Damage types

In New Eden, raw damage may come from countless varieties of weapons. It always comes in from of one of the four main damage types or as a mix of them with maxium of three different kinds of type at once.

Overview

Turrets usually inflict lots of a primary type of damage, less of secondary type and sometimes even with tertiary type. The strength of each type of damage is governed by ammunition type which also influences the range, damage and tracking of the turret.

Missiles have four variations, each variant corresponding to one of the four damage types. There is no difference in flight time, amount of damage or velocity between missiles of the same missile group. Racial missile ships tend to have bonuses only for the damage caused by missiles corresponding to their racial damage type.

Like missiles, combat drones have four variations per damage type. Each variation corresponds to one of the four races, doing the main damage type corresponding to its race and also having other attributes common to the race.

Other weapon types such as smartbombs, bombs and doomsday devices also come in four variations.

Electromagnetic

Electromagnetic damage, often refered to as EM, is the primary damage type of the Amarr race. EM damage is also the primary damage type of lasers which are the primary weapon used by Amarr.

Armor has the highest resistance against EM damage, while shields the lowest.

Thermal

Thermal damage is the primary damage type of the Gallente race. It is the secondary damage type of hybrid turrets - the racial weapons of Caldari and Gallente - and lasers.

Armour has the second highest resists against thermal. Shields have the second lowest resists against thermal.

Note: Thermal damage is not to be confused with heat Damage which is caused by overloading modules.

Kinetic

Kinetic damage is the primary damage type of the Caldari race. It is the primary damage type of hybrid turrets and the secondary damage type of projectile turrets.

Shields has the second highest resists against thermal. Armour has the second lowest resists against kinetic damage.

Explosive

Explosive damage is the primary damage type of the Minmatar race. It is also the primary damage type of projectile weapons.

Shields has the highest resistance against explosive damage, while armour has the lowest.

Racial preferences

Each of the four major races has a specific preferred damage type. Although most restrictions can be easily negated through unorthodox ship setups, the preferred damage type can be noticed in ship or fitting bonuses, such as in stealth bombers or doomsday devices.

Amarr

The Amarr race's primary damage type is EM in line with lasers, its primary weapon type.

Gallente

The Gallente race's primary damage type is thermal. This is in line with its use of hybrid turrets.

Caldari

The Caldari race's primary damage type is kinetic in line with its use of hybrid turrets. The Caldari are heavy users of missiles, however their missile ships often recieve damage bonuses only for kinetic damage dealing missiles.

Minmatar

The Minmatar race's primary damage type is explosive in line with its use of projectile turrets.

Native Damage Efficiency

Each damage type has a certain native ability to damage shields, armor, and structure of a ship. This is represented in game by a an immediate reduction in damage based on what it's hitting, and what type of damage it is. Basically, different damage types aren't as good at damaging certain things at others. An example would be EM damage hitting armor. The EM doesn't do much versus solid armor, so before any damage is applied, a percentage of the initial damage a weapon does is removed. Explosive damage, however, is really good at hurting armor, so much less of the initial damage is removed. This damage, in any case vs shields or armor, is removed before the target's armor or shield resistances are calculated. This damage reduction is not to be confused with the resistance on the targets armor or shield! It is a good idea to remember this native reduction when planning what ammo/weapons to use against a enemy.

Where to Find this Information

In the atributes tab of any ammo type, it will tell you what sort of damage it does. closer to the bottom, it will tell you damage vs armor and damage vs shield. It is good to keep these numbers in mind when figuring out the effectiveness of your weapons! Example: Paradise Cruise Missile. 300 EM Damage, Base Shield Damage 300, Base Armor Damage: 120. All of this information can be found in the attributes tab of the info screen of any ammo, module, or item, that does damage.

