Ion Railgun Analysis With Video

[SpacerSebben]

I recorded a video of mastered ion railguns in action, both of being hit by them as well as what its like to fire them.

 

Link is here.

 

Included in the video are:

 

-How much energy I lose when getting struck by the AOE drain effect. (18 weapon and energy power, no debuff applied).

-How quickly my power can regenerate from the hit without the debuff.

-How much energy is lost from a direct shot (approximately 53 weapon and engine power) + re-appliable debuff.

-I then fly my own gunship and show the minimum charge up time required to fire a shot (approx. 25% charge or 1.5 seconds).

-How much energy is consumed to fire.

 

Finally, you get to see a montage of me using mastered ion railguns with minimal charge up time on various people and can see the time it takes for a target to be fully drained of their weapons and engines.

 

So are ion railguns in their current state balanced or OP? And if they need a change, how?

Edited March 16, 2014 by SpacerSebben

[Verain]

I think that it's good that ion railguns drain systems and stunlock ships. I like that it's a valuable and useful drain.

 

That being said: I think it's too much drain. The drain on a single hit is, as you show, more than half of engine and weapons immediately, with a six second debuff to turn off regen entirely. This actually is more than an entire bar!

 

We also get rid of some misconceptions. Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this:

 

> There is no debuff to regen if you get hit with the aoe, not the main shot.

> (untested?) There is no debuff to speed if you get hit with the aoe, not the main shot.

> The power drained is over or around 50 when talented with the normal talent setup ("hits do area damage")

 

I believe any of the following could be good changes:

 

 

1)- In this proposal, we buff slightly the drain of these things at maximum charge. Perhaps with a full charge the debuff is even eight seconds, and the drain is 60. The key is that you only "get what you pay for", and the taps do relatively little, using the same scaling as damage. This means than a quarter charge would be a quarter of this or less. This would mostly eliminate the "quarter charge" thing.

 

Reasoning: The meta is much improved since the removal of love tap. But it's still very powerful to rapidly drain an enemy, and there isn't the reward for the full charge shot. A gunship should always be rewarded for the full charge shot. This would only give a powerful debuff on a full charge, and would make it difficult for a gunship to fully drain an enemy compared to on live.

 

2)- In this proposal, we up the damage of ion railgun to something like 2200. This is to ensure that ion railgun is actually worth using for damage alone versus most ships that have a full shield. It's silly that a full charge ion is less damage than a full charge slug on most ships- the delta should be large, like ion cannons versus quads. Now that ion railgun has a worth outside of stunlocks, we modify the stunlock talents, nerfing them, while buffing the others. The critical talent is entirely wasted, as all of the crit just converts into terrible hull damage, and it's up against "hits do area damage". Turn the crit into a damage boost talent, as on the slug railgun. Take away the 18 energy drain from the "hits do area damage" talent, and make ion not drain systems from anything but the main target. Turn the energy debuff into a TWELVE SECOND debuff of halved regeneration- this is the same amount lost, but it will hardly ever allow you to paralyze an opponent.

 

Reasoning: Under this system, the main target will get drained for around 30 and then have to deal with limited regeneration for awhile- you will still very much want to avoid being hit by this, but it wil no longer be a death sentence to take one quarter charge hit. Meanwhile, the gun will become a powerful strike versus a fully shielded opponent, like the other ion weapons.

 

 

3)- In this proposal, we lengthen the range of ion railgun to 20km and turn the crit talent into a mighty +10% hit talent. The engine and weapon drain is removed entirely, and the six second debuff becomes a 12 second debuff that halves regeneration, as in proposal (2). The aoe range is increased and has no target limit. The "drains extra energy" talent becomes a damage increase talent. This gives ion a powerful niche of striking and weakening foes from vast ranges, while removing entirely the stunlock talent.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I PM'd Eric Musco about your video when you put it in the other gunship thread. Only did it earlier today, but hopefully he'll see it and let us know somehow that either the devs already know about this or that he'll pass on the info.

 

Thanks for making that video. It confirms my own experience when I've been paying attention to just how much was drained, but I never had the time to set up anything good that really shows the problem (I also mostly fly strikes and scouts, so it's sometimes hard for me to definitively say I didn't get hit by two ion railguns at once) It's also good to have something solid to point to with this issue.

