Railguns mechanic

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

You are simply arguing for single shot being the only option rather than the multi-shot one.

I'm arguing for the single shot one to be worthy compared to the multi-shot one. At 25% recharge rate, they have lower DPS and higher cost. It's DPS is even lower than lasers at this point while the penetration is much worse. I don't see any reason to use such an inferior weapon.

The issue with your version is that they just get better DPS with that version. They don't need more DPS as they already have the best DPS in the game.

Indeed the railguns already have the best DPS in the game. But I won't be worried about the SS version add a tad of DPS to that while being more expensive than the multi-shot version. In fact, I don't mind the DPS of railguns to be increased a bit to make it more unique than it is currently.

Steve already said that the current version is unintended and should never have been that way. Reduced sized Railgun was only meant for those ships that can't mount a full version. In order to make your version work you would have to make the multi-shot version cheaper and worse than it is now and the single shot version have the same DPS as the regular multi-shot version currently have. They should retain their current DPS at +33% over other weapons for the amount of power they use in their best configuration.

I totally understand the current version is unintended, and reduced sized railgun was only meant for small ships/fighters/FACs. But from a balance stand point, beam fighters/FACs are already at a disadvantagepis position due to engine efficiency, armor efficiency, shock damage and shield efficiency. I won't call giving them another below average weapon choice to them a good design. Yes it is an addition choice, but why choose it over other beam weapons?

I simply don't agree it is worth the effort as that would just make the single shot version the best version to use for anything other than those you can shoot multiple shot with at 5sek intervals (maybe 10sek as well), even if they are marginally more expensive. So it does not add anything other than making them better than they currently are. They just would not be allot better, but better is still better.

We don't mechanically need this "option" and we certainly don't need to make them better as Railguns already is a really good weapon system.

[Scandinavian]

I'm arguing for the single shot one to be worthy compared to the multi-shot one. At 25% recharge rate, they have lower DPS and higher cost. It's DPS is even lower than lasers at this point

That would be an interesting calibration point - how does a reduced size railgun perform vs. a similar penetration laser, in terms of damage per second per ton?

Ideally we'd want the single shot railgun to be either slightly but not overwhelmingly better than lasers in damage per ton per second (because the single shot railgun is much deeper in the tech tree than the equivalent-penetration laser, and lacks the turret option), but probably a little worse in damage per second per build point.

[ArcWolf]

That would be an interesting calibration point - how does a reduced size railgun perform vs. a similar penetration laser, in terms of damage per second per ton?

At CAP 9, a 40cm Railgun dose 12 dmg (1-3-4-3-1 pattern). A 4-shot can fire once every 20 sec and weights 550 tons (11 HS), and a 1-shot can fire every 5 secs and weighs 179 tons (3.575 HS).

HS wise, a 1-shot railgun matches up with a 12cm laser (if we round up) at 200 tons (4HS) that dose 4 dmg in a (1-3 pattern).

Damage wise if falls between a 20cm laser and a 25cm laser. 20cm weighs 300 tons (6 HS) and dose 10 dmg (3-5-2). A 25cm Laser weighs 800 tons (8HS) and dose 16 dmg (1-4-6-4-1).
At CAP 9, both the 20 & 25cm laser have a RoF of 10 (due to rounding).

So a 1-shot 40cm Rail gun trades 1 to 2 layer of pen for for half the weight and twice the RoF compared to 20 & 25cm lasers. HS wise the 40cm 1-shot is clearly superior to a 12cm laser in all regards (though that should kind of be expected because of the tech level difference).

[Iceranger]

That would be an interesting calibration point - how does a reduced size railgun perform vs. a similar penetration laser, in terms of damage per second per ton?

At CAP 9, a 40cm Railgun dose 12 dmg (1-3-4-3-1 pattern). A 4-shot can fire once every 20 sec and weights 550 tons (11 HS), and a 1-shot can fire every 5 secs and weighs 179 tons (3.575 HS).

HS wise, a 1-shot railgun matches up with a 12cm laser (if we round up) at 200 tons (4HS) that dose 4 dmg in a (1-3 pattern).

