Cosmoteer 0.14.1

Mc2

change bleed through damage to skip penetration on parts that are completely destroyed. Right now I think that railguns calculate penetration resistance for each part that is hit, even if that part is completely destroyed by the impact damage

Do I understand this like if railgun projectile hit any part and damage done to part it big enough to destroy it completelly, than no penetration is taking down from from intial penetration of projectlie.

Hmm, i think that penetration resistance of part is something what matters to slower down projectile (even if projectiles still fly same speed in game), so no penetration calculated means, that there is nothing what can slow down projectile with one condition (totally destroyed) but under other condition ( not completelly destroyed) is taking penetration into calculation,it is really wierd.

Walt it is corect that now is always penetration calculated even if damage destroy part comepletelly.

Walt

Mc2 Walt it is corect that now is always penetration calculated even if damage destroy part comepletelly.

That is how it currently works, yes.

nop

Dalas120 significantly increase railgun projectile speed/projectile acceleration. This makes railguns more effective as a compliment to cannons because they can help cannons hit smaller, faster, kiting craft that cannons struggle with. This also makes railguns less reliant on specific damage points (e.g. 1-shot a cannon), since it will help them more reliably hit the same enemy part multiple times in a row, which right now they struggle to do accurately. I don't think that this would make railguns too strong vs fighters - just better than cannons.

Railgun ships already have a natural disadvantage at swatting fast ships due to their density (and ions/lasers are already good at this). It would be nice to have the railgun as a penetrator to fight large/sprawling ships with deeply buried weapons or low front surface area. This is the cannon+rail synergy. Your cannons only need to dip into range to make an opening, so with careful kite play you can beat a slower ship. The end-of-penetration effect was hard to aim, but maybe important. If it started a fire at the end (because the hot slug is buried in the ship) that could be a nice bonus without giving it random one-shot potential against reactors.

At 2mil, you can have a lot of fun. You get to field your 1mil multi-rail bruiser (which brushes against the standard grid) and whatever screen you like. In games with Equalizer yesterday, it was my Ranger B against his deeply tanked multi-rail flagship with 500k of screen on each side. After each game the loser split the numbers of their screen force (1 to 2 to 4 etc.) and won, because you get more threat angles on the flagship. We got down to swarms of 10 on each side and it got laggy. There have been optimizations for large ships recently, how about multi-ships? In the era of railguns, fleet play is more valuable than ever.

SpaceCat

nop In the era of railguns, fleet play is more valuable than ever.

Second that!

So many cool fleet tactics now - even small ships having their role again! ... after beeing nerfed by the new thrusters.

Attacking diametrically opposed with two ships and let the single enemy ship decide by which one it gets downed is rly fun 😉

And ofc ppl allready started to use rear defense to prevent this.

The constant "New idea and counter" loop is where cosmoteer rly excels.
😃

Dalas120

nop Railgun ships already have a natural disadvantage at swatting fast ships due to their density (and ions/lasers are already good at this).

I disagree. IMO railguns are a lot better than ions at swatting fast ships because of their up-front burst damage. For ions to deal meaningful damage, they need to be focused on a target for several seconds, which is extremely difficult for a large ship to do vs small, fast ships. Railguns have huge burst damage, which makes them more useful when you'll only be facing towards an enemy for a moment. IMO railguns should be weak vs fighters because they can't turn fast enough and because of overkill, not because they miss targets right in front of them.

Basically, I don't think railguns are or should be good vs fighters, but I do think that ions are worse. I agree that lasers are definitely better than both railguns and ions (and pretty much any other weapon) at swatting fighters.

nop The end-of-penetration effect was hard to aim, but maybe important.

I would say impossible to aim, not just hard. IMO the end-of-penetration effect makes a lot more sense on something like the upcoming sniper laser, where you can focus down a specific internal enemy part. With the railgun it's basically always random where the end of penetration effect ends up, because there's no way to detonate it on a specific part unless you get lucky.

SpaceCat nop In the era of railguns, fleet play is more valuable than ever.

Second that!

Agreed! And it's one of my favorite things about the railgun. They help make battles a lot less symmetrical than just wall vs wall or triangle vs triangle.

I do still think the railgun could use a small or medium buff, but nothing too game-changing.

SpaceCat

samepage The current balance problem with the railguns is that they were too weak when used in small number, and unstoppable once you reach a certain threshold. That problem leads to its binary state, people either use a lot of them, or don't use them at all. (Just like missiles)

... not rly no - both weapons are also used as addon as well as solo. (having 1 or 2 missile launchers can save your bum in endgame.)
The "spam" you talk about has been done with every weapon so far.
Plus - all weapons are weak when you only use one or very few of them - so what you describe would apply to all of them.

The big difference with the "Rail" is that it can be stacked vertically and then has a high risk to be taken out at once.

samepage

SpaceCat ... yes they are. Railguns and missiles had too many similarity in terms of their usage, thus they share the same problems in the game balance. They both had the longest range, which gave them the advantage of the first alpha strike. They were both good at dealing burst damage, but had relatively low DPS compared to the other weapons. Truly, all weapons are weaker when used in small number, but missiles and railguns suffer particularly more from it. Without the overwhelming number, a few missiles can be easily shot down by a few PDs. And shorter railguns had both low basic DPS and low penetration damage, which double down the effectiveness of their usage. The 'cost' of using them in small number were simply too high.

