n00b question re Railguns

[Velocitycat]

Hi, I'm just getting started in Elite and I'm having trouble with Incursion. I can make it to wave 7 before the damage builds up too much. One thing that would make life easier is knowing whether my railgun actually works. When I fire it is get the sound effect and the little boxes on the HUD go down but I don't see any visual effect of shooting or any damage on enemy vessels. Am I using it wrong (i.e. does it need charging & releasing) or do we have a bug?

All the best

Cpt Vc

 

[Benlandia]

I know it uses up a lot of energy when firing, so if you've been firing your laser or don't have systems diverted towards weapons enough it will not fire.

But for a rail gun that is difficult to aim there aren't many rewards from connecting shots with it. I would like to see it buffed heavily.

 

[Mad Doctor X]

You have to press and hold. It's take a second or so and then a blue/white death ray should shoot out.

There are some helpful threads about getting through incursions in this forum.
E.g. http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15998

I haven't managed to get past eight without reverse thrust yet...,

 

[Aleksej]

Rail gun definitely fires, however if you have only 3 squares left until weapons overheat it won't fire at all.

Since A4 rail guns are significantly improved and deal much more damage at the downside of significantly increasing ship total heat generated, making it impossible to fire with total heat generated above 100%.