Ships & Modules

You can do it in the Ferox and Prophecy, as well as all the command ships.



Uhhhhhhh..... lol.



The Guardian is the only logistics ship that almost literally requires a buddy (or more). But yeah, I like it a lot when we actually roll armor fleet.



That's just wrong.

-Liang

I hope this is the most recent tanking topic, else I'm lost.
Will also try to keep it from becoming a too long rant (pretty sure as I write this sentence that many will think I failed, and I probably will).

The modules themselves, and how they do it also affects things.
I'll come at it mainly from a PvE PoV, appologies to all die-hard PvP-ers, and also from BC/BS size.

Fitting Buffers (CPU/PG, health for T2 800, 1600, LSE):
800: 28/230 for 2400;
1600: 33/575 for 4800
LSE: 46/123 for 2625
The 1600 aside, LSE costs 64% more CPU, while the 800 costs 87% more armor.
However, for fitting mods (apart from rigs) you use lowslots, which conflicts armor tanking. Same lowslots could be used for damage/tracking mods obviously, but a fitting mod may also help fit the most grid-intense weapon system as well, yielding more range/dps. (Obviously shields loose at EWAR/tackle in return.)

Hardeners:
Specific active and passive hardeners are pretty much the same.
One odd thing that did strike me is how Navy/Pirate shield hardeners have the same % as T2, because...
Invulnerability Fields vs EANM:
As metalevel progresses, they each get more and more powerful.
Including Navy Invuln, which going from 30 to 37.5% gets a hefty +25% increase over T2, while the specific hardeners do not. Someone explain please?
Faction EANM on the other hands goes from (max skill) 25% to 28.125%, which, while still a nice +12.5%, is only half the buff. Again, not quite sure... Explanation?
Because you can be Neuted, your resists should be scaling only half as well? Ok, that does make sense, but only in PvP, and not for the specific navy shield hardeners.
If they are weak so you don't have OP EM resists for PvP, then Invulns don't make sense in return.

To anyone bringing up the inherit resistance bonus armor has over shields, this is the point where it gets turned over:
Taking a Caldari resist profile (since their 50/45/25/10 is closest to the 50/40/20/0 of shields, in decreasing order of resist):
Double CN Invuln: 277,8% total resists at 78,9%, 74,7%, 66,3%, 57,9%
Double TS EAMN: 253,3% total resists at 72,8%, 70,1%, 59,3%, 51,1% in order from highest to lowers.

Hmm, interesting, so shield resists catch up at higher meta levels.

Let's continue to active tanking modules!
Fitting, raw hp/sec and raw hp/cap
T2 XLSB: 230/550, 120 and 1,66
T2 LAR: 55/2300, 71,1 and 2.00
Shield booster costs ~4 times as much CPU, LAR costs ~4 times the powergrid. Interestingly, you cannot oversize armor repper, but you can the shields.
Before taking resists into account, shields heal faster, armor more cost efficient.
For omniresists though, the higher resists being inverted starts to lessen the cost efficience of armor.
ENTER THE GIST:
And this is where you can throw all your charts out on active tanking comparisons (comparing 4 X-types for sake of simplicity).
Shields have Pith and Gist deadspace variants, armor has Core and Corpus (and Centus that has Corpus stats so ignoring).
Compared to T2:
Core costs the same cap to activate, reps 40% more (for 99,5hp/sec and 2,8 hp/cap efficience)
Corpus costs +12,5% cap, reps 57,5% more (for 112hp/sec, 2,8 hp/cap efficience).
Gist: -49% cap cost, reps 12% more (for 168 hp/sec and 3,66 hp/cap efficience).
Pith: +0% cap, reps 40% more
So Core vs Corpus, efficience is the same, only the raw rep amount and cap drain changes.
Seems balanced.
Pith reps like a Core
Again totally balanced.
Gist reps better than T2 for half the cost, or 20% less than a Pith for 50% the cap. And it's fitting cost is also cheap.
Am I the only one who would love an armor repper that compares to it?

But armor has Auxuliary Nano Pumps!
+15/+20% armor rep for T1/T2, and -5% speed for each.
Shield Boost Amplifiers:
+36% to +45% shield boosts for no speed drawback, costing though mid slots and quite a bit of CPU (almost 1/3rd of a XLSB)

Carebears also like to fly internet spaceships for blowing stuff up, active tank their ships, don't mind pimping their shiny ships, and apparently, if using shield tanks, they can achieve a lot more for less slots invested, leaving more modules for PewPew.
Specially since in PvE, you don't need the many midslots for all the tackle and EWAR...

Conclusion:
HiSec bears are better off wish shields.

Logical Fallacy #0: Comparing apples to oranges
Rebuttal: True. The active tanking is though comparable, and for PvE, 3-4 lowslots are dedicated "by default" for damage mods, while for mids, you only take a prop (if at all), and perhaps EWAR/cap booster (a popular CNR fit popped to mind).

Logical Fallacy #1: I used omniresists instead of individuals, if looking at specific hardeners, at least one great pro is lost.
Rebuttal: The shinier the ship, the more likely a gank. A specific hardened ship is that much more vulnerable.
Counter-rebuttal: But if someone tries to blow you up, they will do it anyways.
aaand from here it goes downhill on how efficiently can one be killed, how viable neuting (invuln vs EAMN) is or ain't inside the 10-20 sec window Concorde shows up, ect...

