Let's Discuss Railgun!

[TheBureau 1]

Okay, here are the numbers for those that won’t take my word for it:

Starting with Smoky M7+ to have a nice control group that we can use for reference.

535 damage with a max crit chance of 50%. Crits doing 800 damage.

With a pattern of -50% original crit chance and a 40% increase per hit, we can roughly estimate the average damage per shot with a 50% crit chance is 668. With 30%, we can calculate the average damage is 615. We could roughly estimate then that the average damage per shot is an impressive 588 damage, crits included.

 

with a 1.4 reload time, we can calculate that the damage per minute for an M7+ smoky is a clean 25,200!

 

Okay, now I apply the same mathematics to a few similar turrets and here are the resulting damage per minute, with crits included.

Railgun: 15,625 (Rounded up a few stats in regards to criticals, giving the end resulting number a nice boost.)

Smoky: 25,200

Thunder: 24,000

Shaft: 39,600 (Full charge sniping only)

Gauss: 22,277 (Sniping only)

 

As you can see, Railgun is significantly lower than all of the other medium to long range turrets. Everything was taken into account, including critical chances, critical steps, charging rates, the 1.1 seconds of the Railgun charging each shot, even the .5 seconds when you leave FPP after firing a shaft shot and the .5 seconds of returning to FPP when preparing to fire the next shot.

 

I did the math, dotted my Is and crossed my Ts, and to me, the numbers speak volumes. You definitely can disagree and think Railgun is good where it is now, but the numbers suggest otherwise, sorry!

If you’d like me to fully show my work, send me a PM or whatever you’d like and I’d gladly walk you through it in case you’d like to double check me.

[Akame 4,578]

Anyone that would want to argue about the common appearance of 'falcon module' anymore, unless they are using an augment that removes crit damage, speak no more.

Since critical damage became it's own type of damage, it's essentially a part bootleg 'AP' if the player doesn't have armadillo. (Of which many many players, not including I, do not own, yet I still believe Armadillo should be added into the garage for crystals to make it even partially remotely fair for any f2p's that suffer.

Remember supercharged? Remember XP?

It's okay, you can't AP enemies? Don't worry, you get a free 7 second duration on Hornet OD where enemy falcon modules means squat and you deal some insane damage, pair it with booster like the typical player does and 'Boom Boom Knock You Out'.

If you don't use Hornet with it, a typical viking booster/defender, yes those exist. Of which it's OD boosts the damage by a fair flat bonus, well, it's still devastating power.

If anything, the railgun itself needs a better tweak on some items, maybe a higher regular damage, but a lower crit damage. And then the augments can be adjusted.

 

[Akame 4,578]

3 minutes ago, TheBureau said:

 

Railgun: 15,625 (Rounded up a few stats in regards to criticals, giving the end resulting number a nice boost.)

Smoky: 25,200

Thunder: 24,000

Shaft: 39,600 (Full charge sniping only)

Gauss: 22,277 (Sniping only)

 

Please make it a dps figure instead, dpm isn't realistic to look at, also, keep crit damage seperate, do also look at their crit damage multipliers, do not forget railguns penetration too.

And hold up, are you calculating stock? Cuz as far as railguns go, they are used with augments. I.e Scout/LCR/DR

[TheBureau 1]

1 hour ago, Akame said:

And hold up, are you calculating stock? Cuz as far as railguns go, they are used with augments. I.e Scout/LCR/DR

I calculated M7+. No further augments. It wouldn't be fair to count augments, as augments are found in crates, thus they are not the norm. M7+ railgun is something that every player can access, given enough experience and crystals. Whereas the epic & exotic augments are found by random. It's like comparing 2 cars and questioning the validity of the comparison because you believe that one of the two cars should be upgraded. To maintain fairness, all turrets were considered at M7+ and otherwise stock.

