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True, but the cap booster helps everything on your ship, not just the Reps.


And the first comparison I did fit LARGE ASB's not XL-ASB'S.


Large ASB's are perfectly inline with medium armor repper II"s. (they should be on line with LAR II's.)

So Small - Large ASB's are perfect fine as they are.

However when I got to my XL-ASB calculations things got crazy.


If you live to use all your charges you get a 400k EHP tank. (granted you sacrifice any kind of damage/tackle with this setup)


Closest I could get a Prophecy to (the Armor EHP passive tanking equivalent) was around 250k EHP.


Although I may have messed up my calculations I thought that XL-ASB's could hold 15 charges at a time... if That is incorrect that changes my calculations considerably.


Plus of course, if your in a medium-Large sized gang, Passive armor tanking is going to always be superior because your guaranteed to get your full EHP.

If your doing more damage than your tanking with ASB's then you may only get around 80-100k EHP.


So maybe they're not as unbalanced as I originally thought.

I agree that Large ASB is fine

I think it might actually come down to the problem with people being able to fit oversized ASBs on smaller ships, giving them much stronger tanks than ever before

I really do believe they need an increase in PG required overall... specially with the new CPU rigs, it's not that hard to get the needed CPU maybe 10-20% increase in PG required

Yes, for you they work well, because they allow you to tank whole gang.

And confirming that you sir have no clue about balance.

Ok I"ll compare a hawk with say a vengeance.

I"ll use the same # of tanking mods on both.

which will be 3 tanking mods + rigs per ship. (not counting dcu)


[Vengeance, New Setup 1]
Internal Force Field Array I
Centii C-Type Small Armor Repairer
True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I

Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rage Rocket
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I

Small Nanobot Accelerator I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I


Permatanks 197 omni dps. (227 against Kinetic)

Cap stable at 60% 140 dps with EM rage.




[Hawk, New Setup 1]
Internal Force Field Array I
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
Gistii C-Type 1MN Afterburner
Gistum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Rocket Launcher II, Scourge Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Scourge Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Scourge Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Scourge Rage Rocket
[empty high slot]

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Explosive Screen Reinforcer I


tanks 272 dps, while cycling reps. (229 EM)

at 170 dps. (kinetic)

Yes, the tank is technically better, but unlike the vengence you sacrifice fighting for longer than 5 minutes.


IF these 2 ships went 1v1 in a belt, the vengence would win every time.

These fits are not particularly representative nor realistic comparisons of ASB tanking OR armor tanking...

Nooo. Do not change the stats of the ASBs!
Limit the ASB-count to 1 - But leave the stats. Those are fine.

Yes - an ASB gives more hp than an shield extender before first reload but it has disadvantages too:
- Micromanagement
- Easier to alpha
- Uses charges

Nobody uses ASBs in pve and nobody uses them in pvp-fleets. They are only used on some solo- and baitships.
If you lower the stats, nobody will use them. Then you may just remove the item from the game.

I agree. Current ASBs, by being immune to neuting, aren't really active tanking mods at all. If the problem with active tanking was neuting, then we need modules to help protect against neuting. Making nos easier to fit and increasing their drain amounts would work well. The reflectance attribute on cap batteries was a good idea, but they aren't used because the effect is too weak (12.5% against neuts) and cap batteries are too hard to fit, both in terms of spare medslots and PG/CPU.

A better design for a neut-protector would be a relatively easy-to-fit highslot module that offered about 40%, subject to normal stacking penalties, resistance to incoming neuts and nos.

ASBs were made immune to energy neutralizers because energy neutralizers are too common. This is the root of the problem. You need to take a very deep look into the causes of the energy neutralizer proliferation rather than trying to make the ASB fit into the game.

First of all, everything needs to have a counter. Energy neutralizers currently are best suited to countering active tanking.

The problem is energy neutralizers also do many other things which is why they are the default utility highslot module.

1) They shut down cap using weapons, propulsion mods, tackle.
2) They are the only convenient and reliable frigate defense for many larger ships (drones can be killed). Even ships that don't need them for this purpose still benefit significantly from them.

I think number 2 plays a large role in the energy neutralizer proliferation. So how about adding some alternative anti-frigate modules? Here are some ideas:

- Drone Repairer: goes into a highslot. Repairs drones. The idea is that it reliably stops a tackler frigate from killing your drones and then being effectively unkillable by your medium or large guns unless neuted. How it should repair drones I'm undecided about (in the bay? drones out in space within x km range?) but testing should give the answer.

- Point Defense Module: highslot module. When activated, it decreases dps and range but increases tracking. It makes it so that a frigate can no longer get under your guns to become immune to turret dps.

- Make target painters a high slot module and make them more useful.

- Lower the fitting requirements of smartbombs or make them better in other ways.


The other way to address the energy neutralizer proliferation is to shift the role of anti-logistics, anti-active tanking module away from energy neutralizers. This would involve nerfing energy neutralizers and the introduction of a new form of EWAR which reduces the armor/shield amount received from the local tank as well as from logistics.

This is true, Large ASB's are comparable to LAR II's.

The fact that dual medium reps can get a comparable tank to dual Large ASB's is a testament to the fact that they are indeed NOT overpowered.

However, your comment about ASB's being "immune" to large amounts of damage is completely false when compared to active tanking.

Infact, the danger is equal to both. If you do more dps then 1 shield repper can repair, you will HAVE to use both ASB's.

Therefore you will have a 60 second window (slightly lowered by staggering when possible) window of 0 reps going to your shields.

ASB's have the same disadvantages in this regard, that any other active tanking module has.


I think its this vulnerability that has any chance of XL-ASB's being ballanced with the 1600MM plates

Another random idea;

How about making it so that the ASB cannot be pulsed as effectively? Once activated, it always executes at least, say, 2 cycles?

It would provide the burst tank ability, but it would mean that you could sucker people into activating and they would waste charges, and lean more towards the burst tanking that was the design goal? Might be some issues with interactions between that and jumping / cloaking, etc, mind.