Smartbombs

Smartbombs are point-blank area-of-effect weapons. When fired, they do damage to everything in a short distance around the activating ship. They fill a very niche role within EVE, since they have very specific characteristics that limit their usefulness. No ships have bonuses to smartbomb effects.

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 most sometimes used in an extra high slot available on a ship when all of its turret and missile hardpoints are used.

The skill required to use Smartbombs is Energy Pulse Weapons; improving this skill reduces the cycle time which increases both DPS and cap usage.

Characteristics

Smartbombs are different than most damage-dealing ship modules for two reasons. As already mentioned, smartbombs do not use hardpoints. Secondly, they are not targeted, much like bombs. However, unlike bombs, smartbombs are not launched to move forward before then exploding to damage everything in the area of affect. Instead, the ship itself is the epicentre of the explosion, damaging everything within the explosion radius, apart from the ship which used the smartbomb.

Both friends and foes are damaged by smartbombs. Care must also be taken in high and low security space not to unintentionally damage structures or ships protected by CONCORD, since this will affect your security status and may also result in CONCORD intervention (read: they'll blow you up if you're in high sec). It's also worth mentioning that your own drones, if they are within range, will also be damaged.

Usage

The main use of smartbombs is on 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.

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.