[Akame 4,578]

4 hours ago, TheBureau said:

I calculated M7+. No further augments. It wouldn't be fair to count augments, as augments are found in crates, thus they are not the norm. M7+ railgun is something that every player can access, given enough experience and crystals. Whereas the epic & exotic augments are found by random. It's like comparing 2 cars and questioning the validity of the comparison because you believe that one of the two cars should be upgraded. To maintain fairness, all turrets were considered at M7+ and otherwise stock.

Let me correct your thinking. People do not use stock rail, if it's used, it's generally in the low end. Endgame railguns DO have augments, and some of them can be purhcased with crystals, which they have.

As for 'not every player can access', shards exist, all players have access to them too.

In MM, players can use augments, SO it is therefore only natural to calculate from them.

[wolverine848 13,097]

6 hours ago, TheBureau said:

Okay, here are the numbers for those that won’t take my word for it:

Starting with Smoky M7+ to have a nice control group that we can use for reference.

535 damage with a max crit chance of 50%. Crits doing 800 damage.

With a pattern of -50% original crit chance and a 40% increase per hit, we can roughly estimate the average damage per shot with a 50% crit chance is 668. With 30%, we can calculate the average damage is 615. We could roughly estimate then that the average damage per shot is an impressive 588 damage, crits included.

 

with a 1.4 reload time, we can calculate that the damage per minute for an M7+ smoky is a clean 25,200!

 

Okay, now I apply the same mathematics to a few similar turrets and here are the resulting damage per minute, with crits included.

Railgun: 15,625 (Rounded up a few stats in regards to criticals, giving the end resulting number a nice boost.)

Smoky: 25,200

Thunder: 24,000

Shaft: 39,600 (Full charge sniping only)

Gauss: 22,277 (Sniping only)

 

As you can see, Railgun is significantly lower than all of the other medium to long range turrets. Everything was taken into account, including critical chances, critical steps, charging rates, the 1.1 seconds of the Railgun charging each shot, even the .5 seconds when you leave FPP after firing a shaft shot and the .5 seconds of returning to FPP when preparing to fire the next shot.

 

I did the math, dotted my Is and crossed my Ts, and to me, the numbers speak volumes. You definitely can disagree and think Railgun is good where it is now, but the numbers suggest otherwise, sorry!

If you’d like me to fully show my work, send me a PM or whatever you’d like and I’d gladly walk you through it in case you’d like to double check me.

That's great - you did some estimates - at optimal range.  Now do some more where it's not optimal range.  because except for the crits, most turrets average damage will drop off beyond max damage range.

Funny thing though... Rail has no range limits.

And for Rail and Gauss - did you actually account for splash or penetration shots?

Now, please be so kind as to answer the question I've asked you 2x already.  How MUCH have you actually played Rail since the critical-hit mechanism was introduced?

[Akame 4,578]

Let us also recall that, Railgun is the only turret which has a potential for back to back crits.

Also, it has the 2nd highest crit damage multiplier from all turrets, in first being Striker with +100%, whilst Railgun has a +77.7777% bonus for it's crit.

It may also not be wise to calculate dps for railgun realistically, it's a turret where peek and shoot applies so you can be anywhere and hit off potentially dangerous shots.

Psych Eval of stock at Mk7-20;

• 900 regular damage
• 1600 crit damage
• Overall reload = 3.7s

You pair yourself with Hornet and utilise it's AP, OD and DD, you literally 1 shot anyone you AP, or 2 shot anyone you don't.

Psych Eval of LCR at mk7-20;

• 1080 regular damage
• 1920 crit damage
• Overall reload = 5.26s

Psych Eval of Scout at mk7-20;

• 900 regular damage
• 960 crit damage
• Overall reload. 2.1555555s

Psych Eval of Round Destab at mk7-20;

• 100 regular damage
• 2080 crit damage
• 70% crit chance, stock reload, impact buff. But pair it with hornet OD, and enjoy 2080 damage counters that ignore falcon module.

Some of these values may seem low when calculating for dps, but it is more than common to see players like these, of which they are paired with Hornet and Viking the most, whose OD's give a great boost.

