Railjack Impressions from a non-sniper.

Discussion in 'Infiltrator' started by Wrel, Mar 2, 2014.

  1. Wrel Developer



    When I jumped on to check the forum, it was four Railjack threads at the very top of the page.
    I really hate to add to the pile, but hopefully sharing this personal perspective on the weapon will be worth your time.

    Let me know what you think!

    Thanks,
    -Wrel
    • Up x 10
  2. GoyoElGringo

    I watched it earlier. So it's basically good for people that need to adjust their shot after hitting the trigger? That's kinda like comparing the Armistice SMG to the Hailstorm SMG. The Hailstorm is great for people that benefit from the large magazine and laser sight, but people with better aim shouldn't bother with it because of the lower TTK. I suppose here the TTK isn't too different between the railjack and the longshot, but it seems more beneficial to pop out of cover/cloak, shoot, and get back into cloak/cover as fast as possible. The railjack trades the bullet travel time for a shot delay, which means you're out of cover for longer.
  3. Tenebrae Aeterna

    Hopefully people watch the video and jump into the game with your words in mind, then beat the hell out of this rifle to see if they hold any truth. If you're correct, then the delay is ultimately a very unique mechanic that can ultimately end up becoming an advantage through the ability to compensate.

    I'd really like to see people do some heavy in field testing.
  4. Nephi1im

    There are people who have auraxiumed the thing already and maintain that it is garbage compared to the other options. The delay is too short and poorly implemented to be an advantage, other than a lucky shot maker.
    • Up x 1
  5. Tenebrae Aeterna

    So, would a longer delay actually make the mechanic better?
  6. Nephi1im

    I sort of answered this in the other thread, but no it wouldn't. The issue still stands that the thing has no situational advantage to a longshot. The phaseshift, sort of an example of longer delay if you will, has other aspects of it that can make it a compelling situational choice over the standard BASRs or semi autos.

    Changing the delay to be more able to account for doesn't change the fact that it is inferior in all situations compared to the longshot. It needs no delay or some bonus feature to make it worth using.
    • Up x 3
  7. Tenebrae Aeterna

    The development team has a tendency of taking advice and then twisting it in ways that no one ever wanted; they're essentially the Cenobites from Hellraiser when it comes to that. :p I've suggested a charge mechanic for the New Conglomerate weapons in the past, and everyone wanted them to design the weapons to better reflect true railgun technology. This time around...they did just that, but the charge mechanic isn't the type I was suggesting. My idea for an NC charge mechanic was simply an energy gauge for the weapon that would act as a sort of re-chambering system to compensate for the New Conglomerate's extreme damage and high velocity in the off chance that the development team went all balls out with the railgun tech rather than shotguns. Basically, lowering the rate of fire through this delay...but not directly influencing the shots. Instead...they made a trigger delay that does the same thing in an awkward way...but does indeed feel more like a railgun.

    This is why I'm so curious about Wrel's opinion and want to see people really beat the hell out of the weapon on live. Does the current velocity of the weapon render the projectile instantaneous? If not, perhaps increasing the delay AND the projectile velocity would better flesh the weapon out and make this more of a learning curve towards an interesting mechanic rather than too difficult to be anything beyond a hindrance. A better sound signature would be needed, it already is for that matter.

    If the entire system can be worked out and turned into a viable mechanic...this may extend to other weapons and truly make the NC feel distinct in terms of technology. Personally, I truly want to see the NC get piercing damage applied to their weapons...which I fell would finalize the whole railgun concept. That's a different topic though, I believe each faction should have defining traits for their weapons so that each empire feels unique and as though they're actually using different forms of technology. That's one of the reasons I'd love for the delay to actually work...and this type of delay is much more interactive than my concept of a energy gauge that passively fills upon re-chambering.
  8. Nephi1im

    It doesn't feel like a railgun. The lancer feels like what you're describing. This feels like sniping with 500 ping. I don't know if I'd be a huge fan of them trying to rework the delay/charge whatever simply because they did it with the phaseshift. Surely they can come up with something that isn't literally a feature of a gun that was released on the same day.

    It is not instantaneous. As was hashed out on the PTS, it takes .35 seconds(plus the delay) to go 300 meters, compared to .46, .50, and .55 seconds respectively for the other three BASRs. The thing is, giving it a longer delay/more velocity is really just shifting the numbers around. There would be no functional purpose to having .35 seconds of delay and 0 travel time. That is why I think they need to make it a slightly better BASR by removing the delay, or go back to the drawing board and come up with something new.

    Essentially, if the time between click and hit is >.46 seconds, it will not have any functional advantage to the longshot. I suppose they could make it zero drop, but we all saw the crying that happened when it was that way on the PTS, and it would still seem like a less versatile phaseshirt.