Shield Damage

In this section, it will be shown what reduction percentages are applied to different damage types that are damaging shields. In addition, It will show the further effect of a "standard" damage resistance on the targets shields due to the "normal" resistances given by most ships, and give you the results. (note, players often fit modules increasing resistances, and not all ships give these same basic resistances)

EM Damage: Initial Damage: 500 (equal to 5 heavy assault missiles) Shield Damage Reduction: 00% Damage lost: 0 Damage before resistances: 500 Example EM Shield Resist: 00% Damage Lost: 0 Total Damage Done to Shield: 500

Thermal Damage Initial Damage: 500 Shield Damage Reduction: 20% Damage lost: 100 Damage before resistances: 400 Example Thermal Shield Resist: 20% Damage Lost: 80 Total Damage Done to Shield: 320

Kinetic Damage Initial Damage: 500 Shield Damage Reduction: 40% Damage lost: 200 Damage before resistances: 300 Example Kinetic Shield Resist: 40% Damage Lost: 120 Total Damage Done to Shield: 180

Explosive Damage Initial Damage: 500 Shield Damage Reduction: 60% Damage lost: 300 Damage before resistances: 200 Example explosive Shield Resist: 50% Damage Lost: 100 Total Damage Done to Shield: 100

Armor Damage

In this section, it will be shown what reduction percentages are applied to different damage types that are damaging armor. In addition, It will show the further effect of a "standard" damage resistance on the targets armor due to the "normal" resistances given by most ships, giving you the final result. (note, players often fit modules increasing resistances, and not all ships give these same basic resistances)

EM Damage: Initial Damage: 500 (equal to 5 heavy assault missiles) Armor Damage Reduction: 60% Damage lost: 300 Damage before resistances: 200 Example EM Armor Resist: 50% Damage Lost: 100 Total Damage Done to Armor: 100

Thermal Damage: Initial Damage: 500 Armor Damage Reduction: 35% Damage lost: 175 Damage before resistances: 325 Example Thermal Armor Resist: 45% Damage Lost: 146.25 Total Damage Done to Armor: 178.75

Kinetic Damage: Initial Damage: 500 Armor Damage Reduction: 25% Damage lost: 100 Damage before resistances: 400 Example Kinetic Armor Resist: 25% Damage Lost: 100 Total Damage Done to Armor: 300

Explosive Damage: Initial Damage: 500 Armor Damage Reduction: 10% Damage lost: 50 Damage before resistances: 450 Example Explosive Armor Resist: 10% Damage Lost: 45 Total Damage Done to Armor: 405

Hull Damage

Unlike Armor and Shields, your spaceship's Structure gets no native damage reduction. It just isn't meant to take damage! All damage types will do their full damage against an enemy's hull, before their reistances. (so a 300 EM damage Paradise Cruise missile will do a full 300 points of damage to thier structure hitpoints, and if they have a damage control module increasing structure EM damage resistance by 50%, you would do 150 damage against their hull.)

NPC damage Types

damage types inflicted by different factions

• Angel Cartel: All types, although mostly kinetic and explosive.
• Amarr Navy: EM and thermal.
• Ammatar Navy: EM and thermal.
• Blood Raiders: EM and thermal.
• Caldari Navy: Kinetic and thermal.
• Centii: EM and thermal.
• Coreli: Kinetic and thermal.
• Corpii: EM and thermal.
• Domination: All types, mostly kinetic and explosive.
• Gallente Navy: Kinetic and thermal.
• Gist: All types, mostly kinetic and explosive.
• Guristas: Kinetic and thermal.
• Khanid: EM and thermal.
• Mercenary: All types.
• Mordu's Legion: Kinetic and thermal.
• Odamian: Kinetic and thermal.
• Pith: Kinetic and thermal.
• Rogue Drones: All types.
• Republic fleet: All types, mostly kinetic and explosive.
• Sansha: EM and thermal.
• Serpentis: Kinetic and thermal.

Main damage types to use on npc factions:

• Guristas - Kinetic
• Serpentis - Thermal
• Mordu's Legion - Thermal & Kinetic
• Blood Raiders - EM & Thermal
• Sansha - EM & Thermal
• Angel Cartel - Explosive
• Mercenary - Thermal
• Corpum - EM & Thermal
• Gist - Explosive