Railguns mechanic

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I was pondering the other day why the new smaller railguns did not follow the same logic that smaller laser does, as it stands there is almost no incentive to use railguns that shoots 4 shots in one turn unless you can do it in 5 or 10 second increment. It pretty much always will be beneficial to build a railgun that fire once, but can fire every 5 second turn.

So... I wonder why railguns like lasers are not less efficient and require more power per shot when you make them smaller. The slightly larger size per shot is really not an issue.

One example is a 30cm railgun that fire one shot have a weight of 146t, three of them are 438t. One standard railgun weigh 450t. Lets say the power plant of the first three has a weight of 83t and for the latter it is 39t... so that is 527t versus 489t so roughly the same total weight... but the smaller guns also is cheaper so will have a small beneficial impact on the ships maintenance efficiency as well. The three smaller guns fire once every turn while the large one fire once every 20 seconds. That means the three smaller guns have three times the damage output but fires only three times per turn so slightly less alpha damage, but over all the effect is so small it probably will not be important.

In any way railguns are now super effective in regards to damage output versus other weapon systems.

Should railguns really have this much more offensive firepower or is it something that never was intended to be used this way. Personally I never liked the way railguns worked before so I like the change overall as a princip... I just think that smaller lasers is really underwhelming in comparison to smaller railguns when you compare them.

[nuclearslurpee]

I recall that the original idea of the reduced shot railguns was to make it easier to mount them on fighters, based on the B5-theme campaign Steve was playing at the time using railgun fighters, surprise surprise.

I am not sure that Steve had worked out how mounting single-shot railguns of large calibers could be used to replace full-size railguns to provide higher DPS. As it is you can put out around ~3x the DPS at the cost of only 75% as great of an alpha strike, once you account for necessary power plants to charge so many capacitors. I am split on whether this is a good thing for "game balance" (yes, yes, "Aurora isn't a balanced game"...). On one hand, it gives railguns a very strong niche as high DPS with a close range. On the other hand, I am not sure if it is not too strong to the point where the classic four-shot flavor mechanic of railguns is forgettable by comparison.

If we want to nerf the reduced shot railguns, I think it can be as simple as reducing range, maybe not proportionally but by a square-root rule so that a single-shot railgun has 1/2 the range of a four-shot railgun. I think this would preserve a balance between different sizes as the full-size weapons have lower DPS but longer range and of course alpha strike capability.

Another option would be doing something like what was done with lasers and cutting the recharge rate down proportionally. Unlike lasers, this can simply be proportional i.e. a single-shot railgun has 1/4 the recharge rate as a four-shot railgun, so that DPS is the same in each case. This means that reduced shot railguns only have a niche as a way to mount a large weapon on a small platform (fighter/FAC) which I think was the original intention. However, this does feel very limiting for what is a fun new feature as reduced shot versions are now strictly inferior...

Alternatively we can ask if the balance is fine as-is, and if instead we need to buff reduced-size lasers? Here I am not sure. In my mind, for Aurora "game balance" means not that everything is equal but that everything in the game has a purpose and a niche which is not eclipsed by some other feature or mechanic. In this sense, reduced size lasers do have a niche (put a big, long-range laser on a small fighter or FAC and point them at the enemy). So personally I do not think reduced size lasers need any buffs to remain functional even if they are in most cases unimpressive (admittedly, this is in large part because beam fighters are unimpressive as long as missiles are a thing).

IMO, the railgun balance is okay as it is but I do feel like reduced shot railguns are generally preferable to full-size versions for large calibers. If a change is needed I think the range reduction I proposed as sqrt(size) would be perfectly suitable.

[Garfunkel]

The big thing is ROF. You can have otherwise equal 45cm RG's but one fires every 5 seconds while the other fires every 45 seconds. It doesn't matter that the latter fires 4 times because the former has fired NINE times. It's really unintuitive that a weapon meant for beam fighters is actually better than the normal version of the weapon in all cases. Well, except for PD, maybe and I kinda doubt that too.

I agree with you on Aurora balance - there's no reason to try to make everything equal and that would just destroy lot of the character of Aurora, and I doubt Steve would ever go for it anyway. But all weapons should have a niche & role to play and currently single-shot RGs are just too powerful that they eclipse multi-shot ones.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I think the Railgun under the current rules do a bit too much damage even at longer ranges... let's say the above railgun have a max beam sensor tech of 384.000 km... at 360.000 km three railguns will do 6 damage every 5 seconds. Now a 30cm Soft X-Ray laser do only 18 damage every 20 seconds at this stage so all in all the railguns do a total of 24 damage (versus 8 for a normal one) in 20 seconds.

