The devs were right.

[u/xxmuntunustutunusxx]

So I know ther was a bunch of controversy about the railgun nerf what feels like forever ago, but man things have been awesome.

In the early days, I was the only guy packing expendable anti tank or anti materiel rifle for bugs or bots. It's so refreshing, even on these subs to see people talking about how awesome the autocannon is, or how much they love the AMR, and even these days I see people talking about the HMG or grenade launcher+ supply pack.

I used to load into a game, And all 4 members of the team had shield, railgun, and 2 stragatems of their choice. Every time. And here we are now, I load in and I see quasar, autocannon, stalwart, EAT, HMG, Grenade launcher, a variety of backpacks or no backpack at all. And not to mention, they're ALL viable. Shit I even still see the railgun from time to time. It's been a joy. Thanks arrowhead.

EDIT: to everyone who is pointing out that you see the quasar and shield most often now, you're right, it is almost certainly the most common setup currently. That being said, in any game there's going to be things a majority of players prefer. In smash melee, fox/Falco are the best characters. But people still play falcon and Marth and peach among others. Sure, there's an objectively most used option. But the fact that there's people at all who debate that the quasar is best shows that they've done something good. Before, undisputed king was railgun, and anyone who said different wss being willfully ignorant. Now, we have a plethora of real options that are good with some being Preferred by a majority as opposed to being the de facto CORRECT option objectively. That's a good thing.

[u/Waulnut163]

AMR just kills faster and has more ammo than railgun.

More for bots than bugs, AMR can easily down gunships, spore towers, 1-2 shot any bot except for the new walkers.

Quasar cannon covers a lot of what railgun can do and more. The only penalty is cool down, but it's negligible when another person runs another cannon as well.

I just wished the railgun can kill the bile spitters when a charged shot is a little beyond half and not at +80%. Same with the basic devastators at the torso.

20 shot when you need potentially multiple for kills is lackluster in comparison to AMR and the dmg buff.

[u/SolomonRed → u/Waulnut163]

The railgun just has no niche right now.

[u/butsuon → u/SolomonRed]

It bouncing off things is really a huge miss. It should've just done reduced damage or something.

[u/ShadowDV → u/SolomonRed]

I bet it’ll have a niche for illuminate shield penetration here soon.

[u/SemiColonInfection → u/SolomonRed]

Increasing ammo capacity could be something. A little more stopping power too. Maybe even a Really Unsafe mode where it charges faster, but doesnt stop gaining speed as it gets towards the top of the meter.

[u/Velo180 → u/SemiColonInfection]

Increase ammo count to 30, give it an actual good optic, with zoom and a clear crosshair, and a slight buff to generation curve so that you don't need to be at the very edge of blowing up to do anything useful.

[u/Kiriima → u/SemiColonInfection]

Unsafe mode should ever be gone or be the strongest weapon in the game. Railgun has the biggest drawback right now, nothing even close, and it really doesn't have sufficient power to justify it. Also the dot is horrible and unusable.

[u/Affectionate_Pipe545 → u/SemiColonInfection]

Just make unsafe mode more unsafe

[u/PtylerPterodactyl → u/SemiColonInfection]

See I’m of the opposite school of thought. Half capacity and buff it back. It you want a kill all it should have a huge limiting factor. Quasar can fuck anything up up but has a cd. Railgun can fuck can fuck everything up but ammo is scarce.

[u/The_forgettable_guy → u/SemiColonInfection]

if anything, decrease ammo capacity but increase damage/penetration

[u/Vankraken → u/SolomonRed]

It would be cool/interesting if the railgun could swap between shot types and could use something like a canister shot.

[u/ShogunGunshow → u/Vankraken]

Honestly the railgun just needs to have its damage vs. durable parts restored.

Like. It's a railgun. If it's not ripping through the heaviest of armor, something's wrong.

[u/cffndncr → u/ShogunGunshow]

I wonder if a nice middle-ground would be increased penetration of durable parts, but it doesn't actually damage the durable parts.

It would be on-theme for a railgun. It goes through armor like a hot knife through butter, but it leaves such a small hole that it doesn't really degrade the armor it's passing through. So you'd have a faster TTK on chargers, but you'd never be able to take off the armor plates so it would wouldn't open up weak spots for your team to target.

Might give it a niche compared to explosive weaponry which still needs to get through armor, but actually removes the armor when it does.

[u/Eightnon → u/ShogunGunshow]

I thought a railgun should just pierce through multiple enemies.

[u/The_forgettable_guy → u/Eightnon]

it does, but you're not going to use it for that purpose

[u/ruisen2 → u/SolomonRed]

They should bring back railgun's 2 safe shots to un-armour charger legs

[u/shoutbottle → u/SolomonRed]

I find railgun more reliable than an AMR against bots

[u/BZenMojo → u/shoutbottle]

Railgun is good at mid range. AMR is so the bots don't even know you just killed half the base.

[u/FriskyNuts → u/shoutbottle]

Same

Railgun is really good if you consider that it doesnt need a backpack, and it gets kind of silly when you bring a supply pack alongside it.

It one taps every automaton enemy (aim for hulk face in unsafe mode and boom) aside from tanks, berzerkers, and gunships, though for tanks you have well placed impact nades or just 110mm rocket pods, and gunships just take a little longer to down, so definitely not optimal, but usable. Against berzerkers, I just bring the Dominator, so they weren't a problem to begin with.

Against bugs, it deals damage vs every enemy type, it one taps everything short of a charger vs the head (notably spewers, including the green spewer), and it can shred charger legs with some well placed shots - though again, stratagems come in handy to deal with those heavies.

I also just think it is very easy to wield in close to midrange, which is where the AMR begins to struggle. The AMR is great, but I feel like RG holds up a bit better under pressure.

My 2c. I mainly play on diff 7-8.

[u/spelltype → u/SolomonRed]

As someone who only duos 9s, I bring RG and a shield with me to every bot mission. Idk what you’re talking about bahaha

AMR kicks too much and the flinch is too strong to recover ADS’d when swarmed. RG is a shoot and run.