Missile mechanics

This article takes a look at mathematics behind missiles. We look at the equations that govern how far your missiles will travel and how much damage they deal. There's some math at the beginning, but you can skip over this if you wish.

Missile Damage Output

First Look at the Damage Equation

Here is the equation for missile damage:

If this looks daunting, then skip ahead to read the applications of the formula to combat. Here are the terms in the equation:

• D : base damage of missile
• S : signature radius of target
• E : explosion radius of missile
• V_e: explosion velocity of missile
• V_t: velocity of target
• drf: damage reduction factor of missile

The log function used here is in base e, not base 10. You may have seen it written as ln. Note that unlike the turret damage equation, the missile damage does not care about angular velocity, but absolute velocity. To find your damage, the game computes each of the three numbers you see, picks the smallest of the, and multiplies that by the base damage. The damage reduction factor is a hidden stat, but seems to be the same for all missiles of a given size.

Damage Reduction Factor

Missile Type	DRF	log(DRF)/log(5.5)
Rocket	3.0	0.644
Light Missile	2.8	0.604
Assault Missile	4.5	0.8823
Heavy Missile	3.2	0.6823
Torpedo	5.0	0.9441
Cruise  Missile	4.5	0.8823
Citadel Torpedo	5.5	1.0
Citadel Cruise Missile	4.5	0.8823

Note that you want a small DRF, since smaller powers of numbers less than 1 are larger. 

Term-by-Term Comparison

If S/E < 1 or S/E*V_e < V_t, then you can look at the equation and see that your damage is reduced from its maximum. Hence, a target being too small or too fast can cut your missile damage. If neither of these are true, then your missiles do full damage to the target. Also, note that the speed that the target has to be in order to cut your damage is not the explosion velocity, but the explosion velocity modified by the ratio S/E.

If your damage is being reduced, by how much? We have to compare the two complicated-looking terms. You know the damage is reduced by at least S/E, but it might be more if the target is moving quickly. You can show that your damage is reduced even further beyond S/E if and only if the following holds: