Railguns

Hobbeson

I've yammered on about this elsewhere, but thought I'd post here as well. I want railguns to be changed in two ways. First, I'd like them to have some considerable pdamage dropoff at range. Second, I'd like the size of their projectile to be reduced.

I'm not advocating this because I think railguns are completely OP. They're not. But I do think that they are too good at certain things, and that they cause a lot of needless frustration for the opposing team. I say 'needless' because we could remove these frustrations while also preserving the essential roles that railguns are now serving.

The main frustration that I have in mind, though not the only one, comes from railguns' ability to one-shot (or "one-click") lerks from across the room. Given the size of the railguns' projectile, it's nearly impossible for a lerk to effectively dodge the rail shot of a decent shooter (let alone one with a high ping). The result is that lerks simply can't take engagements in the general vicinity of a halfway competent railgun; it's just not a reasonable risk/reward calculation. This alone is frustrating - a railgun essentially denies a quadrant of the map to lerks - but it becomes pretty crucial during hive pushes. Lerks are key to an effective defense against coordinated pushes, and the presence of a railgun completely nullifies a lerk's ability to contribute. This is annoying, unfun, and also ruins some of the most entertaining ns2 engagements for lerks - those big teamfights where everyone is participating at a critical juncture. You might as well go bite res, because otherwise you're almost sure to lose the 21-27 res you've invested in your lerk by that point.

Railguns are usually presented as playing two key roles. The first - which to my mind is actually secondary, even though it is often touted as the most important role - is providing a source of structure damage. The two changes I mentioned - pdamage dropoff, and reduced projectile size - would have no impact on this. The second role is lifeform sniping. This will be more difficult given the changes I'm suggesting. For example, if you reduce the projectile size it will become more difficult to land shots on far-off dodging lerks. But this seems completely fair to me. Second, even with the pdamage reduction that I'm imagining, railguns would still be quite good at killing lifeforms at the close-to-medium distance (just as they are now). The major change would be that, for instance, a lerk spiking exos from far across the room (e.g. a lerk spiking from the back of cargo while exos are near the Y-junction entrance) would not be within one-shot range of a railgun. Taking down a full-health lerk from that distance require something like 3 shots (where after two fully charged shots, lerks would have almost no health left). In this case, railguns would still be extremely valuable during hive pushes, because they would be effective at pushing lerks out of the room, or forcing them to continuously hide and heal up. But this would also allow lerks to participate in the hive defense - the risk/reward calculation might now make sense. This seems more balanced, less frustrating, and (on the whole) more fun.

Of these two changes, I think the pdamage drop-off is more important. I could see someone arguing that new players *already* have a hard enough time aiming with railguns, and making this even more difficult will only harm them. I personally don't find this argument persuasive, but we can argue about that if you want. However, I really don't see a good argument against pdamage dropoff, and I'm curious to hear what people think.

Steelcap

So, forgive me a bit of pedantry for a moment it will become relevant later.

The max damage of a fully scaled up Railgun shot is 173.
33 of it is intrinsic and the remaining 140 is based on the charge level, the higher the charge the more of that 140 it gets.

A fully charge railgun cannot kill a lerk. Lerks have 150 hp and 45 armor for a total eHp of 240. This means it requires at least 1 full charge and 25% of a second railgun shot to kill a lerk. Now despite the exo having 2 railguns, it isn't possible to charge both up simultaniously, when one rail begins to charge it starts a cooldown on both guns refiring for 1.4 seconds.

local kRailgunChargeTime = 1.4

A railgun will be fully charged after 2 seconds, but can be held for another .2 seconds before it automatically fires, but it can also be fired at any charge value, it can be snap fired instantly at 1% for about 35 damage.

This I believe is the source of the issue. The "Doubleshot" is accomplished by starting the charge on one target, then holding the second rail for half a second has the first fills and releasing both at once. So what I propose is simply a minimum charge value to fire a shot.

