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Do you ever considered that shild ships do not need that much buffer in a RR gang, cause shild transfer boosts at the beginn of the cycle, not at the end like armor. You need 5 more seconds to repair a guardian or damnation (compared to shild stuff) thats why you need more buffer to compensate for this extra time untill the rep kicks off.
What mathers than is the resistance and there is no real difference between them.

I am aware of it, and mentioned this in my last post.

It does factor, of course, but you are not factoring into the fight, the higher signature, which means shield ships take more damage, at faster speeds. In addition, armor pilots also have that first warning of the shields going down, to broadcast for armor, shield pilots have to broadcast as soon as they take damage, which in itself can cause confusion for logistics pilots if those ships then turn out they aren't taking significant damage - it is a locked up ship, and maybe a cycle of rep wasted for somebody who was just being shot by a cruiser. If a shield pilot doesn't get shield in time, the armor and structure is worthless to them.

And while the basilisks might also provide that first advantage, to get even close to the Guardians tank numbers, they give up ECCM, so they are either being jammed, melted, or cap drained (they have about 35% less cap stability than guardians when paired) on top of their also, larger signature.

With a claymore in an armour gang, the guardian has the signature of shield frigate, with the EHP of a battleship and the resists of a T2 cruiser. I don't think they should be nerfed, but I do think Caldari should be able to get close to Amarr numbers to make them competitive.

Minmitar get away with shield tanks and the current level of EHP, because they have the speed, slightly smaller signatures and gunnery range to compensate and the DPS to go with it. Caldari aren't built like that, they are designed to slug it out at lower DPS while being slow.

Sorry to **** in the punch at this Caldari party, but, no.

If you want all the good stuff of armor and Amarr then you have to give the stuff you currently enjoy an armor equivalent. Passive regen, a whole ship class with a skewed stat for armor regen, range, damage selection, x-large reppers that fit nonetheless, an armor version of shield boost amps, etc.

The tanking is different. The implants are different. They have always been that way. If CCP fixes the gang bonus to apply immediately after jump that is ok, and if they restrict the effect of slaves on caps and supercaps that is ok. These things make sense and are good for the game. However to introduce all the things shield lack and not introduce what armor lacks will upset the rough balance there is.

The grass is always greener is not the way to view this game. If you fly all the races, as I have characters that do, you come to accept the differences as long as there is no clear imbalance. Damnations and Vultures are both used in their respective pvp fleets.

If anything they are being both stepped on by T3 ships. Especially Tengus which are swimming in CPU and have little problem fitting multiple ganglinks and siting a ss in virtual safety. Try fitting a Loki or a Legion in the ss and multiple link manner and it is not so easy and damn expensive for officer co-pros.

Drakes are not perfect. Or more precisely, if CCP holds to their former statements, it is the ability to project decent damage, at a range that turret ships of the same class cannot match unless fitting tracking mods, and not having to make choices between tank and range. They hinted at a heavy missile range nerf and introduction of mods to boost the range back if it was wanted, that would break up the ease of fitting tank on the Drake. Still waiting on that one and looks like it won't happen now.

In short, no, you can't have the same ehp on a Vulture as a Damnation unless you are going to give an unplated agility and armor regen to the Damnation. See the problem now?

edit- and while it's fun to eft ehp I can think of no situation where it made sense to spend for slave implants for my damnations. You lived or died with your fleet. If the remote reps weren't going to hold you at ~300 ehp without slaves they weren't going to matter with slaves and ~500 ehp. You would still die and would also lose all those shiney implants. Slaves are more a lowsec or supercap thing. The supercap use of slaves may get fixed. In lowsec where your pod cannot get bubbled slaves are fine and balanced with crystals imo.

