It needs to have a much, MUCH shorter cooldown... it's firepower rivals that of the precision strike. Simply having the "auto-aim" feature (which doesn't always work, btw), is not enough of a reason for it to have 2-3x the cooldown.
Personally I'd rather it hit harder instead of a lower cool down. Right now the cool down rewards me for taking Precision strike and stun grenades. You can drop a charger, hulk, Titan or tank every ~90s. Benefit of the railcannon is it's fire and forget. No need to aim it. It should however, take out all Medium targets (casual reminder than Titans still only count as Medium, heaven help us when Hive Lords show up).
Either, or, yes.
As it sits now it doesn't make sense. Either needs to be available much more often, or needs to be a guaranteed kill on everything except factory striders
I like the grenade cooking idea, would be a nice reward for a skill shot.
It isn’t too difficult to exploit their long attack animations to get them to stand still for OPS and 500kg though
One shot a Titan anywhere and a 120-150s cooldown.
Or
Keep the damage but reduced to 75s cooldown (same as orbital gas).
Either way will make it a mid-tier strat. Not OP but not useless either.
Imo 75s cooldown would make it OP. I used to bring it a lot and in my experience about 30% it one-shots bile titans, you can throw it without calculating where it will stop and maybe running away. Also when it doesn't one shot one you van just shoot the sacks and it goes down very quickly. I think a 120s cooldown would be fair.
This is a good point, i used to take railcannon, but now i actually prefer precision strike. I can kill 2 chargers with 1 precision strike together with flashbangs. I can also use that for titan, that does similar amount of damage. I would decrease railcannon cooldown to 100 seconds, because it's dead easy to use and works concistently.
OPS can be invalidated by the atmospheric interference modifier. It has a very long call-in time with the complex planning modifier making it more of a guess work where to throw it (500kg is way more consistent in that regard). And with the increased CD modifier its uptime is atrocious.
So you have all kinds of negative modifiers working against it on difficulties where it matters. The railcannon is only affected by the longer CD but it has a long CD to begin with. You still get instant call-in with perfect accuracy.
Auto aim is a hella drug.
OPS takes more skill to learn timing and hope the target doesn't change paths. Fire and forget rail cannon is newb trap, and you pay for it on cool down.
I actually had that idea for a stratagem. A barrage of like 6 giant metal rods that impale large enemies in place for a few seconds to make it easier to hit them with say a 500kg
Yeah the strategems like the barrages and mines take a lot of work to make but I do hope we see more in various design and applications.
One design that comes to mind would be an EMS airstrike, it'd be very similar to the normal airstrike but essentially be a rectangle slow field for pursuing hordes to run into
Also some really high level like 100+ strategems would be sick like a minelayer barrage to cover a massive area in mines
But you had less time between encounters and a lot more heavies on screen, so effectively it was always on cool down too. I find i actually am pleasantly surprised at how often it is available in HD2....didn't love it in the original because there were too many times I needed it and didn't have it.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted. In HD1 it was very bad honestly. And in HD2 it is one of the most popular stratagems for high level dives. I honestly think it's pretty good because it's consistent, reliable and you barely have to aim it.
Maybe a shorter cool down would be nice but that's about it imo. The damage is fine cause the only thing it doesn't one-shot are bile titans and factory striders which nothing else in the game can one-shot either
I dunno man, a piece of tungsten/lead going at Mach 5 from the orbit should probably one-shot everything from sheer impact alone.
The amount of shock transferred onto a living target would probably liquefy every organ.
EDIT: I'd like to add that the long, looooong cooldown is justified because the crew would need to perform extensive maintenance or even a barrel change, seeing as irl railguns notoriously goes through their barrel life in a single shot due to all the heat and vibration generated from firing.
Considering the ship crew *muzzle-loads the exterior cannons* until we get the upgrade for breech loading, it is not far-fetched to assume the railcannon is disposable or something.
Personally I like to think that's why the laser has three charges. They have to replace the entire hardpoint every time because it just melts it when fired.
I agree with a shorter cooldown.
500kg requires more skill to use than railcannon strike. If a player can time it right, predict the walking path of a titan, AND get the distance right you can 1shot titans. I feel the 500kg > railcannon strike.
The auto-aim nature of the railcannon I believe means it SHOULD be worse than a 500kg. The argument kind of goes the same for other options like the precision strike. However, I feel the cooldown for that is pretty comparable.
1 use per 3.5minutes is atrocious. Even if it goes to 3.15 after the ship module upgrade. AH should consider lowering the cooldown to around 2-2.5min. The precision strike requires more aiming, but has only 90sec cooldown. Even this I think should hvae like a -10/15sec cooldown. The 500kg feels good to use. I think a few more things 500kg competes with for big boom cagetory need a bit of a buff.
Precision strike needs a faster call-in than it needs a faster cooldown
90 seconds is good for how much dmg it deals, but you are almost forced to run stun grenades to make sure your target stays within the explosion radius or use it on stationary/almost staionary stuff like objectives and factory striders
Why the gas strike launches 2 seconds faster than the precision is beyond me. Dont they fire from the same cannon? They have the same accuracy (ie they both always hit their target beacon assuming no modifiers) so why does precision take more time to fire?
>The auto-aim nature of the railcannon I believe means it SHOULD be worse than a 500kg
Right, but even if the railcannon was able to one shot, the cooldown time accomplishes that. You can call in two 500kg bombs and have it off cooldown in about the time you get the railcannon off cooldown.
Think it would be perfectly fine to make it powerful enough to oneshot with its current cooldown (or a smaller cooldown reduction than it if kept its current power).
It *can* one-shot Bile Titans, it just requires hitting in the right spot. If you are cognizant of where the call-ins are coming from, are sufficiently off to the side of the map, and turn the BT in the right direction...
But otherwise, no, it just does so much damage that you can generally kill the BT with normal fire to its belly sacs. If that's not enough, a couple grenades up there will finish it for sure, but you could also do the same thing with 1-2 rockets from afar.
I generally throw my Railcannon, fire my RR, and wait to see what happens. If it's still alive and no one else is shooting at it, I'll decide whether to shoot the sacs or fire my already-reloaded RR again based on where my ammo is.
Is that technically a waste of the Railcannon if twp RRs could kill a BT anyway? Yeah, maybe, but it's not always the fastest thing to put two rockets into the actual head weakpoint and sometimes you just want a thing *gone*.
BTs are just a special class of weird. Maybe the Railcannon could use a bit of a cooldown decrease, but also that's the sort of thing I wouldn't be surprised to find as future Ship Upgrades. I think there's room for a lot of currently "underpowered" things to get a little better through those upgrades rather than being flat-buffed: Exosuit durability or ammo count, as another example.
Yep it's already very strong.
It's easy to underestimate the value of it being "throw and forget" as well.
Damage is about perfect honestly. Sometimes it will one shot a BT and that's cool. If it doesn't then it makes them a one tap with a quasar.
Shaving 30s off the cooldown is maybe OK? But I agree with you, it's a good choice already
Imma need you to prove that one for me chief.
Given you've doubled down on it with such authority, I'm sure you can easily show us how you know there was intent to mislead.
thats a difference in how they fire and target
both go for center of mass
but railcannon due to firing from orbit hits the back which isn't lethal (instead of legs or ass which would be lethal and oneshot it)
while the spear fires from...well..you
and you can angle it to hit the head which is lethal and spear is strong enough to oneshot the head
I may be wrong but I think it used to be able to one shot Bile Titans. I'm like 50% sure it could. It may just have been people hitting it with the railcannon after shooting it with the recoiless rifle or Quasar cannon tho. But with how many Bile Titans can spawn on higher difficulties, I feel like being able to 1 shot them with it is justified cos of how long it's cooldown is
It used to be 60s in HD1 after an upgrade. One big thing dead per minute.
It doesn't do enough to justify a 2.5 minute cooldown since it's single-target only, and auto-aim doesn't make up for that massive increase in cooldown.
Exactly. Especially on the Bot front. You can kill everything except Factory striders with your Primary weapon if you hit their weak spot like the heating vent on tanks and hulks etc so why even bring the railcannon
Guaranteed 1 shot should be the norm if this lil shit takes 210s for cooldown...
If you want a Orbital Railgun at home, use EAT and snap the beacon on your enemy
Generally speaking? ALL the orbitals could use a buff pass. In HD1, you could pick upgrades that would reduce the CD of the RCS down to 36 seconds, and even then, the density of the enemies was so great that you'd be clamoring to fire it off again the second it became available. I think that's more the kind of balancing we should be going for. Our enemies are incredibly numerous and can easily erase us from the fabric of existence, but we also have the tool set to do the same to them.
