These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Passive vs Active vs Passive and Active
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Hoeto Popo
Memozian landslide
#1 - 2012-10-18 08:44:49 UTC
I have used both a passive tank (Drake) and an active tank (Raven) and it has occoured to me that I have better resists using two passive mission specific module and an active invul field.

Now I have read may times that an active and passive tank should never be mixed. I am now using the Rokh and am getting 5%ish better resists this way, my cap usage is lower meaning I can feed my Blasters and AB for longer reducing the need to manage the ships cap as much.

My question is, Why is mixing the two types of tank bad when it means my ship is (or seems at least) to be running better with the mix?

I feel naughty running it this way and Im sure there will be a good reason I dont know about as to why. Could somone enlighten me?

Cheer in advance.
Sin Pew
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#2 - 2012-10-18 09:04:47 UTC
Doesn't sound like anything wrong the way you fit the boats, what you might be mixing up is active/passive resists and active/passive tank.
Active/passive resists do just that, they increase resists, shield hardeners increase the resists more than amplifiers, but they do consume cap.
Active/passive tank, is using a shield booster (armor repper for armor boats) that uses cap to regenerate the shield (armor) or using buffer (shield extenders/armor plates) to increase the HP of the boat so you last long enough for the logi ship to switch between target and regenerate your tank. In the case of shield boats, there is also a natural regeneration of shield over time, that can be boosted to a certain degree depending on the fitting and the bonus of the boat (drake being one of them), and it allows for a fully passive tank to sustain a certain amount of DPS without needing any mod or fleetmate for repairs.

[i]"haiku are easy, But sometimes they don't make sense, Refrigerator."[/i]
Marc Callan
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-10-18 11:19:58 UTC
It gets confusing sometimes, I know. Don't focus so much on the types of modules, so much as the method of recovering shield capacity. If you depend on natural regeneration rates (boosted by shield extenders, rechargers, purger rigs, and so on), that's a passive shield tank, even if it uses active hardeners; active tanks are those that rely on shield boosters pulling from capacitor energy. Both types benefit from active and passive hardeners; with active tanks, though, you want to concentrate on resists before buffer, because that improves the effectiveness of a shield booster's raw HP boost. (IE: while a shield extender and an invulnerability field will both improve effective hit points, the extender does it by increasing raw HP, which means it takes more cycles for a booster to fully recharge the shield, as opposed to a hardener's effect, which doesn't increase raw HP, but blocks an increased percentage of incoming damage.)

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegurt
Vilnius Zar
SDC Multi Ten
#4 - 2012-10-18 11:32:44 UTC
First you have to realise that different people have different understandings of "passive" vs "active", to some it means "not using a shield booster" while to others it means "no active modules" so until you realise this you'll end up with very confusing answers :)

There's two things at work here, first you've come to the realisation that in PVE where you only have to tank specific damage types using specific hardeners works better than using allround invul fields. It's generally much better to really focus your resist (some NPC factions are exempt from this as they do all types) than to use the "lazy" non-effort Invul field option. It makes sense but many people refuse to understand this as they don't want to lose their "logic" for sticking to lazy invuls.

Active vs passive resists, as long as you fly a cruiser or bigger the cap you use by fitting active hardeners is EASILY made up for by having to tank a lot less due to the increased resists. I'm sure many people will tell you that "with high skills passive are just as good as active", partially because they don't understand maths and game mechanics (they don't understand how the shield compensation skills work) and partially because they kinda "forget"to tell you that this is only really the case once you start using retardedly expensive mods.

In short: yes you'll do better by using specific resists rather than invul fields and yes you're better off using hardeners than passives on your Rokh.
Forest Archer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-10-18 12:06:21 UTC
So you said you are useing a raven and a drake so I have to ask why you mentioned boasters and I would like to ask what thier fits are prior to explaining myself. Though Vilnius was pretty on the mark.

Always willing to help all you have to do is ask, though if you're in the other fleet I may not help the way you want. Just a heads up. Pub Channel: Lost Souls Trading Post
Barrak
The Painted Ones
#6 - 2012-10-18 16:13:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Barrak
Very simply.... if it's working for you then stick with it until you can improve it or start feeling that it isn't working.