    Unless there is some advantage, IE phaseshift, to having a charge up mechanic, it pretty much makes no sense aside from faction flavor. I don't mind faction flavor mind you, I just don't want awkward crap shoehorned into things for its sake.
    • Up x 4
  9. Benevon

    While I don't play NC, the rifle really just seems very rushed and uninventive. The state it was in before live, which was practically hit scan, was a little too good and also really boring. In a patch pushing "unique" ES rifles it was just a tier 4 rifle. Sadly, they pushed everything live with a mechanic on the Railjack that was never able to be tested for feedback on the PTS. Had they held off a little longer I think they could have come up with something a little more unique and having less backlash from NC players.
    • Up x 3
  10. ManicUndies

    I may be wrong with my math here, but assuming a target is 300 meters out (what I had thought to be the max infantry render distance), a projectile traveling at 650m/s (EM-4) will reach the target in .46 seconds. So from trigger pull, to shot landing, is .46 seconds. Good? Good.

    By contrast, at 850m/s (AF-8), the projectile will reach the target in .35 seconds. Fantastic! But factoring in the .2 second delay, you're looking at .55 seconds from trigger pull to shot landing. The Railjack doesn't get faster than the Longshot, trigger pull to shot landing, until aroun about 550m, well outside of the render distance.

    However, there is indeed an argument to be made about not having to compensate for bullet drop, or if so, very little compensation. All I have to say is that with any amount of experience with a sniper rifle, you get the feel for it's effective range quite quickly. I'll say, after my first shot, I'm zero'd in. Often times, if I know I'll be doing a lot of distance shooting, I'll just set down a waypoint so I know my range, and from there I'll have consistent, accurate shots from the first trigger pull. The higher damage is negligible in my opinion as it's going to be a one hit headshot or a two hit anywhere else regardless, so I'm not even sure why they bothered with changing that. Maybe, just maybe it's better if the target is wounded, but not by much.

    Long story short, I don't see the Railjack particularly outperforming the Longshot. Maybe you could learn to use the delay to your advantage, but I find this to be a flawed approach to learning/utilizing sniping mechanics. With distance shooting, I prefer consistency and immediacy, which I don't get with the Railjack. Like others have said, it feels like you're shooting while lagging. What we're left then is a sniper rifle that doesn't do anything particularly different from the Longshot, but you have to re-learn how to snipe to accomodate its weird mechanics. In my opinion, not worth the 1000 certs or 700 sc.

    At the very least, it's not a direct nerf weapon. I can count on one hand how many times I've been killed by the TRAP (Sorry TR). The VS rifle is pretty cool too, but still not seeing it used a lot. All in all, all of the ESSRs from the patch were pretty "meh". I did pick up the Vandal, and that thing is awesome. Offers a different playstyle, cool mechanics/animations, genuine difference from other similar rifles while still feeling balanced. That's what the Railjack was supposed to be and it just wasn't.
    • Up x 4
  11. Tenebrae Aeterna

    Indeed, I'll fully admit that the Lancer feels a lot like a railgun; I still feel that the Railjack does too, just in a different way.

    I wouldn't say it negates the extreme velocity...but rather, it forces you to expose yourself for a longer period of time. Which, don't get me wrong, can be worse than a negation of the velocity when it comes to a sniper rifle. Truth be told, the Vanu Charge mechanics are much more akin to railgun technology than anything else in the game...as you expressed previously in regards to the Lancer. Still, even our charge mechanics need a little work before anyone could consider them something truly special and unique.

    Completely understandable.

    As I expressed previously, our charge mechanics would have been far better suited for the New Conglomerate because they reflect railgun technology much better. Granted, tweaks would have to be made for something like this to happen...but off the top of my head I was thinking of something along these lines:

    What if the Railjack, for example, functioned like a normal bolt-action sniper rifle by default...but had an energy gauge that depleted with every shot. Standard fire wouldn't deplete much of the energy...but you could also charge the shot at the cost of additional energy which would then increase the velocity and reduce the bullet drop. At full charge, which could be held indefinitely, you would have a nearly instantaneous weapon with absolutely no drop.

    This would kind of hybridize it with what we currently have as the VS, but actually reflect a true railgun. Granted, increased damage should also factor into the charge ability...but in terms of a bolt-action sniper rifle, we can't get too carried away or people scream despite obvious time sinks involved. So, any damage increase factored into the system would be better suited for other weapons...

    Still, does that sound like an interesting mechanic? One could still use the weapon in a standardized method with moderate velocity and drop...or actually spend energy and time to charge the shot up and make it far more efficient.

    Again, this is just off the top of my head...but I like fleshing this idea out because I occasionally rework a concept where each faction gets a unique trait/system that actually makes them feel like they have unique technology rather than what we have now. I would MUCH rather see this game go towards a path more similar to Starcraft, in terms of "racial identity" so that when we play a different faction...we really FEEL like we're playing a different faction.

