Thanks to the ease of use, missiles are often recommended to people starting their adventures in Eve Online. But what are the differences between the different launchers available? Let's take a look.
The Overview
Short-range (unguided missiles) | Long-range (guided missiles) | Rapid fire (downsized guided missiles) | |
Range | Short | Long | Medium |
Application | Medium | Poor | Good |
Missile speed | Slow | Very high | High |
Damage delivery | Consistent DPS | High volley damage | Bursts of DPS |
Missile damage application is affected by two factors - explosion radius and explosion velocity. The radius checks the target's signature - if the signature is smaller than the radius, the missile will deal less damage. Explosion velocity is compared with the target's speed - if the enemy is moving too fast, they will take reduced damage. In Eve Online, you can outrun the explosions!
This is especially important for bigger missiles - the base stats are set in such a way that they offer reasonable damage for when firing on a ship of the same size as yours but without additional modules, they will struggle to apply against smaller targets. With turrets, you can partially mitigate that by reducing the transversal speed but with missiles, you need additional modules to slow them down, increase their signature, or improve the application by fitting guidance modules.
Short-range missiles
Short-range missiles consist of rockets, heavy assault missiles, and torpedoes. They are most often seen on scram-kiters as due to the low speed of the projectiles, stasis webifiers are a crucial part of making them work. If you can keep your target from outrunning them, unguided missiles offer reliable and consistent DPS at ranges usually besting those offered by close-range turret systems.
Keep in mind that missiles are in-game objects with acceleration and velocity - even if the target is within your theoretical range, they can simply outrun them, or destroy them using smartbombs. If you are chasing after your target, your effective range will be shorter than what the fitting window may suggest.
Long-range missiles
Long-range missiles consist of light, heavy, and cruise missiles. They offer unparalleled damage at extreme ranges, as unlike the turrets, their damage does not drop off with the distance from your target. Similar to artillery, their damage is delivered in volleys - with enough long-range missile ships you can catch enemies off-guard, leaving them no time to call for repairs.
As for the drawbacks, these weapon systems offer limited damage application, making them a poor choice for small or mobile targets. You will rarely see them loaded with high-damage ammo, as it is only effective against ships at least one class bigger than the one that's firing them. Additionally, long missile travel time lets the enemy take evasive maneuvers and burn away from the incoming volley, negating its effectiveness.
Rapid fire
Rapid fire launchers are unique weapon systems - they fire smaller missile types (for example, a cruiser uses Rapid Light Missile Launchers) to deliver bursts of highly accurate damage. As you can imagine this is especially effective against smaller targets, making them the perfect choice to counter enemy tackle ships.
To offset that, rapid fire launchers come with limited ammo capacity and take 35 seconds to reload, making them a dubious choice against targets that can survive long enough for you to hit reload. When calculating the DPS you have in a prolonged fight, always consider the reload time. Additionally, most range bonuses incurred from ships do not apply them, which places them between short and long-range missile options when it comes to the distance at which they operate.
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