range, and then angles on your target matter too, a pythons powerplant is best to hit from the topside, and t7 from the side it seems from recent experience.
also i think mouse mouse controls would be best for rails.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

im no expert and i suck with rails too but i know that convergence is key and rails have micro gimballing like any other weapon but it only works at a certain range, and then angles on your target matter too, a pythons powerplant is best to hit from the topside, and t7 from the side it seems from recent experience.
also i think mouse mouse controls would be best for rails.

Yeah, i'm on HOTAS, so not great, but i'm still left stunned by how bad they were with a disabled target, a Chieftain of all things, which has a really easy PP to hit from many angles, and how bad my NPC fared with it, yet an enemy NPC can rip me a new one if it is using rails.

 

[yianniv]

I'm sure you'll get some useful info by relevant people. I just wanted to say I liked your presentation.

 

[Vedmo]

I use them on a few ships for CZ, and have had similar experiences of dumping rounds into a ship while not seeing module damage or hull damage, but have also chewed right through power plants as well. For the CZ ships I always go long range plasma slug though, and usually put them on a faster ship and try to engage from a fair distance (at least once shields are down) to increase the chance all of my targeting reticles are in the red box, which seems to be a decent way to take better advantage of the micro-gimbal. Plasma slug is a hit to damage I trade off for unlimited (fuel tank limited rather) ammo. The following I cannot say for sure is true, as I don't have enough of an understanding of the mechanics, but I have wondered if super pen might actually make it harder to hit modules deeper in a ship if their damage is used up when hitting outer modules along the path. Regardless of weapons, I've definitely spent a lot of time chasing tumbling Chieftains and Challengers whose engines are long gone but have power plants that just won't blow. I actually used to target the easily destroyed engines first to disable them for an easier kill then abandoned that strategy after it lead to such frustrations.

Edit: Forgot to say, I have not used the Mining Lance, so cannot comment on that!

 

[aardappelianen]

i also recently switched to a hotas setup and im not gonna bother with them for a long time lol, i could kinda do it with the xbox controller but i never great.
i really wish we could give each weapon its own fire button so i could bring on on my regular builds to practice.

 

[KKomrade Sylas]

Rail boats aren't good for CZ's because CZ ships are too tanky. I also did try long range superpen and it did work for module sniping though, whenever I hit them. But ammo was too limited to consistently win anything other than 1 low CZ with them, mostly because I kept missing. I had better luck with long range plasma slug but it's still just a lot slower than beams + multicanons.

You also need good convergence, likely a limited ammount of rails for heat management and a thermal spread low emissions power plant.

The ship I do bounty hunting in for BGS though is a 4 Rails Krait Phantom and it works wonders and one of my favorite things to fly, I think that's what you should try. I don't worry about module sniping, I just go short range blaster + plasma slug. 4 of them on a Phantom and you'll chew through anything in a haz-res. Try not to ram anyone, since your power will run very low and you won't have amazing shields because of it.

I occasionally take it into low intensity CZ's and it works well too, just not as well as the usual beams + multis, there's a reason those are the PvE meta.

Alternatively you could do it in a Krait Mk2 though it's less agile and agility is key for railguns since the way you're supposed to kill ships with them is by just hitting shot after shot affter shot repeatedly. You can fit 5 rails in them and you can avoid overheating by having 3-2 in the fire group instead of all 5 on 1 button.

 

[Hanerib]

Three class 1 short range blaster plasma slug rails on an Adder can recommend luv my rails

 

[Morbad]

Ok, try something bigger, easier to hit. Let the NPC do their thing for a while. Chieftain. Shields go down fairly quickly, but NPC is shooting away, on target, but burning through the relatively limited ammo.

Finally i get fed up of waiting, and good news, its now drifting. It finally lost thrusters, hull down to 60%.

In the hot seat, can't miss now, its drifting in a straight line and shields are down. Target the PP. Not much ammo left, but surely now i can finish it.

