Ships & Modules

Currently I fly Minmatar for PvE and use mostly Arty, but I hate the long refire and not really feeling the aesthetics. I am more of a gun person than a missile or drone person.

Got it in my mind that I'd like to fly railboats, but everyone swears up and down they're horrible.

My support skills are excellent, and I'm willing to take a couple months and skillup rails to t2 to make them shine. Is this worth it?

Also secondary question, which race is better for rails, Caldari or Gallente?

As I said I'm not much of a drone/missile person, please don't suggest a Drake or Raven. Thinking more like Ferox, Rokh, Rail Mega, Moa (eww ugly), rail Thorax, etc.

I would then, ostensibly, continue with rails for PvP and fleet work.

Please advise, thanks.

Rails are fine it's just the medium ones that are a bit of a joke

For Sniping Railguns are fantastic.

For Missions, the damage (on paper) is decent but the damage application (in reality) is F'ING terrible. Even with (3) TE IIs, MR-706 (6% Tracking), (1) Hybrid Metastasis Adjuster I Rig, on a ship with Tracking bonus like the Megathron and using 350 IIs instead of 425s the Tracking is an abysmal 0.03. Even with Javelin (+25% Tracking bonus) you're only getting up to 0.037.

You'd better hope that whatever compliment of Drones you have along don't die before they kill everything that gets too close because your Rails sure as hell aren't gonna scratch the paint of enemy ships up close. Even worse are the Scram Frigs, if you don't have the Drones to kill them and can't tank until someone shows up to help you, might as well say your goodbyes to your beloved ship.

I'd rather use Missiles for Missions with low SP in the Missile Launcher Operation skill tree than Rails as the damage application (not the OMGBBQPWN-EFT paper DPS) can be superior if rigged correctly.

Rails get a bad rap, I think, because they don't really stand out compared to the other long range platforms, particularly in PVE, but they aren't really bad at anything. Arty has more alpha and somewhat selectable damage, missiles have selectable and consistent damage, Beams have (oddly) better tracking, ammo use, and..well, tachs.

Rails, though, have a few often-overlooked things going for them:

First, they only seem tight on fitting because Gallente ships themselves have very tight fitting. In reality, rails use far less power grid compared to the other turrets. For example, the base power grid on T2 Tachs is 4125 (soon to be 3712), and 3575 on T2 1400's, but only 2310 on T2 425's. They do use the most CPU, but CPU is easier to free up than power grid.

Second, 425's have the highest rate of fire of the three, which means they have the least wasted damage. Alpha is nice in situations where it's useful, but you can waste a LOT of dps with it where it's not needed.

Third, though they have a fixed damage type, they're almost always hitting a primary or secondary resist hole on something. In pvp, except on T2 hulls with bonuses to them, kinetic and thermal are usually the weaker resists on omni tanked ships. In pve, most rats have kinetic or thermal as either their primary or secondary resist, and 2/5 even have kin/th primary/secondary weaknesses. So you can use them on just about anything fairly well.

Fourth, though they do use cap, it's nowhere near what lasers use. Current Tachs use about 3.5x the cap of 425's, and post-patch they'll use 2.7x.


So what you end up with is a simple, effective, easy-to-use turret. You don't have to worry about waiting on them to cycle or managing an enormous amount of cap use, you can apply good damage at just about any range, and you can fit them on just about any ship, even those that simply have extra un-bonused turret slots.

Large rails on tracking bonused hulls are pretty damn nice as well.

Medium LR weapons are all in a hard place atm, arties have their alpha and niche uses like PVE HMLs, but that doesn't make them much better than medium rails and beams.

You need a hull with falloff bonus to make ACs shine in PVE though

Maelstrom is a good ship but AC fit, good god the range is terrible.

yeah so you're doing 80% of your dps at like 40km >.>

Why you using arty? what ship you using. I used ac's in maelstrom and now in a mach and have no problems.

I find rails work well in the megathron line up. Domi is a drone boat and the Rokh was painful with them.

Rails do get perhaps an unfair reputation even for PVP. They are a a mixed bunch and you will always need to be mindful of tracking.

Small rails

Generally I would say if you think your fit requires dropping to electron blasters then you should be using 75mm rails. Better fittings and DPS projection they are key to the strength of the 400mm plate Tristan and Algos builds.

125mm rails are excellent on Merlins and the Incursus giving solid DPS at flexible ranges.

150mm Scram range brawling comet is my go too FW complex ship.

150mm rails on a Daredevil with faction web is as close to easy PVP as it gets.

Medium rails

Dual 150mm rails again I feel these are viable compared to any fit that requires Electron blasters (have even lower powergrid) and lacks the space for two webs (for range control) or is using them as a secondary weapon system such as heavily Armour tanked Vexor or Myrm. Before you jump to fitting autos on a Myrm try looking at the DPS projection of these rails with a 9km optimal and able to project DPS through long point range.

200mm rails viable on a kiting Thorax not much else.

250mm rails, hard to fit for not much gain. A full rack on a combat BC is still an inferior choice to an attack battlecruiser with large blasters.

Large Rails

Meh

Dual 250mm - fitting advantage over Electron Blaster cannons disappears and Null Electron Blaster cannons project DPS through short/long point range with better tracking.

350mm rails used to be used for fitting advantages over 425's but due to balance changes ships that want to fit 425s generally can.

425mm rails. An acceptable fleet /sniper weapon. Solid choice for kin/therm weak PVE enemies

You'd want gallente for rail pve.

Several gun boats offer nice bonuses and the drones for them are just small crap killers. With good tracking if motivated you can avoid the drone mess if lucky with some straight up frigate blapping ( if inclined to use large guns for that anyway).


I tried rohh pve, just not all that great. With the soon to be lost 1% resist loss it is even less appealing. I am caldari Bs 5. And the extra 5% was a nice bene. Hate golem so now all that bs 5 gets me is I can fly widows tbh. And after you fly a naga and get damage bonuses you kind of find it hard to come back to rokh. Not chipping paint is kind of nice. Rokh to me at this is just the meatier ship that lives longer than naga in meat grinder ops for pvp.