I think the FG has better damage than the rail turret for the simple reason that the FG is carried by a merc that will be OHK by any rail turret, while the tank/installation, will take, on the average, 3 hits to kill. Breach FG, with the longest charge time, also renders the wielder immobile while it's charging/charged making them an easy target.

Reducing the FG damage by 50% will result in the FG getting few to no kills as by the time the FG wielder fires 4 shots and reloads, the tank is usually out of range for the 5th shot. BTW... FG range is 300.

Disregarding militia vehicles, there is no AV weapon that can OHK a HAV except, maybe, an officer breach if there is one. However, a direct hit by a rail turret always results in a OHK against any infantry, even heavies.

Base charge times for forge guns, between each shot, are...

Assault: 2.5sec
Standard: 3.5sec
Breach: 6sec

Large rail turret base times are...

Regulated/Standard: .3sec charge with a 1sec fire interval. Regulated has better tracking.
Compressed: .3sec charge with a 2.2sec fire interval.

So let's compare how many shots the large rail turret fires based on optimal base charge and fire of one shot from a FG if the two pulled the trigger at the same time.

Regulated/Standard Rail vs Assault FG: 3 shots.
Regulated/Standard Rail vs Standard FG: 4 shots.
Compressed Rail vs Breach FG: 3 shots.

The dynamic changes a bit if you go with the average of 3 forge shots to kill an HAV. I'll try to take into account managing heat on the rail turret.

Regulated/Standard Rail vs Assault FG: 6 shots.
Regulated/Standard Rail vs Standard FG: 8 shots.
Compressed Rail vs Breach FG: 8 shots.

So, when it comes to damage output over time, large rail tanks are way above FG not to mention that large rail turrets have twice the range of a FG.

Well I did have to use the data available to me which would be the specs from the in game info screens themselves. Those show a .3 second charge to the first shot that the rail turret fires with a 1 second refire rate. That's base. Still, changing the refire to 1.8, the rail turret still out damages a comparable forge gun when you put it down to damage over time. And I remind you that a rail turret is more accurate than a FG and will OHK any infantry, including a heavy. I do know that the LG rail turret works the same as the rail installations and they do fire their first shot at the end of the initial charge cycle, the second shot is fired at the end of the refire timer.

Am fine with pilots wanting to use cpu/pgrid for more ehp if they can fit the mods, not fine at all buffing ehp arbitrally. HAV is, lets face it, a crutch after all no point in throwing random boosts on them.

Damage mods... Yeah...

Forge Gun Skills

Forge Gun Operation: Max 25% reduction to charge time.
Forge Gun Proficiency: Max 15% damage bonus.

Forge Gun Modules

Basic Heavy Damage Modifier: 3% damage bonus. (high slot)
Enhanced Heavy Damage Modifier: 5% damage bonus. (high slot)
Complex Heavy Damage Modifier: 10% damage bonus. (high slot)

Amarr Heavy Dropsuits

Basic
Frame A-1: 1 high, 2 low. 810 base EHP
Frame A/1-Series: 2 high, 2 low. 810 base EHP
Frame ak.0: 2 high, 3 low. 810 base EHP

Sentinel
Sentinel A-1: 1 high, 2 low. 810 base EHP
Sentinel A/1-Series: 1 high, 3 low. 810 base EHP
Sentinel ak.0: 1 high, 4 low. 810 base EHP

Turret Skills

Turret Operation: Max 10% damage bonus.
Large Hybrid Turret Operation: Max 5% damage bonus.

Hybrid Turret Modules

Large Hybrid Modules
High Throughput Field Stabilizer I: 7% damage bonus and 2% increase to rate of fire. (low slot)
HT Linear Flux Stabilizer: 8% damage bonus and 3% increase to rate of fire. (low slot)
High Throughput Field Stabilizer II: 10% damage bonus and 5% increase to rate of fire. (low slot)

Systemic Hybrid Modules (Affects both small and large hybrid turrets)
Systemic Field Stabilizer I: 3% damage bonus and 2% increase to rate of fire. (low slot)
Systemic Vortex Stabilizer: 4% damage bonus and 3% increase to rate of fire. (low slot)
Systemic Field Stabilizer II: 6% damage bonus and 5% increase to rate of fire. (low slot)

Fire Control System: 10% reduction to spool up time. (low slot)
Asynchronous Fire Control: 14% reduction to spool up time. (low slot)
Fire Control System II: 19% reduction to spool up time. (low slot)

Conscript Heat Sink: 10% reduction to heat build up. (low slot)
Modified Extruded Heat Sink: 14% reduction to heat build up. (low slot)
Vented Heat Sink: 19% reduction to heat build up. (low slot)

Active Heat Sink I: 20% reduction to heat build up. (high slot)
Azeotripic Coolant Pump: 36% reduction to heat build up. (high slot)
Active Heat Sink II: 52% reduction to heat build up. (high slot)

HAVs

Gunlogi: 5 high, 2 low. 4500 base EHP
Madrugar: 2 high, 5 low. 4750 base EHP
Falchion: 5 high, 2 low. 4432 base EHP
Vayu: 3 high, 5 low. 4672 base EHP

Let's do this as a hypothetical where both players are going for maximum damage output over 4 shots so no reload or overheat and using a two damage mod maximum.

