AF-8 RailJack

I see the point that you're making, but where are those numbers coming from? .5? How is the bullet travel time .1 seconds faster at all distances? distance = rate * time -> time = distance/rate -> the difference is going to be larger when the distance is larger; this is very apparent when using the 12x scope

The Longshot and Railjack are not the same weapon; an adaptive infiltrator should choose to use either depending on the situation (i.e. distance).

Well, I just bought the Railjack for its looks... So far the charge-up has been noticeable but not problematic. This weapon still has the highest damage per projectile and ammunition capacity of all bolt action sniper weapons, so you can contribute a lot more to taking down MAX units and you have better chances of finishing an injured enemy with a body shot. I'm not saying that I'm doing better than I would with a Longshot or even a Boltdriver, but it still is pretty awesome. Lets just wait and play for a week or two before whining, okay?

I've been saying the same thing about the Phoenix since the Day 2 nerf. Except "Everything" can juke a phoenix if it can accelerate more then 10m/s

TL;DR Summary: I bought it for the AMMO CAPACITY & Aesthetic basically... *(& Tracers maybe??)
Also, did I say it doubled my sniping KDR?... I was wrong about that apparently.......

Gladly!, and I'd echo that I'm always asking people to back up their claims as well, and often archiving my own findings even when no one asks me to. Especially when it's possible to record video (due MEM limitations, I can't record YET, but that's on my "list")

However in this instance, please keep your expectations low as we are only talking about sniping here:

• Sniping KDR is VERY different from actually taking points. Getting 5 kills before they kill you is routine.
• This trend includes a combination of both, running Stalker / medic, & pure sniping.
• This is only a comparison of trading up from the Bolt Driver to the Rail Jack, NOT the Longshot.
• Overall, most of my outfit all agreed the Longshot is more versatile & better at hitting moving targets.
• the railjack simply has more ammo and an even longer "long game" allowing us to "disengage" better.
• conversely, the Bolt Driver required being closer to the action, for no actual advantage, IE: more risk, less reward.
• It seemed that most players weren't able to track my tracers as easily. Contributing factor maybe?

In other words... I did everything exactly the I way always do it, rush points and defend against unwinnable 3:1 odds constantly with no regard for KDR (Aka: Feeding), mixed in with other periods of pure sniping from relative safety. The only thing changed was going from the Bolt Driver this week, to the Railjack. HTH. Discalimer: So far I've only headshotted 4 targets moving at full Sprint speed.

Nice to see and I spent the day continuing to try to Rax the Railjack and ended with approx 5.1 KDR as my session stats however That doesn't make this rifle a better choice. Even if the delay is only .2 (and with lag I'm willing to bet some people are experiecing at least this delay) check Vaphel's chart in this thread:

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/fix-the-railjack-now.175338/page-3

The bolt driver beats the Railjack in time to target until they cross around the 300m mark at which point the Railjack gets there one hundredth of a second sooner. So its still objectvely worse than the Bolt Driver.

Let's look at the chart even further the Longshot will hit the target sub 130m before you bullet even leaves the barrel. Not exactly the counter sniper's weapon of choice when exposure time matters.

I'm not doubt anyone's ability to get kills with it just saying that it's a bolt action rifle that is worse than all the others. Not sure what niche it fills. and No it doesn't get more ammo that was a glitch that was fixed the Railjack has the least amount of ammo of any bolt action sniper rifle.

I consider you one of the pillars of the infil community like many others that post all the time I just don't understand what you see in this rifle.

- SideWinder

Oh I know how that factors together... I'd just point out that what they were really going for here is a more unique mechanic where you continue to aim AFTER pushing the mouse button. Granted it's probably the most counter-intuitive thing they've added to the game since the "Anchored" utility for the Prowler. But it still has the same potential of providing increased Cert-Farming based on the lack of skill of your opponents. As a natural procrastinator myself, I actually start firing it as soon as my reticle is near their model and use that little bit of extra time to finish getting the crosshair a few more inches above their heads to account for the tiny amount of drop. So it actually works with my less than perfect playstyle.

