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Question On Railgun Sizes
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Tycho Enderas
Caldari Black Hand
Caldari Tactical Operations Command
#1 - 2012-01-29 17:34:19 UTC
As somewhat of a noob and someone who has primarily used missile boats I had some turret questions.

First, what is the significance of the three different sizes of railgun within each size class? Are there generally accepted rules of thumb/strategies etc. regarding which ones to fit?

Second (based somewhat on the first) are any of the battleship rails effective at engaging cruisers (thinking primarily the Dual 250mm's)? Assuming I have motion prediction 5 certainly and possibly with tracking modules as well.

Basically I was thinking that the Naga could potentially rip apart cruisers by mounting 8 dual 250mm's.
Cephelange du'Krevviq
Gildinous Vangaurd
The Initiative.
#2 - 2012-01-29 17:49:39 UTC
As a general rule, as the caliber increases, so does the range and damage, but the tracking decreases. As a broad generalization, the middle calibers are a compromise between damage and tracking (possibly also fitting requirements, depending on your skills and the ship in question.)

From far enough away, tracking cruisers should not be an issue, so using 350s or even 425s might not be a bad idea.

"I am a leaf on the...ah, frak it!"
Renarla
#3 - 2012-01-29 19:55:09 UTC
When I used to run missions in my Kronos I used a rack of 425mm's and had little issues one-volleying cruisers that were at least 20km away. When they got too close they could be webbed and dealt with somewhat effectively, but I would only get glancing shots.
Tycho Enderas
Caldari Black Hand
Caldari Tactical Operations Command
#4 - 2012-01-29 20:39:10 UTC
So the further range significantly significantly offsets lower tracking speed, in terms of the guns have to rotate less to track a further opponent? Does that mean that fitting aside its best to fit the biggest caliber?
Tycho Enderas
Caldari Black Hand
Caldari Tactical Operations Command
#5 - 2012-01-29 20:39:34 UTC
Also, I'm looking at this from a PvP standpoint as well.
Berendas
Ascendant Operations
#6 - 2012-01-29 20:57:18 UTC
Bigger is not always better in PVP, especially if you are fighting at close range because good/bad tracking will make or break a fight for you. For the most part, you shouldn't consider using rails on most PVP ships anyway - they are only viable on a select few ships atm.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#7 - 2012-01-29 21:02:28 UTC
Tycho Enderas wrote:
So the further range significantly significantly offsets lower tracking speed, in terms of the guns have to rotate less to track a further opponent? Does that mean that fitting aside its best to fit the biggest caliber?


Yes and yes.

I personally put 425mm rails on my sniper naga... with a collision accelerator rig, two mag field stabs, and faction lead ammo I can deal about ~300+ dps at ~100km... which effectively instapops lightly tanked frigates and destroyers.
When things get within 50km of me, I warp off to a new sniper position and repeat the process.

Fitting a Naga with T2 Neutron Blasters and loading them up with Null ammo also yields some interesting results. Blink

How did you Veterans start?
Cephelange du'Krevviq
Gildinous Vangaurd
The Initiative.
#8 - 2012-01-29 21:58:27 UTC
Berendas wrote:
Bigger is not always better in PVP, especially if you are fighting at close range because good/bad tracking will make or break a fight for you. For the most part, you shouldn't consider using rails on most PVP ships anyway - they are only viable on a select few ships atm.


For a sniper fleet, a Naga fitted with 425s would be fine, so long as he and his fleetmates understand their weak spot.

"I am a leaf on the...ah, frak it!"
Abdiel Kavash
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#9 - 2012-01-29 22:58:50 UTC
Use the largest ones if you are reasonably sure you will be able to consistently get good hits based on range and tracking. This can mean PvE, or some sort of range control and/or webbing in PvP. Otherwise use the medium ones. I always found the Dual [smaller size] rails to be somewhat underpowered, even with moderate skills you can hit stuff well with the medium-sized guns.

Also keep in mind that the largest caliber might be hard to fit a full rack of if your skills are low. Training AWU 5 or getting a power grid implant usually fixes that.
Salpad
Carebears with Attitude
#10 - 2012-01-30 03:24:42 UTC
Tycho Enderas wrote:
Second (based somewhat on the first) are any of the battleship rails effective at engaging cruisers (thinking primarily the Dual 250mm's)? Assuming I have motion prediction 5 certainly and possibly with tracking modules as well.

Basically I was thinking that the Naga could potentially rip apart cruisers by mounting 8 dual 250mm's.


It is important that you understand that Dual 250mm railgüns, and other "dual" gün systems, are not intended to be used against smaller-than-your-class targets. They are meant to work well against equivalent-sized targets, with the smaller within-class calibers doing less damage but working less badly against targets smaller than you. But only slightly less badly. And the larger within-class calibers being less suited for such use.

Dual 250mm railgüns They are not analogous to Assault Missile Launchers. There are no gün weapons that are analogous to AMLs, meant to be fitted on cruiser-sized hulls but optimized against frigate- sized targets, or meant to be fit on battleship-sized hulls but optimized against cruiser-sized targets, nor are there analogous drones (at best you can carry several different sizes of drones if your ship's drone bay is large enough). I've long argued that CCP ought to add such weapon modules (and drones) to the game, and so have others, but there are no indications that it will happen.

The reverse does exist, though Any ship that has a large enough drone bay can carry and large oversized drones, e.g. a frigate could in theory carry and launch one or even several medium or large drones; a cruiser can carry and launch large drones (I don't believe a battleship or smaller can carry Fighters or Fighter Combers, though - both of these are like huge drones).

Likewise, Stealth Bombers, a kind of Tech 2 frigate, can fit Torpedo Launchers, huge weapon systems relative to their small (frigate-sized) hulls, and recently CCP added a "glass cannon" type of battlecruiser to the game, which can fit battleship-sized gúns but have weak tank (one such BC for each race, with the Caldari version being optimzied for railgúns), although of course the size disparity between a BC and a BS is relatively small.