Missile hitting moving target in the front or back of it. Is there difference?

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1

This is the main wiki page (Missile mechanics - EVE University Wiki) for projectile mechanics and I can’t figure out this:

If the target ship moves in the same direction as the incoming missile, should it take less damage than a ship that moves in the opposite direction of the incoming missile?

In reality, relative speeds of the ship and the missile add up, making it more lethal and in the context of EVE explosion radiuses, the ship itself would go into and pass through the physical explosion blast itself, probably outputing more damage?
In the other scenario, missile would explode on ship’s tail and the moving ship would pretty much escape the explosion blast very quickly.

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In the EVE universe there’s no difference - except that a target moving away has a (very small) chance of outrunning the missile.

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3

While I don’t know if a ship moving in the same direction as a missile is hit for less than a ship moving in the opposite direction (I assume not - the damage is instantaneous upon exploding) the range of a missile trying to hit a ship moving in the same direction is a lot smaller than that of a missile hitting a ship moving in the opposite direction, because of travel time.

This last effect can indeed mean that some missiles won’t reach the target (it’s chance based how many ticks the missile flies) and can lead to reduced damage when shooting missiles at a target flying in the same direction as the missile.

In the most extreme case the target and missile fly at the same speed:

  • if both fly in the same direction the missiles cannot catch up and you deal 0 damage
  • if they fly in opposite directions the missiles can hit the ship and deal damage
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4

You can definitely out run a good portion of a missile explosion. Especially in a small, fast ship, and if the missile are large.

There are fits that will increase the speed of the warhead explosion, don’t know how much that compensates for it however.

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Missiles only care about two things

Velocity and signature.

Your vector in comparison to the missiles is irrelevant.

A target going 100ms towards a missile, away from a missile or perpendicular to the missile will take the same damage

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Correct, for the missile explosion part the direction of the velocity doesn’t matter.

There’s also the missile travel part where it does matter if the target is moving towards the missile or away from the missile: if you’re firing missiles at a ship moving away from you you have a lot less range than if those ships move towards you. In this case missiles can deal reduced damage or no damage at all if the target moves away from you.

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Right but they are just asking about application and explosion velocity not range and missile velocity

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Yes, but range and velocity are closely related to the question, so I figured it would be nice for clarity and completeness to say that the effect they’re talking about (difference in hitting moving a target in the front or the back) does apply there.

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The poor server hamsters have enough work to do as it is.
If they had to calculate for vector differences between approaching and retreating ships and missiles, they’d fall over quick smart in even medium sized fleet engagements.