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Missile Mission Myths
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Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#1 - 2016-05-20 05:51:41 UTC
In order to maximize mission efficiency using missiles, it's important to understand how the Missile Formula works, how this relates to DPS, the various modules, rigs and implants used to maximize damage application and the effect of stacking penalties. This is obviously geared towards the hard-core L4 mission runner, but there are aspects to be gleamed for all missions.

EVE University has an excellent article, and it should be required reading: EVE Missile Damage
Important references within this document are "Finding the Damage Reduction Factor of a Missile" and "Analysis of the Equation".

For the purpose of this discussion I'll be sticking with cruise missiles - since torpedoes are only useful in niche scenarios and light missiles, heavy assault missiles and heavy missiles have less issues with damage application.
.....

Hull Damage Bonuses: Good ·:· Hull Rate of Fire Bonuses: Bad
First and foremost, DPS in EFT, Pyfa or your Ship Fitting window only tells half the tale. This is what the total damage per second would be under utopian circumstances (this will never happen). A better way to look at DPS is that this is the damage potential you start with when you undock - at which point it goes down from there. There are two other components to DPS that are often overlooked: volley and rate of fire (EFT and Pyfa will have the former; you'll have to get info on the fitted module for the latter).

Since DPS is calculated the same regardless, ships with a lower volley but higher rate of fire may appear to have near identical DPS to ships with a higher volley but slower rate of fire (the Raven and Raven Navy Issue are good examples). There is a key difference, however - since a higher rate of fire will often entail more volleys (and subsequently more ammunition consumed) and this can significantly reduce DPS.

• Higher damage/faster (velocity) volleys are preferable since they are less susceptible to interception by Defender missiles. The faster your missile velocity the further you can reliably shoot from with less interference from Defenders.
• Destroying targets in fewer volleys is more advantageous as the longer it takes the more likely the target will gain a shield or armor boost. Energy Neutralizers and Energy Nosferatus will increase the chance of NPC targets skipping a boost.

Explosion Velocity: Good ·:· Explosion Radius: Better
Explosion radius and explosion velocity bonuses are both good, but the missile formula favors explosion radius so this is preferable (although an explosion velocity bonus is better than no bonus at all).

• Missile Guidance Computers, Missile Guidance Enhancers, Rigors and Flares are all stacking penalized with each other. T2 Rigors and T2 flares offer the biggest single for missile explosion velocity and missile explosion radius followed by precision-scripted Missile Guidance Computers and Missile Guidance Enhancers.
• Hull bonuses and implants are not stacking penalized and can therefore have a disproportionate impact on damage application.
• Target Painters are roughly equivalent to precision-scripted Missile Guidance Computers on the vast majority of hulls (the exception is on the Golem where a pair of Target Painters is superior due to the Marauder bonus).
• Heavy Stasis Grapplers are roughly equivalent to Target Painters at a range of ~10km. They have an effective range of 30-37km (depending on variant), and are more effective than stasis webs at ~6km.
• The best base combination to maximize missile damage application is a pair of T2 Rigors, a T1 or T2 flare, two precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers and the Zainou GP-805/806 and Zainou TN-905/906 implants. Missile Guidance Enhancers are not ideal and a maximum of one should be used in place of a Missile Guidance Computer.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#2 - 2016-05-20 05:53:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Arthur Aihaken
Damage ·:· T2 vs. Faction
Obviously more is better - but only to a point. There is minimal gain from a 4th Ballistic Control System and virtually nothing from a 5th Ballistic Control System (if you have a 5th low slot it is always better utilized for something - anything - else). Implants are very important because they are not stacking penalized, and a +5 or +6 damage implant actually provides more damage than a 4th Ballistic Control System.

• 3 Faction Ballistic Control Systems are equivalent in DPS to 4 T2 Ballistic Control Systems.
• Either T2 Large Warhead Calefaction Catalyst or Zainou 'Snapshot' CM-605/606 damage implant will give you more raw damage than a 4th Faction Ballistic Control System. The same also holds true for rate of fire with a T2 Large Bay Loading Accelerator and Zainou 'Deadeye' RL-1005/1006 implant.
• A T2 Large Warhead Calefaction Catalyst or T2 Large Bay Loading Accelerator in addition to a 4th Faction Ballistic Control System will gain you an approximate ~4% additional damage or reduction to rate of fire, accordingly. This is often only needed on hulls with rate of fire bonuses.

