Advice please: projectiles VS missiles for sniping

New Citizens Q&A
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Guilty as charged. Though the important bit is the “what you are used to” - I am a lot more familiar with, and comfortable with, energy turrets. And if you have good capacitor skills and have the right reflexes (time, time, and practice) then they work well.

I have also flown with the other weapon systems - Amarr has a good line of drone ships and (irritatingly) some good missile ships among the T2 hulls. There are also good non-energy turret fittings for ships such as the Punisher - the AC Punisher is a real thing.

Generally it comes down to the situation, the personal preferences and the skills you have - I wouldn’t take low skill T1 hybrid turrets into a fight if I have T2 Energy Turrets. There could be a 20% loss of damage through that choice alone. More if the hulls aren’t equally trained. Specialisation does count for a lot - you won’t have time to train all skills to high level.
The other consideration is: what is the fleet requirement? if you are in a Missile Fleet, don’t whine that "I want to fly (x) - the FC will want a nice homogeneous fleet that works as a coherent block. If you can’t fly the requirement, train it, or fly a support role - good logistics pilots are always welcome, good tackle pilots likewise.

Sniping: It depends on what you want - if it’s a high alpha, quickly applied to a target (a surprise headshot sort of thing) then you are looking at Artillery. If you can afford to wait until Christmas for the damage to eventually miss the target as they warp out laughing, then Cruise Missiles at maximum range.
Both weapon systems have the ability to change damage types - though in the case of projectile weapons the long reload time is real penalty that may make you want to stay with a sub-optimal choice.
Energy Turrets have an advantage that, while you are damage type locked, you can quickly switch crystals as the range closes giving improved damage. Oh, and if you’ve T2 Pulse turrets: Scorch. 'nuff said.
I’ll mention Tachyon Beam Lasers here - wonderful. Miserable from a fitting perspective though.

Capacitor Warfare. Having been on the receiving end of a good capacitor attack it’s a miserable place to be - but from an attackers point of view it is a slightly long game: it can take a few cycles to cap out the target, and if they are using a weapon system that doesn’t need capacitor then you’ve still got to handle the incoming damage. The Curse is the rightful master of Cap Warfare - rarely has a ship been so well named!

Nosferatu only work while your capacitor is lower than the targets - so the trick is to cycle the neutralisers that will really hammer your capacitor then turn on the Nosferatu in order to claw some of it back. You’ll also want a cap booster so you can feed more capacitor into the hungry monster to keep the pressure on the target. There was a player on the forums reporting the successes he had with a Dragoon - though some of that may have been sheer shock to the attacking player “where the blazes did my capacitor just go???”.

Not sure if Nosferatu are terribly useful in Mission Running - it’s something else to worry about and the target ain’t going to last long enough to feed off it. If I carry Neutralisers and Nos on a ship it’s to give me something to use if some numpty wants to take a pop at me.

Skill prioritisation when everything interests you.
Focus a little: while flying all the ships is nice, concentrate initially on one race and on a few weapon systems - the specialisation there will give you a good platform for mission running and a PvP capable option. Also, the need you will almost inevitably have for specialised exploration and haulage ships for your other interests will already be partly met - for example, if you’ve Minmatar Frigate V already, then go with a Cheetah for exploration - the Helios may be better - but do you want to train Gallente Frigate to V just for that?
Think about what skills may give you a source of income - if you’ve a manufacturing bent, then placing a little specialisation there will give you an income that you can use to fund your other toys budget. Likewise, good exploration skills will give you easier access to better loot you can sell to fund a ship habit.

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I’ve never used it myself, but looking at it’s stats, and experience at shooting/getting shot by it, the Sacrilege looks rather nice :sweat:

Something that is fundamentaly different between turrets and missiles is that turrets impose damage application attributes by the turret type, while missiles impose it by the ammo type. Therefore, you’ll also be skilling ammunitions rather then launchers. When using a cruiser, you can opt to equip it with Rapid Light Missile Launchers, which use Frigate/Destroyer Ammo and therefore have the damage application of a frigate/destroyer, and also require the Light Missiles skill rather then a medium sized missile skill. On a Battleship, you can fit Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers instead, and those use cruiser-grade heavy missiles (and require the Heavy Missiles skill). The rapid launchers have horrible reload times, but they have considerably better damage application then the larger missile type, and higher fire rate then the regular launcher they’re intended to be used with, making them powerful at nuking small targets

A similar option is not available with turrets. You could opt to use small turrets on a cruiser, but it wouldn’t be ship bonused, and the damage would also become frigate-like, so the cruiser would probably perform inferior then a frigate with the same turrets on it

