i will back this change for one added suggestion. charge time decreases the longer the trigger is held. for the rest of the number changes i think i could live with it.

Tactical rr?

Sounds like a new variant. And an epic one at that.

Tactical rr?

One point of contention I wish to address. I am sure people will say that "this sounds like a tactical rail rifle!" and I wish to nip this thought in the bud. No, it is not functioning like a tactical weapon anymore than the bolt pistol is. Tactical weapons in this game are semi-auto, as in 1 shot per trigger pull. This weapon is automatic, firing off shots until the magazine is empty or the trigger is released. Thus it is still a breach type weapon, slow ROF and high per-shot damage. We are simply emphasizing these traits.

This is exactly how I pictured a Rail Rifle.
This is ideal.

But you will HAVE to implement it as a variant... and it will have to be called a "Tactical Rail Rifle". A Breach weapon excels at close range, and this is NOT a close range weapon.

You will upset the peons a bit too much if you changed the standard RR to this mechanic. This is not a tweak, it is a complete redesign.

Why not make it a complete Tactical weapon? Make it semi-auto. It can shoot as fast as necessary, but it is in a constant Charge state.
Basically, it will fire on demand, but it will do more damage per shot if it is allowed to charge.
With a damage drop-off of say.... -67% if the weapon is repeatedly fired without being fully charged.

(Shaving 67% off the damage drops its power back to just under standard RR output.)

I disagree. Like the OP noted, a breach weapon is a High damage, low ROF weapon. The relationship between CQC and Breach weapons is due to correlation, not causation.

As a Pure Caldari loyalist, I must disagree with this proposal. It would limit the new mercenaries of the born in the State by making their front line militia suit into a sniper-esq fitting.

I'd prefer this just be a tactical variant with one noteable difference - the tac rr must spool down after each shot.

So your round fires immediately on trigger press but then you have to wait for the capacitor to refill for the next shot.

So just a slow fire rate?

Pretty much, but semi auto.

Semantics.
Along the way, many players have associated "breach" with "breaching a fortified position in cqc (albeit erroneously).
Did you have a point, or do you simply just not like the Tactical suggestion?

So the RR has long been a source of controversy. First its OP, currently considered UP, and the balancing measures have simply brought it from slightly OP to outright awful. So let's look at Caldari philosphy and how we can bring about a new RR that better follows Caldari philosophy and is balanced.

First, let's establish what Caldari philosophy is. Caldari are run by several megacorporations which control all aspects of society. Caldari are very strict and disciplined, but citizens who can follow the rules can have very pleasant lives. Militarily, Caldari favor having lots of shields over armor, and prefer missiles and railguns when engaging in battle. They like to kill their opponents before they can get in range to be a threat. They are all about efficiency; as the smallest empire, they simply don't have the numbers or resources to throw away ships and men. Thus, they want to make every shot count, sice less shots fired means less money spent on ammo, and favoring shields means less money spent on repairing armor.

Now, let's look at the RR and modify it into a weapon that fits this philosophy. First off, the RR is automatic. This not only goes against Caldari philosphy (make every shot count) but also makes it more useful in CQC than is intended. automatic weapons simply perform well up close unless you take extreme measures like the current hipfire kick. Next, the charge timer is crazy long, which is ideal for slow firing weapons like the bolt pistol, but hinders damage application even at long range because the enemy has that much more time to escape and evade the soon to be incoming damage. So let's make the RR function like the bolt pistol.

These changes assume proto level. Let's increase the damage of each individual shot. I'm gonna set it at 145.83. Rails are supposed to hit very hard, so this high damage makes sense lore-wise. We will be lowering the ROF to 150 RPM, which mathematically gives a DPS of 364.6. This is 47 DPS lower than it is now. We will decrease magazine size to 16, for a total damage/mag of 2333.28. We will also reduce the charge time to 0.25 seconds again. We will also increase the range to 90m. We will reduce hipfire kick considerably in light of the lower ROF. We will reduce the total ammo to 96 (1 in the gun, 5 in reserve)

Now, here is where we do our big change. Let's make the RR (the base RR) function like the bolt pistol. It should shoot faster and hit softer than the bolt pistol, but the function should be the same. Charge up for each shot, hit hard, shoot slow. Now, from what I understand, the charge time is not factored in to the DPS calculation with ROF. So DPS would be even lower than the theoretical 350 DPS. What this does is give the RR a solid niche: long range killing. The very low DPS (about 80 DPS less than the AR, even lower if you include the charge time) combined with the slow ROF, means this weapon will be pretty ineffective in CQC, without needing comical measures like the current hipfire kick. In exchange for the lower DPS, we have increased it's range, to further emphasize its long range functionality. It will now take far fewer shots to kill an AR user, but that AR user will get in far more shots on the RR user, thus killing him. I will now demonstrate a white room scenario.

