The rail gun is trash?

[Your Majesty Padded Gamer]

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong with this thing, so far I've been able to find a practical build for every single weapon I currently have unlocked. I even love the vortex design it being weird to use at first. The rail gun even after upgrading the volancy as quick as possible, avoiding upgrades that downgrade it, and using obvious upgrades like snip, I can't even beat the wave 40 boss with this thing because it does such a tiny amount of damage. I'd actually be better off chosing nothing rather then ever using the railgun. I'm targeting obvious weak spots in the boss rather then just blindly attacking it.

[CHOO CHOO]

Railgun isn't meta, I think, but it is fun. A single-shot build that plays to the railgun's obvious strengths may need a lot of mods to make it far; probably more than any other weapon.

You can also go with saturation fire though, and ramp up velocity and thus damage as you fire. Railgun even makes for a decent barrage weapon thanks to its high base velocity.

And getting Interceptor allies means that you can run antimatter saturation barrage without even dying yourself.

Not the best weapon, I think, but there are good ways to use it.

[YAOIMIYA TA BIEN]

Try singular strike + many projectiles + EVERY MOD in the snipe tree, body: spectre
You one shot stuff trust me I oneshotted both seraph and warbringer

[CHOO CHOO]

If spectre isn't your thing you might also try the assault body with charged shot. Just don't combine specter and charged shot, that doesn't work.

[Bozobub]

Originally posted by Drunked:

Try singular strike + many projectiles + EVERY MOD in the snipe tree, body: spectre
You one shot stuff trust me I oneshotted both seraph and warbringer

Using ANY +projectiles mods with SS is counterproductive, especially when using Rail; the math just doesn't work out well, considering the "double whammy" Rail takes when losing shot velocity (when selecting Volley or Fusillade, for example).

Instead, perhaps try Charged Shot, Burst Fire, Calibrate, all of the shot velocity+ mods, 2-4 Twin Strikes (max), and Warp Strike. One charged shot will destroy just about everything onscreen *twice*. This also works quite well with Loaded Mines and Minefield, and is generally best on an Engineer, Assault, or Courser hull.

[Spaz]

If projectile + mods combined with singular strike DONT add up t be more DPS, then what the hell is the point of singular strike?

[Draco18s]

Originally posted by Spaz:

If projectile + mods combined with singular strike DONT add up t be more DPS, then what the hell is the point of singular strike?

It got revamped to make it morebetter, but yeah, the math involved in actually taking it doesn't work out. It does depend on the weapon used, though. Railgun gets bonus damage from projectile velocity (so the speed reductions from Volley and Fusillade hurt, while the projectile size affects Dart, other weapons have other tradeoffs).

But yeah, SS only gives you 50% of the secondary projectile's damage and each additional projectile after that contributes less and less.

[Bozobub]

It depends on the weapon but +projectile mods with SS are either a) simply much less effective with SS than without, so you shouldn't take SS in the 1st place, or b) (in the case of Railgun) are an actual overall damage debuff. If you want to buff damage with SS, maximize fire rate and/or burst size instead of number of projectiles.

SS is great for maximizing the damage of (relatively) slow-firing/high-damage weapons, without using very many mods to do so. For example, it's quite good with Grenades.

[JudgeTy]

I'd rate it B tier. It's a little too dependent on Velocity, which doesn't have any wild mods to directly support it other than +thrust. I've had success with calibrate+ charge+warp strike+homing strike+ ~3x Twin strike + Burst Fire + 4+ Double Taps.

You can swap charge with spectre and or then take Charge mines.

[⭕TheSodaman]

Originally posted by Your Majesty Padded Gamer:

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong with this thing, so far I've been able to find a practical build for every single weapon I currently have unlocked. I even love the vortex design it being weird to use at first. The rail gun even after upgrading the volancy as quick as possible, avoiding upgrades that downgrade it, and using obvious upgrades like snip, I can't even beat the wave 40 boss with this thing because it does such a tiny amount of damage. I'd actually be better off chosing nothing rather then ever using the railgun. I'm targeting obvious weak spots in the boss rather then just blindly attacking it.

It's been a while since I played the game so things may be a little different.

I think the three major ways I've progressed with railgun to at least wave 100 consist of:

Calibrated Charged Railgun

Singular Strike (super for single shots) + Charged Shot (projectile size tree) + Calibrate + that blast effect on an Assault body with an Amp shield, avoiding anything at the time that increased the projectile count. I tend to take an Interceptor ally at this point. Can delete the fourth boss, but can be dangerous handling multiple smaller foes unless you lean on constructs, Halo, or a different body like Firefly.

Railgun Barrage

Barrage (super for rapid fire) + Fullisade (projectile tree) + Convergence (homing tree) + grabbing most mods that increase projectile speed, weapon damage, projectile size, and firing speed. Have been on the fence with going a burning / fire route with this, but I tend to lean toward Ataraxia and trying to build up that damage bonus. Decide how much survival you want and/or an Interceptor, then let the rest sit in Ataraxia.

Burst Fire Rail Fullisade

Burst Fire + Fullisade + Charged Shot + Calibrate + Convergence + Interceptor on an Assault body + Amp shield. Fairly powerful, albeit a risk in the opening of the burst fire. Covers a greater deal of the screen than the above two. And then as someone mentioned, the Spectre route to ambush and devastate targets.

[Bozobub]

Using Barrage and/or Fusillade is a HUGE nerf to Railgun damage. If you want to go that route, you'll get far better performance with Dart.

[⭕TheSodaman]

Originally posted by Bozobub:

Using Barrage and/or Fusillade is a HUGE nerf to Railgun damage. If you want to go that route, you'll get far better performance with Dart.

And that may be. It's more within the scope of what to do with the railgun to see if any of the routes may entice the OP toward trying some of them.

The Dart Barrage run for me seems to start off the game a bit slower, but destroy bosses and high HP enemies faster. So it may take me 25% longer to get to Seraph on average, but Seraph is destroyed before it aims at me. Where I clear most pre-100 waves faster with the Railgun Barrage, but Seraph gets to shoot several times, but then is destroyed before the super ramming attack.

When I've tried to do Railgun Barrage without Fusillade and Convergence, I seem to take much longer to clear a wave. And then if I go the charged shot route, I can delete the Warbringer in one shot, but take significantly longer on the Seraph and wave clearing in general.

I'm still learning and exploring though. Will certainly keep playing around with railgun to see if anything floats the OP's fancy.

[Draco18s]

Yeah, Dart excels at killing high-HP targets if built right (namely, maximize number of shots, prioritize size, but more shots at the expense of size is acceptable).

In the debug mode I managed to create a build that (using loaded mines) achieved 48,000 DPS against the dummy, albeit briefly (2 seconds). Which is enough raw damage to take down any boss (I've estimated Seraph's hp to be in the 80k to 120k range at wave 100).

[Bozobub]

Dart scales far more strongly via size increases, than via number of Darts, although the differences are relatively minor for completed, properly set up builds. Taking Fusillade, for example, on top of Barrage is pretty much a "lateral" upgrade, until/unless you take Solar Heart or Antimatter Rounds, both of which scale well to total numbers of projectiles/second.

Take it from someone whom actually prefers Dart + Barrage ^^' . Again, this is easily verifiable via Debug testing.

[Kess_the_White]

railgun is not good. its true

[Bozobub]

False. Railgun has *fewer* good builds than some weapons but by means is it "trash".