Ships & Modules

Every day there is post where people do not clearly state the pros and cons of each weapon and how they work. So I am doing this. I will try to be as clear as possible on this.

Drones and other weapon systems will not be covered, only: Projectiles, missiles, energy turrets and hybrids. Now, there are some difference between weapons of the same class, so I will state the pros and cons of each weapon system. In the examples below, I will be using large class weapons. All Graphs and information on these are a single gun or turret on a scorpion with no mods or weapon bonuses. Ammo used: Phased Plasma, Antimatter, Multifrequency, and Inferno. Assume all level V skills.

Large Weapons Graph

Projectiles:
Starting off with these because people say "autocannons/artillery work in falloff," and often enough don't explain why this is.
Here is how they work: Projectiles have a relatively short optimal range but a very long fall off range. This means that while the maximum damage output peaks early on and is lower than others, when distance to the target is increased you result a more forgiving drop in DPS than other turrets. This fact and the fact they do not use capacitor combined are what make projectiles great, and the fact artillery deal the highest alpha (raw damage in a single shot).

Autocannons:
Pros:

1. No Cap
2. Second best tracking
3. Interchangeable damage types
4. More effective in the falloff range than other close range weapons
5. Low CPU fitting
6. excellent rate of fire

Cons:

1. Lowest volley of all close range weapons
2. Short optimal range

Artillery :
Pros:

1. No Capacitor usage
2. Highest Alpha Damage
3. Can reach maximum range (254KM) fairly easily
4. Interchangeable damage types

Cons:

1. Extremely long rate of fire
2. Poorest tracking
3. Heavy powergrid utilization

Hybrids:
Secondly, let’s look at hybrids. Hybrids are often hated. There are 2 reasons behind that. First, is the damage over range for this group. Blasters produce the second highest default DPS (torps do more when no bonuses are involved) but suffer at a rapid drop early on sporting the similar optimal and half the fall off as autocannons. Secondly is Railguns; rails are average, less close range DPS than beams, but less long range dps than Artillery. Rails also have a very high rate of fire with a low alpha damage, this lack of alpha make them not appealing and suffer from tracking nearly equal to artillery. Overall though, they don’t use nearly as much capacitor as energy turrets and pretty low powergrid requirements.

Railguns:
Pros:

1. best long range weighed average DPS
2. Low Capacitor usage allowing for active tank and modules
3. Longest optimal range
4. excellent rate of fire

Cons:

1. Lowest volley of all long range weapons
2. Damage is limited to Kinetic/Thermal
3. Poor tracking, very close to that of Artillery
4. Low alpha
5. fairly high CPU usage

Blasters :
Pros:

1. Very High DPS
2. Best Tracking
3. Low Capacitor usage
4. Excellent Rate of fire

Cons:

1. Damage drops very fast
2. Poorest range
3. Heavy CPU utilization
4. Limited Damage types

Energy:
I think Energy Turrets are the least talked about. Granted they only do EM and Thermal damage, but they do sport some really good DPS. The biggest thing for energy turrets is the ammo, or rather lack thereof. Unlike all the other guns, energy turrets only need 1 ammo crystal and it will last a long time if not forever. But being energy turrets, they have the heaviest capacitor usage and heaviest powergird usage. While Pulse have the worst close range tracking, beams sport the best, by a large margin, long range tracking. These are probably the most ideal weapon against shield tanks. And would be recommended on a passive buffer ship due to heavy cap usage or with an ASB/ARR


Pulse:
Pros:

1. Great optimal range
2. Moderate effective range
3. Deals EM and Thermal Damage, Bane of shield tanks
4. excellent rate of fire

Cons:

1. Lowest volley of all close range weapons
2. Short falloff
3. Heavy Capacitor utilization
4. Heaviest close range powergrid utilization
5. Poorest close range tracking

Beams :
Pros:

1. High long range DPS
2. Second highest turret Alpha Damage (Missiles produce more alpha)
3. Highest long range tracking
4. EM/Thermal damage types

Cons:

1. Heavy Capacitor utilization
2. shortest long range falloff
3. Heaviest powergrid utilization

I have been asked about the Weapon signature so i will also add this here.

Weapon Signature is the same across all weapon size levels with the exceptions of missiles explosion radius. If a Target is moving below a certain transversal, then signature radius is not applied and will deal full damage. Damage received due to your signature is dependent on your transversal, too low and signature is ignored.

Example:

A single 800mm Autocannon on a scorpion, all level 5, with phased plasma.
Weapon signiture, 400

Target 0 Velocity, 0 degree angle, 400 Sig
At 15KM its about 35 DPS

Target 0 Velocity, 0 degree angle, 200 Sig
At 15KM its about 35 DPS

Target 100 Velocity, 90 degree angle, 400 Sig (90 is maximum transversal, 0 and 180 are closing and increasing range)
At 15KM its about 35 DPS

Target 100 Velocity, 90 degree angle, 200 Sig
At 15KM its about 32.5 DPS

Target 200 Velocity, 90 degree angle, 400 Sig
At 15KM its about 32.5 DPS

Target 200 Velocity, 90 degree angle, 200 Sig
At 15KM its about 27 DPS



If we could reduce the weapons sig, then it would increase the damage to smaller targets. Since we cant, we increase the targets sig by using target painters. But reducing the transversal on your guns is a better choice if possible, you can do this by trying to make your flight path parallel or increasing range (thus reducing transveral if the target does not speed up).

[Edit]
Again this is only for guns, Missiles do not use transversal. Missiles are strictly based on velocity and the targets signature. A lower signature will not give max damage if the target is sitting still like with guns.

Interesting post.


Isn't that the opposite ?

That tripped me up, too. It appears that by "early" he meant at shorter ranges, and by "later" he meant longer ranges.

Missiles hit stuff

Guns hit stuff

Drones hit stuff

Find which one you like or skill them all and use them where they are best or be a miner or OH SQUIRREL!!

Firework launchers are pretty, don't do much damage though, which is BS. Oh well.

Get ALL weapon types skills up, same with shields and armor and EWar, makes it much more fun and then you are ready for anything. Well anything but Jove, or Predator, or or killer migdets with big hands and knifes.

I'm fairly sure you have gotten the signature part mixed up. If the explosion radius is supposed to be bigger than the target's signature radius, the skills and rigs to decrease explosion radius don't make sense, and would only serve to worsen our damage application.

no, it would be a smaller explosion radius.



The missile would still the the same damage in a smaller, more focused explosion.


Unlike a Projectile, where if you got hit by a shell bigger then you, you would still be hit by it. But in Eve, the explosion would surround you thus dispersing the damage across a larger area.

Are you then saying explosion radius is irrelevant to the damage dealt?

In the bit I quoted, you're saying that the target's signature radius must be less than or equal to the explosion radius in order to apply full damage, which is insinuating that if the signature radius of the target is larger than the explosion radius, less damage would be applied. So what happens if the explosion radius is smaller than the target's signature radius, and why do we have skills and rigs dedicated to reducing the explosion radius if it does nothing to increase our damage application?

I'm pretty sure that the explosion radius has to be smaller than the signature radius of the target, if you're going to apply full damage.

No, I am saying that the smaller the explosion radius, the more damage you will do to smaller targets until the explosion radius is less than or equal to ships signature, assuming the target is not moving or moving slower than the explosion velocity.

If the explosion radius is larger than the target signature then damage will be reduced as ships signature gets lower and/or the explosion radius gets larger.