 

The concept of the drain and even hurting regen isn't a terrible one. The drain is just too much and hits more than one power pool, and it completely prevents any regen at all. Lowered regen is more than enough to aim for with ions: ships are always needing more power if you're in a fight of any kind, so debuffing your opponents ability to have it regen as normal is a great boon.

 

*added*

 

Verain, I've seen you argue for the "less at low charge, more than we have now at full charge" thing before, but even at a full charge the debuff is ridiculous. It's out of whack with the other ion weapons and those at least require close range and/or a lock. I don't mind the idea of a scaling debuff, but at its highest, it still needs to be lower than now. No one shot that can be taken from 15 km away should take away 50% of a ship's energy and its ability to get any of that back for six seconds.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Pilgrim_Grey

[Verain]

"Even at full charge, the debuff is" ->

 

How do you know? A gunship allowed to get to full charge is wildly deadly, and that's pretty clearly intended. Allowing one to snipe should absolutely kill you, or make your lose all your everything, or whatever. The other big deal is that a gunship's blaster power is actually a resource for him, and one of the bigger problems with the 25% shot is that it's a mere drop of energy compared to a full or mostly full charge.

 

 

I think that at full charge, the debuff is effective and useful. I think the problem is, on live, it takes about 1.5 seconds between when you get hit with the first blast and when you get hit with the second- maybe less than that. If it took a full charge to do that sort of thing, you'd be looking at over 3.5 seconds to respond before you are drained dry. That is more than enough time for a skilled pilot.

 

 

In any event, I listed several types of things that I think would work. Gunships need to be deadly. You need to hate being sniped. You need to fear them.

 

But that 50 energy 25% thing? Yea, that's too much.

[NathanielStarr]

 

 

In any event, I listed several types of things that I think would work. Gunships need to be deadly. You need to hate being sniped. You need to fear them.

 

Pilots should be feared not ships. All ships should have equal potential to be feared, but gunships are way out ahead.

[QuinMantha]

Woah. I just noticed something I never knew before.

 

The Energy regen debuff doesn't apply until their shields are down and you land a hit on hull.

[Zoom_VI]

Pilots should be feared not ships. All ships should have equal potential to be feared, but gunships are way out ahead.

 

^^this

Nobody is scared when they see their name in a strike's target of target or in a scout's target of target. But god save you if your in a gunship's target of target.

 

imo if they are going to allow ion rail to leave ships dead in the water after one hit (no scout or strike is ever going to have more than 60% engine power in a combat situation, we aren't gunships we don't turret) then they should not be allowed to have slug rail in addition to ion. The fact that a single ship can take the best close range weapon, the best long range burst weapon, and the best utility and CC weapon all in the same loadout is stupidly overpowered compared to everything else.

[Zoom_VI]

Woah. I just noticed something I never knew before.

 

The Energy regen debuff doesn't apply until their shields are down and you land a hit on hull.

 

Source?

Edited March 16, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[Verain]

Source?

EDIT: This is NOT true. A direct ion hit will apply the debuff, regardless of whether the shield is still up after.

 

I had previously posted:

"I just discussed in vent with Booda and Ana and we actually believe this is true too."

Edited March 17, 2014 by Verain

[Armonddd]

Pilots should be feared not ships. All ships should have equal potential to be feared, but gunships are way out ahead.

 

100% this. Anything else is, by definition, not balanced.

 

Also, it sure seems like ion railguns are The Buggiest Thing right now.

[Altheran]

The Energy regen debuff doesn't apply until their shields are down and you land a hit on hull.

Still, that effect is the one of "Slicer's loop".

Slicer's loop is a 1min CD and 5000m range, seeing it as an effect of a 15000m with negligible CD is...

Edited March 16, 2014 by Altheran

[Pilgrim_Grey]

"Even at full charge, the debuff is" ->

 

How do you know? A gunship allowed to get to full charge is wildly deadly, and that's pretty clearly intended. Allowing one to snipe should absolutely kill you, or make your lose all your everything, or whatever. The other big deal is that a gunship's blaster power is actually a resource for him, and one of the bigger problems with the 25% shot is that it's a mere drop of energy compared to a full or mostly full charge..

 

How do I know? Because ion railgun's numbers are completely out of whack with what any one other weapon can do. From the start it's draining both weapon and engine power at higher rate than the rest of the ion weapons (the only one I'm not sure of is how much drain ion missiles do at base, at least from the tooltips I can find). All of them require being much closer and are much more difficult to land a hit, even for a minelayer hugging a satellite the other team needs to get. Absolutely none of them get to completely negate regen for an ungodly six seconds (in a game were even 2-3 seconds can mean the difference between life and death).

 

Oh, and all of that can be done from up to 15 km away, which makes the ability to do such a huge amount of debuff even more powerful.

 

That's all before you even get to what is an appropriate amount of drain for an ion weapon. I think the regen debuffs on the others is much better. Ion weapons are trading off other types of damage for debuff and need to do something worthwhile, and 50% regen debuff is actually really strong. People act like the auxiliary systems that increase power pools are afterthoughts, but they really do make a big difference in maneuverability and fighting. A 50% debuff is extremely strong in its own right, particularly when applied from a long distance.

 

I don't disagree that gunships should be strong at long range: that's their forte. But I do disagree that the current debuffs on ion railgun are in any way needed to make sure they continue being strong at long range.

[Armonddd]

I think that it's good that ion railguns drain systems and stunlock ships.

 

Why? Stunlocks are not fun. I don't pay BW so other players can tell me "you're banned from the game now", which is essentially what stunlocks do.

 

Further, I play my flashfire for a reason -- I enjoy zipping around as fast as possible, getting as close to the target as possible, and blowing him up at close range. I totally respect that other people have other preferences -- maybe they don't want to zip as much as they want to boom with torps, or maybe they prefer the slow and steady approach a bomber gives, or maybe they simply prefer the extreme range of a gunship. All of that is cool, because different people play the game in different ways.

 

But when another player is suddenly telling me how to play the game? When a mouse release means I'm suddenly no longer allowed to play the game in the (only) way I find fun? Not cool.

 

Oh, and railguns are again the only thing in the game that does that.

[Zoom_VI]

I just discussed in vent with Booda and Ana and we actually believe this is true too.

 

And this is Source how?

Unless Booda and Ana are the GSF devs, this doesn't mean anything at all.

 

Of course I wouldn't know any better because on a scout ion rail will always hit hull because it exceeds are shield capacity by about 7k....

 

Anyway I think the best way to balance ion rail would not be to nerf it, but to make it so gunships can only take one railgun. You want to be that uber CC guy? No killing option for you. You want to be that guy blowing stuff up from the other side of the map? No CC option for your build.

 

Another idea that would have to require reworking of the gunship's component list would just be to make railguns respect the lead indicator. Right now the only way to evade a gunship that has a steady mouse hand is to never be in their scope in the first place. By adding the lead indicator it allows ion disabled ships to still defend themselves from being slugged or retapped. Obviously the lead indicator will have to be really forgiving to account for the 15km of projectile travel but it should still be there.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Woah. I just noticed something I never knew before.

 

The Energy regen debuff doesn't apply until their shields are down and you land a hit on hull.

 

Yeah, I need more than you all believe this is true. I've been hit at full shields on a strike before and didn't see my energy regenning at all. And as we know, there's a problem with anecdotal evidence.

 

And if nothing else, this is another reason we need to have better tooltips that explain exactly what these powers are doing.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Pilgrim_Grey

[Verain]

Pilots should be feared not ships. All ships should have equal potential to be feared, but gunships are way out ahead.

 

No. Ships should be feared. You should fear the burst and maneuverability of the scout, the range and power of the gunship, the missiles and health of the strike fighter, the fortitude and area burst of the bomber, or the ability of the bomber to drop drones.

 

Obviously pilot skill should be the number one thing. But saying "you shouldn't fear a ship" is just nonsense. Of course you should.

 

Also, it sure seems like ion railguns are The Buggiest Thing right now.

 

I'm... not sure. Thus far, there appears to be a base value of drain that is not document. I don't think that is necessarily a bug, but I do think it should be addressed in some manner. Ion is too strong on live.

 

Why? Stunlocks are not fun.

 

Dying isn't fun for the one who dies. Stunlocks aren't fun for the one who is stunned. Both are good gameplay that test the skill of the player- can you avoid the stun? Avoid the death?

 

Stuns are good stuff as long as they don't dominate gameplay. Ion is a bit too strong.

 

But when another player is suddenly telling me how to play the game?

