Smartbombs

This page should be updated due to game changes.
Reason: CCP enacted tiericide of smartbombs in September 2024 and added a new medium-sized, omni damage officer smartbomb.

This page covers the ship-mounted area-of-effect weapon, the "smartbomb". For the ranged area-of-effect weapon launched by stealth bombers, with different mechanics and legality, see bombs.

Smartbombs are point-blank area-of-effect weapons. When fired, they do damage to everything in a short distance (~10km) around the activating ship, friend or foe. They fill a very niche role within EVE since they have very specific characteristics that limit their usefulness as a general weapon system. Smartbombs can be used anywhere, but using them in high-security space comes with a very high risk of hitting innocent passers-by, losing security status, and then being destroyed by CONCORD.

There are very few ways to improve smartbombs' performance, apart from good piloting.

Fitting

A smartbomb is a ship module that is fitted in a high slot. They come in micro, small, medium, and large sizes, with each size using more power grid and CPU, with increased range and damage output. Smartbombs use considerably more CPU than most turret weapons for the same sized ship but do not take up a turret or missile hardpoint. This means that they fall under the 'utility' category for high slot modules, meaning that they are sometimes used in an extra high slot available on a ship when all of its turret and missile hardpoints are used.

Characteristics

Smartbombs are different than most damage-dealing ship modules for three reasons. As already mentioned, smartbombs do not use hardpoints, like turrets or missile launchers. Secondly, they are not targeted, much like bombs. However, unlike bombs, the explosion they create originates from the ship, rather than a launched warhead. They damage all ships within the explosion radius apart from the ship which used the smartbomb, however, they will not damage the wrecks of destroyed ships. Finally, the damage that smartbombs inflict is not affected by the damaged ship's signature radius or speed. Smartbomb damage is only mitigated by resistances and simply not being in the blast radius.

Both friends and foes are damaged by smartbombs. Care must be taken in high and low security space not to unintentionally damage structures or ships protected by CONCORD, since this will affect the user's security status, and in high security will result in CONCORD intervention (ie. the destruction of the offending ship). Your own drones, if they are within range, will also be damaged by a smartbomb. In order to activate smartbombs in high security space, you need to set your safety settings to red.

Smartbombs do not damage Upwell structures, nor cause the user to get any timer for damaging the Upwell Structure.

They cannot be used inside a docking area; the ship needs to be at least 5000m away from those areas before the modules can be activated.

Usage

The main use of smartbombs is by larger ships, such as battleships, to destroy small, weak targets, like capsules or drones. These small targets are very difficult to hit with large turrets or missiles due to explosion radius and tracking problems, and take a very long time to lock up in the first place. See Tracking and Missile Characteristics if you are unfamiliar with these problems. Pilots will fit one or more smartbombs, which will be able to hit with perfect accuracy and damage so long as the targets are within range. For smaller ships, like frigates, destroyers, and to a lesser degree cruisers and battlecruisers, their turrets and missiles can track and hit these small, fast-moving targets better, so pilots will save the steep CPU costs of smartbombs to fit other or better modules.

A common use can be seen in Smartbombing Gatecamps. Typically Battleships are set up on a gate to take out ships in the time it takes a smaller ship to land on the gate and jump through the gate.

Some organizations like Rooks and Kings have used smartbombs to great effect by pipe bombing, which consists of using a titan to jump bridge a fleet of smartbomb equipped battleships while an enemy fleet is in warp. The enemy fleet lands in the newly bridged battleships, which activate all their smart bombs, dealing massive damage to the whole fleet at once with no lock on time.

There is also a rarely used and even more rarely respected strategy known as 'Firewalling', in which multiple smartbombs are used to block out and destroy incoming Missiles. While missiles in-flight cannot be targeted, they can in fact be hit and destroyed by smartbombs. While this strategy is difficult to plan and execute appropriately, it can greatly reduce a fleet's incoming (and outgoing) missile damage. To quickly activate all smartbombs at once, it is recommended to use slash commands

Modules

Smartbombs are categorized by size (Micro, Small, Medium, and Large), and damage type (EM, Thermal, Kinetic, and Explosive). The means to acquire new micro smartbombs were removed long ago, and they exist today only as collector's items, and so will not be listed here.

Tech 1 and Tech 2 smartbombs have identical stats across their size class, regardless of damage type; a Large EMP Smartbomb has the same stats as a Large Concussive Smartbomb, except for the damage type. Additionally, all Faction smartbombs are identical within their size and damage type; Medium Amarr Navy EMP Smartbombs are identical to Medium Dark Blood EMP Smartbombs.

All smartbombs have a cycle time of 10 seconds, reduced by 0.5 seconds for each level in Energy Pulse Weapons. Overheating a smartbomb reduces its cycle time by 15%.

