Guide: Understanding Different Doctrines

What you can learn in this guide:

• What are the core concepts of different doctrines?
• How does tanking work in EVE?
• How is the applied damage calculated in EVE for Turrets and Missiles?

Difficulty: Beginners to Intermediate

This guide helps you to understand the different doctrines we are flying to become a better pilot and make better decisions on your own. To achieve that, the site will explain how tanking and applying damage in EVE Online works.

To understand how much your ship can tank and how tanks in different fleet doctrines are designed, a crucial concept is signature radius. Every ship in EVE has one, and you can see the size of it in the ship's attributes tab. (right click on the ship, click 'show info', and check the Targeting section in the Attributes tab) It is measured in meters, and it describes the size of an invisible sphere around the ship (or in other words, how large your ship appears on others' sensors).

The bigger the ship, the bigger the radius of the sphere, hence the term signature radius.

A few example signature radii, to get a better idea:

A higher signature radius

• Increases the chance to hit the target with turrets if said chance is not already 100%.
• Increases the applied damage of missiles and bombs if said damage is not already 100%.
• Decrease the time someone takes to lock onto your ship.

Therefore

• If you want to deal optimal damage, you want to increase the target's signature radius.
• If you want to avoid incoming damage, you want to decrease your signature radius.

The signature radius is not a static value and can be affected in many different ways:

• If you activate a Microwarpdrive (MWD), your signature radius will be increased (bloomed) by 500%.
• An Afterburner (AB), on the other hand, doesn't affect your signature radius at all.

This alone makes a huge difference in the ship doctrines you will find in Brave.

There are ships in the game, such as:

• All Interceptors
• The Talwar (Minmatar Destroyer)
• All Heavy Assault Cruisers

These vessels have bonuses for reducing the signature radius penalty of an MWD. This allows them to move very fast with reduced signature radii, which means that with competent piloting, they can take less damage.

The Cyclone Fleet Issue (Minmatar Faction Battlecruiser) is also unique in that it has a ship bonus for reducing ship signature radius.

For every ship, you have to decide whether to fit the ship with armor or shield modules.

• Shield modules and rigs increase your signature radius.
• Armor modules and rigs do not affect your signature radius (but decrease your speed).

The signature radius can be further affected by the Skirmish Command Burst, specifically with the Evasive Maneuvers charge. Several doctrine ships are fitted with this Command Burst and have bonuses for them, including:

• The Bifrost (Minmatar Command Destroyer)
• The Loki (Minmatar Strategic Cruiser)
• T1 Battlecruisers such as the Cyclone
• The Eos and Claymore (Gallente and Minmatar Command Ships)

If these ships are present on the field, have their Command Burst active and have the Evasive Maneuvers charge loaded, all fleet members affected will have lower signature radii.

One form of Electronic Warfare (EWAR) in the game is Target Painters. Ships like the Vigil (Minmatar Frigate) or Huginn (Minmatar Combat Recon) have bonuses for them. These modules will increase the signature radius of the target and make it 'easier' to apply damage to the target.

Less relevant to our doctrines but still worth mentioning are the Signature Radius Suppressor and Inertial Stabilizer modules, which decrease and increase your signature radius, respectively. Some implants and drugs can serve the same purpose. For this guide, that's all you need to know.

To give you a better idea of how much of an impact a signature radius can have, here is one example calculation:

Let's imagine two Thorax ships shooting each other. Both use Railguns with Spike. Both are in their optimal range. None of them have any form of external effect on their signature radii. One has an AB actively running and an armor tank. The other one has an MWD (not active during the fight) and a shield tank. All conditions are the same except the sig radius.

• The Armor Thorax has a signature radius of 120m.
• The Shield Thorax has a signature radius of 177m (fitted with 2 Large Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender modules and 3 Medium Core Defense Shield Extender I rigs, with Shield Rigging trained to III).

At a given range and transversal velocity:

• The Armor Thorax will be able to apply ~66% of its damage potential against the Shield Thorax.
• The Shield Thorax will only be able to apply ~39% of its potential damage against the Armor Thorax.

Should the Shield Thorax activate its MWD during the fight, the Armor Thorax applied damage would increase to around ~86%, while the applied damage of the Shield Thorax versus the Armor Thorax would drop down to 0% and, therefore, would stop hitting the target. But for this case, more factors than just the signature radius will play a role.

The bigger your signature radius is, the higher the likelihood that enemies can apply their damage better to you, and vice versa. Reducing your signature radius can be a tactic to mitigate damage. Blooming the signature radius of the enemy can be a tactic to better apply your damage.

A very crucial part of a ship is its defenses. Every ship has 3 health pools: Shield, Armor, and Structure (Hull). Damage is dealt to each health pool consecutively, such that the former one must be depleted before damage is taken on the latter one (a special case is made for Shields into Armor, in that with lower levels of the Tactical Shield Manipulation skill, the Armor can be damaged before the Shields are depleted). What kind of tank a ship should take depends on the ship's slot layout and bonuses, and that will decide what other modules can be fitted. For this guide, only Shield and Armor tanking will be considered.

Most of our doctrines use Shield-tanked ships. They utilize mid-slots (with an exception being the Power Diagnostic System that gives a minor buffer increase), freeing the lows for weapon enhancement, navigation, or modules assisting with fitting, as seen here on the Ferox

In regards to our doctrines, shield tanking has several characteristics:

• They tend to have better maneuverability than their armor counterparts.
• Shield Boosters and Remote Boosters apply at the beginning of the module cycle.
• Shield ships can have better potential damage output than armor ones, thanks to the free low slots.

Some doctrines, like the Beamfleet doctrine, are centered around armor ships like the Harbinger and Augorors. Armor modules occupy low-slots, leaving the mids open to a variety of modules, including EWAR, capacitor, or application modules. This means:

• Armor ships can have more utility than their shield counterparts while possibly having the same or more buffer.
• Armor tanking requires less capacitor (for example, Multispectrum Energized Membranes vs. Multispectrum Shield Hardener).
• Armor ships have a lower signature radius but also tend to have lower speed than shield ones.
• One key aspect: Armor Repairers apply at the END of the module cycle, which will become relevant in a bit.

Shield and armor-tanking both have their benefits. Shield-tanking gives better speed and damage at the cost of less utility and a larger signature radius. Armor-tanking has more utility and lower signature radius but less speed and potentially less damage.

"Armor ships have lower signature radius, and ABs don't affect that at all. We also get more utility from armor-tanking. Why go shield?" you ask. This Reddit post explains quite well the drawbacks of armor tanking, but you can find several key points here:

• Range dictation is a key aspect of fleet combat. Unless you're able to facilitate favorable engagements that negate the drawback of low speed, you can sacrifice range dictation to a faster or more competent enemy or cannot give chase to a fleeing one.
• Shield Boosters apply at the beginning of their module cycle, while Armor Repairers apply at the end, creating a delay. Fleet combat usually involves "being primaried", or a massive amount of damage is put on one ship. The delay from Armor Repairers can result in the Logistics wing being unable to catch the incoming damage.

These factors, among many others, must be considered by the FC when planning for an engagement.

When you look closer at the Brave doctrines, you will realize that these concepts play a role. We will take 3 current doctrines as examples:

This doctrine is based on having a very low signature radius and armor tanking

• Armor ships have much lower signature radii, especially when they use an AB instead of an MWD.
• They have more buffer and more utility via plates and free mid-slots.

The concept of this fleet is to have a lower signature radius and heavy buffer for mitigating damage while applying EWAR using their midslots to force the enemy into close-range combat. The downside is that due to the lower speed, with armor modules having speed penalties, and the AB speed bonus being much less compared to an MWD, they either have to start the engagement in optimal range and lock down the enemy fleet, or force a knife fight via EWAR. This means AHACs can lose range dictation against a faster or more competent enemy or cannot effectively give chase to a fleeing enemy. However, the drawback of being armor-tanked is mitigated by the presence of the Assault Damage Control (ADC), which provides incredible resistances and buys time for the Logistics wing to save you.

On the other hand, Vagabonds operate completely differently from the Anduril Fleet mentioned above

• Largely increased signature radius due to being shield-tanked and using an MWD.
• Much higher on-grid speed.

Harpoons, and by extension, many of our shield-MWD doctrines, have much better on-field agility than their armor counterparts at the expense of a very high signature radius. This means that the enemy will likely be able to apply their damage much better, but there are a few things that mitigate this:

• A good number of Logistics ships to keep up with incoming damage.
• Outgunning or outnumbering the enemy.
• Range dictation using speed and weapon range.

