EVE New Citizens Q&A

what weapon is easier for a noob?
is it hybryd/laser/projectile weapons or rockets ?

i dont know how any of them work. for turrets its confusing with falloff and optimal range which i dont get. sometimes im too far and i miss. ok but sometimes im closer and still miss srsly..

rockets dont have optimal range so i dont know whats their range.

currently im using some hybrid turrets, i dont know what it is exactly and missile launcher with some rockets i think.

anyway i just want to know what to go for when i upgrade. im gonna start a new character so have to choose which faction is the best for me.

maybe i should go for dominix and drones, its like ez mode isnt it

Missiles are easier, from the perspective that you'll always hit, regardless of the other ships motion. Though you'll want to read up on explosion radius and velocity.

Projectiles are easier, because you don't need to manage your capacitor. Though you'll need to bear in mind things like tracking, optimal and falloff ranges, that kind of thing.

And both of them allow for damage type selection (although there's no short range kinetic ammo)

Lasers are easier than projectiles, as you don't need to worry about reloading, or falloff, as they're pretty much all optimal (3 to 1 optimal to falloff). And you can adjust range type quickly. Though you'll need to manage your capacitor.

Hybrids, well, I've never used them. Right now they're considered bad, but come the 29th, they're going to be better. (good tracking, melt your face dps in optimal)


Drones are easier than everything, as you launch them and tell them to shoot stuff. just use the right type. Of course, you have to manage flight times, stop them taking aggro, make them shoot stuff that you want them to, when they go haring off on their own, and so on.

TURRETS:

In General - Turrets expend a charge in order to deal instant damage to an enemy. Generally favor powergrid over CPU for fitting reqs. Damage is dependant on three things:

Examples will use a turret with optimal range 10km, falloff 5km, tracking 0.2 Rad/s, Signature Resolution 100m

1. Range of the target vs Optimal Range + 2x Falloff Range - You will always deal full damage to a large stationary object within your optimal range. At your optimal + falloff you will do 50% damage to a large stationary object. You will not deal damage to an object which is beyond your optimal range + 2x your falloff range.

example: You will do full damage to a 500m wide stationary target at 10km, half damage at 15km and 0 damage at 20km


2. Angular Velocity of the target vs Tracking Speed - You will always do full damage to a large target within your optimal range whose angular velocity is less than half of your tracking speed. You will do 0 damage to a target whose angular velocity is greater than your tracking speed.

example: You will do full damage to a 500m wide target moving at 0.1 Rad/s at a range of 10km, half damage at 0.15 Rad/s and 0 damage at 0.2 Rad/s.


3. Signature Radius of the target vs Signature Resolution - The scatter of your bullets. Picture the sig radius of the target as a round bullseye target, picture your sig resolution as the pattern of scattered bullets shown as a circle. If your sig resolution circle is smaller than the bullseye then you will never miss because of sig radius. If your sig resolution circle is bigger than the bullsye then you may miss the target because of the random scattering of your shots.

example: you will do full damage to a 500m wide target at 0.01 Rad/s at a range of 10km. You will have a significant miss chance against a target with sig radius 50m. You will not hit a target with 0 sig radius.

Specific Turret Types

• Projectiles: Requires ammo to fire. Uses 0 capacitor to fire. Ammo comes in predominantly Explosive, Thermal And EM Flavors. All Ammo does a little kinetic damage. Short range ammo does the most damage, Mid range ammo has a tracking speed bonus, long range ammo does not do much damage. Projectiles tend to have long falloff ranges with moderate optimals. Ammo takes 10s to reload or swap.

Artillery: Moderate to Long Range, incredible falloff. Low rate of Fire, High damage per shot. Low to Moderate damage over time. Usually comes in 2 types per size category, a mid range mid rate of fire version and a long range low rate of fire version with lots of damage (called a Howitzer). Howitzers are harder to fit and are usually meant for specific sniping in pvp or Ganking.

Autocannons: Short to Moderate Range, Incredible Falloff. High Rate of Fire, Low damage per shot. High Damage over time. Usually comes in 3 types per size category, a short range high tracking low damage per shot variant, a medium range medium tracking and medium damage per shot variant, and a long range low tracking high damage per shot variant. All 3 variants tend to do similar damage over time. The small versions are easier to fit but less effective vs large targets. The bigger versions are harder to fit but more effective vs targets larger than you. The medium sized ones are the most used.


• Hybrids: Require Ammo to fire. Uses Capacitor to fire. Ammo comes in ONLY kinetic and thermal damage. Short range ammo does the most damage. Long range ammo does the least damage. Hybrids tend to have average falloff and vary extremely in range. Ammo takes 10s to swap or reload.

Railguns: Long Range, medium falloff. Low Rate of fire, medium damage per shot. Low damage over time. Very slow tracking. Usually comes in the same 2 types as artillery (one medium type and one big type). Railguns have the longest optimal range of any of the turret types.

Blasters: High Damage Short Range. Shortest optimal range of any turret type. Eve's equivalent of a shotgun or a melee weapon. Tracking is good. The trick with blasters is to get within range to use them. Blasters come in 3 types, Electron, Ion and Neutron. Electron is the high tracking low damage per shot variant, Ion is the medium variant, Neutron is the high damage low tracking variant. Electrons are easier to fit than Neutrons are.


• Lasers: Only requires 1 crystal to fire continuously, T1 crystals last forever, Faction crystals last 5000 shots or so, T2 crystals last 1000 shots or so. Uses Cap to fire. Only do EM and Thermal Damage. Short range crystals do a lot of damage, most of it Thermal. Long range crystals do less damage and it is mostly EM. Mid range does a mix. Lasers tend to have horrible falloff range, but ammo types can be swapped instantly to account for different ranges.

