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Whats the draw of small railguns over beam lasers or arty?

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Khorvek
Colear Mining Retrieval and Distributing
#1 - 2015-06-06 01:22:23 UTC
Mind that I'm only looking at EFT numbers currently, but suppose we take dual beams vs 125mm. On a 1:1 basis, they come out with worse DPS, and that'd be fine, but they also seem to come out with worse alpha and worse tracking on top of that (although anyone serious about using long range weapons should have angular mitigation tools at their disposal, e.g; TPs, webs, keep at range and no orbit, etc).

I'm looking towards flying some merlins, but I don't particularly want to play blaster-knife fights. Are rails competitive?

People talk about how eve is better than WoW. I still get one shotted undocking in a frigate if there's a WT thrasher outside. It looks eerily similar to getting one shotted in WoW battlegrounds by a x9 level player when you're x1-4 levels.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#2 - 2015-06-06 03:24:05 UTC
Pro-tip: don't judge a weapon based solely on the weapon's stats. You have to take them in the context of the ships that use them and the tactics they employ.

How did you Veterans start?
Khorvek
Colear Mining Retrieval and Distributing
#3 - 2015-06-06 04:18:56 UTC
Well, caldari frigs are the slowest and also have the worst agility, so they cant maneuver at all. What would be good about a rail merlin?

People talk about how eve is better than WoW. I still get one shotted undocking in a frigate if there's a WT thrasher outside. It looks eerily similar to getting one shotted in WoW battlegrounds by a x9 level player when you're x1-4 levels.
W0lf Crendraven
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2015-06-06 06:20:25 UTC
Strongest ship in the frigate meta price wise is the rail comet.

[Federation Navy Comet, fotm]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

150mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]

Small Transverse Bulkhead II
Small Transverse Bulkhead II
Small Transverse Bulkhead II

Hobgoblin II x3


For solo pvp, rails are amazing on gallentean hulls but not so much on caldari ones (maaaaybe the harpy).
Tusker Crazinski
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2015-06-06 17:37:51 UTC
actually arty has the worst tracking and DPS.

small rails are really good, see harpy fleets. also solo harpies fly a lot like arty jags.
ISD Dorrim Barstorlode
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#6 - 2015-06-06 19:33:54 UTC
Removed an off topic post.

ISD Dorrim Barstorlode

Senior Lead

Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)

Interstellar Services Department
Khorvek
Colear Mining Retrieval and Distributing
#7 - 2015-06-06 19:42:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Khorvek
Tusker Crazinski wrote:
actually arty has the worst tracking and DPS.

small rails are really good, see harpy fleets. also solo harpies fly a lot like arty jags.






I suppose that's true, but for a marginal range gain of rails over beams, rails lose a lot of tracking in comparison, while for a great gain in range for arty over beams, arty lose a marginal amount of tracking. a DPS/range comparison shows arty to also be superior there as well, even if arty are slightly less DPS than rails. At the optimal+1(falloff) range of rails, Arty will have superior DPS. This implies rails suffer from a much narrower band of effectiveness for a marginal increase in DPS over arty, but when high angular velocities get involved, arty will actually retain a higher effective DPS over rails at the right distance, which rails, at a shorter distance, can never reach at those speeds.

Arty also has pretty high alpha. Rails have second to worst tracking (but really it's the difference of 0.146, 0.112, and 0.1, surely you could see how the last number is practically nothing), rails have second worst dps, and embarrasingly low alpha.

Right now the thing I most see of value for rails over beams is the half cap use, which means more room for active tank

People talk about how eve is better than WoW. I still get one shotted undocking in a frigate if there's a WT thrasher outside. It looks eerily similar to getting one shotted in WoW battlegrounds by a x9 level player when you're x1-4 levels.
W0lf Crendraven
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2015-06-07 08:23:19 UTC
You dont compare weapon systems 1 to 1, that makes only sense in a balancing state where ships are equally good.

Atm rail platforms are very very strong, small beam platform are ok bar the confessor (which is great).
Dato Koppla
Spaghetti Militia
#9 - 2015-06-07 08:49:12 UTC
Small beams are amazing TBH. The damage, range and application are amazing. Even brawl Tormentors do much better with beams than they do with pulse. Coercers and Slicers are also amazing.
Ion Kirst
KIRSTONE ALLIANCE
#10 - 2015-06-09 00:31:36 UTC
Each weapon system has it's differences. Each has it max dps applied at a different ranges, and each has it's limits as to far it can reach out and touch someone. So comparisons may not be that easy to do. You might not want to get up close and brawl it out with a Blaster Merlin, and he may not want to tangle with some one orbiting at 12km.

I think the variances in weapons makes things a bit more interesting.

-Kirst

Always remember Tovil-Toba, and what was done there.
Doctor Knuckles
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#11 - 2015-06-09 08:12:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Doctor Knuckles
Beams are king at the moment, it's nto even a contest.

Rails are in poor shape, they can work on hulls with a massive damage bonus (comet and daredevil) but they're pretty much 1v1 boat, comet also easily countered, dd too scary to engage. OR, they can work on hulls with a massive range bonus for niche uses (corm and harpy).

Just compare beam torm with rail cursus. Tank's almost identical, speed pretty much the same, torm deals almost 2x the damage. Tracking not an issue really, if it can outrrack beams it will outtrack rails as well

arties on the other hand have good range and amazing alpha, with an impressive dps in the first few seconds of the fight (1st shot at time 0)
Dato Koppla
Spaghetti Militia
#12 - 2015-06-10 03:01:28 UTC
Doctor Knuckles wrote:
Beams are king at the moment, it's nto even a contest.

Rails are in poor shape, they can work on hulls with a massive damage bonus (comet and daredevil) but they're pretty much 1v1 boat, comet also easily countered, dd too scary to engage. OR, they can work on hulls with a massive range bonus for niche uses (corm and harpy).

Just compare beam torm with rail cursus. Tank's almost identical, speed pretty much the same, torm deals almost 2x the damage. Tracking not an issue really, if it can outrrack beams it will outtrack rails as well

arties on the other hand have good range and amazing alpha, with an impressive dps in the first few seconds of the fight (1st shot at time 0)


This person speaks the truth.

Forget comparing Beam Torm to Rail Cursus.

Incursus with Small Focused Beams does 2 more dps than Incursus with 150mm Rails (both with short-range faction ammo which is what you'll be using most) with almost identical range (better cap stats is all the 150s have going for it). If that wasn't bad enough, the beams have better tracking as well lol. So if you're running a scram kite Incursus, you're literally better off using an unbonused weapon system over the bonused one on an Incursus.

Small beams are pretty insane right now, pulse will only outdamage beams when using conflag, IN Multi v IN Multi small beams come out on top in terms of dps while having MUCH more range.