Turrets are the most common weapon in EVE, and come in many different flavors. Not that missile launchers are NOT turrets, they work pretty much entirely differently. Different races and pirate factions generally use different turrets, and have their hulls bonused for them.

There are three main families of turret in EVE, and each of them comes with a short and long range version. Then in turn each of them have tree variants (each of which has a full range of T1, meta T2 etc) for each size. Generally that will be big ones that do more damage but track less well and eat more fittings, small ones that track nicely but have less damage and range, but low fitting requirements and one somewhere in between.

EVE has a lot of maths behind how turrets work, and it basically boils down to a single formula, which determines your chance to hit. Unfortunately CCP just changed things, and the version of the tracking formula everyone has isn't quite correct any more and I'm far too lazy to go and fix stuff. Fortunately there are only a few things we need to worry about with our chance to hit.

This is how fast your ship and the enemy ship are moving past eachother, which word you use is based on whose perspective things are from. Basically, angular is how fast another ship is moving around you, transversal is how fast you are moving around another ship. Only perpendicular motion matters here, movement towards or away is ignored. It's hard to explain without pictures and I am very lazy, go read this reddit post. Basically a low angular velocity means a high chance to hit

How far away you are from your target. A far off target is easier to track, since their relative speed seems lower, but you also start to suffer from range penalties beyond your optimal range. From 0m out to your optimal you suffer no penalty due to range, from optimal onward you start to get a reduction to your chance to hit. At optimal + 1*falloff your chance to hit is reduced to 40% of it's previous value, at optimal + 2*falloff your chance to hit is less that 10% it's previous value. This means that beyond optimal + 2*falloff your chance to hit is effectively 0.

Signature radius is how “big” a target is. High sig radius means a large target, which means easier to hit. Not a whole lot to be said here.

For the vets among you, this is tracking a resolution rolled into a single stat. To anyone else, this is essentially how good your turret is at hitting things. A higher number means it's better at hitting smaller, faster targets. Larger turrets and long range turrets have lower accuracy.

Whenever you fire a turret the server calculates your chance to hit the server does three things:

1. It decides that you automatically have a wrecking shot 1% of the time, no matter what this will land for max damage multiplied by 3.
2. You chance to hit is calculated
3. A random number between 0 and 1 is rolled, let's call it x

If x is higher than your chance to hit, bad luck you missed. If x is lower, then well done, you hit. Now you have a damage modifier applied, of (x+0.49)*chance to hit. This means that your chance to hit sets an upper limit on your maximum damage.

Anything that I say increases accuracy score is actually, behind the scenes, improving tracking speed. However since weapon resolution has been normalized across the board the two are largely interchangeable now.

• Many ammo types will effect your turret's range, and accuracy score
• Tracking computers and links will increase your optimal range, accuracy score or both, depending on what scrips you have loaded
• Tracking enhancers give a bonus to optimal range and accuracy score
• Weapon rigs can improve range and accuracy score
• Stasis webifiers and grapplers lower a target's speed
• Warp scramblers and HICtor points shut off a target's microwarp drive, slowing them down (but also lowering their sig radius)
• Target painters increase a target's signature radius
• Using prop mods and tackle mods to dictate range can let you stay in or close to optimal range
• Many ship hulls give bonuses to turret accuracy and range
• Sharpshooter modes on T3 destroyers give bonuses to range or accuracy (except the jackdaw that doesn't have turrets)
• Sharpshooter gives a +5% bonus to optimal range per level
• Trajectory analysis gives a +5% bonus to falloff per level
• Motion prediction gives a 5% bonus to tracking speed per level
• Good piloting can give you control over range and relative speed
• Various implants and combat boosters give bonuses to range and accuracy

• Tracking disruptors can lower enemy optimal range, accuracy score or both depending on scripts
• Tackle modules let your dictate range letting you keep outside their optimal or close enough that they struggle to track you
• Good piloting still helps

• Improve your chance to hit, not only do you land more shots but you also get a better damage modifier
• Fit weapon upgrades and rigs to boost base damage
• Gunnery and surgical strike give you a bonus (2% and 3% respectively) to turret damage per level
• Rapid firing increases rate of fire by 4% per level
• Base turret skills (e.g small energy turret) give a 5% damage bonus to that turret type per level
• Turret specialization skills (e.g small railgun specialization) give a 2% damage bonus to that T2 turret type per level
• Many ships have bonuses to turret damage