samepage In the current version, 2 shields powered by 1 reactor can stop an 8-accelerators railgun for a period of time provided that the crews can act in time. As long as the reactor can keep up, the defense won't collapse.
That's a good point - on 0.14.2 it's harder to shield 100% of railgun shots. But the shots that do get through deal much less damage. Basically railguns become less binary. In 0.14.2 they're harder to block completely, but weaker when they do break through. On 0.14.1 they're easier to block completely, but if even one shot gets through they deal full damage.
For example, on 0.14.1 what happens if you can't double-shield your entire ship? A single shield is nearly worthless against a 0.14.1 8-length railgun, blocking less than 20% damage (and 0 penetration) no matter how quickly you recharge it. On 0.14.2, that 1 shield will block more than 50% of both damage and penetration.
There's basically no weapon in the game that you can practically shield against indefinitely. Even 2 ion beams hidden behind armor will still break a single reactor's worth of regen, and 2 ion beams+power+crew is a LOT cheaper than an 8-length railgun. I don't see why a railgun should be the one weapon that can be easily shielded against forever.
samepage How can the railgun have both high shield damage and high physical damage
Even on proposed 0.14.2, the railgun's shield damage is not high. An 8 length railgun costs around $115k, including power, ammo, and crew. Vs shields, it puts out 6000 dps. You can get the same amount of dps with 3 ion beams for less - around $80k or $90k. Yes, the ion beams take up more surface area, but they weigh less, are more durable, and take up much, much less vertical space. $115k of railguns for 6000 anti-shield dps might be a little high given the penetration damage, but not blatantly broken.
I'm not saying that these numbers are perfect (I'm not sure what I think of them yet), but conceptually it's a very good thing for railguns to lose damage for each shield they break, rather than keeping full damage. And obviously, railguns need some kind of buff to compensate for that, since they're on the weak end already.