    The majority of VS don't like the charge mechanic and really don't care about our "lack of bullet drop" because it's never applied to anything that matters. Ironically, with some work, the charge mechanic and lack of bullet drop is actually suited for the NC...who should be based around railgun technology.

    So personally...I think a revamp of the entire system is needed where we're further differentiated from one another and actually have unique forms of technology. The NC would be railguns...but they have to function like railguns, so do you think that system would work?
  12. ManicUndies

    Looks like Nephilm beat me to the numbers crunch.
  13. Nephi1im

    It doesn't sound bad, but I'd have to actually use something as you described. It sounds an awful lot like the phaseshift, which isn't a bad mechanic, it's just already on the phaseshift. Part of this is personal preference. They would be hard pressed to make a gun "good enough" to justify me sticking my head out to charge it or whatever. I'd almost be willing to bet that it would have to be 1 hit body shot for the risk to be worth the reward. Again, that's a personal thought. I probably wouldn't take the phaseshift over a normal BASR either. Even though I'm not a fan of it, I understand how its features are useful compared to the rest of what's available, unlike the current railjack.
    • Up x 2
  14. Nephi1im

    Lol, having responded to "but its faster!" about 4,000 times this week, I just need to keep them on the clipboard at this point :cool:
  15. ManicUndies

    Hah. I've had people in my outfit going "It's terrible!" or "It's amazing" back and forth. Reality is, it's arguably a Longshot that requires new muscle memory. Not better, just a different mechanic, which, if you're a seasoned sniper could make it worse.

    My only real complaint with SOE on this is that they pushed this update further and further back to refine the rifles, and then they just go and implement a huge mechanic change right before the live update, with zero testing or feedback. Why bother delaying it then? Why not just reskin an LA80 and shift the numbers around. Then they could at least keep up their whole "push stuff to the depot so we can make monies; forget messing with anything important, just nead moar depot stuff" mentality.
  16. Nephi1im

    Yea, I am pretty pissed that the best gun skin in game got attached to it. I'd rather have paid 1,000 certs to get the railjack skin on my longshot :p
    • Up x 4
  17. Tenebrae Aeterna

    Yeah, it's basically the Phaseshift done right without the unlimited ammunition. With that concept, I'm more so looking towards the future with a potential faction flavored overhaul of the entire system rather than the Railjack itself...but using the Railjack as an example. This doesn't fix the CURRENT issues with the Railjack, but what I'm trying to gauge is the opinions towards that concept for a potential massive overhaul that would include the Railjack in the future.

    I have ideas for the VS too, and in this future concept...we wouldn't have charge mechanics anymore. Granted, it's very unlikely that the development team is going to go for it, even with extensive support, but I'd really like to get my thoughts out there towards faction flavor and really feel that the development team shot themselves in the foots with the watered down faction mechanics we currently have.
  18. Nephi1im

    I'm afraid it will probably be a very long time before the infiltrator/sniper gets looked over again. That's part of why I'm personally trying to be the squeaky wheel on the railjack. I know that what we end up with is pretty much all we have for the foreseeable future, and I prefer to have something usable.
  19. Frosty The Pyro

    I havnt been able to play for about a week, and wont get to play again for another week or so, so I havnt gotten to use the railjack, so what I am talking about is delay mechanics in general

    here is the thing with delay mechanics as opposed to charge mechanics. and that thing is control. with a charge mechanic you have control of the instant when it fires by when you release the button (at least until you hit the charge limit), with a delay mechanic you need to predict that you will have the shot when the delay is over. now wrels talk about the act of clicking moving your mouse can be valid for some mice, but is solved fairly easily by moving your fire key to the keyboard (I know several folks who like to fire with the keyboard and jump with a mouse button). the having time to aim after clicking is generally a fallacy, you should be aiming all the time, and if you were using a weapon without the delay mechanic you would simply chose not to fire until you had the shot.

    now, the railjacks velocity is still an advantage, because you continue to aim after clicking, so the time between fire and hit is still shorter than other BASR, however the delay mechanic itself is in now way a legitimate advantage, because everything that it "gives" can be done without it, and in many ways more easily with out (simply choosing not to fire till you have a solid shot). What wrell was doing (clicking before he has the shot and then finishing aiming) is simply a way to compensate for the delay mechanic, consuming the delay within the standard aiming time, though it does mean if something happens that would make it a poor shot, with another sniper rifle you could choose to not make the shot (conserve ammo, don't reveal your location, etc), but with a delay mechanic you are already dialed in, so to speak.
    • Up x 1
  20. Baracuda

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    I can safely say this gun is a pile of poo. More often than not, while waiting on the charge up I run out of breath and lose the shot not including other charge up related miss-haps. Also using a suppressor with this makes the gun almost unusable, the drop is to heavy, the velocity to low, and the charge up just compounds it.
    • Up x 3