Require a minimum of 1.4 seconds of charge and it is no longer possible to overlap the two rails at once, though cycling between them firing is still possible with a delay no less than .6 seconds between them. (Charging 1 to 2.2 and the other to 1.4 .6 seconds after the first fired) It remains exactly as deadly to skulks fades and onos, but is no longer capable of the snapshot to kill a lerk.

Thoughts?

NousWanderer

Some Problems:

1. Exos are in a weird place overall, with few people understanding their role and fewer people using them effectively.
2. A railgun exo in average hands is remarkably ineffective and inconsistent. A bad railgun exo often contributes nothing to a teamfight, whereas even a poorly positioned and clueless minigun exo may be able to contribute before being swarmed due to nothing more than the sheer dps of the minigun.
3. A railgun exo in the right hands is remarkably effective and may even feel OP or unfair to non-onos lifeforms in the course of a game.
4. Lerks in particular face a steep, uphill battle against a competent railgun exo, as their primary avenue to contribute (spiking and dodging) is harshly countered by the railgun's effective range and insta-pop capacity with a doubleshot.
5. By contrast, a railgun exo is almost useless versus an aggressive onos without massive team support.

Some Additional Considerations:

• The railgun exo shouldn't have its projectile size reduced. It's already difficult enough for average players to land any rails. Upping the skill floor by reducing the projectile width would exacerbate this issue while only marginally influencing the top (and most troublesome) players, who already flick to center-mass and rarely miss.
• Any change to the dynamics described in the OP should be considered carefully. You don't want to create a situation where a lerk can use their maximum effective distance to track an exo with spikes without giving that exo any true ability to counter. Especially a railgun exo, which already faces heightened precision requirements relative to the large spread and damage output of the minigun exo. Instead, you want to create a more dynamic exchange pattern, where the lerk has some options but is still forced to react to the railgun's threat. A minigun spraying across a cavernous room still forces the lerk to move, and a railgun exo landing precision shots across the map should still be rewarded (and the greedy lerk punished).
• You also want to keep the railgun exo fun to play. If it gets a revamp, that's an opportunity to make it more interesting as well.

Some Basic Suggestions:

1. Lower the rail damage moderately overall.
2. Increase the rail firing charge rate slightly to compensate. This will mean that shots do less damage, but there are more opportunities to fire.
3. Prevent rail overlapping / introduce a stagger. Establish a baseline so that the soonest one rail can begin recharging is when the other rail is half-charged (assuming you are trying to charge both at the same time).
4. Institute a damage drop-off after a certain distance from the exo. As an arbitrary starting place for discussion, I propose that this falloff should begin roughly 2.5x - 3x the maximum effective distance of the shotgun. If an alien plays heavy aggression within this range, they should face the penalty of a direct hit.
5. Once the falloff begins, damage rapidly tapers down until it reaches a minimum. This minimum is the minimum effective damage of a rail at maximum distance under all circumstances. It shouldn't be enough to one-shot a lerk on the other side of Cargo, but should be enough to one-shot a skulk without carapace at any distance. At maximum distance, a lerk should require 2-3 direct railgun hits to pop. I'd err on the side of 2 fully charged shots, but that's just me (and I like playing lerk). This would preserve the interesting dynamics of that engagement, where it's relatively easy for a strafing/dodging lerk to track the exo with spikes, but the exo can still be rewarded for rapid precision hits and/or maintain the ability to force the lerk to reposition or seek cover.