Damage wise if falls between a 20cm laser and a 25cm laser. 20cm weighs 300 tons (6 HS) and dose 10 dmg (3-5-2). A 25cm Laser weighs 800 tons (8HS) and dose 16 dmg (1-4-6-4-1).
At CAP 9, both the 20 & 25cm laser have a RoF of 10 (due to rounding).

So a 1-shot 40cm Rail gun trades 1 to 2 layer of pen for for half the weight and twice the RoF compared to 20 & 25cm lasers. HS wise the 40cm 1-shot is clearly superior to a 12cm laser in all regards (though that should kind of be expected because of the tech level difference).

Note that, after the proposed change (25% charge rate for SS railguns), the 1-shot 40cm railgun can only fire once per 20 second, same as the 4-shot version. And I was talking about the SS railguns after the nerf.

Let's compare a few options for fighters. Ideally a 10HS fighter uses 3HS weapon for speed. Let's say 4HS weapons will also do in this comparison. Below the max tech are at inertial fusion level (RP <= 150000), which is very high for normal play.

40cm SS railgun with C9 (after proposed nerf, with 25% recharge rate):

Code: [Select]

Damage Per Shot (1) 12     Rate of Fire 20 seconds     Range Modifier 80,000
Max Range 960,000 km     Railgun Size 3.575 HS  (179 tons)    Railgun HTK 1
Power Requirement 9    Recharge Rate 2.25
Cost 216    Crew 11
Development Cost 1039 RP
It has a DPT of 3, and a penetration of 3 layers.

12cm full-size laser with C4:

Code: [Select]

Damage Output 4    Rate of Fire 5 seconds     Range Modifier 80,000
Max Range 320,000 km     Laser Size 4 HS  (200 tons)     Laser HTK 2
Power Requirement 4    Recharge Rate 4
Cost 64    Crew 12
Development Cost 565 RP
It has a DPT of 4, and a penetration of 3 layers. It is less than 1/3 of the 40cm SS railgun in terms of cost. It also requires much less research (C4 compared to C10). It has much shorter range, but fighters should have much higher speed compared to their targets, and can should be able to close the gap relatively easily. And such high RoF, high penetration weapon is suitable for anti-fighter role.

25cm 0.5x sized laser with C10:

Code: [Select]

Damage Output 16    Rate of Fire 160 seconds     Range Modifier 80,000
Max Range 1,280,000 km     Laser Size 4 HS  (200 tons)     Laser HTK 2
Power Requirement 16    Recharge Rate 0.5
Cost 160.0    Crew 12
Development Cost 894 RP
It has a DPT of 0.5, and a penetration of 6 layers. It's about 66.7% the cost of the 40cm SS railgun. It requires the same recharge tech (C9 and C10 are available with the C10 research). Such high damage, high penetration but slow recharge weapon is suitable for the 'hit and run' tactics which looks for high alpha strike.

10cm 4-shot railgun with C3:

Code: [Select]

Damage Per Shot (4) 1     Rate of Fire 5 seconds     Range Modifier 80,000
Max Range 80,000 km     Railgun Size 3.0 HS  (150 tons)    Railgun HTK 1
Power Requirement 3    Recharge Rate 3
Cost 41.6    Crew 9
Development Cost 456 RP
It has a DPT of 4, and a penetration of 1 layer. It's less than 20% the cost of the 40cm SS railgun. It is also only 3HS which enables a faster 10HS fighter. Fighters using such a weapon are usually for PD.

And a surprising contender: 15cm plasma carrot with C6:

Code: [Select]

Damage Output 6     Rate of Fire 5 seconds
Max Range 60,000 km     Carronade Size 4 HS  (200 tons)    Carronade HTK 2
Power Requirement 6    Recharge Rate 6
Cost 14.7    Crew 8
Development Cost 271 RP
It has a DPT of 6 and a penetration of 2 layers. It's less than 7% the cost of the 40cm SS railgun. It only requires C6 to design, and 15cm carrot tech is cheap to research. Such high DPT, low penetration weapon is suitable for reducing enemy shields.

