A few questions on time/ammo efficiency when using missile ships in missions:
Is there ever a time when your missiles might take longer to reach their target than the cycle time on the launcher is such that the first salvo hasn’t yet reached the target when the second is launched, but the first salvo is enough to destroy the target, thus wasting the second salvo of missiles?
Similarly, do people always group their launchers or if you’re trying to pick off frigates, do you split your launchers between targets so as not to waste ammo in overkill?
How much ammo does the standard mission use up if you figure faction cruise missiles? Is 5000 enough for a mission? Several missions?
Just some random questions :-). Thank me for whatever help you can give?
Yes it is absolutely possible to fire a new Volley before the First one Hits. With heavy missiles the Point ist above 50km I assume for Cruise missiles its a Bit more. Always a good Idea to disable the Launcher early to Not waste ammo.
It’s one of the downsides of rapid launchers, their rate of fire is really high and given that they have a limited clip you’re very easily going to waste volleys. Even with normal launchers you can easily waste volleys and adding to the fact that missile ships aren’t the fastest completioners they’re not exactly amazing.
One solution to that is to use a different missile ship, the Barghest is a missile BS that gets a bonus to missile speed but a penalty to flight time and the result of that is that you get more range but far less travel time so the missiles reach the target far sooner. It also does heaps more base dps than a raven hull so it’s actually the best T1 true missile BS for missions, being fast also helps.
With cruise missiles you can almost push more than 200KM (I have 181 on my Raven Navy Issue), so it’s absolutely possible to fire another (or several) volleys before the first one strikes.
I’m sure there are situations where ungrouping your weapons is better, but for most engagements, keep all your weapons grouped, it’ll save you a lot of micromanagement.
5000 is plenty. Usually 1000 is more than enough for a L4 mission, I carry 1500x missiles for primary and 1000x for secondary damage.
More than necessary, but I use T2 cruises. I carry Fury and precision. I tend to over Carry and take 3500 Fury and 2500 Precision, though i probably rarely go over 1,000 each on most missions. I primarily blitz so unless its a mission that can’t be blitzed, i take the above numbers with me… if it can be blitzed i usually half the numbers or depending on the target, don’t take the precision.
Yes. If your cycle time is 10 seconds but missiles take 11 seconds to get to the target, then 2nd cycle is already on its way.
You mostly group your missiles or guns. I know in the far forgotten past I usually had them split grouped. So if I had 6 launchers, I grouped them 3 and 3. So with easier targets I could split a bit of damage.
Hard to say, really depends on what you’re fighting. But 5000 is usually more then enough for a couple of missions
OP
i suppose you are talking about pve
and PVE in eve (except abyssal) is fully predictable. If you do several times the same site, you will see the same npcs
so after a while you will perfectly know how many volleys you should launch on each target type
initially you will spoil some volleys, yes, but not for a long time
My alt has 220 km on a standard Raven, and I often have 3 volleys of cruise missiles in flight at the same time against battleships.
I have my launchers in 2 - 2 - 2 groups to split damage across multiple smaller targets.
It takes time, but yes, you can figure out how many volleys are needed against certain types of NPCs, and manually cycle off your launchers to conserve ammo.
I typically carry about 5000 missiles, but that way I can run multiple missions before I need to rearm.