I probably would have picked up the Longshot a loooong(no pun intend'd) time ago if I HAD to be Mr. Super-serious here and was always playing against the same community I had to play against in Tribes or on certain non-pubby CSS/TF2 & mechwarrior servers. You've generally only got 2 types of people in this game. The Engie/ HA/LA crutchers who are always ADS'ing or sitting on turrets to do their farming -- and therefore make great farming targets themselves for this gun. Or you've got the guys who never stop rushing of which there are 2 subvarieties: The ones NOT running ESP who die constantly to your AP mines. And the ones who run ESP that you're never ever gonna catch off-guard with anything less than a Racer Frame AP lightning/harasser because they also tend to have a Muzzle-traceline function that tells them when you're trying to line up a snipe against them. (or if you're just an amazing shot in general with an unfair Latency advantage over them, you might be able to SAS-R' them through your own flinching before they can kill you)

I guess but if your going to make a unique hurdle to allow other players to adapt to it would make sense to give the rifle something in the advantage column as it is now:

Bolt Driver:_______________________________________RailJack:
More Ammo______________________________________Less Ammo
Faster Chamber time_______________________________Slower Chamber time
Faster Reload_____________________________________Longer Reload
Bullet fires instantly________________________________Bullet doesn't fire right away leaving you exposed (and ADS) for .2 sec
Bullet hits target sooner till you reach 299m_____________Bullet hits target .01 of a sec sooner at 300m
Bullet has some drop past 175m______________________Bullet has some drop past 225m
Can OHK headshot out to 250m______________________Can OHK headshot out to 300m

Since the Bolt Driver is the default Infiltrator weapon the fact still remains there is absolutely no real compelling reason to get the RailJack (the main point of all these threads) and if you have the certs or Station Cash to spare you're better off with the LA-80 or Longshot which both way outclass the RailJack

The current thing that separates the different Bolt Action rifle's are velocity, OHK range, drop, and rechamber / reload times. In thist way the more aggressive snipers that prefer 150m and under ranges could choose the Bolt Driver for closer play where faster chamber and reload are advantages that make up for it's weaker abilities at further ranges where the LA-80 and Longshot are more likely to shine (and actually sub 130m your still better off with the Longshot as your bullet will hit the target before the RailJack's bullet leaves the barrel *Boggle*).

I still don't see this weapon as a sidegrade. This wouldn't be nearly so bad if the weapon devs gave anyone the slightest inkling as to what they hoped the weapon niche might be.

Does it have to be a secret?

The Devs designed it, they must have had something in mind. Are we not allowed to know what they wanted to see us do with their weapons? Don't get me wrong people usually figure something out but that 'in the dark period' (for weapons with "unique mechanics" especially) seems unnecessary and causes more strife than giving the players your vision.

That's the one thing I think the Devs have not been doing, creating weapons with a purpose in mind. In fact it's perfectly ok to state a desired purpose for a weapon, miss the mark completely and then adjust it so it meet's it's purpose (or if the niche doesn't really work redesign the weapon with a new niche in mind).

It's not enough to say "OK guys let's make Empire Specific Sniper Rifles" and have no clue as to what role or niche you want your weapon to have and just slap some vaguely Empire Specific flavor on it.

So but so far no one has been able to show, gameplay-wise or stat-wise, a compelling reason for the average joe to actually spend certs or station cash for this weapon that can't be better spent on the other 2 rifles.

- SideWinder

Thanks for talking me out of buying it.

Sadly in the VR nothing moves so I can't test anything real in there. Weapon looks awesome, guess I'll save my credits.

I don't understand what you're all crying about...it's not meant to be just another BASR. Once you've used it for a while the thing works fine, it's actually easier to hit stuff than it is with the Longshot.

It's a railgun, of course it's gonna have a charge delay. If they were to remove the fire delay, it would just be ridiculously OP. Stop whining about how it's useless and actually go *use* it. It doesn't take long to get used to using it at all, it took me maybe a couple of hours play time to adjust to the bullet drop, leading targets is easy as hell with it.

To add to this:



I'm really back and forth on this weapon. It may simply be due to the unorthodox design of the delay itself that leaves people a bit confused when using the weapon. I can easily understand why people loathe the delay...while simultaneously find myself agreeing with everything Wrel has to say here. So, I'm left with the conclusion that Wrel has to be correct...the weapon is simply so different in terms of the mechanic itself that it needs adjusting to until you find yourself really nestling into a comfortable place with it.