Among all these 3~4HS beam weapons, the 40cm SS railgun requires the most research, cost the most to build. Note that high cost weapons generally require more MSP on the fighter to fix firing breakdown.

Yes it is an additional options for fighters, but why? I don't see a clear role for such a weapon.

[Bremen]

As a compromise suggestion, what if the single shot weapon kept the current ROF but it was moved over to a "spinal weapon" equivalent? Which is to say, you can only mount a single weapon per hull, and maybe with a caliber bonus as well as currently happens with spinal lasers.

For a fighter or a FAC, it still works - they get a single railgun of a decent caliber and a decent fire rate. Large ships can still use them too - you can give them a big single shot spinal rail that will fire decently fast, and give it smaller 4shot railguns. But you won't get the examples of completely replacing a ship's weapons with a large number of single shot railguns to maximize DPS.

Alternately, let's look at it the other way around. People seem to be focusing on the DPS, but I think that's wrong - a single shot railgun has, at absolute best, the same DPS as a 4 shot railgun - the issue is that it's considerably smaller. Alternately, a single shot large railgun has the same DPS as a 4 shot small railgun, the difference is the single shot has longer range and (slightly) better armor penetration. And it's still smaller, which IMHO is clear evidence that single shot railguns are too good. But I would argue the problem isn't that their DPS is too high, the problem is that they're too small. Let's take a look at four weapons:

10cm Railgun V50/C3: 4*1 damage, 50kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost
12cm Railgun V50/C3/S2: 2*2 damage, 100kkm range, 138 tons, 26 Cost
20cm Railgun V50/C3/S1: 1*4 damage, 200kkm range, 114 tons, 26 Cost
10cm Far Ultraviolet Laser: 1*3 damage, 150kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost

The three railguns seem like they should be (mostly) sidegrades if you ignore the tonnage. The 10cm is the best at point defense, the 20cm has the best range and armor pen, the 12cm is midway between. Personally, I'd say I'd prefer having a single 20cm to a single 4shot 10cm, since range is king in Aurora, and that is somewhat born out by the laser doing less damage while being a nominally equivalent weapon. The problem here is the 10cm is the heaviest because of how the shot reduction is handled, and I think that's what makes the single shot railguns too powerful.

Currently railguns get a reduction of 22.5% size per reduced shot; I think this is clearly too much. If we imagine a change where each shot reduces the size by 15%, we get:

10cm Railgun V50/C3: 4*1 damage, 50kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost
12cm Railgun V50/C3/S2: 2*2 damage, 100kkm range, 175 tons, 26 Cost
20cm Railgun V50/C3/S1: 1*4 damage, 200kkm range, 192 tons, 26 Cost
10cm Far Ultraviolet Laser: 1*3 damage, 150kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost

Suddenly they feel a lot more fair. For each "step" you're paying a small premium in tonnage to keep the same DPS at a longer range, while being less viable as point defense. And the 20cm Railgun matches reasonably against the 10cm laser, doing 33% more damage for 28% more tonnage - it's still probably better, but at least the comparison is more sane. 12.5% less per shot might be better. Regardless, I think these numbers show how you can balance reduced shot railguns without making them completely useless.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

If we keep the reduced size railguns as spinal mounts then things become a bit more interesting. I think that could work quite well.

[somebody1212]

As a compromise suggestion, what if the single shot weapon kept the current ROF but it was moved over to a "spinal weapon" equivalent? Which is to say, you can only mount a single weapon per hull, and maybe with a caliber bonus as well as currently happens with spinal lasers.

For a fighter or a FAC, it still works - they get a single railgun of a decent caliber and a decent fire rate. Large ships can still use them too - you can give them a big single shot spinal rail that will fire decently fast, and give it smaller 4shot railguns. But you won't get the examples of completely replacing a ship's weapons with a large number of single shot railguns to maximize DPS.