However, that only means they were weak in small ships. In large ships, both weapons can be stacked to overwhelm even the toughest defense. Since they both don't require much front space, you can focus more resource on the front with multiple shields and armor composition, creating an almost impenetrable defense to most of the other weapons. Now you can stay safely behind an impenetrable shield, firing the most powerful weapon from the longest distance. The only way to defeat such design in an 1 vs 1 fight is to overpower it with the same design, or having an extremely agile ship to flank it. ( I would love to see if someone manage to accomplish this ) Overall, I am worried about any future change that could make such design even stronger, rather than to improve their performance in small number usage. I don't want the railguns end up to be OP only when they were used in large ships, and useless in small ships, which I believe is the current state of of the missiles.

nop

Dalas120 because there's no way to detonate it on a specific part unless you get lucky.

Yeah, so it should just start a fire.

Dalas120

nop But then what's the point? I don't have anything against it, but I don't see any reason to add it either. Do you just mean as a minor buff to the railgun without changing damage/cost numbers?

nop

Dalas120 Do you just mean as a minor buff to the railgun?

Yeah, to reward the slug stopping inside the ship without just destroying random internal components. Firefighting causes some crew scramble and potentially death.

CGDW

nop
Sounds like fun. I added fire to Meraneras railgun too, though I guess I won't be using it much now that there's a vanilla one.
It would be a good buff for smaller railguns because even if you don't hit shields 1 or 2 hits isn't really enough to break anything important currently.

SpaceCat

samepage Railguns and missiles had too many similarity in terms of their usage

Cannot retrace that at all - railgun and missile are obviously vastly differing systems.
The only thing they rly share is range now.

samepage However, that only means they were weak in small ships.

I once designed a vey successfull small ship using only two missile launchers.
In combo with an also very small Lasership that takes care of the PD or simply by finding the PD's blind angle it tricked many.

The Rail on small ships has yet to be prooven, but imagine it beeing good against other small ships.

Classic small missile vessels in different livery :
image https://i.imgur.com/L4z7XMm.jpg

nop

A new bug I've been seeing: ships get stuck together when they collide at high speed in MP.

image https://i.imgur.com/JCiCWBw.png

This might be why Phoenix's ship got stuck on the end of a stick in the June tourney.

Mc2

nop altready reported in tech support.

SpaceCat

nop ships get stuck together when they collide at high speed in MP.

Second that, also had a few stuck ships with ovelapping areas lately.

Mc2

I write one and again, railgun projectile is just mass which make damage by it enormous spead, and after inpact most of the energy from speed turn into heat, so, yes, railgun should do some fire if part is flamable.
This sounds for me better that just lowering part price.

samepage

SpaceCat Cannot retrace that at all - railgun and missile are obviously vastly differing systems.

Perhaps I wasn't precise enough by choosing the word 'similarity'. Of cause I knew that the railguns and the missiles were completely different weapons. What I mean was that they both share the same attribute in many ways. Beside the range, they both don't require too much front space to setup, which means that you can stack them up as much as possible without any significant drew back, an attribute that all the other weapons were lack of. In order to counteract this, they have been given a relative low DPS when used in small number. A minimum railgun has only 900 DPS, but taken up the space large than an ion beam. A missile launcher only has a DPS of 1200, (2 sec per shot, didn't count of AOE) but can be easily stop by PD. And the last, when used in large number, they both had the potential to deal insane amount of burst damage to one shot enemy ships.

Overall, attributes like the long range, stackable fire power, and high burst damage, were all shared by the railguns and the missiles, which has to be taken into consideration to prevent them from becoming OP. And I am all up for some buff to small railguns. Because the railgun is the first weapon that utilize the buff system. It would be a shame that they can only be used in large ships.

SpaceCat I once designed a vey successfull small ship using only two missile launchers.

A great use of smart strategy, which I am clearly lack of.

GodoftheGrove

Walt I second more knockback on the railgun. Outside of damage this is really the thing that would set it apart from other weapons. I don't know about also applying the knockback when a shield is hit. I can imagine shields somehow cancelling inertia.

nop

Railguns don't seem competitive yet at 1mil. Increased knockback would have to be pretty extreme to tip the scales. Something on the order of "you can't get near my quad railgun barge if you charge straight in with one ship" might be an appropriate meta shift. Taking into consideration that laser triangles can function quite well with very high ratio of forward (diagonal) thrust.

SpaceCat

nop ... 14.* is a version where many new parts/weapons/systems will surface.

Tractor Beam will most likely get you:

nop "you can't get near my quad railgun barge if you charge straight in with one ship"

probably.

So new stuff will balance out many things.
At the same time imagine the balancing discussions once the version number has reached 14.9.

0.o

Dalas120

nop I don't think that railgun-heavy ships need to be much stronger against single enemies - that's already their strength. Maybe a little more accessible (cost, exponent, etc.), but not significantly stronger.

IMO buffs should focus on helping small- to mid-size railguns function as support weapons or artillery for multiple-weapon ships. The fire change would help with this, because it buffs small railguns noticeably while being nearly unnoticeable on large railguns. Knockback increase also helps make railguns function better as a support weapon, as would a projectile speed increase.