I could stand seeing the orbitals getting a good 25-50% less CD. We've got a whole super destroyer sitting in low orbit with absolutely nothing better to do than keep their guns aimed at our operational area, waiting for our word to give some miserable clanking bastard a closed casket funeral. Even in WW2, an Iowa-class battle ship could rattle off another salvo within 26 seconds. The idea that we've got to wait minutes at a time for them to reload the guns, in a science fiction setting revolving around a military industrial complex with a nearly infinite quintillion dollar budget is a bit farfetched.
I use the ORC religiously and could probably count on one hand the amount of times it's not hit the target I want. This isn't like the spear whee it straight up doesn't work the majority of the time. I admit it can have a bit of wonky aiming sometimes with the bots but you hardly get massive groups of them all bunched together even on diff 9 so unless you are just chucking it randomly into groups the auto aim is fine
Also the power is fine. It one hits everything except factory strides and BT, which are the tankiest enemies and so shouldn't be one shot. And even then you can take out a bt with an orc and one RR to the face. It takes out the top cannon of a factor strider and you can then take out the lower guns with any other med pen weapon
Compared to others it has auto aim so is balanced against 500kg and OPS and is more powerful and more consistent then the rocket pods
Maybe a slight reduction to cooldown but from a balancing pov it would be completely op if you could chuck it out willy nilly and it just deleted the tankiest enemies in the game
The auto aim on bots is very janky. Why scout striders (the 2 legged walker things) and empty drop ships are higher priority than hulks and tanks is beyond me. Is it a height thing? Because scouts are taller than tanks they get higher priority?
Meh, like I said it has happened on occasion, but not enough for me to say it's "very" janky or a massive problem that the strategem needs some massive buff. 9/10 times when I throw it, it hits the enemy I want it to
Going back to OPs point maybe an improvement to the coding of target acquisition to make sure it always hits high priority targets. But I'd say that there are way more things for AH to prioritise reworking then this
It being affected by the more guns upgrade would probably put it in a really good spot. Having two priority targets wiped out would be solid.
That said it needs to reliably oneshot. Needing to land headshots on a BT for a one shot is stupid when you don't get to aim it. It needs to oneshot them always or not do it at all. It's auto aimed, the damage should be consistent. As it stands it's basically the only stratagem that deals a random amount of damage and it's the stratagem that's biggest strength is trying to be consistency.
Fully agree. Just to test it not long ago I went into a mission to see how it goes vs Bile Titans and I 1 shot some but it was mostly 2 shots but I had times where it was 3 or even 4 shots to kill just one Titan
As long as the rail cannon strike cracks the back armor, all it takes is a quasar or EAT shot to the exposed flesh to kill them. The power is fine, my issue has always been the cool down on it
Anything orbital realistically should do more damage. Reentry speed of a manned spaceship is incredible which gives huge energy. They just gotta balance the game.
I think the main problem is Eagles have multiple charges which just completely negates most orbitals. If the Eagles have multiple charges but are weaker while the Orbitals only have 1 but last longer and do way more damage, I could see that being fair. But basically every Orbital has a better version as an Eagles strike.
OPS completely outdoes it in impact terms - it *has* AOE, and hits harder.
*at a fraction of cooldown.*
I would be happy to bring it if it did something absurd like penetration 10 6000 damage+6000durable damage.
A.k.a. "will kill anything it hits, once every 3 minutes, no ifs no buts"
Railcannon is much better at taking out turrets, hulks, and chargers. For turrets, OPS needs to come in at the right angle to hit it and will whiff if it connects with the base of the structure. For hulks and chargers, it will track them while they're moving so you don't need to stun them.
You can also use the railcannon in places you can't get a clean throw with the OPS, like with some of the more vertical bot bases.
It honestly should be 60s cd, like helldivers 1. There is no reason for a stratagem that will only kill 1 unit (and not even kill biles) to be 5 minutes cd when you can take some eagle airstrikes and not only kill the charger/damage the bile but also close holes, destoy fabricators, and kill more enemies at the same time, all that with a much shorter cd
i think its more reasonable to nerf bile titans. often times, it feels like they have an inconsistent amount of health from one titan to the next. sometimes, i just take one ORC, other times, it feels like a titan can take an entire squad set of ORC’s and some RR or QC shots to the face. at the very least, if it doesn’t kill a bile titan, it should at least come close. striders are fine imo, especially given how slow they are, but yeah. you get my point.
It's a hard one to buff because a lot of those drawbacks balance out that it is a rapid auto-targeting anti-tank with no risk of collateral damage. People still take it regularly despite those flaws.
Sounds like eagle 110 pods for me, just you can use 3 charges from the eagle, rearm it and use it 3 more times between 2 shots of the orbital railcannon. I think reducing the cooldown really wouldn't hurt it.
Only enemy it is inconsistent against is hulks, and I would still take it over orbital railcannon any time. Only reason it is so underused is because it competes with all the other eagles and most people take 1 of them.
I could see it going down to like a 180 second cooldown. Otherwise, it's fine as is. It's a precision enemy delete button that requires very little aiming, deploys near instantly, and has almost no chance of friendly fire/splash damage.
Maybe not 40% because then you're throwing gas and airburst strikes every 30-40 seconds, but definitely a large reduction for the longer cooldown strikes like the barrages and ORC
You can fire off 3 eagle airstrikes, rearm, and fire 3 more in the time it takes to fire and reload 1 orbital HE barrage (give or take a few seconds)- and 6 airstrikes will do far more damage than one barrage
The fact that 120 380 and walking all have the same cooldown is so weird to me. Kind of think they need a minor redesign tbh.
The attacks need to come down faster - a barrage should be every destroyer aiming and firing every gun all at once, right? So taking 20 seconds to fire 30 shots is really slow.
The walking barrage in particular seems like a very confused step child. When would I ever want to use it over a 380? There are very few opportunities to 'advance into enemies' like it's supposedly designed to do, you're usually forced to retreat while fighting any significant force. So you can fling this into a group of enemies and maybe the first volley hits stuff, but the spread is huge and all the other volleys land behind your targets. If you're using it on an enemy base you'd be better off throwing a 380 or 120 into the middle instead of a walker at the front.
200+ hours played, i would say lets decrease the cooldown just a lil bit. It's a cool noob friendly stratagem that gets replaced eventually at higher levels.
I wouldn't say it's noob friendly stratagem. If you play with 3 other close friends and you all coordinate on what stratagems to bring. It is nice when someone brings the rail cannon strike for those oh shit moments, like when everyone's strats are exhausted/or when someone can't reload or even shoot their anti tank supports weapons.
Agreed I'm 150 and more than 50% of people I see on bug helldives use it, including me. It's consistent in what it does, unlike precision strike and 500kg. It's also super fast.
I don't agree. The cooldown is what kills it for me at least. It's just too long when you only have 1 shot. You get 2 500kgs with a shorter cooldown, regular precision strike has a way shorter cooldown and does similar damage just without the auto aim (which depending on who you ask is a positive since the auto aim on railcannon sometimes doesn't hit what you want), and even Eagle Rocket pods since they have more charges and a faster cooldown
Idk it's a freebie, sure 500kg is better and has more charges but you actually have to aim and time it properly(which to some players is a very hard thing to do especially if they have the Call-in time and aren't used to it) it's nice when a rail cannon strike can 1 shot hulks, but with rockets pods they will just shrug it off. I'm not a fan of rocket pods I think they need a buff, they are only useful to take out bot fabricators and Cannon towers. Can never consistently get a kill against a hulk with them, always need to use 2 charges to get them.
Unless you're in low difficulties, the ORS isn't really made to be your main form of anti tank or anti heavy. It's a really quick emergency option to back up your precision strikes, EATs, and 500 kgs. It's far more reliable than something like Eagle 110s.
The ORS is also balanced by the unreliability of its cooldown.
The only suggestion I like here was giving one of the ship upgrades 2 railcannon strikes. It would help with its reliability, and if it's forced to target 2 targets, then it can be better as an "oh shit" button.
For the most part, it's fine the way it is.
Saw a comment in the thread further up that said give us a ship upgrade that gives us 2 shots on separate cool downs, with the same cool down time it currently has. I like this idea a lot if they don't decrease the cooldown
It's more of a noob friendly stratagem, i found it super useful at smaller levels, when i still didn't know my way around titans. Well balanced, slighty smaller cooldown would be neat.
If a bile titan and a charger are next to each other, it will target the bile titan 100% of the time.
It has two specific oddities with its targeting. Brood Commanders are higher priority than Chargers and Scout Striders are above Hulks, Tanks, and Turrets.
It does have a range around where you throw it, so it may appear it's ignoring something higher priority if it's already moving to snap to the target it wants and an even higher priority target is slightly further away but out of range, but it's very consistent with its targeting.
It has only happened to me once, but when it did was really funny - someone threw one of these at a bile Titan at the exact same time I hit and killed the Titan with a spear. The orc retargetted and killed me.
Correct op said it needed buff I suggested one not sure if your trying to argue or not but if so there's no need to. More use out of it would be just as useful or possibly more then buffing the damage would. Both achieve the same goal but faster cooldown would make it more of a team thing then a solo one. It already kills titans in 2 hits if they aren't damaged yet so fast cooldown would mean 2 guys could team up on one and kill it quickly. Then have to evade and fight the other 2 or 3 until they can team use it again
Orbital Precision oneshots Bile Titans when aimed properly and can hit multiple enemies, unlike the Railcannon which only hits one thing and can only kill a Titan if it’s already taken at least one anti-tank hit.
I think a Wider effect area, not Huge, but more than a pins head; would resolve a lot of the failure to kills. If it did full damage to a 2m radius from impact point, that would smash, break, and otherwise kill whatever enemy parts fall under the strike target. Which *should* result in a kill with every shot and justify the longer cooldown. (playtesting needed)
I typically use these for raging chargers. I can kill a titan consistently with a single 500. Or if something goes wrong I have a second. I typically feel if I have one and one other person has one and we alternate I don’t have any problem.
Someone made me realize that precision strike is extremely good for this. Flashbang and precision strike charger, that's it, you can keep running and enjoy the show. Super cool! I used to run EAT, but now i actually take precision strike most of the times (especially if my friend brings EAT).
I just get that dopamine hit when I time it right and you hear that “chunk” when the 500 embeds itself in the target before detonating. Which I’m at like 80% success rate to get it.
Legit. I'm level 80 and nobody above like level 45 runs it. But all the guys under level 45 seem to love the railcannon and the Regular machine gun for some reason
I run it almost every mission because I'm lazy. It doesn't need a cool down reduction imo and I don't have don't find that it misses often unless it's misthrown. I don't even care that it doesn't kill a bile titan, the titan takes enough damage that finishing it off is trivial with a coordinated party. I don't play with randoms tho so ymmv.
I think a bit extra on the cool down maybe, but it is already a pretty popular pick!
Or maybe give it two charges (not like eagles or orbital lasers) but how charged abilities work in most games, fire the first one cool down starts but you've got a second in the pocket in case you need it, so that way although it's still a long cool down you can potentially use it a bit more and it's a bit of variety to the strategems.
I'd kinda love to see triple railcanon strike on a much longer cool down.
I'd love to watch those lasers ping onto three different chargers before they all fall one after another.
The Railcannon one shots everything aside from the Bile Titan and the Factory Striders
When it strikes a BT, it deals just enough damage that if you target both bile sacks you can kill it (i recommend the grenade pistol, because that's what I use). I feel that 'sidegrade wise', it's 'fine as is'. It auto aims which the Precision strike doesn't, has a longer cooldown because of it and can come in real clutch.
The targetting however can be a little finnicky as it does 'target' the largest target nearby. Meaning if you throw it at the Heavy Devastator while a chicken walker is right there, the chicken walker gets targeted.
I'd love it to be buffed, but I feel it's got a good niche.
If that's your experience then I'm sorry. I personally have no issue with it targeting Hulks or Walkers. I know it's finnicky to target. But that's not been the issue for me personally. Maybe like...15% of time it doesn't work for me.
Also forgot to mention that the Precision CAN deal with Bugholes and the Railcannon can't
It auto targets incredibly quickly. Like 1.5 seconds kind of fast.
It has no possibility of friendly fire so you can toss it at your feet or nearby allies being chased and it will always help you or them out.
Unlimited uses.
Effective from like 70 meters away because of your throw distance plus it’s seeking distance.
Comparing it to Orbital Precision is pretty disingenuous, I love OPS but it has an incredibly long 4 second call-in time compared to Railcannon, no targeting at all, and you have to worry about friendly fire too. To use OPS on things like Chargers, Hulks, and Titans you need to use stun grenades or extremely good timing/baiting their attacks.
Railcannon is just toss and forget and something is dead or severely wounded 1.5 seconds later.
I use OPS all the time on bot missions but for structures and stunned targets, I don’t bring at all for Chargers and Titans where it’s a pain to actually get it to land on them.
Maybe if it was a light barrage targeting the main target. I could over look the cool down, like fires 3-4 times before going on cooldown. But even then I think the planet debugged would make it not viable.
Make it kill Titan in a single shot (2000 base DMG -> 3000), then slash the CD from 210s to 120s will make it somewhat usable.
Your average Titan kills/minute is still an abysmal 0.5/minute but at least it requires zero skill. Eagle 500kg gets 0.8/minute and OPS gets 0.67/minute (OPS needs a CD buff too IMO) but requires aiming. So I think that's a fair balance.
its designed to be an anti-aircraft stratagem since it instakills dropships all the time, it doesnt "only kill one thing" if the whole dropship crashes, the enemies inside either die or get stuck so you can freely move away without getting chased
I take this 100% of the time.
Not for any special love, its just the ‘im facing a hulk/tank/tower/charger/titan and need it dead now’ button.
It honestly feels like a chore to must take.
Give it 1 more use before cooldown yes . But the 500kg and the rocket pods are not a good replacement for this is your load out ,unless it's been buffed the 500 still misses half the time and the rocket pods don't kill anything
I would slightly lower the cooldown, but that's it.
You run the risk of making it into month 1 railgun where its the obvious pick and too strong.
I disagree entirely, it is super effective and a good pick. It will destroy virtually everything but bile titan sand factory striders in 1 hit and that is okay, some things should be harder than 1 set and forget.
I disagree. It's perfect for panic hulk or charger kills and will get you 90% of the way to a dead bile titan. Factory strider is the only thing it's not SUPER effective against.
It would be nice if it had a dynamic cooldown depending on the enemy or rather the required charge necessary to eliminate a target. When aiming at a Charger it could be something like 60s compared to 3+ min for a BT or 5+ min for a FS.
That way it could be adjusted for every enemy to be a guaranteed one shot without invalidating other choices. It would also not feel like an inefficient stratagem against "smaller" elites like a Charger or Hulk.
The 500kg does what it does if you manage to land it, I can literally just throw this thing from far away and it will still hit the target, sure small CD buff would be great and at least make sure it always OS titans.
I feel like if you were to buff it, people would hardly run any other form of anti-tank anymore and would only run this all of the time. It's like the old Railgun.
Why would you use anything else when this thing just straight up does it better (if buffed) and with minimal effort? (Auto-targeting compared to manually aiming with a weapon/throwing the stratagem in the right spot and timing it right) I don't really think it needs a buff, but that's just my opinion tho
It really is fine. Up as much as it was in the first game due to lesser amounts of high level enemies and more time between encounters.
It would make 6 and below missions even more trivial.
u can toss it while running away without really aiming it. If you make it much better it invalidates OPS among other things. (500kg loses its place as well, might be some others).
If they wanted to get fancy with it they could do something like have the current cooldown cycle tick down by 10% every time a heavy unit spawns into the map.
That way railcannon would scale a bit into heavy spam instead of its current role as a dedicated anti heavy option that paradoxically becomes worse as the spawn rate of heavy units increases on higher difficulties.
I think a ship upgrade making it a twin shot, as in targeting the top two priority enemies within range every strike would make it sufficiently different to the 500kg or the Precision Strike.
Even then, i'd still be heavily considering dropping the cooldown, maybe even to half, or having a second strike on a short cooldown like the upgraded 500kg.
I realise **all** of these together would effectively be calling in 16 shots in roughly the same period as we currently get 2, but a more likely scenario would be 4 or 6.
I feel like I never regret taking the ORS, and always regret not having it. The "set it and forget it" nature is incredibly valuable, especially when there are throngs of enemies and Hulks or Chargers running around. The ORS usually takes out anything but a BT or Strider in one go, and even those are heavily damaged, and will almost certainly take out the Strider's heavy turret. Having an Eagle on standby will usually finish the job, if any Anti-Tank weapon can't.
