Ships & Modules

That's why I love when people say the advantage of armor tanking is that it frees up mid slots....

Really, all 3 of those mid slots armor tanking ships have?

Its funny reading these replies....then looking at this issue in light of the % of armor/shield for the ATX. Especially the prominent use of ASB's.

Shields have one nice thing going for them that armor don't. They can oversize their tank EASILY, both passive and active. Armor has more than a few issues if trying to oversize their active tank.

Small scale PVP example:

I dare you to match the active burst tank of a shield Mael to that of an active burst tank of an armor Hyper. With cap boosters it is more than possible to keep the Mael alive for as long as it can be fed charges. But trying to feed (and fit) a second Large Armor rep is quite a bit different.

Also, there is the issue of the ASB. It further perpetuates the short term uber tank on a shield ship. Just look at how many fleets in the Tourny lost b/c they choose not to fit shield ASB's. (there was also alot of gross logi piloting mistakes, but thats not my point) The diversity in the Tourny this year was very sad, just alot of ASB's....everywhere, with only a handful of actual armor fleets. (you know its bad when ppl are coming up with better shield tanks on Gallente ships, than the armor they were intended for)

The new Armor mod is next to useless in pvp, better off with an EANM II than one of them. My vote is give armor something similar to the ASB, not exactly the same, but similar.

Well to be honest this has been a recurring topic lately and will continue to be so while the game streamline, dumb-down, scale-up and simplify.

One thing often omitted or never identified when people try to compare midslot utility with lowslot streamline is that the lowslots tend to be stacking modules while the midslots are often unique (and active-) modules. That's why ASB were given to shields, because (active-) shield tankers at smaller scales had trouble fitting all necessary mods. That's also why ASB distinguish itself from other active tanking by leaning towards cap-independent ships as a cap-independent system.

As an armor tanker your tank to spank is always under a balanced give-and-take. You determine that balance quite flexibly yourself. While you definately can stack standardized midslots (like Points for example, in smaller scales), it's likely that you augment whatever free slots you have with different modules in variation and synergy. That is quite complex though, while much of the game is heading in a simplistic direction - so less and less people will begin to understand it's value or balance.

I don't know Gabrielle, i mean this topic is similar to all other balancing topics, like when people discuss the balance of certain ships in the face "large scale PvP".

It's been my recurring theme, trying to get people to see that perspective, as these threads pop up.

Either we can "balance" all these ships, modules and systems to fit current "meta" or we can balance current meta to fit all these ships and modules. You should keep in mind that very few ships or systems in this game were designed for "Dominion SOV" meta.

Anything that is complex, small scale or short range for example, they don't fit current meta (which is simple, large scale, long-medium projection).

It's the same as when people complain about Myrms not being Drakes. It's not a question of good or bad, it's a question of meta (or scale). The Myrm is an excellent ship for what it does, it's just that it's target pool or setting is dwindling. There are plenty of commendable "save the whales" movements in the game - but that does not change the fact that all those are artificial and not endorsed by the sandbox - the "solo PvP is not dead movement" for example. It's allround positive and my hat comes off to the people who champion it, but it doesn't change the fact that it's mere life-support.

Player created events like "RvB", "Syndicate tournament", "come to Amamake" and so forth are awesome for the community, but from a development standpoint we can't be happy with that. It would be like saying "who needs tutorials when we have EVE Uni?". The creativity is awesome, but if the game doesn't endorse it, it's on life-support and easily crumbled. Players definately do create content, but the development can't rely on select player-driven projects like that.

Look at old EVE dynamics where faction loot was dropped and ABC-ores were mined in null to be hauled through lowsec to empire, while much Tech II production was carried out in empire so lynchpins were supplied back over the same route. People mining gave ship-in-space targets for roaming which in turn gave ship-in-space targets for patrols (and so forth, butterfly-effect). Lowsec piracy gave root for escort-services and camps gave oppotunities for blockade-busting.

All of this was ships in space and natural objectives that fed new content for everyone, not "fixes" and ever since those dynamics died out things like piracy have become a posterchild for the definition of life-support. Some people still pirate, just as some people still roam, yet much of the dynamics are gone. No POCO can replace the interactivity of escorted Freighter runs, and amusingly a POCO probably raise higher entry (and non-dynamic) demands than shooting haulers ever did. They have more hitpoints, yet stand still and rarely change. They don't swing with the vivid life of the region, where quiet regions are ideal for sneaking your resources through and thus gaining attention, instead they bring stale timers and form-ups; so people don't play the game outside of them.

Most of CCP's responses so far have been either streamlining ships and modules to fit current meta (eg., people don't seem to use this so let's buff it, and give it something that appeal in XY-setting) or splitting the gameworld into different meta (this doesn't seem to work in X, we don't know how to balance X to appeal to everyone so let's create Y for this subgroup of players).

I consider all those actions downright negative for the core of this game (complex, hardcore, emergent, single-shard, sandbox). This game is about everyone sharing the same big world, exploring the whole of it and interacting with each other - that means that there need to be interactive value in all venues of the game; for big and small, old and new etc.).