Alternately, let's look at it the other way around. People seem to be focusing on the DPS, but I think that's wrong - a single shot railgun has, at absolute best, the same DPS as a 4 shot railgun - the issue is that it's considerably smaller. Alternately, a single shot large railgun has the same DPS as a 4 shot small railgun, the difference is the single shot has longer range and (slightly) better armor penetration. And it's still smaller, which IMHO is clear evidence that single shot railguns are too good. But I would argue the problem isn't that their DPS is too high, the problem is that they're too small. Let's take a look at four weapons:

10cm Railgun V50/C3: 4*1 damage, 50kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost
12cm Railgun V50/C3/S2: 2*2 damage, 100kkm range, 138 tons, 26 Cost
20cm Railgun V50/C3/S1: 1*4 damage, 200kkm range, 114 tons, 26 Cost
10cm Far Ultraviolet Laser: 1*3 damage, 150kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost

The three railguns seem like they should be (mostly) sidegrades if you ignore the tonnage. The 10cm is the best at point defense, the 20cm has the best range and armor pen, the 12cm is midway between. Personally, I'd say I'd prefer having a single 20cm to a single 4shot 10cm, since range is king in Aurora, and that is somewhat born out by the laser doing less damage while being a nominally equivalent weapon. The problem here is the 10cm is the heaviest because of how the shot reduction is handled, and I think that's what makes the single shot railguns too powerful.

Currently railguns get a reduction of 22.5% size per reduced shot; I think this is clearly too much. If we imagine a change where each shot reduces the size by 15%, we get:

10cm Railgun V50/C3: 4*1 damage, 50kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost
12cm Railgun V50/C3/S2: 2*2 damage, 100kkm range, 175 tons, 26 Cost
20cm Railgun V50/C3/S1: 1*4 damage, 200kkm range, 192 tons, 26 Cost
10cm Far Ultraviolet Laser: 1*3 damage, 150kkm range, 150 tons, 26 Cost

Suddenly they feel a lot more fair. For each "step" you're paying a small premium in tonnage to keep the same DPS at a longer range, while being less viable as point defense. And the 20cm Railgun matches reasonably against the 10cm laser, doing 33% more damage for 28% more tonnage - it's still probably better, but at least the comparison is more sane. 12.5% less per shot might be better. Regardless, I think these numbers show how you can balance reduced shot railguns without making them completely useless.

Reducing the size reduction makes single-shot rails less effective at their intended role of being a small-craft weapon - if they're barely any smaller than an equivalent full-size railgun you may as well mount a full-sized railgun. I'd take the opposite approach and adjust the cost scaling.

If the size scaled the same as it does at the moment but the cost was the same as a full-size railgun (or only slightly cheaper), single-shot railguns would still be extremely size-efficient but would no longer be cost-efficient, making them a viable choice for fighters/FACs where size matters most, but limiting their effectiveness on larger ships where size becomes less important.

[xenoscepter]

 --- What if the Reduced-Shot Railguns just... didn't change? Instead of nerfing them, why not buff the bigger ones? Instead of forcing the Reduced Shot versions to use less power AND fire slower, why not have the big ones require less power to fire at the rate they do currently? That way instead of becoming more power efficient the smaller you go, instead you get more power efficient the higher you go. Don't make the higher shot railguns fire faster just make it cost less power to get that RoF.

 --- This seems a neat, no nonsense way to implement balance without extra rules, special rules, more tech or any other thing. The currently accepted course of action is to force the Reduced Shot ones to fire slower due to enforcing a hard upper limit on Capacitor, but what if we just went the other way and allowed the higher shot ones to just have lowered Power Requirements instead? So, to be perfectly clear on what I'm suggesting; the Single Shot Railguns would remain unchanged both in Power Requirements and Rate of Fire, the 2,3 and 4 Shot Railguns would instead become progressively more power efficient per shot.

[Blogaugis]

--- What if the Reduced-Shot Railguns just... didn't change? Instead of nerfing them, why not buff the bigger ones? Instead of forcing the Reduced Shot versions to use less power AND fire slower, why not have the big ones require less power to fire at the rate they do currently? That way instead of becoming more power efficient the smaller you go, instead you get more power efficient the higher you go. Don't make the higher shot railguns fire faster just make it cost less power to get that RoF.

