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Guidance for missile training.
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Irava Miltof
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2011-10-27 06:56:51 UTC
This is a second account for me. The first was haphazard as all get out, training wise at least. And I wanted a fresh start. I've always enjoyed projectile weapons, but have become interested in missiles. I have no idea where to start, what type will be effective, or basically anything about them.

Going to be mission running for awhile. My current goal was for a Cane, but with missiles in mind, I'm more than willing to change direction. Just need a general direction to head in. I have no idea what the difference is between the different missile types and rockets/torpedoes. Any basic advice, or links to a good discussion/guide would be very helpful.

07
McRoll
Extraction and Exploration Ltd.
#2 - 2011-10-27 09:27:45 UTC
If you want to stick to missionrunning, your choices are either Cruise missiles for Raven and Navy Raven, Torpedoes for Golem and Heavy missiles for the Tengu. Other missile ships are not really used for missions, Drake and Rattlesnake maybe as an exception.

After you have chosen your ship, you train the missile type for it. Missiles have the advantage that you can train directly the missile type you want instead of training the smaller version first like in gunnery.

After that it's only the support skills that affect the missiles. Train them all and keep in mind that Guided Missile Precision does not affect Torpedoes, Heavy assault missiles and Rockets so you can skip that if you want to use the Golem or Rattle. You can find the missile support skills in Evemon or EFT by right clicking on a missile launcher and viewing the affected skills.

Missiles have an explosion velocity value which is similar to scan resolution of turrets, meaning that a bigger missile loses damage when being shot on a small target, like scan resolution with turrets. They also lose damage when the target moves fast, this is comparable to turret tracking speed. You can compensate this by training the support skills (Target Navigation Prediction, Guided Missile Precision). You can also compensate those effects by using the right type of missile.

You have 2 types of Tech2 missiles, that are the high damage, low explosion velocity variant or the precision (lower damage high exlo velocity) variant with guided missiles or a short range high damage and higher range lower damage variant with torpedoes, rockets and heavy assault missiles. Use them according to your target, by example by shooting precision missiles on frigates and fury missiles on BC's and BS if you are flying Tengu or leave frigs to your drones when flying Golem/CNR.
Jenn Makanen
Doomheim
#3 - 2011-10-27 11:50:14 UTC
Target Painters.

Your missiles will thank you for them. Makes the targets signature radius bigger, so you'll do more damage when using outsized missiles against small targets.

If their sig radius is below the explosion radius, you do less damage (hence the TP)
if their speed is faster than the explosion velocity, you do less damage.
Irava Miltof
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2011-10-27 12:09:12 UTC
Thanks guys. Very helpful. I had no idea about most of that. I'll keep it in mind as I'm plugging things into Evemon.
Caelus Heliodromus
Perkone
Caldari State
#5 - 2011-10-27 14:36:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Caelus Heliodromus
oops, double post (second post more complete)
Caelus Heliodromus
Perkone
Caldari State
#6 - 2011-10-27 14:36:39 UTC
I'm pretty focused on the Caldari battleship route (Raven, CNR) skill-wise, and would recommend a similar allocation for your first couple million points in missiles.

Other useful considerations.

The most DPS efficient fits incorporate launcher rigs (rigor and flare) to reduce the explosion radius and increase the explosion velocity. The drawback for launcher rigs is higher CPU usage, and every fit I've utilized has been tight on CPU. So, I'd look to get Launcher Rigging up to IV as well as the ever useful Weapon Upgrades.

As Jenn mentioned, Target Painters (Target Painting to IV, the extra point reduces cap draw by a pretty insignificant amount) and Signature Focusing (optimally to IV or V eventually, to increase the benefits of a TP).

http://eveboard.com/pilot/Caelus_Heliodromus
Zhilia Mann
Tide Way Out Productions
#7 - 2011-10-27 19:56:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Zhilia Mann
Good summaries so far. A few things worth noting:

Missile support skills tend to be higher ranked than gunnery support skills. Suck it up and train them anyway.