 

Dude, so many matches spent running from the more maneuverable and faster flashfire. Yes, flashfires absolutely determine how the game is played, just as much as gunships do. They force the opponent to run or die in many situations.

 

When a mouse release means I'm suddenly no longer allowed to play the game in the (only) way I find fun? Not cool.

 

Don't be at the other end of the mouse release, problem solved. It's all dumb mouse releases that crit for 1200+ on the flashfire anyway.

 

 

This is just more "delete gunships I don't like them".

[Verain]

And this is Source how?

Unless Booda and Ana are the GSF devs, this doesn't mean anything at all.

 

Don't be foolish. The question is, does ion railgun apply a debuff if it hits you without your shield up, and not if you have it down. Players can verify that. We don't need devs to tell us THIS.

 

Anyway I think the best way to balance ion rail would not be to nerf it, but to make it so gunships can only take one railgun. You want to be that uber CC guy? No killing option for you.

 

More boring "delete gunship" garbage. Yawn.

[Zoom_VI]

Don't be foolish. The question is, does ion railgun apply a debuff if it hits you without your shield up, and not if you have it down. Players can verify that. We don't need devs to tell us THIS.

Yet we had people including you running around for the longest time saying ion rail didn't have a base drain at all, and that's its talented drain was like what less that thirty? And yet that was proven so wrong.

 

Great player verification there. so unless you have a video like the OP's that clearly demonstrates it, I'm calling BS. You can't just waltz in and say "it works like this because so-and-so said it does."

Edited March 17, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[-Streven-]

Ion rails shouldn't do much more than kill shields, do minimal hull damage and drain a small amount of energy. The regen debuff, aoe, and obscene engine power drain is rediculous. If you let my ion lasers on my starguard stunlock gunships then you can keep your OP super weapon. Until and unless that happens then I say out with the nerf bat.

[Armonddd]

Dying isn't fun for the one who dies. Stunlocks aren't fun for the one who is stunned. Both are good gameplay that test the skill of the player- can you avoid the stun? Avoid the death?

 

"It is crucial that all punishment in a game is for things that the player is able to understand and prevent." --Jesse Schell, The Art of Game Design

 

Gunships violate this very basic principle. Further, there is literally nothing you can do about being stunned -- you can't use a quick-time event to block the attack, you can't use a skill to prevent your self from being stunned, you can't do anything about it. And it's not fun.

 

Hell, even the ground game has a stunbreak and a resolve bar dedicated to making CC not affect you. GSF has nothing like that. (And I have to question the wisdom of including a mechanic that forces you to include other mechanics to invalidate the first...)

 

Death isn't especially fun, either, but it's spaced over a much longer period of time. If you die, it's (generally) because of several things you've done wrong over the duration of that life. When it's not, we call that "cheap tactics". Ideally, those tactics are analyzed for balance issues and, if necessary, tweaked or redesigned.

 

Dude, so many matches spent running from the more maneuverable and faster flashfire. Yes, flashfires absolutely determine how the game is played, just as much as gunships do. They force the opponent to run or die in many situations.

 

How is "dogfight to defend yourself in a dogfighting-based game" a bad thing? Literally every ship does that to defend themselves against every other ship... except gunships.

 

Don't be at the other end of the mouse release, problem solved. It's all dumb mouse releases that crit for 1200+ on the flashfire anyway.

 

Again, not addressing the problem. Burst lasers are overpowered, too. That doesn't mean ion railgun is well designed.

 

This is just more "delete gunships I don't like them".

 

Because I've always advocated that position, and I've never argued for gunships making the game more interesting, even before 2.6. Oh, wait.

 

You should really get a better go-to line; this one's worn out its welcome.

[Verain]

"It is crucial that all punishment in a game is for things that the player is able to understand and prevent." --Jesse Schell, The Art of Game Design

 

Gunships violate this very basic principle.

 

If they remove the 15km limit, then they'll need to nerf dampening (which I think is already happening). In that case, the way to prevent it is to be near someone with good sensors.

 

But on live, every gunship has to be within detection range to shoot you, it seems. Clever use of the tab key and the minimap, combined with rapid movement, means that you aren't being killed without being given a fair chance.

 

Further, there is literally nothing you can do about being stunned -- you can't use a quick-time event to block the attack, you can't use a skill to prevent your self from being stunned, you can't do anything about it. And it's not fun.

