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Super accurate and devastating damage at long range, but with very long reload time.
~ In-game description

English 


Type
Hardware
Purpose
Long-range precision burst damage.
Tier Available
4

The Rail Cannon , also commonly called the railgun, is a type of hardware cube in Robocraft. The Rail Cannon fires straight hitscan shots that deal heavy damage, damage to components is affected by Resistivity. They are available to unlock upon reaching Tier 4.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • High damage
  • Ability to break on-tier electroplates
  • Long range
  • Powerful scope, shoot and spot enemies before they see you
  • Highest Protonivity of all weapons

Cons

  • Extremely long reload time
  • Bad at close range
  • Protonium Crystals usually must be shot at short range
  • Limited amount of shots you can shoot before reloading

Overview

Rail Cannons are efficient in the task of eliminating threats at extreme ranges with shots that deal heavy damage and destroy vital components. The damage of rail shots is often enough to disable even the most heavily armored robots and disable or destroy more simply constructed robots.

When fully depleted of shots, Rail Cannons reload simultaneously in 12 seconds, regardless of amount. Manually reloading (initiated by pressing R) a single cannon takes 6 seconds. No cannon may fire until reloading is complete, even if some are already loaded. A two second accuracy penalty is incurred immediately after moving the aim. Due to an update in mechanics, you now can keep the fire button down and still fire 6 shots with perfect accuracy, assuming no aim movement takes place. The accuracy penalty, while still there is now similar, to the shot delay of 0.95 seconds between single rail shots. Rail cannons are reloaded when you respawn.

Similar to other hardware cubes, rail cannons increase in size with tier progression, though to a much greater degree due to their large initial size.

Statistics

NOTE: The sounds in this page are obsolete. There are new sounds for rails.

Every tier has the same amount of Protonivity (280%), Resistivity (30%), and Heal rate (1.00). The protonivity level does not include the fusion tower buff.

Rail Charging
Rail Charged
Image Tier Damage Armor Health CPU CPU Mass (kg)Mass Barrier Protection Robot Ranking Robot ranking Price Price Price Price Firing Sound Impact Sound
T4Rail
4
4258
1801
20
14
18%
512
2332 Price
85 Price
T5Rail
5
6816
2990
22
15.6
19%
1520
5066 Price
135 Price
T6Rail
6
10216
4747
24
17.2
21%
4477
9988 Price
205 Price
T7Rail
7
14382
7192
26
18.7
22%
13095
18574 Price
320 Price
T8Rail
8
19033
10373
28
20.3
23%
38076
36113 Price
535 Price
T9Rail
9
25134
14206
30
21.8
24%
110148
64262 Price
895 Price
T10Rail
10
34240
18423
32
23.4
25%
317225
117178 Price
1480 Price

Shooting Sequence

When mounting multiple railguns, they will shoot in a persistent sequence. For instance, when mounting 2 railguns, the one closer to the pilot seat shoots before the other one.

Amount Sequence
2 1-2
3 1-3-2
4 3-1-2-4
5 5-1-3-4-2
6 5-3-1-6-2-4

Larger number indicates further from the pilot seat.

History

Before the new spotting update/aim update, the rail cannons were extremely strong, being able to 1 shot people from across the map. Luckily, in the spotting updates they added many things that made the rail cannon more fun to play against. Some of the changes to the rail cannons include: -Accuracy -Aim Time -Damage output -Reload time

Rail guns became the weakest gun type in the game after their nerfs. While their strategy has certain strengths like long distance low risk damage, they are made relatively weak by their long reload time, large gun footprint, low DPS, and stable base requirement which make rail tanks extremely vulnerable. This discrepancy is only magnified in tier 10, where larger bots are more prevalent, making damage over time more important. After the latest buffs and changes the rail gun in now on par with the other guns but needs a lot of practice and unlike other guns knowledge about bots in general, a skilled sniper must know where the weak spots are, although every bot looks different. In the hands of an unexperienced player this gun is by far the weakest.

Strategies

For

Basics

A nice place to snipe
  • As a sniper's weapon, the railgun requires behavior similar to that of a sniper. Keep your distance, stay still to maximize accuracy and avoid close combat. Aim for weak points (thin sections, movement cubes, pilots) and avoid electroplating, unless you need to hit the weak spot behind it. Airborne targets are particularly good targets if they are far out as their movement is more predictable and your guns needs very little angular speed. Although the rail gun is a hit scan weapon it is smart to lead targets, wait for your target to move into your crosshair and you can hit weak spots with only minimal corrections.
  • Use tactical reload to increase the fire rate and to hide your presence; the laser sight only shows up when all weapons are loaded. Tracking a flying target with an unloaded railgun will increase your chances of landing a hit as they will perform no evasive maneuvers.
  • Conversely, pointing your laser (even when out of range) at a small enemy unit is a great way to nudge them on another path.
  • In the early game phase, self destructing to reload can be a good strategy as the reload time is longer than the respawn time.
  • Due to the laser sight that flashes wherever you aim, it is best to wait until the enemy is distracted, looking away or has hardly any weapons to fire back before firing at them. When looking around, always keep the crosshair low, if you wait for someone to come around a corner, have the crosshair on that corner, not at the position the enemy will appear.
  • At any tier it is a good idea to injure your enemy if you cannot kill them, damage their method of transportation such as rotor blades so they cannot escape.
  • If you have a target that has a very tough build and their method of transportation is blocked by shields or blocks, shoot off their weapons. Any nearby friendly SMGs can pick apart a defenseless bot very quickly. Mega Bots not supported by medics are especially susceptible.
  • Building Clock Cycles while the enemy rush to a tower or base allows a patient rail to become dangerous very quickly due to the Overclocking damage buff.
  • Placing a tesla on a craft with railguns can be both good and bad. Having a defense against rushing enemies is fantastic but a tesla blade will often cause even more fire to fall on you out of fear. As a railgunner is already one of the most immediately targeted enemies, this can lead to many deaths that would not have happened otherwise.