There is nothing wrong with mixing passive and active..... .even if there are differing views on what is considered what.

Improving compensation skills to high levels certainly does make passive modules more viable, however for me it generally comes down to what you are going up against.

In L4 missions, where there is no capping, then providing you have decent cap skills you can easily use active resists, however if you are battling things that neut, then you 'might' want to consider more passive modules as they will not turn off. It is worth noting that in some rare cases, even a damage control can turn off if you get caught on a badly timed neut.

Passive modules are also popular if you fittings skills are a little low. They require around 31% less CPU so are far easier to fit, they also require far less management.

Combine passive resists with the new(ish) ASB's (shield boosters that require no cap), add in some missiles or some capless guns (projectiles) and you have a nice little 'mostly' cap resistant ship.

So, really there are such a large number of factors that need to be taken into account. For me, the primary two being, can you fit it and does it work for you!

Forest Archer wrote:
So you said you are useing a raven and a drake so I have to ask why you mentioned boasters and I would like to ask what thier fits are prior to explaining myself. Though Vilnius was pretty on the mark.


Not to preempt your reply, but I don't think he is asking about what fitting is right or not, the question is more general than that.

Regards

Barrak
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#7 - 2012-10-18 17:07:01 UTC
Hoeto Popo wrote:
I have used both a passive tank (Drake) and an active tank (Raven) and it has occoured to me that I have better resists using two passive mission specific module and an active invul field.

Now I have read may times that an active and passive tank should never be mixed. I am now using the Rokh and am getting 5%ish better resists this way, my cap usage is lower meaning I can feed my Blasters and AB for longer reducing the need to manage the ships cap as much.

My question is, Why is mixing the two types of tank bad when it means my ship is (or seems at least) to be running better with the mix?

I feel naughty running it this way and Im sure there will be a good reason I dont know about as to why. Could somone enlighten me?

Cheer in advance.


The details matter here....

Active tank vs Buffer tank is what most people refer to when discussing active vs passive tanks...

A buffer tank does not exclude active armor hardeners like Armor Explosive hardeners (armor) or IF's (Shield).
A truly passive tank does not include any cap consuming mods (except the DCU). This is ideal in situations where cap may be a serious issue. For example, if in a supercap fighting, it's fairly likely your opponents will neut the hell out of you so you can't actually turn on active hardeners. In an industrial, where you are constantly changing systems, most people cant be asked to turn on active hardeners every system, or wont' have time to turn them on when undocking, and so completely passive hardeners that don't require activation are preferred.

As for your situation, where you get better resists using active and passive hardeners... I'd be very surprised if that's true unless you are replacing invulnerability fields with specific damage resistance amplifiers. Almost all modules in this game have stacking penalties, which means when you use multiple modules that effect the same ship attribute (like shield resistances), each module after the first has a reduced effectiveness (the 2nd is 87% effective, the third is 57% effective). So, if you use a therm, and em, and an IF.... the thermal amp will stack with the IF thermal resistance boost to reduce the effectiveness of the IF thermal resistance bonus (and same for the EM amp). If you had 3x IF instead, the second IF is only 87% effective and third IF is only 57% effective.
See: http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Stacking_penalty

An Active EM hardener gives a stronger boost than a Passive EM hardener. The ONLY reason you would get better resists out of the Passive, as opposed to the active (assuming same meta lvl), is if you don't have the Active armor hardener turned on.

Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#8 - 2012-10-18 17:39:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Tau Cabalander
When discussing tank it is best to separate the HP recovery method (if any) from the type of resist modules used.

One should never mix active and passive HP recovery, as they both require fittings to work well, and you end-up doing neither very well. Same goes for armor vs. shield tank.

Example: It is quite acceptable to use both active and passive resist modules with passive shield recovery.

