Houserule me: Rail Guns

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

One of the things that's always....irritated?....me about this game is railguns. The books say they're powerful, they're feared weapons, etc.

The numbers do not bear that out. The only reason to use a railgun is if you want to roll one die and multiply it by 10 (or 2 dice in some cases, 3 in a very few), and you can't get your hands on an NG-P7, Wilk's 457, the Kittani knockoff of the Wilk's, or similar weapons. Railguns are heavy as hell, require finite ammo that can't be created at a recharging station, use a potentially dangerous power source, the ammo that's described in the books tells me that whoever came up with this has next to no clue about projectile weapons (metal rings or balls? really?) and then, to top it all off, their damage sucks. The only thing they have going for them is, there are damn few monsters that are immune to kinetic attacks, and I'm not aware of a spell "Impervious to Kinetics" (I don't know every spell from every book, though, so it may be out there).

So I've been kicking around a few ideas for a game that I hope to run at some point that will be houseruled to hell and back. But I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to make railguns actual weapons instead of the joke that they currently tend to be.

I'm thinking boost the damage per shot, increase the ability to penetrate armor (another thing I'm coming up with an alternate idea for), cut the rate of fire by at least 75%, and *maybe* decrease the weight. Oh, and I'm thinking projectiles that look like a Sears-Haack body, probably about 6mm to 6.5mm in diameter for the small guns, 8mm for medium, and 12.5-15mm for the larger ones. Single shot or semi-auto rail cannons will have a larger caliber, obviously.

Let's hear some more suggestions please. I'm open to ideas.

[dreicunan]

Yeah, those rails guns sure are jokes. That is why nobody fears Glitter Boys.

Rail guns have the advantage of range. The Wilks 457 only has a range of 2000 feet. Most rail guns are around 4000 feet (and some hit quite a bit further). Most rail guns do pretty decent damage compared to most energy weapons, and as you noted there is normally not a risk of somebody being impervious or resistant to the damage. Sure, the trade-off is weight and ammo, but they give you some pretty good features in exchange.

[eliakon]

A house rule that I have seen used a few times is to allow them to be used similar to a shotgun. I.e. you roll to hit the location and do AoE damage to a small area (one example was 6 inch diameter at 0-1000', 12' out to 2000' and 18' beyond that. With heavy railguns like canons or Boomguns doing larger bursts)
This allowed them to do some impressive damage in that particular game (basically they were great for shredding web-gear, wheels, external features, hand weapons and all sorts of other stuff)

Another option is to take advantage of their ability to load different loads. You can get silver, or wood, or anything else you need to take advantage of a targets weakness. And it is even, in theory, possible to get enchanted ammunition unlike enchanted energy...

[Shark_Force]

also, "their damage is only as good as the very best energy weapons" doesn't sound like a terribly convincing argument for why they'd be looked down on.

that said, if you want to make them a bit more scary, give them the rules for armour piercing missiles and maybe have a higher threshold for knockdown from non-kinetic weapons.

(i wouldn't argue with railguns firing single larger shots either, which would be it's own kind of minor buff; ability to make called shots, and bursts are not as accurate).

[glitterboy2098]

one thing you could do is let the kinetic nature of them effect things differently than the energy stuff. when an energy weapon hits a target, the target is going to absorb the energy as it takes damage, melting, burning, or exploding depending on whether it is laser, ion, plasma, particle beam, etc. thus even SDC objects would provide at least a bit of protective cover from energy weapons.. it just wouldn't last more than 1 maybe 2 shots depending on hos much SDC the object has and how much MDC the attack does.

a kinetic weapon like a railgun though is going to punch through though, probably not even slowing down much short of a couple feet of metal or stone. so you could allow railguns to shoot through walls and trees and other smallish/thinish SDC objects to do damage to targets behind.

this would make railguns rather more deadly, since hiding behind an SDC wall or a mound of dirt wouldn't actually keep you from being hit.

