Damage types
In New Eden, raw damage may come from countless varieties of weapons, but it always comes in one of four main damage types or any mix of those four types.
These types are:
1). Electromagnetic damage. Usually referred to as EM damage.
2). Thermal damage. Not to be confused with heat damage when overloading modules.
3). Kinetic dmage.
4). Explosive damage.
Racial preferences.
Each of the four major races (Gallente, Amarr, Caldari and Minmatar) 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, being a heavy user of Laser turrets usually do EM and Thermal damage, with a strong emphasis on EM. All Amarr related single damage type weapons (such as Combat Drones ) usually do EM damage.
Gallente prefer Thermal dmage. But due to heavy usage of hybrid turrets Kinetic damage comes as a close second.
Caldari prefer Kinetic damage above all else, but due to the emphasis on the forementioned hybrid turrets, thermal also plays a strong part. It also must be noted that Caldari have a very unrestricted access to damage types through their strong emphasis on missile warfare.
Minmatar are the least restricted race when it comes to damage types. Their racial damage is Explosive, but heavy emphasis on projectile turrets and missile warfare (where damage types can be chosen by selecting different ammo types) negates most limitations.