Beam Lasers: Long range, low falloff. Medium rate of fire, medium damage per shot. Medium damage over time. Low tracking. Usually comes in a medium and a big variant. Large class beam lasers have a third variant called a Tachyon Beam Laser, These are very hard to fit but do nice damage over long range. The quad beam laser is generally useless, doing low damage at moderate range and a moderate rate of fire and tracking. Only use quad beam lasers if you're specialized into beam lasers, need a T2 and don't want to train pulse lasers.

Pulse Lasers: Short Range, low falloff. high rate of fire, medium damage per shot. High damage over time. High tracking. Usually comes in the 3 variants of the other types. Those work the same way, high tracking vs low damage per shot, but all doing around the same DPS. use the big ones on big ships and the small ones if you plan to fight small enemies.

(Stay tuned for more about missiles. Ran out of space to post.)

Missiles

In General - Missiles launch an object into space which chases down a target and slams into it to deal damage. A missile will always deal damage to an object it can reach. Missiles generally favor CPU over Powergrid for fitting reqs. Damage is dependant on 3 things:

Examples will use a missile of explosion velocity 500m/s, explosion radius 100m, Flight time 10s, speed 3000m/s.

Against a stationary target the example missile will hit at 30km. If the target is moving towards the missile, effective range goes up. Effective range goes down if the target is moving away from the missile. It is possible to outrun a missile and avoid all effects. missiles that can reach a target always do damage. Missiles never do area damage, if 2 targets are within 100m of each other, only the target you fired at will take damage.

Damage is dependant on:

• Whether the missile hits (covered by speed of the target vs speed and flight time of the missile)
• Missile explosion velocity vs Target velocity: Targets can out-run the blasts of missiles in a sort of Michael bay style. Missiles will do full damage to a stationary target, damage shrinks slowly as targets reach explosion speed, then damage drops quickly as targets get faster.

example- A 500m target sitting still will take max damage from the example missile, the same target traveling at 500m/s will take less damage, the same target going at 5000m/s will take almost no damage.


• Missile Explosion radius vs Target Sig Radius: Missiles will do a lot of damage to a large target and almost 0 damage to a small one.

example- the Example missile will deal max damage to a 500m target sitting still. It will do around half damage to a 100m target. It will do almost low damage to a 25m target and 0 damage to a 0m target.

Missiles come in a short range, high damage variant and a long range low damage variant for each size category.

Small: Rockets fire quickly and are short range, they do average damage per hit and high damage over time. Standard missiles fire slowly and are long range, they do more damage per hit than rockets and have a medium damage over time.

Medium: Heavy Assault Missiles are like rockets but bigger. Heavy missiles are like standard missiles but bigger. Medium ships can also use assault missile launchers which fire standard missiles at the rate of a rocket launcher, this lets them do lots of damage to smaller ships.

Large: Torpedoes are like Heavy Assault Missiles but bigger. Cruise Missiles are like Heavy missiles but bigger.

Capital: Citadel torpedoes are like torpedoes but bigger. Citadel Cruise missiles are like cruise missiles but bigger.


Missiles always do 1 damage type, of any of the 4 types. They are color coded so that you can tell. Yellow = explosive, Green = kinetic, Red = Thermal, Blue = EM. Their resulting blasts in space match, so you can tell what type of damage an enemy is doing if you watch close enough. Missiles generally do poor damage against a target that does not match their size category (use heavy against cruisers, standard against frigates, cruise against battleships, and citadel against stations and capitals)

That used to be the case, but in Dominion, rockets were buffed in damage to bring them on par with other short range variants of weapons. a naked kestrel at maxed skills using missile launchers does 62 dps, the same kestrel with rockets does 82.

No, it means that if you actually hit the target when they are in your Optimal+1 fall off range, you will hit them for 50% of the possible damage you could have hit them. Shots missing the target can happen at any range and are more dependant on the relative movement of the 2 ships in relation to each other, rushing straight into an enemy ship is the worst thing you can do, believe me I've found that out, best defence to not getting hit is keep transversal speed (read above) high which means zig-zagging towards an enemy.

Let's say your possible damage you could have dealt was 500 damage on that shot, if that target is hit while in Optimal + 1 fall off you will actually deal around 250 damage. This means to be more effective in damage dealing you eigther get in closer to the target (or let the target approach you) or you need to reship for a different fit with longer optimals / fall off.

To give an overview on ship races and which guns they prefer and how they are mainly tanked:

Amarr - Lasers - Armour tanked
Caldari - Missiles / Hybrid railguns - Shield tanked
Gallente - Drones / Hybrid blasters - Shield tanked
Minmatar - Projectiles - Speed tanked (turrets can't hit you if you outrun them) *though some ships can be eigther Armour or Shield tanked*

Falloff is only added onto your optimals, problem with getting in too close is that the transversal speeds will be much higher or easier to get high enough to outrun your guns tracking speeds.

I usually aim to stay within the range that goes from just under optimal up till optimal + 1 falloff (this is with my alt as this toon flies missile boats).

Missile damage works in another way by the way. Missile range is calculated by multiplying the missile's velocity with the missile flight time (m/s * s = m). On calculating hits it works with explosion velocity vs target speed (can the target outrun the explosion, the more they can do that the lower the damage), so do not shoot cruise missiles at frigates for instance. Use smaller missiles for smaller targets while large missiles are for big targets.

EDIT: as long as you are shooting right missiles at targets (small vs frigs, large vs BS) and they are within the missiles range they ALWAYS hit the target though other then the guns there is no instant damage, missiles have to fly toward the enemy.

Yeah, ment this, close range will get angular speeds up more easily then long range. So at close targets are harder to track

It's not as complex as it all sounds, don't whatever you do go back to playing with children. Contact me in-game if you decide to stay, i'll show you some fun stuff.