But the key decider is the criticaly chance pattern being 50% at start until a crit, where it only drops to 10% for 1 shot and reverts back to 50% till a crit. Being the only Item in the game that currently possesses such a common crit, makes everything else look terrible. https://en.tankiwiki.com/Critical_Damage 

Having a 50% chance to potentially ignore anyones module is casually balanced is it?? The only 'setback' it gets is for 1 shot that goes to 10% which is on par with every other turret, of which then it goes back to 50% again.

Smoky suffers the most realistically seeing it needs atleast 2 fodder shots till it can get a chance to crit.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Akame
Additional information included

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

8 hours ago, TheBureau said:

Railgun: 15,625 (Rounded up a few stats in regards to criticals, giving the end resulting number a nice boost.)

Smoky: 25,200

Thunder: 24,000

Shaft: 39,600 (Full charge sniping only)

Gauss: 22,277 (Sniping only)

1. How did you get 39.6k DPM for Shaft's sniping shots? It takes four seconds to fully zoom in (otherwise max damage will not be dealt) and three seconds for the energy meter to recharge after being fully depleted. So the effective rate of fire is one shot per seven seconds. This yields about (60 / 7) * 3300 = 28.2k DPM.
2. Railgun has an average critical hit rate of 35.71% (for comparison, Smoky's is 22.73%). This yields about 1150 average damage per shot. The reload time including the charge up is 3.7 seconds, yielding (60 / 3.7) * 1150 = 18.6k DPM.
3. Scout and LCR are in my experience far more common than stock Railgun. 90% of the time if I see a Railgun user they have one of those augments equipped. I think it's good to take them into consideration too. Both of these augments are available for crystals.
4. Railgun has a very high critical hit rate, while Shaft and Gauss's charged shots never deal critical damage and require a charge up (and in Shaft's case, sitting still for four seconds). I don't know how useful it is to compare them.
5. Smoky and Thunder are not effective at the ranges Railgun is, and they have lower alpha damage.

Taking this into consideration . . .

• Smoky: 25.5k
• Thunder: 24k
• Shaft (fully zoomed): 28.2k
• Gauss (charged): 22.3k
• Stock Railgun: 18.6k
• Scout: 19.1k
• LCR: 15.7k

Regardless, DPM is not the most important statistic for high single-shot damage turrets. I cannot emphasize this enough. In typical battle conditions you do not sit there and continuously shoot one tank over and over again. There's a reason LCR is so much more popular than stock, despite having significantly lower DPM. Railgun, in my opinion, is very powerful right now owing to its (1) fairly high alpha damage without no need for a lengthy charge up or lock-on (2) high critical hit damage and high critical hit rate.

Edited April 27, 2021 by ThirdOnion

[alkyng 3,080]

On 4/27/2021 at 8:42 AM, ThirdOnion said:

Railgun has an average critical hit rate of 35.71% (for comparison, Smoky's is 22.73%).

I'm just curios how you calculated it, if you have a free time to explain it to me, because I find it hard.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

On 4/30/2021 at 1:33 AM, asem.harbi said:

I'm just curios how you calculated it, if you have a free time to explain it to me, because I find it hard.

I will probably publish a topic with average critical hit rates for all turrets and augments somewhat soon, and will explain how they are calculated in it.

[Mr.Spark 240]

Watch this video about Hyper Space Round:)

I’m going to buy it on Tanki’s Birthday sale

350000 billion damage if you penetrate 39 tanks in DM

with booster and Viking OD, it’ll be more

[Akame 4,578]

9 hours ago, Mr.Spark said:

Watch this video about Hyper Space Round:)

I’m going to buy it on Tanki’s Birthday sale

350000 billion damage if you penetrate 39 tanks in DM

with booster and Viking OD, it’ll be more

Well yeah, that can reach high numbers, but the chances you get 4 players lined up or higher is fairly low.

