Player Features and Ideas Discussion

We would like to discuss possible changes to Armor / Shield rigs for Inferno.

It would be the first of many steps to rebalance active versus passive tanking, and promote usefulness of active tanking in small, mobile combat while making associated rigs more compatible with Gallente armor repairing bonuses. In general, we want races that need to use speed in combat (Gallente and Minmatar) to favor active tanking, while races that have more a static philosophy (Amarr and Caldari) prefer passive tanking.

Any kind of armor / shield rig that promotes passive tanking would now have a penalty to ship velocity instead of signature radius. Any kind of armor / shield rig that promotes active tanking would now have a penalty to ship signature radius instead of velocity. Penalty amount themselves are not changing.


Rig list:

• Passive rigs: any kind of resistance, HP gain, shield recharge rate, shield powergrid reduction rig
• Active rigs: any kind of repair / boost amount, repair / boost capacitor reduction, repair / boost cycle rate or remote repair / boost rig

EDIT: As mentioned here, this is not on the "Test Server Feedback" forum as no implementation has started, this is just a concept that was passed along and that we wanted to discuss early on before proceeding further. Tweaked first paragraph on this post to reflect that, apologies for the confusion.

EDIT 2: Second reply here, basically this is not being released.

Love it. Cynabals, Dramiels, and shield canes just took a hit.

This is a good change, +1 respect and internetzspaceshiphonorpoints

while we are on it... what about modules? :) like... shield extenders vs armor plates? make shield extenders "drag" the ships speed down? to put them in line with plates? heh

Ground floor of a whine thread

I'm curious about your reasoning behind this. Could you elaborate?

Oh, good. Now when I have my local rep on, I'll be easier to hit, and thus die faster. This makes me much more likely to active tank.

I don't think I've been this mad in a while. Reducing speed on shield ships? Get out. Increasing sig to /encourage/ active tanking? How gorram high are you jesus christ

yea this is really going to encourage people to active tank their Cynabals, Machariels, and Dramiels

There are really at least three categories of tanking: passive (shield with regen), buffer (armour or shield) AND active (armour or shield). I don't see many passive tanking fits used widely in PvP, but plenty of the latter two.

Resist rigs are used extensively on all three types of tanking:

• Passive tanks take less damage to regenerate from
• Buffer tanks gain a deeper EHP and can plug holes in natural resists to balance their EHP across damage types (especially if they are buffer fit with RR support)
• Active fits make their reps more effective by fitting resists, but then so do the above buffer tanks with RR.

HP rigs affect PVP mostly, but also high-end PvE where you need...

• a buffer to allow Remote Reps to take affect.
• or just enough time for the target to die.

Shield recharge obviously only affects passive tanks. There is no equivalent tanking option for armour ships (however when they lose in regen is usually balanced by higher raw HP and access to over-sized plates).

Local repair rigs obviously only affect active tanks.

Remote repair rigs affect active AND buffer fits (in gangs).

At the moment the distinction is straightforward. Shield for speed, armour for EHP survivability. It goes so far as fitting shield modules and rigs on "armour" ships where speed is needed, even if the paper figures look worse (e.g. the oracle). Yes, it would be nice to have fast armour ships, but as armour plates *also* add to mass (and therefore align, speed, etc), then with rigs you would have a worse speed AND worse signature radius. Shield extenders don't affect speed.

Another thing to consider is that there are other trade-offs between armour and shield. For shield ships you need to choose between tank, propulsion and utility (target painters, point, web) in your mid slots. For armour ships you gain utility, but have to choose between tank and damage mods, whereas shield ships can fill their lows for pew (and a suitcase).


I fly both armour and shield ships from frigate hulls through to battleship class vessels, and tailor my tactics as appropriate. For slow armour ships you just need to get a good warpin and a reliable tackler or three :)

The blind swap of penalties seems like it will cause more problems than it will fix. Here's an alternate suggestion, with explanations attached:

All Harder Rigs increase sig radius - the ship is more solid and shiny to targeting
All Active Tanking Rigs increase active tank module CPU/PG use - rig makes the modules more complex/powerful

Shield Extender Rigs decrease max velocity - thicker shields absorb more thrust
Shield Fitting Rigs reduce the shield hp provided by the extenders - less power means less shield projected
Shield Passive Recharge Rigs increase sig radius - rapid generation of shields is pops more

Armor Plate Rigs decrease max agility - heavier ships are harder to turn
Armor Remote Rep Rigs increase the remote rep CPU/PG use - rig makes the modules more complex/powerful

Salvage Tackle Rigs should be under Astronautic or Electronics Superiority Rigs or something, they don't make sense here. And change them to reduce shield amount - sensors can get a better reading with less interference.