Missiles struggle hard to apply damage on fast moving targets, while turrets struggle to hit targets with a high angular velocity. Shooting Cruise Missiles at an interceptor orbiting at it’s usual speed would result in it’s passive shield restoration being higher then the damage inflicted by the cruises. Large Turrets on the other hand would not inflict any damage at all as they wouldn’t hit it to begin with. If the interceptor approaches straightly towards the battleship, however, the large turret might land a nice hit and apply a horrific amount of damage, while the cruise missle would still fail to inflict significant damage

Normal NPC mission rats (not burners that is) move and orbit very slow, approaching their prefered orbit straight towards or away from you, so you either nuke them with your turrets while they approach you, potentially moving yourself away from the spawn to maintain distance, or just microjumping away from the NPCs when they’re about to reach you, so they need to re-approach once again

If you rat with a single account, though, I’d recommend you to brawl with the rats, rather then to try sniping them. Blasters, Autocannons, Pulses, Rockets, Heavy Assault Missiles, Torpedoes, they all deal so much more damage then their high-range counterparts that you’ll finish the job faster even if you need to get close first. And since you’re close to the rats, web them, which will cripple both their angular and their absolute velocity to counter your weapon’s weakness.

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Funny how this thread turned to Neuts and Lasers… We should change the topic.

Yes, you can also attack rats with Neuts and Nos, they definitely react to that. Once I fought Dagan in a Dragoon; it worked, but took ages :wink:
And in an Ashimmu, I was able to break points of rats by neuting.

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They do but rats have infinite cap.

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For an explorer, the advantage of energy turrets is that you don’t to hunt for ammo - that could a real downer if you are far from your system

I think that drones are the Amarrian specialization? Once I get my drone skills to a viable level, I will test drive a Vexor - really love the skull-like design :+1:

Tried to search for “AC” Punisher, wasn’t lucky at that. Could provide more info on this, please?

That’s why I running like a mouse from one dark corner to another :smiley: My (borrowed from sports) saying is: “There is always a better ship than yours out there”. If you have a T2, there is always a T3. If you have a T3, there is always an Abyssal T3. And if you have an Abyssal T3 there is always someone with much more experience :smiley:

I think alpha strike is the best if you are not going after “infinitely” tanked things. I consider Cruize missiles more of a strategic weapon for specific tasks.

True but there is always a strategy to that, just same as you have with with energy turrets. You can have different groups or even manage each turret individually - while one is reloading, another is still doing the pew-pew. But I love that all is so balanced and there is no single thing which is “the best” in Eden.

That sounds like a very strategic thing, love that. I think I want to train lasers (afterwards) for the sake of added strategy. That would be extremely useful in Abyssal Deadspaces

Yes, I was thinking that the capacitor warfare thing is the most effective against Amarrians because of their dependency on capacitors. But again, knowing all this there are capacitor injectors (don’t remember how they are called)

That’s already a problem for a balanced Minmatar ship - the capacitor use is minimal

One needs a real big ship to fit everything what the heart desires :smiley: But again, everyone thinks twice before attacking a big ship

You advices are wise and sensible! However a problem is that Helios is A WAY better for exploration than a Probe or other same-level cheap explo ships. I still don’t see a reason to buy a much more expensive Cheetah for exploration if you do all safety “protocols” - “safe spot”, checking the WH gate or any other location before approaching, etc. Of course you still could go boom if someone is seriously hunting but the most vulnerable situation is when you are focused on hacking which you can’t do while cloaked.

You know, I am a total newbie :slight_smile: I would love the manufacturing (because of the intellectual/strategic/creative aspect of it) to start making some profit but it takes A LOT OF skills (invention for T2 as you advised, thank you! (training them too)). I love the lore and missions but they are not profitable at least for my level now. Exploration is thrilling but to do it seriously one needs a Loki or, preferably, a Tengu - and for that you need to earn lots of ISK and lots of skills (and then it’s still more fun than profit). And when doing some idle RL work, mining is a lovely distraction :slight_smile:

For the sake of efficiency, I could create several accounts - but I am role-playing here. A sort of space vagabond, doing this and that, just trying to make do in the harsh Eden :slight_smile: The fun side of this is that it’s becoming like a personal ongoing story. Don’t know how to explain this properly yet :smiley:

Thank you, dear Terak, for taking your time to share your experience! You convinced me with the strategic side of energy turrets but I will also will follow your advice of sticking to one line of guns for now. But later I will definitely consider lasers because of the instantaneous damage switch - and will keep in mind your advices about the capacitor wars :slight_smile:

Thank you once again! May the Light be with you!