[Killer Cyborg]

Apply the Armor Piercing rules for AP Missiles for Rail Guns.
Also use the optional Knockdown Tables for impact/explosives rules from RGMG 35.
Allow Rail Guns to use the "Modifying Conventional Weapons rules from RGMG 127, where applicable.

Charge players book prices for e-clip recharging.

[The Beast]

IIRC, in the HU setting Palladium kind of fixed this by giving railguns armor-piercing capabilities. Unfortunately it wouldn't help in Rifts since it's a MDC setting and the skin of a MDC creature is just as tough as a mecha unit.

[taalismn]

o

this would make railguns rather more deadly, since hiding behind an SDC wall or a mound of dirt wouldn't actually keep you from being hit.

Ricochets too...even if a bouncing round loses its MD punch, it's still lots of shrapnel making noise and causing your average organic mook opponent to instinctively flinch and try to stay under cover.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

also, "their damage is only as good as the very best energy weapons" doesn't sound like a terribly convincing argument for why they'd be looked down on.

that said, if you want to make them a bit more scary, give them the rules for armour piercing missiles and maybe have a higher threshold for knockdown from non-kinetic weapons.

(i wouldn't argue with railguns firing single larger shots either, which would be it's own kind of minor buff; ability to make called shots, and bursts are not as accurate).

The damage thing is on a burst basis for a railgun. 40 rounds Vs 3 shot laser pulse. On a shot-for-shot basis, the majority of railgun are weak. And firing off 40, 60, 80, or 100 rounds to get DMGx10 means there are a lot of rounds missing the target and hitting who knows what.

[Mack]

Personally I like to apply the Armor Piercing rule, which is a simple way to make them much more deadly.
-- Strike roll of 18+ (after bonuses) = Double Damage
-- Natural 20 = Triple Damage

Including bonuses to the strike roll is the kicker, since it isn't that hard for character to have +3 or better. Suddenly a roll of 15+ hits for double damage. Or to say it another way: a quarter of the time it inflicts double damage. When faced with even a "weak" railgun like on a SAMAS, the character has to think about how a few lucky rolls could dramatically increase the damage. And when facing something like a Glitterboy (who's pilot is going to have much better than a +3)...

That potential high damage, combined with superior range, gives rail guns a nice niche in Rifts.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

So where are the rules for AP missiles in the book? I'll take another look at them tonight.

[glitterboy2098]

Personally I like to apply the Armor Piercing rule, which is a simple way to make them much more deadly.
-- Strike roll of 18+ (after bonuses) = Double Damage
-- Natural 20 = Triple Damage

Including bonuses to the strike roll is the kicker, since it isn't that hard for character to have +3 or better. Suddenly a roll of 15+ hits for double damage. Or to say it another way: a quarter of the time it inflicts double damage. When faced with even a "weak" railgun like on a SAMAS, the character has to think about how a few lucky rolls could dramatically increase the damage. And when facing something like a Glitterboy (who's pilot is going to have much better than a +3)...

That potential high damage, combined with superior range, gives rail guns a nice niche in Rifts.

IIRC, isn't the 18+ based on a natural roll as well? natural 18-19 is x2, and nat20 is x3.

[ShadowLogan]

In addition to KC's suggestions (not sure about #3, but #1 and #2 are fine)...

Something to keep in mind then is that maybe treat the machinegun type Railguns (ex CR-40, as opposed the flechette type on the Boomgun which is more of a shotgun rule) as machineguns. This means:
-their busts can be used to spray an area for multiple targets (damage per target won't be as much), IINM you can only do something like this with a machinegun, simple burst availability is not enough
-you could as a house rule subject main target to listed damage, and due to the mismatch in rounds vs damage use that in a "bystander" type attack for the extra rounds to hit as if a "spray" type attack.

Railgun ammo is also supposed to be easy to produce, yes its heavy, yes its finite, but compared to recharging an eclip its going to be simpler to acquire and potentially cheaper in terms of # of attacks for the cost (IINM, one railgun in MercOps to replace a spent ammo belt costs the same as an eclip recharge, but you get many more attacks out of it).

