Originally by: Gypsio III

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#1. HAMs and HMs have the same explosion radius before GMP. With GMP, the explosion radius of a HM is 25% less than a HAM. Even without GMP, the lesser DRF of HMs means that HMs generally do more damage to a small fast target than a HAM. However, bear in mind that if you're within HAM range then there's a good chance that you're within web range, which will generally favour doing more damage with HAMs.

#2. Damage = Base_Damage * MIN(MIN(sig/Er,1) , (Ev/Er * sig/vel)^(log(drf) / log(5.5)) )

Copy into Excel. Sig = target signature, Er = missile explosion radius, Ev = missile explosion velocity, vel = target speed, DRF = missile damage reduction factor.

Training Target Navigation Prediction to V is very important. It's a 10% bonus per level and applies to all missiles. And it's only rank 2. GMP is rank 5.

Rocket and torps have similar explosion velocities but very different explosion radii. Rockets are capable of doing full damage to anything of 20 m sig or greater; for torps this is 450 m. Target velocity then needs to be accounted for, which isn't too much of a problem vs. a torp's battleship target, but is a problem vs. a rocket's frigate target - particularly since ABs are common on frigates but never seen on BS, which is why rockets are crap.

100 m explorad, 100 m/s explovel missile hits 100 m/s, 100 m sig target: 100% damage
100 m explorad, 100 m/s explovel missile hits 200 m/s, 100 m sig target: Less than 100% damage, depending on missile DRF (about 60% for a HM)
100 m explorad, 100 m/s explovel missile hits 200 m/s, 200 m sig target: 100% damage - the 50% smaller explorad exactly cancels the 100% greater speed.

For example, a rocket of explorad 20 m and explovel 100 m/s hits a target of sig 200 m. The explorad of the rocket is ten times smaller than the target's sig, which means that the rocket will do full damage to that target even when it's travelling ten times faster than the rocket's explovel.

In short, if a target doubles its speed, but also doubles its sig radius, you'll see no change in damage on that target. MWDs give ~600% speed and 500% sig radius, so MWDing gives only a little reduction in damage relative to base speed/sig.

QR = Quantum Rise past expansion. Only PVEers described it as a missile "nerf". For PVP, it massively improved the performance of missiles. Before QR, missiles did basically no damage to any ship travelling faster than 4 km/s. And just about everything cruiser-sized or smaller was travelling faster than 4 km/s. HAMs and torps were unchanged in practice, LMs and HMs were massively boosted.

Cruise was boosted a bit but basically still has no role - a long-range anti-BS weapon is not a particularly desirable weapon system. Rockets got nerfed, because they and HAMs (and to a lesser extent torps) require web support. This isn't a problem for HAMs and torps - their host ships/gang will have such web support, but rocket platforms often don't have the slots to fit a web and, being favoured solo platforms, often don't have webbing gangmates, and their frigate targets often fit an AB. CCP seems to be aware of the rocket issue though, so we might see a boost soon(TM).

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