The damage value may have changed a bit though, also with the new bd system etc.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Akame

[Mr.Spark 240]

19 hours ago, Akame said:

Well yeah, that can reach high numbers, but the chances you get 4 players lined up or higher is fairly low.

The damage value may have changed a bit though, also with the new bd system etc.

I’m going to use it in Siege and Assault 

[Blutaar 1,904]

6 minutes ago, At_Shin said:

I agree 100% with you on that. 

The developers must think about buffing up this augment for, currently it can only EMP the target for 10 seconds. 10 Seconds? What is that? Why so less? I think it should at least be 20 seconds right?
I propose to increase the critical chance back to 50%, but wait, why stop there - it's already so weak, let's buff it up to 70% critical chance like destabilized plasma.
Also, The critical damage should be increased by at least 100%, because currently it is too weak, just as you have said.

And while we are at it, why not remove the shot delay altogether so that the gun fires right when you hit the space bar?
 I believe that after these changes the augment would be strong and useful.  

Who cares for game balance, right lads?

To be honest I cannot agree with your points at all; increasing critical chances, damage, shot delay... what?? Your arguments do not make any sense at all, they will make the augment incredibly unbalanced and form it into something brokenly... underpowered.
With the large amount of Falcon and Armadillo users, you think increasing damage will help? Think again. And to add, the EMP-effect is really underwhelming due to the large amount of EMP-immunities in the game as well, especially due to past challenges. Rather than above points, I would suggest to add the stun-effect to it's shots: that way it is always guaranteed that your opponent will receive at least one status-effect, plus it adds more variety to the augment, making gameplay more diverse and exciting 

Spoiler

 

[enri_chill 135]

The stun augment on railgun needs to be reduced at least a half second or more. Just played a match and it is way too long. Not sure how long it actually lasts, but I was dead (with 48% reduction) in two shots. First shot stun. Before I am able to move second shot killed. 3-4 times in a match. It was crazy.

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

32 minutes ago, enri_chill said:

 Not sure how long it actually lasts

5 seconds. 

32 minutes ago, enri_chill said:

The stun augment on railgun needs to be reduced at least a half second or more. 

Needs to be 3 seconds at most. Ideally something like this should have a low crit chance, but then again, it's Railgun, the special turret.

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by TheCongoSpider

[Newnewnew 92]

I heard high caliber rounds are pretty good. The thing im most interested about it is that though there are protections against railgun, not many people have protection against critical damage. If I had high caliber rounds, i would be doing massive damage to ppl on regular shots and on critical hits. Should I buy?

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

12 minutes ago, Newnewnew said:

I heard high caliber rounds are pretty good. The thing im most interested about it is that though there are protections against railgun, not many people have protection against critical damage. If I had high caliber rounds, i would be doing massive damage to ppl on regular shots and on critical hits. Should I buy?

I would recommend Adrenaline instead. 

[Newnewnew 92]

4 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

I would recommend Adrenaline instead. 

could i ask why?

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

34 minutes ago, Newnewnew said:

could i ask why?

The firing rate of Large Calibre Rounds isn't enough to justify the increased damage it gets, compared to Railgun's Adrenaline. You are punished much more leniently than LCR when you miss. 

[Newnewnew 92]

17 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

The firing rate of Large Calibre Rounds isn't enough to justify the increased damage it gets, compared to Railgun's Adrenaline. You are punished much more leniently than LCR when you miss. 

ok. is scout accelerator a good idea?

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

13 minutes ago, Newnewnew said:

ok. is scout accelerator a good idea?

It is.

[Newnewnew 92]

3 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

It is.

oke

[LambSauce 1,884]

20 hours ago, Newnewnew said:

I heard high caliber rounds are pretty good. The thing im most interested about it is that though there are protections against railgun, not many people have protection against critical damage. If I had high caliber rounds, i would be doing massive damage to ppl on regular shots and on critical hits. Should I buy?

Disclaimer: @TheCongoSpider is an Adrenaline augment fanatic.

[Mr.Spark 240]

Railgun will be Overpowered:D