I just fear that EVE would become a dreadfully shallow and boring game if everything was about large scale, low cost, easy access, streamlined fitting and projection. Instead of blowing all these resources on revamping reasonably well balanced ships to fit large scale meta, they should spend it on different meta-content than "shoot hitpoint POS", "shoot hitpoint TCU", "shoot hitpoint BCU", "shoot hitpoint POCO", hold field, etc. If there actually was more refined content then complex, pricy/risky, short-range, active armor tanked etc., ships would be more popular; and then i mean such content out in the open world, not hidden away in restricted themeparks (like WH, FW or Incursions).

Do you see what i mean?

CCP need to realize that attention to scalability and content is what this game needs. Not new ships or "better balance". Most people don't even understand the complexities of that balance anyway, they look at what they do and what they want to do. Not further. They want their Myrms to be Drakes and they won't realize the futility of that until they fly Nyxes.

That's exactly what I think about armor/shield stuff. Why in hell would you choose restrictive game play and fun when you can choose easy funny mode since you pay a game to have fun?

Maybe I'm too lazy or too much "normal" but the guy choosing to pay for a game and using the worst tools available to have fun is the biggest idiot on earth or simply natural selection didn't worked on him.
It's a game, you're supposed to have fun with different tools, but be able to achieve the same tasks, just differently. Now we can use simple phrases to say everything is fine or play with awesome words and technical terms we don't even understand their real meanings, but everyone with a couple neurons still working doesn't even need to come from Harvard to understand there's an imbalance that needs to to be looked at.

What is hell is this so difficult to understand or admit is beyond me.

Since you claim to be ontop of this now Lin, what would you prefer?

Different ships doing different things that appeal to different players, yet unify that in one interactive world.

or

Different ships doing the same things that appeal to the same players, that splinter into divided worlds.


In ship terms it would be like comparing the Stealth bomber class to the Recon or HAC classes.

Your statement regarding shield or armor tanks and why people "just can't have fun" could easily be spun back to say "Why don't just people who want to fly Drakes, fly Drakes?" or "Why don't people complaining about armor within certain classes not just find the correct venue for their particular taste?". Balance in terms of ships and modules become equally pointless then, and then everybody lose. What imbalance is it you speak of? Is it solo-imbalance? I doubt it.

(Solo) (Squad) (Wing) (Fleet)
Myrm ---------> <--------- Drake
Myrm ----<----- ---->----- Drake

Do you see why interactivity is important now?

Do you see the second dimension?

Small scale - Myrm
Large scale - Drake
= 4 (more)

Large scale - Myrm
Large scale - Drake
= 3 (less)

You can easily do the same "made up math" with active- and passive tanks or whatever other system you'd like. It's the same thing there, passive tanks are not better per cathegory. People who want to improve active tanks to overcome their logical limitation (if outside repairs are infinite, local mitigation is all that matters; look at trends in Carrier setups and you can see that quite clearly there as well), those people always have the most overblown and unreasonable concepts of balance. They want active tanks to tank 100-man fleets. In their eyes that's what it need to adapt meta. Insert lol-ASB.

The biggest problem adapting the game to meta has that it doesn't stop with armor-shield or active-passive. There are so many other things (LR-SR weapons, tracking-explosion accuracy etc.) you need to adapt that when you're done you're going to realize that you burnt more resources to end up with that "less".

The biggest imbalance, most differentiated attention from CCP and easiest fix is:
(Solo) (Squad) (Wing) (Fleet)

I'll exemplify that with one of my pet illustrations: When POCO were introduced to lowsec, what would you need to interact with them and what kind of response would you assume they'd provoke?

Even if POCO are "hitpoint-grind light" they are still hitpoint-grind and the entry level is at least (Squad), while the common outcome is (Fleet). That's their span. Saying they endorse small-gang content by having less hitpoints or shorter timers is just ridiculous regardless if you look at theory or practise. Most people provoke POCO by the same standard they provoke (moon-) POS. Compare that to old mineral hauls that spanned the whole spectrum.

Five pages of somewhat sensible discussion on the pros and cons of shield and armour tanking and their balance, and still no

"Real men hull tank."

What happened to my eve?

Yeah no, look at the powergrid requirements of that 1600mm plate. Over FOUR TIMES the powergrid cost than Large Shield Extenders. So with two extenders you add roughly the same hitpoints as one 1600mm for less than half the powergrid cost. This gives you at least 3 major advantages:

1) Room to fit larger guns / cap warfare
2) A free low slot for either further increase to gun damage output or nano speed
3) No mass increase allows agility and base ship speed to be maintained


and an incremental advantage:

4) Increase passive shield recharge rate (++capacity / charge time)

I'm trying to fit a LAR II and a 1600 T2 on my Deimos but seems I can't fit anything. Welp, back to my LSE II and Xl-ASB and MWD + tackle+220 T2 auto canons Vagabond.

I really don't understand why people say armor is crap, they have no clue about it and me? -peh I don't have a clue what I'm talking about