Class 4 railguns
- Thread starter noruzenchi86
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Which is something even FD recognized. Many years ago, when they still cared about the game, one of the developers revealed that they were at some time internally testing C3 and C4 railguns. But they found no way to balance them in a way, that they would at the same time feel adequate for the hardpoint they used, whille not creating balancing issues at the same time.
Considering that FD in their good days were not able to balance this properly, i don't want to even know what would happen, if a C3/4 railgun would be added today.
I was pretty sure that, that was the case that Fdev at one point tired it but could never get it to work, but i was not sure.
I mean just think about it, a class 4 rail gun, super penetrator, and long range? you could snipe ships from like 8k away
That's one of many scenarios. Another is: now imagine an NPC, where the generator rolled a max size railgun for all slots. A player could never field that, he (supposedly) has (at least minimal) brains and can see what will happen: overheating the ship, lots of internal damage, having to retreat from the RES after just a few kills. An NPC would not care and fire a full broadside, no matter the damage to the NPC ship. If an NPC blows up, there will be more again.
The most obvious answer of course is: make it a C2 railgun with more ammo. (See this thread. It always is being given. ) The problem here: and then you sacrifice a C4 slot for a C2 weapon with more ammo. This would not stand for a month... too many players would cry out, that this just does not feel good and is not fun and the damage needs to be upped.
Maybe there would be a thin line of perfection, where the weapon would feel adequately powerful for a C4 railgun, without creating a number of balance issues. But while it may exist, it would require a lot of work and finetuning to create and also to maintain whenever anything is being changed. Considering FDs general performance: anybody here, who would believe that they could actually pull that off?
Armor Piercing / Hull Hardness are explicit stats shown in the Outfitting and Shipyard screens, respectively; I did keep them in mind when running the numbers above. It does bother me that even the Class 1's have an AP of 100...
Class 2 Modified Guardian Plasma Chargers have an AP rating of 110, a projectile velocity of 6000 m/s and my testing has indicated that they can do considerable damage to internal modules. They're not quite hitscan, but they are very easy to hit mobile targets with.
Now I'm curious to see if this will actually happen, so for fun let's step through what Elite does to calculate module damage (IIRC):
The first step is the hull's resistances; a Railgun's damage is split between 66% Thermal and 33% Kinetic. The target's resistances will reduce the incoming damage to modules in addition to regular hull damage. Many builds that I've seen typically aim for an even 50-50 split between Thermal and Kinetic resistances. To simplify some calculations that I will be doing in a moment, we'll assume 50% across the board.
Second, every weapon in Elite has a pair of stats that dictate the probability for that weapon to breach the hull of a target and cause module damage; these stats are the Min and Max Breach Chances. Near full hull health, the Min Breach Chance stat is used, while near 0% the Max Breach Chance is used. The probability of a hull breach increases linearly between the two as hull HP decreases. For a full hull HP target, Railguns have a 40% (or 2 in 5) chance of causing module damage; near 0% hull, it's 80% (4 in 5).
If we pass the breach chance check, we still have one last layer of defense to go through before we can apply damage to a module: Module Reinforcement Packages, which will directly absorb the damage that was intended for the module. These are typically layered on top of one another as the protection from each stacks. With 2 MRPs installed (which is what I run on my Bi-Weave Vulture), 84% of the incoming damage is absorbed and applied to the MRPs, as long as they have HP remaining; the remaining 16% is applied to the module.
Let's now put it all together in an example: we fire two Class 4 un-Engineered Railguns simultaneously and hit a module on a ship at full HP, with 50% resistances across the board, and 2 MRPs. We will assume that both Railguns pass the breach check (which has a 16% or 4 in 25 chance of happening at full HP). The targeted module will receive:
(2 * 85.9 MJ) * 0.5 [Resistances] * 0.16 [MRPs] = 13.7 MJ
The remaining 72.2 MJ from before the MRP calculation is applied to the MRPs' HP pool, which would take out a Class 1 MRP, if equipped. I'll admit my memory is a bit foggy on what order MRPs are depleted...
