Railgun damage calculation

Anyone figured out how railgun damage is calculated vs range? Seems like anything less than range 20 starts to fall off in damage quiaickly. If I had to guess, I think it's down to 50% of base by range 10 and 10% of base by range 3. I'm going to start paying attention to damage vs range and try to generate a curve. Appreciate anyone else's thoughts /input.

As is with the railgun's straight trajectory, it's hard to hit for full damage with waves, etc. As such, it's actual dps feels significantly lower than other comparable weapons at the same level (if it can hit given its trajectory penalty vs cannons). It also greatly penalizes the user for missed hits with its long cool down, encouraging shots at lower range/damage where in comparison, a cannon would hit for full damage.

 

I didn't know Railgun did less damage at closer ranges.

 

Yeah, it does. Really degrades the value of the weapon.

 

Pretty sure that's the point. If you could hit someone at point blank range with that thing it would be stupid strong since it does such an absurd amount of damage. The range part of it is the balancing factor in the amount of damage it is capable of. After training of course

 

Definitely not trying to say it should hit max damage point blank (or that anything even needs to change). Just wanted to see if anyone had already done any work towards figuring out the damage calculation. With such low activity, I'm leaning towards people are just avoiding the railgun since other weapons can do better dps with higher consistency. As the railgun is still my best weapon, ill keep at trying to map out damage vs range.

On an interesting note, I've had a couple very long range shots land for ~110% damage leading me to believe that the damage listed in game for a given quality/level railgun isn't a max, but rather the expected damage for XX range (possibly 40?).

 

I've never used the railgun, since the cooldown wasn't worth it and I moved off of Shooter. I'm at Mk3s now, soon to be Mk4, but it still doesn't look usable on any ship except Shooter. Is it?

 

Yeah, possibly a high tier defender weapon but that's about it.

 

Yes shooter is the best ship to use a railgun on.When using it you will see a % while aiming.At 100% it does the damage listed in the weapon stats.Sometimes like @Mindgamers said it does more damage than listed when you hit someone from a very far range.

 

i've tried this with my defender and it rocks solid upon hit combined with a blast cannon

 

the cooldown really sucks but with a proper shot and timing it owns

 

This weapon is very good at wasting fixers heals on a guy who ran for cover only to be instakilled a foot away from a repair box.

Got an enemy feeling brave at half health? Snipe + railgun will fix that.