EVE New Citizens Q&A

It makes more sense if you realize that the real hidden damage modifiers affect your hurricane and autos, not the missiles.

Missiles are pretty straight forward, especially in PVE ( npcs don't have overheated MWD or abs fitted normally ). If the target is smaller than the missiles intended target, they take less damage. If the target is faster than the missile is designed for, it takes less dmg. Neither of these tend to show up in PVE outside the evil elite frigates when your using cruiser or bs sized missiles. The npcs conform to the norm.

Guns however, always use the same mechanics of tracking, optimal vs fall off and the random damage multiplier.

Throw in that the autos you were using had short range ammo loaded and you would never expect to see the eft DPS numbers in game. This is why the damage is so much higher, it's lost in falloff and other factors.

In PVP, missiles suffer more because most targets are way faster and smaller than the missiles expect, doing a lot less applied damage to other player ships normally.

Guns function the same as in PVE, Behaving in a predictable and player correctable fashion.

tL;DR
Guns are random, missiles are predictable

First off all the rate of fire on missiles is lower so you get more alpha which looks beefier, secondly turrets and missiles behave differently:

- missiles only care about two things; target speed and target sig radius, it doesn't matter if the target is orbiting or going at you in a straight line and that means there's no "hidden" dps loss due to possible tracking issues. For missiles the most important factor for applied dps is missile explosion radius vs target signature radius, even against same size targets missile struggle to apply their dps and you really want rigor rigs (that's why an active tanked Drake is better than a purger one) or a painter setup (rigor fit is preferred).

- turrets work quite differently, they don't care so much about a target's speed as such, but they DO care about angular velocity (tracking) and of course sig radius and range now as well. So Turrets have one more thing to worry about while one other factor will have more variables. On top of that the overall tracking number (a result of angular, sig radius and possibly range) doesn't only affect the chance to hit but also indirectly the hit quality. So if the situation isn't ideal for turrets they don't only hit less often but they also do (on average) less damage per hit.


Result of the above is that using turrets requires more understanding of how stuff works and more manual piloting to try and keep both your tracking as range issues in check. And while the biggest AC you could find (425) might help with range and damage they might cause trouble with their base tracking.

To help your AC dps fit some 2 tracking enhancers (helps with both range as tracking) and use the "keep at range" button on the context menu. Set it to some 8000m and every time you shoot a target that's within that range you click the keep at range button and the AP will try and lower your tracking issues.

I have a related question:
I fly a Talwar for pvp related gameplay.
Am I better off using a stasis web or target painter for damage?

the other two mids are kinda tied up with point & prop mod so not really changable.

I agree with the above, but I'd like to add:

Destroyers are intended to be glass-canons to destroy frigates, and other destroyers.

They use small weapons vs. small (and larger) targets. Target painters won't help much here, as the target is already the right size for the missiles. TP help with larger missile vs. smaller target, by making the target effectively larger so the missile can do more damage.