 --- This seems a neat, no nonsense way to implement balance without extra rules, special rules, more tech or any other thing. The currently accepted course of action is to force the Reduced Shot ones to fire slower due to enforcing a hard upper limit on Capacitor, but what if we just went the other way and allowed the higher shot ones to just have lowered Power Requirements instead? So, to be perfectly clear on what I'm suggesting; the Single Shot Railguns would remain unchanged both in Power Requirements and Rate of Fire, the 2,3 and 4 Shot Railguns would instead become progressively more power efficient per shot.

Kind of what I offered before in this thread, just that in addition to making larger railguns more economical in mass production sense, I also think that more numerous shots have to be a research decision - that is, if you want to design more shot railguns, you have to research shot number tech line - I guess the default 1-4 shot railguns can be available on the get-go, but for anything more than that - research is required.
Just wondering whether it should be like doubling the number 4 -> 8 -> 16 (while still alowing in-between variants, like 6 shots) or 1 more per research 4 -> 5...

[Migi]

Single shot railguns were intended as a solution for small craft. I hadn't realised the implications of being able to stack power plants for larger weapons to generate increased DPS. Unless someone comes up with a good reason against it, I will limit the calibre for v2.0 as suggested above.

Will reduced shots be limited to 10cm permanently or will the limit increase as you research more tech?

If DPS is the problem you could tie the availability of reduced shot railguns (RSRG) to the capacitor tech.
To be a little bit elegant this would be a new tech line, each level of the tech requires you to have both Railgun Calibre and Capacitor sufficient to make that calibre fire with 5s ROF.
For example 10cm railguns get 5s ROF at capacitor 3, so the first RSRG tech would be unlocked when you have both 10cm Railguns and Capacitor 3.
12cm railguns get 5s ROF at capacitor 5*, so the 2nd RSRG tech would be unlocked when you have  both 12cm Railguns and Capacitor 5.

That way you can build FACs, fighters and small warships with large single weapons at higher tech levels, without balance being an issue.

*Actually I'm not sure if this is the correct number but take it as an example.

[Droll]

Single shot railguns were intended as a solution for small craft. I hadn't realised the implications of being able to stack power plants for larger weapons to generate increased DPS. Unless someone comes up with a good reason against it, I will limit the calibre for v2.0 as suggested above.

Will reduced shots be limited to 10cm permanently or will the limit increase as you research more tech?

This is another Steve post further down the thread:

E: Another option: let the design ROF be the ROF of the full-size railgun with whatever capacitor technology is selected, and then reduce the capacitor size of a reduced-shot railgun and preserve the same ROF. For example, a 12cm railgun (6 power) with a C3 capacitory will have ROF 10; if I then select the two-shot variation, it will have a C1.5 capacitor in the design (even though C3 tech is selected) and thus still have ROF 10 even though the required power per increment is reduced. I think this makes sense, avoids weird exceptions and arbitrary limits, and allows reduced-size railguns of any caliber to be an option for smaller craft without affecting large ship balance.

Yes, that would solve the problem without requiring a special rule. It's much better.

So I don't think caliber limitations will actually be implemented, instead the capacitor rating will be reduced proportionally to maintain the same DPS.

[Destragon]

So this was supposed to be changed in 2.0, but apparently it was forgotten about. Gonna bump this thread as reminder.

[Warer]

E: Another option: let the design ROF be the ROF of the full-size railgun with whatever capacitor technology is selected, and then reduce the capacitor size of a reduced-shot railgun and preserve the same ROF. For example, a 12cm railgun (6 power) with a C3 capacitory will have ROF 10; if I then select the two-shot variation, it will have a C1.5 capacitor in the design (even though C3 tech is selected) and thus still have ROF 10 even though the required power per increment is reduced. I think this makes sense, avoids weird exceptions and arbitrary limits, and allows reduced-size railguns of any caliber to be an option for smaller craft without affecting large ship balance.

Yeah, I was about to suggest something similar. It does make sense to cap ROF to be same regardless of amount of shots fired.

Could reduced size lasers be changed to work in a similar way? But instead of dropping shots it drops damage.

Yes, that would solve the problem without requiring a special rule. It's much better.