Ion Railgun Analysis With Video

[Verain]

The ion railgun debuff DOES apply even if the shield is not knocked down. Ana just tested this with Jevin on opposite sides with 25% charge- the debuff applied regardless.

[Suzina]

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.

 

 

 

More boring "delete gunship" garbage. Yawn.

 

I can have players claiming equipping HK gives you more ship-req. Until proof is available and clickable in a link on the forum, there is no reason to asssume such proof exists. And by proof, I simply mean empirical tests run by players. That's all.

 

You can't say "Players can verify that" because maybe you can't. Can't verify something false.

[Yndras]

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

 

Your supposed to do it in your head. Its a "in your head" type of check. The " Ask yourself" statement was probably a bit vague...

Edited March 17, 2014 by Yndras

[Itkovian]

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.

 

To be fair, this generally boils down to "don't do anything but actively looking for gunships."

 

If you're busy doing anything other than hunting/avoiding/looking for gunships, there's nothing preventing a half decent gunship from nailing you. And if that first hit dooms you, then there's a balance issue.

 

This is why the bypass one-shotting was a problem (still is? I don't fly scouts so I'm not sure), and why the Ion Railgun remains an issue. Because a proper ion railgun hit will leave you dead in the water, and the follow up railgun slug will finish you off regardless (it gets worse in 2.7, with barrel roll getting nerfed).

 

Beyond that, I'm fine with gunships. I just don't like the idea of there being something that is impossible to defend against being so lethal. Fortunately you've stated that you believe ion railgun needs a nerf, and I think that would be a good place to start (and even end, as beyond ion railgun I think gunships are fine... though I am rather leery of them having BLCs in the first place... why the snipers need the best dogfighting weapon at all is beyond me).

[Verain]

I can have players claiming equipping HK gives you more ship-req.

 

Not Booda and Ana though. Some random scrub. More importantly, Jevin and Ana actually queued opposite factions and tested this for us, and found that the debuff always applies, without exception, on any direct hit. Maybe you need a video or whatever, but simply put, no, you don't.

 

Until proof is available and clickable in a link on the forum, there is no reason to asssume such proof exists.

 

Why not run it further? Screenshots and videos can be doctored. I trust good players. Ana even tested, and found that the hypothesized thing wasn't true. I then edited my responses to the claim. Trust the source, not the document.

[Armonddd]

Not Booda and Ana and Jevin

 

who the **** are they

 

I'm sure they're good and all, but I have no idea who you're talking about since I don't recognize them from the forums (unless ana is trinitylyre?)

[-Streven-]

This conversation is getting sidetracked on something very trivial. Let's get back to the root issue. Why should gunships get stunlocks and nobody else? I will restate my thoughts on this. Ion weapons of all types should kills shields and do minimal damage and drain. That is how they are balanced on tier 1 strikes. Gunships shouldn't be any different.

[ptwonline]

This conversation is getting sidetracked on something very trivial. Let's get back to the root issue. Why should gunships get stunlocks and nobody else? I will restate my thoughts on this. Ion weapons of all types should kills shields and do minimal damage and drain. That is how they are balanced on tier 1 strikes. Gunships shouldn't be any different.

 

I guess the issue is that since Gunships would otherwise be pounding you with their Slug Railguns, you need to make Ions very powerful or else no one would use them. Ion Railguns appear to be getting balanced vs Slug Railguns, and not against Ion Cannons.

 

IMO Ions Railguns are a bit too powerful in their current state. But since they often take away your potential kills and give them to someone else (and just getting an assist for yourself), if they get weakened too much them they might not get used much at all.

Edited March 17, 2014 by ptwonline

[Bleeters]

IMO Ions Railguns are a bit too powerful in their current state. But since they often take away your potential kills and give them to someone else (and just getting an assist for yourself), if they get weakened too much them they might not get used much at all.

Landing a kill rather than an assist is literally meaningless and an absolutely terrible thing to balance weapons around.

[Sindariel]

I guess the issue is that since Gunships would otherwise be pounding you with their Slug Railguns, you need to make Ions very powerful or else no one would use them. Ion Railguns appear to be getting balanced vs Slug Railguns, and not against Ion Cannons.

 

IMO Ions Railguns are a bit too powerful in their current state. But since they often take away your potential kills and give them to someone else (and just getting an assist for yourself), if they get weakened too much them they might not get used much at all.

