Railguns Demystified!

Narfwak · March 2013

I posted this as a reply to another thread but upon further reflection I decided it could use a thread of its own as there's an awful lot of confusion and misinformation flying around in-game about what railguns can and can't do. Copy-pasted directly from the other thread:

Narfwak wrote:

I'm not sure it's communicated in the patch notes or the brief summary of the patch that Hugh posted, but yes, the railgun DOES have a wider hitscan than a normal weapon. It's not splash damage or a "blast radius" per se - think of it more as a very small circle hitscan rather than a single pixel hitscan. It's sort of like the difference between drawing an infinitely thin line between you and the target and drawing a cylinder with a very, very narrow radius between you and the target.

I don't have the exact width off-hand but I'll see if I can find it for you. [Edit: straight from Andi - width is 0.12 meters]

A fewer other clarifications about railgun behavior in general (since there's a bit of confusion in many places):
-railguns cannot shoot through walls
-railguns can shoot through players and structures (entities), both friendly and enemy
-railguns do structure damage (double damage to alien buildings and eggs)
-you cannot one shot a lerk, gorge or fade from full HP, although a charged shot against a lerk or a gorge comes very close to killing it

I hope that helps! Feel free to ask anything else about how railguns work and I'll see what I can do to deliver the facts. Specifically, please ask about the NS2 railguns. Not actual, real railguns. I'm not very good at physics.

godrifle · March 2013

What has a higher DPS? Minigun or Railgun? What about for structures?

Narfwak · March 2013

godrifle wrote: »

What has a higher DPS? Minigun or Railgun? What about for structures?

I'm fairly certain that the minigun is going to give dramatically higher DPS regardless of what you're shooting, especially the dual minigun. There's potential exceptions to that given that the number of targets you can penetrate with the railgun is limited only by the amount of space for them to be there and the availability of a straight line through them all. There's also the added benefit that you can get an alien that's trying to heal or be healed by a cluster of crags, for example, while at the same time hitting multiple crags.

In general, though, miniguns outperform railguns in straight DPS against large a single, high-HP target like a hive or an onos. Bear in mind, however, that a railgun exosuit is much faster than a minigun exosuit and quite a bit faster than a dual minigun exosuit; combined with the mechanic of charge time => instant damage you can use your extra mobility to strafe around corners to fire a fully charged shot while keeping the amount of time you're exposed to hydras or lerks to a minimum.

Also: railguns, like miniguns, do not benefit from passive weapon damage upgrades. Railgun exosuits do benefit from passive armor upgrades in the same way as all other exosuits.

Morshu · March 2013

The railgun for the EXO suit is so friggin' nice against them fades/lerks or even Oni that runs behind a hive only to get zZapped by a railgun from a distance Bwahahahahaha! `;..;´

On another note you move fairly fast with the railgun and with 'non-speed decrease while moving backwards' really breaks through when there's a bunch of targets headed your way down a long corridor!

Don't know why but I just get this weird image of seeing the EXO suit with the railgun being similar to the "Imperial guard sentinel walker" < Warhammer 40k universe. O0

Wheeee · March 2013

yeah railguns are really useful against aliens trying to take cover behind crags/etc.

Cr4zyb4st4rd · March 2013

Narfwak wrote: »

a cylinder with a very, very narrow radius

The narrow isn't narrow enough. It is so forgiving, you can have a shot that is clearly no where near a skulk and it just explodes. They're amazing fun to use, but sheesh, missing with it is almost impossible. I've never had so many kills in a lone exo in an enemy controlled section of map.

Ghosthree3 · March 2013

Apparently it has auto aim too...

Nordic · March 2013

I am in love with the rail gun. Its wide hitscan makes hitting things easy. I exploded so many things. As they try to run away I just shoot at the door poof, there goes a fade/onos/lerk/gorge. Skulks never make it back to the door to escape because bullets kill them.

|strofix| · March 2013

Rail guns aren't affected by Umbra in the usual way. Instead of having 50% of shots blocked, each rail gun shot simply does 50% less damage.

I dislike this.

Paragon · March 2013

I see the Raiglun Exo as a Marine equivalent of the Fade - an infantry killer. Superb in taking out lower lifeforms and a more or less equal match for Fades. However significantly weaker against structures and Oni when compared to Minigun Exos. It is also worth noting that the Railgun Exo is actually pretty fast - it's faster than a walking Marine carrying a Flamethrower or a Grenade Lanuncher and almost as fast as a Shotgunner. In my opinion the Railgun Exo finally provides a decent alternative to Shotgun + JP in the late game.

CyberKun · March 2013

What is the damage equation for the Railgun damage?

What is the cooldown after each shot? What is max time you can hold charge?

GISP · March 2013

200 on lifeforms, 400 on structures.

