EVE Fiction

Eve is liquid space which is also why you lose speed once engines turn off. (please note facts posted might be 100% made up)

I actually thing I read about this somewhere...but never payed any attention to it. Is there something explaining liquid space in the lore?

in this case its unfortunately likely just purely a gameplay thing to keep a difference between heavy and cruise. all things considering 250km is not that long of a range for combat.

to give an idea, real world cruise missiles go from 1300-2500km maximum range. and can carry a 200kt nuclear device as a warhead.

I think at the end it all has to do with server load and game balance.

Actually if anybody has read any EVE novels do they keep action with in 250km? or is this a place where stories and lore can stand apart from gameplay restrictions?

Another possible reason might be production cost and agillity.

Longer ranged missiles would require better guidance/scanner systems and more fuel/engines. Wich makes missiles a lot more expensive. More importantly, unless you have a covops missile you need to be somewhat close anyway as without tackle only structures would still be at the target area if missiles were incoming.

Also modern cruise missiles travel quiet slow (relative to air to air missiles) and are launched at stationary (or in case of ground vehicles comparatively slow) targets. Given that the moment MWD/AB is used on target ships they are relatively fast, the missile would need to keep to speeds it can still quickly adjust to evasive maneuvers of the target. The more momentum you build up, the more effort needs to be expended to quickly change heading.

In addition the more mass you carry on fuel/engine the less agile the missile gets.

No, the surrounding space of the cluster is different than the atmospheric conditions on earth.

Just as a bullet fired on the north pole would decrease altitude 60 feet per-second per-second faster than a bullet fired in death valley.

The only way to question this logic would be to fire a missile in New Eden, but as New Eden isn't real, my above logic will have to do for now.

The think to consider is flight time.

How long does it take for that missile to fly 1300 -2500 KM? By the time your missile reaches it the ship would have moved or could be gone. Ingame even interceptors can outrun some missiles.

For ship-to-ship combat you want your missiles getting to the target as quickly as possible.

The exact same can be applied to Minmitar Guns or Gallente Rails, ect. Because In space an object in motion stays in motion.

Out of game reasons:
Game Ballance

In-game Reasons
- Warp drives shift space/time around the ships, causing strange mumbo-jumbo up to 250 KM away (it's how Directional Scans work, you just look for warped space/time)
- An ICBM of 1200 KM range IS NOT 0.05 m3 (size of Caldari Navy Cruise missiles), and does not travel 3.7 km/s
- Planets fear orbital bombardment. Take the Caldari and Caldari Prime as an example - I bet they wouldnt even talk to the gallente if the gallente didnt agree to prevent orbital bombardment with space-to-space weapons.
- Missiles are designed to be competitive with turret-based weaponry. They sacrifice payload and range for speed and accuracy, as well as easy cargo capacity.

Better questions would be why Lasers dont have infinite range.

I've never heard of it being explained in the lore. It's explained in the Evelopedia article on acceleration, which is written OOC, non-RP.

RL cruise missiles do not carry nuclear payloads... they carry standard munitions.

ICBMs carry nuclear payloads. and even these are split in to MIRVs