Warfare & Tactics

A few days ago I was reading a guide to fitting ships which stated that missiles were less preferred for pvp because of the time delay between firing and damage being inflicted.
Are missiles less preferred because of this or was the advice misguided?

missiles have their advantages and disadvantages in pvp just like any other weapon system.

My dual-prop armour Cyclone has a disagree with this thread's premise. My Bellicose also. Can't say what my Drake thinks, as I keep it locked in the gimp dungeon.

The only problem with missiles is they won't help a bit in x-training to other weapons. The time delay used to be a factor when nano drake gangs were spewing HMLs to crazy range but it's a non-issue if the target's in range and tackled. HAMs deal heavy damage consistently with strong range and are immune to TD and neuting, so if you put something like a Cyclone right in the middle of a fleet fight there's a good chance of nailing top damage on a lot of kills. As mentioned, rockets and light missiles also have their place. The only missile type not preferred for PvP would be cruise

Nice work lads. Thanks for your pearls of wisdom.

In close-range light-ship combat, missiles are a perfectly viable weapon system. Ships like the Condor, Hookbill, and Hawk can give opponents gibbering fits. As ship sizes and engagement ranges grow larger, though, missiles become more problematic. Cruisers and battlecruisers can use missiles effectively, but at least through Retribution, battleships and capital ships were advised to avoid missiles if engaging in PVP. Odyssey's buff to cruise missiles may well change that, making them a viable PVP weapon platform, but it's only been a few weeks; doctrines still need to be tested, shaken down and settled on.

You were misinformed. Time-on-target is considerably less important than effective application.

Some incursion communities favor turrets over missiles in certain sites, just so you know.

Missiles are complete trash in incursions.

Now back to pvp. We are going to start with blob warfare. Guns apply the damage instantly which is very important in blob warfare, where alpha counts for a lot and targets die in seconds. Now with missiles it will take multiple seconds for the missiles to actually hit the target delaying the kill by a huge percentage. Another advantage of guns, is in big scale pvp you usually have free slots (no webs, scams etc..). With guns you can use these slots to fit mods that increase tracking, such as the tracking enhancer and tracking computer. With missiles you have none (tp have diminishing returns and are as good for gun and they are for missiles), .

That doesn't mean you won't find missile ship doctrines in large scale pvp, examples include tengu doctrines, caracel, cyclone etc. But in EVE, the options of gun ships is much wider and has better application in more situations than missile ships.

Now in small scale PVP it doesn't really matter much, as you aren't relying on alpha that much. But even here,missile ships (imo) still are less beneficial than gun ships, solely for the reason that there isn't a lot of options. A lot of missile ships by their nature are geared towards pve (thank you carebear caldari) and you just have a lot more options with gun ships (and much easier to actually cross train to the other gun systems).

Also another small advantage of guns is, with the right piloting (and the stupidity of the other pilot) you can actually kills smaller targets, but a torpedo battleship can never kill a frigate.

Another thing, in brawler fits, missiles usually have less damage than their guns counterparts. They do have a bigger range, but range isn't a big factor in brawling fights.

Missiles look cooler so there is that.
If you want to PVP but still don't have your mind set on which ships or style you are going to fly, I recommend you go for guns.

You don't fly many HQs, do you?

I only fly hq's with 15m lp to my name. I fly with the most efficient incursion group, and even the less efficient one's dont use missiles anymore. Even for as snipers they are bad since in hq's the most efficient way to do them is actually by primarying the targets. For long range targets the flight time is 10-15 secs. How many volleys of that is wasted after the target dies?

If you use missiles in incursions, even in vg's you need to up your game, just a friendly advice.

I didn't mean to go off topic with the carebear talk.