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This document is concerned only with the damage that is created when a missile explodes near a ship. It specifically does not cover aspects of missile weaponry such as launcher speed or missile range. Nor does it concern itself with the ultimate damage to the ship, which may be shielded or armored against the kind of damage that the missile creates.
When a Missile Explodes
A missile's target is surrounded by an invisible bubble called its Signature Radius. This is the area that weapons see when they try to lock on to the ship. Generally, the bigger the ship, the bigger the Signature Radius. (However, various things can extend or shrink the size of the bubble. Follow this link to find more on the Signature Radius.)
When your missile crosses the Signature Radius of its target, it explodes. The explosion expands in a bubble of its own. The speed at which this bubble grows is called the Explosion Velocity, and the maximum size that the bubble will reach is called the Explosion Radius.
The missile does not so much hit the ship as explode near it. EVE uses a mathematical equation to compute the precise amount of damage that the explosion does to the ship. You can read about the details in the Technical Section of this document. In general, however, here is the way that missile damage is computed.
The missile has a base damage. This is listed as "explosive damage", "kinetic damage", or so on in the Attributes tab of the missile's Get Info window. This amount may be augmented somewhat by certain skills and/or equipment, and when the term "base damage" is used here, it means the listed damage of the missile plus any augmented damage. It is the damage you expect the missile to do if it scores a direct hit.
Much of the time, 100% of the base damage is applied to the ship. Two situations, however, can reduce the damage:
- If the ship is moving very fast with respect to the explosion velocity, damage may be reduced. Think of this as a fast ship being able to somewhat outrun the explosion.
- If the signature radius of the ship is very small with respect to the explosion radius of the missile, damage may be reduced. Think of this as a small ship flying through a large explosion and only impacting on a part of it.
If both of these situations apply, EVE will choose the one that reduces the most damage.
If you have been using missiles, this probably does not surprise you, and you may want more details, but since the actual damage number depends on target speed, missile speed, signature radius and so on, there is no way to give a simple summary or table of how much damage a particular kind of missile will do against a particular kind of ship.
Without going into the mathematical details (see below), the only other factors that might matter are these:
- Unlike with turrets, the angular velocity of the target does not matter for computing damage. The missile still has to get to the target, but once it arrives, damage is computed using the target's straight line velocity.
- If a missile reaches its target, it will always do some damage. It is the speed of the explosion that helps determine how much ... not the speed of the missile.
- Because damage is related to both speed and signature ratio, using a microwarp drive, which increases both speed AND signature ratio, will not usually reduce damage.
- If you are using missiles, you want a faster explosion (explosion velocity) and a smaller one (explosion radius) – in other words, a short, tight explosion is more effective than a long, loose one.
As an illustration, here are the basic statistics for the Inferno Missile. These are sorted on Explosion Velocity.
| Missile | Explosion Radius | Explosion Velocity | Base Damage (Thermal) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inferno Precision Light Missile | 25 | 204 | 83 |
| Inferno Light Missile | 40 | 170 | 83 |
| Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile | 40 | 170 | 95 |
| Inferno Fury Light Missile | 69 | 143 | 116 |
First, notice that the only difference between the regular Inferno and the Caldari Navy Inferno is a change in the base damage. Secondly, you can see that the Fury missile has a larger base damage, but that the Precison missile has a faster Explosion Velocity and smaller Explosion Radius.
Explosion Radius and Velocity come into play whenever the target is small and/or fast. This means that the Fury missile will deliver its full damage against a bigger, slower ship, but is likely to have its damage reduced against smaller, faster targets. A Precision missile will also deliver its full damage against a bigger, slower ship (though it will do less damage than the Fury because of the lower base damage), but it will also be more likely to deliver full damage to smaller, faster ships.
If that all makes sense, then good ... if not, then just keep in mind that, all things being equal, EVE has balanced the damage done by missiles among themselves as well as with the damage done by projectiles, beams and other types of weapons.
How to Increase the Damage of Your Missiles
Skills and ship equipment can have a direct impact on missile damage. A number of implants do the same. In addition, modules such as Target Painters and Webifiers can affect the target's Signature Radius and Speed, thus making missile damage more effective.
