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Active Tanking (CCP, please read)

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SMT008
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#1 - 2011-11-10 16:03:07 UTC
Active Tanking


Active tanking: What is it ?

Basically, the use of active armor repairers or shield boosters.

Like, those modules :

Large Armor Repairer II
PWG : 2300MW
CPU : 55TF
Duration : 15s
Amount : 800HP
Activation cost : 400GJ

X-Large Shield Booster II
PWG : 550MW
CPU : 230TF
Duration : 5s
Amount : 600HP
Activation cost : 400GJ

Active tanking means something only in small scale warfare, when you can actually repair some damage before dieing. If you don't manage to use your modules for more than 30s, well, it was a situation where a passive tank would have worked just the same (or better), with lower fitting requirements, and no capacitor needs.

The thing is, currently, there are a few problems with active tanking.

I'll talk about those problems in the following posts :


Fitting recquirements :

There are two problems inside this one. The first one being regular fitting recquirements (Invuls, Shield boosters, SBAs, those modules consumes literally a crapton of CPU. Same goes for Large Armor Repairers. 2300MW ? Really ?). This means, when you actually want to fit an active tanking ship (like the Cyclone or the Brutix), not only you'll have troubles with fitting all your guns/MWD but you'll also run into capacitor problems.

But that's not all. Along with those problems, you'll also have troubles because you don't have enough slots. Let me explain.

Basic active shield setup : Capbooster, Shield booster, Warp Scrambler/Disruptor, MWD.

(I know, Maelstroms may not fit MWDs on active setups because of some reasons but hey, that's an example)

Basic active armor setup : Capbooster X2, Armor repair X2, Warp Scrambler/Disruptor, MWD.

If you check the shield setup, it recquires a minimum of 4 slots before you can actually think about shield boost amplifiers or resistances.

The active armor setups recquire 4 medslots (When you want an active armor setup to be really efficient, you want two armor repairers. And when you have two armor repairers, you need two capboosters in order to maintain a somewhat okaish capacitor), and 2 lowslots.

Buffer tanking ships will have (Ofc) more buffer, more resistances (Like, really, more resistances due to more slots for EANMs/invuls, or more CPU on shield tanking ships), they'll also have more tracking or range (On armor tanked ships at least. Let's talk about battleships. 2 LARs + 2 EANMS uses the same amount of slots as 2 plates and 2 EANMs, agreed. Though, in order not to die too fast, you might want some more resistances, where you would have fit heatsinks/gyros/MFS on a buffer tanked ship. And I'm not even talking about the tracking computer you could have fitted instead of the second capboosters for example).

Oh and, another thing, like it wasn't enough. You are really capbooster dependent. They take shitloads of m3 in your cargohold. The fact that you can tank what's on the field doesn't matter because you'll tank for two minutes before running out of charges, and you'll die.

Let me sums this up for you guys :

Way higher fitting recquirements than buffer tanking
More slots needed to achieve anything viable
Much more vulnerable to neutralizers
Can't fight for more than 2 minutes due to the ridiculous amount of capbooster charges you can fit in your cargohold.
Recquires way more attention and skills to use it effectively
(A bit, but still) less capable at shooting stuff than buffer tanked ships

In my humble opinion, there is simply too many weaknesses, on top of the fact that active tank doesn't work (at all) when there is 10+ (not so ********) peoples shooting at you.

Proposed fixes (I'll update this when I get some feedback out of this thread ;) ) :

On armor repairers : built-in +15% Omniresistances, affected by compensation skills

An EANM is +20%. This +15% on each armor repair won't be as effective as EANMs, but it will at least free up one lowslot to fit something more combat oriented. Like, a damage mod, or a sensor backup array. The thing is, I don't want buffer tanked ships to fit armor repairs in order to get free resistances out of it, so I keep it below EANMs in terms of efficiency.

On armor repairers : -40% PWG needed
On capboosters : -40% PWG needed
On capboosters : -25% CPU needed (Ever though of active tanking Amarr ships ? Hint : Don't fit guns, or else you don't have any CPU left)

The fact that you need 2300 MW for a single large armor repairer when a 1600mm plate needs only 500 MW is a bit ridiculous. I mean, a battleship will be able to fit a crapton of 1600mm plates (Because 500MW really is nothing on most battleships), where most battleships (Except maybe tier 3 battleships with electron blasters or Dual Heavy Lasers, if amarr battleships didn't sucked at active tanking) struggle to fit 2 LARs with 2 HeavyCapBoosters along with their guns.

Let's talk without any resistances fitted :

2x 1600mms => 2 slots => 2x500MW = 1000MW
2x LAR II + 2 HcapBoosters => 4 slots => 2x2300MW + 2x1925MW = 8450MW

And that's with no MWD, no guns (And I'm not talking about CPU, because it's quite obvious that the active setup will use MUCH MORE CPU).