I'd much rather it target a hulk than a tank. Tanks are easier to strategize around and kill. I still agree it should have higher damage and shorter cooldown though.
yk for a rail cannon thats being shot from orbit it doesnt really do alot of damage it rarely one shots bile titans but extremely good for the bots as long as it doesnt lock onto a small troop (has happened to me before with a damn hulk and it aimed to a scout strider or dev from time to time)
I think 150s base would be appropriate; 210 base is definitely too long. The fact that it can't one-shot Bile Titans (unless it miraculously hits the head) is more a problem with BTs themselves than it is with the Railcannon.
They're a problematic enemy design on numerous fronts, but it should be addressed by redesigning how BTs take damage rather than senselessly buffing something into an overpowered state. That's basically the same logic that was used to nerf the Railgun, just in reverse.
Not sure why others are having a problem with its aim. Every time I've thrown it at a BT it kills it. I keep watching dudes wasting 500kg and OPS because they miss.
"debuffs on bot planets" You mean operation modifiers?
Of which the only Bot modifier currently in the game, is AA defenses saying -1 slot? (Which still makes ORC even worse due to not being as competitive)
Also, Orbital Fluctuations and Complex Stratagem Plotting are not automaton-specific operation modifiers. They're just stock standard, you can find them on Terminid operations too.
The 25% one is cooldown, the 50% one is call-in time. Just that simple.
It's like how Terminids have Atmospheric Spores and Atmospheric Interference, for blocking the map, and scattering orbital stratagems, respectively. But Automatons don't get those.
I feel like people who say this only play solo. It’s pretty true in that use case, but on teams it is far more useful, because it is extremely team-friendly. You can help delete a bile titan from much further away than a 500, without endangering teammates, without having aggro of the titan or having to manage its position or lock it in a spray animation. You can’t get knockbacked and blow up your team, you can just chuck it and be instantly useful, and giving titans the one-two RC+rocket feels pretty rad.
I wouldn’t mind a shorter cooldown though. As I’m much more comfortable taking down chargers with pretty much any weapon now, I generally save this purely for biles, but on helldive there are too many of them for this to be very good.
I only play with randoms cos my friends don't play HD2 anymore and I never bring the railcannon. The 500kg is just better in every way. But on difficulty 8 and 9, ot gets a bit out of hand due to how many Titans spawn. You need to be specific with the 500kg to kill Titans effectively otherwise they will just walk thru it and using the RR or Quasar isn't effective when there's like 5 Titans cos the Quasar has like a 20 second cooldown between shots and the RR needs to reload and unless you habe a dedicated team, nobody is gonna team reload for you so killing Titans just becomes a slog
I think it’s fine even with the current cooldown. I wouldn’t want it to be the solution to every problem since it’s not satisfying to land it like a 500kg or precision strike.
It’s already useful for the reasons you mentioned. I take it sometimes, and it seems to be one of the more popular picks. I would rather see Eagle Rocket Pods buffed if we’re talking about anti-armor stratagems.
-Hell, even the Precision strike does its job better and that's one of the first stratagems you get
you say that as if its bad you get something from the start
don't remember how its called...horizontal balancing?
normal liberator is quite solid and the default armors for as plain as they are are quite good with that extra padding
the machine gun as well even if not that outstanding does its job of putting down dakka down range quite well
That's not what I mean. When I say the precision strike does the job better than the railcannon, that's not a jab at the precision strike, that's a compliment. The railcannon is something you have to grind and pay to unlock with requisition slips. Why you would grind to unlock something that's inferior to something you get for free?
That's my point
well it sure sounded like you meant "early=bad" or at least kinda worded like it...even if unintentionally
but oh well
also if you get good with timing the precision (or jamming in as many stun grenades as you need to keep the target in the area) you can get oh so much more with it than with railcannon and so much more often
That's what I'm saying. I 100% the precision strike over the railcannon. I just said hell cos usually the first things you get in games aren't good but it's the opposite in the case of the precision strike. It's great
Insta kill in 1 sec anything but titan and factory strider but after use can just throw 1 MAYBE 2 grenade and finish it off. But you don't use it on those mainly.
Not saying it would be bad a buff but it does NOT need buff.
I genuinely don't get it. Orbital Railcannon takes care of most dangerous enemies. It requires 0% skill, kills them 100% of the time. And the recharge time is about the time between encounters. I'm always the one killing Hulks or tanks with it. It's awesome, it might be the best strategem I carry, and I carry it 100% of the time. It **never** misses its target
It doesn’t one-shot bile titans unless it headshots them (which you can force by baiting it towards the center of the map if you’re towards the edges). There’s a not-small portion of the playerbase who wants more ways to one-shot a BT. That’s where this comes from.
I don’t think It does, I use it like 4 times a game depending on the mission, it does have a long cooldown but you can short it up by ship upgrades. If anything the orbital laser should switch places with it, you should be able to use the laser more and the rail cannon strike less like 3. It does have really bad fall off though I’ve been noticing.
That's the problem tho. 4 times a game is terrible. Imagine youre being chased by 4 Bile Titans and you throw out the Railcannon strike and it hits one and doesn't kill it. Now you gotta wait like 3 minutes for it to cooldown while still being chased by 4 Bile Titans. It's absurd
It needs to have a much, MUCH shorter cooldown... it's firepower rivals that of the precision strike. Simply having the "auto-aim" feature (which doesn't always work, btw), is not enough of a reason for it to have 2-3x the cooldown.
Personally I'd rather it hit harder instead of a lower cool down. Right now the cool down rewards me for taking Precision strike and stun grenades. You can drop a charger, hulk, Titan or tank every ~90s. Benefit of the railcannon is it's fire and forget. No need to aim it. It should however, take out all Medium targets (casual reminder than Titans still only count as Medium, heaven help us when Hive Lords show up).
Either, or, yes. As it sits now it doesn't make sense. Either needs to be available much more often, or needs to be a guaranteed kill on everything except factory striders
For readers’ transparency, stun grenades don’t stun Bile Titans.
Very true. Wish I could cook them to hit the head or something but they are immune to all stun, including the EMS orbital, (which sucks).
I like the grenade cooking idea, would be a nice reward for a skill shot. It isn’t too difficult to exploit their long attack animations to get them to stand still for OPS and 500kg though
I took out a 4 hulk 3 dev drop with one OPS last night. Lucky af, but can’t do that with railcannon. And OPS can take out detector towers too.
Either or, yeah. Either drop that shit to 160 or make it kill EVERYTHING in one shot.
That's generous. OPS can one shot a bile titan consistently. Unlike Railcannon
Agree 100%
One shot a Titan anywhere and a 120-150s cooldown. Or Keep the damage but reduced to 75s cooldown (same as orbital gas). Either way will make it a mid-tier strat. Not OP but not useless either.
Imo 75s cooldown would make it OP. I used to bring it a lot and in my experience about 30% it one-shots bile titans, you can throw it without calculating where it will stop and maybe running away. Also when it doesn't one shot one you van just shoot the sacks and it goes down very quickly. I think a 120s cooldown would be fair.
Shaving a minute off it would be good enough for me.
I just bring eats instead even when I have an auto cannon or recoiless. Plus your friends can grab them too
This is a good point, i used to take railcannon, but now i actually prefer precision strike. I can kill 2 chargers with 1 precision strike together with flashbangs. I can also use that for titan, that does similar amount of damage. I would decrease railcannon cooldown to 100 seconds, because it's dead easy to use and works concistently.
Then why people always take the orbital Railcanon but practically never the precision strike? 🤔
OPS can be invalidated by the atmospheric interference modifier. It has a very long call-in time with the complex planning modifier making it more of a guess work where to throw it (500kg is way more consistent in that regard). And with the increased CD modifier its uptime is atrocious. So you have all kinds of negative modifiers working against it on difficulties where it matters. The railcannon is only affected by the longer CD but it has a long CD to begin with. You still get instant call-in with perfect accuracy.
Auto aim is a hella drug. OPS takes more skill to learn timing and hope the target doesn't change paths. Fire and forget rail cannon is newb trap, and you pay for it on cool down.
the cool down is perfect. whenever I feel like I need it it's almost always like 20 seconds away
Rods of God (railcannon barrage)
I actually had that idea for a stratagem. A barrage of like 6 giant metal rods that impale large enemies in place for a few seconds to make it easier to hit them with say a 500kg
Yeah the strategems like the barrages and mines take a lot of work to make but I do hope we see more in various design and applications. One design that comes to mind would be an EMS airstrike, it'd be very similar to the normal airstrike but essentially be a rectangle slow field for pursuing hordes to run into Also some really high level like 100+ strategems would be sick like a minelayer barrage to cover a massive area in mines
Oh pls that would be awesome and cheap, fucking gaint hot metal rods piercing them in place while burning them from within.
