On the official site there’s a wonderful guide explaining the turrets, not much about how the missiles work, though. Expecially since the significant changes in “Cold War”.
This is an archive of some posts that should clarify how the missiles work. Completing the guide to the turrets.
—
Wrayeth:
Missiles are fairly simple. There are three factors to consider: missile velocity, target velocity, and target signature radius.
Missile velocity is fairly self-explanatory – if the missile is not fast enought to hit the target, it will follow until its drive burns out and then disappear, with no damage inflicted.
The second is target velocity. Each missile has an explosion velocity (check individual missile type for the exact amount). If the target’s velocity exceeds the explosion velocity, the target takes reduced damage (which scales as the difference between explosion velocity and target velocity increases). If the target’s velocity great enough in comparison to the explosion velocity, the target will not take any damage at all (really a fraction of a percent of 1 point of damage). Please note that missiles do not inflict extra damage for the target being under the explosion velocity – anything moving slower than the explosion velocity simply takes full damage (before resists, of course). Also note that the target’s actual velocity is used, not transversal velocity.
The third factor is signature radius. Missiles have an explosion radius, and any target with a sig radius smaller than the explosion radius takes reduced damage. Again, damage does not increase beyond normal as the sig radius grows larger than the explosion radius – the missiles just inflict full damage before resists.
Add these three factors together and you have the current missile system.
Things that will help you kill targets that are smaller than your particular missile’s exlosion radius and/or faster than its explosion velocity:
Stasis Webifier – reduces target max velocity by 75% (or more, for named).
Nosferatus and Neutralizers – indirect. Kills target’s cap, making it impossible for them to use speed enhancing modules, such as MWD and afterburner.
Target Painter – increases target’s sig radius.
Target Painter Drones – increase target’s sig radius.
—
Design notes from TomB (dev):
The overhaul of the missile system is mainly focused on:
# Reducing damage for bigger missiles against smaller ships – the missiles now uses the Signature Radius of the target which gets factored by a new missile attribute called Explosion Radius, where the explosion can only deal maximum damage to a ship that meets the Explosion Radius in size
Damage can be increased on ships that have Signature Radius smaller than the Explosion Radius by either using Target Painter on the target or if the target activates a MWD, the intend how ever is not to make MWD none useable around missile boats as the velocity will be used as a damage factor as well
# Keeping ship velocity a factor for missile combat, allowing it to reduce the damage – each missile class will have a unique threshold where ship velocity can decrease the damage dealing and a unique factor of how fast the damage decreases per m/s once that threshold is met
Everyone who loves shooting or fears getting hit by missiles should give this a test for the feel of how the velocity factor works for the different missile types, it is still at the first level, it will getter a better look at
# Increased missile velocity – this is to make them more friendly & feared at long distanced combat engagements, missiles “do not” have the same benefit of instant damage on module activation that turrets are capable of, while they “do” have the benefit of consistent damage
Known issue here is missiles visually disappearing in space; this has been investigated and fixed (possible the fix ain’t out on the Test Server yet) and missile explosion occurring at freaked locations is still being investigated
# Increasing the missile skill group advancement – players that want to become ultra violent with missiles will be able to get skills to improve their missiles in various ways
–
Torpedoes:
Their base damage on average sized battleships does not change, Torpedoes are still able to deal the most damage to battleships and are the hardest missiles to counter, they are how ever not as fast as guided missiles, do not have the same possible range and damage is easier to reduce with ship velocity.