Naming convention

Smartbombs follow a naming convention of (meta descriptor or faction) (size) (damage type) smartbomb. The meta descriptor and factions associated with each damage type are listed in the table below.

Damage type	T1 & 2	Meta	Factions
EM	EMP	'Vehemance' Compact {Size} EMP Smartbomb	Amarr Navy, Ammatar Navy, Dark Blood, Khanid Navy, True Sansha
Thermal	Plasma	YF-12a Compact {Size} Plasma Smartbomb	Gallente Navy, Shadow Serpentis
Kinetic	Graviton	Rudimentary Compact {Size} Graviton Smartbomb	Caldari Navy, Dread Guristas
Explosive	Proton	'Notos' Compact {Size} Proton Smartbomb	Republic Fleet, Domination

Small smartbombs

Name/Category	Tech	Meta			Capacitor Use	Range	Damage
All small T1 smartbombs	I	0	30	8	30	3	50
'Vehemence' Compact Small EMP Smartbomb	I	1	24	7	27	3	60
YF-12a Compact Small Plasma Smartbomb	I						60
Rudimentary Compact Small Graviton Smartbomb	I						60
'Notos' Compact Small Proton Smartbomb	I						60
All small T2 smartbombs	II	5	30	8	30	3	70
'Pike' Small EMP Smartbomb	◯	6	17	5	15	3.6	60
'Seething' Small Plasma Smartbomb	◯						70
'Roaring' Small Graviton Smartbomb	◯						70
'Degenerative' Small Proton Smartbomb	◯						70
Faction small EM smartbombs	◇	9	30	8	20	4.5	75
Faction small thermal smartbombs	◇				21	4.05	68
Faction small kinetic smartbombs	◇				24	3.75	63
Faction small explosive smartbombs	◇				23	3.9	65

Medium smartbombs

Name/Category	Tech	Meta			Capacitor Use	Range	Damage
All medium T1 smartbombs	I	0	50	200	75	4	100
'Vehemence' Compact Medium EMP Smartbomb	I	1	40	190	68	4	120
YF-12a Compact Medium Plasma Smartbomb	I						120
Rudimentary Compact Medium Graviton Smartbomb	I						120
'Notos' Compact Medium Proton Smartbomb	I						120
All medium T2 smartbombs	II	5	50	200	75	4	140
'Lance' Medium EMP Smartbomb	◯	6	38	180	49	4	140
'Boiling' Medium Plasma Smartbomb	◯						140
'Booming' Medium Graviton Smartbomb	◯						140
'Dwindling' Medium Proton Smartbomb	◯						140
Faction medium EM smartbombs	◇	9	50	200	49	6	150
Faction medium thermal smartbombs	◇				53	5.4	135
Faction medium kinetic smartbombs	◇				60	5	125
Faction medium explosive smartbombs	◇				56	5.2	130

Large smartbombs

Name/Category	Tech	Meta			Capacitor Use	Range	Damage
All large T1 smartbombs	I	0	80	1000	200	5	250
'Vehemence' Compact Large EMP Smartbomb	I	1	64	950	180	5	275
YF-12a Compact Large Plasma Smartbomb	I						275
Rudimentary Compact Large Graviton Smartbomb	I						275
'Notos' Compact Large Proton Smartbomb	I						275
All large T2 smartbombs	II	5	80	1100	220	6	300
'Warhammer' Large EMP Smartbomb	◯	6	60	900	200	6	350
'Scalding' Large Plasma Smartbomb	◯						350
'Blasting' Large Graviton Smartbomb	◯						350
'Regressive' Large Proton Smartbomb	◯						350
Faction large EM smartbombs	◇	9	80	1000	130	7.5	375
Faction large thermal smartbombs	◇				140	6.75	338
Faction large kinetic smartbombs	◇				160	6.25	313
Faction large explosive smartbombs	◇				150	6.5	325

Additionally, large smartbombs have various officer modules which have increased performance at the cost of increased fitting stats.

Skills

Basic Skills

• Energy Pulse Weapons (2x, 130k ISK): Allows you to equip smartbombs, and reduces their cycle time by 5% per level, which increases both DPS and cap usage.

Fitting Skills

• Weapon Upgrades (2x, 80k ISK): Decreases the CPU needs of smartbomb modules by 5% per level. A fairly important skill, as smartbombs are very CPU intensive. Note that Advanced Weapon Upgrades does not affect smartbombs, only turrets and launchers.
• Basic fitting skills are important when working with smartbombs, due to their high fitting requirements. Make sure you train CPU Management, and less importantly for smartbombs, Power Grid Management to V.

Implants

The Inherent Implants 'Squire' Energy Pulse Weapons implant range is the only way to improve the performance of smartbombs. These plug into slot 7, and decrease the cycle time of smartbombs by 1-6%. They are available from various military LP stores.