Fyi, a Dominix All V have 11250 MW. Don't expect to fit any sort of heavy neutralizers/guns when you're active tanking a dominix. Don't even think about active tanking a Typhoon.
SMT008
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2 - 2011-11-10 16:03:49 UTC  |  Edited by: SMT008
Capboosters charges volume : -50%

Why ? Well, it's quite obvious. Capbooster volume is problematic to basically everyone. Not having any capboosters left in your cargohold after a 10mn fight in an Amarr ship is annoying. Looting capboosters is a massive pain in the butt so no one loot those (Also because they aren't worth anything). Running out of capbooster charges on a neuting ship is like running out of ammo (Except that you never run out of ammo in a PVP situation...). Running out of capbooster charges when you're flying your Hyperion, you killed 2 hurricanes, there is this brutix left, you're in low armor, you could tank it like you could crush an ant, but nope. You've fought for two minutes, and whatever's left on the field can now shoot an out of cap ship that won't move, won't shoot (Except if it's Minmatar or Caldari), won't tank. I don't see any problem with reducing capbooster charges volume anyway, so "Why not ?".

On shield boosters : Built-in +25% Omniresistances
On shield boosters : -30% CPU needs

Look at the Cyclone, seriously. Remember about the basic shield setup I posted up there ? MWD, Scrambler, Shield booster, Capboosters. Those are recquirements for any sort of working active shield setup (PVP setup, of course). The Cylone has 5 medslots. Do you expect it to tank with a single invulnerability field ? Or do you expect it to tank with a XLSB and a SBA ? It has very poor resistances, paperthin buffer, capacitor problems due to the single medium capbooster...

And that's pretty much it.

The main problem with active tanking is that it's a pain in the butt to achieve, it has a pretty small niche (unusable on +10 engagements, except with faction/deadspace/boosters/CommandT3s), and there are multiple solutions for others to render a single ship unusable with ECM drones, regular ECM ships, dampeners, neutralizers and whatnot.

With those fixes, I'm trying to fix the fitting recquirements (It's easier to fit an active tanked ship, you can actually fit the same guns a buffer tanked ship would fit, you don't lack the damage mods a buffer tanked ship would be able to fit (Be it heatsinks/MFS/Gyros or a tracking mod), you don't run out of capcharges every two minutes anymore, you don't lack much resistances compared to buffer tanked ships, neutralizers are still very usable, but having x2 capbooster charges in the capinjector means you won't need to reload it every 5 charges but instead 10 charges, which will help you maintaining your capacitor level high enough.
AND, I'm trying not to touch the balancing when it comes to PVE. The added resistance bonus will enhance a bit the tanking ability in PVE, but it's not a life changing one imho.


If you think this will render active tanking ships overpowered, well, I think not. Why ? Because the whole point of active tanking ships is that they are limited by the hull of the ship itself. You can enhance the tank by overloading, pills, command links and deadspace modules. You can't enhance the DPS (If the other team has one logistic or if they roll with RR battleships, you won't do enough DPS, and tanking is pointless if you can't destroy anything), you can't enhance your tracking (tanking a bunch of frigates is good, but if you can't throw your drones because of a Kitsune, if you can't shoot anything because they have lowsig/fast speed, you're still fscked), you can't enhance your sensor strengh either, and no matter how much you can tank, if you can't shoot because you're jammed, you're fscked aswell. And of course you can't do anything about a damping lachesis, you will have troubles versus Curses/Bhaalgorns and other neutralizing ships.

Why do I want to enhance active tanking ?

I just explained why. It's already a niche (Yes, I do consider fights without logistics or incapaciting ships "unusual"), why make it even harder to use it ?

Why does this enhance the game as a whole ?

Being able to do something great solo or as a small group is what creates heroes. Everyone loves heroes. Everyone would like to become a heroe. A 3-men Hyperion gang beating 8/10 battlecruisers by doing something clever is something you would like to do, or something you'll remember if you manage to do it.
Also, more tools for lone players/small scale fights is a win-win. More lone players on the field means more targets to shoot at, and for lone players, it means more ways to interfere/kill other peoples.

Also, I would really like some feedback from a CCP dev.

Thank you for your time Smile
Josefius
13th Tribe of Kobol Expeditionary
#3 - 2011-11-10 16:09:12 UTC
TL;DR

You have enemies? Good, that means you stood up for something, sometime in your life.

-Winston Churchill
George Wilkes Hill
Liam Neeson Never Dies
#4 - 2011-11-10 16:10:51 UTC
I like the idea of active reppers having inherent resistance bonuses to them.
Pinaculus
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2011-11-10 16:13:12 UTC
Befriend Logistics Pilots

I know sometimes it's difficult to realize just how much you spend on incidental things each month or year, but seriously, EVE is very cheap entertainment compared to most things... If you are a smoker, smoke one less pack a week and pay for EVE, with money left over to pick up a cheap bundle of flowers for the EVE widow upstairs.
Deviana Sevidon
Jades Falcon Guards
#6 - 2011-11-10 16:14:12 UTC
He is only talking about resistance to active shield boosters. :P

....as if 10,058 Goon voices cried out and were suddenly silenced.
George Wilkes Hill
Liam Neeson Never Dies
#7 - 2011-11-10 16:17:23 UTC
Deviana Sevidon wrote:
He is only talking about resistance to active shield boosters. :P


"On armor repairers : built-in +15% Omniresistances, affected by compensation skills"
Captain Alcatraz
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2011-11-10 16:21:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Captain Alcatraz
Active tanking def needs some love, added resist on armor reps and shield boosters sounds pretty weird though. I often fit a single med repper on my buffer fit proteus and cane, it would change those that are already fine. The solution should be simple and more inline with what we have now, simple fitting reduction would be a good start
Shisen
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2011-11-10 16:23:12 UTC
like it.