WITH THAT SAID...

The weapon is still a bit lackluster. Let's say that Wrel is completely correct and the weapon simply needs adjusting to, which is probably the case after viewing both Koolaid and Wrel's initial thoughts on the weapon; It's still boring and feels like there should be something else to the design no? Actually...I want each faction to have a defining trait that's incorporated into all of the general infantry geared weapons, and that trait to be piercing ammunition for the New Conglomerate. So, I suppose that would polish the rifle off...

Granted, it doesn't look like the development team has any intentions on going that far with faction flavor...but if this rifle could pierce targets as I've originally suggested in the past due to an overall revamp of the NC weapons that incorporated this feature...hell, if Wrel is right and this actually works out well...the entire delay mechanic could be spread throughout the NC arsenal and combined with extremely high damage to really make their weapons based around railgun technology.

• Low Magazine Size
• Low fire rate through this delay mechanic
• Extremely high damage and projectile velocity
• Ability to adjust shot via delay mechanic
• Ability to pierce through targets

That would indeed reflect a railgun, and if this weapon does end up becoming very effective once people adapt...incorporating that type of system into the entirety of the New Conglomerate arsenal may actually make them feel distinct from the other two factions and finally get the development team off the shotgun kick. When I initially proposed this idea, a delay before firing for the NC faction traits, I was thinking more along the lines of a re-chambering extension...like a power-up between shots.

If Wrel is right though, which it seems that he should be, then this might actually be better... I think my initial eagerness to jump to conclusions is due to how jaded I am towards how this update was done.

Well... a real "RailGun", with what.... 38% more velocity than the bolt driver?? (if you understand Velocity*Mass physics and exponential force, you know what I'm talking about here)... would straight up KILL a Medic or Lightassault with just a Torso shot due to the raw Kinetics. Maybe it wouldn't kill a Shielded HA / Nano-5, or a Nano'shielded INF; but it wouldn't require only headshots to OHK most low-armor light classes.

That's probably where it started out at in their Alpha Testing infact. And they just didn't bother to find a way for that OHK to actually reward "skill".(such as only OHK'ing moving targets) I don't think the current version actually rewards skill either. Ya run SAS-R or LA80 if you're actually "skilled". Ya don't run this thing. This is a couch fishing gun and I run it to relax with the abstract timing pattern to help me "learn to anticipate" player movement in general. It's more like wearing training weights, is the best analogy I can come up with.

Only thing I don't understand is why everyone saying it has less Ammo/Clip??? WTH are you guys talking about??? It has 10 + 60 rounds. The stock Bolt Drivers only have HALF THAT. Where are you getting this crap

It's a fair point about a railgun being a OHK, although if they implemented that you'd have the TR and VS screaming about how it's outrageously overpowered etc etc (rightfully so, because that would be a *huge* advantage). The thing is, the NC's thing is that they have slow firing, hard hitting weapons, so, in theory, a OHK sniper (other than shielded heavies, maxes, or perhaps people running max nanoweave armour) is viable. In reality though, it would be hugely, hugely unfair on the other factions. It's an interesting point about the OHK only applying to moving targets and stuff, but I think that could be difficult to implement (for example, someone strafing back and forth to deter being sniped would count as "moving" and therefore could be OHK, which is unbalanced as hell given that it's really not hard at all to hit a strafing soldier).

I don't think using the RailJack to learn to anticipate movement of players is a good idea at all, the RailJack requires you to play differently than you do with the other guns in game due to the split second charge delay, that, and you'd get too used to the insane muzzle velocity it offers.


Also, the RailJack *doesn't* have 10+60 rounds. That was a bug in game, it was given an ammo pool of a semi-auto sniper and has since been rectified to that of a normal bolt action. An honest mistake on your part perhaps, but I would read up on facts before posting.

All in all, I think the RailJack actually offers a new level of diversity in the game. It *sucks* for counter-sniping. If you're using a RailJack, any other sniper with a bolt action has a big advantage over you, if you assume that both of you "pull the trigger" at the same time. The RailJack excels at anti-infantry, but you're very vulnerable to being picked off by other infiltrators. I'll be interested to see how it handles when the straight-pull bolt is introduced, but until then I've found it to be incredibly powerful, and a huge improvement over the Longshot. Getting headshots with it is even easier than it used to be with the Longshot

1) Diversity, like absolutely worse than the longshot, and only having the advantage of less drop than the other two despite severe disadvantages?