On most platforms the utilization of T2 Fury ammunition provides the "best bang for your buck". This is particularly true for hulls that have less than 8 launchers in damage equivalent (Typhoon, Raven, Navy Scorpion, Rattlesnake). On these hulls it's important to maximize damage wherever possible:

• Raven, Navy Scorpion, Typhoon: 4x Faction Ballistic Control Systems, T2 Large Warhead Calefaction Catalyst II, T1 Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers and at least one T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter.
• Rattlesnake: 3-4x Faction Ballistic Control System, T2 Large Warhead Calefaction Catalyst II, T1 Warhead Flare Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers and at least one T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter.

On hulls that have 8 launchers or more, this is not as critical:

• Golem: 3x Faction Ballistic Control System, T2 Warhead Rigor Catalyst, T2 Warhead Flare Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers, 1-2x T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter.
• Navy Raven and Fleet Typhoon: 3x Faction Ballistic Control System, 2x T2 Warhead Rigor Catalyst, T2 Warhead Flare Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers, 1x T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter.
• Barghest: 3x Faction Ballistic Control System, 2x T2 Warhead Rigor Catalyst, T1 Warhead Flare Catalyst, precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computer, T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter. A T2 Missile Guidance Enhancer can also be substituted for the T2 Missile Guidance Computer.

In addition, since some of these hulls (Golem, Navy Raven) have excellent hull damage application bonuses, Faction cruise missiles can often be utilized instead to provide even greater damage application against small targets.

• Golem: 4x Faction Ballistic Control System, T2 Warhead Calefaction Catalyst, T1 Warhead Rigor Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers, 1-2x T2 or Phased Scope Target Painter.
• Navy Raven: 4x Faction Ballistic Control System, T2 Warhead Calefaction Catalyst, T1 Warhead Rigor Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers, T2 or PHased Scope Target Painter

Target Volleys for Destruction
Optimally, through whatever combination of skills, implants, modules, rigs and implants, to maximize mission efficiency you will want to destroy your targets in roughly these number of volleys:

• Elite Battleships (Federation Navy Orion, Elite Drone Parasite, Kayzum Mother Drone) ... 4-5 volleys
• Standard Battleships (everything else) ... 3-4 volleys
• All Battlecruisers ... 1 volley
• All Elite Cruisers ... 2 volleys (impossible to one shot except with artillery)
• All Destroyers ... 1 volley (usually not very hard)
• Elite Frigates ... 2-3 volleys (may require dual target painters/webs)
• Standard Frigates ... 1-2 volleys

Alternately you can assign a flight of light drones to often deal with frigates, although for missions where numerous webs are present they'll often get massacred ('Stop The Thief'). It's also problematic to assign drones in missions where you have large numbers of small ships to contend with ('The Wildcat Strike', 'Rogue Drone Harassment', 'Infiltrated Outposts'). For these types of missions running either Faction or Precision cruise missiles presents the best choice.

Anything higher than this and you're going to find that missions not only take longer to complete (reducing your ISK/hour rate) but the degree of enemy DPS may be much harder to manage and sustain.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#3 - 2016-05-20 06:09:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Arthur Aihaken
Skills ·:· Bonuses ·:· Implants
The most important thing you can do to improve missile damage application is to train up your missile skills, followed by any racial skills that maximize hull bonuses and finally, implants. As mentioned previously, none of these are stacking penalized and add to the base value before the bonuses from modules and rigs accrue.

• Faction modules are always better than T2 variants and T2 modules are always better than Meta variants
• The difference between Faction and T2 modules is usually greater than +2.5%
• +3 missile implants should be considered a bare minimum; +4 are almost identical in cost to +5 implants and not worthwhile. +5 implants will give you more than double the equivalent bonus of +3 implants the way bonuses are applied (they're more like +6.5%). +6 implants are the most expensive but will also give you an actual bonus roughly equivalent to +7.5%.

Stacking Penalties
Even with stacking penalties, it is totally worth stacking three or more modules or rigs that have similar effects. In fact, you actually receive more from your second module or rig than the first one. The 1st module or rig is 100% effective followed by 86.9% for the second, 57.1% for the third and finally 28.3% for the fourth. While this may seem like the law of diminishing returns, what is often overlooked is that the attributes from each module also apply to subsequent modules.