With a pretty average build stock Class 4 Railguns aren't that scary from a damage perspective, even in a worst-case scenario.
Now consider this damage can be applied at ranges of 6k
Like i have been saying, if you are looking at just the damage yeah its not scary, but you are not taking into consideration how that damage is being applied.
Its a hit scan weapon, with ranges out to 6k with long range, able to penetrate through the entire ship, destroying multiple hardpoints very easily, its also an impulse weapon which while minor is still a thing, it has 100ap meaning that hit scan is doing full damage prior to resistances.
As also mentioned, FDEV back when they cared could not get it to work specifically for these reasons, because even the class III was insanely powerful. Corvettes would be able to alpha strike sniper most ships in the game before their target would even be able to get in range of them.
I want it, but its also incredibly broken.
Yeah, I wouldn't even use this approach for C4 railgun. For C3 it might be adequate for those cases you really want a railgun for the Vulture and using C2 weapon for C3 hardpoint would feel like a waste. I'd probably put one to the bottom hardpoint of the Corvette.
tiny quibble: the per-shot chance is an 60% chance that each module absorbs 100% of the damage. It’s possible but unlikely 2 MRPs could both fail (16%), but either one will stop all of the damage or none. There is no partial damage applied to the module.
Basically this your modules just take it on the chin.
I've tried looking around, but all of the available literature and videos I can find on MRPs point to them working on absorption rather than RNG; those sources also seemingly agree with my own experiences with MRPs in the field, though my observations have been flawed in the past. Is there a document or a video out there with this information quantified?
In retrospect, it appears as though your concerns arise primarily from the effects of Engineering elevating the already-powerful Railguns to a whole new level, specifically the Long Range mod and Super Penetrator Experimental Effect, rather than the Railguns themselves. The calculations I ran primarily focus on stock Railguns relative to their stock peers as I am very aware of how Engineering disproportionately elevates our ships and equipment (looking at you, FDL / shield boosters).
If Engineering is indeed the concern here, we should be looking into how Super Penetrator interacts with multiple MRPs / modules and potentially shortening the penetration depth it can achieve, as well as possibly reducing or eliminating the microgimbal effect for Fixed Weapons to reduce accuracy with the Long Range mod. If instead the concern is actually with Railguns as a whole, we could potentially look into reducing their overall DPS through an increase in charge-up times and a decrease in their Armor Penetration values (both of which would also affect our theoretical Class 3 and 4 Railguns).
With out engineering they are still OP.
Again, there is a reason they are not in the game, Fdev tried it, ti did not work because it could snipe ships with ease. You can keep saying the numebrs are fine and it totally works, but when push comes to shove, the class 3 and class 4 rail gun always ended up being broken because of the ability to target subsystems and snipe out peoples generators.
You still are not grasping the problem here. Its not the DPS, its the alpha strike, Its the fact i would be able to load up a vette, armed with 2 Class 4 railguns, a class 3, then the rest being lasers. The DPS of the railguns wont mean squat if i can target your reactor, and shoot you once, maybe twice with 2 class 4 railguns, and a class 3 and destroy your ships reactor in one shot, recharge time wont mean anything at that point.
The further this conversation goes on, the more you at least are starting to see the issue, because now you are suggestion tweeting engineering and the microgimble which you really cant mess with the micro gimble because thats what is needed inorder to target the subsystems, you take that out, you can no longer target subsystems, if you take out the ability to target sub systems you basically make railguns pointless in general.
I dont deny it would be cool, but it would be broken, Fdev tried it, back when they cared, and even they could not add it in reasonably, even before engineering was a thing, it was broken.
Again, there is a reason they are not in the game, Fdev tried it, ti did not work because it could snipe ships with ease. You can keep saying the numebrs are fine and it totally works, but when push comes to shove, the class 3 and class 4 rail gun always ended up being broken because of the ability to target subsystems and snipe out peoples generators.