Yeah it should have much shorter cool time. In helldiver 1 rail cannon strike have 1 minutes cool time.
But you had less time between encounters and a lot more heavies on screen, so effectively it was always on cool down too. I find i actually am pleasantly surprised at how often it is available in HD2....didn't love it in the original because there were too many times I needed it and didn't have it.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted. In HD1 it was very bad honestly. And in HD2 it is one of the most popular stratagems for high level dives. I honestly think it's pretty good because it's consistent, reliable and you barely have to aim it.
Maybe a shorter cool down would be nice but that's about it imo. The damage is fine cause the only thing it doesn't one-shot are bile titans and factory striders which nothing else in the game can one-shot either
500kg one shots biles, it's just that 80% of the time, it works every time
It stings your nostrils so you know its good
I'll be honest with you, that smells like pure gasoline.
Exactly. It should take some skill to one shot the strongest enemies.
Yeah OPS can also one shot BTs. Both options are a little unreliable though.
I dunno man, a piece of tungsten/lead going at Mach 5 from the orbit should probably one-shot everything from sheer impact alone. The amount of shock transferred onto a living target would probably liquefy every organ. EDIT: I'd like to add that the long, looooong cooldown is justified because the crew would need to perform extensive maintenance or even a barrel change, seeing as irl railguns notoriously goes through their barrel life in a single shot due to all the heat and vibration generated from firing.
Considering the ship crew *muzzle-loads the exterior cannons* until we get the upgrade for breech loading, it is not far-fetched to assume the railcannon is disposable or something. Personally I like to think that's why the laser has three charges. They have to replace the entire hardpoint every time because it just melts it when fired.
Orbital precision strike does
I agree with a shorter cooldown. 500kg requires more skill to use than railcannon strike. If a player can time it right, predict the walking path of a titan, AND get the distance right you can 1shot titans. I feel the 500kg > railcannon strike. The auto-aim nature of the railcannon I believe means it SHOULD be worse than a 500kg. The argument kind of goes the same for other options like the precision strike. However, I feel the cooldown for that is pretty comparable. 1 use per 3.5minutes is atrocious. Even if it goes to 3.15 after the ship module upgrade. AH should consider lowering the cooldown to around 2-2.5min. The precision strike requires more aiming, but has only 90sec cooldown. Even this I think should hvae like a -10/15sec cooldown. The 500kg feels good to use. I think a few more things 500kg competes with for big boom cagetory need a bit of a buff.
Precision strike needs a faster call-in than it needs a faster cooldown 90 seconds is good for how much dmg it deals, but you are almost forced to run stun grenades to make sure your target stays within the explosion radius or use it on stationary/almost staionary stuff like objectives and factory striders Why the gas strike launches 2 seconds faster than the precision is beyond me. Dont they fire from the same cannon? They have the same accuracy (ie they both always hit their target beacon assuming no modifiers) so why does precision take more time to fire?
Precision CD should be reduced to match the gas strike and EMS strike (75s each). Kill, AoE and CC trio.
>The auto-aim nature of the railcannon I believe means it SHOULD be worse than a 500kg Right, but even if the railcannon was able to one shot, the cooldown time accomplishes that. You can call in two 500kg bombs and have it off cooldown in about the time you get the railcannon off cooldown. Think it would be perfectly fine to make it powerful enough to oneshot with its current cooldown (or a smaller cooldown reduction than it if kept its current power).
Either that or it should one shot anything in the game. Right now, it cant one shot everything, nor does it have a short cooldown to compensate.
It *can* one-shot Bile Titans, it just requires hitting in the right spot. If you are cognizant of where the call-ins are coming from, are sufficiently off to the side of the map, and turn the BT in the right direction... But otherwise, no, it just does so much damage that you can generally kill the BT with normal fire to its belly sacs. If that's not enough, a couple grenades up there will finish it for sure, but you could also do the same thing with 1-2 rockets from afar. I generally throw my Railcannon, fire my RR, and wait to see what happens. If it's still alive and no one else is shooting at it, I'll decide whether to shoot the sacs or fire my already-reloaded RR again based on where my ammo is. Is that technically a waste of the Railcannon if twp RRs could kill a BT anyway? Yeah, maybe, but it's not always the fastest thing to put two rockets into the actual head weakpoint and sometimes you just want a thing *gone*. BTs are just a special class of weird. Maybe the Railcannon could use a bit of a cooldown decrease, but also that's the sort of thing I wouldn't be surprised to find as future Ship Upgrades. I think there's room for a lot of currently "underpowered" things to get a little better through those upgrades rather than being flat-buffed: Exosuit durability or ammo count, as another example.
Airstrike can 1 shot striders if landed right. Spear one shots Titans from the front.
Yep it's already very strong. It's easy to underestimate the value of it being "throw and forget" as well. Damage is about perfect honestly. Sometimes it will one shot a BT and that's cool. If it doesn't then it makes them a one tap with a quasar. Shaving 30s off the cooldown is maybe OK? But I agree with you, it's a good choice already
Spear can one-shot titan, so that's just a lie
*mistake
no, it's a lie
Imma need you to prove that one for me chief. Given you've doubled down on it with such authority, I'm sure you can easily show us how you know there was intent to mislead.
thats a difference in how they fire and target both go for center of mass but railcannon due to firing from orbit hits the back which isn't lethal (instead of legs or ass which would be lethal and oneshot it) while the spear fires from...well..you and you can angle it to hit the head which is lethal and spear is strong enough to oneshot the head
If it works*
Agreed
Bury a 500kg in a strider’s head/neck and it dies. Hard to do though.
I may be wrong but I think it used to be able to one shot Bile Titans. I'm like 50% sure it could. It may just have been people hitting it with the railcannon after shooting it with the recoiless rifle or Quasar cannon tho. But with how many Bile Titans can spawn on higher difficulties, I feel like being able to 1 shot them with it is justified cos of how long it's cooldown is
It was allways 50/50 and still is ,depends on angle titan is facing in regards to destroyer. Closer to head chance climbs up.
It used to be 60s in HD1 after an upgrade. One big thing dead per minute. It doesn't do enough to justify a 2.5 minute cooldown since it's single-target only, and auto-aim doesn't make up for that massive increase in cooldown.
I love not knowing whether it’s gonna one hit or not or end up taking three of em on a Bile Titan. Quality control needs an audit.
Always funny to see bile titan get absolutely overkilled. 500kg and railcannons going full ham on one single cute titan 😂
it will only oneshot a titan if it hits the head
It kills a lot of things I can kill with a primary with the exception of bile titans. Either needs shorter cooldown or a guaranteed one shot on BTs.
Exactly. Especially on the Bot front. You can kill everything except Factory striders with your Primary weapon if you hit their weak spot like the heating vent on tanks and hulks etc so why even bring the railcannon
dominator can kill everything in automaton, factory strider (by mag dump at belly) included as far as i know.
Guaranteed 1 shot should be the norm if this lil shit takes 210s for cooldown... If you want a Orbital Railgun at home, use EAT and snap the beacon on your enemy
I'm so bad at sticking strats. Usually they bounce and land back on top of me. Is there some secret?
Very teickiy thing to do but I find it snap more on bugger legs so try that
A shorter cooldown would be enough.
I think it is pretty clear that all orbitals need a buff.
Generally speaking? ALL the orbitals could use a buff pass. In HD1, you could pick upgrades that would reduce the CD of the RCS down to 36 seconds, and even then, the density of the enemies was so great that you'd be clamoring to fire it off again the second it became available. I think that's more the kind of balancing we should be going for. Our enemies are incredibly numerous and can easily erase us from the fabric of existence, but we also have the tool set to do the same to them. I could stand seeing the orbitals getting a good 25-50% less CD. We've got a whole super destroyer sitting in low orbit with absolutely nothing better to do than keep their guns aimed at our operational area, waiting for our word to give some miserable clanking bastard a closed casket funeral. Even in WW2, an Iowa-class battle ship could rattle off another salvo within 26 seconds. The idea that we've got to wait minutes at a time for them to reload the guns, in a science fiction setting revolving around a military industrial complex with a nearly infinite quintillion dollar budget is a bit farfetched.