Example: If we have a base explosion velocity of 100m, then applying 2x T2 flares and 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers nets us:

Total = Base * (1+Mod1) * (1+0.869*Mod2) * (1+0.570*Mod3) * (1+0.282*Mod4)
Total = 100m/sec * (1+0.2) * (1+0.689*0.2) * (1+0.570*0.165) * (1+0.282*0.165)

The first T2 flare yields 20% explosion velocity, the second T2 flare yields 20.856% explosion velocity, the first T2 Missile Guidance Computer yields 14.1% explosion velocity and the final T2 Missile Guidance Computer yields 7.2% explosion velocity. So you get 102.1% of the effect of the T2 flares, 85.5% of the first T2 Missile Guidance Computer and still 43.6% of the second T2 Missile Guidance Computer. The same also applies to damage and in reverse to rate of fire and explosion radius. This is why obtaining all your skill and racial hull bonuses is essential - because this alters the base variables upon which everything else is applied.

It's also why using T2 over T1 rigs, scripted vs. unscripted Missile Guidance Computers and Missile Guidance Computers over Missile Guidance Enhancers is essential to obtaining the largest bonuses possible. This is also why you combine a full suite of missile damage application rigs, modules and implants with target painters and stasis webs - since the effects of everything end up being cumulative.

Target Velocity ·:· Target Signature
There are several ways to mitigate target velocity: Applying scrams to disable MWD, applying stasis webs or heavy stasis grapplers to slow the target or increasing missile explosion velocity. Note that once a target's velocity falls below your missile explosion velocity any additional application is lost.

There are also several ways to mitigate target signature: Applying a target painter to increase signature bloom and decreasing explosion radius. If a target engages MWD it will also cause its signature to inflate. Unlike target velocity, however, anything that causes missile explosion radius to fall below the target signature is subsequently applied against the difference in speed of the target and explosion velocity of missiles. This is why explosion radius, target painters and rigors are worth more than explosion velocity, stasis webs and flares (all are important, however).

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
The Bigpuns
United Standings Improvement Agency
#4 - 2016-05-20 11:03:21 UTC  |  Edited by: The Bigpuns
Ermm... comprehensive, but still a touch subjective. What modules will be best still depends on the mission, eg buzzkill needs a lot more application modules than gone berserk.

Also there is a bit of slightly misleading information regarding stacking penalties. Rigor rigs will be penalised on top of mgc's, but not on painters, as they affect different attributes. So if you fit rigors, you are probably better off with tp's. Again, the best combination of rigors, flares, tp's and mgc's would have to be worked out on a case by case basis, taking into account required tank modules too. My golem has two tp's, two precision scripted mgc's, and a flare ii, simply because it doesn't need to dedicate as many slots to tank as any non-marauder. On a rs, you're balancing missile application with drone application, but at least you still don't have to fit too many tank mods. On pretty much any other hull, sacrifices have to be made elsewhere.

Tldr: it's the same old discussion. There is no best fit.

But kudos for trying to get people to actually understand how the different parts of the missile damage formula interplay. I remember that eve uni article being a shining light on that headache.

Edit: apologies, you didn't say tp's stack with the other mods, I misread that...
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#5 - 2016-05-20 19:24:05 UTC
You're correct that fits are very much subjective and that on non-Marauder hulls there arenusually tradeoffs. In addition to DPS some missions will require more or less tank depending on how aggressive both the player and NPCs are. Skills will also have a huge bearing on missile application and it goes without saying that IVs should be considered a bare minimum (Vs are preferred).

The specific type of missile damage is also important (EM, Thermal, Explosive, Kinetic) as using the wrong missile against the wrong NPC Faction can make a huge difference in damage application. This is less of a concern in ships with generic damage bonuses and more applicable to ships with kinetic or thermal-specific bonuses, ie: Rattlesnake.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
DeMichael Crimson
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2016-05-22 08:32:02 UTC
Definitely +1 for that write up.

Thanks for sharing info with the playerbase.