Some Radical Suggestions:

1. To make the railgun exo more valuable overall, give it some utility. Introduce a brief slowdown effect upon hit. This puts the alien into a new status state ("shocked" or "stunned" or whatever the f**k you want to call it) which lasts 1-2 seconds depending on the weapon level of the marine team (1 -> 1.5 -> 2). The slowdown would be 15-20% and taper to 0% within the duration of the status effect.
2. Any alien lifeform which takes additional rail damage after being put into this status will be hit for either a) bonus damage or b) energy depletion. Either would work. The goal of this change is to create the basis for a kind of one-two combo that rewards rail projectile combos in a unique way (think of a significantly less dramatic version of the shock combo in UT).
3. By applying a status effect on the initial hit, you introduce a basic crowd control dynamic to the railgun. Even in bad hands, that one shot on an onos might apply the slowdown needed to prevent an escape. It'd force aliens to be slightly more cautious around railgun exos, but in a different way than they currently are. To the lerk that's escaping, the issue would no longer be getting hit once from afar and suddenly dying, but rather escaping after being hit once, when you're a bit slower and weaker. Remember, the status quo right now is that the lerk just pops, so even if they're given a reduced chance of escape (due to minor slowdown), it's still a bigger chance than they have right now.
4. Some people will probably react negatively to the idea of any slowdown effect being introduced whatsoever. Considering that NS1 had devour, where marines would literally be removed from the game for long periods of time (basically being forced to wait to die), and considering that NS2's stomp is remarkably effective, I have little sympathy. The slowdown would be minimal, but would open up new tactical opportunities and team compositions, and would generally make the game more interesting.

Bicsum

I agree that getting sniped like this is very frustrating, but isn't that like the only merit over a minigun exo?

Sure, rail guns shoot through all entities, but will that still be good enough compared to a minigun, who would still be able to snipe spiking lerks, while being generally more effective against all lifeforms and while pushing out more concentrated structure damge?
Rail guns can do more structure damage than minigun exos, if the structures align well and you get a good angle, but IMO in a hive push it is more important to kill key structures fast, compared to situationally killing multiple structures at once "slowly".

The_Welsh_Wizard

Bicsum wrote: »

I agree that getting sniped like this is very frustrating, but isn't that like the only merit over a minigun exo?

Sure, rail guns shoot through all entities, but will that be good enough compared to a minigun, who then would still be able to snipe spiking lerks, while being generally more effective against all lifeforms, while pushing out more concentrated structure damge?
Rail guns can do more strucutre damage than minigun exos, if the structures align well and you get a good angle, but IMO in a hive push it is more important to kill key structures fast, compared to situationally killing multiple structures at once "slowly".

THe problem the railguns role should not exist, instead of trying to fix it, just remove it.

IronHorse

Hobbeson wrote: »

First, I'd like them to have some considerable pdamage dropoff at range. Second, I'd like the size of their projectile to be reduced.

While I agree that there's an issue with skilled shooters using Railgun Exo, its equally awkward to use and useless to lesser skilled players.
Meaning it's too good in some experienced hands, and borderline useless to everyone else.

As such, I don't feel your two proposed solutions are adequate. Or at least they're making the wrong trade offs.
Introducing lack of predictability/randomness with range falloff + making it harder to hit for lesser skilled players, won't solve the aforementioned issues. It only solves 1/2 of them at best at the cost of inconsistency.

I'd much rather allow for only one railgun that utilizes Steelcap's suggestion of a minimum charge requirement (communicated using color coded charge bars), and have the other arm contain something else like a welder or other ability.

The removes the double shot and a lot of the burst player dmg output potential, while adding additional support functionality to an Exo that already moves faster than a minigun. It's less likely to be adequately exploited by good shots, and easier to utilize / less awkward for newer or lesser skilled players.


@The_Welsh_Wizard Railguns aren't going to be removed, so you might as well try to suggest a version of them that fits well instead.

maD_maX_

Noooo..... rail gun so much fun. Pop goes the lerk, pop goes the fade, pope goes the gorge, and pop goes 3 skulks. A rail gun is OP, it makes the high skill life forms moot(Lerk/fade). And the only down side is onos, which can be an upside... no need to pinch an onos because he WILL rush the railgun and overcommit(onos bait).

