Rail gun ammo cost

[sam445]

After trying them out, it appears that Rail Gun ammunitions are too costy. Their current price is 483 credits per shot. This price tag renders bounty hunting unprofitable, as most often you'll find bounties worth around 4K credits and when you come back at station, you find out that your ammo refill cost is higher than your reward.

So, here is the subject of this thread: are rail gun ammunitions too costly and should their price be changed?

 

[W3a7herman]

After trying them out, it appears that Rail Gun ammunitions are too costy. Their current price is 483 credits per shot. This price tag renders bounty hunting unprofitable, as most often you'll find bounties worth around 4K credits and when you come back at station, you find out that your ammo refill cost is higher than your reward.

So, here is the subject of this thread: are rail gun ammunitions too costly and should their price be changed?

most ships die very quickly with just a few lowly lasers

 

[Grinchy]

Not sure about railgun ammo but I know other types of ammo are over priced, you can use your ammo to take down a bounty only to have your reward pay for the ammo you just used... some balancing is needed imo from game experiences

 

[StuartGT]

After trying them out, it appears that Rail Gun ammunitions are too costy. Their current price is 483 credits per shot. This price tag renders bounty hunting unprofitable, as most often you'll find bounties worth around 4K credits and when you come back at station, you find out that your ammo refill cost is higher than your reward.

So, here is the subject of this thread: are rail gun ammunitions too costly and should their price be changed?

I've found them to be priced just right tbf. Too expensive to fire on the average bounty? Yes. Nicely-priced-quick-death to fire on higher value, more specific bounties/hunt-missions (Cr15k+)? Yes

 

[Ʃsh]

They are supposed to cost a lot. They are incredibly strong, and fairly simple to use. Basically they are balanced by their cost, and forcing you to take on harder opponents instead of just melting through the little guys... Ofcourse you can still go seal clubbing, but you won't be doing it as a main source of income.

 

[King Hrothgar]

Ammo prices in general are way too high atm. Missiles were always too expensive for general use and now railguns, cannons and multi cannons have been added to the list of inefficient weapons. That's in addition to trade and hauling missions remaining by far the quickest way to make money. The ammo costs would be fine I suppose if they balanced out combat against trading. To do that they'd need to multiply all bounties by 10 or more. It takes about 5 minutes on average to make 100k credits in a Lakon 6, so to match that an average bounty would need to be no less than 25k credits. Instead it hovers around 2k.

 

[Crystles]

Yeah, I tried using them for awhile, but since I hunt any bounty I can find theyre incredibly inefficient... Miss 2-3 shots of paired railguns, and you literally just blew your average bounty...

Ammo prices in general are way too high atm. Missiles were always too expensive for general use and now railguns, cannons and multi cannons have been added to the list of inefficient weapons. That's in addition to trade and hauling missions remaining by far the quickest way to make money. The ammo costs would be fine I suppose if they balanced out combat against trading. To do that they'd need to multiply all bounties by 10 or more. It takes about 5 minutes on average to make 100k credits in a Lakon 6, so to match that an average bounty would need to be no less than 25k credits. Instead it hovers around 2k.

I disagree with the notion of multiplying bounties. What they really need is a way to implement a profit curve. As a bounty hunter, you literally make the same kind of cash in an asp / anaconda as you did in a Viper... The only difference is your virtually unkillable VS AI, which is convenient but doesnt actually make you more money if you already didnt have much trouble.

There needs to be a way to specifically hunt down high paying considerably more dangerous bounties, where you would actually WANT a big beefy highly upgraded ship VS a fast nimble hunter.

 

[woozy]

Duh!
Just sell the guns and buy new ones. They come fully loaded plus they sell for the same amount as purchased

Me I like cannon gameplay and I usually spend over 20k worth of ammo doing a measly 15k combat mission on war zones.

 

[hobblygobbly]

Yeah, I tried using them for awhile, but since I hunt any bounty I can find theyre incredibly inefficient... Miss 2-3 shots of paired railguns, and you literally just blew your average bounty...