Criteria: race to deplete 800 health. We will use proto level gear, the RR proposed and the Duvolle AR. Efficiencies will be ignored for the purposes of this scenario.

RR: fires 145.83 damage at one shot every 0.65 seconds (ROF + charge time) takes 6 shots to kill the target (145.83 x 6 is 874.98 damage) at 0.65 seconds between shots, we get a TTK of 3.9 seconds.

AR: fires 33.99 every 0.075 seconds (800 RPM) It takes 24 shots to kill the target (24 shots deal 815.76 damage) with this, we get a TTK of 1.9 seconds (24/0.075) a full 2 seconds more than the proposed RR.

This is how it should be. The RR loses to the Ar mathematically, not through some gimmick like insane hipfire kick. This does not mean that the RR is completely useless in CQC, it can indeed be used in close quarters effectively. However, the other weapons are MORE effective than the RR in close quarters. No rifle should be completely useless up close. There should only be better options for CQC. These changes mean that the RR has a better hold on its niche, it means we can reduce the insane hipfire kick, and it means that the Caldari RR will better follow Caldari philosophy.

One point of contention I wish to address. I am sure people will say that "this sounds like a tactical rail rifle!" and I wish to nip this thought in the bud. No, it is not functioning like a tactical weapon anymore than the bolt pistol is. Tactical weapons in this game are semi-auto, as in 1 shot per trigger pull. This weapon is automatic, firing off shots until the magazine is empty or the trigger is released. Thus it is still a breach type weapon, slow ROF and high per-shot damage. We are simply emphasizing these traits.

Spreadsheet of changes

Alena,

I whole heartedly disagree with your proposal, particualry advocating that it should be the base form of RR.

You are spot on in your assessment that the RR has been a continual source of friction. I also agree that the base concept of the weapon is flawed.

The weapon you are describing is not a general purpose combat weapon by any stretch. The RR is simply too niche of a weapon now and what you propose would further exacerbate that.

To be direct, it honestly just doesn't sound fun to play with on a day in and day out basis either from my individual perspective. Nor does it seam like it would be useful enough in the varied battlefield of Dust. Could I see some of this as a Tac RR...perhaps. As the base weapon for an entire racial line, absolutely not.

I do think the base Caldari weapons were not thought out well. From a lore perspective and Eve tie in it would have made more sense for the Cal weapon to be the "tactical" option and the Amarr to be the "breach" option but that's for a different discussion.

Perhaps we can find other potential solutions...SCR is an exceptional weapon and I think it's in a very solid spot right now. Perhaps there is a more simplistic option of using the charge function similar to the SCR but add less alpha damage and increase the range with a charge shot. To be clear, I'm not advocating this as THE definitive alternative but I do think from a simple game balance stand point simple solutions and not gimmicky mechanics work better.

That said, to me the simplest solution for the RR is making the charge mechanic like the rail turrets where you can't pre-charge the weapon or you suffer a major charge time penalty, then you can legitimately lower the charge to about .25, and you keep hip fire recoil as is and noticeably lower the ADS recoil. Keep it with best in class range but worse in class DPS.

I respect your work on the RR and ARR previously but have serious reservations about your proposal. I would be happy to squad up with you and discuss or invite you on the Biomassed podcast for a chat on the air.

I understand where you are coming from and I like the viewpoint but my disagreement with you is in the execution or implementation of it.

You are taking Caldari lore...really Space craft and weapons design...and extrapolating what is the basis of your concept from that. The style of combat you describe is accurate only up to a point and particulalry when you look at similar examples form EVE.

For example...many folks think that Caldari are all about slow rates of fire and long ranges and high accuracy weapons. They would be only partially correct. This is almost purely indicitive of the missle / rocket / torpedo / cruise missile line of weapons which has not much to do with Rail Rifles.

When you compare the hybrid weapons (rail and blaster) there is less clear difference in their design than the one you are describing. First, the RoF for like size rails and blasters is not that far off...in fact, they are pretty close. Some style of rails even have a better RoF than some Blasters. The range and DPS are the true deciding factors. Rails don't track as well in close fight but hit pretty consistently in close conditions with some higher skills and blasters have excellent tracking against highspeed targets in close but have serious downsides in falloff damage.

Another fun fact...any ship in EVE that has bonuses to "Hybrid" weapons apply equally to Rails and Blasters. Cal ships generally get more range bonuses and Gal ships more DPS bonus....might be cool to take a similar approach in Dust.



......OK, enough EVE specifics. The whole concept fo the charge mechanic as we have implemented in the game is simply an off-shoot of folks grasping about for ways to differentiate weapons and actual game play as an afterthought. Having a spool time between each shot on an automatic weapon is just not a good design choice from a practical point of view.

My honest opinion is that we should be bringing the weapons somewhat closer in line with each other while perserving their individual flavor.

You are 100% welcome on the show. If you are available this weekned you've got a spot. As I said, ping me in game and we can squad and discuss as well.