Max skilled Forge Gunner.
Amarr Heavy Frame ak.0: 2 high, 3 low. 810 base EHP
Kaalakiota: 1584.0 (2138.4) damage, 3.5 (2.625) sec charge time.
Ishukone Assault Forge Gun: 1663.2 (2245.32) damage, 2.5 (1.875) sec charge time.
Wiyrkomi Breach Forge Gun: 2773.0 (3743.55) damage, 6 (4.5) second charge (immobilized)
Complex Damage Mod x2: 20% damage bonus. (stacking penalty not included)
Total Bonus:

Kaalakiota: 8553.6 damage, 10.5 seconds. = 814.629 damage per second.
Ishukone Assault Forge Gun: 8981.28 damage, 7.5 seconds. = 1197.504 damage per second.
Wiyrkomi Breach Forge Gun: 14974.2 damage, 18 seconds (immobilized) = 831.9 damage per second.

Max Skilled Tanker.
Vayu: 3 high, 5 low. 4672 base EHP
80GJ Regulated/Particle Cannon: 1438.9 (1942.515), .3 second spool, 1.8 (1.62) second refire.
80GJ Compressed Particle Cannon: 1798.7(2428.245), .3 second spool, 2.2 (1.98) second refire.
High Throughput Field Stabilizer II x2 20% damage bonus, 10% refire rate reduction. (stacking penalty not included)
Total Bonus: 35% damage bonus, 10% refire rate reduction.

80GJ Regulated/Particle Cannon: 7770.06, 5.16 seconds. = 1505.826 damage per second
80GJ Compressed Particle Cannon: 9712.98, 6.24seconds. = 1556.567 damage per second

So, as you can see proven via math, even with the fitting of only two damage mods each, the lowest proto rail turret still out DPSs the most powerful proto FG. If you still want to argue overheat vs reload, we can always drag out the passive and active heat sinks for your tank turrets.

Oh. And you always seem to forget that Rails have double the range of Forges and OHK even the most tanked out heavy.

How you fit a tank is your choice, just because you don't fit two damage mods, doesn't mean you can't. Besides, the top proto sentinel suits only have one high so their bonuse would be halved still giving the rail tank the DPS advantage.

You obviously don't have experience as a heavy FG wielder in an infantry encounter. The majority of the time, the FG wielder dies in a close encounter with infantry. If I ever get to where I can OHK proto fit rail tank, without having to worry about getting OHKed by said tank, then I'll concede that you have a valid point. Till then, while I'm highly vulnerable to every battlefield threat, and my chosen target takes three or more shots to take down, you've got nothing to stand on.

So you're implying that there's some fitting nutzi standing over every tanker's shoulder every time they go to fitting to make sure it's fit just so with no variation allowed. Or do you mean to imply that the tanks come pre-fit and no alterations are allowed? It looked to me that it was always the tankers choice how to fit their tanks good or bad.

The Forge is meant to take down heavy armored vehicles. That you and your buddy teamed up on a tank and took it out is great. I'm usually the only FG alternative to AV grenades and swarms in the matches I've played in. So if a Forge, even a militia one, shouldn't be killing tanks, then nothing should kill tanks and the entire match should just be a free fire shooting gallery for tankers. Thankfully, it's not like that.

People keep saying this, without any justification.

While a tank can be operated solo, I see no valid game balance reason why infantry shouldn't be able to kill them solo.

As I see it, you have three options here:-

1. Provide a game balance justification for your statement that people should not be soloing tanks
2. Accept that game balance requires 1 player in a tank to be about equal to 1 player not in a tank, and soloing is OK
3. Require multiple people to operate a tank, and the same number of people to counter it

Option 3 means infantry can't solo a tank (which is what you want) but we still have a balanced game. It is clearly the best option as far as I'm concerned.

Am I missing something here? The only times I see an av nade take out a tank is on the milltia variants. If your multimillion dollar tanks are getting destroyed by av nades, your doing it wrong. Also lol at av nades being an "exploit".