Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

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mr.WHO
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Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 3. Jun 23, 16:00

This is absolutely rudiculous and make Mass Driver even more useless weapon.


Been testing 4x Ion Pulse Railgun on Hydra vs 4x Mass Driver on Nemesis


Boron Railgun:
+ nearly 2x the dammage of Mass Driver
+ 4 salvo make it near overheat, but still enough buffer to wait for cooling down
+ very flexible and fast gimbal tha allow you to snipe everything from surface elements to fast fighters
+ relatively good range

- limted to Boron Hydra and Tresher


Mass Driver:
- low dammage (I couldn't even piece Okinawa one engine shields, before it overheats, and then shields regenerate faster than the weapon cooldown)
- 2 salvo make it overheat into abbysmal long cooldown.
- non existent gimbal, that make you miss even the L-size freighter (forget about targeting any surface elements)
- uselss zoom that is more confusing than any help (with this dammage, this heatsink and this gimbal, what you even snipe? unshielded Elite?)

+ Very goof range, but again this advantage is useless to any practical application.
+ it can be mounted on everything non-Boron


Please, for god sake make the gimbal more flexible (on Boson and Meson as well!) and heat sink more forgiving as well.

Repli
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Repli » Sat, 3. Jun 23, 19:54

Hey,
well, there was a bug no long time ago, where those weapons generated no heat at all, you just had the cooldown between each shots. This was really fun, even without gimbal, because missed shots were not that terrible. But most people seemed to feel uncomfortable with these now powerful and fun weapons (for a price tag higher than destroyer mainbatteries), because it was reported immediately :D
I am truly sad, that this got fixed.

Sassbarman
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Sassbarman » Sat, 3. Jun 23, 21:58

I guess you could consider it failed technology. Agree though that the Boron railgun is pretty amazing especially after adding some mods.

Caedes91
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Caedes91 » Sun, 4. Jun 23, 00:11

Mass-driver: free

Boron railgun: 15$

Ain't no way, that a DLC weapon can be worse than a basegame weapon. Except for Terrans, whose also paywalled weapons are mostly copy-paste or not present outright by lacking flak or plasma and missile alternatives.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Nanook » Sun, 4. Jun 23, 06:54

Caedes91 wrote:
Sun, 4. Jun 23, 00:11
Mass-driver: free

Boron railgun: 15$

Ain't no way, that a DLC weapon can be worse than a basegame weapon. Except for Terrans, whose also paywalled weapons are mostly copy-paste or not present outright by lacking flak or plasma and missile alternatives.
So, you bought the Boron DLC just for the railgun?? There's no other content in it that's worth the $15? :P That seems to be what you're implying. That's an odd way to think of it. :gruebel:
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by jlehtone » Sun, 4. Jun 23, 19:27

Each DLC has other content in addition to the ships and guns. The ships and guns can be worse, equal, or better than in the base game. If they are equal, then they can be either "copy-paste", or refreshingly different.

It is obviously quite subjective, how we value the other content compared to the ships and guns in the DLC. Nevertheless, a DLC that is known to have worse ships and guns (than base/previous bits) does not look as exciting purchase regardless of the other content. Who would want to get "absolute A$$" DLC? Even the equal, particularly the "copy-paste" content, can get "meh" reviews.

The base game is not free, so it is not totally fair to call it "free".


One has to ask: were the Mass Drivers what they are now already before you saw the Borons? Or, did they feel "ok" before?



One can use modding to "rebalance" the Boron weapon specs to bring them on the level of Mass Drivers, if the vanilla Borons ruin your fun.
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 4. Jun 23, 19:48

It's not Boron Railgun that is a problem, it Mass Driver that is the one - comparing to anything it has almost no practical application.

Some players reported they use it in niche and quirky way combined with missiles, so that AI controlled ships stay at long range - it never worked for me, so eve this is useless.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by chew-ie » Sun, 4. Jun 23, 19:58

tbh I never really used those "special weapons" beyond trying them out. Either they are way over the top or plain useless. Personally, I see no place for them in my game which is about "balanced" fleet combat. If the AI would solely rely on them I'd go nuts.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by m_csquare » Mon, 5. Jun 23, 20:27

it's a very niche wpn, mainly for taking out station turrets from safe distance. The problem is it's almost impossible to actually hit the target from 3km++ away
I'm lost in space.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by mr.WHO » Mon, 5. Jun 23, 20:39

m_csquare wrote:
Mon, 5. Jun 23, 20:27
it's a very niche wpn, mainly for taking out station turrets from safe distance. The problem is it's almost impossible to actually hit the target from 3km++ away
How it's even possible to take anyting other than maybe a weak medium turret? Everything else seems to have higher shield recharge rate than cooldown as you can't drop shields with just two salvos.

