Railguns vs dumbfire missiles

[fergal]

I've been seeing some players (a few eagle npcs too) use dumbfire missiles recently and I was wondering how they compare to railguns.

If I remember correctly size 1 railguns come with 10 ammo, while I see dumbfire missiles have 16.
Railguns have a delay to shoot, they need to charge up, are missiles similar, or do they shoot as soon as you hit the trigger?

The damage on dumbfire missiles is bigger than railguns, railguns make more heat and need much more power, is there any reason to pick railguns over missiles, especially on smaller ships where power is more of an issue?

 

[Martin1956]

I've been seeing some players (a few eagle npcs too) use dumbfire missiles recently and I was wondering how they compare to railguns.

If I remember correctly size 1 railguns come with 10 ammo, while I see dumbfire missiles have 16.
Railguns have a delay to shoot, they need to charge up, are missiles similar, or do they shoot as soon as you hit the trigger?

The damage on dumbfire missiles is bigger than railguns, railguns make more heat and need much more power, is there any reason to pick railguns over missiles, especially on smaller ships where power is more of an issue?

Missiles fire quicker, but are easier to evade and distract using chaff ECM etc.

I wouldn't really want to have one on a small ship as the fire rate is too small.

 

[fergal]

Missiles fire quicker, but are easier to evade and distract using chaff ECM etc.

I wouldn't really want to have one on a small ship as the fire rate is too small.

Does ECM do anything to dumbfire missiles?

I assume point defense turrets will shoot at them.

 

[Kadaeux]

Does ECM do anything to dumbfire missiles?

I assume point defense turrets will shoot at them.

Railguns also have one other area of significance over Dumbfire missiles.

They're cooler

 

[Geers]

I tried railguns once. Maybe they were low-quality, or maybe it was because I was shooting an Imperial Clipper, but they didn't seem to be actually doing any damage at all.

 

[Morbad]

The damage on dumbfire missiles is bigger than railguns, railguns make more heat and need much more power, is there any reason to pick railguns over missiles, especially on smaller ships where power is more of an issue?

Railguns have essentially zero travel time, making them almost perfectly accurate.

Dumbfire missiles, while they fire the instant you pull the trigger, have a very low projectile velocity and are extremely hard to use against small moving targets.

If you don't want to buy them to try them out, just play the tutorial mission where you have to take out the type-9.

Does ECM do anything to dumbfire missiles?

No.

I assume point defense turrets will shoot at them.

Yes.

 

[shrinkshooter]

Dumbfires fire much faster (not projectile speed, obviously), are unaffected by ECMs and heatsinks, and can do a great deal of hull damage if you hit your target with a full bank. The missiles are relatively cheap (250 each, or 2k for 8 which is a full bank on a class 1), so they're as expensive as railguns or less. There is no charge time. If you hold the fire button, the bank empties in a matter of seconds. They don't do great against shields, and despite being explosive, they're very difficult to hit subsystems with.

The best targets for dumbfires are medium-sized ships, like Clippers, T7s, or Dropships, and they can and will absolute ruin any Asp or Cobra when their shields are gone. While they do deal amazing hull damage for cheap, using them on Pythons and Condas is a waste, because you can kill those far faster and far cheaper by locking gimballed MCs onto their FSDs or Power Plants and destroying those.

 

[Oddity]

Btw, do point defense turrets still shoot down your own missiles?

 

[fergal]

Btw, do point defense turrets still shoot down your own missiles?

lol, no idea, but I've seen an npc get killed by their own mines.

 

[Frenotx]

I actually just switched my rail gun on my Asp to a dumbfire missile bank. I really want to like rail guns, but they just aren't doing it for me. Sometimes the do a huge amount of damage, and sometimes it's next to nothing. I don't know if their damage dramatically falls off with range or what, but they just don't seem to reliably pack enough of a punch to warrant their awkwardness (delayed firing, high power / heat, low ammo, etc.).