This was actually something I learned from one of Garmon’s EVE is Easy videos a while ago. Despite the video being old and outdated at some points the ‘trick’ with t2 damage rigs is still highly relevant, yet unknown by most people. This post will be an explanation on stacking penalties on damage modules and rigs and how to take most advantage of it.

Most of you, if not all, are already aware that many modules and rigs, including damage mods, are affected by a stacking penalty which basically means that the effect of extra modules will be lowered for each module/rig you fit. However by the way that the stacking penalties are calculated it will always apply the biggest bonus first, thus it will have the lowest stacking penalty. Also, when stacking penalties are calculated for lowslot damage mods the damage increase and rate of fire (RoF) bonus will be calculated separately. So by taking advantage of these two mechanics you can get a rather large damage increase from a t2 rig when stacking penalties are in effect as these rigs have a 15% bonus compared to the 10% damage and 10.5% RoF bonus from t2 lowslot damage mods (12,5% and 10.5% for faction lowslot damage mods). So for t1 rigs which have a 10% bonus this effect doesn’t apply.

For a ship with 2 lowslot damage mods you will get nearly as much dps from a t2 RoF rig as a 3rd damage mod and for a ship with 3 lowslot damage mods you will get more dps from a t2 RoF rig than adding the 4th and even the 5th lowslot damage mod. This effect will also apply to t2 damage increase rigs, but because of the way damage is calculated in EVE you will get a larger effect from a RoF bonus than a damage bonus despite both of them being the same number.

And now to a true EVE player’s favourite part: The math and spreadsheet.

The math behind

Let’s start with the basics on stacking penalty. When more modules/rigs are added the effect of the extra modules/rigs will be lowered. So the first one will have full effect while the effect on the 2nd is lowered and the 3rd is even lower and so on. The numbers in EVE are:

Module No.: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Effect: 100% - 86.9% - 57.1% - 28.3% - 10.6%

The 5th module/rig only gives one tenth of the effect and beyond that it is pretty much pointless to add more modules. As stated before, the module/rig with the largest bonus would be calculated first, thus being the one that have 100% effect while the module/rig with the 2nd largest bonus would be the one with 86.9% effect and so on. So by adding a t2 RoF rig it will be the rig that will be number on the list, while the RoF bonus from damage mods will be shifted 1 spot. However the damage increase bonus will remain in the same spots, thus the stacking penalty wouldn’t be increased. To easier understand the order:

Stacking No.: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 RoF bonus: RoF rig – 1st gyro – 2nd gyro – 3rd gyro Dmg bonus: 1st gyro – 2nd gyro – 3rd gyro

I used the term ‘gyro’ from gyrostabilizer for the lowslot damage mods. It will of cause cover all types of lowslot damage mods. Since it is only t2 rigs that have a larger bonus than damage mods this effect will only work with them.

If we make a table with the increased dps from various mods calculated from a base dps of 100 it becomes easy to see this in effect. The top table features normal t2 lowslot damage mods while the bottom one features faction lowslot damage mods.

Now, if we start by observing the effect of t1 rigs it is clear that the dps of X gyros and a damage rig will not surpass the dps of X+1 gyros and the difference does only narrow down when stacking penalty is getting high. This applies to both t2 and faction gyros. However if we observe the dps with a t2 RoF rig it is starting to get really close at already 2 gyros compared to 3 gyros without the rig, with a difference less than 1dps (164.65 vs 165.30). For a t2 damage increase rig the difference is larger (162.46 vs 165.30). If we add another gyro to both the dps of 3 gyros + t2 rig surpasses the dps of 4 gyros for both the RoF rig (179.38 vs 175.19) and damage increase rig (177.71 vs 175.19). And for the RoF rig it will even surpass the damage of the 5th gyro.

For faction gyros the same effect takes place. But since the faction gyros are better than the t2 ones the advantage of t2 rigs is slightly reduced. Another thing worth noting is that the difference between a t2 RoF rig and a t2 damage increase rig is increased compared to the calculations with t2 gyros which is caused by the fact that faction gyros only get a higher damage increase bonus and not a RoF bonus. So by using the RoF rig we reduce the stacking penalty on the improved attribute on the faction gyros.

To summarize we can say that with 2 t2 gyros you will get nearly as much dps by adding a t2 RoF rig as if you add a 3rd gyro and with 3 t2 gyros you will get more dps by adding a t2 RoF or damage increase rig than a 4th gyro. With faction gyros this is only as effective with t2 RoF rigs.

Taking advantage of this

You have probably found yourself in the situation that you quickly run out of lowslots when trying to maximize the dps of your ship. So with this knowledge you can start taking the t2 damage rigs into consideration when min-maxing the fit for your ships. The price of t2 damage rigs is definitely low enough to put it on faction and t2 ships. The small t2 damage rigs for turrets cost around 3-5mil while the medium ones cost 11-13mil and the large ones are 35-55mil. The missile ones are more expensive and cost 7-8mil, 16-17mil, and 80-90mil respectively.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the t2 damage rigs is the high calibration cost. For those of you who don’t know what calibration is, then it is basically a resource for fitting rigs like powergrid and CPU is for modules. In most situations it isn’t a problem, but when fitting t2 rigs or 2 t1 damage rigs you will quickly run out of calibration. T1, Navy faction, T2 and T3 ships have 400 calibration points while pirate faction ships have 350. A t2 damage rigs cost 300 calibration which takes up a good chunk of the calibration. Another drawback is the increased PG cost for turrets and increase CPU cost for missiles which sometimes makes it hard to fit a damage rig.