Newcomer / Intro How do rail gun damage work?

Crumly

C
So the effect of this gun is         NEAT

I love the big sound and big effects it has! Even the charge time. Easy to hit those big anacondas with it!
I had already pledged to ALD so I thought hey I might want to get good with this faction weapon so I'm trying it out!

So my question is, sometimes I hit and maybe I'm crazy but it seems like it chunks over 10% of an anaconda hull in one shot, then next time it hits for like 1%

I've never noticed this with other weapons, but TBH I usually use spam type lasers so maybe I wouldn't notice. Does what part of a ship you shoot affect that much how much damage it does? I assume that has to be the reason my rail gun does that much different damage from shot to shot
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
I don't know if I, myself understand it correctly, but it could have something to do with railgun's high penetration capability.
Its primary function is to damage modules. Its penetration is so high, that you can actually do the full module damage, even if you shoot through the whole ship's hull.

The occasional low damage might be caused simply by the fact that if you don't hit anything important inside the ship, the shot simply goes right through without causing all that much damage, while if you manage to hit something hard inside, it deals the full damage to the module and the hull around it.

But, you know, that's just my amateurish explanation (justification) of the fact.
Might also be that the shot's damage is simply RNG.
 

Crumly

C
Interesting. I'm glad to know its a module killer, sad to know that my aim is mediocre !!!
Time to do more research about that penetration value
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
You will get the same effect with all the big hit weapons (possibly with the small but frequest damage weapons too, but its harder to see). I thought it was the reverse, either the weapon penetrates and does most of its damage to a module, or it doesn't penetrate, and does its damage to the hull.
 

MagicTofu

M
If I remember correctly, all weapons have a certain distance they can travel within the target ship's hull to determine whether they hit a module, otherwise all damage goes to the hull, but the railgun is the only weapon that can does not have limited distance to check for a module hit, i.e. whatever the angle you're firing from with your railgun, if a module is in the way, it will take the damage, otherwise, all damge goes to the hull.
 

Crumly

C
Nicou said:
Hi guys,

Mark Allen discussed about the damage and defenses, back in July 2015.
You might find this thread interesting.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170205

Thanks for editing sir!

So the problem I suspect, is that the % you see on radar is the ships hull strength. If your rail gun hits an internal, but doesn't destroy it, the hull won't really take damage at all from my understanding, the module will have taken it all
 

MagicTofu

M
Crumly said:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170205

Thanks for editing sir!

So the problem I suspect, is that the % you see on radar is the ships hull strength. If your rail gun hits an internal, but doesn't destroy it, the hull won't really take damage at all from my understanding, the module will have taken it all
Click to expand...

The percentage shown below the target ship's model is indeed the hull integrity. If the info from the discussion with Mark Allen is still valid in current version of the game, when you hit a module, a small part of the damage is still supposed to go to the hull, but it may very well be too small to reduce the hull integrity by even 1%.

I think that even if you destroyed the module you just hit, all the damage will still be split and only part of it will go to the hull. If my assumption is correct, the bulk of the damage that would be 'awarded' to the destroyed module would simply be wasted.

However, if the module in question is the powerplant, it would still count as an additional chance to trigger the ship's explosion, whatever the hull integrity, but it would be extremely inefficient to use a railgun by shooting a destroyed powerplant to make it explode, a beam laser or even a multi-cannon would be way more efficient for that.
 

fantasmic

fantasmic
The damage change is due to module hits taking the brunt of the damage. Punching through the hull and demolishing the modules is something of a specialty of rail guns. It may not feel like a win when all you want to do is chew up the hull, but those hits can seriously screw up a ships offensive and defensive abilities, or even immobilize them completely.
 
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