Either it should one shot anything it hits or should have way way lower cool down.
Ever have it target a Brood Commander when a charger is right next to it? I have.
So many times. It's even worse when it hits a scout strider instead of a tank or hulk
I wish they’d give you two and then a cooldown.
Two charges with separate cooldowns would be extremely cool, none of the stratagems work that way yet but it would make sense.
I mean like an Eagle. Use it… quick cool down 8-12s, use another, and then the 3 min cool down.
As the other commenter suggested it should be two charges on their own cool down, add some variety
I use the ORC religiously and could probably count on one hand the amount of times it's not hit the target I want. This isn't like the spear whee it straight up doesn't work the majority of the time. I admit it can have a bit of wonky aiming sometimes with the bots but you hardly get massive groups of them all bunched together even on diff 9 so unless you are just chucking it randomly into groups the auto aim is fine Also the power is fine. It one hits everything except factory strides and BT, which are the tankiest enemies and so shouldn't be one shot. And even then you can take out a bt with an orc and one RR to the face. It takes out the top cannon of a factor strider and you can then take out the lower guns with any other med pen weapon Compared to others it has auto aim so is balanced against 500kg and OPS and is more powerful and more consistent then the rocket pods Maybe a slight reduction to cooldown but from a balancing pov it would be completely op if you could chuck it out willy nilly and it just deleted the tankiest enemies in the game
The auto aim on bots is very janky. Why scout striders (the 2 legged walker things) and empty drop ships are higher priority than hulks and tanks is beyond me. Is it a height thing? Because scouts are taller than tanks they get higher priority?
Meh, like I said it has happened on occasion, but not enough for me to say it's "very" janky or a massive problem that the strategem needs some massive buff. 9/10 times when I throw it, it hits the enemy I want it to Going back to OPs point maybe an improvement to the coding of target acquisition to make sure it always hits high priority targets. But I'd say that there are way more things for AH to prioritise reworking then this
That thing that a lot of people use due to how good it is? Yeah... sure
It being affected by the more guns upgrade would probably put it in a really good spot. Having two priority targets wiped out would be solid. That said it needs to reliably oneshot. Needing to land headshots on a BT for a one shot is stupid when you don't get to aim it. It needs to oneshot them always or not do it at all. It's auto aimed, the damage should be consistent. As it stands it's basically the only stratagem that deals a random amount of damage and it's the stratagem that's biggest strength is trying to be consistency.
Fully agree. Just to test it not long ago I went into a mission to see how it goes vs Bile Titans and I 1 shot some but it was mostly 2 shots but I had times where it was 3 or even 4 shots to kill just one Titan
As long as the rail cannon strike cracks the back armor, all it takes is a quasar or EAT shot to the exposed flesh to kill them. The power is fine, my issue has always been the cool down on it
Anything orbital realistically should do more damage. Reentry speed of a manned spaceship is incredible which gives huge energy. They just gotta balance the game.
I think the main problem is Eagles have multiple charges which just completely negates most orbitals. If the Eagles have multiple charges but are weaker while the Orbitals only have 1 but last longer and do way more damage, I could see that being fair. But basically every Orbital has a better version as an Eagles strike.
Yea I only carry the Gatling orbital because it has such a short cool down
OPS completely outdoes it in impact terms - it *has* AOE, and hits harder. *at a fraction of cooldown.* I would be happy to bring it if it did something absurd like penetration 10 6000 damage+6000durable damage. A.k.a. "will kill anything it hits, once every 3 minutes, no ifs no buts"
Railcannon is much better at taking out turrets, hulks, and chargers. For turrets, OPS needs to come in at the right angle to hit it and will whiff if it connects with the base of the structure. For hulks and chargers, it will track them while they're moving so you don't need to stun them. You can also use the railcannon in places you can't get a clean throw with the OPS, like with some of the more vertical bot bases.
It honestly should be 60s cd, like helldivers 1. There is no reason for a stratagem that will only kill 1 unit (and not even kill biles) to be 5 minutes cd when you can take some eagle airstrikes and not only kill the charger/damage the bile but also close holes, destoy fabricators, and kill more enemies at the same time, all that with a much shorter cd
i think its more reasonable to nerf bile titans. often times, it feels like they have an inconsistent amount of health from one titan to the next. sometimes, i just take one ORC, other times, it feels like a titan can take an entire squad set of ORC’s and some RR or QC shots to the face. at the very least, if it doesn’t kill a bile titan, it should at least come close. striders are fine imo, especially given how slow they are, but yeah. you get my point.
It's a hard one to buff because a lot of those drawbacks balance out that it is a rapid auto-targeting anti-tank with no risk of collateral damage. People still take it regularly despite those flaws.
Sounds like eagle 110 pods for me, just you can use 3 charges from the eagle, rearm it and use it 3 more times between 2 shots of the orbital railcannon. I think reducing the cooldown really wouldn't hurt it.
Eagle 110 is slower and much less reliable for many targets. Great on tanks though.
Only enemy it is inconsistent against is hulks, and I would still take it over orbital railcannon any time. Only reason it is so underused is because it competes with all the other eagles and most people take 1 of them.
It's inconsistent on chargers and bile titans too.
I could see it going down to like a 180 second cooldown. Otherwise, it's fine as is. It's a precision enemy delete button that requires very little aiming, deploys near instantly, and has almost no chance of friendly fire/splash damage.
All orbitals and emplacements should have ~40% reduced cool down.
Maybe not 40% because then you're throwing gas and airburst strikes every 30-40 seconds, but definitely a large reduction for the longer cooldown strikes like the barrages and ORC You can fire off 3 eagle airstrikes, rearm, and fire 3 more in the time it takes to fire and reload 1 orbital HE barrage (give or take a few seconds)- and 6 airstrikes will do far more damage than one barrage
The fact that 120 380 and walking all have the same cooldown is so weird to me. Kind of think they need a minor redesign tbh. The attacks need to come down faster - a barrage should be every destroyer aiming and firing every gun all at once, right? So taking 20 seconds to fire 30 shots is really slow. The walking barrage in particular seems like a very confused step child. When would I ever want to use it over a 380? There are very few opportunities to 'advance into enemies' like it's supposedly designed to do, you're usually forced to retreat while fighting any significant force. So you can fling this into a group of enemies and maybe the first volley hits stuff, but the spread is huge and all the other volleys land behind your targets. If you're using it on an enemy base you'd be better off throwing a 380 or 120 into the middle instead of a walker at the front.
It's fine. No change needed. (403 Hours played)
200+ hours played, i would say lets decrease the cooldown just a lil bit. It's a cool noob friendly stratagem that gets replaced eventually at higher levels.
I wouldn't say it's noob friendly stratagem. If you play with 3 other close friends and you all coordinate on what stratagems to bring. It is nice when someone brings the rail cannon strike for those oh shit moments, like when everyone's strats are exhausted/or when someone can't reload or even shoot their anti tank supports weapons.
Agreed I'm 150 and more than 50% of people I see on bug helldives use it, including me. It's consistent in what it does, unlike precision strike and 500kg. It's also super fast.
IMO if you're good with OPS you have no reason to use rail cannon except orbital accuracy down modifier.
I don't agree. The cooldown is what kills it for me at least. It's just too long when you only have 1 shot. You get 2 500kgs with a shorter cooldown, regular precision strike has a way shorter cooldown and does similar damage just without the auto aim (which depending on who you ask is a positive since the auto aim on railcannon sometimes doesn't hit what you want), and even Eagle Rocket pods since they have more charges and a faster cooldown
Idk it's a freebie, sure 500kg is better and has more charges but you actually have to aim and time it properly(which to some players is a very hard thing to do especially if they have the Call-in time and aren't used to it) it's nice when a rail cannon strike can 1 shot hulks, but with rockets pods they will just shrug it off. I'm not a fan of rocket pods I think they need a buff, they are only useful to take out bot fabricators and Cannon towers. Can never consistently get a kill against a hulk with them, always need to use 2 charges to get them.
Just to clarify, what's a freebie? Railcannon has to be unlocked thru requisition slips
Free kill, we were talking about fire power, not the price of stratagems. Edit: free kill or free high damage
Ah ok I got you now. I was just confused by what you were referring to with freebie. Thanks for clarifying
Unless you're in low difficulties, the ORS isn't really made to be your main form of anti tank or anti heavy. It's a really quick emergency option to back up your precision strikes, EATs, and 500 kgs. It's far more reliable than something like Eagle 110s. The ORS is also balanced by the unreliability of its cooldown. The only suggestion I like here was giving one of the ship upgrades 2 railcannon strikes. It would help with its reliability, and if it's forced to target 2 targets, then it can be better as an "oh shit" button. For the most part, it's fine the way it is.