Skills
A number of skills improve a player's expertise with missiles. These are the ones that specifically affect the amount of damage done when a missile explodes.
- Guided Missile Precision reduces the impact of the target signature radius on the damage. This effectively decreases the explosion radius of the missile by 5% per skill level, which makes it more likely to do full damage to a small/fast target.
- Target Navigation Prediction reduces the impact of the target velocity on the damage. This effectively increases the explosion velocity by 10% per skill level, which makes it more likely to do full damage to a small/fast target.
- Warhead Upgrades provides a direct 2% increase in missile damage per level.
Modules, Rigs and Ammunition
While there is additional equipment that affects missiles and launchers, those do not alter the missile damage as such.
Ballistic Control System: among other things, gives a bonus to basic missile damage.
- Warhead Calefaction Catalyst: increases the damage of the missile but increases the CPU requirement for the launcher.
- Warhead Flare Catalyst: increases the explosion velocity of the missile but increases the CPU requirement for the launcher.
- Warhead Rigor Catalyst: decreases the explosion radius of the missile but increases the CPU requirement for the launcher.
- Precision Missiles are more effective against smaller, faster targets, but do less base damage per missile.
- Fury Missiles have a larger base damage per missile, but are less effective than Precisions against smaller, faster targets.
- Both have a somewhat shorter range than regular and Faction missiles.
Implants
There are also a wide array of implants that can modify the missile damage. (to be added)
Affecting the target ship
Due to the fact that missile damage is affected by signature radius and velocity (speed) of the target ship, the missile damage can be substantially increased by affecting the target ship in order to change these parameters.
Target Painters can increase the signature size of the ship by a percentage.
A Stasis Webifier can decrease the ships velocity (speed) by a percentage.
Due to the fact that the usual MWD increases the ships signature and speed, these effects nullify each other. The missile damage on a target flying with MWD at maximum speed (!) is essentially (exceptions as mentioned above) identical to the one flying without it, as the bigger signature radius offsets the faster speed.
Keep in mind that this is only applicable to the most basic T1 MWD; T2 versions of the drive increase the velocity bonus without increasing the signature radius penalty which decreases the missile damage. The same goes for other effects that increase the velocity bonus of the MWD.
For afterburner this is not applicable since afterburners only increase the speed, but do not penalize the signature size.
Technical Section
This section discusses the mathematical equations that govern how much damage missiles deal.
Missile Damage Equation
Here is the equation for missile damage:
Here are the terms in the equation:
| S | Signature radius of target | Note: The bigger the better |
| Vt | velocity of target | Note: The smaller the better |
| D | base damage of missile | Note: The bigger the better |
| E | explosion radius of missile | Note: The smaller the better |
| Ve | explosion velocity of missile | Note: The bigger the better |
| drf | damage reduction factor | Note: The smaller the better |
Note that unlike the turret damage equation, missile damage takes absolute velocity into account, not angular velocity.
To find your damage, the game computes each of the three numbers you see, picks the smallest of them, and multiplies that by the base damage.
You can also write the form more abstract as a = b1 * min (c1, c2, c3). The lowest of the 3 numbers (c1, c2, c3) will be multiplied with b to result in a.
Finding the target values
Target velocity (Vt) is the speed of the target. If your overview is set up according to the Overview Guide, you can see the velocity of any ship near you on your overview.
Target signature radius (S) is the effective size of a ship. It is affected by various factors, for example the ship type, modules, rigs, skills or implants. It is not displayed in the overview.
Finding the missile values
The Base damage of a missile (D) can be found in the missile information under “EM damage”, “Kinetic damage”, “Thermal damage” or “Explosive damage”. Base Shield Damage and Base Armor Damage are not relevant for this calculation.
The Explosion radius of a missile (E) represents the size of the explosion. It can be found in the missile information under “Explosion radius”.
The Explosion velocity of missile (Ve) is the rate of expansion of the explosion. It can be found in the missile information under “Explosion velocity”.