The Talwar doctrine is something special and makes use of its ship bonuses:

• Increase in missile range (through max velocity increase).
• Decrease in MWD signature radius penalty.

They aren't either shield or armor-tanked but rely completely on range and speed. Because of that, Talwars operate at a range where:

• The target can't hit you at all.
• The target applies very little damage because of your high speed while having a comparably low signature radius.

This second part will explain how damage is applied for Turrets and Missiles. The main differences include:

• Turrets are concerned with the velocity and travel direction of your ship and the enemy's concerning one another. Their damage is applied immediately.
• Missiles are concerned with the enemy's speed and signature radius. Their damage is delayed in application (due to missiles' travel).
• In terms of range:
  • Turrets' damage application is dependent on range, generally decreasing as the range increases.
  • Missiles' damage application is independent of range (provided the target is within range).

Every Turret type (save for Precursor weapons) has a long- and short-range weapons system (e.g., Hybrid weapons have Railguns and Blasters, respectively). As a rule of thumb, long-range weapons have worse tracking than their cousins. As the weapon size increases, the range increases, but the tracking speed decreases.

Furthermore, besides the usual range difference found on different Turret ammo types, T2 Turret ammo also comes with a bonus or penalty to tracking speed, depending on the weapon type and range of the ammo itself.

Lastly, multiple modules can influence Turret damage application by either positively affecting yourself or negatively affecting the enemy. These factors will be highlighted in the next section. It is also optimal to combine these methods to achieve the maximum-benefit engagement profile.

There are two range values: optimal and falloff.

• Within your optimal range, the chance of turrets hitting their targets is independent of range.
• This chance decreases as the range increases, being 50% at your falloff and taking a steeper dive beyond that.

Factors that can influence range include:

• Using different types of ammo at different ranges.
• Using modules and rigs such as Tracking Computers or Enhancers can increase your Turrets' range and tracking speed.
• A Tracking Disruptor with Optimal Range Disruption Script loaded will negatively affect enemies' Turret range.

Two more values are important regarding this.

• Transversal velocity: how fast your enemy is moving in relation to yourself.
• Tracking speed: how fast your turrets can turn in a certain direction.

Several more factors influence Turret tracking:

• Ammo types can influence tracking speed:
  • T2 short-range ammo on long-range weapons (e.g., Javelin on Railguns) increases tracking speed.
  • T2 ammo on short-range weapons (e.g., Void and Null on Blasters) and T2 long-range ammo on long-range weapons (e.g., Spike on Railguns) decreases tracking speed.
  • Both T2 ammo on Precursor weapons decrease tracking speed.
  • Special case: Depleted Uranium and Titanium Sabot on Projectile weapons increases tracking speed.
• Using Stasis Webifiers (or Warp Scramblers if the target has an MWD) decreases the target's velocity, thereby reducing transversal velocity and indirectly increasing your Turrets' tracking.
• A Tracking Disruptor with Tracking Speed Disruption Script loaded will reduce enemies' tracking speed.

Add the last value into the equation, the signature radius, or how big your ship appears on others' scanners.

• The larger a ship is, the easier it is to hit with Turrets.
• Target Painters can increase the target's signature radius, making it easier to hit them.

You're standing still, and someone 100m away is running in a perfect circle around you at 20km/h. To hit them with the baseball you have, you must:

• Be able to throw the baseball 100m with decent accuracy, and you can do this (Optimal range).
• Turn yourself a bit so you throw it in anticipation of where they're running (Tracking speed).

Let's say they get in a car and drive about 250m away from you in a circle at the same speed. You:

• Have to throw the ball further than you're used to, which means you might not hit the car (Outside optimal range).
• Have a bigger target to throw the ball at (Signature radius).

You then get in your car. They now travel in a straight line, and you go parallel to them at 15km/h. This means that from your point of view, they're only traveling at 5km/h (Transversal velocity).

This article lists the formula for calculating the chance of hitting, as well as the damage dealt to an enemy with Turrets.

There are also different levels of Turret damage application, ranging from "grazes" to "smashing". In essence, these levels are tied with calculations on hit chances, and this guide will not go deeper.