CyberKun · March 2013

GISP wrote: »

200 on lifeforms, 400 on structures.

Damage equation. It starts at 50 but does it go from 50 to 200 linearly? I want the equation, not max damage.

tarquinbb · March 2013

gorge has 450 effective hp with carapace, so a 200 dmg shot doesn't 'almost kill'.

given the fact that a gorge can self-heal between shots, you'd probably need 3-4 fully charged shots to kill a gorge by yourself.

lwf · March 2013

|strofix| wrote: »

Rail guns aren't affected by Umbra in the usual way. Instead of having 50% of shots blocked, each rail gun shot simply does 50% less damage.

I dislike this.

Sounds good to me.

sutty · March 2013

Actually regarding what the rail gun can penetrate...

We lined up lots of whips yesterday and the railgun went through 8, so its not infinite.

Kei-chan · March 2013

sutty wrote: »

Actually regarding what the rail gun can penetrate...

We lined up lots of whips yesterday and the railgun went through 8, so its not infinite.

Gosh, I'd have liked to have been there for that.

Frustration · March 2013

It´s literally imposible to take them out with skulks.Why ? Even when I´m clearly nowhere near where the gun is pointing at, they always get you.Close range is the worst, they just turn around and magically one hit you.It´s a bit weird how every single railgun exo is a deadshot every single time they turn around.How am I suppose to dodge the shots if I´m getting shot in the past(as this is a lag compensation, that is making the problem worse here}

MrPink · March 2013

Frustration wrote: »

It´s literally imposible to take them out with skulks.Why ? Even when I´m clearly nowhere near where the gun is pointing at, they always get you.Close range is the worst, they just turn around and magically one hit you.It´s a bit weird how every single railgun exo is a deadshot every single time they turn around.How am I suppose to dodge the shots if I´m getting shot in the past(as this is a lag compensation, that is making the problem worse here}

Thats not a problem that the 2nd highest marine tech item can counter skulks

tarquinbb · March 2013

Frustration wrote: »

It´s literally imposible to take them out with skulks.Why ? Even when I´m clearly nowhere near where the gun is pointing at, they always get you.Close range is the worst, they just turn around and magically one hit you.It´s a bit weird how every single railgun exo is a deadshot every single time they turn around.How am I suppose to dodge the shots if I´m getting shot in the past(as this is a lag compensation, that is making the problem worse here}

sorry but you must have witnessed some lucky/good marines... skulks are by no means useless against railgun.

i spent a lot of time welding exo's yesterday, and sometimes a single skulk would take an exo down to 75% in a couple of seconds. 4-5 bites is roughly 30% of the exo's ehp gone. i tried to assist in taking down the skulk but it's kinda hard when a big fat exo keeps blocking your shot

two railgun exo's defending eachother is another matter. you can make yourself a hard target to one guy, but then his buddy with a better angle has an easy hit.

oldassgamers · March 2013

Railgun has an insane amount of aoe. I hope it get decreased

Samus1111111 · March 2013

Paragon wrote: »

I see the Raiglun Exo as a Marine equivalent of the Fade - an infantry killer. Superb in taking out lower lifeforms and a more or less equal match for Fades. However significantly weaker against structures and Oni when compared to Minigun Exos.

While they are similar, marines really didn't need an "equivalent of the fade". They already had one called the shotgun. There are now 2 ways for marines to 1-shot aliens (or do a metric &&&& load of damage to them) while aliens have... wait, let me count them... 0 ways to 1-shot a marine. Still waiting to hear the reasoning behind this and how this is balanced.

Aliens may win more games (at least before the patch, can't tell atm), but imho, this is a major balance contention for pubs (at least, can't speak for comp) and a lame mechanic.

Toastie · March 2013

Samus1111111 wrote: »

While they are similar, marines really didn't need an "equivalent of the fade". They already had one called the shotgun. There are now 2 ways for marines to 1-shot aliens (or do a metric &&&& load of damage to them) while aliens have... wait, let me count them... 0 ways to 1-shot a marine. Still waiting to hear the reasoning behind this and how this is balanced.

2 ways to one-shot a skulk. Not so much anything else. Also, an onos charge + gore can one-shot A0/A1 marines.

Savant · March 2013

GISP wrote: »

200 on lifeforms, 400 on structures.

Railgun code:

kRailgunDamage = 50	
kRailgunChargeDamage = 150	
kRailgunDamageType = kDamageType.Structural

Double damage on structures (edit: it should be noted that I misread the above code to suggest that charge damage was instead of normal damage, when in fact it adds to normal damage.)

The big difference that most people are overlooking is that the railgun doesn't have the massive muzzle flash that the minigin EXO has. That's been a huge issue that has impacted the performance of the dual-mini EXO.