I disagree with the notion of multiplying bounties. What they really need is a way to implement a profit curve. As a bounty hunter, you literally make the same kind of cash in an asp / anaconda as you did in a Viper... The only difference is your virtually unkillable VS AI, which is convenient but doesnt actually make you more money if you already didnt have much trouble.

There needs to be a way to specifically hunt down high paying considerably more dangerous bounties, where you would actually WANT a big beefy highly upgraded ship VS a fast nimble hunter.

I think this is planned still, such as bounty boards which may have targets with high bounties that you can hunt for.

 

[JosiahD]

After trying them out, it appears that Rail Gun ammunitions are too costy. Their current price is 483 credits per shot. This price tag renders bounty hunting unprofitable, as most often you'll find bounties worth around 4K credits and when you come back at station, you find out that your ammo refill cost is higher than your reward.

So, here is the subject of this thread: are rail gun ammunitions too costly and should their price be changed?

Correction - makes bounty hunting more costly IF you insist on using rail guns, especially if you use rail guns exclusively. Unprofitable is contextual - just using rail guns is in and of itself only unprofitable if the bounties you collect don't outweigh those costs (which is what you propose in your post). The high cost is intended to make you think twice about using costly ammunition when other weapons will do the job as well. Could it be that you're simply using more rail gun rounds than is necessary? Is it that you're favouring the use of rail guns when other weapons can do the job at lower cost? It's a balancing act - if they do high damage there's a cost - reducing the cost has the potential to make them the automatic go to weapon of choice instead of encouraging a judicious use - you want the high damage well there's a cost to that. Not saying the cost doesn't need to be reduced as I don't use rail guns, just saying that it's not as simple as just reducing the price when perhaps the aim is for the pilot to be more judicious in their use. It's a delicate balancing act that's obviously still being worked on, but I hope that high damage weapons like rail guns stay a relatively high cost as there needs to be a price to pay (ie a trade-off) if a pilot elects to use such weapons in lieu of others. Assuming the high priced ammunition is intended for general purpose is not necessarily correct.

Edit: I would also suggest the poll will be flawed in its results if the majority of respondents are rail gun users (who I would expect in the main would be in favour of reducing the cost regardless). Having the poll is fine, just be careful how much weight you assign to the results.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The choice is in the player's hands as to which weapon they opt to use for a particular role - the damage / accuracy / cost equation has to come in to this choice. If ammunition for powerful weaponry is too cheap then particular weapons / classes of weapon will become the default option with little or no variation - that would be fairly boring....

 

[gary.brain]

An alternative is to have the ability to mine resources and have an on board refinery unit that can produce ammunition.

This could be the same with on-board repair units, this would add the element of self sustaining game play.

 

[Adept]

Railguns have massive barrel wear. The ammo cost can be thought to include changing the rails. You'd need to really.

 

[sgurr]

Ammo costs aren't balanced at the moment.

For class 2.
Multicannon - 115c per 100 rounds. Complete refill 2415c
Railgun - 483c per round. Complete refill 14973c
Cannon - 476c per round. Complete refill 49980
Plasma Accelerator - 95 per round. Complete refill 9975.

I think multicannon and plasma are appropriate costs, makes you think what you're using them for.
The cannon and railgun are too high and I can't ever imagine using them, especially when the more powerful plasma.acc costs 1/5th of the cannon for 3 times the rounds of railgun.

 

[Yodafone]

Was going to post a similar thread concerning this subject about projectile ammo but noticed this one, particularly to talk about the Rail Gun: the cost to refill, the carried amount at one time, & the overall effectiveness (damage). Putting the cost and damage to one side for a second, I really like the idea of ammo racks so you can indeed carry more refills with you, perhaps as a downside a full reload on the fly of such a refill shouldn't happen quickly and within seconds, but even if this refill reload takes 20 seconds or so, I feel this refill is a very good idea.

