There are four different damage types in EVE:
- Electromagnetic (EM)
- Kinetic
- Thermal
- Explosive
- If you know that your enemy uses weapons which deal a particular damage type, you can fit modules to your ship to increase your resistance to that damage type, making your enemy's weapons less effective against you.
- Conversely, if you know that your enemy's ship has a low resistance to a particular damage type, you can use weapons which deal that specific damage type, making them more effective.
| Native resistance | Weapon damage | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shields | Armor | Lasers | Hybrids | Projectiles | Disintegrators | Drones | Missiles | |
 EM
| - - | + + | Yes (60%) | Yes | Yes (Amarr) | Yes | ||
 Thermal
| - | + | Yes (40%) | Yes (40%) | Yes | Yes (60%) | Yes (Gallente) | Yes |
 Kinetic
| + | - | Yes (60%) | Yes | Yes (Caldari) | Yes | ||
 Explosive
| + + | - - | Yes | Yes (40%) | Yes (Minmatar) | Yes |
Some points to note:
- "Native resistance" is a tech 1 ship's resistance to damage before any modules or rigs are fitted. For instance, without any modules or rigs, shields are most susceptible to EM damage and most resistant to explosive damage. However, keep in mind that it's possible (with the right modules) to compensate for a ship's weaknesses; and tech 2 ships follow their own patterns of native resistance.
- Thermal damage is not to be confused with heat damage, which is caused by overheating modules.
- Energy turrets (often called "lasers") do about 60% EM and 40% thermal damage. The exact proportions depend on the frequency crystals used.
- Hybrid weapons do about 60% kinetic and 40% thermal damage. The exact proportions depend on the ammunition type used.
- Each type of projectile weapon ammunition does two (sometimes three) different damage types (one of which is always kinetic).
- Entropic Disintegrators deal about 60% thermal and 40% explosive damage. The exact proportions depend on the plasma charge used.
- Drones from each of the four factions do one damage type each, but they have slightly different stats (for example, Caldari drones (kinetic) do less damage than Gallente drones (thermal), but are slightly faster).
- Each missile type comes in four variants, each doing one damage type. The variant have otherwise identical stats, although some missile-using ships have bonuses to one damage type (notably, many Caldari ships have a bonus to kinetic missile damage).
- The more "exotic" weapons in EVE (such as smartbombs, bombs, and Doomsday weapons) have variants for each damage type, which are generally otherwise equivalent.
Attribute tab of the NPC Dagan which you have to fight in the SoE Epic Arc mission Our Man Dagan. You can see that he is weakest to explosive. Thus you would try to deal explosive damage. Because he deals explosive and kinetic, you would usually try fit resists against those. But in this case most try to avoid taking damage by orbiting close in an AB fit destroyer.