2) "excels at anti-infantry" you mean like.... every sniper rifle?

3) You may "like" it more than the longshot, but there is absolutely no evidence, quite the contrary, to support that it is in ANY way, shape or form better than the longshot.

4) it has nearly, if not completely, identical drop as the longshot. The fact that it takes longer at every distance from click to hit than the longshot disproves the idea that the railjack is superior at any kind of shots.

Again, you are more than welcome to "like" it more than longshot, but it doesn't mean that you aren't completely wrong in the fact that the longshot is functionally superior in every single way. Also, I'm not sure why you included the picture. No one is debating whether or not people can get kills with it. What they are debating is that there is no functional reason to use it. It provides nothing but disadvantages to what we already have.

Hopefully they will change it in some way very quickly. I don't care if it's a "T4" sniper or if they make it some sidegrade, but they need to do something with it fast.

1) It's not worse than the Longshot, at all, people just haven't bothered to learn how to use it. The shot delay is pretty much negligible once you've used it a while, infact, I actually prefer it since you can pull the trigger *before* you've completely lined the shot up, which, once you get used to doing so, negates the drawback of the shot delay almost entirely (other than in sniper vs sniper scenarios, I suppose).

2) I probably should have worded that differently. I mean, while the other bolt action snipers are great for taking out infantry (obviously) the RailJack takes it up a notch, you can drop big groups of infantry much quicker than you can with the Longshot, and I think that once they bring the straight pull bolt out that much will become even more apparent. Yes, you can do the same with the Longshot, but you can do it a lot quicker with the RailJack. The obvious drawback is that you're basically slapping a big target on your forehead for other snipers while using it

3) Except, there is. Just for starters you have the increased muzzle velocity, making it *much* easier to lead targets than with the Longshot, as well as the reload speed which seems quicker to me but I'm too lazy to back up with stats, so it could just be me imagining things. The higher damage is, as of now, mostly unimportant, whether or not they change the damage values for it I don't know. On paper, the RailJack doesn't appear to be particularly better than the Longshot, however, in practicality, I've found it to be essentially a buffed Longshot, once you learn to compensate for the delay. Whether or not it's an upgrade from the Longshot isn't debatable, it is. Whether or not it's worth 1000 certs/700 SC currently, eh, I wouldn't be so sure.

4) The drop on it isn't really identical at all. The worst thing for me when learning to use the RailJack was having to readjust to the bullet drop, it threw me for quite a while and I nearly gave up on using it. Also, as I said before, if you pull the trigger before lining up the shot, the charge delay is negated. On top of this, the "Longshot hits quicker" argument is only valid assuming that both weapons pull the trigger at the same time. People who've learned to fire just before lining up their shot don't suffer from this delay at all, and I think that as more people learn to do that, the RailJack's dominance over the Longshot will be more apparent.


Ah, because some people claim that it's impossible to get anything other than lucky kills with the RailJack and it's broken and the charge delay sucks etc etc. That's more there to shut them up. There is certainly functional reason to use it. It hits harder, quicker (assuming you fire before lining up), reloads quicker, requires for shots to be lead less, has less bullet drop (the difference doesn't seem like much, but it does make a big difference). I've dropped around 90 hours into playing as an infiltrator, and I was entirely used to using the Longshot. Now that I'm used to it however, the RailJack has been a general all round upgrade, other than in scenarios where you're duking it out with another sniper.

There you go again, saying things completely contrary to facts.

1) It is slower in every way, other than a half second of reload, than the longshot. It has almost identical drop compared to the longshot. It has less rounds per mag than the longshot. The "advantage" you put forth isn't an advantage since you know... you could have fired the longshot .15 seconds later and made the shot, whereas you couldn't have negated the delay of the railjack to fire .15 seconds faster.

2) Explain how with slower chamber, fewer bullets between reload, and slower time from click to hit, you "can drop big groups of infantry much quicker".... At no point, no matter what, does the railjack put rounds down range faster than the longshot, PERIOD. Again, you can say things, but they are completely contrary to facts, which makes them uninformed or deluded.