Would be nice if active tanking had more of a role. Diversity of fittings is only going to lead to a more interesting, better game!
Dunarad
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#10 - 2011-11-10 16:29:16 UTC
Nice post, sums quite a few things.
SilentSkills
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2011-11-10 17:18:06 UTC
Some pretty good suggestions, I particularly like the reduction of cap booster charge sizes, and inherent resists on repair modules make a lot of sense it would (as mentioned) allow for more damage mods to be fitted (in many cases it would allow a damage mod to be fitted whereas normally you wouldn't)
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#12 - 2011-11-10 17:29:57 UTC
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.
Fille Balle
Ballbreakers R us
#13 - 2011-11-10 17:37:47 UTC
I like your concepts, but I dislike your lack of boosts for shield tanking. 25% more resists? That's it? No cpu reduction? No slot use reduction? I don't know, I really feel shield tanks are way too weak in this game. That's why I trained up armour skils back in the day. And my opinion still remains: armour tanks are way better.

Stop the spamming, not the scamming!
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#14 - 2011-11-10 17:44:37 UTC
Is there any way in the code that energy from damage enflicted could be absorbed by the active tank and used to repair faster.

That is the only way that active tanks can scale correctly. More in coming fire the faster the reps.
Give the reps some delay like 10 seconds before the cycle time of the repairer speeds up. This will mean that fleets will have to alpha strike active repair ships. Making alpha strikes things that have to be planned. Not how it is now, shoot at this ship next- its just a DPS race.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Lord Mandelor
Oruze Cruise
White Stag Exit Bag
#15 - 2011-11-10 17:50:09 UTC
This thread has potential.
I agree that just fitting the things is probably one of the bigger issues, though a reduction in cap booster volume would be welcome.
Cailais
The Red Pill Taker Group
#16 - 2011-11-10 17:54:42 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.


A couple of options spring to mind. One is to add a form of ammo to armour reps - for an injection of HP. Another is to add scripts to armour reps. Such scripts would modify the repair rate/amount with some counter balance in terms of agiltity / speed or capacitor.

C.
Razin
The Scope
#17 - 2011-11-10 17:56:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Razin
CCP Greyscale wrote:

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.

Perhaps the armor repair module could have some rep amount option with a corresponding cap cost increase. Would give active setups a little more fitting room if the allowed increase is significant (say 2x).

Edit: One more idea is to allow the armor repair module to store some limited amount of cap that could be optionally used for a burst of faster repping.
SilentSkills
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#18 - 2011-11-10 17:59:51 UTC  |  Edited by: SilentSkills
CCP Greyscale wrote:
ssue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.



also notice the following

Gallente BCs get bonus to repair. Those same ships get less low slots than it's other armor counterparts, the amarr, who get bonuses to armor resists in several hulls. This effectively allow amarr to use armor repair modules (more lows) or a buffer, any of the choices gets benefits from the ship's bonuses

Gallente BC pilots are forced between inflicting very crappy damage due to flying active tanked hulls and limited lows, or fitting a buffer tank completely neglecting ship bonuses.

It makes more sense to give bonuses to armor repair to ships with the highest number of low slots in a particular hull category.

Only 4 slots are needed for a standard armor passive tank + 1-2 dmg mods.
An active setup requires 5 lows dedicated to just tanking - dual rep is a must since any ship above a cruiser can do above 300 dps Thus negating the advantages of active tanking, which is as you mentioned the ability to tank a certain amount of damage consistently)
Guess how many lows a brutix has, yep 5.
Archetype 66
Perkone
Caldari State
#19 - 2011-11-10 18:06:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Archetype 66
SMT008 wrote:

Being able to do something great solo or as a small group is what creates heroes. Everyone loves heroes. Everyone would like to become a heroe. A 3-men Hyperion gang beating 8/10 battlecruisers by doing something clever is something you would like to do, or something you'll remember if you manage to do it.


Just take a look at "My eve" videos, you'll find plenty of those tricks. 1 lone BC defeating 5/6 BC etc...(all on grid at the first minute of engagement, not one by one ^^)

Also, nice to have this kind of answer CCP Greyscale, but this part is not clear :

"The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels"Ugh

Are you, CCP Dev's, in lack of playing on TQ, using softwares like EFT, Pyfa etc...?? Smile

Edit : http://eve-search.com/thread/1373005
Cunane Jeran
#20 - 2011-11-10 18:10:26 UTC
The idea of having a Cap booster like charge to active tanking is an idea I like a lot, made the same size of cap booster charges would be great, a chance to have a super strong active tank, for a very limited amount of time.

Of course you'd have the problem of certain people having a cloaky hauler follow them so they could have an almost unlimited amount during the fight but still, the idea has promise.
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