You still are not grasping the problem here. Its not the DPS, its the alpha strike, Its the fact i would be able to load up a vette, armed with 2 Class 4 railguns, a class 3, then the rest being lasers. The DPS of the railguns wont mean squat if i can target your reactor, and shoot you once, maybe twice with 2 class 4 railguns, and a class 3 and destroy your ships reactor in one shot, recharge time wont mean anything at that point.
The further this conversation goes on, the more you at least are starting to see the issue, because now you are suggestion tweeting engineering and the microgimble which you really cant mess with the micro gimble because thats what is needed inorder to target the subsystems, you take that out, you can no longer target subsystems, if you take out the ability to target sub systems you basically make railguns pointless in general.
I dont deny it would be cool, but it would be broken, Fdev tried it, back when they cared, and even they could not add it in reasonably, even before engineering was a thing, it was broken.
Ah, the issue is with Railguns in general.
If they are deemed OP as they currently are, any larger variant will be OP by definition under that assumption. At that point, the conversation should revolve around proposing solutions to reducing the effectiveness of Railguns rather than opposing larger Railgun variants; adjustments to the Small and Medium Railguns will affect how the Large and Huge are implemented later on.
... isn't that what Railguns were designed to do in the first place - snipe out modules? Ergo, they will excel in sniping out modules.
If they are deemed overly effective in this role, a couple of areas we could examine could be:
- Base Penetration Depth
- Breach Damage
- Hull Damage
- Base Module HP
- MRP HP
- MRP Engineering
If you have MRPs equipped this will not happen, as I demonstrated in my previous post. The MRPs will absorb the majority of incoming damage in the (unlikely) event that both Class 4's breach the hull at max hull HP.*
Based on all available literature and discussions from both PVPers and PVE-ers, MRPs absorb the stated portion of incoming damage. I recently confirmed that while conducting ongoing viability testing of my latest bad-idea-of-a-ship-build via a Wing Assassination + regular Assassination mission in the same instance:
My modules were initially at 99% due to me interdicting the mission target.
I had a particularly angry Vulture with a Class 2 Railgun (Engineering unknown, but the Vulture was Engineered) on my backside and an FDL applying the Corrosive effect for the entirety of the fight. After all hostiles had been dealt with, my most damaged module was my Bi-Weave shield generator, which received 18.34 MJ of damage. One of my 3D MRPs was at 20%, which meant it had about 31 HP left and lost 124 HP.
A Railgun's base Breach Damage is 39.5 MJs. My Clipper's hull resistances are 48.8% Thermal and 40.5% Kinetic; at a 66-33% split between the two resistance types respectively, each round that breached my hull dealt 21.3 MJ. Factoring in the Corrosive damage buff of 25%, that's 26.6 MJ. If MRPs operated on RNG and would occasionally allow a direct hit to the module, I would expect at least that much damage applied to my Bi-Weave generator and major damage to both MRPs, but alas that isn't the case here.
With two MRPs absorbing 84% of the incoming damage, each hit actually dealt 4.26 MJ with the remaining
22.36 MJ being absorbed by one of the MRPs. It would appear that my Bi-Weave generator took four direct hits and some other weapons fire. Railgun hits on my generator alone account for 89.4 MJ of HP lost from that MRP at 20%, with the remaining HP lost likely coming from hits to my Power Distributor and Canopy by a combination of a Railgun strike or two and Laser / Multicannon fire.
I therefore conclude that MRPs do operate off of absorption rather than RNG, and that my example of two theoretically Class 4 Railguns is an accurate approximation of what would happen in that scenario. A one-hit knockout with two Class 4 Railguns cannot happen with MRPs equipped while at maximum hull HP.
My modules were initially at 99% due to me interdicting the mission target.