[kaid]

Yeah, those rails guns sure are jokes. That is why nobody fears Glitter Boys.

Rail guns have the advantage of range. The Wilks 457 only has a range of 2000 feet. Most rail guns are around 4000 feet (and some hit quite a bit further). Most rail guns do pretty decent damage compared to most energy weapons, and as you noted there is normally not a risk of somebody being impervious or resistant to the damage. Sure, the trade-off is weight and ammo, but they give you some pretty good features in exchange.

It is good to have both energy weapons and kinetic weapons. rail guns as mentioned tend to outrange energy weapons by a good bit and also nice for when facing things with energy resistances of various types. Kinetic attacks tend to be less resisted and you can get specialty railgun rounds for your vampire hunting/demon hunting needs.


If you are not using power armor or a borg though finding a good rail gun is a bit more challenging as most of them are kinda heavy but there are still a lot of folks who are enhanced or magical in some way that allows them to tote some pretty sizable rail guns.

[Shark_Force]

also, "their damage is only as good as the very best energy weapons" doesn't sound like a terribly convincing argument for why they'd be looked down on.

that said, if you want to make them a bit more scary, give them the rules for armour piercing missiles and maybe have a higher threshold for knockdown from non-kinetic weapons.

(i wouldn't argue with railguns firing single larger shots either, which would be it's own kind of minor buff; ability to make called shots, and bursts are not as accurate).

The damage thing is on a burst basis for a railgun. 40 rounds Vs 3 shot laser pulse. On a shot-for-shot basis, the majority of railgun are weak. And firing off 40, 60, 80, or 100 rounds to get DMGx10 means there are a lot of rounds missing the target and hitting who knows what.

so what if one bullet is less damage. you're not shooting one bullet, you're shooting many, and many bullets deal more damage. a hunting rifle does more damage than an uzi per bullet, but that doesn't mean you should feel more comfortable charging at a person with an uzi than you would a person with a hunting rifle. this is like complaining that a person with 100 1 dollar bills is considered more wealthy than a person with 10 5 dollar bills.

one burst from a railgun, even if you don't change them to be firing one large round instead of dozens of small ones, takes as much time as one blast from an energy rifle or one triple pulse from a pulse laser rifle, and does damage on the high end of the scale. that's still plenty of reason to think of the railgun as being a dangerous weapon to go up against.

still, again, if it bothers you that much, just change them to fire single shots with larger slugs and decrease the ammo appropriately. i can't think of a reason to consider it less plausible, and in terms of game mechanics it isn't a huge change either, so just go ahead and do it. or even make them like pulse lasers if you want, and have one round do 3d4 or 3d6 or whatever while a 3-round burst hits for 1d4x10 or 1d6x10 or whatever, with the assumption that burst firing them allows them to strike an already weakened point for a bit more damage since they come out so closely grouped or whatever techno-babble nonsense you prefer.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

also, "their damage is only as good as the very best energy weapons" doesn't sound like a terribly convincing argument for why they'd be looked down on.

that said, if you want to make them a bit more scary, give them the rules for armour piercing missiles and maybe have a higher threshold for knockdown from non-kinetic weapons.

(i wouldn't argue with railguns firing single larger shots either, which would be it's own kind of minor buff; ability to make called shots, and bursts are not as accurate).

The damage thing is on a burst basis for a railgun. 40 rounds Vs 3 shot laser pulse. On a shot-for-shot basis, the majority of railgun are weak. And firing off 40, 60, 80, or 100 rounds to get DMGx10 means there are a lot of rounds missing the target and hitting who knows what.

so what if one bullet is less damage. you're not shooting one bullet, you're shooting many, and many bullets deal more damage. a hunting rifle does more damage than an uzi per bullet, but that doesn't mean you should feel more comfortable charging at a person with an uzi than you would a person with a hunting rifle. this is like complaining that a person with 100 1 dollar bills is considered more wealthy than a person with 10 5 dollar bills.

