Warfare & Tactics

Essentially it comes down to the fact that missiles take time to reach their target - unlike turrets which "insta-hit".

This "flight time" to target means that while they do good volley damage their DPS is low compared to guns. It also means the target can avoid your damage by warping before being hit (unless tackled).

Also in large fights (or ganks) the target may die before your missiles reach them - which is annoying.

Amarr (Khanid) missile boats get around these disadvantages by being up close and personal brawlers (e.g. Malediction, Sacrilege) but this confines them to using only close range missile types (e.g. Rockets and HAMs)

Caldari are more versatile missile users but only a few of their ships have bonuses to missile ROF or velocity (e.g. Raven) which somewhat compensate for the above drawbacks. They more commonly receive a kinetic damage bonus which is less useful (but is nasty for Minmatar opponents!).

Missiles have several advantages

- Choice of all damage types
- No cap use
- No tracking (i.e. they always hit)

However, to balance things out CCP reduced the damage that they actually do by making it depend on the size and speed of the target (velocity and signature radius) so missiles rarely do FULL damage to equivalently sized targets UNLESS used in conjunction with a TARGET PAINTER. There are more details about this elsewhere - it's too complicated to explain quickly :)

I love my kestrels.

Rocket brawler:

Rigs:
Small em screen reinforcer
Small shield extender
Small ancillary router

Highs:
4 t2 rocket launchers

Mids:
T2 Medium shield extender
Limited 1mm mwd
Meta 3 warp scram

Lows:
T2 micro auxillary power core
T2 ballistic control



It's a beastly little brawler with good dps. That said, I have very good fitting skills and a +3% CPU implant.