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Thank you very much for your thoughts and extensive reply! It’s just that to brawl head-on with a swarm of rats one needs some serious tank and/or good strategy. The later is more important because of the direct application to PVP and higher level missions. So I am very grateful to - and everyone - for sharing your experience :rocket:

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Everyone is sharing their own experiences and thoughts about weapons and strategies they like - it’s a much more comprehensive reply than such a n00b question deserves :slight_smile:

Thank you, I will try that! That would be a relief - testing EW toys on rats and seeing what works for you

Same here :smiley: I did Dagan with Thrasher though it took me several tries to optimize it for the task

I see you are quite specialized in EW? It’s an area I quite ignored, guilty as charged. Will get more experience here, thank you for advices!

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For brawling, part of the “tank” is the DPS. The faster you clear rats, less dmg they deal to you.

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No, mostly. Gallente are the ones who use drones as a primary weapon most often . There are some Amarrian ships that use drones mainly (Dragoon destroyer, Arbitrator cruiser, Prophecy battlecruiser, Armageddon battleship) but usually drones are more of a secondary weapon for Amarr ships.

Vexor is a good little boat. Bonused for drones. If you find you like drones, do yourself a favor and use the keyboard hotkeys for drone actions. Also check out setting your drones to “focus fire” and when you might want to have them set on “aggressive” or “passive”.

Both good ships (even if the loki is blasphemous just for existing…c’mon, you know I had to…) but as you may have surmised, I am personally fond of Amarr ships for the most part. Any of the T3 Strategic Cruisers (Amarr Legion, Caldari Tengu, gallente proteus, minmatar loki) make good slippery exploration/“walkabout” nomadic ships. In addition to exploring, just going around New Eden looking at interesting things is enjoyable. If that sort of thing interests you (I find it to be a nice break to go “walkabout” in new eden every so often) may I suggest checking out EvE Travel.

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The delights of an intelligent thread that wanders off the subject but still remains interesting. Thank-you.

Strictly: swapping ammunition during the fight is tactical, deciding the fit you will fight with before hand is the strategic bit: it’s the difference between T3 Strategic Cruisers and T3 Tactical Destroyers - the latter can reconfigure during the battle. That’s pedantry on my behalf - for which I apologise.

Drones are not the Amarrian weapon of choice - the Gallente are the drone users. The Empires all have “Primary” and “Secondary” weapon preferences: Caldari Missiles/Hybrid, Gallente Drones/Hybrid, Minmatar Projectile/Missile, Amarr Energy/Drones.
Drones are useful for many Amarrian ship pilots - especially support ships such as the Arbitrator - but don’t train them at the expense of the primary weapon system of Energy turrets.
Irritatingly, one of the best missile ships I fly is Amarrian - the Sacrilege - hand having to train missile skills mainly for that hull is frustrating. Ho Hum.

A T2 ship is not always better than a T1, and a T3 ship isn’t always better than a T2.
A T2 ship is more specialised for a role, but at the cost of general performance.
A T3 ship is more flexible platform of reasonable capability.
There’s a very nice diagram of their relative places:

1920×844 117 KB

A major difference is that a player that can afford a Strategic Cruiser can afford to fit it with some fairly bling modules with better performance and reduced fitting size: and those odd percentages really add up - but you end up flying a billion ISK ship.

Capacitor warfare: remember that other things need capacitor as well, shut the target’s capacitor down and he looses any active components in his tank (repair/boost and hardeners), he looses his propulsion module (no afterburner) and he looses his tackle (warp disruption and webifiers). Basically, he looses his ability to control the fight.

T2 Covert Ops ship over a T1 Explorer: It’s not just “I can fit a Covert Ops Cloak” - which is reason enough (you can do the scanning while cloaked after launching the probes). You get a better bonus to scanning performance and a better bonus for the hacking systems. The down side is they align more slowly (but if the bad guy is on grid with you then you’re already in the wrong place) and cost a bit more. For a new player that will feel like a lot: it’s a 25m ISK hull compared to a 500k ISK T1. But the ability to access more challenging areas is, in my view, worth it. My typical exploration fit can easily be 50-100m ISK.
It’s still cheaper than the T3 alternatives. They are useful for exploration, but - as above - they are a little less capable for the pure exploration specialisation, but have the ability to handle a little more rough stuff if needed.

