Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm talking about modules like "800mm Reinforced Steel Armor Plate I" here.


A good while ago (I think prior to Inferno 1.1), meta 4 and higher plates all offered the same armor bonus, with tech 2 plates requiring extremely high fitting costs and adding more mass, and the meta 4, 6 and 7 plates all giving reduced CPU/PG costs and lower mass penalties. In short, at that time, tech 2 plates were rubbish.

Then the tech 2 plates were rebalanced, keeping their high PG/CPU costs but getting more HP by a large margin. This was a positive move and made formerly useless modules useful again, but also made the faction plates effectively obsolete. While the tech 2 plates are not strictly better than the faction versions, they do outperform them for most applications due to providing more raw EHP.



My suggestion:

- Make the (meta 7) Amarr Navy faction plate the highest EHP plate, and give it increased fitting costs (in line with tech 2). Consider 110% of present T2 EHP as an initial testing point.
- Make the (meta 7) Gallente Navy faction plate have T2 EHP, and give it significant CPU/PG/mass benefits over the T2 version, perhaps in line with the present meta 4 plate fitting requirements.
- Make the meta 6 faction plate take a little from column A and a little from column B, with the overall goal of it being less desireable than both meta 7 options but still better than the tech 2 one. Maybe 103% of T2 EHP alongside fitting requirements halfway between meta 4 and tech 2.
- Add higher quality plates to the loot tables for various deadspace complexes.
- Don't bother with officer plates. Officer mods that aren't suited to fitting on capital ships serve no purposes other than use in margin trading scams, and causing players to become gank magnets. There's enough modules in each of those categories in-game already.



The rationale:

Most module classes give you the option to either go with a cheap, basic module for decent performance (usually tech 2 or meta 4), but also give you the option to risk a lot more ISK by fielding faction or deadspace modules in order to potentially chase better rewards.

With armor plates, however, there is no option to pick your own comfort zone on a risk/reward basis, and no real choice - it's just 'fit the biggest plate I have CPU/PG for'.

This proposal aims to change that.

I'm pretty sure we'll be something along these lines with the module tiericide that was mentioned at FanFest.

I would imagine that they (CCP) would be as thorough or even more so with the module tiericide as they have been with the ship changes. I will be part of a very large group of people who will be dissapointed if something isn't done to make faction and deadspace modules more sensibly arranged. At the very least is should be clear when looking at the meta/faction whether you're getting a comparable module with better fitting or a better module with comparable fitting. Far to many LP store items fall into the realm of near total uselessness either because they provide meaningless bonuses or are merely expensive copies of other items (Dread Gurista vs Caldari Navy, etc).

who flies armor, lol