 

You can line of sight the gunship, evasion, boost, etc. Given that the aoe part hits for 30 energy and doesn't kill regen, you can ensure you have enough engine pool to account for that if you choose to ignore the "search for gunships" part of the game.

 

Hell, even the ground game has a stunbreak and a resolve bar dedicated to making CC not affect you.

 

The ground game, and the world of warcraft pvp it is based on, both involve a ton of stuns, many of which are instant cast. Also these stuns are true disables, unlike the gunship or aoe blast.

 

(And I have to question the wisdom of including a mechanic that forces you to include other mechanics to invalidate the first...)

 

 

100% agree.

 

 

Originally, the "pvp trinket" in wow was there because each class had one or more limited ways of CCing people. The trinkets only broke certain schools- for instance, warlocks could not break stun, but rogues could. But the total number of CCs was still rather limited. This mechanic became more pervasive as it was given a lower and lower cooldown, and many extra CCs were added. SWTOR is not in quite as bad of a place with CC spam as many other games in the category, but I think that if you took away almost all the CC breaks (you could leave in the flavorful class based ones, balancing the classes around that) then you would also have to take away much of the CC, and this would make a game where the tooltips were meaningful as well.

 

 

How is "dogfight to defend yourself in a dogfighting-based game" a bad thing?

 

Because the gunship lacks so much maneuverability and speed that it requires a pretty large skill gulf to hit a scout in melee. The scout dominates the gunship at close range more than the gunship owns the scout at long range. Normally the only way to peel the scout is through a third party- barrel roll to cap ship, minefield, etc. A strike isn't as screwed here, as they feature good maneuverability, and speed and superior hull and shield. But the problem is that the scout, once close, shuts the gunship down entirely- which is fine, as long as the gunship has similar power at range. On live, they have that power and more. I'd like to see that addressed. Many of you would like to see it removed- you just want gunships to be a free kill. That's a real problem.

 

 

Literally every ship does that to defend themselves against every other ship... except gunships.

 

It's like asking why a scout doesn't railgun joust a gunship.

 

You should really get a better go-to line; this one's worn out its welcome.

 

When people stop asking for it, I'll stop calling them out on it. If the role for the gunship needs to be changed, that can be ok. But I normally see people asking for drastic nerfs "lol delete the 1 button" "gunships shouldn't have a 3 button" -> one of these is in this thread, and the other is in like several others. Interesting suggestions are interesting to read. Boring massive nerf whines are not, at least to me, and I'll continue to call them out as such.

 

 

So, here's something that I was thinking of making a thread on:

 

What if the railgun had three charges, required 2 seconds to charge, couldn't be fired with less than full charge, and each charge regenerated every 20 seconds (aka, if you fired all three, it would take a minute before they were all back up). Maybe make it a bit easier to snipe with these more limited charges- say, enlarge the hit circle a bit, and have a cancel charge feature. But then reduce the damage on them some- maybe slug is 900 per hit, ion 1600, plasma 1300. You may have to be even meaner and allow them to ignore evasion.

 

In this world, the gunship can't sit and snipe. His railgun damage is much more guaranteed. But with such a massive cooldown, the gunship is essentially redesigned. You would likely have to address the turning and speed. But this would be a redesign- now the railgun is relatively easy to score damage that is significant and can score a kill, but the sniper can't stay in his nest and contribute much. The intention here would be to keep gunships viable, good, and scary, allowing them to get in damage that is less counterable than today's, but with limits on the frequency.

[Zoom_VI]

gunships are totally balanced

[Yndras]

No. Ships should be feared. You should fear the burst and maneuverability of the scout, the range and power of the gunship, the missiles and health of the strike fighter, the fortitude and area burst of the bomber, or the ability of the bomber to drop drones.

 

Obviously pilot skill should be the number one thing. But saying "you shouldn't fear a ship" is just nonsense. Of course you should.

 

 

 

I'm... not sure. Thus far, there appears to be a base value of drain that is not document. I don't think that is necessarily a bug, but I do think it should be addressed in some manner. Ion is too strong on live.

 

 

 

Dying isn't fun for the one who dies. Stunlocks aren't fun for the one who is stunned. Both are good gameplay that test the skill of the player- can you avoid the stun? Avoid the death?

 

Stuns are good stuff as long as they don't dominate gameplay. Ion is a bit too strong.

