[Suggestion] New Vanguard Cannon: TITAN-150 Railgun [Theorycraft]

Accelerate high density projectiles up to supersonic speeds through the use of powerful electromagnets. Charge up the weapon's capacitors to increase damage, velocity, and accuracy.

Negative Traits: Abysmal accuracy, low damage, and low velocity when fired at low charge. Basically a Highly Ineffective weapon unless charged by some amount. DPS is to scale similar to current Titan-150 class cannons.

Max velocity: 350m/s
Minimum velocity: 150m/s
Max Damage: 3000
Min Damage: 1000
Reload speed: 2 s
Max Cone of Fire: 35 degrees
Min Cone of Fire: 0 degrees
Max Indirect Damage: 500 before .1m
Charge time: 4 seconds


Note: Firing at full charge can create a sonic boom???. (no impact on game play)



Balance Discussion:
Core focus should be on making this weapon to not be a clear upgrade choice over the other preexisting Titan-150 class weapons for the Vanguard while still providing a new and interesting game mechanic.

It would be pretty boring since it'd be useless outside of a full charge.

I think this is a good example of why I never give numbers when I consider weapon ideas. You've got a couple of things in here that make the weapon the de-facto choice for Vanguard gunners. Mainly the fact that rapid fire and charge fire have the same DPS.

Which isn't to say the idea is bad. I think the possibility of a weapon that has a selectable DPS (similar to the Lancer) is a fine idea. I don't know if I'd go with the "Big Railgun" for this concept though. The mechanics would lend themselves well to really mobile gameplay, as the short reload and selectable release would be great for making sure you get to fire shots on agile targets when they come out of cover instead of getting shot-blocked by the reload.

For something like that concept picture, I might lean towards something like a weapon that imparts inertia to the target. Something along the lines of pushing Harassers into the geo that they're using for cover.

What's the health and resistances for
Sunderers, Libs and other MBTs, those are the things that'll be most effected by it.

I had an idea that the rail gun would cut power from the drive, either before or after the shot is fired.

I caught the end of the Higby Pls stream today. He mentioned they were working on new ES MBT primaries - railgun for Vanguard, quad cannon for Prowler and a spiky ***** for the Magrider. Yes, that's what he said.

***** HYPE

Edit: Seems that word is censored. Instead, I'll just say: unpowered vibrator

As nice as a Railgun is...

I WANT MY 150MM SHOTGUN.

CONS
-Longest reload in the game (7 seconds maybe at minimum reload cert)
-3 second charge time
-Incredibly large kick after firing

PROS
-The most powerful gun in the game, deals almost 2,500 damage per shot with (750 @ 1m, 1 @ 4m) explosive damage.
-Near pinpoint accuracy at maximum charge
-Fairly low projectile drop at maximum charge
-Creates a sonic boom when fired

Think of it like an AP+HE cannon combined into one thing. Call it the MAC-A1 for obvious reasons.

i wish the current titan ap was a railgun type thing

My guess... it's gonna be like the Railjack, but bigger.

In other words it won't do anything better than what our current AP cannon can do, and it would have a redeeming shotgun feature that would be removed right before release because the VS and TR would cry about it despite the NC erroneously being the "shotgun faction".

I kind of like this idea. It would need a lot of testing and theorycrafting though.

Anything but the Railjack's design. Seriously... I don't want an uncontrollable and arbitrary delay. I'd much rather have one with an interesting mechanic that I control, like Klypto's idea.

Wow, new BEST MBT Main Gun has spawned !!!!!!

considering that charging mechanism is kind of a VS thing,
this gun should be given to the mag

Isn't that significantly worse than any of the current guns?

You would probably loose to an HE lightning tank in battle, and the long reload makes it a completely useless anti-infantry weapon.

The difficulty is balancing it to make it neither significantly worse or better than the current weapons. There is a challenge in the selectable fire rate as the bullet drop would also be variable making it a bit more difficult to compensate for if fired early.And you're right the flat DPS scale is an advantage to the other weapons that should probably be adjusted.

As to your idea, do you have more on how that would work?

So basically a sniper / artillery platform?

I was going to say that the reload was 4 seconds, but I realized that after 30 minutes passed. I was intending 7 seconds TOTAL for firing.

Here. I would assume the railgun would use the AP shell resistance type or a new but similar one.

What I want to see from the railgun is best-in-class damage and velocity and the ability to penetrate infantry targets, but no splash damage. Currently Titan AP does 2000 damage on a 4 second refire, I would like to see 2500 or 3000 damage on a 5-6 second refire. The long reload time combined with no splash would make infantry a serious threat in exchange for great alpha damage against vehicles. Oh yeah, and instead of reload speed weapon attachments, it gets velocity attachments. Something like 275-300 base velocity with five ranks of +15/20 velocity.

Neat idea, although it's been suggested before. It's not going to happen until the other tanks get something, and I don't see that as being likely.

Prowler is already getting a 4 barrel tank cannon with independent reloads for the cannons.






Magrider thing is still in the works I guess. Kevmo probably still doesn't know what he's going to do with that.

2500 - 3000 damage and a projectile velocity that significantly exceeds an AP prowler's gun while deployed? That'd be a ludicrous advantage over the current AP gun Vanguards have in open areas.

That looks really, really goofy... I've never heard anything about this, for that matter.