Missiles in EVE Online are self-propelled homing projectiles. They come in two categories: guided and unguided. The guided ones generally deal less damage than unguided, but they have longer range, precision and velocity. Unguided missiles aren’t affected by skills and effects that improve explosion velocity and explosion radius.

We will explain the differences between the two, and will show you how to predict the effectiveness of a missile attack based on combat situation.

Guided Missile types:

• Light Missiles (small)
• Heavy Missiles (medium)
• Cruise Missiles (large)

Please note that all the guided missiles also have their Friend-or-Foe (FoF) versions.

Unguided Missile types:

• Rockets (light)
• Heavy Assault Missiles (medium)
• Torpedoes (large)
• Citadel Torpedoes (X-large)

All missiles come in four variants, one for each possible type of damage dealt. All of the missile’s attributes are the same for these variants. The damage that missile actually deals to its target depends on various factors.

Missile Damage:

The raw damage is the amount of damage missile does as per its attributes. This is the base damage value, modified by the following:

• Applicable missile skill (+5% / level)
• Warhead Upgrades (+2% / level)
• Ballistic Control Units (BCU’s) fitted on the ship (+7% to +15%, depending on module’s meta level and stacking penalties)
• Missile damage rigs (they are a subject to stacking penalty together with Ballistic Control Units)
• Missile damage implants

Example: Bane Torpedo with base damage of 450. Let’s assume that Torpedo skill is maxed at level 5, Warhead Upgrades are at level 4, there are three BCU’s fitted on the ship, the pilot has one +3% torpedo damage implant. The damage will be:

450 * 1.25 * 1.08 * 1.1 * 1.087 * 1.057 * 1.03 = 450 * 1.7574 = 750.8 HP
(Base * Missile Skill * Warhead Upgrades * Stacked BCU * Implant)

Explosion Radius:

This is the size of the explosion cloud. As opposed to reality, EVE Online mechanic terms this means which area in space the missile damage is spread out about. If a target occupies the entire area or more (ship’s signature radius is greater than missile’s explosion radius), the target is dealt full damage. If it occupies only a part of the area, the damage is reduced proportionally to the ratio between the ship size and the explosion size. The damage reduction formula is:

damage multiplier = signature radius / explosion radius

Example: A ship with 125m signature radius gets hit by the previously mentioned Bane Torpedo with 400m explosion radius. Damage multiplier is 125 / 400 = 0.3125, or a damage reduction of 68.75%.

Explosion Velocity:

This is the expansion velocity of the explosion cloud. If a target moves faster than the explosion velocity, damage it takes is reduced. Huge velocity differences can negate the damage totally. This reduction is not linear; being only slightly faster than the missile yields almost no reduction while being a lot faster reduces it to almost zero damage. A hidden property of missiles is the AreaOfEffect (AOE) Falloff. This determines at which point the damage reduction from velocity becomes significant. This value used to be 1500m for all missiles. It seems to have changed into different values for some missiles now though, for example Rage Torpedoes have 750m (which makes them less effective against small targets). You can see AreaOfEffectFalloff of missiles for example in Quickfit or EveMon. The formula is:

damage multiplier = e^(-1 * (target V - explosion V)^2 / AOEFalloff^2)

Example: A target moving at 1000m/s is hit by a Bane Torpedo with 350m/s explosion veolcity. Damage multiplier is e^(-1* (1000-350)^2 / 1500^2) = 0.829, or a damage reduction of 17.1%.

Total damage calculation example:

Using the above figures, the Bane Torpedo fired at a target with a 125m signature radius and moving at 1000m/s would do 790.8 * 0.3125 * 0.829 = 204.9 raw damage. This is of course further reduced by resistances.

Having that in mind, you can develop an appropriate attack or evasion tactic.

Fly smart!

This blog post is based on Leandro Salazar’s post in The Blackguard Wolves’ Wiki.