one burst from a railgun, even if you don't change them to be firing one large round instead of dozens of small ones, takes as much time as one blast from an energy rifle or one triple pulse from a pulse laser rifle, and does damage on the high end of the scale. that's still plenty of reason to think of the railgun as being a dangerous weapon to go up against.

still, again, if it bothers you that much, just change them to fire single shots with larger slugs and decrease the ammo appropriately. i can't think of a reason to consider it less plausible, and in terms of game mechanics it isn't a huge change either, so just go ahead and do it. or even make them like pulse lasers if you want, and have one round do 3d4 or 3d6 or whatever while a 3-round burst hits for 1d4x10 or 1d6x10 or whatever, with the assumption that burst firing them allows them to strike an already weakened point for a bit more damage since they come out so closely grouped or whatever techno-babble nonsense you prefer.

I may have not worded what I'm trying for correctly. I do that. A lot.

Let me try again.

Share whatever house rules *you have* to make railguns not suck. I've got a pretty good idea of how I'm going to run them (throw out everything Palladium wrote and go with rules that actually make sense), but I'd like to see what others have done in case I see something I like better, or that makes me think along a different track.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

you can get specialty railgun rounds for your vampire hunting/demon hunting needs.

That reminds me....and you can tell that I played Rifts a lot when I was younger, because I know how VERY easy it is to abuse...

Going with what's written thus far, fighting demons with a railgun loaded with silver ammo makes less sense than loading up an AK-47 or M2 HMG with silver bullets. The chemical propellant slugthrowers now do their listed damage in MD which, depending on which book you go by, is either 4D6 (most core books) or 5D6 (weapon compendium) for an AK, and 7D6 (corebooks) or 1D6x10+10 (weapon compendium) on the .50 cal. I can see this being explained away by "The railgun slug is going too fast to really cause a lot of damage, it just shoots through", so there's that. I'm not saying I agree with it, just that someone could make that argument and it is logical because it's within the realm of possibility.

[eliakon]

you can get specialty railgun rounds for your vampire hunting/demon hunting needs.

That reminds me....and you can tell that I played Rifts a lot when I was younger, because I know how VERY easy it is to abuse...

Going with what's written thus far, fighting demons with a railgun loaded with silver ammo makes less sense than loading up an AK-47 or M2 HMG with silver bullets. The chemical propellant slugthrowers now do their listed damage in MD which, depending on which book you go by, is either 4D6 (most core books) or 5D6 (weapon compendium) for an AK, and 7D6 (corebooks) or 1D6x10+10 (weapon compendium) on the .50 cal. I can see this being explained away by "The railgun slug is going too fast to really cause a lot of damage, it just shoots through", so there's that. I'm not saying I agree with it, just that someone could make that argument and it is logical because it's within the realm of possibility.

Basically...
this is why you have a GM.
The short simple answer is 'damage scales wonky in rifts'
Though I would point out that a 2d6x10 railgun with silver is doing 2d6x20 (assuming you use the x2 damage for silver...), which is still pretty respectable.
Especially since unlike those silver bullets it still does 2d6x10 MD to normal targets (so if your vampire is wearing body armor like the ones in Arzno)

With a GM. Well, that is one of the things GMs tend to need to do. They are there to cover the gaps. If every edge case was nailed down and there were no judgement calls we wouldn't need them we could all just play and there would never be a dispute in the world...

Personally? like I said, I like the AoE approach. Though I am likening the AP and I really like the Spray rules. I am thinking next game I will be using the spray rules with the AP rules as a possibility (say... you can get specific AP rounds) and go from there.

[Mack]

Personally I like to apply the Armor Piercing rule, which is a simple way to make them much more deadly.
-- Strike roll of 18+ (after bonuses) = Double Damage
-- Natural 20 = Triple Damage

Including bonuses to the strike roll is the kicker, since it isn't that hard for character to have +3 or better. Suddenly a roll of 15+ hits for double damage. Or to say it another way: a quarter of the time it inflicts double damage. When faced with even a "weak" railgun like on a SAMAS, the character has to think about how a few lucky rolls could dramatically increase the damage. And when facing something like a Glitterboy (who's pilot is going to have much better than a +3)...