 

Slug Railguns are still missing their promised nerf back from patch 2.6, where the devs intended to nerf the base damage of all shield piercing weapons, but left the slug railgun completely untouched.

 

If they'd finally nerf the Slug Railgun, the min-charge Ion shots would also automatically become less useful and the Plasma Railgun would be in a better shape.

[-Streven-]

I guess the issue is that since Gunships would otherwise be pounding you with their Slug Railguns, you need to make Ions very powerful or else no one would use them. Ion Railguns appear to be getting balanced vs Slug Railguns, and not against Ion Cannons.

 

IMO Ions Railguns are a bit too powerful in their current state. But since they often take away your potential kills and give them to someone else (and just getting an assist for yourself), if they get weakened too much them they might not get used much at all.

 

Much to say and not enough time to say it. I will simply point out that good team players would recognize the value of ions even without the stunlock.

[Altheran]

This conversation is getting sidetracked on something very trivial. Let's get back to the root issue. Why should gunships get stunlocks and nobody else? I will restate my thoughts on this. Ion weapons of all types should kills shields and do minimal damage and drain. That is how they are balanced on tier 1 strikes. Gunships shouldn't be any different.

 

I completely agree, but the other Rails already so much damage that if we remove the things that make Ion Rail OP, the others Rails would just out-perform Ion Rail. Who would use a weapon that deal 1600 on shields, when the other deal 1600 or 1800+ regardless of shielding ?

They could make them even stronger against shields, but that would be mostly useless since they already can destroy most shields in one shot. It would be like giving extra By-pass to a Proton Torpedo.

 

People may hate me for saying that but I think the only way to balance Rails, is to tune down all the Rails. (I personally have always thought that Slug Rail should be a mimic of Concussion Missile, while Plasma Rail should be a mimic of Thermite Torpedo).

[Armonddd]

People may hate me for saying that but I think the only way to balance Rails, is to tune down all the Rails.

 

If all rails are fairly well balanced against each other, and one rail is too powerful compared to the rest of the game, it's logical to conclude that all rails are too powerful compared to the rest of the game.

[TrinityLyre]

(unless ana is trinitylyre?)

You got it. I tested it for him just to verify one way or the other.

 

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

I think the general consensus is that Ion Railgun is a bit overpowered (though I'm really interested to see statistics showing how frequently it is used vs. say Slug and Plasma). I don't think it needs to be completely gutted, but it does need some rebalancing. Perhaps incremental changes like adjusting the drain amount based on how far it's charged would be a good first step, since currently gunships just go to town with 25% charges and I suspect that that wasn't really intended.

 

Also, I feel like Reactor Disruption isn't even a choice when it should be very comparable to the other T5 Ion Railgun option. It's a long-range, spammable Slicer's Loop that effectively shuts down whoever is hit by it. That makes it feel mandatory. Slicer's Loop isn't that great a Copilot ability, but balancing Copilot choices is a whole other thread/story. Then there's the whole "redesign gunships" bit. I feel like gunships are fun enough to play (even if they weren't OP) that I would be scared of a complete redesign that would break the fun factor. However, I will agree that it definitely does not feel "Star Wars-y," changing the whole feel of Galactic Starfighter.

[Altheran]

I think the general consensus is that Ion Railgun is a bit overpowered (though I'm really interested to see statistics showing how frequently it is used vs. say Slug and Plasma).

 

Well, since Slug and Plasma out-perform Ion damage-wise, it would probably appear as "under-used", regardless of it being OP or not. And most of already damaged ships can be taken down by a single Slug shot, so Ion will never be used is this situation, as good as it can be. Who need CC/debuff when you can just kill it ?

[ptwonline]

Landing a kill rather than an assist is literally meaningless and an absolutely terrible thing to balance weapons around.

 

Getting Kills is important to players, in case you hadn't noticed.

Edited March 17, 2014 by ptwonline

[Armonddd]

Getting Kills is important to players, in case you hadn't noticed.

 

Getting kills is important for e-peen, but not for winning.

[QuinMantha]

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.

 

Sorry, I was just noticing from the video, where he was doing little short shots. By my eye, the debuff didn't apply until shields were down in a couple of instances.

 

I'm probably off.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Well, since Slug and Plasma out-perform Ion damage-wise, it would probably appear as "under-used", regardless of it being OP or not. And most of already damaged ships can be taken down by a single Slug shot, so Ion will never be used is this situation, as good as it can be. Who need CC/debuff when you can just kill it ?