To demonstrate the effect of Target Painting on Turret tracking, we will use the previous example with a Thorax trying to hit another Thorax with Railguns and Spike ammo.

The signature radius of the target is 120m, and the transversal speed is 600m/s. The target is within optimal range of our Turrets.

• The initial chance to hit is 46%.
• After webbing the target down to a transversal speed of ~270m/s, the chance to hit is now 85%.
• After Target Painting the target to ~270m, the chance to hit is now 85%.

This test required two Target Painters from a Vigil, who have a bonus to this form of EWAR; it also required one Stasis Webifier. The big difference is:

• The range of a Stasis Webifier is 10km
• The optimal and falloff range of a Target Painter is 45km + 90km, respectively, at decent skill levels.

This means that the more expensive ships, such as the Huginn or Loki, can be compensated, or even better, complimented, with the presence of a Vigil.

When you look at our doctrines, it is important to choose the right doctrine to fight the right doctrine. For example, Praetorians are notorious for their shield ENI fleet, featuring high speed, high damage, and long-range projection. However, the AHACs (again) are designed to fight this, as

• The main AHAC DPS ship is the Zealot, which punches the EM hole of the ENI. The Deimos also hits the Thermal hole to less effect but also provides Kinetic damage, making it harder to tank against this composition.
• With sufficient numbers and EWAR, AHACs can force the ENIs to pull back or fight at close range, which the AHAC fleet is amazing at. This is coupled with the presence of the ADC, which, as mentioned above, further buys time for the Logistics wing.

Another concept that should be mentioned is alpha damage, or the damage applied to an enemy before Shield Boosters/Armor Repairers apply. This is a core concept of doctrines using low Rate of Fire (ROF) weapons like Artillery guns, most notable of which are the Hurricanes and Vagabonds. These doctrines rely on volleying the enemy, in that the enemy Logistics wing has no time to assist before the primary is dead. They also have more variety in selecting damage types, thanks to using Projectile weapons, making them more flexible in this regard.

Harpies are another noteworthy doctrine. Being frigates, Harpies are excellent in damage application thanks to small weapons' higher tracking speed values and ship Hybrid weapon range bonuses. This is coupled with the fact that Harpies have a smaller signature radius, also thanks to being frigates.

Unlike Turrets, Missiles always apply damage to their enemy if they remain within the maximum flight range of said Missiles. As such, Missiles have a different mechanic in terms of applying damage.

There are a total of 3 types of Missile weapons systems per size, with only 2 for small Missiles. This includes the long- and short-range weapons systems, as well as an undersized missile weapons systems via Rapid Launchers (e.g., Heavy Missile Launchers, Heavy Assault Missile Launchers and Rapid Light Missile Launchers for medium-sized Missile weapons systems, respectively).

• The normal-sized weapons systems are similar to their Turret counterparts in that they apply well to targets of similar or larger sizes.
• The undersized weapons systems are designed to apply well to targets of smaller sizes. They feature high ROF, good application, and high DPS before reloads. This is balanced by the unusually long reload times of these systems (usually 35s). There is somewhat of a Turret equivalent of Rapid Launchers in Dual Turrets (for example, Dual 150mm Railguns for Hybrids), in that they have better tracking at the expense of lower damage output and range than their normal-sized counterparts.

Unlike with Turrets, Missiles travel to their targets to apply damage. Their flight distance, or range, is dependent on two factors: maximum flight time and maximum velocity. This means that missile range is also dependent on the target's behavior.

• If the target can outrun the missiles by keeping a distance from said missiles for long enough that they reach their maximum flight distance, the missiles will not apply damage, thereby being "out of range" despite appearing within the missile range of your ship.
• Vice versa, if the target is moving towards the missile, the missile takes less time to reach the target, thereby applying damage despite appearing outside the missile range of your ship.

Factors influencing missile flight distance:

• Different types of missile ammo:
  • Fury and Precision missiles for long-range and undersized missile launchers, as well as Rage missiles for short-range launchers, tend to have shorter flight distances.
  • Javelin missiles on short-range launchers and Faction missiles (the most common of which are Caldari Navy missiles) on all launchers tend to have longer flight distances.
• Modules and rigs such as Missile Guidance Computers and Enhancers can increase flight distance.
• A Guidance Disruptor with Missile Range Disruption Script can negatively affect flight distance and missile precision.