Unguided missiles (torps, HAMs, and rockets) tend to have more trouble applying their increased damage, which is exacerbated by the fact that Guided Missile Precision doesn't affect them. Webs are actually more useful than painters in this situation, but painters remain important.

All missiles have some difficulty hitting below their weight class. Rigors (guided missiles only) and Flares help this and often allow you to use high damage ammo where it would otherwise apply less damage than faction.

Missiles get a unique boon at the cruiser level: Assault Launchers. This is the only weapon in the game specifically designed to fire ammunition one class below, which makes them wonderful for, say, L2 missions.

Ship bonuses for missile damage come in three flavors; know which one applies to your ship: kinetic damage for guided and unguided missiles (most Caldari), RoF for all missiles (Tengu in some configurations, Rook, Navy Osprey, and Raven variants), and damage to unguided missiles (T2 Amarr). Always fit with this bonus in mind (which in most cases means you will be firing kinetic missiles). Knowing when to fit against bonus is actually very important (for instance, firing kinetic missiles at Sanshas and Bloods is generally a bad idea).

Of the two general missile variants (guided and unguided), guided are much easier to use. They have excellent range, decent damage, and decent natural damage application. Unguided missiles are more tricky. Generally rockets are the easiest to play around with and torpedoes have a great entry-level application in stealth bombers. HAMs and torps (on non-bombers) tend to be harder to get right with their combination of lower range, lower damage application, and higher raw damage.

As for rigs, aforementioned Rigor and Flare rigs are quite good for damage application purposes. T2 Bay Loading Accelerators are also popular because they provide a higher rate of fire bonus than BCUs and hence enter at the top of the stack, which can significantly increase DPS (assuming you can apply it already). Launcher Rigging 4 is pretty important to have, as launcher rigs eat CPU just as gunnery rigs eat grid. BCUs also require more CPU than other damage mods, and shield tanking in general is CPU constrained already.
Sister Megarea
Sisters of Agony
#8 - 2011-10-27 21:16:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Sister Megarea
McRoll wrote:
If you want to stick to missionrunning, your choices are either Cruise missiles for Raven and Navy Raven, Torpedoes for Golem and Heavy missiles for the Tengu. Other missile ships are not really used for missions, Drake and Rattlesnake maybe as an exception.


I had to comment on this:

I run almost exclusively in a Nighthawk and solo every single L4 out there, with the exception of Smash the Suppliers, which needs a Basilisk for backup, or else you're kiting for a couple of hours (Assuming you want to clear the room).

If you're running two accounts simultaneously (I do: One's in the Nighthawk, the other in the Noctis), You'll want Siege Warfare and Siege Warfare Specialist leadership skills, as well, which make a rather impressive improvement to tanking abilities.

These are what I consider as important for a missile-based mission runner (based on using a Nighthawk) (Plus any prerequisites you need for them)

Advanced Weapon Upgrades
Command Ships
Cybernetics
EM Shield Compensation
Energy Grid Upgrades
Energy Management
Engineering
Explosive Shield Compensation
FoF missiles
Heavy Missile Specialization
Heavy Missiles
Hull Upgrades
Kinetic Shield Compensation
Long Distance Targeting
Mechanic
Missile Bombardment
Missile Launcher Operation
Missile Projection
Multitasking
Navigation
Rapid Launch
Shield Management
Shield Operation
Shield Rigging
Shield Upgrades
Signature Analysis
Signature Focusing
Spaceship Command
Tactical Shield Operation
Target Navigation Prediction
Target Painting
Targeting
Thermal Shield Compensation
Warhead Upgrades
Warp Drive Operation
Weapon Upgrades

I've toyed with overheating my launchers, but frankly, with the skills and implants and T2 launchers, I don't see a huge benefit for the cost incurred. Personally, my rigging is purely shield based: The Nighthawk can outlast anything an NPC can throw at it in an L4 with it's impressive recharge rate and resistances.
Irava Miltof
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2011-10-28 11:07:16 UTC
More great info. Thanks again. I'm about to hop into a Cane, and I think I'll stop my projectile training there and shift to missile. That way I can keep missioning while training up for it. Looks like I've got a bit of work ahead, but what isn't in this game?