That potential high damage, combined with superior range, gives rail guns a nice niche in Rifts.

IIRC, isn't the 18+ based on a natural roll as well? natural 18-19 is x2, and nat20 is x3.

RUE p362. It includes bonuses.

Un-natural 18+ is x2.
Natural 20 is x3.

[Jefffar]

My tendancy is make the Burst damage the per round damage, and give a 3 to 5 shot burst option for 2 to 3x damage.

I also reduce the amount count by about 80%

[Library Ogre]

I'd lean towards giving them a pronounced knockdown effect; their damage is in their kinetic energy, not heat or something more exotic and ill-defined. If you make it so railguns knock flyers out of the sky and topple bots, you not only give glitter boys some great benefits from being anchored, but you give a good reason why they're used.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I don't know if this has been said above, I do read sci-fi and one of the series I have read (John Ringo)..one of the things about railgun rounds is that they tend to only penetrate one side of the armor and then bounce around on the inside of the armor till the mass inside of the armor has produced enough drag on the round that it stops. This nearly always ends up the person (human) inside being made into goo.

This is nearly the same situation with the early firearms and armor. Where they would penetrate the breastplate and then bounce off the back plate of the armor. Doing more damage to the target on the 2nd pass.

[glitterboy2098]

that is a bit of a different scenario though.. the projectiles in the Legacy of the Aldenata series are relativistic, and the armor is the next best thing to neutronium, being both super dense and reinforced by scifi anti-kinetic fields. the end result in the book was projectile bouncing round and liquidizing the trooper..

physically speaking if the projectile has enough durability to survive penetrating the armor on the front, and do that much damage to the trooper, it is going to also have preserved enough kinetic energy to punch through most of the armor on the back. because if the projectile loses energy fast against the armor, it is going to deform and spall, rather than punch through.

more than likely though Ringo was intentionally using a callback to the halftracks of ww2, which had just enough armor on the sides that the german machineguns would spall off lots of armo on the inside, which would richochet around the back compartment. to the soldiers this felt like the MG's were penetrating one side and then "rattling around", leading to a number of after action reports describing such and asking for better armor. note that this was before the advent of anti-spall liners like all military units today use, which reduce the effect.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

My tendancy is make the Burst damage the per round damage, and give a 3 to 5 shot burst option for 2 to 3x damage.

I also reduce the amount count by about 80%

Interesting, and it makes railguns significantly more of a threat than they are in the written rules.

Thank you for contributing.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

I'd lean towards giving them a pronounced knockdown effect; their damage is in their kinetic energy, not heat or something more exotic and ill-defined. If you make it so railguns knock flyers out of the sky and topple bots, you not only give glitter boys some great benefits from being anchored, but you give a good reason why they're used.

Another good idea that I'll have to come up with mechanics for.

Thank you.

[glitterboy2098]

I'd lean towards giving them a pronounced knockdown effect; their damage is in their kinetic energy, not heat or something more exotic and ill-defined. If you make it so railguns knock flyers out of the sky and topple bots, you not only give glitter boys some great benefits from being anchored, but you give a good reason why they're used.

Another good idea that I'll have to come up with mechanics for.

Thank you.

the original conversion book 1, and IIRC the GMG have PB's optional tables for knockdown caused by damage. my suggestion would be to use the tables as is for energy weapons, and reduce the damage required by 1/2 or even 3/4s for railguns and (non-plasma) explosives.. this would, IIRC, give the C-40 on a SAMAS a better than 1in3 chance of knocking down a human sized target. which would result in loss of initaitive and loss of an attack by the target, each time they are hit and knocked down. which could make railguns good for suppression fire.

[Zer0 Kay]

All man portable railguns are actually coilguns allowing for the "ball" or ring to be launched in rapid succession through the pulsed magnetic field.
The powerful guns like the boomgun and the Shemarian staff guns are railguns that fire a single powerful shot If the Boomgun fired just a single large round it should produce as much damage if not more than the "flechettes" think birdshot vs. a slug. Both cause massive damage in different ways.

