EVE New Citizens Q&A

Probably. "Rainbow" or "omni" damage tanking is most useful in PvP, and less so in PVE where the damage type is predictable.

First start with the ship type. If it has more mid-slots than low-slots, then it was probably meant to shield tank. If it has more low-slots than mid-slots, it was probably meant to armor tank. If it has the same amount of mid-slots and low-slots, then it probably can either armor or shield tank, but shield tank will allow you to fit more damage enhancing and turret tracking enhancing modules. Of course there are exceptions to every rule.

It is best to focus on one type of tank only, armor or shield, depending on the ship and purpose.

Both armor and shield have similar types of fittings:
* Active modules to increase resists.
* Passive modules and rigs to increase resists.
* Modules and rigs to increase the amount of armor or shield.
* Active modules to repair. Only shield has passive repair (recharge).

Both armor and shield also have modules to increase all resists:
* Armor: EANM = Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane (passive module)
* Shield: Invul = Invulnerability Field (active module)

Only armor currently has an active resist module that can change its resist bonus every cycle:
* Armor Reactive Hardener

Example: For PvE armor tanks, I like to use two EANM and one reactive hardener.

Fitting more than 3 modules or rigs that increase the same resistance isn't a good idea, because of stacking penalty.

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Item_Database:Ship_Equipment:Shield
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Item_Database:Ship_Equipment:Hull_%26_Armor

There is a special case module: Damage Control Unit (DCU). It primarily increases structure resists, but it also helps armor resists, and also some shield resists. It uses only 1 GJ of energy per cycle, so it rarely fails. DCU also are not stacking penalized with other resist modules. But DCU are so powerful that you can only fit one.

Your module is a meta 3 DCU.

EVElopedia > Item Database > Ship Equipment > Hull & Armor > Damage Controls > Pseudoelectron Containment Field I

There is one additional way to increase resists: form a fleet with an armor or siege (shield) booster that uses gang links.

Only the Gnosis has equal resist across all it's tank types.

Thanks to all!

Tau, that was a remarkable write-up! - i certainly will change my fit.
J'Poll, Cannibal - that's the point of my post - what can i do, say in armor, to equalize or balance resists from em, explosive, heat, &...?
Salvos, also, thx!

Something to note with the way bonuses to resists happen:

Each is applied to the remaining damage.

So, if you have a ship with 50% EM resists, and fit a hardener with 50% EM resists, you'll end up with 75% resists, not 100%.

Add a 40% EM resist to that, and you'll have a resist of 85%

(This is ignoring stacking penalties. which complicate matters)

Here comes into play: What do you want to do with your ship?

For PvE, NPCs do a certain type of damage which you can predict and thus adjust your tank on.

http://www.ogrank.com/content/view/698/59/

Take a look there.

Let's take Blood Raiders for example:

They do the following damage: 50% EM, 48% Thermal, 2% Kinetic and 0% Explosive

So from that list, if you upgrade your EM and Thermal tank, you can more or less mitigate 98% of the damage they inflict on you. Boosting Explosive damage on the other hand, is totally a waste of fitting slots and PG/CPU as they don't deal any of that.


For PvP, you want as equal across the board as possible in your tank (shield OR armor).

For T1 ships:

Shield has a big hole in EM, which is usually the first you plug and then you add other things to increase general resists (keep in mind, exceptions apply if you know what you will be fighting).

Armor has a resist hole in Explosive, thus for PvP it's the first you plug and then increase general resists.


T2 and T3 ships use a different system of resists.

Stabber Fleet Issue isnt a T2 ship. It is a faction ship.

EDIT:

About tech levels, when you look at a module / ship icon's top left corner:

No icon = Tech 1

Yellow icon with II (roman 2) = Tech 2
Orange icon with III (roman 3) = Tech 3 (only applies to T3 ship which are currently the Strategic Cruisers)

Light green with circle = Storyline
Dark green with circle = Faction

Blue with plus = Deadspace
Purple with star = Officer

* Keep in mind, higher tech / meta level or more expensive doesn't always equals better*


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About resists:

I will use 2 examples:

1) Arbitrator / Pilgrim (T1 Amarr cruiser vs T2 Amarr Cruiser - Recon)

Shield resists:

EM: 0 / 0
Exp: 50 / 75
Kin: 40 / 55
Therm: 20 / 20

Armor resists:

50 / 50
20 / 60
25 / 43.75
35 / 35

As you can see, in both cases the Explosive and Kinetic resists went up.

2) Merlin / Hawk (T1 Caldari frigate vs T2 Caldari frigate - Assault Frigate)

Shield:

0 / 0
50 / 50
40 / 70
20 / 80

Armor:

50 / 50
10 / 10
25 / 62.5
45 / 86.25

The increase here, kinetic and thermal.

Now let's take a look at the lore of EVE for both cases:

1) This is an Amarr ship. In the lore of EVE, Amarr is fighting against the Minmatar. Minmatar's main/default ammo in their projectile weapons are Fusion shells, which deal Kinetic and Explosive damage.

Amarr engineers counteracted that with increased resists on their more advanced hulls.

2) This is a Caldari ship. In the lore of EVE, Caldari are at war with Gallente (see FW). Gallente use hybrid weapons (blasters/railguns). Hybrid charges do the following damage profile: Kinetic and/or Thermal.

So T2 ships for Caldari are buffed towards the opponents damage profile.

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Now Tech 3:

If you look up any hull on a T3 Cruiser (Tengu, Proteus, Legion, Loki), it will show you NO resists at all, this is because a T3 is a modular ship and the modules you put on it define the stats you get.


EDIT 2:

To explain T1 resists a little bit more:

Shield (from most resists to least resists): Explosive / Kinetic / Thermal / EM
Armor (from most resists to least resists): EM / Thermal / Kinetic / Explosive

As you can see, they are each other's opposites.
Exact stats for each ship can be slightly different though.

Whith that said though, it is very possible with good skills, gang links and some expensive hulls to have resists up around the 90-95 mark, which is very very hard indeed.

As far as equalising resists, you might have a look at a Reactive Armour Hardener (careful, bit cap hungry).

This.

Onmitank / equal resist just mean that your resists are almost similar.

A 50/53/60/58 (just random numbers) is a good example of an omnitanking resist.

One thing I'd note is that in PVP you take a bit less Explosive damage than other types.

That doesn't mean that in any given encounter you'll take more Kinetic than Explosive, but if you parsed logs from 500 PVP fights you'd likely find about a 25 (EM) / 30 (Kin) / 30 (Therm) / 15 (Exp) percent damage split overall.

Of course, if you are mostly fighting specific player entities you'll find they may favor different damage types. For instance, I'm involved in the New Order, a group of highsec extortionists/pirates/gankers that heavily targets exhumers and mining barges. Our damage dealt is probably 5% EM / 50% Kin / 45 % Therm with basically no explosive because of the ships we favor. So many highsec miners have started fitting tanking modules specifically for kinetic and thermal damage - which then encourages us to use different ships.