Missiles
Missiles are an unusual weapon system, different to the three kinds of turret. This page explains the different kinds of missile and missile launcher, and the factors which control missile damage.
The Caldari are the main missile-using race, though there are a few Minmatar and Gallente ships, and a few T2 Amarr ships, which also use missiles.
Overview
Like turrets, missile launchers come in small, medium, large and extra-large sizes (for frigates and destroyers; cruisers and battlecruisers; battleships; and capital ships, respectively). Missile launchers do not use capacitor to fire.
Within each size there is usually a kind of launcher that fires short-ranged, high-DPS missiles, and a kind of launcher that fires long-ranged missiles that do less DPS. Frigates, for example, can mount rocket launchers -- which fire short-ranged, higher-DPS rockets -- or standard missile launchers -- which fire longer-ranged, lower-DPS light missiles.
The long-ranged varieties of missiles are 'guided' and the short-ranged varieties of missile are 'unguided'. This distinction isn't that significant -- you don't have to manually aim rockets! -- but there are a few things in the game which only apply to one kind, such as the Guided Missile Precision skill.
There is only one module which you can fit to your ship to improve your missiles' performance, the lowslot Ballistic Control System ("BCS"). A BCS boosts both your missiles' raw damage and your launchers' rate of fire. There are also a number of missile launcher rigs which give bonuses to missiles, though they all increase the CPU demands of your missile launchers.
Warheads
Each type of missile comes with four different warheads. Each one does one of the four different damage types (electromagnetic, thermal, kinetic and explosive); other than that, they are identical. So, for instance, you can buy Bloodclaw (kinetic), Flameburst (thermal), Piranha (explosive) and Sabretooth (EM) light missiles.
Such variety can be bewildering at first, but the warheads are actually color-coded in the images on the market screen and in your cargo hold: blue warheads are EM, red warheads are thermal, green warheads are kinetic and yellow ones are explosive.
Faction missiles (like the Caldari Navy Sabretooth) are available and offer a useful increase in DPS for a price. They're unlikely to be worth it in PvE, but if you're flying as a damage-dealer in PvP it's a good idea to invest in one or two magazines' worth of them if you can afford it.
Selecting rat specific warheads
Most ships that focus on missiles for damage generally receive a 5% (higher) damage bonus towards one type of warhead. In the case of the Caldari ships (which are most frequently used) this bonus goes towards kinetic damage. But rats might be weaker against another damage type. The table below shows a general observation of the highest damage dealing warhead.
| Faction | No ship skill | Ship skill <3 | Ship skill >=3 | Ship skill = 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angel | Explosive | Explosive | Kinetic | Kinetic |
| Blood raiders | EM | EM | ||
| Drones | EM | EM | EM | |
| Gurista | Kinetic | Kinetic | Kinetic | Kinetic |
| Mercenaries | Kinetic/Thermal | Kinetic | Kinetic | Kinetic |
| Sansha Nation | EM | EM | ||
| Serpentis | Kinetic | Kinetic | Kinetic | Kinetic |
This list is still incomplete and the damage results were observed on non elite ships, which generally have different resist profiles.
T2 Missiles
Just as there are T2 ammo types that only T2 turrets can fire, so there are T2 missiles that only T2 launchers can fire.
Unguided T2 missiles come in two varieties: Javelin and Rage. (These names appear within the missile name on the market, so you would look for a Foxfire Javelin Rocket or a Foxfire Rage Rocket.) Javelin missiles have a better range (see below for an explanation of missile range) but reduced damage, and loading them reduces your ship's maximum speed. Rage missiles do more damage but have a shorter range, and loading them increases your ship's signature radius.
Guided T2 missiles also come in two varieties: Precision and Fury. (Again, this means on the market you look for Sabretooth Precision Light Missiles and Sabretooth Fury Light Missiles, for example.) Precision missiles have an easier time hurting smaller targets, but they have lower ranges and damage than their T1 equivalents, and loading them reduces your ship's maximum speed. Fury missiles do more damage but at a somewhat reduced range, and loading them increases your ship's signature radius.
