EVE New Citizens Q&A

Using both armor and shield tank?

Because you would end up with a ship that flies like a brick. In some cases it may seem smart. However, having a tank as well as DPS is the balance people learn to pursue instead.

You could build a ship that can tank anything, but it won't do any good if you can't kill the hostile ship.

Quite simple for a couple of reasons:

1. You are wasting fitting slots.

If you field both a shield (mid slots) and armor (low slot) tank. You are wasting slots in one or the other.

If you would go with shield, it opens up those low slots for damage enhancing modules. Which in term are also a good tank, as a dead enemy can't hurt you.

If you go with armor, it opens up those mid slots for stuff like E-war (Warp disruptors, webifiers, tracking disruptors), propulsion mods (Afterburner / Microwarp drive).

2. You are wasting combat ability.

Say you have a shield booster and an armor repper. When in taking shield damage, your armor repper is useless (and vice versa).

And even more, say you used all your capacitor on your shield booster and enter armor. You are already dead anyway because you have no capacitor left to keep that armor repper going.

3. Shield base stats.

Each ship in EVE has it's own base stats. A ship with twice or 3 times the base armor HP over shield HP, it's easier to make a solid strong tank on your armor then your shield.

Slot lay outs. A ship with 1 mid slot and 5 low slots, it's easier to put an armor tank on such a ship then it is to field a proper shield tank.

4. Penalty on mods.

A shield extender has a penalty in that it increases your signature level. Which makes you easier to lock and easier to hit / harder to hit.

A armor plate has a penalty that is slows you down, which makes it easier to hit you / hit you harder.

Combining those 2 together...you end up with a ship that is slow as ****, easy to lock and much easier to hit (harder).

If you just mean having multiple reppers, there are a few fits that use two armor reppers. There are no practical fits I've seen using two shield boosters, as you can just use a boost amplifier.

Don't forget the Hawk.

You need to understand why you select to tank a ship in a certain way. Usually this has more to do with the slot layout and base stats, but you also need to consider how you want to fly the ship.

Shield Tanks rely on you being fast and applying high damage quickly. The mid slots are mainly used by tank which means you have minimal tackle mods, but you should be quick enough to keep up with the target. The low slots are mainly used for damage/damage application enhancements.

Armor tanks are generally much beefier but as a penalty, you are slow and lack the DPS of a shield boat. To compensate you can bolster your mid slots with plently of tackle to hold the faster ships down, cap boosters, or damage application mods in the case of drone boats.

A brick (dual) tank's only purpose would be to survive long enough. It would be no good for combat since you cant really hold down the enemy or apply any damage to them. Its not unheard of, but you'll likely only see it on bait ships with a cyno fitted, as its sole purpose is to survive while your fleet does the rest.

Hope that helps.

There is one situation where dual (armor & shield), and even triple (hull), is legit: bait ships.

However, a competent FC will quickly see through the ruse.

Thanks for the helpful replies. I can certainly see the logic in PvP and I will pursue the complimentary modules suggestion in one of my ships. However, in my current lowly L2/3 security missions I get chased by dozens of NPCs intent on destroying me while I try to keep far enough away to pick them off with longish range railguns and drones. Several layers of defence has saved my bacon in the past.

MM

That sounds like the politically correct way of saying "You're probably doing it wrong".

Would you mind linking your fit? If you are having to fit mediums and lows with tanking modules, you may just be fitting incorrectly, or managing triggers improperly (L3 blockade, anyone?).

To be frank, a properly fitted cruiser shouldn't have an issue with L2s, and a properly fitted battlecruiser shouldn't have a problem with L3s as long as your triggers are managed properly.
Additionally, your skills will impact you tanking abilities substantially. Have you neglected Armour / Shield skills?

As LackOfFaith said, sometimes you can break the rules, but for PvE lvl 2 and 3 missions, I cannot see any reason to dual tank.

If you want to have multiple layers of defence, you can fit a Damage Control - anything more than that and there's probably something much more effective that you could do. E.g. if you have trouble kiting the NPCs, consider fitting overdrives instead of an armor tank to help you keep the distance. Or you can boost your shield tank by fitting a power diagnostic system, a capacitor flux coil or a shield power relay. And if you are armor tanking, consider putting capacitor rechargers into free mid slots. Or fit dps/tracking modules to kill things more quickly before they can harm you.

That being said, there is no "wrong" way to play EVE. If you like your ineffective ways, you can play as you want. But usually an effective killing machine is more fun to fly than a lame foam brick.

In general dual tanking is frowned upon, and generally means 2 different things.

A) Fitting multiple armor/shield repair modules. Generally this is bad as you run out of cap to run the modules. A better tactic is to increase your armor/shield resists, speed or damage output.

b) Fitting both shield and armor mods. This is a bad idea unless you are bait*, don't need to actually attack** or are tanking an Orca for cargo transport (in the case of the Orca it should be shield and hull tanked). You won't be able to fit damage mods which means the opposition will have more time to break your defenses, and you likely won't have enough cpu/grid to fit both types of tanking modules.

*Such as a bait drake with shield tanking, a DC, and an armor plate....
** Such as a HIC which needs all the help it can get to survive, and doesn't need to shoot anyone to be deadly. (That said I often prefer to fit a BS afterburner instead to speed tank, and chase down people.)