Shoot... shoot... hull drops by maybe 1 or 2 percent per volley. PP takes almost no damage, despite being targetted, despite being on target, despite the PP on the Chieftain being really exposed. Oh no, 2 of my rail guns have run out of ammo. Now i'm doing less than 1% damage per volley. And now I've run out of all ammo.

If the hull is only dropping by 1-2% per volley, then modules are being intersected and damaged. If the PP isn't going down, you're somehow not putting shots through it.

You might want to practice knocking out the modules on larger vessels to get a handle on how the shots are actually converging (which varies from ship to ship and hardpoint to hardpoint) and try not using module targeting at close ranges where the microgimbal effect might occasionally be a liability.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about (wasn't meant to be any kind of tutorial, but I had it on hand and there is a segment where I'm coring out the NPC I'm investigating):

Source: https://youtu.be/lQrcL8zND3k?t=113


Note that I didn't select any subsystems with sensors until later as I know where the PP is, the micro-gimbal effect does not help much at that range, and the effects of disabling it are obvious. I do start cycling module targets as I practice disabling them all and also stagger my fire as the hardpoints are too far apart on a DBX for them both to converge up close.

The Keelback's rail convergence is poor. In general, I try to use closely spaced hardpoints for rails, especially in PvE where they will be used at very close ranges. The nose hardpoints on a vette, belly hardpoints on a conda, one side of an FDL or viper, etc...those are good places for rails. I'd probably only put a single rail on a Keelback for module sniping NPCs, because that's all that's going to hit the module at close range.

Is there something to rails that i'm missing, or do they just suck that bad? Limited ammo, super pen is less than super, and against ships with extra hull, like in CZs, they just seem extra useless.

For PvE, feedback cascade or plasma slug are far and away the most useful railgun modifications and either of those will snipe NPC power plants very effectively.

Superpen is generally a PvP weapon to amplify damage to MRPs (quickly exposing modules to full damage), inducing multiple annoying malfunctions, and allowing the intended subsystem to be struck even if obstructed by other modules.

I have wondered if super pen might actually make it harder to hit modules deeper in a ship if their damage is used up when hitting outer modules along the path.

I'm pretty sure super penetrator does full damage to all intersected modules.

 

[Vedmo]

I'm pretty sure super penetrator does full damage to all intersected modules.

After reading the description again, “experimental munitions that are capable of penetrating and damaging all modules along its trajectory,” I guess that’s literally the point of them, ya, to prevent what I initially described from happening.

 

[Elpapo]

I disagree with thread title. It actually opposite of that. Rails are among best PVE/PVP weapons of them all, but only if properly used and when used in right bulids. Its highest damage hitscan weapon in game and it have one of most efficent ratios dmg per juice draw of them all.

High skill, high damage weapons right? Ermm...

Where to begin with... hmm.. First is ship choice, keelback isnt good at all, due of hardpoint placement to use as rail boat... Converging many rails as possible in single point, is so far, most important factor to use rails properly. Well as using right modifications to begin with. Long range G5 + plasma slug. Double or triple fuel capacity is a must, so it does shot atleast few hundred times, before run out of "ammo" fuel itself. It takes some time to get used to 1 sec delay after trigger is pressed, the "charge up", as this is also imporant to master if one wants use rails properly.

Superpen does not really work well outside PVP, due of limited ammo and due how modification itself works, wich is already explained above by Morbad.

Plasma slug on other hand, if not sub-targeting moduels, it does preety good damage per volley, long if there is atleast 3x rails of c2 size. If you want hull damage, skip superpen entierly, try maintain safe distance, 3-5 km is best, as that allows to microgimball all rails in most ships. Do not try snipe moduels up close as well (less than 2km), unless gain some experience with rails.

