Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Watching my shields slowly regenerate on armor tanked carriers made me wonder if it was time to have ships with specific tanks, rather than all three (shield, armor, hull). There's some freedom and versatility in having the option of shields and armor as viable tanks, but would it be worth specializing racial ships into distinct armor- or shield-only options? Minmatar might retain shields and armor, as a sort of wishy-washy mix, but that's what they are already... more or less able to straddle both armor and shields.

But for the other races, is there an opportunity for clearly defined identities here?

Minmatar - Shield / Armor
Caldari - Shield
Amarr - Armor
Gallente - Hull

Minmatar retaining the current configuration of a shield layer, then armor, then hull, and the rest being limited to two layers of hit points-- shield then hull, armor then hull, and just hull.

It's sort of impossible to remove the base layer of hull, since hull is the underlying structure of a ship, and the frame that holds it all together.

This would require some considerations for tank implants, and new slot layouts for freighters, which all have low slots regardless of race. Is it time to make freighters able to tank in their racial spec? Obelisks and Anshars already have the biggest hull tank, which is appropriate to their race. Perhaps Charons and Rheas should have mids instead of lows, for shield tank?

For the sake of identity, yes. Ishtars that can't benefit from shield tanks because they lack shields, etc. This is a profound change to ships, but it seems viable.

Identity

lol. and also to prevent you from making something imbalanced by forgoing its racial tank to make more use of damage mods. Like shield Oracles or shield Ishtars or Domis. Your example is a great reason why else this would be a good idea. So is the armor Widow, which I've used for quite some time in wormholes.

I shield tank neuting drone legions and armor tank rapiers.
What now?

If you want to fly shield ships, then fly shield ships? I don't think this eliminates playstyles, but rather strengthens the distinction between ships

and if i want a shield tank and use drones what ship should i use

or if i want to armor tank with hybrids? (this one is very common if you haven't noticed)

or shield tank with beams

no i don't its still taking the identity from me.


what if i want shield tank with neuts drones and beams

or shield tank with drones and blasters

maybe hull tank with missiles

i can keep going

Shield tank with neuts drones and beams... you want them all bonused? what ship gives you that right now?

You can keep going on being ridiculous, you're right. I can't stop you.

Krops, things like the Tier 3 ships using turrets doesn't involve this idea. I never said the Rokh should use missiles.

Saying that off-race tank is viable is more or less false. If they fit something other than the intended tank, they're gimped anyway. Shield tanking a gallente or amarr ship does not give the same survivability as fitting the proper tank. So basically, if they chose to fit an off-race tank, it's good news for you.

CCP doesn't even see hull tanking as a real thing. So you would condemn a whole race of ships to Max 60% resist and horrible reppers both local and remote.

I should tell you I'm incredibly amused that you're calling for a lock in a legitimate discussion thread.

Falcons enjoy a bit too much benefit from using armor, as they already have (had?) miniature hac resists. So yeah, I've used armor Falcons but that doesn't make it right. It's another reason why it could use some limitation for fitting options.

Armor ships get three mids in a lot of cases, and Shield ships could recieve the smattering of three low slots in the name of fairness. This would involve a pretty big shakeup of slot configurations, but hey let's think outside the box for a bit and consider the implications, instead of assuming it's about to happen and that it's something to get upset about.

Seriously, how about having a different type of discussion in F&I for once, one that is interesting.

Lady Rift, I disagree about CCP's intent for hull tanking. I think it's been an idea for some time, but perhaps under developed. Hull tanking could use its own category of skills (apart from shield and armor).