I had a particularly angry Vulture with a Class 2 Railgun (Engineering unknown, but the Vulture was Engineered) on my backside and an FDL applying the Corrosive effect for the entirety of the fight. After all hostiles had been dealt with, my most damaged module was my Bi-Weave shield generator, which received 18.34 MJ of damage. One of my 3D MRPs was at 20%, which meant it had about 31 HP left and lost 124 HP.
A Railgun's base Breach Damage is 39.5 MJs. My Clipper's hull resistances are 48.8% Thermal and 40.5% Kinetic; at a 66-33% split between the two resistance types respectively, each round that breached my hull dealt 21.3 MJ. Factoring in the Corrosive damage buff of 25%, that's 26.6 MJ. If MRPs operated on RNG and would occasionally allow a direct hit to the module, I would expect at least that much damage applied to my Bi-Weave generator and major damage to both MRPs, but alas that isn't the case here.
With two MRPs absorbing 84% of the incoming damage, each hit actually dealt 4.26 MJ with the remaining
22.36 MJ being absorbed by one of the MRPs. It would appear that my Bi-Weave generator took four direct hits and some other weapons fire. Railgun hits on my generator alone account for 89.4 MJ of HP lost from that MRP at 20%, with the remaining HP lost likely coming from hits to my Power Distributor and Canopy by a combination of a Railgun strike or two and Laser / Multicannon fire.
I therefore conclude that MRPs do operate off of absorption rather than RNG, and that my example of two theoretically Class 4 Railguns is an accurate approximation of what would happen in that scenario. A one-hit knockout with two Class 4 Railguns cannot happen with MRPs equipped while at maximum hull HP.
I'm able to hit modules reliably without the microgimbal using MGPCs in Trailing sight mode, as well as snipe Thargoid hearts with Gauss Cannons without subtargeting as well; hitting Railgun shots would still be relatively easy even without the microgimbal assist, especially given how large some of the module hitboxes are. Reduction or removal of the microgimbal would limit the accuracy out at longer ranges with the Long Range mod to what the player can actually hit instead of relying on an aim assist mechanic to correct for minor deviations.
The microgimbal assist at long range has been an issue for quite a while and one brought up by the PVP community many times in the past due to reverski builds, which is why I asked about them earlier in this post.
I need to find when FDEV made that comment as I'm curious if it was before or after Engineers and Class 3 / 4 Multicannons and Lasers were implemented...
If you go back to the original post they're balanced on fully engineered high capacity or weapons focused class 7A power distributors providing the means to even use stock class 4's in the first place, and relying on the recharge rate of the capacitors (typically 20-60 seconds for two class 4's), which means your other weapons are taking up time away from the energy you could use to fire the railguns, recharge your boost or shield capacitor. For that, you're rewarded with a generous alpha damage.
Remember: railguns can't spool up if there's not enough energy stored in your distributor. I'm not certain on if one-shotting shields bleeds through into the hull as well. I vaguely remembering doing so with plasmas, but on a Krait with 5 of them, and for that if you face off against a plasma krait in a small ship you may as well kiss your butt goodbye anyhow.
You do have a point with class 3 railguns as the bridge between 2 and 4, and that's why I suggested against it and skipping straight to 4's only. But yeah, the whole point of the class 4 railgun in my state is the alpha output. I'm not a fan of module sniping and would be all for a reduced breach damage as with the torpedos, but in essence the class 4 is meant to rival the current meta as a less DPS, easier to use option. This is pitted either unengineered vs unengineered ships, or engineered vs engineered ships, and without acknowledging MRP's (assume 1 on both ships or none)
If class 3's get added, they'd need to sidegrade against class 3 multicannons or burst lasers, not plasmas.
Otherwise, Riz seems to have better experience on the topic of railgun meta than I do.
Huh. I never knew they added those weapons after Elite released. Makes sense considering they use separate models than the 1/2's.
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Convert C3 and C4 rails to burst weapons and you solve the alpha problem.