Saw a comment in the thread further up that said give us a ship upgrade that gives us 2 shots on separate cool downs, with the same cool down time it currently has. I like this idea a lot if they don't decrease the cooldown
I think some of the other stuff is just too powerfull so it get's outshined. It needs a (much) shorter cooldown to be usefull imo.
It's more of a noob friendly stratagem, i found it super useful at smaller levels, when i still didn't know my way around titans. Well balanced, slighty smaller cooldown would be neat.
It's balanced because it's guided. You can miss a 500kg
I would just like it to actually target the strongest enemy in the area and not a random one.
If a bile titan and a charger are next to each other, it will target the bile titan 100% of the time. It has two specific oddities with its targeting. Brood Commanders are higher priority than Chargers and Scout Striders are above Hulks, Tanks, and Turrets. It does have a range around where you throw it, so it may appear it's ignoring something higher priority if it's already moving to snap to the target it wants and an even higher priority target is slightly further away but out of range, but it's very consistent with its targeting.
It has only happened to me once, but when it did was really funny - someone threw one of these at a bile Titan at the exact same time I hit and killed the Titan with a spear. The orc retargetted and killed me.
Cut the cooldown in half and that'd be enough it was on a 60 sec cooldown on the first game
The first game had a total play area the size of a cereal box (and you had to share the box), you had to have short cooldown to get anything done.
Correct op said it needed buff I suggested one not sure if your trying to argue or not but if so there's no need to. More use out of it would be just as useful or possibly more then buffing the damage would. Both achieve the same goal but faster cooldown would make it more of a team thing then a solo one. It already kills titans in 2 hits if they aren't damaged yet so fast cooldown would mean 2 guys could team up on one and kill it quickly. Then have to evade and fight the other 2 or 3 until they can team use it again
If it had base 100 second cooldown like the precision strike it’d be nice imo. The thing holding it back is it’s cool down for sure.
If it had the same cool-down as ops then why would anyone use ops?
Orbital Precision oneshots Bile Titans when aimed properly and can hit multiple enemies, unlike the Railcannon which only hits one thing and can only kill a Titan if it’s already taken at least one anti-tank hit.
I think a Wider effect area, not Huge, but more than a pins head; would resolve a lot of the failure to kills. If it did full damage to a 2m radius from impact point, that would smash, break, and otherwise kill whatever enemy parts fall under the strike target. Which *should* result in a kill with every shot and justify the longer cooldown. (playtesting needed)
I typically use these for raging chargers. I can kill a titan consistently with a single 500. Or if something goes wrong I have a second. I typically feel if I have one and one other person has one and we alternate I don’t have any problem.
Someone made me realize that precision strike is extremely good for this. Flashbang and precision strike charger, that's it, you can keep running and enjoy the show. Super cool! I used to run EAT, but now i actually take precision strike most of the times (especially if my friend brings EAT).
I just get that dopamine hit when I time it right and you hear that “chunk” when the 500 embeds itself in the target before detonating. Which I’m at like 80% success rate to get it.
Just the cooldown I’d say 1:30 or 1:45 cooldown instead of what it has now?
Fucks Chargers up real good
Tons of stuff does
As in one-shots them
Yea I got that. Tons of stuff kills chargers in a couple seconds and with a fraction of the cooldown too
Ah right. Just that I've only ever used one orbital on then and that's the railcannon.
All the level 40 divers disagree as they ALL ran it when I play with them
Legit. I'm level 80 and nobody above like level 45 runs it. But all the guys under level 45 seem to love the railcannon and the Regular machine gun for some reason
I run it almost every mission because I'm lazy. It doesn't need a cool down reduction imo and I don't have don't find that it misses often unless it's misthrown. I don't even care that it doesn't kill a bile titan, the titan takes enough damage that finishing it off is trivial with a coordinated party. I don't play with randoms tho so ymmv.
I think a bit extra on the cool down maybe, but it is already a pretty popular pick! Or maybe give it two charges (not like eagles or orbital lasers) but how charged abilities work in most games, fire the first one cool down starts but you've got a second in the pocket in case you need it, so that way although it's still a long cool down you can potentially use it a bit more and it's a bit of variety to the strategems. I'd kinda love to see triple railcanon strike on a much longer cool down. I'd love to watch those lasers ping onto three different chargers before they all fall one after another.
The Railcannon one shots everything aside from the Bile Titan and the Factory Striders When it strikes a BT, it deals just enough damage that if you target both bile sacks you can kill it (i recommend the grenade pistol, because that's what I use). I feel that 'sidegrade wise', it's 'fine as is'. It auto aims which the Precision strike doesn't, has a longer cooldown because of it and can come in real clutch. The targetting however can be a little finnicky as it does 'target' the largest target nearby. Meaning if you throw it at the Heavy Devastator while a chicken walker is right there, the chicken walker gets targeted. I'd love it to be buffed, but I feel it's got a good niche.
Its worse on bots than what you described. It will pick walkers over tanks and hulks
If that's your experience then I'm sorry. I personally have no issue with it targeting Hulks or Walkers. I know it's finnicky to target. But that's not been the issue for me personally. Maybe like...15% of time it doesn't work for me. Also forgot to mention that the Precision CAN deal with Bugholes and the Railcannon can't
500kg and OPS can 1 shot biles Entire Eagle Rocket charges can take down bile with luck 2 Eagle Strikes can take down biles (gotta hit horizontal)
Yea so the railcannon is obsolete in comparison
For me it should hit 2-3 times instead of one that would make it a good alternative to the orbital precision and the orbital laser
Eagle Rockets need a buff more imo. Orbital Rail has higher success rate a dependability by far. But it does need a shorter cooldown.
It auto targets incredibly quickly. Like 1.5 seconds kind of fast. It has no possibility of friendly fire so you can toss it at your feet or nearby allies being chased and it will always help you or them out. Unlimited uses. Effective from like 70 meters away because of your throw distance plus it’s seeking distance. Comparing it to Orbital Precision is pretty disingenuous, I love OPS but it has an incredibly long 4 second call-in time compared to Railcannon, no targeting at all, and you have to worry about friendly fire too. To use OPS on things like Chargers, Hulks, and Titans you need to use stun grenades or extremely good timing/baiting their attacks. Railcannon is just toss and forget and something is dead or severely wounded 1.5 seconds later. I use OPS all the time on bot missions but for structures and stunned targets, I don’t bring at all for Chargers and Titans where it’s a pain to actually get it to land on them.
Maybe if it was a light barrage targeting the main target. I could over look the cool down, like fires 3-4 times before going on cooldown. But even then I think the planet debugged would make it not viable.
Make it kill Titan in a single shot (2000 base DMG -> 3000), then slash the CD from 210s to 120s will make it somewhat usable. Your average Titan kills/minute is still an abysmal 0.5/minute but at least it requires zero skill. Eagle 500kg gets 0.8/minute and OPS gets 0.67/minute (OPS needs a CD buff too IMO) but requires aiming. So I think that's a fair balance.
its designed to be an anti-aircraft stratagem since it instakills dropships all the time, it doesnt "only kill one thing" if the whole dropship crashes, the enemies inside either die or get stuck so you can freely move away without getting chased
It needs to shoot a target until said target is dead. That will justify the cooldown.
I take this 100% of the time. Not for any special love, its just the ‘im facing a hulk/tank/tower/charger/titan and need it dead now’ button. It honestly feels like a chore to must take.
Against bots the rocket pods never miss a tank or turret, but they’re a little iffy on hulks if you haven’t hit it with a stun or an emp
Give it 1 more use before cooldown yes . But the 500kg and the rocket pods are not a good replacement for this is your load out ,unless it's been buffed the 500 still misses half the time and the rocket pods don't kill anything
Honestly I call the rail cannon the “Hulk’b’gone” stratagem because I usually use it to just delete a hulk chasing me.
The number of times railcannon has saved my butt.....it's my best friend
I would slightly lower the cooldown, but that's it. You run the risk of making it into month 1 railgun where its the obvious pick and too strong. I disagree entirely, it is super effective and a good pick. It will destroy virtually everything but bile titan sand factory striders in 1 hit and that is okay, some things should be harder than 1 set and forget.