I flew Damnations, Claymores, Scimis, Basis, Guardians and Oneiroseseses in 0.0. They each had their niche. The Basi being the least used of the lot. Maybe the Basi could benefit from -1 low to +1 medium so as to fit the same tank it has now and an midslot eccm. Regardless, Damnations really aren't all flying around with slave sets so don't sweat it. As I said I can't think of a single situation where a slave set would have saved me. If the logis were killed or driven from the field and I was tackled I was toast either way. And if they were there repping me the extra ehp was not needed tbh.

Also, I never fit a point on my damnation. I was not there to tackle. I dual propped, cap recharg and cap injector to keep the links and tank running, lows full tank, highs links and small acs and ecm drones to try to shake a tackler if I had to.

Lame. I hate this board, I just finished a long analysis on comparing out an LSE affects a bassy vs. how a 1600mm plate affects a guardian. I post, then because it took me so long to post it, it didn't actually post and I lost all that data. But I got the basics:
Plated guardian takes 18.2% longer to warp, but only loses 14% top speed (with AB) with a plate, while a bassy gets a 27% sig radius increase from an LSE. Comparing align speed, the bassy aligns in 6.5 sec vs. 8.8 sec on the guardian, which is 35% faster, top speed with a 10mn AB2 is 575 m/s on the bassy vs. 596 m/s on a guardian. Sig radius with a single LSE, 115 vs. 70, which makes the bassy 64% larger.

Yeah, it has been a long time since I did my math for my Gila fits so appologises for the broad numbers, but yes, if memory serves it is about 32-34% I believe. I know that below that once you go beyond that point, the drop off in recharge is severe.

I will do the math to show why recharge rate is non issue for fleet Caldari ships, and also do the math to show how quickly they would die to an alpha gang, they might even insta pop given they might be lit up like a christmas tree with their signature sizes.

With a request for more EHP there is of course the worry that ships like the Rokh suddenly become a one-vs-one passive tanker, but that could easily be remedied by reducing the recharge rate. The Megathron had a similar nerf a few patches ago, because its shield passive tank was actually far better than it's armor tank!

And sorry you lost your post Jaigar, what you wrote looked solid. I found that going back a page, it is sometimes saved, but I have also got into the habit of copy the text before posting to be safe.

I appreciate your point of view Covert Kitty, and I agree there should be differences between the races. I am also against homogenisation in the sense they should all be the same, which is why I have stated that Caldari should remain the lowest DPS of all the races and have also said I am not sure giving them a damage bonus for Hybrids is a solution either, which is why it is now awkward the Naga has that 25% bonus, and the Rokh is now 25% worse off.

I would prefer that Caldari can't kill things quickly, but can survive longer to make up for it, therefore offering something different, and naturally quite different from Amarr in the sense they are shield ships with limited mid slots which does change fleet tactics quite a lot.

Specifically I was looking at fleet based ships, such as the Vulture, Basilisk and Rokh. Hybrid ships for Caldari are an issue basically. I believe in those specific ships, there should be balance. While the Tengu is a popular ship, it is also around a billion isk ship, so it should be 'Good' for that sort of ISK. But given that you have brought it up... here are the EHP numbers (Fits in post below) compared to Amarr.

Legion
EHP: 201,064 (overloaded for a very comfortable 4.2 minutes with Damnation bonus)
Resistances: EM 89.1 TH 85.8 KN 84.3 EX 88.9
Signature: 147m
DPS: 614 at 16km OR 438 at 39km
Speed: 565 m/s

Tengu
EHP: 182,756 (overloaded for 2.5 minutes with Vulture bonus)
Resistances: EM 90.7 TH 91.3 KN 87 EX 83.4
Signature 205m
DPS: 593 OR 463 with 45km with T2, but speed reduced to 490 m/s
Range: 30.4
Speed: 633 m/s

Results:

If you use the DPS graph feature in EFT, it gives a much clearer picture. At optional ranges, the Legion does more DPS than the Tengu, by a significant amount, but drops off gradually once it closes in, at which point it needs to change to close range crystals (and really kick ass) The actual DPS is of course reduced against the Legion because of it's signature size, where as the Legion is able to get almost maximum DPS when at it's ideal ranges for each ammo type. If you increase DPS with the Tengu, it is with the T2 ammo which increases signature significantly, and makes the Tengu the same size as a battlecruiser putting it at a distinct advantage against battleships compared to the Legion which will always take less damage.