* Drake with passive shield recovery + passive resists (fully passive)
* Drake with passive shield recovery + active resists
* Drake with passive shield recovery + passive resists + active resists

Drakes are rather poor with active shield recovery, though their T2 relative the Nightawk can pull it off.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#9 - 2012-10-18 18:25:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Jonah Gravenstein
Mixing passive and active shield modules is fine, I run a Drake in 4's until I get the necessary skills to a level I feel comfortable with for a Battleship. I generally run with an invul thats not active unless I'm webbed or accidentally the whole room, a rat specific active hardener and a rat specific passive resist.

For example I run Angel missions with the following fit

[Drake, Only Slighty Bent]

7x Heavy Missile Launcher II (Nova Fury Heavy Missile)

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Explosive Deflection Field II
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I
Explosive Deflection Amplifier II
2x Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction

Shield Power Relay II
3x Ballistic Control System II

3x Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

5x Hobgoblin II

The meta 4 extenders leave me enough CPU to fit 3 active modules & a probe launcher, especially useful when I'm spelunking in wormholes, I do however have to swap out a BCU II for a BCU I to squeeze it all on to do it.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack
Forest Archer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#10 - 2012-10-18 19:58:58 UTC
Barrak wrote:


Not to preempt your reply, but I don't think he is asking about what fitting is right or not, the question is more general than that.

Regards

Barrak


I actually don't care how one fits thier ships makes for funny kill mails, I just want to know to properly answer his/her question. Without seeing the fit I do not think its adaqet to guess with limited information. Only thing I can say otherwise is what is his/her definition of passive? Capless hardners, passive shield regen otherwise the answers are going to be correct but varied by the definitions of those who answer.

Always willing to help all you have to do is ask, though if you're in the other fleet I may not help the way you want. Just a heads up. Pub Channel: Lost Souls Trading Post
Doddy
Excidium.
#11 - 2012-10-18 20:32:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Doddy
Hoeto Popo wrote:
I have used both a passive tank (Drake) and an active tank (Raven) and it has occoured to me that I have better resists using two passive mission specific module and an active invul field.

Now I have read may times that an active and passive tank should never be mixed. I am now using the Rokh and am getting 5%ish better resists this way, my cap usage is lower meaning I can feed my Blasters and AB for longer reducing the need to manage the ships cap as much.

My question is, Why is mixing the two types of tank bad when it means my ship is (or seems at least) to be running better with the mix?

I feel naughty running it this way and Im sure there will be a good reason I dont know about as to why. Could somone enlighten me?

Cheer in advance.


Passive tank = No rep mod, tanking comes from shield recharge (or is a buffer tank).
Active tanking = Rep mod that you turn on/off i.e. shield booster (or armour rep).

Using active or passive hardeners is not what is being referred to. Active hardeners give better resists than passive at the expense of cap. Your resists will always look better on a drake than a raven though thanks to its ship bonus. A drake is well suited to passive tanking thanks to the way shield extenders work, fitting a couple of large extenders massively boosts a drake regen.

People saying not to mix them are looking at min maxing, there is no benefit from having a shield extnder on an active tank most of the time (its just more shield to rep), and similarly there is no benefit having a booster on a passive tank (another extender or hardener would usually give better tank without needing cap). There are times when it is practical though, and this is known as hybrid tanking. Its benefit is a massive burst tank coupled with a steady passive tank. Asbs have made hybrid tanking very interesting again, especially on ships like rattlesnake.

A pure passive tank is one that uses no active mods at all whether a booster or hardeners, but these are very rare and only used in certain situations where cap will be hard to maintain (rattlesnake in level 5 missions with massive neuting being the prime example).
Ruban Spangler
TEMPLAR.
The Initiative.
#12 - 2012-10-19 14:48:09 UTC
Hoeto Popo wrote:
I am now using the Rokh and am getting 5%ish better resists this way, my cap usage is lower meaning I can feed my Blasters and AB for longer reducing the need to manage the ships cap as much.


It has been a while but when I was missioning I found that you could mix (cheapish) navy/officer/deadspace passive modules with T2 active modules to give impressive resists for less cap drain.
Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#13 - 2012-10-19 15:02:50 UTC
This little gem cropped up in a convo I was having the other day.
http://dir-x.net/p/eve/QG/TankingQG.jpg

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.