I often see Kill Mails and fits posted with Faction or some times plain T1 ammo fit instead of T2 even when people have T2 guns/launchers fit.
Is this a cost, damage application, local supply or experimental reason?
At what times would non-T2 ammo serve you better?
When should you absolutly under no circumstances use only T2 ammo?
It’s best to ask such questions like yours in:
To your question… it depends on the use case. For PvE It’s usually best to use T2 ammo and to setup your ship for maximum DPS in order to run missions and sites as quick as possible. For PvP does it depend on the specific ship and how you intend to use it. There you’ll see both faction and T2 ammo being used. T2 ammo often brings not only benefits but can have drawbacks, too, while faction ammo is often just a better version of the T1 ammo. Hence can faction ammo sometimes be better, because they lack the drawback of a T2 ammo type.
Some examples…
Hybrid Void S:
25% reduced optimal range.
25% reduced tracking speed.
50% reduced falloff range.
15.4 damage.
Hybrid Null S:
40% increased optimal range.
25% reduced tracking speed.
40% increased falloff range.
11 damage.
Caldari Navy Antimatter S:
50% reduced optimal range.
13.8 damage.
The ins and outs is that T2 (gun) ammo have higher damage but penalized tracking, while Faction (gun) ammo have still reasonably higher damage but without the tracking penalty. along with the usual range bonuses/penalties.
So if you have no problems tracking your target T2 is what you should be using, on the other hand if you do have slight trouble tracking then you should use Faction.
That said, there are other ways for you to increase the chances of your guns hitting the target:
off the top of my head it goes
t1 volume
t2 range
faction tracking
t2 DEEEEEEEEEEEPS
obviously its a tad more nuanced than that but its the gist of it for you.
T2 ammo is specialised into 2 types: short range, higher damage vs long range, lower damage.
For turrets, tracking also varies depending on the type of turret.
Blasters - Void vs Null
Rails - Javelin vs Spike
Pulses - Conflag vs Scorch
Beams - Gleam vs Aurora
Autos - Hail vs Barrage
Arty - Quake vs Tremor
More info here: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Turrets
Missiles - Rage vs Javelin
T1 ammo fills in the gap between these two extremes.
Faction T1 ammo is improved but much pricier T1 ammo
so players use it preferentially in PvP but usually stick to T1 and T2 for PvE
Good info here. I was looking for a mix of PvP and PvE info. Ive always wondered why my T2 ammo shine on paper but didnt live up to the hype.
Paper DPS ≠applied DPS.
Sometimes its better to go for less paper to get better application.
Again , Obviously, forgoing loads of nuance.
Missiles tend to be like this, lasers less so, blasters considerably less so.
Also target SIG radius v size of gun combined with their speed and transversal velocity all feed in here so there’s no quick answers unless you have explicit and specific questions.
T1 Ammo is only a choice if you are really poor or if you can’t find anything else nearby.
Faction Ammo is used instead of T2 a lot of times, for the following possible reasons:
There are often trade-offs, like lower dps on paper and often lower range than T2, but in the reality of fights Faction Ammo is used more regularly than T2.
You should never only use T2 ammo, unless you’re shooting Structures. Higher cap consumption, lower tracking speed or shitty choice of damage type is not something you want as your only choice in a fight.
I almost always use faction ammo. +15% dps over t1 is pretty much always worth it, pve and pvp.
T2 ammo is useful for the extra damage or range when you can control the engagement.
lets use blasters as an example, void is high damage, but low range and tracking. So if you have dual webs you can probably use it vs ships the same size as you, or in most cases when fighting larger ships. If you can’t control range you probably don’t want to use void as they will either go fast enough you can’t hit them, or they will pull range so you can’t hit them.
vs other ships the same size or smaller if you don’t have speed/range control you probably want to use the faction ammo for the extra tracking.
then if other ships have the range control and want to try to kite you have null ammo to try and hit them at longer ranges.
Now lets switch to beam lasers.
gleam is useful for short range high damage gets a tracking bonus but a range penalty, Does just a little more damage than faction mulitfrequency. Pretty much always worth carrying, but I wouldn’t use it as a default.
Faction ammo for stuff in the middle, lots of options for the various ranges
aurora for extra long ranges, but has low tracking.
then there are missiles, fury/rage for maxing damage and hitting big stuff, precision for hitting small stuff, and javelin for hitting at longer than usual ranges, or faction for decent all around performance. Most NPCs are big and fat for their class so most pve ships can get away with using fury/rage for most targets, although you still probably want some of the other ammo for some targets.
T1 Ammo is good because it’s cheap and no SP is required. The best option for new characters and those which grind combat anomalies (low skills means more shoots and more ammo to clear the site).
Faction Ammo is good in any PVP/PVE scenarios and their dps scaling very well with your character combat skills and they don’t requires a set of lvl V skills. Overall, their dps is much higher than T1’s dps, close to T2 Ammo dps for higher ISK cost. I’d say they have the dps close to T2, with the T1 Ammo stats (range, tracking, falloff, Cap, damage type).
T2 Ammo have special usage like the T2 ships have with higher dps compared to T1. As somebody mentioned above, T2 Ammo are good in scenarios when you can controll the battle - range, speed, tracking. This is why they are good versus same class vessels as your own. By hitting smaller targets you’ll miss a lot due to tracking or explosion radius penalty and by hitting bigger targets, you’ll put yourself under their huge optimal dps, Graple, Web, Smartbomb range, depends by situation (the missiles have another situation). All turrets requires different Ammo types for long and short range weapons, while missiles have two types: High Precision/Low Range and High Damage/Long Range.
Projectiles. Penalties: lower tracking, lower range, only Kin/Exp damage type.
Crystals. Have smaller penalties compared to other turrets ammo. Penalties: lower tracking, capacitor penalty.
Hybrids. Penalties: lower tracking, capacitor penalty.
Missiles. Things are different here. The Short Range or High Precision T2 Missiles have lower dps than Faction ones, close to T1, but with higher explosion speed and smaller radius. The Long Range or High Damage T2 Missiles have higher dps than Faction ones, but at the cost of lower explosion speed and higher explosion radius. T1 < T2 High Precision < Faction < T2 High DPS. Anyway, missiles have a more complex design, based on their advantages and penalties.
I have to notice, that all T2 Ammo are divided in two types also: short range with highest dps and long range with lower dps, which sometime is equal to T1 Ammo dps (but at double range). A design to close the distance gaps.
T1 ammo mostly to shoot structures if you’re new or don’t have alot of isk to spend.As for faction ammo that’s decided on situation and ship fit same for t2 ammo sometimes you’ve got your t2 ammo needs covered by a faction type and oposite
Here’s my ammo selection for small blasters:
I have faction antimatter loaded as it has good damage and good tracking to hit small, fast targets.
I have T2 Void on hand in case I fight anything bigger than myself as tracking is less of an issue and I can pump out more DPS.
I have faction Iron on hand in case I need to pull range (For small blasters, this is about 8km). Never not carry long range ammo, I have killed catalysts in merlins because I brought long range ammo while they didn’t.
I usually have a bit of T2 Null with me, but I find it to be quite useless due to its moderate range and terrible tracking.
If I’m carrying any T1 ammo, its because I’m shooting rats between fights.
Main weapon type I use is T2 Projectiles, mostly Autocannons.
For munitions I use T2 Barrage for long range kite action against small hull class ships, for medium hull class ships I use Faction ammo and for large hull class ships I use T2 Hail for up close brawler action.
That’s mostly right. For short range guns both ammo types get a tracking penalty. However, for long range guns the T2 short range ammo gets a tracking bonus.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.