Warfare & Tactics

An extra tactic:

If you live in low-sec or visit the same area of low-sec often, take the time to make instant-warp bookmarks.

1) Grab a Fast T1 Frigate w/MWD and Overdrives
2) Undock from Station
3) Line yourself up, so you fly straight out from the undock. (This is straight down / straight up for most Amarr stations.)
4) Engage the MWD and fly straight.

How long you fly in this direction is up to you, but you need to be at least 150km from the undock point. I generally go until I leave the stations "grid". (Look it up, if you don't understand "grids".)

5) Bookmark your location.

Now, when you need to avoid a station camp, undock, and immediately warp to that bookmark. You should warp instantly and have enough time to warp to your destination, before they figure out where you went; however, it is possible for them to find you, if they have a similar bookmark, or probes at the ready.

10 seconds bro.

Sounds like my first pvp... My Drake against someone who actually knew how to fly a Drake. Needless to say, I was spanked in short order.

Actually I have a regular T1 ecm scorpion I fit Assault Launchers on, great against frigates and adequate against Cruisers and leaves lots of grid and cpu. Of course My Scorp isn't for taking on BS's solo.

Another question.

As you can see on the battleclinic killmail, i had it fitted semi-passive shield tanked, giving me 76% resistance cross the range (with EM being the lowest at 73%) and with the invul on 79 maybe 80% cross the range (with EM at 78%).

I had a static shield recharge of 32 HP/s and a shield booster giving me 60 HP/s.
In other words, I could tank quite a bit of DPS for quite a long time, using very little cap (so the draining of my cap has as little influence on my tank as possible).

So my question is, with (in my opinion and experience) such a hard to crack shield tank, why does almost every PvPer still prefer Armor tanking? (i mean besides from the fact that it's easier to train for).


Cheers,

Mark

(a) not "every PvPer prefer(s) Armor tanking", if anything it's rather the opposite

(b) shield tanks are much easier to train for than armor tanks
- shield compensation skills can be happily neglected, armor compensation skills are 2m SP that you have to train.
- armor tanks tend to be powergrid hungry and are mostly fitted on turret ships - you don't just need Engineering, you also need Advanced Weapons Upgrades to maximize tank

armor tank: small signature radius, bad maneuverability, (remote) reps applied at the end of cycle, trades tank for damage, EANMs don't need capacitor but can't be overheated

shield tank: huge signature radius, good maneuverability, reps applied the beginning of cycle, trades tank for utility, Invuln Fields need capacitor but can be overheated

for large ships the advantage that slave implant sets give become important - but for small ships it's slaves vs snakes and imo you are far more likely to meet a shield-tanked ship with snakes than an armor tanked one with slaves.

With certain exceptions... never use multiple tanking styles, even if they seem to "compliment" each other. Each style has it's pros and cons and more often than not, the "cons" of one will clash with the "pros" of another.


Okay... let me run down the list of your ship's fit (I apologize (maybe) in advance for any condescending and/or abrasive remarks I might make and am terribly sorry if any feelings are hurt (not really))

The high slots:
You are flying what is effectively a beefier version of the Raven, a missile battleship. You know the saying "don't fly what you can't afford to lose"? Extend that to include "don't fly what you can't fit." Putting cruiser launchers on a big ol nasty ship that is bonused and meant to spew out damage from battleship sized weapons is like equipping a .22 pistol to your clown car in Twisted Metal. Will you do damage with it? If you aim right it will. But you'll find yourself struggling against someone who brings their big boom-boom stick to bear.

I will add that this is not to say you "need all T2 gear otherwise it isn't 'properly fit'." Having T1 battleship launchers would still have been bad... just not AS bad as having long range cruiser missiles.