Sure, the lasers will cut deeper into the armour as they do more damage in one go, so still is more dangerous at range, but I do think that these new railguns probably are too strong at these ranges.

[Droll]

The big thing is ROF. You can have otherwise equal 45cm RG's but one fires every 5 seconds while the other fires every 45 seconds. It doesn't matter that the latter fires 4 times because the former has fired NINE times. It's really unintuitive that a weapon meant for beam fighters is actually better than the normal version of the weapon in all cases. Well, except for PD, maybe and I kinda doubt that too.

I agree with you on Aurora balance - there's no reason to try to make everything equal and that would just destroy lot of the character of Aurora, and I doubt Steve would ever go for it anyway. But all weapons should have a niche & role to play and currently single-shot RGs are just too powerful that they eclipse multi-shot ones.

I wouldn't say that the multi-shots are completely eclipsed. For small-medium ships like FACs and corvettes having a multi-shot means that you can stuff more firepower under a single weapon FC. Which can often be significant for these smaller sizes. Similar situation with turrets.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

The big thing is ROF. You can have otherwise equal 45cm RG's but one fires every 5 seconds while the other fires every 45 seconds. It doesn't matter that the latter fires 4 times because the former has fired NINE times. It's really unintuitive that a weapon meant for beam fighters is actually better than the normal version of the weapon in all cases. Well, except for PD, maybe and I kinda doubt that too.

I agree with you on Aurora balance - there's no reason to try to make everything equal and that would just destroy lot of the character of Aurora, and I doubt Steve would ever go for it anyway. But all weapons should have a niche & role to play and currently single-shot RGs are just too powerful that they eclipse multi-shot ones.

I wouldn't say that the multi-shots are completely eclipsed. For small-medium ships like FACs and corvettes having a multi-shot means that you can stuff more firepower under a single weapon FC. Which can often be significant for these smaller sizes. Similar situation with turrets.

On a FAC you probably would want one single weapon system so you can fit it under a single fire-control... but larger than that then a full size fire control are probably not a big problem. But small beam ships are so inefficient anyway in Aurora unless you are up against unarmed ships so I don't think it matters that much to be honest.

[Ektor]

Single shot railguns should be caliber limited.

[Steve Walmsley]

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.

[Garfunkel]

I doubt it'd nerf beam fighters or FACs so I'm all for it.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Yes... limit the weapons to calibers so you can mount them into fighter hulls at some levels but not so much that it becomes the stock and trade for all Railgun calibers even on larger ships.

[Zincat]

I agree to limiting single shot RG to small calibers. It's a good idea, right now they simply do too much damage, if one wants to minmax.

I also think,but that's an entirely different topic, that railguns are too powerful when used as point defense considered the VERY minimal research necessary to make them decent at it. They are MUCH better than laser in that regard, so with a low tech investment you get decent point defense and good long range damage for larger weapons.
And yes, gauss are much better, but that's only after dumping a lot of research into them....

[Iceranger]

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.

I honestly prefer keeping the single-shot railguns as they are, even if the higher DPS is not intended.

I love the flexible ship design system and love min/maxing ship designs. I know this is probably not the preferred way to play to many of us, but I find it fun to be able to design ships very potent in one aspect but perhaps totally lacking in others. The old meson (which is probably the only weapon that makes beam fighters competitive), and the single-shot railguns are good options to have in this way. To be honest, I don't like the changes that take such possibilities away. Such changes make the game less flavorful.

I don't think leaving them as they are has that much of an impact. The NPRs do not min/max to utilize such advantages. And for RP purposes, if it does not fit in my empire, 'No large-caliber single-shot railguns' sounds like a perfectly reasonable self-imposed rule.

[nuclearslurpee]

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.

Personally I would prefer to keep the option to have reduced shot railguns of any caliber. It offers more options for ship design, and adding an arbitrary caliber limit seems like the kind of "unusual exception" that C# tries to avoid.

I would rather see some downside added so that reduced-shot and full-caliber railguns both retain useful niches. Something as simple as a reduction of the range modifier by N/4 where N = number of shots, so that the reduced-shot railguns still offer a high-DPS option but at extremely short range, would be interesting. There might be some concern with going under 10 kkm range particularly for the 10cm railguns, but this can be a "buyer beware" concern IMO as we have other systems such as BFCs where the player is not prevented from designing a poorly-functioning system.

Another option would be to reduce ROF with smaller sizes, as with reduced-size lasers, but I am not sure this is desired or makes a lot of sense for railguns.

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.

[alex_brunius]

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.

[Ektor]

I mostly use single shot railguns for PD screens. I like the choice between cheap railguns that you need to design a ship around, or turreted gauss for the expensive, but effective choice.