# Extreme damage capabilities against big ships like before, but very little damage to smaller ships and easily reduced with velocity
# Velocity has been increased from 750m/s to 1250m/s base, capable of 1875m/s with skills and 2813m/s with a single ship bonus
# Base distance has been reduced, but able to cross 84km with skills and to 127km with a single velocity or flight time ship bonus
Cruise Missiles:
Like all other guided missiles they have maximum velocity, are able to cross long distances in xl-greatly shortened time, significantly increased range and very high velocity is needed to affect their damage – the reason for all guided missiles to have the same velocity is because the velocity of the missiles are not considered a factor for being able of catching a ship or not, they all have to cross long distances and need the highest possible velocity
# They still work the same in damage against battleships but have been improved in DPS with cruise launcher changes (listed below), but only deal average damage to cruisers & frigates
# Velocity has been increased from 1600m/s to 3750m/s base, capable of 5625m/s with skills and 8438m/s with a single ship bonus
# Distance that these can cross has been increased by a big number, capable of 169km with skills and 253km with a single velocity or flight time ship bonus
Heavy Missiles:
Like all other guided missiles they have maximum velocity, are able to cross long distances in xl-greatly shortened time, significantly increased range and very high velocity is needed to affect their damage – the reason for all guided missiles to have the same velocity is because the velocity of the missiles are not considered a factor for being able of catching a ship or not, they all have to cross long distances and need the highest possible velocity
# The DPS for Heavy Missiles against cruisers has been increased with Launcher improvements (listed below), but only deal average damage to frigates
# Velocity has been increased from 1600m/s to 3750m/s base, capable of 5625m/s with skills and 8438m/s with a single ship bonus
# Distance that these can cross has been increased by a big number, capable of 84km with skills and 127km with a single velocity or flight time ship bonus
Light Missiles:
Like all other guided missiles they have maximum velocity, are able to cross long distances in xl-greatly shortened time, significantly increased range and very high velocity is needed to affect their damage – the reason for all guided missiles to have the same velocity is because the velocity of the missiles are not considered a factor for being able of catching a ship or not, they all have to cross long distances and need the highest possible velocity
# The DPS for Light Missiles against frigates stays same for average sized frigates, but gets a little less against the smallest frigates
# Velocity has been increased from 1600m/s to 3750m/s base, capable of 5625m/s with skills and 8438m/s with a single ship bonus
# Distance that these can cross has been increased by a big number, capable of 42km with skills and 63km with a single velocity or flight time ship bonus
Rockets:
These have not had much changed, they will stay the ultimate missile damage dealer for frigates in close range engagements but still limited on distance, their velocity how ever won’t be increased much because of defender purposes in close range engagements
# The DPS for rockets is the same for mostly all ships
[*]Velocity has been increased from 1000m/s to 2250m/s base, capa
–
Launchers
The missile and launcher changes will make size classed weapons deal more damage per second to same ship class than bigger weapons, there are how ever two exceptions:
1. Cruise Launcher can deal similar amount as Heavy Launcher to a large cruiser with new guided precision skill
2. Assault Launcher deals more damage than rocket or standard launcher to large frigates with new guided precision skill
Siege Launcher: are only able to shoot Torpedoes, they are still the ultimate damage dealer for launchers.
* No more cruise missiles or FoF’s
The Cruise Launcher: now shoots faster than before, it doesn’t have the same damage capabilities as the Siege Launcher, but is a much better option than before and also gives fitting space for other grid/cpu greedy modules.
* Base RoF reduced from 28 seconds to 22 seconds
* Base Power Need increased from 1000 to 1250
The Heavy Launcher: also shoots faster than before, increasing the DPS against cruisers / battleships from currently on Tranquility.
* Base RoF reduced from 20 seconds to 18 seconds
* Base Power Need increased from 60 to 100
The Assault Launcher: has only had little reduced CPU need for fitting, it keeps it average DPS for a cruiser sized weapon, stays the king of defenders, also the only launcher that gives an edge against smaller ship classes in DPS.
* Base CPU Need reduced from 40 to 35
* Base Power Need increased from 30 to 50
The Standard Launcher: has had increased fitting requirements in power need, also due to changes to the light missiles it’s now able to operate at further distances and significantly decreased down time to the start when damage starts taking place.
* Base CPU Need increased from 12 to 25
* Base Power Need increased from 3 to 8
The Rocket Launcher: also has had increased fitting requirements in power need, they will stay the ultimate frigate class launcher for DPS in shorter range engagements
* Base CPU Need increased from 12 to 15
* Base Power Need increased from 1 to 4
Defender Missiles: have had their velocity increased to 7500m/s so they are able of catching faster missiles, the Defender Skill continues increasing their velocity which enables them to get to 11250m/s, capable of crossing a distance of 113km.
Other changes to the multi-launcher-class Defender Missiles have not been done, i.e. you will need more than one defender to take out a Torpedo.
Skills
# Missile Launcher Operation – decreased rate of fire bonus from 5% to 2% (addon of Rapid Launch)
These are new skills that have been listed as possible advancement candidates for the missile changes:
# Missile Navigation – Increased missile velocity
# Missile Bombardment – Increased missile fly time duration
# Guided Missile Precision – Signature radius reduction factor on damage reduced for guided missiles
# Warhead Upgrades – Increased missile damage
# Target Navigation Prediction – The threshold where velocity of target starts decreasing damage is increased
# Rapid Launch – Increased rate of fire for launchers
# T2 Specialization – For T2 junk only