 

This has been discussed before as well... to make all the rails balanced against each other, Slug needs to do worse against shields as it currently stands (probably would make sense even if it had its base damage lowered... didn't know that was a plan with 2.6). The shield piercing means it's always going to be useful: if I see a damaged target, I'm going to be using that. But if the target looks full health (or there are a lot of targets in the area), ion makes a lot of sense in the current metric... and the good gunship pilots I see tend to do the same.

 

Even if ion's debuff was lowered a lot and nothing happened to slug, though, the aoe capability means ion is going to be pretty useful. The worries that ion is going to be meaningless if it loses debuff doesn't really need to be a worry.

[Altheran]

This has been discussed before as well... to make all the rails balanced against each other, Slug needs to do worse against shields as it currently stands (probably would make sense even if it had its base damage lowered... didn't know that was a plan with 2.6). The shield piercing means it's always going to be useful: if I see a damaged target, I'm going to be using that. But if the target looks full health (or there are a lot of targets in the area), ion makes a lot of sense in the current metric... and the good gunship pilots I see tend to do the same.

 

Even if ion's debuff was lowered a lot and nothing happened to slug, though, the aoe capability means ion is going to be pretty useful. The worries that ion is going to be meaningless if it loses debuff doesn't really need to be a worry.

I don't doubt it. During the rare instance when i play my Quarrel, I use Ion as well... But only for the Energy crippler (I don't have the regen debuff yet).

 

If it were not to forbid my ennemies to rush at me, most of the time I could afford to only use Slug... since I usally need two shots to kill whether I use Ion or Slug only. (Exception for Bombers that tend to have around 2000 shield points)

I can see why we'd use Ion for the AoE sometimes, like attacking a Satellite with ennemies buzzing around it, but I feel that most of the time (Satellite defense or Death Match) it hits only one person at a time (people hardly stack together in these situation)...

 

So in the end, most of the time, I use Ion to cripple the target's energy, not for its AoE component. Ion's AoE allowing me to blast both front and rear shield of the target is pure bonus. Not that it is much needed anyway.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Altheran

[Gavin_Kelvar]

So in the end, most of the time, I use Ion to cripple the target's energy, not for its AoE component. Ion's AoE allowing me to blast both front and rear shield of the target is pure bonus. Not that it is much needed anyway.

 

I wouldn't mind it if Ion Railguns crippled an enemy's energy (on a full charged shot, 25% charge for maximum effect is a bunch of BS) if my striker's Ion Cannons could do the same thing back to a gunship to basically stunlock them from fleeing (ok technically if I shot at them enough I could drain all their energy but really I could kill them with blasters before I'd drained all their energy with ions).

 

That's where I see the major problem with the amount of the railgun's energy drain, it's completely out of line with what other ion weapon drains can achieve. It needs to be brought in line with the drain that other ion weapons can achieve after doing comparable amounts of damage to shield. Or other ion weapons need to be buffed to be on the same level as ion railguns.

[Verain]

You would expect the ion railgun to outperform the other ion weapons. Railguns are better per hit than any of the other weapons. Where they lack is dps, trading it for burst.

 

That being said- it outperforms it by a lot. And the mechanical ramifications of that slicer's loop is a pretty helpless opponent.

[Zoom_VI]

You would expect the ion railgun to outperform the other ion weapons. Railguns are better per hit than any of the other weapons. Where they lack is dps, trading it for burst.

 

Having 15km range should be enough compensation without adding everything else ion rail does better than ion everything else.

[Armonddd]

Having 15km range should be enough compensation without adding everything else ion rail does better than ion everything else.

 

Also no lock on time or leading requirement.

[Verain]

Also no lock on time or leading requirement.

 

But terrible damage per weapon bar and huge vulnerability to lateral movement and the inability to fire quickly.

 

Railguns have terrible dps. That's a fact. Obviously they are meant to be good, however, so they have compensating things such as range and burst. Another disadvantage is that they are on gunships, and as such don't have access to a variety of engine maneuvers and have lower health and shield values, as well as less maneuverability and speed, than strike fighters, and MUCH less maneuverability and speed as scouts. If you put a railgun on a strike or scout, that would be pretty ludicrous, right? In addition to breaking the game's own realism, of course.