Finding the damage reduction factor of a missile
The “damage reduction factor” (drf) of a missile is not mentioned in the game, it is however included in the data that CCP publishes [1], and you can easily view it in the EVEMon item browser (you can also see the value 5.5 from the above equation in the same data, where it is called the Damage Reduction Sensitivity).
| Missile Type | DRF |
|---|---|
| Precision Light Missile | 2.6 |
| Precision Heavy Missile | 2.7 |
| Auto-Targeting Light Missile | 2.8 |
| Light Missile | 2.8 |
| Rocket | 3 |
| Heavy Missile | 3.2 |
| Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile | 3.2 |
| Javelin Rocket | 3.2 |
| Fury Light Missile | 3.2 |
| Precision Cruise Missile | 3.5 |
| Cruise Missile | 4.5 |
| Auto-Targeting Cruise Missile | 4.5 |
| Rage Rocket | 4.5 |
| Citadel Cruise Missile | 4.5 |
| Fury Heavy Missile | 4.5 |
| Heavy Assault Missile | 4.5 |
| Javelin Heavy Assault Missile | 4.6 |
| Fury Cruise Missile | 4.7 |
| Rage Heavy Assault Missile | 4.8 |
| Torpedo | 5 |
| Javelin Torpedo | 5.2 |
| Rage Torpedo | 5.2 |
| Citadel Torpedo | 5.5 |
Practical application of the equation
The equation provides us with some basic information.
The base damage of the missile is multiplied by min(1, S/E, (S/E*Ve/Vt)^(ln(drf)/ln(5.5)). This means that the base damage is multiplied by the smallest of either 1, S/E or (S/E*Ve/Vt)^(ln(drf)/ln(5.5). This leads to the base damage being no higher than 100%, due to the fact that as soon as the other values exceed 1, 1 will always be selected in the calculation.
The damage of the missile is dependent on four things: Signature radius of the target, speed of the target, explosion Radius of the missile and explosion velocity of the missile.
If the ship is moving below a specific threshold, the explosion velocity and the speed of the ship do not affect the missile damage. In this case, only the signature radius of the target and the explosion radius of the missile affect the missile damage. Further decreases the ships speed will not increase the damage; however increases the signature size will, until the damage reaches 100%.
An important fact that derives from the equations is the fact that there is a minimum speed that a ship needs to fly before the velocity can reduce the missile damage at all. Looking at the case where the target's base sig radius is larger than the missile explosion radius then the equations part that is affected by velocity, (S/E*Ve/Vt)^(ln(drf)/ln(5.5), is set to be 1 and solved to Vt = (S/ (1^(1/ (ln(drf)/ln(5.5)) * E)) * Ve. Since 1^x = 1 this means 1^(1/ (ln(drf)/ln(5.5) = 1, reducing the equation to (S/E) * Ve = Vt. The drf gets removed from the equation. Since E and Ve are defined by the missile, Ve/E can be combined into a single factor for each missile class.
| Missile | Minimum velocity factor |
|---|---|
| Citadel Torpedo | 0,01 |
| Citadel Cruise Missile | 0,016571429 |
| Rage Torpedo | 0,093846154 |
| Fury Cruise Missile | 0,105454545 |
| Javelin Torpedo | 0,157777778 |
| Torpedo | 0,157777778 |
| Auto-Targeting Cruise Missile I | 0,23 |
| Cruise Missile | 0,23 |
| Precision Cruise Missile | 0,262962963 |
| Fury Heavy Missile | 0,451162791 |
| Rage Heavy Assault Missile | 0,516666667 |
| Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I | 0,648 |
| Heavy Missile | 0,648 |
| Precision Heavy Missile | 0,776785714 |
| Heavy Assault Missile | 0,808 |
| Javelin Heavy Assault Missile | 0,808 |
| Fury Light Missile | 2,047058824 |
| Auto-Targeting Light Missile I | 3,4 |
| Light Missile | 3,4 |
| Rage Rocket | 4,666666667 |
| Precision Light Missile | 5,114285714 |
| Javelin Rocket | 7,5 |
| Rocket | 7,5 |
The signature radius of the ship needs to be multiplied with the minimum velocity factor (mvf) to decrease the missile damage.
