Tracking

A vagabond is orbiting your poor stationary battlecruiser at 20,000 meters, and this nano pilot makes this vagabond power at 4,000 m/s (darn nano heads). You fire up your Heavy Pulse lazors and (tracking calculation kicks in):

Transversal = 4,000 m/s Range = 20,000 m Angular Velocity = 0.2 (4,000/2,0000) Heavy Pulse Tracking = 0.08 (rounded) * 1.25 (skills) = 0.1 (rounded)

So, your guns are moving at half the speed that the vaga is orbiting you. If you were to punch in the data into the hit formula, your damage would be extremely close to 0. However, this is only half of the story, and zero is nowhere close to reality.

Formula:

Tracking Adjustment = 0.5 ^ (Angular Velocity / Tracking)^2 = 0.5 ^ (0.2 / 0.1) ^2 = 0.5 ^ 4 (0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5) Chance to Hit = 6.25% (Due to hit quality and wrecking hits, this will result in you doing about 3% of your EFT DPS)

But it's a Footprint?!

Tracking is an arbitrary number, guns don't really track the physical target and it's not an on/off switch. For example, if the angular velocity was 0.2, and:

• Your tracking was 0.2, you would do 39% of your DPS (assuming range isn't an issue).
• Your tracking was 0.19, you would do 36%
• Your tracking was 0.18, 32%

To show this via the formula again:

Tracking Adjustment = 0.5 ^ (Angular Velocity / Tracking)^2 = 0.5 ^ (0.1 / 0.1) ^2 = 0.5 ^ 1 (0.5) Chance to Hit = 50% (Due to hit quality and wrecking hits, you'll be doing 39% of your EFT DPS)

As you can see, tracking isn't binary - it simply impacts the chances to hit, and therefore over time the average DPS you perform. Now that we understand that tracking is a measure, there is another important component to calculate, i.e. Modified Tracking (the target footprint), and that's to consider the signature radius of the target and the signature resolution of your guns. To put it simply, if the Signature Radius of the target is larger than the Signature Resolution of your guns, it's starts tracking faster as a straight factor. If the target sig is double the resolution of your guns, your tracking speed doubles. Conversely, if the target sig is half the resolution of your guns, your tracking speed halves.

Back the above example, since that Vagabond is using MWD to achieve those figures, this makes him a much bigger target (910 sig radius). Back to the calculation:

Transversal = 4,000 m/s (unchanged) Range = 20,000 m (unchanged) Angular Velocity = 0.2 Heavy Pulse Tracking = 0.08 * 1.25 (skills) * 910/125 (the signature radius of the well lit Vaga / the signature resolution of your guns) Adjusted Tracking = 0.73

Now our guns can easily track that vaga, they have gone from being half the speed, to being nearly 4x quicker. If you now punch the data into the hit formula, your damage is closer to 50% DPS, however the reduction in DPS is largely due to the Vaga orbitting outside optimal range of your lazors. If that vaga was closer to optimal (15,000), that DPS percentage climbs to 91%

Formula: Tracking Adjustment = (0.5 ^ (Angular Velocity / Modified Tracking)^2) = 0.5 ^ (0.2 / 0.73) ^2 = 0.5 ^ 0.075 Chance to hit = 95% (Due to hit quality and wrecking hits, you'll be doing 94% of your EFT DPS)

So what does this all mean?

For the purposes of turrets, an increase to your tracking speed (e.g. Tracking Computers) is performing exactly the same function as an increase to the targets Sig Radius. Therefore, anything that increases either of those 2 factors will provide the exact same increase in your ability to lay down the hurt. Therefore, some simple numbers:

T2 Target Painters: Sig Res +30% (with skills, 37.5%). Available to whole gang and can be further increased to 50% with ship bonuses (Vigil, Bellicose, Hyena, Rapiers, etc.) T2 Tracking Computers (tracking speed): Tracking Speed +30% (no skills to increase). Available to your ship only T2 Tracking Enhancer: Tracking Speed +9.5% (no skills to increase). Available to your ship only

The most efficient means of increasing your ability to hit a fast moving target with turrets is with a Target Painter, assuming you have the skills, or place this onto a bonused ship. If you combine T2 painters with skills and ship bonuses, it's 66% more effective than a T2 Tracking Computer with speed scripts.

Just pay attention to optimal and falloff with Painters, that's the balancing attribute.

Now, EVE also this this wonderful attribute called 'stacking penalties'. Therefore running 2 Tracking computers means the 2nd one suffers a penalty. Since an increase to Sig Radius and Tracking Speed are different attributes, these don't stack. So imagine having 2 Target Painters lighting up a target, and 2 Tracking Computers. It's a substantial boost to your ability to hit.

Your summary is even too long

An increase in Tracking Speed and Signature Resolution result in the same thing for tracking with turrets. Target painters provide a greater increase to turret tracking than tracking computers.

Here is a graph of a Hurricane Artillery setup (650mm T2 guns firing T1 ammo) at a Vaga orbitting at 4,000 m/s

Green line: Standard setup (100 DPS at 20km_ Pink line: 2 T2 Tracking Computers on the 'cane (150 DPS at 20km) Blue line: 2 T2 Target Painters on the 'cane lighting up the Vaga (160 DPS at 20KM) Yellow line: 2 T2 Target Painters (non-bonused ship) lighting up the Vaga, and 2 T2 Tracking Computers (180 DPS at 20 KM)

Information provided by Secluse