Turret mechanics: Difference between revisions

As was mentioned in this page's introduction, your chance of dealing good, more damaging hits ('wrecking' shots that deal more damage) decreases as your chance to hit decreases in falloff. This relationship is not linear, and your chance of good hits decreases quite rapidly as you move into falloff. [http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Turret_damage According] to the Eve wiki at optimal + falloff, where your chance to hit is (as always assuming other factors don't intervene) 50%, you can expect something like 40%, not 50%, of your theoretical maximum DPS.

You can increase your optimal range by fitting Tracking Enhancers in your lowslots, or Tracking Computers in your midslots (particularly if you load the latter with the Optimal Range script). Tracking Enhancers also increase your falloff range (and, as the name suggests, tracking speed -- see below).

Note that the actual [[Turret Damage|mathematics of tracking]] are more involved than the basic summary here. Angular velocity itself depends on transversal velocity, but it's easier to think about angular velocity since measurements of it in radians per second relate easily to the figures for gun tracking speed, which are also in radians per second. You can find a brief explanation of the differences between angular and tranversal velocity [[Overview Guide#The Columns Tab|here]] within our overview guide.

You can increase your guns' tracking speed by fitting Tracking Enhancers, or Tracking Computers (particularly if you load the latter with the Tracking Speed script).

==Signature Resolution==

All turrets have a figure for signature resolution in the Attributes tab of their show info window. Sig resolution indicates the size of target that the gun's designed to shoot, and represents, roughly speaking, the gun's ability to accurately aim at the target's sensor footprint.  

This is why it ''is'' possible for a rack of battleship guns to hit a frigate for (as they say) massive damage despite the frigate's very small signature: if the frigate sits still, or burns straight towards or away from the battleship, or is at a long enough range that despite its speed it doesn't have much angular velocity from the battleship's point of view, it is toast.

Target Painters increase their target's signature radius and (as mentioned already) microwarpdrives increase a ship's sig radius by 500% when active. (Except on Interceptors, which have bonuses which reduce the sig bloom caused by MWDs.) There are implants (Halo) which reduce your ship's signature radius, but their effect probably doesn't justify their price unless you are very, very rich.

The conclusion from all the information about tracking speed and signature resolution is: when you want to avoid damage, you want your angular velocity (as your enemy sees you) to be higher than their guns' tracking speed and your signature radius to be lower than their guns' signature resolution.

For new pilots who are likely to be flying small fast ships one of the key ideas that follows from this is the tactic of 'flying under the guns' of an enemy ship: orbiting them at high speed and short range so it's very hard for their guns to track your small-signature ship. (Sometimes referred to as a form of 'speed tanking' or 'sig tanking'.) Assuming you're fast and small enough to survive under the enemy's guns, the main trick is getting there in the first place: if you burn straight towards the enemy, they will probably hit you (especially if you have an active MWD).

Therefore it's wise to spiral in towards the enemy. To do this:

* Zoom in reasonably close to your ship and centre it on your enemy so that it covers up the enemy on your screen.

* It might be a good idea to practice this on large NPC belt rats before trying it in PvP combat.

Remember that against missile ships angular velocity is irrelevant (although a small signature and high speed still help you reduce damage from missiles) and that your angular velocity will be different in relation to different people: if you're safely orbiting one enemy fast and close enough that he can't hit you, another enemy who's 20km away might be able to hit you much more easily. Also note that your orbit will not be circular unless the ship you're orbiting is sitting still. Orbiting a ship that's moving produces an oval-shaped orbit, and your angular velocity will rise and fall as you move around that orbit.

Sometimes, however, the solutions to this problem aren't directly related to gunnery. In PvE Level 4 mission-running battleship fits usually outsource frigate problems to [[Drones|drones]]. In PvP larger ships can use drones, large energy neutralizers or the help of smaller support ships to drive small, fast targets off or kill them.

Besides the skills which let you use guns themselves (Small Energy Turret, Medium Projectile Turret, Large Hybrid Turret &c &c -- these skills also give you 5% more damage per level with their related turrets) Eve has a panoply of skills which make your guns more effective. These support skills taken together make a big difference to your DPS, range, tracking and so on; anyone serious about using guns should plan to train most of them to at least level IV, and some of them to level V.