 

 

 

Dude, so many matches spent running from the more maneuverable and faster flashfire. Yes, flashfires absolutely determine how the game is played, just as much as gunships do. They force the opponent to run or die in many situations.

 

 

 

Don't be at the other end of the mouse release, problem solved. It's all dumb mouse releases that crit for 1200+ on the flashfire anyway.

 

 

This is just more "delete gunships I don't like them".

 

Ask yourself this little question, it will help you determine your target priorities.

 

Out of all the ship types on the battle field it is most dangerous to leave which ship alone....

 

Out of all the ship types, I get killed the most often by....

 

Out of all the ship types the one that tops the damage/kills charts most is.....

 

Out of all the ship types the current record holders for most sections in the GSF starfighter records thread is.....

 

Out of all the ship types, I spend the most time chasing.....

 

In a death match, we usually switch to a ....... to help turn the battle.

 

If you have answered gunship to more than three of these questions, then you canclearly see that they are currently dominating the game, and it is because they are unbalanced.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Yndras
Reworded questions

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Don't be foolish. The question is, does ion railgun apply a debuff if it hits you without your shield up, and not if you have it down. Players can verify that. We don't need devs to tell us THIS.

 

Why should players have to confirm this? Nothing in the tooltips suggest this is the case, and if it is the case, the onus on the devs to actually describe how the mechanic works (although I'd still like to see your evidence, since I haven't had a hint that this is happening until your one comment). Good game design is not "we'll tell you it does a couple of these things but it really has these other things going on as well." That's obscure and hard to follow.

 

Doesn't help that this dev team has clearly said they were surprised by how many things worked in the ground game, and it took them over a year to realize that bolster wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. I'm not saying that to slam them, I'm saying it to point out that they SHOULD know what is going on in the game they are designing, and making that clear to their players will make it more likely for players to be able to help them know what is actually going on in the their game.

[Davionix]

Ask yourself this little question, it will help you determine your target priorities.

 

Out of all the ship types on the battle field it is most dangerous to leave which ship alone.... scouts since you may think they have fled and engage another enemy only for them to arrive at your tail out of nowhere.

 

Out of all the ship types, I get killed the most often by.... all except bombers are same but asteroids have the lead.

 

Out of all the ship types the one that tops the damage/kills charts most is..... minelayers that have inexperienced flying directly to their mines at domination / whoever gets the damage overcharge more when there are enemies nearby to shoot at at TDM

 

Out of all the ship types the current record holders for all sections in the GSF starfighter records thread is.....

 

TDM-50 KILLS

 

Klehitt - Flashfire - Don't Worry Bout It - Begeren Colony - 33/50 kills

El-ahrairah - Mailloc - Despair - Harbinger - 33/50 kills

Callem - S-12 Blackbolt - Eclipse Squadron - The Ebon Hawk - 31/50 kills

Lillaea - Quarrel - Rebel Dream - Tomb of Freedon Nadd - 29/50 Kills

Xi'ao - GSS-3 Mangler - Dark Sith'ari - The Shadowlands - 28/50 kills

 

if you look at other examples you would see that flashfire & quarrel are competing for 1st place at other categories most of the time so you can not say that gunships are facerolling their way to ALL sections like you claim. besides records thread is no indicator of opness since anyone can get high entries for it if they can get lucky to be the only good pilot in a game filled with completely new people.

 

Out of all the ship types, I spend the most time chasing..... scouts. UNLIMITED POWAAAAAH ....... to engine:D

 

In a death match, we usually switch to a ....... counter ship to enemies line-up to help turn the battle.

 

If you have answered gunship to more than three of these questions, then you canclearly see that they are currently dominating the game, and it is because they are unbalanced.

 

So....... Do I get some cartel coins for the public service I did by filling your questionnaire ?

 

Edit : Also the claim that gunships dont put debuff on target unless they hit their hull is not correct. Its just that stupid error where sometimes buffs / debuffs dont appear under the ship on target viewbox. This is not railguns only. Sometimes while sending a missile after someone you would see them use engine move, see the maneuver performed by the ship, see them not get hit by engine but still not see the engine move buff under their ship at target viewer.

 

In other words, railguns always apply their debuff regardless of hitting target's shield or hull. Its just the buff / debuff bars are clunky.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Davionix