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Walt From my recent experience on the multiplayer, I will say it's fine to give the rail gun different ranges based on its buff status. As different ranges allow for more diversity in ship design. You can go for a brawler with multiple short-ranged rail guns, or a sniper with one or two long-ranged rail guns. However, this would mean that the base range, or even the buffering curve of the rail gun have to be readjusted in order to keep the balance. As for the kiting issue, I don't think it will matter due to the fact that the rail gun weights much more than the other weapons. If ships have decent amount of thrusters they should have no trouble in catching up with the kiters.

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        • Post #9
        • Edited

        Walt well auto-firing missiles is also a thing and it certainly is a problem rn,as rails being marked as a "anti-kite" weapon,it should have more range or atleast allow the auto-fired shot to outrange the missiles,not the opposite
        (idk if the update with pd and missiles would utterly banish missile kite walls but having the player to micromanage rail shots and outplay the enemy certainly would add abit more depth to MP instead of just setting the ship to maximum range and let the AI do all the work) (perhaps also nerf the knockback of railshots so the receiving end can chase the attacker,not having its huge thrusters disrupted every time a railshot connects)
        (so my proposal is,just like the above suggestion,allow railgun shots to break the 300 unit range barrier,but the effective range shown will still be 300 unit (or less if less accelerator is installed) so the AI won't automatically retreat in normal tournament and the outrange mechanic can only be used in MP,where all the missile kiters are)

            Dumb Rails are more of a kite weapon than an anti-kite weapon.

                Atarlost I've seen similar comments so I'll say this is purely a wrong perception. All weapons are kite weapons for a very simple reason. No matter what stats they have a kite has the range advantage as it's being chased. Because its shots have a far shorter distance to cover while the chaser closes the that distance. On the other hand the chaser's shots have to go further than the distance as both ships move on.
                Now the most ranged weapon (like the railgun) is the best anti-kite weapon because of range and shot speed, hence, counters the disadvantage the most. Simple as that.

                  • Walt

                  • Post #12

                  Lafiel Projectiles inherit the velocity of the ship they're fired from, so if two ships are moving at the same speed, their weapons should have the same range.

                    Walt But if the kite's weapon get a negative addition won't that turn the tables around or it is only for positive additions?

                        • Walt

                        • Post #14

                        Lafiel It's the relative speed between the ships that matters, so it two ships are moving rapidly but at the exact same speed and direction, that's the same as if the ships were perfectly still.

                            Lafiel I've seen similar comments so I'll say this is purely a wrong perception. All weapons are kite weapons for a very simple reason. No matter what stats they have a kite has the range advantage as it's being chased. Because its shots have a far shorter distance to cover while the chaser closes the that distance. On the other hand the chaser's shots have to go further than the distance as both ships move on.
                            Now the most ranged weapon (like the railgun) is the best anti-kite weapon because of range and shot speed, hence, counters the disadvantage the most. Simple as that.

                            By your own admission a railgun on a kite is more effective than a railgun on a non-kite.

                            Walt Projectiles inherit the velocity of the ship they're fired from, so if two ships are moving at the same speed, their weapons should have the same range.

                            Wrong. The pursuing ship accelerates towards the kite and the kite accelerates away at the same rate to comply with its attack range setting. This means you're in an accelerating reference frame with all the consequences thereof. Since the projectiles aren't accelerating with the ships they appear from the perspective of the ships to be accelerating in the opposite direction.

                                • Walt

                                • Post #16

                                Atarlost Wrong. The pursuing ship accelerates towards the kite and the kite accelerates away at the same rate to comply with its attack range setting. This means you're in an accelerating reference frame with all the consequences thereof. Since the projectiles aren't accelerating with the ships they appear from the perspective of the ships to be accelerating in the opposite direction.

                                Nothing I've said is wrong, and nothing you've said is wrong either. I'm taking about ships moving at constant velocity, you're taking about ships undergoing acceleration.

                                I don't disagree that a kiter accelerating away will have a range advantage, I'm just trying to clarify a common misconception about weapon ranges when ships are moving at constant velocity.

                                    Walt Constant velocity chases don't happen. The ships are always accelerating.

                                        • Walt

                                        • Post #18

                                        Atarlost Constant velocity chases don't happen. The ships are always accelerating.