Two new concepts will be introduced for missile application:

• Explosion radius: how large a missile explosion is. This factor is coupled with the signature radius of the target: the larger the signature radius or the smaller the explosion radius, the more the target fills the explosion, i.e., the more damage they take.
• Explosion velocity: how rapidly said explosion expands till it reaches its maximum size. This factor is coupled with the target's absolute velocity, independent of angular or transversal velocity: the slower the target or the faster the explosion velocity, the longer they remain within the explosion, i.e., the more damage they take.

Factors influencing missile precision:

• Once again, ammo types:
  • Faction missiles on all launchers, Precision missiles on long-range and undersized launchers, and Javelin missiles on short-range launchers have smaller explosion radii and higher explosion velocities, meaning better missile damage application.
  • Fury missiles on long-range and undersized launchers, along with Rage missiles on short-range launchers, have the opposite pattern, i.e., larger explosion radii and lower explosion velocities, meaning worse missile damage application.
• Using Stasis Webifiers and Target Painters decreases target velocity and increases signature radius, respectively, meaning better missile precision.
• A Guidance Disruptor with Precision Disruption script loaded can negatively impact missile precision.

Imagine a great explosion of a building! This building can have multiple people in it or none at all. Also, this explosion may or may not quickly expand and collapse the building.

Now, if it's just you in the building, only you will be injured, meaning the casualties are low (large explosion radius and small signature radius). However, if you and so many others are there, all of you will be impacted, and the casualties will be high (small explosion radius and large signature radius).

Let's also consider how quickly the damage spreads. If the building slowly burns down because of this explosion, some casualties will be noted, but many people can escape (low explosion velocity and high target absolute velocity). However, if the explosion hit the foundations, it is likely the entire building collapses and not many people make it out (high explosion velocity and low target absolute velocity).

Let's look at some actual numbers. We have one Caracal with Rapid Light Missiles trying to shoot a Harpy using an AB.

• The Harpy has a signature radius of 39m and a speed of 835m/s.
• The Caracals Missiles have an explosion radius of 30m and an explosion velocity of 255m/s.

From that, we can already tell that the explosion radius is small enough to fully hit the Harpy, but the Harpy is so fast that it will outrun large portions of the actual explosion. The Caracal will only be able to apply 44% of its full damage potential.

Let's see what happens when we apply webifiers and target painters:

• One web will reduce the Harpy to a speed of 334m/s. Suddenly, the Caracal can apply 99% of its damage.
• Three target painters of a Vigil will bloom the signature radius up to 110m. The Caracal can now apply 100% damage.

Using the same Caracal but fitted with Heavy Assault Missiles (HAMs) against the same Harpy, with an explosion radius of 94m and an explosion velocity of 152m/s:

• Without webifiers or painters, only 10% of its damage can be applied.
• With just one unbonused webifier, 23% of the damage can be applied.
• Adding target painters with one Vigil gives you 57% missile damage application.
• Finally, with a second unbonused webifier, we apply 100% damage to this nasty Harpy.

If you're more interested in how missile flight range and damage application are calculated, please check out this article.

Missiles somewhat lighten the load on the FC's mind, as they have selectable damage types, will always deal damage, and make range and directional piloting easier for the FC.

• For example, with the recent (re)introduction of the Muninn doctrine, a command often given by the FC when there is a heavy presence of tackle and webs is to have the fleet approach and anchor on the enemy. While there are multiple reasons for this, strictly in regards to missiles, is that staying at close range to the enemy negates the worry of missiles being "out of range" and that transversal doesn't matter to missile damage application (they do matter defensively though).
• Another example would be the Talwars again. As a new bro doctrine, besides the benefits listed above, the fact that Talwars are missile boats that can hit at 80km+ means the FC can begin to dip their toe into learning the art of positioning and range control without being overwhelmed with transversal and other things. If the targets remain in range, the missiles will always hit.

This guide was written to help you understand the two main aspects of every doctrine, which you can then apply to understand the engagement profile of said doctrines and maybe FC them to facilitate favorable engagement conditions. If you got any other questions you can post them in #dojo on Slack too!

A list of Brave doctrines
EVE University's explanation on signature radius
Explaining the different types of tank
The nitty-gritty about armor vs. shields and alpha damage
An in-depth explanation of turret mechanics
Missile mechanics in detail as well