The mid slots:
As I mentioned before, it's not a good idea to mix tanking styles even if they are of the same type.
In the case of "passive shield tanking": all shields recharge with time. However, very few ships should be fit for "passive shield tanking" for two reasons... 1) Passive tanking requires a godawful amount of mods to get a "decent" shield recharge rate (we're talking 150+ hp/sec IMO) which effectively forces you to give up "gank" mods and other, more useful, things. 2) Passive shield tanking mods have a tendency to absolutely nuke your ship's capacitor, which limits your ability to use more cap intensive mods (like the shield booster).
The only nice part about passive shield tanking is that, if properly done, you can effectively go AFK and never have to worry about your tank breaking (think "The Blob" from the Wolverine movie). But since the SNI is a missile boat, you HAVE to be there to lock targets and press the "fire" button. If you like the idea of an AFK mission boat, get a Rattlesnake and train up your drone skills.

Active shield tanking also has it's problems... namely, it consumes capacitor like a starved fatman at a buffet and uses more CPU than a gold digger uses a 90 year old.
With these two things in mind, active shield tanking is more of a "burst" style tank than anything else. However, it uses FAR less mods than most other tank styles which allows you to equip more stuff to your ship for greater all around effectiveness.

The passive amp/resistance mods you have... you have the right idea in that you don't want your resistances to plummet once you run out of capacitor, giving you time to escape (if you can). However, they won't give you as much resistance against a damage type as an active hardener can (which you can also overload if you get into a jam). Another reason to favor active hardeners is that missions generally have "static damage types"... and by this I mean that missions generally only apply 2, MAYBE 3, types of damage. So you can get away with fitting only 2 active hardeners to your ship that are specific against the NPCs you are facing (you can tell which NPC you are going to shoot by looking at the NPC icon in the mission briefing).

The low slots:
Euuhhhhh........... why are you equipping a mod that increases your speed by 15(?)% on a ship that goes about 120 m/sec? Battleships are not renown for their speed. Toss it and put on something more useful.
Already covered the passive shield tanking thing.
The Power Diagnostic Systems are not bad choices considering what bonuses they grant. Not the best choices... but not bad.
I fail to see Ballistic Control Systems on there. On a ship whose main form of offense are missiles those are NEEDED and will greatly boost your DPS.
Also... If you have some concerns about "tanking"... throw on a Damage Control II. It almost effectively doubles your tank and gives you some extra leeway to escape should things go south.


fake edit: holy wall of text batman! This is what happens when you go on decaf for a week and then switch to espresso!

Yes, why?
Cause the numbers i see in EFT (yes i sometimes use that to play with) don't exactly look all that realistic.

Passive tank modules like the Shield Power Relay significantly reduces your capacitor recharge rate while simultaneously boosting your shield's passive recharge
A "true" passive shield tank aims to increase the shield recharge rate to the point where any other defensive mod is redundant... so people will often fill the low slots with this particular mod and make the rest of the ship as capacitor "independent" as possible

Unfortunately for the Scorpion Navy Issue, you don't have too many low-slots to work with and you NEED those precious slots to fit Ballistic Control Units to maximize your damage dealing ability. This effectively leaves the SNI with active shield tanking as the only viable method to soak up damage


Having high resists is only one part of "tanking." You also need to recover as much HP as you lose (in PvE at least). But each tanking style comes with it's pros and cons (tactical trade-offs and somesuch)
What you need to do is figure out what "cons" are you willing to live/work with for the "pros" offered... and how well will this style work with [insert particular ship here].

edit:
I just realized that might be confusing different tanking styles. Here's the proper terminology with some brief descriptions:

Active Shield Tanking: Uses a shield booster to "actively" increase your shield HP over time. Can be switched on and off.
Buffer Shield Tanking: Basically you are trying to increase your shield's HP and its resistances. Nothing more or less. Preferred in PvP situations.
Passive Shield Tanking: Effectively it is "auto-healing." All shields do this but certain mods can amplify it to the point where you can soak up a fair bit of damage with very little input from your end.

You deserved to die in that abortion of a fit. Also, I see no Machariel on the killmail -- that's a hurricane, m8.