Ohh, I think medium turrets are out of question as well, coz they are too small, so if you use 4xMass Driver then the gimbals of those 4 won't be able to focus on the turret, but all around it :(

I'd love to use MD as sniper weapon, but it's sux completely as long range precision weapon.

The only niche application that is somewhat working is anti M-size ship sniping as they are big and slow enough for gimbal to actually focus from long range.
Still there are other much more effective and flexible anti-M-ship weapons.
Last edited by mr.WHO on Mon, 5. Jun 23, 21:54, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Nanook » Mon, 5. Jun 23, 21:03

Yeah, if the current mass-drivers worked the same as in X3, they'd be useful. In X3, they were short-ranged, but bypassed shields completely. And they also required ammo, which means that the current so-called 'mass-drivers' are more likely 'energy-drivers'. :sceptic:
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by sh1pman » Mon, 5. Jun 23, 23:24

It’s a noob trap / troll weapon. They see a very expensive gun, thinking it must be amazing. They save up, grind the rep for it, eventually buy it, aaaand… it’s a useless piece of trash.

Actually it’s even worse later on. Paranid factions order ships equipped with MDs from player wharfs, wasting tons of Weapon Components and Advanced Electronics without getting any benefit for their combat effectiveness.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Nanook » Tue, 6. Jun 23, 01:05

sh1pman wrote:
Mon, 5. Jun 23, 23:24
...
Actually it’s even worse later on. Paranid factions order ships equipped with MDs from player wharfs, wasting tons of Weapon Components and Advanced Electronics without getting any benefit for their combat effectiveness.
Which is easily avoided by simply not buying the blueprints for it. 8) Unless, of course, that's your evil plan all along. Teladi always say, "wasted resourcessss means more profitssss." :eg:
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by THE_TrashMan » Wed, 7. Jun 23, 14:36

Nanook wrote:
Mon, 5. Jun 23, 21:03
Yeah, if the current mass-drivers worked the same as in X3, they'd be useful. In X3, they were short-ranged, but bypassed shields completely. And they also required ammo, which means that the current so-called 'mass-drivers' are more likely 'energy-drivers'. :sceptic:
I want ammo back. I want good-old fashioned kinetics back. :cry:
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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Feloidea » Wed, 7. Jun 23, 18:00

Mass Drivers would make for pretty amazing turrets. Turrets would eliminate the issue of the Mass Drivers' poor accuracy due to not being gimbal mounted and they would make for pretty decent turrets with long range and incredibly fast projectile velocity but without being too high damage to make them overpowered. These would be an excellent choice for M turret slots on M sized support ships for small but consistent longrange firepower, or as anti-S fighter sniper turrets on L+ sized ships.

Maybe even give the Paranids an upscaled version as a faction specific destroyer main battery alternative.


*Sigh* ... one can dream.

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Re: Mass-Driver an absolute A$$ comparing to Boron Railgun

Post by Genoscythe » Fri, 9. Jun 23, 10:59

I find the boron railgun is the only redeeming feature for the boron M weapons to be honest. It's the single best gun in this game in my opinion. 4x purple mod railguns can one shot an S, meaning you can pick these fighters off from huge distance super easy or just shoot turrets off an L/XL without being in range.

I find spinal weapons generally very bad in this game (with exception of the XL fusion ray). They need microgimballing, allowing them to "stick" to a target or its lead indicator with a tolerance of 1 or 0,5 degrees. Elite Dangerous solved this problem for fixed weapons in 2015.

Some ships have hardpoints so far off the center reticule that it is impossible for the AI to hit ships with it, they are also maximally incompetent with these guns, firing them too early before even being properly pointing at the target. Very frustrating overall. And why is there no proper zoom function for weapons with such range is crazy, even X2 had the visual augmentation module.

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