In PVE, "tanker" bulid with lots of extra fuel, its one of most effective module snipers, in any CZ's, assasinations or HRES etc.. you can plant enemy ships from a far, and they die with more than 70% of thier hull in average if done correctly. Generally, you want mix some weapons to "aid" rails, such as gimball beams to deal with smaller, agile ships up-close (to not waste ammo and time to deal with such)

Bigger ships tend work better in such setups due of higher amount of hardpoints, better distro to handle WEP draw, and mainly due of being able to carry extra fuel needed as ammo, and still being decently defended, but small ships with good coverage can work, but are often limited, by variety of factors.



Try bulid such as this one : KRAIT II

It does make any PVE related combat as joke. Its a all-range bulid that works in every scenario, rails are used in mid to long range, while up-close, beams are used.
It has about enough speed to outrun any npc if needed, fast regen shield wich if fail, it takes litte over 1 min to have it back online, there is also size 6 SCB on top of that, wich prevents that from happening, long as there is SCB charges left.

2k hull is enough tank any npc's if shields needs regen as well. Spam that chaff to minimalize upcoming damage from enemy ships, as NPC's wich always have some gimballs, they wont use it much long as chaff is used. Heat sink is pre-engineered, so it can be used to cooldown SCB, cooldown from rail spam, or when one wants to evade if interdicted, or when need to land without being scanned by npcs.

One of large (top middle one) hardpoint is downsized with one of slug rails, but it still have dual gimball large TV efficent beams, wich helps with cooling down from heat, and makes any small sized ship another joke if they manage to close up distance.

96T of fuel means that 3x slug rails should last for atleast 500-600 shots. Thats a lot more than superpen even with high capacity, and its still long range that does not suffer anything from damage falloff. Those rails can easly plant any npcs once shields are down, from any distance longer than 2,5km (as after that distance, all 3x rails will focus on single point on K2), well as take out drives or kill FSD, in just few salvos.

 

[BDelacroix]

Rails take a while to learn to aim. I happen to use hammers and hit most shots. I practiced by shooting at scouts years ago.

 

[Mohrgan]

I tried too hard to git gud at rails long ago. I was in Adel's Armada, who were famous for their 'Rail D Lances'. Eventually they put me in a Clipper 'chase-build' for runners and clean up. The diagnosis was the 'Dwell'. I couldn't aim, fire, and hit anything reliably. If I remember right, the c1 and c2s have different dwell times, making matters worse for me. To this day I basically rely on Cannon and Frags.

 

[galahad2069]

Even long range rails are pretty strong (considering how easy it is to use them), but SRB rails are disgustingly powerful (luckily they require top tier range control though).

 

[mtfatboy3006]

I love rails, but I don't use them as mains. I use something else for DPS, and use rails to confound shield regen and keep pressing fire on NPCs releasing chaff when my mains are gimballed. If I were to outfit a Keelback I would put rails on the size 1s (1 with feedback cascade and 1 with superpenetrator, I prefer high capacity as the mod) and Plasma Accelerators on the size 2s.

 

[DemiserofD]

Now that I've riled up the rail gun fans, i'll ask what could i be doing wrong with them?

I've tried to use them before, but never been really impressed, but wanted to give them a fair chance.

So, I've got a keelback and my idea was to use it as a ship where i'll either fly the slf or the ship and wanted to do something different with the weapons. Since max size weapons are 2, i thought, let's slap some rails on it. After all, when NPCs use rails they are pretty effective and I remember how often i saw PvPers use rails. High skill, high damage weapons right? Ermm...

So, i've got 4 rails, 2S + 2M, and super pen on them all, so should be great for trashing internals when shields go down, right? Right?

Now, i've tried this thing at nav beacons and CZs, with a range of ships and ranks, and... well, they totally fail to impress me.

In Nav beacon took ages to take down ships.

Go into CZ for the last test. More hull, but want to practice module sniping.

Viper Mk2... blasting away at it, tricky little thing to hit, all over the place, but when i land a hit... pfff... a bit of damage. Erm... ok. Let my Elite NPC have a fly instead. Hop into the SLF to watch. NPC is hitting away, a lot better than me at being on target as well. After a while, the Viper does go pop.