Logical Fallacy #2: THIS IS SPARTAAA!!!!111 The game is not balanced around active tanking or [*snip*] carebears!
No Rebuttal here, but as far as I hear, even PvP is a bit shield favoring, not favoring active tanking at all apart from specific cases (ASB is it's own league for me) and maybe small-scale.

PS:
While on the topic of active tanking (shoulds someone want to bring up the Myrm, Cyclone(and T2 variants), or the tiericided/assault frigs, just a reminder on something mentioned here before, going more towards PvP:

7.5% repair bonus on a hull: 37.5% local rep bonus
5% resist bonus on a hull: 33% more bufer, 33% more remote repair EHP recieved, 33% more local repair (only 3% or so less than that of the 7.5% local rep bonus...)

If that was aimed at me, I'm open for being taught in the errors of my ways.
Besides the part how I'm a carebear most of the time.

One correction to my post above at the "armor has more resists than shields":
Even at T2 level (which is more relevant for PvP on all levels I'd imagine), with two invulns, a ship has more resists than two EAMNs (IF not neuted obviously, but any ship using cap for weapons as well has lost by then I imagine, unless so is the opponent).

@1: Fitting Buffers: Agreed.
Was a reply to someone somewhere, but for my own point it was irrelevant.

@2: Yes, the price difference is quite something, but as I've said, it's from a rather carebear POV, so apart from crazy officer mods, anything goes. And for PvE, unless you go up against Blood Raiders and the like, the increased cap cost is more of an inconvenience on the fitting side.

@3: I'll admit, it never occured to me to think of XL Boosers as oversized for a battleship, as capital is the next size.
Also, my first battleship was a dual LAR Domi, so comparing it to a XLSB+SBA tank seemed natural (didn't include SBA)
LAR vs LSB, before SBA starts to play a role, LAR seems really nice (apart from the Gist's cap efficience, and rig penalties if used, opposed to SBA. But that's more complicated to quantify.)

@4: So at least here you do not disagree :D
(Which is nice, this and the deadspace armor repper being nowhere near as interesting as the shield one were my two grieveances, and you answered them both in a for me positive manner.)
Cap stability is something like a holy grail for some, even though it's not needed (PvE Cap Booster Raven is really good starter ship for L4s imho, dumbing it down for cap stability is just silly imho)

@6: Riiight, I totally forgot to mention Slaves for HiSec PvE.
Makes shield win even more.
Bhaalgorn? Wouldn't want to go against it in a shield ship, EVER!
(Unless T2 minnie with projectiles. And ample backup.)
Thank you, was interesting to consider wormhole bearing.

@7: Yes, I was just repeating what someone else said, yes, it's something out of context like that.
Nontheless, I don't want CCP forget about it, when they do their next round of Tiericide, as a gallente pilot would love to see the Myrm and Hyper buffed.
(Not much a fan of a ship having superior stats than another one because of a suboptimal bonus, and the other way around. Specially when the equation is as complex as it is in EVE. )

think they should adjust the shield extender modules so that, small is useful for frigates, med is useful for cruisers but very hard to fit for frigs and large is useful for battleships but very hard to fit for cruisers? I think it could be done.

I remember the first ever T2 module I had all those years ago was a T2 small shield extender, only to find it was basically useless.

Also the one balance issue I see is with shield boost amplifiers, fantastic modules for active tanks and don't have an equivalent option for Armour tanking

with resist mods having stacking penalties, the boost amp falls outside that making them great mods. They are one of the main reasons I shield tank missions. I can basically get the tank I need using less mods. One faction boost amp improves the tank ~38% - just one mod.

The only equivalent for Armour tanking is basically fitting a 2nd rep, but it doubles the fitting and cap cost.

just thoughts, I don't pretend to know much right now I have been out of the game for 2 years.

Your point between the hyperion and abaddon is indeed valid however it is pretty much the exlclusive exception to the rule when looking at cap between gallente and amarrian ships. Comparing the cap of pretty much every other gallente rep bonused ships to ammarian resistance bonused ships puts the ammarian ships at quite a distinct advantage. Punisher to incursus, brutix to proph, absolution to astarte ect ect.

I assume you simply looked at unfitted hulls to come up with this 'opposite'? As shown above, once you start fitting those hulls, suddenly the rep-bonused ships seem to have more cap. The resist bonused ships will need the extra fitting they have (maybe, i didn't check) because their guns use 20% more grid to fit.

This.

Get in a properly FC'ed Zealot AHAC fleet, anchor up, massacre a CFC Drake fleet twice your size, then come back and say that shield tanking is overpowered.

(Super)capitals are always armor tanked, too.

I'm still not sure if this is a troll thread or not, but I got a good laugh.

Ive never seen any good reasons why armour or shield tanking is broken, unbalanced, OP or one being better than the other.
They are different, get used for different things and on different ships.

i, and pretty much everyone i know, use both shield and armour ships, both regularly.
tanking in eve is absolutely fine, i wouldnt change a thing with any tanking mechanics.
yes, there are some ships with tanking issues, but the problems are to do with the ship hulls themselves, not the tanking mechanics.

This guy gets it.