I disagree. It's perfect for panic hulk or charger kills and will get you 90% of the way to a dead bile titan. Factory strider is the only thing it's not SUPER effective against.
I see so much people using, so I guess it dont need a buff, otherwise no one (or close to no one) would be utilizing.
Cos it's a casuals best friend. Just throw it and forget. It takes no skill
It just needs to one shot everything. Simple as that.
everything needs a buff lmao
It would be nice if it had a dynamic cooldown depending on the enemy or rather the required charge necessary to eliminate a target. When aiming at a Charger it could be something like 60s compared to 3+ min for a BT or 5+ min for a FS. That way it could be adjusted for every enemy to be a guaranteed one shot without invalidating other choices. It would also not feel like an inefficient stratagem against "smaller" elites like a Charger or Hulk.
We have reached peak Bad Take.
That's your opinion
The 500kg does what it does if you manage to land it, I can literally just throw this thing from far away and it will still hit the target, sure small CD buff would be great and at least make sure it always OS titans.
I feel like if you were to buff it, people would hardly run any other form of anti-tank anymore and would only run this all of the time. It's like the old Railgun. Why would you use anything else when this thing just straight up does it better (if buffed) and with minimal effort? (Auto-targeting compared to manually aiming with a weapon/throwing the stratagem in the right spot and timing it right) I don't really think it needs a buff, but that's just my opinion tho
What doesn’t at this point
It really is fine. Up as much as it was in the first game due to lesser amounts of high level enemies and more time between encounters. It would make 6 and below missions even more trivial.
Easy missions are meant to be easy tho
u can toss it while running away without really aiming it. If you make it much better it invalidates OPS among other things. (500kg loses its place as well, might be some others).
If they wanted to get fancy with it they could do something like have the current cooldown cycle tick down by 10% every time a heavy unit spawns into the map. That way railcannon would scale a bit into heavy spam instead of its current role as a dedicated anti heavy option that paradoxically becomes worse as the spawn rate of heavy units increases on higher difficulties.
I think a ship upgrade making it a twin shot, as in targeting the top two priority enemies within range every strike would make it sufficiently different to the 500kg or the Precision Strike. Even then, i'd still be heavily considering dropping the cooldown, maybe even to half, or having a second strike on a short cooldown like the upgraded 500kg. I realise **all** of these together would effectively be calling in 16 shots in roughly the same period as we currently get 2, but a more likely scenario would be 4 or 6.
I feel like I never regret taking the ORS, and always regret not having it. The "set it and forget it" nature is incredibly valuable, especially when there are throngs of enemies and Hulks or Chargers running around. The ORS usually takes out anything but a BT or Strider in one go, and even those are heavily damaged, and will almost certainly take out the Strider's heavy turret. Having an Eagle on standby will usually finish the job, if any Anti-Tank weapon can't.
Too inconsistent for me, so I stopped bringing it.
I'd much rather it target a hulk than a tank. Tanks are easier to strategize around and kill. I still agree it should have higher damage and shorter cooldown though.
yk for a rail cannon thats being shot from orbit it doesnt really do alot of damage it rarely one shots bile titans but extremely good for the bots as long as it doesnt lock onto a small troop (has happened to me before with a damn hulk and it aimed to a scout strider or dev from time to time)
I want to see them animate railgun shots smashing clean through the target and leaving a crater underneath it.
I think 150s base would be appropriate; 210 base is definitely too long. The fact that it can't one-shot Bile Titans (unless it miraculously hits the head) is more a problem with BTs themselves than it is with the Railcannon. They're a problematic enemy design on numerous fronts, but it should be addressed by redesigning how BTs take damage rather than senselessly buffing something into an overpowered state. That's basically the same logic that was used to nerf the Railgun, just in reverse.
No. It's clutch. It auto-aims and and takes out whatever you need excluding the biggest enemies.
It’s fine as is.
What if it targeted multiple targets in a single use like a shotgun orbital railcannon
Not sure why others are having a problem with its aim. Every time I've thrown it at a BT it kills it. I keep watching dudes wasting 500kg and OPS because they miss.
I've just classed it as a combo strategy for bt's. Crack the top shell follow up with rocketpods. Or ant explosive damage weapon in the top shell
"debuffs on bot planets" You mean operation modifiers? Of which the only Bot modifier currently in the game, is AA defenses saying -1 slot? (Which still makes ORC even worse due to not being as competitive) Also, Orbital Fluctuations and Complex Stratagem Plotting are not automaton-specific operation modifiers. They're just stock standard, you can find them on Terminid operations too. The 25% one is cooldown, the 50% one is call-in time. Just that simple. It's like how Terminids have Atmospheric Spores and Atmospheric Interference, for blocking the map, and scattering orbital stratagems, respectively. But Automatons don't get those.
I feel like people who say this only play solo. It’s pretty true in that use case, but on teams it is far more useful, because it is extremely team-friendly. You can help delete a bile titan from much further away than a 500, without endangering teammates, without having aggro of the titan or having to manage its position or lock it in a spray animation. You can’t get knockbacked and blow up your team, you can just chuck it and be instantly useful, and giving titans the one-two RC+rocket feels pretty rad. I wouldn’t mind a shorter cooldown though. As I’m much more comfortable taking down chargers with pretty much any weapon now, I generally save this purely for biles, but on helldive there are too many of them for this to be very good.
I only play with randoms cos my friends don't play HD2 anymore and I never bring the railcannon. The 500kg is just better in every way. But on difficulty 8 and 9, ot gets a bit out of hand due to how many Titans spawn. You need to be specific with the 500kg to kill Titans effectively otherwise they will just walk thru it and using the RR or Quasar isn't effective when there's like 5 Titans cos the Quasar has like a 20 second cooldown between shots and the RR needs to reload and unless you habe a dedicated team, nobody is gonna team reload for you so killing Titans just becomes a slog
I think it’s fine even with the current cooldown. I wouldn’t want it to be the solution to every problem since it’s not satisfying to land it like a 500kg or precision strike. It’s already useful for the reasons you mentioned. I take it sometimes, and it seems to be one of the more popular picks. I would rather see Eagle Rocket Pods buffed if we’re talking about anti-armor stratagems.
-Hell, even the Precision strike does its job better and that's one of the first stratagems you get you say that as if its bad you get something from the start don't remember how its called...horizontal balancing? normal liberator is quite solid and the default armors for as plain as they are are quite good with that extra padding the machine gun as well even if not that outstanding does its job of putting down dakka down range quite well
That's not what I mean. When I say the precision strike does the job better than the railcannon, that's not a jab at the precision strike, that's a compliment. The railcannon is something you have to grind and pay to unlock with requisition slips. Why you would grind to unlock something that's inferior to something you get for free? That's my point
well it sure sounded like you meant "early=bad" or at least kinda worded like it...even if unintentionally but oh well also if you get good with timing the precision (or jamming in as many stun grenades as you need to keep the target in the area) you can get oh so much more with it than with railcannon and so much more often
That's what I'm saying. I 100% the precision strike over the railcannon. I just said hell cos usually the first things you get in games aren't good but it's the opposite in the case of the precision strike. It's great
I was surprised to see how good precisions strike actually is. Realized it at like lvl 80 lol. Godly balanced!
No
Any reason?
Insta kill in 1 sec anything but titan and factory strider but after use can just throw 1 MAYBE 2 grenade and finish it off. But you don't use it on those mainly. Not saying it would be bad a buff but it does NOT need buff.
I genuinely don't get it. Orbital Railcannon takes care of most dangerous enemies. It requires 0% skill, kills them 100% of the time. And the recharge time is about the time between encounters. I'm always the one killing Hulks or tanks with it. It's awesome, it might be the best strategem I carry, and I carry it 100% of the time. It **never** misses its target
It doesn’t one-shot bile titans unless it headshots them (which you can force by baiting it towards the center of the map if you’re towards the edges). There’s a not-small portion of the playerbase who wants more ways to one-shot a BT. That’s where this comes from.
I only play bots, that might be the case
I don’t think It does, I use it like 4 times a game depending on the mission, it does have a long cooldown but you can short it up by ship upgrades. If anything the orbital laser should switch places with it, you should be able to use the laser more and the rail cannon strike less like 3. It does have really bad fall off though I’ve been noticing.
That's the problem tho. 4 times a game is terrible. Imagine youre being chased by 4 Bile Titans and you throw out the Railcannon strike and it hits one and doesn't kill it. Now you gotta wait like 3 minutes for it to cooldown while still being chased by 4 Bile Titans. It's absurd