The AC Punisher is a Punisher fitted with Autocannon - the hull bonus is to armour resistance and energy turret capacitor usage. Fitting Projectile weapons, that don’t use capacitor, isn’t therefore loosing out on a damage/range/application bonus - and it leaves the capacitor free for other uses (and it’s Amarrian, so has a good capacitor). I suspect it’s main advantage is “surprise”.
The Punisher has one major problem - which I will leave as an exercise for the reader…
(hint: count the slots)

And thus ends the latest edition of Terak’s Ramblings.

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Thank you very much for the advices on drones! Didn’t know that about drones :open_mouth:

I am sorry for being a n00b but could elaborate on this one please? I personally find it lovely that the ship’s name pays tribute to the Native American culture

The Eve Travel is very inspiring but even more inspiring are hints, tips, and guidance from other pilots - using the occasion I would like to thank once again @Terak_Romaller for opening my eyes about Eden :hugs:

The T3 strategic cruisers are quite expensive (my friend has a 6 bills Tengu fitting) so before going on exploring one has to secure some continuous income. For now I am restricted just to “messing around” although, yeah, I might go ‘va bank’ as I yesterday did with my manufacturing (and almost bankrupted my char).

Thank you, @Xuxe_Xu. for your advices! Hope to meet you at some distant shores :hugs:

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Thank you for correcting me on this! Pedantry is good - it’s the essential part of life in Eden. And, of course, I do not have experience neither with T3 cruisers or T3 destroyers so I am grateful that you pointed out the difference beforehand

I just hate the idea of hybrid weapons - using capacitor and ammo at the same time? Each resource taken separately has its disadvantages but to have BOTH disadvantages? C’mon…

Noted on the best Amarrian ship! I am actually training skills to manufacture Sacrilege (thank you for you BPCs - with them I know what’s needed to be done to get there).

P.S. And there is another annoying thing ‘besides’ - the Amarrian ship designs are the most beautiful for me. I always try to buy the Amarrian shuttle for longer journeys so I could enjoy the view :smiley: A similar story with Vexor. And, yeah, I also got an Arbitrator though I still can’t force-fit it for exploration as I need to train skills first

1 bills T3 is not the top of the line… there are also Abyssal modules. This example didn’t have them :slight_smile: My friend introduced me to this area of Abyssal modules business - I won’t be making ‘living’ out of it BUT it’s real fun (and ISK risky) to make such modules for your fav ship :slight_smile:

My lack of experience is apparent but I think ‘capacitor shut down’ option has very limited application. I mean, if I fly a ship which is not a capacitor-intense (Minmatar) then I wouldn’t be able to ‘nosferatu’ an Amarrian ship? But I will keep this in mind as I might foray into Amarrian ships eventually.

I am taking my time creating a ‘safe spot’ each time I enter a wormhole so there is some ‘insurance’ against non-pro. But I always wandered if it’s possible to find such a ‘safely’ placed ship with combat drones? Never seen such in a WH though I guess there isn’t much point - when I see higher-grade probes (and, especially, no ship is visible) on my D-scan I just get out

Annoyingly, the probe-scanning bonuses are a way better on SoCT ships (relatively ‘inexpensive’), and the best for it are SOE ships. And then there are always T3 hunters (I meet them too often for my taste) - so loosing a nicely-fitted covert ops is much more painful than loosing a nicely-fitted Heron (which is still quite painful because of the hassle of getting all modules you need)

But covert ops are not fight-capable? Are you able to access the drone protected data sites? I understand that for that one needs SOE ships? I am about to test a Gnosis fitted for exploration and some combat (60 mills fit for my skills). But now after your recommendations I am really intrigued to try a covert-ops - I really enjoy this activity.

There is still a very long way for me till T3s but the ‘rough stuff’ is what I am most worried about in Eden. Maybe I am wrong because of my lack of experience but my priorities are: 1) tank, 2) which is balanced with speed, 3) specialization

Thank you for pointing this out - I will keep this logic in mind when considering other ships for my use!

This problem is affecting frigates and destroyers of all races :smiley: ‘Slot sensibility’ starts with cruisers and battle cruisers (though I am still talking about T1 hulls). Or it’s just me being a ‘greedy one’ - I love slots, and I love optimizing fittings manually (not using 3rd party software). For me it’s a lovely intellectual exercise :slight_smile:

Thank you so very much for all your support through and through! If you need help like moving some stuff around or doing a ‘suicide’ thing, just let me know! I will be more than happy to do something for you :hugs: (Just in case - I am ‘EU’ time)

Let the Light be with you!