NEMA and national militaries just started calling both weapons Railguns instead of educating the users about the difference. Both are electrically powered guns that fire bullets using an E-M force. It doesn't matter to the grunt if one uses Gauss and the other Lorentz... it may matter to a grunt that a railgun with it's exposed rails can be fired in the water... without a shocking outcome while coilguns can have the EM coils encased.

[Mack]

I'd lean towards giving them a pronounced knockdown effect; their damage is in their kinetic energy, not heat or something more exotic and ill-defined. If you make it so railguns knock flyers out of the sky and topple bots, you not only give glitter boys some great benefits from being anchored, but you give a good reason why they're used.

Another good idea that I'll have to come up with mechanics for.

Thank you.

the original conversion book 1, and IIRC the GMG have PB's optional tables for knockdown caused by damage. my suggestion would be to use the tables as is for energy weapons, and reduce the damage required by 1/2 or even 3/4s for railguns and (non-plasma) explosives.. this would, IIRC, give the C-40 on a SAMAS a better than 1in3 chance of knocking down a human sized target. which would result in loss of initaitive and loss of an attack by the target, each time they are hit and knocked down. which could make railguns good for suppression fire.

I'll third this suggestion, and recommend looking at p35 of the Rifts Game Master's Guide. It's got knockdown tables for both Humanoid and Supernatural victims.

If you combine that with the AP rule, then a rail gun has a decent chance of knocking a dragon down.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

I'll check them and see what I like and how to adapt it.

[Jefffar]

I don't like the knockdown rule for most railguns simply because if they have enough power to knock over the target, they are also exerting that power back on the shooter.

The GB is an obvious exception with its deliberate recoil mitigation.

[Shark_Force]

I don't like the knockdown rule for most railguns simply because if they have enough power to knock over the target, they are also exerting that power back on the shooter.

The GB is an obvious exception with its deliberate recoil mitigation.

the same can be said for a person shoving another person. if there's enough force to shove a person, there's probably enough force to knock yourself back... the difference being in who is braced, and where you apply the force.

[ShadowLogan]

One of the things that's always....irritated?....me about this game is railguns. The books say they're powerful, they're feared weapons, etc.

The numbers do not bear that out.

It might be important to look at context. Most railguns in Rifts are very powerful against low level targets. Someone clad in EBA has a lot more to fear from a Railgun than they do a most energy weapons. Why? Because in terms of damage those railguns will likely chew up EBA faster and from farther away than alternatives and for longer durations before reloading (eclips do run out after all). Which is likely more common than a 'borg or power armor, both of which tend to have more MDC than a suit of EBA.

If you are looking for optional rules to exploit, also consider the Physical Damage While inside a MDC Structure found in the rules (oRMB pg12 oir RUE pg355-6) and how they could be houseruled to apply. Ex: If you treat the weapon impact as a "high speed crash", shudder at the transfer damage (assuming a slow mach 1 speed, that works out to 31d4 or 3d4x10 SD per RUE, never mind higher speeds it assumes). Not much of a danger to MDC creatures, but soft SDC squishies transfer damage alone would make it a weapon to be feared at the grunt level. You might not want to go with the per rate in RUE that I assumed (since the means most MDC armor becomes useless as you no longer need to reduce it to zero), but you get the idea.

You could also consider applying Pain rules for additional impact (even to MDC creatures), off hand Pain Rules can be found in RCB1r pg21 (not sure about elsewhere), or a variation on them since the impact of a railgun round is likely to sting a bit.

[dreicunan]

One of the things that's always....irritated?....me about this game is railguns. The books say they're powerful, they're feared weapons, etc.

The numbers do not bear that out.

