No Gimballed Rail-Gun?

scorpyon · Jan 21, 2015

I just wondered why this is. Due to the loooooong charge up time it can be tricky to hit a ship that is weaving around. Obviously easy to hit if you tuck in close behind, but the smaller ships can be a pain in this regard.

Or maybe I just really suck with Fixed weapons! Heh! Gimballed does sometimes seem like "Easy Mode"...

Did there ever used to be a Gim version of this weapon?

lexandro · Jan 21, 2015

Rail guns are always fixed because of the velocity of the rounds. Best advice is to count 2 when firing these. So pull the trigger and count 2 and on 2 make sure the sights are on the target.

scorpyon · Jan 21, 2015

lexandro said:
Rail guns are always fixed.

Yeah I know. I was wondering why there wasn't a gimballed version?

vyrago · Jan 21, 2015

I don't believe there are any gimballed railguns. Be a bit easy though, in'it?

Midnight_Sun323 · Jan 21, 2015

Considering how powerful the rail gun is, it's only fair to require a decent level of skill. They're intended for large slow ships. You don't need to be able to easily one shot a smaller faster ship unless you're very skilled with it.

lexandro · Jan 21, 2015

Was still typing

Basically if rail guns were gimbal they would be extremely OP as they are hitscan (ie instant travel time) and do massive damage to both shields and hull.

tagos · Jan 21, 2015

Rail guns are incredibly effective. Being able to use the more exotic, powerful fixed weapons effectively is one of the things that makes a great combat pilot. Which I'm not by the way. But I am practising fighting with rail guns now in the hope I might one day be a bit closer to being one.

scorpyon · Jan 21, 2015

lexandro said:
Was still typing

Basically if rail guns were gimbal they would be extremely OP as they are hitscan (ie instant travel time) and do massive damage to both shields and hull.

Ahhh. Heh.
Yeah, I suppose they would be rather OP.
(That's why I want one!! Hehehe!)

But seriously, that makes sense I guess. They never seemed to do much damage when I used them, so I have to assume my aim was just that bad! ^_^

KillaALF · Jan 21, 2015

.... because, skill. As you said, gimballed are "Easy Mode" and now combine that with heavy hitters like rail guns or plasma accelerators - who'd use anything else?

Tacheel · Jan 21, 2015

scorpyon said:
They never seemed to do much damage when I used them, so I have to assume my aim was just that bad! ^_^

When you get your thrusters destroyed by a crit from one of these through full shields, you learn to respect the railgun.

hjd_uk · Jan 21, 2015

Sigh...

How about a turreted quick-fire plasma accelerator that has negative energy draw and mass ?

The only thing I wish is that Railguns charge-up on trigger hold-down and then actually fire when the trigger is released, this would still require the spin-up-time for firing but would let you actually aim the before it goes off.

On a less sarcastic note: Railguns are a heavy weapon and are Fixed-Mount only, like the Plasma Accellerator.

scorpyon · Jan 21, 2015

hjd_uk said:
Sigh...

How about a turreted quick-fire plasma accelerator that has negative energy draw and mass ?

The only thing I wish is that Railguns charge-up on trigger hold-down and then actually fire when the trigger is released, this would still require the spin-up-time for firing but would let you actually aim the before it goes off.

Sigh...
You start off with an intentionally ludicrous supposition (sarcasm noted for later ridicule) only to follow up with an even more ludicrous (but actually serious?) suggestion.
Well played...

I get enough "exaggerated exasperation" off my 5 year old daughter... I don't see anything wrong with asking a simple question and if you had read the other posts above, I was happy to accept the counter-arguments presented with regards to how it would cause balancing issues in combat.

Thanks anyway...

Morbad · Jan 21, 2015

scorpyon said:
I was wondering why there wasn't a gimballed version?

Recoil would overwhelm the gimbaling mechanism; that's my explanation.

Frontier probably wants to balance them as well. Railguns are phenomenally potent if you can reliably put shots where you want them, and letting gimbals do all the work for you would make them the go to weapon.

scorpyon · Jan 21, 2015

Morbad said:
Recoil would overwhelm the gimbaling mechanism.

Nice thought. Would there be much recoil on a rail gun? I assumed from what I've read about the mechanics of it) it would work in a similar way to a laser...

Sanderson · Jan 21, 2015

Gimbaled weapons hardly mean your shots hit a target, if anything they reduce accuracy with added bonus of being "close".

Morbad · Jan 21, 2015

scorpyon said:
Nice thought. Would there be much recoil on a rail gun? I assumed from what I've read about the mechanics of it) it would work in a similar way to a laser...

Railguns have enormous recoil.

the whole idea of a railgun as a weapon is to deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy, more total energy even than similar sized guns firing explosive projectiles.

Any kinetic energy you put into a railgun projectile implies an equal amount of force being applied to the weapon itself as recoil. The whole Newton's Third Law of Motion and all.

Sanderson said:
Gimbaled weapons hardly mean your shots hit a target, if anything they reduce accuracy with added bonus of being "close".

Gimbals railguns would largely negate the penalty the delay imposes, and up close would likely make for more accurate subsystem targeting, for the overwhelming majority of people, because of this.

scorpyon · Jan 21, 2015

Sanderson said:
Gimbaled weapons hardly mean your shots hit a target, if anything they reduce accuracy with added bonus of being "close".

I find the really hard stuff to use with "fixed" are the kinetic weapons because by the time they get to the opponent he has often swerved away, etc.

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Morbad said:
Railguns have enormous recoil.

the whole idea of a railgun as a weapon is to deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy, more total energy even than similar sized guns firing explosive projectiles.

Any kinetic energy you put into a railgun projectile implies an equal amount of force being applied to the weapon itself as recoil. The whole Newton's Third Law of Motion and all.

Fairy Muff! :-D

Sanderson · Jan 21, 2015

Morbad said:
Railguns have enormous recoil.

the whole idea of a railgun as a weapon is to deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy, more total energy even than similar sized guns firing explosive projectiles.

Any kinetic energy you put into a railgun projectile implies an equal amount of force being applied to the weapon itself as recoil. The whole Newton's Third Law of Motion and all.

Gimbals railguns would largely negate the penalty the delay imposes, and up close would likely make for more accurate subsystem targeting, for the overwhelming majority of people, because of this.

Weapons (even fixed) "snap-to" targeted subsystems.

Morbad · Jan 21, 2015

Sanderson said:
Weapons (even fixed) "snap-to" targeted subsystems.

I'm well aware of this. It's still only about a degree of movement (relative to the 20-30 degrees a gimbal can manage), and it's easy to miss a subsystem target, even at ~500m, when both you and your target are moving when you have to account for the delay of the shot.

Sanderson · Jan 21, 2015

Morbad said:
I'm well aware of this. It's still only about a degree of movement (relative to the 20-30 degrees a gimbal can manage), and it's easy to miss a subsystem target, even at ~500m, when both you and your target are moving when you have to account for the delay of the shot.

I get it but, what I don't think most realise is that a gimbaled railgun would be a lot less accurate than a fixed one, provided the cmdr actually aims.