I can't even guess at the number of "accidental" kills I have gotten just shooting down a long hallway. The there is the skulk rush where 3+ skulks run at you an in 1 shot they all die (I know I have gotten 5 kills in a single shot recently, I'd wager I have gotten 6-7 at least once)

Oh, lets not forget the penetration, hey fade are you low on health? Hiding behind the hive? Sorry I didn't see you there don't mind me I'm just shooting the hive...

And aiming? You don't have to track and aim, just aim for the door and wait. x-axis, aim at a door with an acute angle so the door appears to be a slit. Y-axis, aim at the center of the door due to the limited height and size of the rail gun projectile you'll connect 99% of the time. Timing, all fades and lerks break off, just wait, you know exactly where they will be.

Hobbeson

IronHorse wrote: »

While I agree that there's an issue with skilled shooters using Railgun Exo, its equally awkward to use and useless to lesser skilled players.
Meaning it's too good in some experienced hands, and borderline useless to everyone else.

I wasn't actually thinking that this was the main problem. After all, this is NS2 - there are tons of mechanics in this game that are extremely effective for skilled players and useless for lower skilled players (e.g. lerks and fades). You go on to suggest that we shift to one-arm railguns over two, as this would be less awkward for unskilled players. But I don't see what's so bad about requiring skill to get the maximum effectiveness out of an exo (again, it seems comparable to lerks or fades).

Insofar as railguns are weak in the hands of lesser skilled players, I think that this largely has to do with their positioning and conception of how railguns should be played. They put themselves into terrible engagements and lose. Certainly their poor aim has *something* to do with it, but of course their terrible aim has something to do with why they are equally useless with an lmg or smg (and I very much hope we wouldn't similarly consider increasing the lmg's bullet size to help these players out).
Perhaps if a player isn't great at aiming, they shouldn't choose to spend all of their resources on the sniper robit? I'd also add that, despite the impression some have given above, it's really really easy to hit things with the railgun. You don't need to be even a good pubber to take down lifeforms with the railgun; players with very average aim kill my lerk all the time. Again, this is NS2! Landing shots with so much burst damage should be hard!

You also complain about the unpredictability introduced with the damage falloff. I see your point, but don't we already have this sort of unpredictability in the game with shotguns? I see railguns as essentially being an improved version of the shotgun - more burst damage, more accuracy, more range - so introducing a bit of unpredictability when trying to take down lifeforms from afar doesn't strike me as a huge issue.

You mentioned moving to only one railgun arm. I guess something like this might work, though I'd worry that this might wind up leaving railguns too weak. If you buff the pdamage of that one rail too much, you'll recreate the problem we're trying to address, and if you leave the pdamage around what it is now, then railguns will become useless. Maybe there's a happy medium there, I'm not sure. But if we made the change that I suggested, then at a medium range railguns essentially provide you with a pinpoint accurate burst that does more damage than a w3 shotgun, without the long-range lerk popping capabilities (though you could still have a strong ability to push lerks out of hives). Contra what Bicsum suggested above, I think there would be a reasonable case to be made for sometimes getting such a railgun over a mini. In short, I think that my proposal would solve the problem I identified without nerfing railguns too harshly.

TLDR: I agree that what I'm suggesting doesn't solve the problem that you identify, but I don't see that as being the problem, and I don't see the main downside you suggested (unpredictability) as a significant issue.

IeptBarakat

IronHorse wrote: »

Railguns aren't going to be removed, so you might as well try to suggest a version of them that fits well instead.

Heavy Armor + NS2: Combat handheld railgun.

BeigeAlert

I wonder if simply replacing rail exo with old 1-fist 1-railgun exosuit would work. It's awkward to use the double anyways, seeing as how you can only charge 1 (ish...) at a time.

Bicsum

What about removing dual miniguns AND dual railguns and making a mini+rail gun exo that can only fire one gun at a time and has a cool down when switching weapons (as if you'd switch from LMG to pistol)? Like the exo doesn't have enough power to shoot with both arms at the same time, but you're able to chose into which arm the "exo power" goes into.