I am still in a Sidewinder, but maxed out with C2 A PwrPlnt/Shields/Thrusters & C1 A Dist. Have been using C1 E Beam Lasers that are very effective on the whole, mainly for target shield collapse and not too bad at hull damage, but not necessarily brilliant, so once I found a station with a varying array of all weapon types decided to try a few projectile out as the main downside to Beams is their high power draw and as I mention, not that good for hull damage. As I had been spending most of my time trying to locate these top upgrade outfittings for the Sidewinder (had to venture into distant bubble to find them), I hadnt as yet tried any other weapons since upgrading my pulse lasers to beams, so firstly changed these Beams to a Rail Gun & fragment cannon. I went out, succeeded in killing one Cobra, nearly an Eagle after, but couldnt finish it off because I had run out of all ammo. I would say being unkind to myself my hit ratio was about 50%, so was a little suprised when I had to bug out against this Eagle as I had nothing to shoot at it, so back to the station to reload all, and to my horror I had a bill for 18000cr (most being the Rail Gun ammo). Forgive me, but particularly considering the Rail Gun's effectiveness (nothing particularly special over the Beams), a single individual rail bolt costing 483cr is outragiously expensive for starters and in the Sidey one can only carry 31 shots, and as far as I can tell a Rail Gun is not that much more effective as only one of the previous Beam Lasers. I of course understand the main advantage over the my previous Beams is the Rail Gun's less demand for energy and draw, so yes I could zip around in the battle with pips to engines for the most part, but simply feel there needs to be some further re-balancing of these weapons over each other. I wouldnt be as disappointed with the Rails if the ammo wasnt nearly half as expensive to replace but mainly the amount one can carry in a Sidewinder makes them more or less useless as a viable option in this craft.

So... balancing the effectiveness is one arguement, which even if it stays as it is now I could happily live with them even if I do think they should be a bit more lethal, but mainly the cost of a full reload has to be considerably reduced, as on average a bounty reward for the destruction of one hostile doesnt come remotely close to re-embursing the cost of taking it out in the first place, and one needs to be able to carry considerably more ammo in one go so one can take out more than two or three hostiles at best without running out of ammo. (Or carry an amount of said ammo racks)

This is written from a persective of presuming one should at least break even, financially, from taking out a hostile (unless Im taking the mick and using two missile launchers, but in this case I was awarded approx 8000cr for the Cobra (so a decent bounty) & the bounty on the Eagle was approx 2000cr if I was able to finish the job). With only just one Rail Gun, it is an expensive undertaking, and as an effective tool for the job, not that much more efficient than using the free Beam Laser (other than energy use/and the lack of the ability to divert pips to other systems as often). So yes, I do understand the main downside to the Beam Laser and the upside to the Rail Gun, but there's no real noticable advantage over the Beam using the Rail, only really a costly disadvantage.

Cmdr Lancer

 

[Miltiadem]

As far as I know a rail gun uses electromagnetic propulsion to fire a HUNK OF METAL so fast it converts to plasma. Change the price, its ridiculously expensive. Especially in a universe where you can get a Ton (metric weight unit) of most metals for under 3k ammo should be around 100c a piece and that accounts for each round being up to 65 pounds and 3100c for a reload. Now for a small ammount of math of the projectile end. We have a 65lb(455000grain) cylindrical titanium projectile(5"wide x 17"tall) with a cone shaped tip measuring (5"wide x 9"tall) being fired at what is called hyper-velocity(10,000fps). That means this projectile has a power of 101,057,214foot-pounds(701786.2psi). The armor plate is also titanium(composite most likely) the closest figures I could find list it as 68345.506psi(in1/2) fracture strength. That means this projectile only needs 68345.5psi to fracture the armor plating and it has behind it 701786.2psi to give. In other words this weapon is deadly to everything and the hunks of metal it propels are way over-priced.

Math might be off Im new to this level of physics. But honestly just looking at it from common sense standpoint the ammo is cheap and the weapon is catastrophic so find another way to 'balance' the weapon.

Suggestion:
Make it more powerful use way more energy basically require you to fire a heat sink during spooling with anything lower than A class power plant and have a good 15 to 30 second spin up time that fires on release of the button/trigger. Even if my math is way off this thing should pierce and entire ship not just thunk it and deal 20%hull(on a great shot agianst a sidewinder)
Also maybe get some ion cannons that rip shields and can't hurt hulls? I like the idea of Pirates that don't want to mame their victims especially with that limpet hacker thing.