It might be important to look at context. Most railguns in Rifts are very powerful against low level targets. Someone clad in EBA has a lot more to fear from a Railgun than they do a most energy weapons. Why? Because in terms of damage those railguns will likely chew up EBA faster and from farther away than alternatives and for longer durations before reloading (eclips do run out after all). Which is likely more common than a 'borg or power armor, both of which tend to have more MDC than a suit of EBA.

If you are looking for optional rules to exploit, also consider the Physical Damage While inside a MDC Structure found in the rules (oRMB pg12 oir RUE pg355-6) and how they could be houseruled to apply. Ex: If you treat the weapon impact as a "high speed crash", shudder at the transfer damage (assuming a slow mach 1 speed, that works out to 31d4 or 3d4x10 SD per RUE, never mind higher speeds it assumes). Not much of a danger to MDC creatures, but soft SDC squishies transfer damage alone would make it a weapon to be feared at the grunt level. You might not want to go with the per rate in RUE that I assumed (since the means most MDC armor becomes useless as you no longer need to reduce it to zero), but you get the idea.

I was just about to suggest this as an option instead of just increasing damage, though at a reduced rate. I'd keep it at no higher than 1 point of sdc for every MD point, and could easily see either doing 1 point for every 2 MD or perhaps 1 point for every point of md over a given number (say 10). I'd also easily see mixing approaches with the softer styles of MD protection like the Branaghan duster or mdc clothing not being as effective against kinetic attacks as harder mdc armor.

[ShadowLogan]

One of the things that's always....irritated?....me about this game is railguns. The books say they're powerful, they're feared weapons, etc.

The numbers do not bear that out.

It might be important to look at context. Most railguns in Rifts are very powerful against low level targets. Someone clad in EBA has a lot more to fear from a Railgun than they do a most energy weapons. Why? Because in terms of damage those railguns will likely chew up EBA faster and from farther away than alternatives and for longer durations before reloading (eclips do run out after all). Which is likely more common than a 'borg or power armor, both of which tend to have more MDC than a suit of EBA.

If you are looking for optional rules to exploit, also consider the Physical Damage While inside a MDC Structure found in the rules (oRMB pg12 oir RUE pg355-6) and how they could be houseruled to apply. Ex: If you treat the weapon impact as a "high speed crash", shudder at the transfer damage (assuming a slow mach 1 speed, that works out to 31d4 or 3d4x10 SD per RUE, never mind higher speeds it assumes). Not much of a danger to MDC creatures, but soft SDC squishies transfer damage alone would make it a weapon to be feared at the grunt level. You might not want to go with the per rate in RUE that I assumed (since the means most MDC armor becomes useless as you no longer need to reduce it to zero), but you get the idea.

I was just about to suggest this as an option instead of just increasing damage, though at a reduced rate. I'd keep it at no higher than 1 point of sdc for every MD point, and could easily see either doing 1 point for every 2 MD or perhaps 1 point for every point of md over a given number (say 10). I'd also easily see mixing approaches with the softer styles of MD protection like the Branaghan duster or mdc clothing not being as effective against kinetic attacks as harder mdc armor.

Oh I agree that you probably don't want to with a slightly tuned RAW since you get into absurdities pretty quickly as I showed in my example. Basing the damage transfer on the amount of damage inflicted would seem to result in more reasonable values than impact/crash (which IIRC if applied to the M-16 or AK-47 would not be doing a handful of D6 in SD range, but enough to put them into MD range).

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I think the fact that the average railgun can kill the guy armed with the ‘best’ energyweapons before said guy can even fire back makes them plenty powerful.

Also the part where a commonly-known 6th level spell cant be used to neuter your weapon.

Rail guns are plenty powerful.

[Zer0 Kay]

I don't like the knockdown rule for most railguns simply because if they have enough power to knock over the target, they are also exerting that power back on the shooter.

The GB is an obvious exception with its deliberate recoil mitigation.

Just like the M60 and M16 should have more recoil... the "railguns" just don't talk about the incorporated recoil mitigation systems.

[Axelmania]

Also the Mystic Knights and Power Leeches and Energy Absorption super power and those psi slingers.