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

All HEAT and AP round should OHK an ESF, if you hit it, you deserve the kill.


But that fully charged railgun would even OHK a Lib.

The 3,000 damage version would not one-hit kill a Liberator, because the Liberator has 5,000 HP.

That said it turns out that the 5750/4792 versions would OHK libs if it is given the same damage type as the AP cannon, since apparently Liberators have -20% resistance (so a 1.2x multiplier) against that type. So that one would need its own damage type so the Lib can have a positive resistance (20-30% would ensure the Lib's survival).

Due to the unique nature of the cannon it would probably need its own damage type anyway rather than getting lumped under AP.

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJUP.

New extra powerful cannons would be an excellent way to incorporate 3 man tanks.

From my MBT thread

Found this old concept art from last year.

Guessing they'll need a texture redo but other than that they already look good to go model wise.
The look fantastic.

No Magrider pictures though ...

The 4 barrel prowler is in the game files and has been for about 2 years now. The guy that made the video loaded up a local server of the VR with no trees or wireframe skybox and spawned the prowler with the 4 barrel turret.

Kevmo, the vehicle balance developer, told me at SOE live that in the beginning they told him that if he wanted any empire specific weapon models for the tanks he should ask for them now (the time they were making the tanks) and so he asked for a railgun and a 4 barrel prowler model. When I had talked to him, he still wasn't sure what he was going to do with them, but he had the models in-case he wanted to do anything.

This past Friday Higby noted hin his Hiby Pls livestream that Kevmo had been working on the 4-barrel Prowler concept to maybe use independent reloading for the barrels, but still didn't have anything for the Magrider or Vanguard which is why I made this thread.

Also, it would not 1HK a liberator or tank as it has only 50% more damage at full charge than standard AP.

Wasn't there an easter egg of a wrecked railgun Vanguard on one of the continents at some point, or did I dream that?

On Amerish, but it wasn't a rail gun, it had the coaxial autocannons on the old Vanguard model.

Ah ok - cheers dude

I think the important thing is how do you go about making the railgun a side grade to current HE / HEAT / AP rounds and exactly what niche would it fill.

Personally, I'd guess you'll get a large buff in velocity (with a reduction in projectile gravity) at the cost of DPS over AP rounds via slightly slower damage cycle through the charge, fire, reload mechanic and possibly a reduction in projectile damage. It may inherit some damage drop off similar to the lancer but still be the clear winner for ranged combat. (And it could see some reduced effectiveness against air targets over the current AP rounds)


I can't see the vanguard getting stronger alpha strike potential than it already has with its AP main gun, because as they have said before, they are trying to move further away from quick kills.

People will try to use it as an all around weapon and likely complain that it underpowered.

A few vanguard drivers will get together and realize they can instagib lock down prowlers from a hex away without them ever knowing what hit them.

Awesome-

just need a MAGRIDER weapon of some sort(i guess it's too much to hope for a DANGEROUS energy beam(continous for maybe half a second or so) that actually does some damage?


actually, I'd love to see if kev has even thought of heavy weaponry for THIS

since it's due as well

(i know it uses the tech plant guns...)

Should be the Mammoth 250mm Railcannon.

Thank you very much for the enlightement

So what if we went with very little cone of fire at low charge (like 0.3 instead of 4.0) zeroing out at 3.5 seconds of charge and 700 damage at start up to 2850.

This makes it still unusable at range on low charge and the charge scale is now more DPS the longer you charge it. Overall still less DPS than Titain AP. Originally was relying on a MASSIVE (unusable) cone of fire at low charge to prevent 2-second AI use. If there is no explosive damage infantry would survive direct hits on low charge. May end up needing to do that because of the significantly increased accuracy.

I do like the "BEAM" weapon mechanic, of course they would have to build that into the engine to be usable but then they can use it on infantry and other weapons.

Why half a second though?

If you really want to give it realistic rail gun feel, you'd do away with the reload time, rail guns don't have casings, or propellent to deal with, so all you need to do is put the round in the chamber one after another, your only limiting factor is the power you can generate or store. So instead of charging your shot and firing, more realistically you'd already have your weapon charge and ready to fire as soon as you see something, and you'd then have to choose if you wanted to do a full power shot, or many lower powered lower velocity shots for AI work. I'd assume a full power shot would drain the capacitor and need to be recharged fully again. The question is do you want this weapon to be versatile or just AV.

Once your capacitors are discharged or you stopped firing you'd then replenish your power reserves, not moving for example would allow your capacitors to charge faster. Theres also no reason for a CoF on a rail gun as the recoil a rail gun generates is almost nothing.

Such a low velocity on a railgun immediately breaks my immersion, and fuels my hatred for lack of more realistic velocities even mroe.

I'd also like to point out that just because theres no explosives inside of a rail gun projectile, that doesn't mean you want to be anywhere near one when it lands.

If you have a 2s reload, I think the max charge shot is doing roughly the same raw dps as AP (2850 damage / 5.5 seconds). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm not sure if you mean 'overall' as in the average damage during a charge-up.

Actually the recoil on the railgun is directly proportional to the mass of your projectile and the speed you accelerate it to.

If you fire a typical tank cannon round from a railgun, and set it to fire the same speed as a typical tank cannon, it will produce the same recoil as the tank cannon. A lighter projectile or lower speed will make less recoil, a heavier projectile or higher speed will make more recoil.

Simple conservation of momentum.

But yeah, honestly I'd like to see it have ludicrous damage with a painfully long reload (which can represent charging capacitors in the abstract sense anyway). Because then we'd have a KV-2.

Id be fine with this as long as it aircraft had high resistance and 2 shot ESF.
Can you just imagine the Vanguard AA with this weapon?