3) Have you missed the 400 posts regarding this gun being tied for the slowest from click to hit with the bolt driver? It is literally math, and you are wrong. It is about a half second quicker to reload.... which is completely negated by having one less round per mag. No, the question is, why would a gun be introduced that is never situationally better than existing guns?

4) Yes, yes it is. It has been tested, videoed and reported by tons of people. At the most extreme point, a 12x scope with a silencer, there is a half mildot difference in drop between the two at 300 meters. With a 6x scope and no silencer, the drop difference is completely non-discernible. I'm not even going to comment on the rest of #4 because if you don't understand the massive downsides to "learning the delay".... yea.

No one said it's impossible to get kills with it, you just made that up as a straw man. The problem is, there is absolutely no practical reason to use it over what we already have. The TR and VS were given weapons that actually have situations where they can outperform other weapons. The railjack does not.

As has been stated over and over, you're more than welcome to like it all you want. The problem is, liking it doesn't negate the FACT that it is inferior to at least the longshot in all measurable aspects. Higby himself tweeted that it and the phaseshift are underperforming. I have a few hundred kills with the thing, so this is not baseless complaining.

What's the point of a test server if they're just going to change the things people were testing as they put them on live?

THAT I definitely agree with.

This should have been in the test server, the entire update should have been until it was truly refined. The "new" SMG isn't really anything significantly different from the current NS SMG and these ES Sniper Rifles could have used a little more fine tuning.

One advantage I've noticed is at longer distances when you get a feel for the fire-hold-on-target-mechanic is that it is very accurate at mid-long/long/extreme ranges. There is a definitely advantage to that 850m/s. Granted, I have done very limited field testing but I noticed I hit more at these ranges than before. Actually reminds me a lot of Tribes:Ascend and how their sniper rifles worked.

The toughest part is to not treat it like a BASR, and get a feel for that delay. More testing to be done but that's for tomorrow.

Good luck hitting moving targets, your only gona get level 1-10 players who stay stationary to long or AFK most of the time

Ok I'm a little confused by your post...

Instead of treating like a BASR what way should it be treated (serious question because I have been treating it like a BASR)? Not the first time I've been wrong I tried to treat the Impetus like a slower, heavier damaging Shadow (I Raxed the Shadow then moved to the Impetus) and I had much better luck when I treated the Impetus like a short range Semi-Sniper Rifle instead.

Can you quantify your ranges? I tend to think of ranges like this for my sniper rifles <100 is short, 100-200 is mid, 200-300 is Long. Which ranges did you mean in meters?

Also can you elaborate on it's accuracy properties? For me as long as I hold my breath all the sniper rifles I've used in PS2 hit the center of the crosshair (or mil dot if adjusting for drop) not sure why you feel this to be "...very accurate..."

Which weapon's accuracy or situation are you comparing it with?

As far as the 850m/s velocity yes it's nice, once the bullet leaves the barrel, however the delay in firing produces other issues such as leaving yourself exposed, uncloaked, and ADS (ie your not dodging incoming fire).

There are other situations where, mostly around the 0-150m mark, the Railjack has an impossible firing solution. I was hesitant to bring this up before since there doesn't seem to be too many other snipers that either crunched the numbers or tried to use this weapon in 0-150m ranges enough to see this come up in game-play like I have.

Just as Vaphell's chart shows when you're firing the RailJack at a target the Longshot will hit the target at 130m before your bullet leaves the barrel.

So what does that tell us (I have also noticed this in game as well)? It tells us that if you only get to see a target for a very short time as he runs from cover to cover there needs to be a minimum distance between cover to even make the shot a possibility.

This scenario has come up several times for me. When it dawned on me was when I was fighting at the Shrouded Skyway I learned that if targets are running from cover to cover I wasn't able to kill them because the distance between each piece of new cover is traversed by the target before the Railjack can fire the bullet.

Think of how many times a target reached cover just fast enough to avoid a shot with the RailJack they get that much more time. Also if you're lucky like me how many times that just as you shoot a target a max or vehicle or even a friendly soldier almost gets in the way.

Now I will say that this rifle seems to be geared more toward long range play (the impression i get from using this weapon and other people) than short range play but, as the Longshot is better at play across all ranges and the La-80 and BoltDriver at the sub 250m range. Not sure why any one should get it over the other offerings

- SideWinder