Toastie · March 2013

Savant wrote: »
That's not what is in the LUA.
kRailgunDamage = 50	
kRailgunChargeDamage = 150	
kRailgunDamageType = kDamageType.Structural	
Double damage on structures, but a single railgun does 150 after a 2-second charge.

The big difference that most people are overlooking is that the railgun doesn't have the massive muzzle flash that the minigin EXO has. That's been a huge issue that has impacted the performance of the dual-mini EXO.

It does 150 additional damage, not 150 total damage.

[AwE]Sentinel · March 2013

Now we just need Focus and Acid Rockets to counter the normal marines and scratch the Exos. Then we add Scent of Fear and the old parasite system in order to be able to react faster against the five RailExos at every side of the map pushes. Since the Onos got nerfed frequently because it was too powerful against everything in the Beta and we now have a strong marine team that eats Onos for breakfast, we can revert it to its old glory. But because the Onos got stronger and Focus is very effecient, we will add the HMG and HA to the game es well -> perfect balance, extremly fun games and we have NS1 nostalgia mixed with the cool stuff of NS2. Everyone is happy

Narfwak · March 2013

Savant wrote: »
GISP wrote: »

200 on lifeforms, 400 on structures.

That's not what is in the LUA.
kRailgunDamage = 50	
kRailgunChargeDamage = 150	
kRailgunDamageType = kDamageType.Structural	
Double damage on structures (edit: it should be noted that I misread the above code to suggest that charge damage was instead of normal damage, when in fact it adds to normal damage.)

The big difference that most people are overlooking is that the railgun doesn't have the massive muzzle flash that the minigin EXO has. That's been a huge issue that has impacted the performance of the dual-mini EXO.

Initial damage is 50, and the damage added by a full charge is 150 (for a total of 200 damage/400 to structures). The 150 damage from charge scales linearly. Charge time is two seconds, minimum time between shots (charged or not) is one second. I think you can hold a charge up to two seconds, but I'm unsure on that so don't quote me on it.

Side note: you'll almost never see a railgun do exactly fifty damage as it's almost impossible to release the mouse click without the game thinking you charged up at least a tiny bit. "Uncharged" shots usually end up doing around 55-58 damage.

The width of the hitscan is not as big as it seems when you get hit by it. There's a few things going on when you're on the receiving end of a railgun hit that can make this a bit deceptive. For starters, hit detection is done on the client with hitscan attacks and, just like with rifles or miniguns, you can sometimes be around a corner on your screen and die because you were still in line of sight on the screen of the shooter. Another issue is that all exosuit arms/weapons don't always line up with the angle of the shot fired in the perspective of the person being shot. I think it's a field-of-view thing going on but I'm not sure; either way, yeah, it looks a little funky as whenever an exo is looking directly at you his arms are going to be pointing to the side of you.

0.12 meters is very narrow. If you don't believe me you can check it out for yourself in explore mode by shooting alien structures on the edge of the hitbox and seeing how far from the edge you can aim and still land a hit.

Edit: thanks for editing the post with a correction.

Huze · March 2013

Savant wrote: »
GISP wrote: »

200 on lifeforms, 400 on structures.

That's not what is in the LUA.
kRailgunDamage = 50	
kRailgunChargeDamage = 150	
kRailgunDamageType = kDamageType.Structural	
Double damage on structures, but a single railgun does 150 after a 2-second charge.

The big difference that most people are overlooking is that the railgun doesn't have the massive muzzle flash that the minigin EXO has. That's been a huge issue that has impacted the performance of the dual-mini EXO.

I heard you like LUA:

kRailgunDamage + (kRailgunChargeDamage * self:GetChargeAmount())

Savant · March 2013

Huze wrote: »

I heard you like LUA:

Yes I already edited my post - a minute before your reply - looks like you were typing while I was.

Frustration · March 2013

MrPink wrote: »

Frustration wrote: »

It´s literally imposible to take them out with skulks.Why ? Even when I´m clearly nowhere near where the gun is pointing at, they always get you.Close range is the worst, they just turn around and magically one hit you.It´s a bit weird how every single railgun exo is a deadshot every single time they turn around.How am I suppose to dodge the shots if I´m getting shot in the past(as this is a lag compensation, that is making the problem worse here}

Thats not a problem that the 2nd highest marine tech item can counter skulks

Oh I don´t see that as a problem.What IS a problem is they shouldn´t instawin because of something I CANNOT POSSIBLY counter.I should loose because of their skill.What really happens is, I get killed because on my screen the exo is facing a different direction and instagibs me.It kills me 0,5 second before I get into position.There should be a clear indication where the shot is coming from.

TL:DR It´s how they kill me, that bothers me.They don´t win because win because of skill, but lag.

Railguns Demystified!

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