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Simple. The loki is a minmatar ship, everything minmatar is a vile blasphemy deserving only to be purged with cleansing conflagration fire.

No, one can go exploring in basic inexpensive ships, you don’t need to wait to get an expensive ship at all. Without a cloaking device your chances of getting popped are fairly good, but once you get into a ship that can use a covert ops cloaking device you can warp around cloaked and that is a game changer.

T3 strategic cruisers can be fit with interdiction nullifier subsystems and covert cloaks. They therefore can go through some common types of warp interdiction bubbles in 0.0 and wormhole space. Very handy although such things are best avoided in the first place if possible. “slippery” fit T3 strategic cruisers are hard to catch so make good nomadic traveller ships since they can also carry some cargo and things such as a mobile depot and combat fit for the T3 strat if you want.

You don’t need close to a 6-billion fit to do just fine.

and you are quite welcome, hope you enjoy EvE.

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Back when I first started playing EVE I went thru this very same process. Being Caldari, my ship path took me from Merlin > Cormorant > Moa so I stuck with making sure my skill plan was focused on projectiles. Later on, I then began the long process of moving into all the missile skills so I could fly Kestrels and Caracals. I think the only wrong answer to your question is thinking it would be better to spread your skill tree plan out across both projectiles and missiles. For example, today I will train lasers to level 2, and tomorrow I will train missiles to level 2 and back and forth. Focus on 1 damage type to get to your goal quicker. At least, that would be my advice.

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Lasers do eat capacitor, but ships that are bonused for them usually have more capacitor to compensate.

As others have said, stick with what you like for now, learn how it works, you’ll pick up more later. It’s better to choose a sequence of ships you like the overall setup of (cargo bay size, shield/armor tanks, drones, speed etc) for frigate/destroyer/cruiser/BC, then go with the weapons line that works for that sequence.

One of the key issues with turrets vs. missiles is that with turrets you have to worry about tracking/angular velocity, and with missiles you have to worry about making sure the damage application can hit your targets.

Personally I find missiles the easiest system to use, with the added benefit that you can always set your ammo type (EM, thermal, kinetic, explosive) to the most effective type and easily switch it even between targets. I also find it’s easier to get missiles to apply damage with the correct modules/launchers than it is to fiddle with tracking issues. (Neither is that hard, just that missiles are easier)

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Hay there, so by the sounds of things you might be a Minmatar as their ships use those types of weapons, both weapon types gave good long range options but artillery might be best option for range with Minmatar.

Depending on which weapons you choose it will push you towards different ships so I would recommend having a look further along the ship tree at the combat ships and their bonuses to form a path you can shoot for

You can do the same for any race though

Good luck o7

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Thank you for your wise words! But the things a newbie cannot have this sort of determination. A pilot needs experience - and lots of it - to make some informed choices. I, of course, did exactly this mistake - spreading my skills to projectiles, missiles, and drones. Only now - and huge thanks to all your advices - I choice to train projectiles + drones, reserving laser for much later.

So, if I understand correctly, you chose missiles over hybrids? I never understood the point of hybrids anyway - using capacitor AND projectiles? But, again, I don’t have that much experience.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts!

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From my limited experience - no capacitor is ever enough! :smiley:

Eve devs made sure to make pilots want all the ships :smiley: But actually all your comments help to focus on certain ships and skills - at least, until it’s all re-balanced again

Thank you very much, didn’t know that!

Thank you very much for sharing your experience! I have abandoned missiles for now - focusing on projectiles because of DPS and alpha - but I will keep this in mind later!

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Indeed! A proud Min with a sad past and cobbled together rusty ship-buckets :slight_smile:
Though I really like that Ruptures look like classic pirate galleons :pirate_flag:

So true - my next ship should be a Hurricane though that doesn’t excite me… But maybe I will change my mind after flying one

Thank you for your advice! I think I spent hours studying ships of different races but I still don’t know what I like the most. It’s no surprise because they are all balanced so there is no “best ship” - all are great but not ‘perfect’ :slight_smile:

Thank you very much for your advices! Fly safe! o7

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Sorry for my choice of words, when I said projectiles I really meant hybrids like railguns and blasters. These are the weapons that Caldari get bonuses for and so I focused on Merlin, Cormorant, and Moa. After I maxed out all my skills up to Moa, I switched over to missiles so I could start using the Kestrel and Caracal and Drake. Someone brought up a great point to look over the ship tiers and see where you want to be in a months time. Deciding on if you are going to be a mission runner or faction war or exploration is also an important choice to make. That will also direct you to focus on certain skills.

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