TL;DR
The railgun damage tech is useless past the first few levels, and railguns can oneshot demolishers far too easily with no upgrades. Giving railguns finite piercing power dependant on their damage would fix both of these problems.The problems
1) Railguns oneshot even the biggest demolishers with only a few damage upgrades. That’s simply too strong too soon. And this is clearly due to a hitbox quirk, and not because their damage values were made to be that strong.2) Railguns have two “infinite” techs, but both of them are functionally capped at level 2. That’s right, 2. And they’re not even a super expensive two levels, the techs have the same cost and scaling as the gun damage tech. Speed is capped because railguns have a turning animation, which isn’t sped up by the tech. And damage is capped because, once you’re able to oneshot huge asteroids, that’s all the damage you’ll ever need.
The fix
Well, first, the firing speed thing is obviously just a technical fix. Not much to say about it.But my real proposal is about the issue of the damage tech, and demolishers. I believe that if railgun shots behaved more like cannon shells, both of these problems would be fixed. Currently, railgun shots apply their full damage to every target they pierce, and the only limit is their range. But I think the shots should deal damage to one target, and only pierce it if they have more damage left to deal. So their damage would diminish with each pierced target, until eventually the shot is stopped.
If demolishers weren’t hit in each pierced segment simultaneously and for the full damage, then they could much more effectively tank the damage. And with asteroids, while a single huge asteroid could still be oneshot at damage level 2, you would still want more levels in order to be able to hit more asteroids behind it. The “railgun damage” tech would essentially take the role of a “railgun piercing power” tech, which would be much more balanced.
