Ships & Modules

Well he is right in saying that the mechanics are in fact fine, it just doesn't have to do anything with this thread.

Here people have presented facts and numbers about modules highlighting the imbalances of shield and armor tank modules, which result in the status quo of shield tank being the better choice in most situations and ships, unless you roll with Guardians.

It's not the mechanics, it's the modules- their stats and fitting costs that need balancing.

Did I even mention MYSELF or MY issues, or was that the only counterargument you could come up with?

YOU, on the other hand, only mention YOUR personal experience as proof of balance.

Weak argumentation, and that's being really kind to you.

Simple : EWAR, as an armor advantage is either nerfed to the ground or unusable if you don't have mobility ; not to mention that in fact you are *required* to use full tackle if you don't wan't to be laugh at by anything else because of your poor mobility.

Secondly, armor ehp advantage is only due to 1600mm plate. For anything lower, shield is plain better, be it for fitting or ehp, and I'm not even talking about mobility.

And finaly, active armor tanking is a joke now because of ASB and neutralizers everywhere.

Possible fixes : Better EWAR (the EWAR which don't rely on mobility of course) ; shield buffer nerf (or armor lower plates buff, but I'd prefer a nerf because ships already have enough ehp compared to active tanking ; see next point) ; active tanking buff (and not ASB style if possible....) ; rig penalty overhaul may be a good thing too.

More comprehensive fix can be inherent ability given to armor (EWAR is clearly not unless ECM work on unbonused hull), to compensate for the drawbacks.

When any ship with 4 mid slot or more is shield tanked, you can expect a problem.
PS : when even ships with 3 mid slots are shield tanked....

Well, if you really want something like regen plates, how about...
No.
What I could see, is a module somewhat like the Shield Power Relay.
"Nanobot Hive"
Reduces the ship's overall cap regen (either recharge time or total cap), in return little armor repair spiders on your ship, that slowly rep it.
For a fix amount, since unlike shields, there is no natural regen to strengthen.
Max fitting of one, else the two hives cancel out each other (like cloak). Hmm... maybe this way it could be max armor hp % based, but that would be too easy to abuse I fear.
But hey!
What was the feedback on ASBs before going live? Riiight...


Indeed, how many ships can one mention that have more mids and lows, yet are armor tanked?
Now remove all the EWAR ships from your list, and go with dps ones.
Still not an empty list?
How about comparing it to ships that are regularly flown *successfully* shield tanked even though having more low slots.
Which list is longer?

Whew, that wasn't the easiest to read.

Armor vs shield rig penalty is sticky...
Sure, armor suxx more, but the only "balanced" approach I can think of, that doesn't make it duplicate shields yet doesn't take away the drawbacks at all (which I wouldn't oppose THAT much) is to give armor tanking PG and shield tanking CPU penalties.
And that would not be good.
Or would it be.

Not scaling properly?
Not quite sure there, let's see:
T2 rep/sec and rep/cap
Armor, from Small to Large: 17,8/2 ; 35,6/2 ; 71/2 ; Each time double the rep, same 2.0 efficiency before rigs/OGB/(resists)
Shields, from Small to XL: 15/1,67 ; 30/1,67; 60/1,67 ; 120/1,67; Again, double jumps, same efficiency before modules.
What did you mean again?

What's not scaling properly (imho):

You cannot oversize armor repair modules, while with shields it's normal. Heck, you save lots of PG going shield on a ship designed for armor tanking, letting you fit it with better guns and more gunnery rigs.

Deadspace modules with armor scale semi-normally (one branch keeps the efficiency ratio, but has really good repair/sec), with shields the Gist is just plain overpowered on ("lack of") cap consumption. Need an armor deadspace OP version as well!

Active omni resistance for shields is a lot more efficient while you have cap (while armor once you do not), specially as you go higher on the meta levels.

SBAs have an effect for one slot that armor rigs cannot reproduce.

There *is* an armor rig for remote repairing

Well, not being mirrored everywhere in't exactly a problem.

Are you talking about similar-sized armor repper vs shield boosters, or

how local rep amount ain't really better than a flat 5% resist bonus?

Oversized shield booster modules?

ASB (specially with SBA)?

Oversized ASB (deserves it's own header, won't do another for oversized+ASB+SBA)

The ASB is the only one where it's really the module's fault.

Gonna jump in to this topic way later than I would have liked to throw in my 2 cents:

Passive/buffer tanking is largely fine as it is. You trade extra dps and mobility for (a little) extra ehp/resists and ewar. The problem lies mainly with active tanking; that is to say that active armor tanking sucks. I'll keep the numbers brief and as percentages because looking at some of these posts holy wall of numbers batman:
Look at an XLSB and a LAR, the SB reps ~70% more and uses about twice the cap. The numbers get closer when you compare 2 LARs to an SB+SBA, but the SB still reps more while using nearly identical cap (though only 10% more).

You could argue that they're different sized weapons but I'd call BS on that, because shield sizes don't work the same way armor sizes do, due to how CPU and PG scale with ship size. Because of this you could (for arguments sake here, not suggesting it's viable) fit an XLSB and an SBA to a caracal, and eat up about 2 thirds of its CPU (and a little over half its PG) while attempting the same thing with, say a thorax and 2 LARs results in using up more than 4 times the ships powergrid, and this is comparing 2 sets of mods where the shield is supposedly a size larger.

This brings me to my next point: oversized SBs are a problem when it comes to balance. That I can fit an XLSB onto a sleip, but not a LAR onto an astarte is a very real problem when it comes to deciding what ships I want to fly. The reason you fly armor buffers is (usually) that it gives more tank and ewar. Compare that to active shields, where shields get more tank, more damage, and more mobility versus their armor counterparts, and all armor gets is more ewar.

Which is another problem on its own: In small gangs (remember that small gang/solo work is where active tanks are actually useful) the advantages of shield tanks tend to be much more useful, most notably with speed. In solo/small gang pvp, speed is king, and armor (particularly their rigs) get hit way too hard because of it. That sig radius is a much smaller penalty than speed is a problem on its own, but in an area where speed is arguably the most important factor (small groups) it pretty much kills armor tanking on its own.

As far as PVE goes, shields will pretty much always be better, simply because you need minimal tank in pretty much any form of pve (aside from like assaults/hqs in incursions and maybe nullsec plexs). This doesn't really seem like a problem to me though, because as long as there are differences one of the 2 will be better at applying damage, which will in turn make it better for PVE.

You *are* comparing different sized modules. XLSB is an over sized module and does not compare with the LAR. You can call it BS all you like, but fortunately the truth does not require you to agree with it.

The rest of your post has been dealt with several times already, probably in this thread. heck, the whole post has been dealt with.

/sigh

ASBs are overpowered, and I really wish people would quit trying to use them in arguments. EVERYONE knows that they are overpowered.

I would support removal of XL-SBs, as long as you're willing to support removal of 1600mm plates. Fair is fair after all.

No, I'm saying that the 1600mm plate is the over sized equivalent to the XL-SB.