The Legion, while being slower, survives for longer with it's hardeners on, a third longer in fact in an overload tank. I would say, that the Legion just beats the Tengu, but the margin is very slim, the legion can do more DPS at the right ranges, but the Tengu does lower damage at all times, but the damage is the same over the range of the missile, so I would say that these ships are close to being perfectly balanced.

However, based on my very first post in the thread, the shield based Caldari fleet these Tengu's would need to be supported by for repairs etc, are far from 'Balanced' or even fair.

The Basilisks with their very large signature and low EHP combined with their slow speed and cap vulnerability will die easily to the Legions in all engagements, the Vulture soon after. Then it is simply a case of cleaning up. The Tengu's will have a VERY hard job doing maximum damage against the Guardians, with their very small signatures, the missiles are at an incredible disadvantage, while the large EHP of the Guardians gives them breathing room. Caldari must hope to get several - entirely random ECM jams on a guardian pairing to have any hope of winning, and Guardians can and do fit double ECCM modules if they know their enemy is using ECM regularly.

As for the Raven as to the best POS basher, I thought Dreads were best at this ;-). But even as a Battleship POS basher, I am yet to see Ravens as the default ship asked for in CTA's, if they were that awesome, that would be the case, so any advantage they have is minimal, and I would Argue the Typhoon with it's ability to change damage types, carry five large sentries etc, has a far stronger case against different POS resistances.

The problem is, that the Caldari ships I've mentioned are in a niche, they are supposed to be used in fleets. The Rokh can't fit an active tank without lots more power grid rigs, and the Raven is clearly designed for that role, with it's active tank bonus. The 5% resists are to help the Rokh survive in a fleet situation.

I fail to see how bringing these ships up to par, is in any way a bad thing, as it brings tactics and fun back into the game. Right now CCP are looking at maintaining subscriber numbers, I would argue, that for me, personally, I am growing bored of the Amarr /Minmitar fleets, and if this is the new status quo forever and ever, it will get dull... and is arguably dull already. While the new battlecruisers it is yet to be seen how effective they will become given their large prices on release, and reliance on speed tanks. So far the Tornado and Oracle are seen as the best ships, with the Talos last, with the Naga just ahead.

Thread supported, very interested in seeing more variation in fleet composition, especially if that includes Caldari.

More ******** buffer tanks are not what the game needs. Also I'm pretty sure you overlooked a few things.

Well, the game already has buffer tanks, and it is a critical part of fleet mechanics and game play, so, I cannot see them being removed or nerfed from the game. All that I am asking is that the core Caldari Fleet ships, have shields that are balanced in relation to armor.

I am not sure why more choice in fleet ship types and fittings for combat, would be a bad thing for EvE? EHP Buffer tanks will never go away, but at present we are really just locked into two races, for different reasons, but all really exploiting the EHP in their roles - Amarr to survive, Minmitar to get it down fast with Alpha.

And yes, I may well have overlooked a few things, I do not claim to be perfect, and EvE is a deep game, but I have more posts coming to highlight some of the massive differences between shield and armour, such as the actual costs of Invulnerability faction modules (500m isk), compared to say, Armour Faction Energised Adaptive modules that sell for 50m isk and don't require capacitor to work.

Overall, given the clear understanding of signature, speed, EHP and resistances, Caldari are at massive disadvantage, because I think we can agree they are not known for their massive DPS (Even if they do have a massive 41 more DPS than a damnation in my fits! )

To the Op - what about adding the numbers for the Claymore & Eos for a more balanced view?