Missile Characteristics
Range
Missile range is simpler than turret range, because missiles don't have a combination of optimal and falloff, but it's also less obvious, because you don't see a figure for it when you show info on your missiles. You can get a rough (over)estimate of missile range by multiplying the missile's Max Velocity figure (in metres-per-second) with its Max Flight Time (in seconds) -- so a missile that flies for 10s at 3,000m/s will have a range of about 30,000m, or 30km.
Velocity and flight time will be modified by your skills (see below) and possibly by ship bonuses too (the Caracal, for example, has a per-level bonus to missile velocity).
However, missiles don't generally fly straight in one direction to hit a stationary target. If your target is not staying still your missiles must chase them around, which may reduce their range somewhat. Furthermore, missiles aren't launched at their top speed -- they have to accelerate for a bit, which also reduces their range.
The Eve Fitting Tool can give you an estimated range with your skills.
Damage
Every missile has a base figure for damage. Pilot skills and ship bonuses will bump up the raw damage of the missile when it's loaded into a launcher. It also has an explosion velocity (in m/s) and an explosion radius (in metres). When it hits a target, these figures interact with the target's velocity (also in m/s) and signature radius (also in metres) to determine the real damage dealt.
If the target's signature radius is smaller than the missile's explosion radius, there will be a penalty to the missile's damage. There is no damage bonus when the target's signature radius is larger than the missile's explosion radius, however -- this is mostly a mechanism to make sure that the missiles used by large ships aren't too effective against small ships.
Target Painters aimed at the target, various modules such as shield extenders and active Microwarpdrives fitted on the target can increase the target's signature radius. Rigor Catalyst rigs will reduce your missiles' explosion radius. The previously-mentioned Guided Missile Precision skill reduces the explosion radius of your guided missiles (but not your unguided ones).
If the target's velocity is higher than the missile's explosion velocity there will be a penalty to the missile's damage. Again, there is no damage bonus when the target's velocity is lower than the missile's explosion velocity.
Stasis webifiers will slow a target down. You can also fit Flare Catalyst rigs to increase your missiles' explosion velocity. Target Navigation Prediction will reduce the effect of your target's velocity.
Kinds of Missile
In the tables all figures are base figures for the standard T1 missile, not modified by any pilot skills or ship bonuses. The figure for refire rate is included because sometimes the difference in DPS between short- and long-ranged varieties of missile is in the rate of fire not the pure damage. The figure is the base refire rate of the vanilla T1 Meta 0 launcher.
Small
| Missile | Flight Time (s) | Max Speed (m/s) | Damage | Exp. Velocity (m/s) | Exp. Radius (m) | Refire Rate (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket | 2 | 2,250 | 33 | 150 | 20 | 5 |
| Light Missile | 5 | 3,750 | 75 | 170 | 50 | 15/12† |
† Light missiles can be loaded in Standard Launchers or Assault Missile Launchers (not to be confused with Heavy Assault Missile Launchers). AMLs are cruiser-sized anti-frigate launchers: they fit on cruisers and battlecruisers, but fire light missiles. They fire faster than Standard Launchers.
- Rocket Launchers are widely derided for their pitiful DPS. One is sometimes fitted as a supplementary weapon in some Rifter fits. One AF, the Vengeance, is designed to use rockets, and it is (predictably) derided for its pitiful DPS.
- N.B. As of October 2010, CCP are testing a rocket buff which may make them effective again. Watch this space!
- Standard Launchers work well in Level 1 missions on a Kestrel. In PvP the Kestrel and the Crow can try to use the range of light missiles to kite other frigates.
- Assault Missile Launchers ("AMLs") go very nicely on a Caracal to make an anti-frigate platform for Level 2 missions, or for frigate-hunting in PvP. They are also sometimes fitted as supplementary weapons on Ruptures and Hurricanes.