Ok, try something bigger, easier to hit. Let the NPC do their thing for a while. Chieftain. Shields go down fairly quickly, but NPC is shooting away, on target, but burning through the relatively limited ammo.

Finally i get fed up of waiting, and good news, its now drifting. It finally lost thrusters, hull down to 60%.

In the hot seat, can't miss now, its drifting in a straight line and shields are down. Target the PP. Not much ammo left, but surely now i can finish it.

Shoot... shoot... hull drops by maybe 1 or 2 percent per volley. PP takes almost no damage, despite being targetted, despite being on target, despite the PP on the Chieftain being really exposed. Oh no, 2 of my rail guns have run out of ammo. Now i'm doing less than 1% damage per volley. And now I've run out of all ammo.

Even the basic gimballed beam/MC combo would have destroyed the ship in a tenth of the time.

Is there something to rails that i'm missing, or do they just suck that bad? Limited ammo, super pen is less than super, and against ships with extra hull, like in CZs, they just seem extra useless.

What you are experiencing is module reinforcements. You have to destroy those before doing meaningful damage to their modules and power plant.

What it sounds like to me is your convergence is not good enough to stay on target, and most of your damage is being wasted on the armor, and potentially on other modules.

They aren't my favorite module, but they have grown on me. They are nowhere near as absolutely awful as that horrible module the mining lance.

 

[Tifu]

What it sounds like to me is your convergence is not good enough to stay on target, and most of your damage is being wasted on the armor, and potentially on other modules.

They aren't my favorite module, but they have grown on me. They are nowhere near as absolutely awful as that horrible module the mining lance.

It's really high time FD buff the mining lance. Kinda awful to pledge to a Power only to get a special module which is the butt of jokes. No offense to the Torval community

 

[DemiserofD]

It's really high time FD buff the mining lance. Kinda awful to pledge to a Power only to get a special module which is the butt of jokes. No offense to the Torval community

 

[Stealthie]

Even the basic gimballed beam/MC combo would have destroyed the ship in a tenth of the time.

This is kind of the issue I have with rails.

I've tried module-sniping with rails and it always seemed like the main thing you always need to know is which direction to attack from which, a lot of the time, means having a ship that'll let you strafe your target, FA-off, in order to get a suitable line-of-fire... which means, as you say, that it's often quicker to just keep blasting with a more mundane weapon.

I had fun with an iCourier that I deliberately set up with an MC and a pair of rails.
It was rewarding to target PP/Thrusters and actually knock them out but the iCourier can usually fly circles around most things so that gave me plenty of opportunity to maintain position so I could do that.
In a slower/less agile ship (such as a Keelback) you don't really have the same chance to choose your angle of attack so rails are compromised to start with.

I'm using the past-tense because, honestly, these days I tend to just bung an overcharged frag-turret in any "left over" slot(s) so it can inflict large amounts of "normal" damage in addition to what I do with the Beams/MCs.

I guess the "trick" to using rails might be to start off module-sniping with "normal" weapons and once you get comfortable with doing that, swap out one of the weapons for a rail.

 

[Stealthie]

It's really high time FD buff the mining lance. Kinda awful to pledge to a Power only to get a special module which is the butt of jokes. No offense to the Torval community

This.

As an explorer, it's always handy to have a mining laser on your ship so you go to the effort of unlocking the mining lance so you can have a mining laser on your exploration ship and have some kind of rudimentary defence.
Equally, as a miner, a similar thing applies; you fit mining lances to your ship with the intention that they could, at least, get rid of annoying Adders and Eagles that might pester you when you arrive in a ring.

But, they don't.
They have (IIRC) about the same DPS as an un-engineered pulse laser, but they use twice the power and they can't be modified with engineering.
You might as well me using a water-pistol to defend yourself.