Since im dissapointed by how strong this weapon is and that way making the nf heavy as it is underpowered, i think i should suggest that the railguns and overall heavy tank balance would profit when the railguns would loose some of their damage with range. In other words that it should be less effective at longer ranges then it is now, maybe even a bit more powerfull close up. since close up is at the moment the nf's strength this would make the combat ranges for both assault chassis the same. have fun ripping my in bad english written thought apart
lol sorry what? x5 ML is not weak in my opinion. Rails are fine how they are and they fill their job quite successfully. There is always the option of countering that weapon by fitting a setup that uses more range as well as the enemy using rails
full armour on the front of a NF heaavy, with 5 standard rockets and 3 phase engine, and BE tanks are pwned. They'll just drive right upto the BE tanks unleash, then run back.
On the vehicletraining map on i think the training server, you have to get something that overheats the dual railed BE heavy just to own it. So plasma, HE, depleted uranium, and advanced coolant engines, and i think reflective armor too, and win. 5 ML or 5 standard rockets are full of fail.
The insane rocket spam is usualy good for taking out bases... Run past the tanks and the defenses; park in the rear of the base and unload... The whole base dead from a single tank.... Mm....
Rocket spam is kinda crap, as you have to drive really close to your opponent and while doing that, you're getting raped by his buddies... :/ Taking out bases with ML spam is easy, but also just as close range. Think of the turrets, riflemen and heavy tanks you'll meet on your way... That tank might just last enough to destroy a rax, but their tanks could do that from the distance... with ease. Depends on their numbers And they mostly hit your sides and back while you drive at them (splash)...
NF Heavy Tank is definately not underpowered, but I do agree railgun seems to be better compared to other cannons...
Make the rail guns heat up a little more with each fire and weight a bit more. I could see that becoming a good balance for the things.
If you actually look up railgun, even a man portable version would be overpowered. It is a magnetic acceleration cannon that fires any non-explosive (the impact force is so damaging that making it explosive is pointless) over a long distance at supersonic speeds. Think, a shoulder fired 1 launches a magnetite sphere the size of a baseball over 200km/m+ into a tank, and it would tear right through the tanks armor.
I know, but the point im trying to make is the weapon fires with such velocity that it either doesnt have time to loose damage force, or the drop in damage would be insignificant.
I understand your wanting the nerf for the rail gun, but range should be a problem with the rails. I think that the rails should go a faster velocity, but cause alot of heat as they would need alot of power to shoot them.
Rails are not as overpowering as some people like to think. They are only overpowering when you have more than 1 dual rail heavy. This does not occur as often on servers with no res modifiers. There are many ways to make rails less effective, but none of these ways are very effective at causing damage. Thus people do not use them.
Currently all weapons like Railguns and Plasma would require huge power inputs and generate massive heat (plasma is superheated gas, needing magnets for containment, and railgun rounds generate tons of friction, usually melting the rails)
huge amounts of energy <> huge amounts of heat. heat, noise, light, those are all forms of energy that are given off by different reactions. If the reaction is 100% efficient, then there is no energy lost to heat or noise or light. In empires, everything runs at perfect efficiency unless otherwise stated.
Rails should be like railgun in Quake2. When You press fire, it shoots with a 0.5s delay. It's the condenser (electrical capacitor) that must be charged before the weapon could fire. If we would do it in a way that requires You to hold button long enough to fire, not just click, rails would suddenly become not-that-easy-to-handle and it would balance not-that-easy-to-handle NF missile tanks. (if You hold rail power for too long or too short, it could produce heat). It's about noobs. Skilled player can use MLs efficiently, but how many that skilled players we have? 15%? 20%? BE railtank is just easy to handle for noobs, that's the whole trick. The other approach would be to increase rockets speed over time: the longer it flies, the faster it flies and the more damage it does. I would say that's natural for rockets, as condensers for coil cannons.
I've seen this implemented. Run a torrent then join empires, you'll get the general effect of doing that.
I think the rail gun is just fine. I have seen games were the Brendori had dual rails and lost against NF with high explosives. Also when using the rail guns, it takes a lot of hits in order to take out a tank. And when i destroy a building, i have to refill my ammo lest i run out of projectiles (its easy to run out of the 40 projectiles quite fast).
Empires features multiple armors for a reason, is is so that a smart commander can ressearch the right armor and adapt; and that way each tank can have a special role... Balancing the weapon itself is futile; as with many armor, engine, and utility weapon permutation avalable, there is just no way in hell that you can account for every single possible position those three wall fall into. Instead, create an armor that is specifily designed to be extreamly strong against rails, but very weak to some other type of weapon. I would be nice if the armors had actual modifiers against a specific weapon type, instead of just speed/splash/angle modifires that they currently have... By creating a single armor that is a clear counter to a weapon type you give a situation where a team can adapt, and turn the tide, against a team that think they pressed the win button with a single ressearch. Balancing weapons/armors like this in a more of rock paper sicsors type of way, will allow the possobilities where more than one armor or more than one engine is not just a luxury but essential to the survival of that team. Sure that might increase the learning curve a bit further, but then again, it's nothing that hasn't been done before in an RTS game, and the general learning curve is already steep enough that no minor gameplay change like this will make a major diffrence...