The exo would lose firepower, which the increased flexibility would make up for, while in contrary to having two mini or two gail guns, it would still be believable that "they" (TSF) would make exos with two weapons, while only being able to shoot with one.

Plus, you wouldn't have to shoot with RMB, which is weird anyway.

IronHorse

Don't touch my dual miniguns! RAWR!

In all seriousness, I doubt having dual abilities would make it "flexible" enough to warrant the change.

Nordic

The best rail gun had a fist.

I would like to return to the single railgun with a fist. Keep the same player damage. Increase structure damage if necessary. The fist arm was 2x as useful as a second gun in close quarters.

Bicsum

The point is that you'd only be able to shoot with one gun, so that you'd take away some of the exos firepower, which will lead to less frustration on the alien side, while the exo player has more fun and is more useful, because he is able to use different weapons for different situations with his exo.

The exo doesn't need to have so much firepower. It needs to have more opportunities to be useful.

maD_maX_

But really is there anything more fun then getting a rail gun and yelling "pew... pew...pew pew...pew" if only all talk was on!

And the double shot... is way easier then preventing the mini gun from overheating.

MaxAmus

Exos are fun.

.trixX.

Steelcap wrote: »

Now despite the exo having 2 railguns, it isn't possible to charge both up simultaniously, when one rail begins to charge it starts a cooldown on both guns refiring for 1.4 seconds.

The problem is, you CAN fire both guns at the same time. You can charge up one to full, release it and press the other at the same time, and you get one fully charged + one uncharged shot.

As to @Hobbeson 's idea, I'm not sure about the damage dropoff at a distance. On the other hand, reducing the projectile size is a good idea imo. I'm regularly surprised how I manage to kill a lifeform while the crosshair is not on the target.
The con is, it would not effect high-skilled players...

Vetinari

BeigeAlert wrote: »

I wonder if simply replacing rail exo with old 1-fist 1-railgun exosuit would work. It's awkward to use the double anyways, seeing as how you can only charge 1 (ish...) at a time.

I've been saying this for months

BeigeAlert

Vetinari wrote: »

BeigeAlert wrote: »

I wonder if simply replacing rail exo with old 1-fist 1-railgun exosuit would work. It's awkward to use the double anyways, seeing as how you can only charge 1 (ish...) at a time.

I've been saying this for months

"This for months." Now I'm saying it too!

Nordic

@IronHorse There is a single arm railgun caucus forming against you!

Vetinari

BeigeAlert wrote: »

Vetinari wrote: »

BeigeAlert wrote: »

I wonder if simply replacing rail exo with old 1-fist 1-railgun exosuit would work. It's awkward to use the double anyways, seeing as how you can only charge 1 (ish...) at a time.

I've been saying this for months

"This for months." Now I'm saying it too!

youre saying it wrong though, you need to say it like this

this for months

IronHorse

Nordic wrote: »

@IronHorse There is a single arm railgun caucus forming against you!

I think you misread my comment earlier.
I don't care if the railgun is nerfed. I don't want the minigun to not be dual miniguns tho.
And frankly I dont think the minigun needs a nerf, unlike the railgun.

maD_maX_

Dual railgun for life.... death to Hobbes' lerk! Pew pew...

As far as OP, kinda? It basically is a counter to high skill lerk/fade playing pub (60-2). This skews balance because that 4K+ hive skill fade/lerk can't effectively fade/lerk, so they can't carry the team. So the effective average team skill drops....

In a balanced game with low SD, I'd say most of the time SG/JP or mini gun are better bets. (Probably why comp meta doesn't involve rail)

So I guess the only victims are players like Hobbes, who can now be killed by average players... if you take it away or nerf it those high skill players with high skill lifeforms are unstoppable where the average pub skill is <1500.