Medium
| Missile | Flight Time (s) | Max Speed (m/s) | Damage | Exp. Velocity (m/s) | Exp. Radius (m) | Refire Rate (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy Assault Missile | 4 | 2,250 | 100 | 101 | 125 | 8 |
| Heavy Missile | 10 | 3,750 | 150 | 81 | 125 | 15 |
- Heavy Assault Missile ("HAM") Launchers have high fitting requirements, so high that once you've used a Caracal's rig and low slots to get enough grid and CPU to fit them, you don't get very good DPS. They work well on a PvP Drake, however. The Sacrilege HAC has bonuses specifically for HAMs.
- Heavy Missile Launchers ("Heavies", "HMLs") are the standard weapon for Level 3-running Drakes. The Cerberus HAC can use them to snipe, sort-of.
Large
| Missile | Flight Time (s) | Max Speed (m/s) | Damage | Exp. Velocity (m/s) | Exp. Radius (m) | Refire Rate (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Torpedo | 6 | 1,500 | 450 | 71 | 450 | 18 |
| Cruise Missile | 20 | 3,750 | 300 | 69 | 300 | 22 |
- Siege Missile Launchers ("Sieges"), the launchers for torpedoes ("torps") are fitted on PvP Ravens for close-up DPS, and on Typhoons for an armor-RR-capable missile platform. The Golem marauder has bonuses which let it use torpedoes with long ranges in PvE.
- The stealth bombers are T2 frigates with special fitting bonuses which let them fit siege launchers for high-alpha surprise attacks. Since bombs can't be used in empire space this is the stealth bomber's only weapon in highsec and lowsec.
- Cruise Missile Launchers are the PvE weapons for the Raven and in some unusual PvE Typhoon fits.
Extra Large
| Missile | Flight Time (s) | Max Speed (m/s) | Damage | Exp. Velocity (m/s) | Exp. Radius (m) | Refire Rate (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citadel Torpedo | 15 | 1,750 | 2,000 | 20 | 2,000 | 26 |
| Citadel Cruise Missile | 20 | 4,250 | 1,500 | 29 | 1,750 | 44 |
- These are for capital ships, particularly the Phoenix dreadnought. They can be supplementary weapons on the Leviathan titan. Like other XL weapons, they are good against stationary installations and other capital ships, but struggle to hurt battleships and anything smaller.
Defender Missiles
Defender missiles are anti-missile missiles. There is only one kind, which can be loaded in any missile launcher. Defenders only target missiles fired at the ship that launches them. They always target the closest of incoming missiles. They have a base speed of 7,500m/s and a base flight time of 10s.
Defenders are unpopular and not very useful. This is because:
- PvE rats usually don't major on missiles.
- Defenders have a better chance to intercept long range missiles which spend more time arriving, but most uses of missiles in PvP involve short range missiles.
- If there's a group of missiles from grouped missile launchers, defenders attack the missiles one by one rather than attacking the whole stack.
So loading defenders tends to be less efficient than simply loading damage-dealing missiles and trying to kill the enemy before they kill you. Agony Unleashed have, however, reportedly found that a defender launcher on an interceptor can help it to stay alive a little longer while holding a missile ship down.
Friend or Foe Missiles
Friend or Foe (FoF) missiles, found under 'auto-targeting' in the market menus, are missiles which don't rely on locked targets in order to fire. When activated, they will fire on the nearest hostile (ship/drone which has aggressed you).
FoF missiles will only activate successfully if there are suitable targets within range. FoF missiles will not fire if there are no suitable targets within range, and they cannot be run "hot" in preparation.
FoF missiles will not fire on a cloaked ship. FoF missiles will fire on a decloaked ship if it previously aggressed you, without waiting for them to re-aggress.