DMC

'The Plan' | California Eve Players | Proposal - The Endless Battle
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#7 - 2016-05-22 18:26:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Arthur Aihaken
I plugged a lengthy set of numbers for various types of missiles, modules, rigs and implants into a spreadsheet this weekend. There were some interesting results:
• Missile explosion velocity bonuses (this includes hull, flares, missile guidance computers/enhancers and the navigation implants) are almost entirely useless on larger missiles. The shortfall between target speed and explosion velocity is either so minor that it can be compensated for or so large that any increase in explosion velocity will still be insufficient.
• Whenever you buy or build your hull - rigor, rigor, rigor... When you utilize rigors (and equivalent modules and implants) with target painters, you can almost work miracles (especially on ships like the Golem). By blooming the target signature and then reducing explosion radius as much as possible you can often achieve one-shot volleys of everything but Elite frigates and cruisees.
• On the Golem, a pair of Faction target painters trumps anything - including precision-scripted
missile guidance computers. When combined with a pair of T2 rigors there is very little it cannot quickly dispatch. On other hulls it's a fairly even tossup between the use of a target painter or precision-scripted missile guidance computer.
• T2 rigors are still the most valuable missile real estate.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Pix Severus
Empty You
#8 - 2016-05-23 01:42:37 UTC
Arthur Aihaken wrote:
* Whenever you buy or build your hull - rigor, rigor, rigor... When you utilize rigors (and equivalent modules and implants) with target painters, you can almost work miracles (especially on ships like the Golem). By blooming the target signature and then reducing explosion radius as much as possible you can often achieve one-shot volleys of everything but Elite frigates and cruisees.
* On the Golem, a pair of Faction target painters trumps anything - including precision-scripted
missile guidance computers. When combined with a pair of T2 rigors there is very little it cannot quickly dispatch. On other hulls it's a fairly even tossup between the use of a target painter or precision-scripted missile guidance computer.
* T2 rigors are still the most valuable missile real estate.


I personally use 2 Rigor IIs, 2 faction TPs, and 1 MGC II (Precision) on my Golem. Glad to know I'm doing something right.

Thanks for the info in this thread.

MTU Hunter: Latest Entry - June 12 2017 - Vocal Local 5

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Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#9 - 2016-05-23 02:01:55 UTC
Pix Severus wrote:
I personally use 2 Rigor IIs, 2 faction TPs, and 1 MGC II (Precision) on my Golem. Glad to know I'm doing something right. Thanks for the info in this thread.

That's definitely a solid setup. A few other players have posted similar fits, so there's definitely method to your madness! You're only going to get about an additional -10% explosion radius off the T2 MGC due to stacking penalties (instead of -16.5%), but you get the full 16.5% explosion velocity increase.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Mina Sebiestar
Minmatar Inner Space Conglomerate
#10 - 2016-05-27 21:22:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Mina Sebiestar
Nice info just one question here

Quote:
Typhoon: 4x Faction Ballistic Control Systems, T2 Large Warhead Calefaction Catalyst II, T1 Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers and at least one T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter.


Quote:
Fleet Typhoon: 3x Faction Ballistic Control System, 2x T2 Warhead Rigor Catalyst, T2 Warhead Flare Catalyst, 2x precision-scripted T2 Missile Guidance Computers, 1x T2 or Phased Scoped Target Painter.


since ships have same amount of low/mid slots there's no reason not to use 4th BCS on fleet phoon so you basically end up with ships that do similar amount of dps but fleet phoon will do more alpha and have a bit better application than t1 phoon.

i wander is it worth to chase highest possible dps figures and kinda sidestepping ship application capabilities in process to do so.?

because at end of a day you will get ship with less overall dps less alpha and less application that chew ammo like crazy it doesn't have any redeeming quality that way.

t1 phoon game should be about application imo.

You choke behind a smile a fake behind the fear

Because >>I is too hard
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#11 - 2016-05-27 23:58:45 UTC
Mina Sebiestar wrote:
Nice info just one question here

since ships have same amount of low/mid slots there's no reason not to use 4th BCS on fleet phoon so you basically end up with ships that do similar amount of dps but fleet phoon will do more alpha and have a bit better application than t1 phoon.

i wander is it worth to chase highest possible dps figures and kinda sidestepping ship application capabilities in process to do so.?

because at end of a day you will get ship with less overall dps less alpha and less application that chew ammo like crazy it doesn't have any redeeming quality that way.

t1 phoon game should be about application imo.

You're better off with a T2 rigor/T2 flare combo instead of the 4th MGC, as these count first and everything else is stacking penalized against them. Unlike guns, you can't apply damage to anything smaller than battleships without application - so max'ing DPS often means that you actually end up applying less DPS than non-optimal fits. A good example of this is the Barghest, which does 10% more raw damage than either the Golem or Navy Raven - but can rarely apply that.

The Golem applies the highest amount of missile damage when utilized with target painters. The Navy Raven can come close to this with rigors, flares and MGCs and without the need for target painters.

And yes, that's a valid point about ammo consumption - especially when you need to carry around a few types of missiles for each resistance. Hulls with ROF bonuses literally chew through the stuff.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.