EVE New Citizens Q&A

I've started tuning my armor to the rats that I'm going to be taking on. Even with the lowest armor supplement, I get significant improvement in survivability, especially when combined with active armor tanking.

So, it got me wondering:
1) what's the best and highest armor rating (EM, kinetic, thermal, explo, whatever) that can be achieved?

2) what's the best that can be done for a reasonable budget and skill level?

Ok, what ship. I'm currently running a Maller, and my current goal is a Harbinger once I skill up enough to run it reasonably well.

Its going to be determined by your skills
As it's your skills that affect the module effects when they are applied to your hull and base attributes
Also not all modules work in the same way, Resistance Amplifiers give different results to Armour Hardners, Energised modules are different again.


There are many ships that armour tank, and almost all of them get some sort of armour tanking bonus, far too many to list here

It's probably in your best interests to get a 3rd party utility, such as EFT, Pyfa, or Eve-HQ, and see what works and doesnt for yourself.




Just remember resistances follow the laws of diminishing returns when you start adding multiple modules.

Ouch that's some serious resists, I don't fly armour (yet) but I know a shield tank can get >90% on specific resists with ease on the right ship, if I can match that with armour I'll be a happy bunny, I believe the T2 variants get some monster base resists to start with.

If that's true (which I seriously, SERIOUSLY doubt), it must have been some awful bug being heavily massaged, not an actual intended fit.
A fairly typical fit could make it to about 80% on all relatively cheaply, but from there to just 95% there's a 75% resist bonus differential, which is already stretching believability... to 99%, that would be a 95% resist differential, which is pretty much too much already... and 99.7% on ALL resists, that's just not possible without some serious, serious bugs being exploited, as the difference between 99.7% resists and 90% resists is an added 97% resist.

It's either a horribly broken bug, or you're remembering it wrong.

...

Back to the OP's question.

All resistance-granting modules, rigs and gang effects are stack-nerfable, with the exception of the damage controls, the only module that applies "as is" to the ship/skill resists.
That means the more you add, the less additional effect they have. Each resist is sorted and applied individually, separate from the other resists.
Highest value is applied as-is, second highest (or a second one equal to the highest) gets a ~13% penalty to its effect, the third gets a penalty of ~43%, fourth one gets ~72% penalty, and the fifth one is barely ever worth using, with a whooping almost 91% penalty to its value.

For some ships on particular resists, that base resist can be pretty high to begin with... for instance, a Claymore (Minmatar Fleet Command ship) starts off with ~90% EM armor resists, whereas the base is only 50% for non-minmatar ships (minnies get 60%, each race gets a flat +10% to their racial enemy's classic damage type). To my knowledge, that's the highest possible base resist of any ship that a player can normally get its hands on.

Resistance rigs have lower resists bonuses compared to modules, so in most cases they're not worth using, another type of rig being better suited. Exceptions exist, but they're rare (mostly relating to inability or financial unwillingness to fit other types of rigs).
For the average player, a T2 specific resist module is the mainstay fitting choice for most missions (or damage type holes), offering a minus 55% resists bonus (~47.8% for second, ~31.3% for third, ~15.4% for fourth, but only ~5.8% for the fifth). In case of omni-resist modules (seldom used in missions, and if so, at most one normally), the T2 versions for shield and armor offer up to a minus 30%, respectively 25% (only with all relevant L5 skills, only 20% without them) to ALL resists, so we're talking under damage-control-added bonuses by the third (for armor) or fourth (for shield).

So, realistically, you'll be using 3, maybe at most 4 resistance modules, no resist rigs, and you'll almost always want to include a damage control into the mix (because it raises all resists, even those on structure, which nothing else can raise, and does so without stack-nerfing).
The rest of the slots are better filled with other types of stuff.

Not so much a direct reply to the OP, but resistance values function as divisors to incoming damage.

If your EM resistance is 80%, then you divide incoming EM damage by 5. If you raise your EM resist to 90%, then you divide incoming EM damage by 10.

The difference between a resist of 90% and one of 95% may not sound like a whole lot, but the fact is, with a resist of 95% you divide incoming damage by 20.

By 50 with a resist of 98%.

Those few last percent are actually quite valuable, even though it's easy to forget or overlook that. I often do so myself, being inclined to think that if I can get an omnitank over 70% then I'm golden. While 70% is good, 80% would of course be much better.