Ships & Modules

Coming back to EVE after a long time, trying to fit some pve ships from my random assets (RIP all my old Hurricane fits too).

Experimenting in pyfa on passive shield tanks, for rigging and for low slot I come up against the choice of Purger vs Extender and DCII vs Shield Power Relay

Seems like it takes a very long time for the better regen to overtake the buffer, 5+ minutes, and the buffer is better if I get attacked at a gate or something. For some reason I remember sites often taking less time than this but maybe I'm totally off (at least the 'real combat' time of sites before killing off most incoming DPS).

Any recommendations on choosing between them, or maybe the break even time at which one generally becomes better than the other?

EDIT: For context, I'm looking at lowsec exploration mostly but would enjoy discussion about other contexts.

Passive tank Rattle works fine right now for L4's. After the rebalance, it might be more difficult to kill frigates. Against larger stuff, it'll work fine. You can pretty easily make a Rattle do 900 dps.

Lots of things have changed and I'll try to break it down for you:

1. Relic/Data sites have been completely overhauled, they have no rats in them and instead you must complete a minigame to gain access to the loot. This mini-game makes having a relic/data bonused ship almost a necessity so there's no point doing them in a Hurricane.

2. DED site difficulty hasn't changed except for the introduction of drone aggro which isn't really a big deal, you just have to watch your drones and pull them in if they start taking damage.

3. That leaves you with 4/10s and anomalies as the only things you can do in low/null which really isn't much, if you want to do PvE in low/null I would recommend either a T3 or a HAC, both can do most sites up to 6/10s and even 7/10s and 8/10s depending on the ship. You can even PvP fit them and still be able to run sites for example a dual rep Rail Deimos can do all Guristas sites up to 6/10s with ease.

So basically you'll still be able to use your buffer tank arty cane to do some PvE, but generally speaking it's very limited. An active tanked HAC or T3 will get you much further and if you fit them cheap they aren't that expensive, you can get a decent HAC for 200mil and a decent T3 for under 400 if you fit them cheaply.

People use passive tanked shield ishtar to run null combat sigs.
The passive tanked RS is not a good fit and after June will be a silly way to fit for PVE (1400 dps rather than 900 the above poster stated.)
Generally the problem with passive fits is that you have to use so many slots for tank that everything else (dps /tracking) suffers.
After June the RS will have all lows having damage mods except for a few nervous people that will use a damage control.

If you are playing with EFT try comparing the damage of your fit with the lows fit for shield regen and then for damage /tracking. You will soon spot that for most uses (neut free area) the active tank used on a pulse basis (ie don't even try and make it cap stable) results in faster clearing and higher income.
If you find you are trying to fit more than 1-2 cap mods then replace them with a cap booster.