Ships & Modules

I did say the real question was whether they were worth the effort or not

med rails really need some buffs. large rails are fine.

The tracking disadvantage can be negated in PvE. I find that my Hyperion with an afterburner is faster than everything of cruiser size or bigger. Using keep at range causes the NPCs to lose most of their angular velocity as they do their best to get into the range they want to fight at.

Only frigates are a problem, and I have drones for them.

I was told to the best way to fly manually is to go to view target and set up you your camera to a strait ahead view (on your target's ship) and keep double click to keep your transversal very low???
I'm just starting to learn Laser's right now and have no experance with gun's.
So was wondering if that's the best way or if there's a better one ? Without watching a tiny # all the time?

Small rails are fine. Large rails are not. Med rails are beyond helping and should just be removed...

Why's everyone saying "medium rails are a joke" ALL long range medium weapons are crap, except 720 arties and they are only good because of alpha damage.
When was the last time anyone saw a ship fitted with beams?
long range weapons have problems of their own, medium rails are in line with small/large rails and beams/arties in terms of range/damage/tracking.

I'm not sure if I posted in this thread already, but looking at the abilities and limitations of hybrids you can see it like this:

Small rails hit various breakpoint ranges: 24km, 60km, 100km etc. They hit extremes no other S-LR system can reasonably do, and those extremes still have some plausible niche. At those ranges their damage and accuracy thus become competetive.

For small blasters only certain bonused SR systems hit specific breakpoints outside of 12km, which means that the inability to hit breakpoints (like 24km) is not as much of a drawback.

Most small ships can fit their respective weapons. Even the lowest tiered railgun (the 75mm) have a fairly decent reach, accuracy and damage on a sensible fitting.

For large rails they cover all relevant distances and the damage-to-range scaling is pretty decent. Their comparative damage at 100km and 60km is quite competetive, which means that overshooting your target with Spike is not as much of a drawback.

For large blasters they also hit relevant distances (24km et. al.) and do so with very competetive damage, when considering accuracy none of the L-SR systems hit any specific breakpoints so they are all more or less accurate in the greater scheme of things. They don't need to hit the 60km odd midrange because they were not designed with that in mind - there are both drone and rail options for that.

The medium systems is where it starts to get interesting.

The fitting has been improved, but it's still quite sensitive. In terms of accuracy many of the rail-platforms are sensitive transversal-wise. They have trouble hitting certain breakpoints or when they do they often give up something else (eg., dual-range bonused Blasters hitting point-range but without any damage advantage over other systems that do more damage there, hit even further or track even better. The Rails overshoot, have poor damage output (including alpha, reloads and damage types) and their base accuracy doesn't really shine either.

That last bit is particularily interesting because going back a couple of years that used to be their redeeming feature. With Spike overshooting range on many platforms, and the faction ammunition not gaining any damage leverage at breakpoints such as 100km, that ammuntion still made those platforms the most accuracy platforms at those breakpoint ranges.

That meant, ignoring mobility issues (and fitting issues at the time), that the rail platforms were quite competetive in terms of average damage to high accuracy. It wasn't the strongest niche, but it was something that could be built around and used. The ability to track targets well at 100km and 60km breakpoints without falling too far behind in damage. When Minmatar got MR tracking ammunition that niche was gone. When that change hit, projectiles had alpha, mobile-accuracy, damage types, gun accuracy and ammunition options completely in their grasp. Lasers, drones and missiles preserved their respective appeals (DPS with various other advantages and drawbacks) and niches but the medium rails lost their already restricted and platform-limited appeal.

That means that today there's hardly any reason to use them in any situation over something else, they have nothing they excel at anymore, no matter how miniscule: it's either better to use another system or go size [+1] or [-1].

Heavy Missiles seem to do okay, and they're a 'medium' long-range weapon. I will grant that having the Drake as the primary platform helps - despite the nerfs Drakes are still stupidly tough and still have space for three BCUs, which helps enormously.

My drake tanks more, does better DPS and at longer ranges

It doesn't use expensive mods either.

I think you just didn't know how to fly a drake.

Railguns aren't bad at all. Small and Large railguns are very good as both give you unrivaled range for those ship sizes. Rokhs are particularly fun to use, especially when you get to snipe some poor bastard at 200km away.

Mediums rails are where things fall apart a bit. They aren't bad, but everything else can do their job better.