BestProfileName

maD_maX_ wrote: »

Dual railgun for life.... death to Hobbes' lerk! Pew pew...

As far as OP, kinda? It basically is a counter to high skill lerk/fade playing pub (60-2). This skews balance because that 4K+ hive skill fade/lerk can't effectively fade/lerk, so they can't carry the team. So the effective average team skill drops....

In a balanced game with low SD, I'd say most of the time SG/JP or mini gun are better bets. (Probably why comp meta doesn't involve rail)

So I guess the only victims are players like Hobbes, who can now be killed by average players... if you take it away or nerf it those high skill players with high skill lifeforms are unstoppable where the average pub skill is <1500.

Sort of partially agree. Average players still can't use the railgun well so they're likely not going to land two RG shots in quick succession on a lerk/fade.. It's moreso a worry about getting Wobinated.

If the projectile size is nerfed a little then the RG is in a fine place. They're less powerful than a JP+LMG marine against an Onos. I wouldn't like to see it nerfed to one rail, as some have suggested, though. If 5 skulks rush a JP+SG, he's more chance of killing them than a RG, if you do that. Just nerf the projectile size. Noobs won't use it but that's what the super imprecise minigun is for.

edit: or maybe have different pricepoints for double rail and mini v single rail and mini, just as before. 40 for single, 60 for double.

innit

IronHorse

BestProfileName wrote: »

Sort of partially agree. Average players still can't use the railgun well so they're likely not going to land two RG shots in quick succession on a lerk/fade.. It's moreso a worry about getting Wobinated.


If the projectile size is nerfed a little then the RG is in a fine place

I don't understand this logic that keeps getting recommended in this thread.
If the issue is what good shooters can do with the RG, why do you think making it require better accuracy is going to affect said skilled players??

The only thing that will do is make it harder to use for low to medium skilled players. Good shooters will remain unaffected.

If anyone remembers, this is precisely why the rifle spread and projectile sizes were increased years ago. Pin point accurate spread and tiny bullet size was still lethal for good shooters, while the other two tiers of players suffered. Increasing both those elements meant that good shots could still perform roughly the same.. but the other two tiers of skill could land way more shots now. Believe it or not, it took a few patches to apply the same concept to the RG.

The better approach to this issue imo is the aforementioned one, regarding removing instant double shots.

Nordic

I propose we remove the railgun exo, and keep the minigun exo. Replace the railgun exo with the Cannon from NS2:Combat.

The Cannon had the same problems as the railgun, except it didn't have 300+ hp.

Not serious.

Wob

Don't know why some people who are proponents of "if they get 3 hives they win" don't like "if they get railguns [highest tier upgrade] marines can do really well".

I'd rather they remove railguns and add rail pistols and put it on normal armory 15tres 5pres, 80dmg max charge with max charge being 1s (or there about)

coolitic

Just remove dual rail guns. They are hard to use for all but the most skilled players and they are the only ones that have the "combo" that acts as the central problem here.

maD_maX_

if the dual rail is a high skill high reward combo... how is it different then a fade? I see good fades go 30-5 all day long, I rarely see good rines go rail....

Again this seems like a problem for the pro fade/lerks playing on relatively low skill servers, who now are killable by players who are not as good. I don't feel bad seeing Hobbes go 35-9 instead of 43-3, sorry.

Vetinari

Wob wrote: »

Don't know why some people who are proponents of "if they get 3 hives they win" don't like "if they get railguns [highest tier upgrade] marines can do really well".

I'd rather they remove railguns and add rail pistols and put it on normal armory 15tres 5pres, 80dmg max charge with max charge being 1s (or there about)

I don't even think dual railgun is op or a problem, I just don't think it comes too late and isn't fun to use.

Mephilles

Maybe the issue with exos is that there is no real movement skill tied to that. It is mainly about positioning and aiming with the exo (feel free to correct me @Wob ). If there would be a way for exos to dodge I think it could be more fun to play.