EVE General Discussion

In my humble opinion there is one thing that many overlook. There is no viable support career to take from the early beginning.

In EVE there are only the T2 Logistics ships and Carriers which fit the support role accordingly. The T1 ships which are supposed to fit in this role are somehow lucking in it's performance, even in the early game.

Making it possible to go the support role from the early beginning, that is frig sized remote repping, could bring these very interesting role into the hands of more players and therefor making active tanking as we know it less viable, which is not that bad as it sounds like.
Actually when I started playing EVE a few years ago I always thought why's there no support role to pick? That's maybe because I so loved to play a Monk in Guild Wars but it's not really comparable. Nevertheless the impression there should be a viable support career stayed and it should be way more used in small scale PVP and PVE as it does right now.

I'm sure not everyone shares my opinion, but that at least could be one way to engage this issue. Make more usable support ships.

The internet spaceship equivalent of KERS, you mean? Could possibly work.

You'd need to greatly increase the effectiveness of armour reps for it to matter though (massively decrease the cycle time, perhaps), no point sustaining a full capacitor if you run out of hitpoints just the same as before.

just saying
the old RR BS fleets were a lot of fun
boost rr range and cap usage
and nerf logis

would change the game a lot, you would have to count on every member in fleet and not only on your logi blob
this would also be a ninja boost for ewar in big fights = bs easier to jam and you can jam dps and rr
which could maybe a nerf for one shiptype only fleets

sry for beeing a bit ot

CCP Greyscale, once again you're talking about something you weren't asked at all in the first place.

As already pointed out, no one was complaining about how active tanks scales to blob-warfare. We could care less about this crap.

What is really an issue is the fact that it's often better to use buffer tank than active one in small-scale PvP, too! Can you imagine how stupid current game must be if it makes this possible? That's just like meeting an active-tanked ship in blob-warfare occasionally. Does it ever happen (outside capitals) ? No. Everyone will agree an active-tanked ship stands no chance whatsoever in large-scale combat. While at the same time it's perfectly fine to slam in several fugly shield extenders (or plates) and go rocking in small-scale PvP. WTF?

There's a crapload of issues with active vs passive tanks in general - and they have absolutely NOTHING to do with the scalability you mentioned.

As stated:
- plates use too few MWs. 1600mm plate for mere 500 MWs? Really?
- so are shield extenders which - on top of prodiving huge EHP boost - don't even slow you down.

Make overtanked ships slower - add velocity penalty for shield extenders!

On top of that:

- tanking rigs use only 50 calibration points and aren't stacking penalized. WTF?
- passive tanking mods like plates and shield extenders cost NO ISK - they're basically FREE

Instead you must create such a system, where only certain amount of invested isk may get you proper level of EHP - just like it is with active tanking. Tech2 active tank is a joke.

So cut current EHP bonuses of plates and extenders by, say, 1/3 and introduce deadspace plates/extenders which will actually COST SOME ISK and provide the same bonuses as current tech2.

Make it fair.

It's high time you've utilized JUSTICE.

What about the armor repair bonus applies to incoming repairs as well? Then it keeps its decent bonus for small scale combat where fitting a personal repair module does well AND when in larger scale combat where fitting a buffer tank is best, the incoming repairs for logistics will be for a higher amount.

TL;DR But this post jumped out at me. I really like this for both PVE and PVP and it makes sense to me on a number of levels. It changes almost every dynamic for combat in EVE.

That being said I buffer and then slap a rep on in PVE to mitigate the damage taken and stretch my tank out while soloing in WHs and I can see the OPs perspective here, however. IMO Small Gang, Big Fleet, whatever, when you are primary you should die. Concentration of fire is a sound tactic in this game becuase its a sound tactic everywhere. The only way to overcome it is to buff active tanking to an unbalanced degree. I feel like OP wants his ship to be able to survive being a primary and in most cases that isn't nor should it be, possible.

I 100% support the OP.

My Slepnir needs a buff

If you're talking about me, well, re-read my posts.

I only want active tanking not to be a massive pain in the butt to fit on a ship (With still having a warpscrambler and propmod :/), I want active tanked setups not to run out of cap in 2mns because you run out of capboosters, I want active tanked setups to actually do what they are supposed to do => If the ennemy does too little DPS, he can't break the tank, period.

They are already easy to defeat, since they are mostly solo ships. You can jam them, damp them, neut them, tracking disrupt them, everything that completely break one's ability to do damage/tank. Vs a fleet, except if you have a huge amount of EW, it just wont work much.



Exactly, if you're primary you should die.

Depends on what's shooting at you.

If CCP implement my changes, it won't radically break the balancing. It will just be easier for active tanked ships to active tank, nothing else (Well, actually, it might buff a little bit the active tank regen with the built-in resistances for peoples who only want to tank. It will allow other peoples to fit one additionnal medslot, for shield tanked ships, or one additionnal lowslot for armor tanked ships).

Regardless of if you like it or not, EHP is essential. Not amount of reps will save you if alpha'ed
Saying don't make them use HP because its too homogeneous is like saying the human race is too homogeneous because we all breath oxygen! :)

How about this:

When a repper/booster runs (local only not remote), it adds to the TOTAL shields/armour as well as current. After 2 cycles (numbers to change via testing) the extra total HP drops off.
The total after boosting should bring it to just below that of a buffer fit, but with the advantage of repping, but it now also has sufficient buffer to stand up to alphas and will be harder to take down from sustained fire-power due to it's local reps. May need to also make it so the ship bonus affects remote repping as well but to a smaller degree (2.5% per level incoming reps?)

May want to combine this with a increase in cycle time on reppers, maybe slightly less cap consumptive, but restoring less per minute in slower cycles so they aren't overpowered in small group combat where they are already very powerful, might also make lvl 4s a bit more of a challenge again ;)

Frankly I think the main issue is the mid/low shield/armor dichotomy.

If anything, it should be a mid/low active/passive dichotomy. Shield extenders on lows. Armour reps on mids.