                                        I have no idea why you think I disagree with that statement. Nothing I've said contradicts it.

                                            Walt I have no idea why you think I disagree with that statement. Nothing I've said contradicts it.

                                            Your claim that the idea that weapon ranges differ between the kite and the kited is a misconception contradicts it. At worst people are right for the wrong reasons (if empirical observation can be a wrong reason) because they don't realize that they're looking at an accelerating reference frame when they lock the viewpoint to a ship or to the midpoint between two ships in a chase.

                                                • Walt

                                                • Post #20

                                                Atarlost Your claim that the idea that weapon ranges differ between the kite and the kited is a misconception contradicts it.

                                                I have not attempted to claim any such thing, though I can see why my words could have been misunderstood to imply that, so thanks for clarifying.

                                                    Walt Just want to make sure. Will the rail gun stay the same, or are you planning to give them different range in the future? Despite how OP the rail gun snipers sound like, they were never a thing in the meta. There are full of face-hugging walls and missile kiters. Both can give the sniper a hard time. Especially the missile kiters, whom can never be touched by any types of rail gun ships with the current range they have.

                                                        • Walt

                                                        • Post #22

                                                        samepage No current plans, but I'm persuadable. The extra range per accelerator would have to be very tiny. Back when I first prototyped railguns, accelerators gave a range boost, and the consensus was that really broke game balance. But maybe things have changed?

                                                          Atarlost By your own admission a railgun on a kite is more effective than a railgun on a non-kite.

                                                          That's what I said. If you read closely I said it's the most anti-kite weapon available. 😉 There's no absolute only anti-kite weapon.

                                                              Lafiel More effective on a kite than on a non-kite. Because all weapons are better on kites than non-kites due to the accelerating reference frame. Except the ion beam because it doesn't have projectiles.

                                                                  Walt Not much things have changed for the meta, and that's kinda the problem. As right now the multiplayer were dominated by walls and kiters. The introduce of the rail guns were supposed to give the kiters a hard time. But this is not possible since every rail guns have a fixed range that is shorter than an auto-firing missile. And because the rail guns were heavy, they can never get close enough to fire a single round. This is quite a frustrating situation for most players.

                                                                  Currently there are two types of working designs for the rail gun ships. These are:

                                                                  1. Rail gun fan/wall: This is the design that sacrifices all of its mobility in the pursue for front defence and fire power. Usually they are composed of multiple short to medium size rail guns safely protected by lots of shields and armor. Their true power rely on the manual control that focus all of the rail guns hitting one spot. They may move like turtles, but they carry quite a punch, even able to win a head-on fight with the toughest walls. As a trade off, they get reke by the missile kiters. This is good, otherwise there might be no counter to them. In fact, with the fire power they have, I even doubt they should have any range advantage over the other weapons. If there is anything going to be changed for the rail gun's range, I will argue that they shouldn't take any benefit from it.

                                                                  2. Rail gun sniper/kiter: This is the type of ships with one or two super long rail guns and, depend on how you use the rest resource for, the snipers will have better defense and the kiters will have better thrusts. However, the idea of sniper doesn't work as the rail guns all have the same range. They are easily out ranged by the missile kiters and, because of their heavy weight, they don't actually make a good kiter either. Any walls with decent amounts of forward thrusts can catch it up with ease and when they do, the rail gun ships lose all the time. This type of ships needs to have a better range in order to be a real sniper, at least they should have the range to reach the missile kitters. Since they don't make a good kiter they should at least have some chance against the missile kiters.

                                                                  To put it simple, I think the range of the rail guns should be based on the buff they receive. It can go with the equation like this:

                                                                  Range = 100 + 40 x Buff %
                                                                  (The shortest rail gun with no accelerator buff has the base of 100%, thus it will have 140 range)

                                                                  This will give the rail guns a variety of range ranging from 140 to 400. Most of the medium size rail guns will more or less stay the same around 250. This might seem a little bit extreme in terms of balance. But consider this, with the speed ships currently have, these extra range will probably only allow the snipers to land an extra free shot before the walls getting close by. And once the tractor beam or the blink drive come out this advantage will soon be diminished. A face-hugging wall can still defeat the snipers with ease. But for the missile kiters, this will be totally different since now they can't no longer stay far away without taking any damage, and I believe this is what most people want to see.

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