There are only FoF versions of the three guided kinds of missile -- light, heavy and cruise missiles -- which can be loaded into their correspoding launchers. Each version comes with the usual four different warheads for four different kinds of damage.
| Missile | Flight Time (s) | Max Speed (m/s) | Damage | Exp. Velocity (m/s) | Exp. Radius (m) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FoF Light Missile | 5 | 3,750 | 56 | 170 | 50 |
| FoF Heavy Missile | 10 | 3,750 | 113 | 81 | 125 |
| FoF Cruise Missile | 20 | 3,750 | 225 | 69 | 300 |
As you can see, FoF missiles have the same flight characteristics and explosion profiles as their normal cousins, but do a bit less damage.
FoF missiles are rarely useful, but they can help if you can't target because of ECM jamming or (more rarely) sensor dampeners, particularly if you only have a few enemies (the fewer enemies you have, the better the chance that your FoFs will hit the one you want them to hit).
Missiles' Role
PvE: Dominance
Missiles, on Caldari ships, are very popular for PvE combat. Unlike almost all other weapon systems in Eve they can not only switch betweeen any of the four damage types, but also purely deal only one damage type. It is therefore very easy to target the weaknesses of NPC enemies with missiles.
Furthermore, missiles are simple to use: with no falloff they are either in range or out of range and, while target speed and signature radius can affect their damage, they don't require that pilots think about tracking and angular velocity.
T2 missile launchers can also be more quickly trained than T2 turret, since T2 turret skills have hierarchical prerequisites and T2 missile skills don't. So, for example, you need to have four levels in Medium Blaster Specialization, among other skills, before you can train Large Blaster Specialization, while you don't need T2 Heavy Missile skills to train Cruise Missile Specialization.
It's probably inaccurate to say that missiles are plain better than guns for PvE, but guns may require more training time to become as effective.
PvP: The Delayed Damage Problem
Missiles take time to travel to their target, while gun turrets deal damage as soon as they fire (assuming they hit). This means that, particularly in large fleets, long range missiles can arrive too late, after the volley damage from all the turret ships has already destroyed the primary target. In long-range battles between similarly-sized large fleets, missile ships are often therefore asked to shoot the enemy's support ships rather than following the primary and secondary targets.
This has given rise to the belief that missiles are useless in PvP, which isn't true. Short-ranged missiles which don't have much travel time anyway suffer less from delayed damage, which explains the prevalance of HAM Drakes, torp Ravens and torp Typhoons (the latter in RR gangs, since Ravens don't armor-tank well). Gangs of stealth bombers can achieve impressive ganks using torpedoes, and the AML Caracal is very good at killing frigates or forcing them away from a fleet. Missiles aren't useless in PvP, though they perhaps have more specialized and niche applications than standard gun turrets.
Missile Support Skills
Besides the skills which let you use missiles and their launchers themselves, Eve has a number of support skills which make your missiles more effective. Any pilot serious about using missiles should train these skills.
- Missile Bombardment 10% more flight time for all missiles per level (effectively a range increase).
- Missile Launcher Operation 2% reduced refire time for all launchers per level. A useful bonus to DPS and a prerequisite for other useful skills.
- Guided Missile Precision Target sig radius has 5% less influence on the damage of your guided (light, heavy and cruise) missiles per level. Great when you want to hurt smaller ships.
- Missile Projection 10% faster missiles per level. Another range increase.
- Rapid Launch 3% reduced refire time per level. Useful DPS increase.
- Target Navigation Prediction 10% reduction per level in the influence of target's velocity on your damage, for all missiles (guided and unguided). Also great for hurting smaller ships.
- Warhead Upgrades 2% more damage per level. Another useful DPS increase.
Skills which, although not filed under Missiles on the Character Sheet, are still very useful for missile users include:
- The fitting skills, which will make it easier to fit launchers (especially the powergrid- and CPU-hungry T2 launchers) onto your ship.
- Targeting skills. Sig Analysis lets you lock the enemy faster and is important for any combat pilot. Targeting lets you queue more targets. Long Range Targeting lets you target at longer ranges.
Further Reading
- A flash-based interactive guide to missiles which lets you play around with different signature radii and explosion velocities.
- Turrets and Drones for Eve's other main weapon systems.
- Bombs are the odd cousin to missiles.