Vs Specific Builds and Weapons

Tanks In higher tiers, well built craft largely realize that they are close to impervious to a full volley of railgun shots. This will lead them to charge at the rail that fired at them, unless there is a massive obstacle between them, they are disarmed, or they are destroyed. The reason for their stamina vs rails is the way their armor is constructed, it leads damage to a damage sink. The first shot you fire will be very telling, it will show the direction their damage sink is in by the way the armor blocks ripples and breaks. You must avoid firing into their damage sink as it will give you nothing other than a target on your back and a few clock cycles. Flyers Flying targets are a rail's favorite but the opposite is also true. Most flying craft have large movement parts that are easily shot off. You do not need to shoot off all of their movement parts to make them fall from the sky, only on one of the sides to destabilize the craft with drag. Be aware that if you do not succeed in striking them down, you will be target number 1 until they respawn. Plasma To deal with plasma bots, you just need to stay out of their sight. Plasma launchers have a very slow turn speed so two shots can be unloaded into them before their guns are able to turn to you. Railgun Railguns, if they are away from the fusion shield are the easiest target. Most rails have only 6 guns due to their exceptionally cumbersome size and the laser shines from the gun that will shoot next. If you shoot their loaded guns, they will be useless until the next reload, 12 seconds later. Do not pursue them if they move away as they normally feign running to draw you in. Nano Disruptor Crafts with nano disruptors are completely incapable of reaching you without moving toward you. This is their ultimate weakness and their ultimate strength, if their teammates are observant. Any nearby teammates who notice that their medic is being fired upon will drop what they were doing earlier to fire at the one damaging their medic. Do not let them notice and do not close the gap unless it is perfectly safe. Tesla Unless they can be taken care of at a distance or instantly, do not bother firing at them. SMG SMG craft love to close the gap as soon as possible. A railgunner will always appreciate the safety of a teammate that is willing to tank hits and body-block for them. In Low Tiers If there is no medic in a match, a few shots striking a low-tier enemy will be a death sentence for them because of their small degree of armor. Crippling and one-shotting bots is the job of the rail in lower tiers.

Against

  • Stay on the move and close the gap. Railgun users don't like wasting shots and will often try to get behind cover rather than engage directly. If they do, stay on them and keep firing.
  • In addition to pursuing the enemy rail gunner, mark them by pressing 'Q' to help your team know where the rail gunner is. They will often run for cover behind an object in the environment to hide or find a new tactical position on the map when spotted.
  • Sneaking up on a rail gunner is a great tactic, due to the fact that they will try to run but do not engage until you are close enough to make sure the rail gunner cannot escape easily and his guns are not pointing your way when he sees you.
  • Railgun players rely on their target to move in the way that they expect them to. If you turn your craft frequently then they cannot get the result that they want and will have a large cooldown after just a few shots.
  • Design your craft to draw damage into its bulk.

Quick Reload

Manually reloading (with at least one shot still left unfired) is faster than the automatic reload upon firing all shots. A bot that uses less than six guns can add an extra low-tier railgun that is not fired to reduce reload time.

If only ONE shot has been fired and the vehicle maintains at least 2 railguns, then manually reloading will always only take 8 seconds. The railguns do not have to be the same tier or level for this to occur, meaning that it is possible to use a higher-tier railgun in conjunction with a low-tier railgun and use the single-shot reload to fire the high-tier railgun at a faster rate.

Shotgunning

NOT POSSIBLE ANYMORE unless you are OC13

Prior to the Dawn of the Megabots update of the 30th of April, 2015, it was possible to hold down the fire button and unload all loaded rail cannons within a very short time, albeit at greatly reduced accuracy. This allowed for a non-sniping approach to rail use where the user sneaks up close on targets, and fires rapidly at close range in an attempt to kill the target in a single alpha strike. Failing that, the shooter will retreat, as even without a kill this technique will severely cripple most enemy craft. This can be surprisingly effective since the total damage 6 rails can deliver will often be sufficient to punch straight through even the strongest armor if it hits close together.

Assuming the use of 6 rail guns the total time needed to fire all 6 shots can be calculated the following.

Sequence Total time after DOTM Total time after R&O, OC13
Rail 1 fires
0.00 seconds
0.38 seconds
Rail 2 fires
0.95 seconds
0.76 seconds
Rail 3 fires
1.90 seconds
1.14 seconds
Rail 4 fires
2.85 seconds
1.52 seconds
Rail 5 fires
3.80 seconds
1.90 seconds
Rail 6 fires
4.75 seconds
2.28 seconds

Trivia

  • Full tier matching armor cubes was added at the release of the Rail Cannon.
  • Railgun mechanics were changed in the release of Aerofoils
  • Railguns were added at 08/05/2014
  • It used to be possible to use the lower reload of low tier guns to quicker fire high tier guns, this was known as Proxy rail.
  • The general name for Rail cannon is refereed in code as KUBE_rail_cannon

The railguns used to be available in all tiers and used a different firing mechanic.

  • When the railgun was first introduced, you held left mouse to charge the gun. You could fire the railgun with just one gun charged, or wait for all six. However, you only had a set amount time before it over heated.
  • The old sound files are no longer used, but still exist in the game
T1,T2 railgun firing
T1,T2 rail impacting
Railgun overheat warning
Railgun overheated

Demonstration

video by ac1999. Music is Stryv & Aaron Thompson - Ignite

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