Player Features and Ideas Discussion

See subject, end of story.

OK you wanted some thoughts and "research", how about this:

Back in 2008 (2009?) CCP boosted hitpoints on all ships making slaves/1600plates/shield buffer tanks/passive tanks a lot more powerful. The active tanking was not changed at all then and essentially remains the same as it has been. A buffer tank requires little/no cap for virtually less/the same cpu/pg usage which means it is better than active tanking vs. neuts, alpha. The only virtual advantage an active tank is in in a prolonged fight where the incoming dps is lower than what the active tank can cope with/have cap for alternatively if you cannot repair the buffer you can re-engage after boosting your hitpoints.

In most real fighting scenarios the massive advantage of buffer tanks vs. active tanks make the gap too big, eg. the versatility isn't there, most ships you encounter will have buffers which removes the idea that there should be weighed advantages AND disadvantages to each type of setup, not just one that is optimal in most cases. Having the massive EHP of buffer tanks also makes for some pretty boring fights where the advantage nearly always is in the favor of the one having more backup as a buffer tank is a dead given/assured staying power, whereas an active tank can be countered in several ways (high alpha, high dps, neuts) - active tanked shield ships are especially vulnerable to this as they rely on cap for both their omni-hardeners as well as their reps.

Armor tanks are mostly cookie-cutter, it is true that if you pack too many plates that you will be slowed down to the point where speed will be a disadvantage, but it is a rather small price to pay in comparison to all the disadvantages of an active tank.



You happy now?

So, do you have any suggestions or is this just a whine thread?
As long as it is possible to apply damage from multiple ships onto one ship buffer will be the tank of choice. The ability to absorb the alpha (hopefully) long enough to be repaired by logi's is simply better than active tanking. Any attempt to boost active tanking to a level where it could take that kind of punishment would, as Simi said, result in some very overpowered solo boats.

Minor tweaks to cap use, boost amounts, fitting etc. are areas that could be improved perhaps. Giving active set-ups a little more staying power in a small engagement would be nice, but it would have to be done with care.
Something as simple as reducing the size of cap booster charges slightly would certainly go some way to allowing active set-ups to remain on the field longer without constantly having to dock up, certainly a concern when one decent fight will leave you almost totally vulnerable against the next ship to come along once you are out of charges. For me at least this is one of the main reasons to choose a buffer fit, the ability to go on an extended roam in hostile space without worrying about a very limited supply of cap charges.

Buffers will always be king in fleet ops, unless there are some huge changes to current mechanics. This is fine, as is the power of a good active tank in a small fight. However it would be nice not to have to dock up every single fight to re-stock.

We have had two EHP boosts since I started playing (6yrs+), the one you mention was the bigger of the two I think.

Problem is how to do it. If you make local tanking powerful enough to require twice the current dps to break then you effectively remove variety on the small scale and vice versa.

Suggested previously that armour modules be made more 'bursty', shorter cycles and increase in repair amount per cycle with cap consumption increased appropriately. Ideally I want an armour tank to be able to withstand just about anything if it has enough repairers and injectors to feed them until charges deplete .. neuting will of course be its bane just as it is now.
Local shield repair is trickier, already have the bursty nature with front-loaded repair on top. Might look at efficiency and/or increase amount slightly .. done carefully it shouldn't make the Winmatar active bonus ships too much (more) of a nuisance.

Active Tanking seems to rely heavilly on a group of factors:

1. Cap Consumption/sustainability.
2. Cycle Times/Armor repair, related to 1.
3. Incoming DPS versus Repped ammount.
4. Armor Resists.

Of these groups, the 4th is the simplest to tackle and also the most important in terms of a strong active tank.

In my experience, limited to the Deimos, the Phobos and the Vigilant, albeit I can understand if other ships have similar issues, Active Tanking is best done on a ship with higher resists, since every repaired armour ammount will benefit from the resists inherent to the hull. There is also the idea that it requires Cap to function, meaning your hold if filled with Cap Boosters of the greatest size your Injector will hold.

Thusly, this raises the following problem:

In order to active tank, you require more support modules than just the active tanking ones. You will require a Cap Injector and you will probably also require a Nosferatu, denying you not one slot, but two slots, from the High and Medium category.

So, in essence, in order to active tank (exclusivly, meaning at least 2 repairers), you will need a minimum of 4 slots. You will also want to maximize you repair ability, by rigging (no other means of improving repair amounts or speed) further impacting your cap regenerating ability or slowing it down. You will also sacrifice an utility slot, in the best case scenario, and a mid slot for an injector.

I'm thinking that at some point active repairing should be done via ammunition, using nanite repair paste in large amounts thusly freeing your capacitor usage (some capacitor might still be used, but much less than currently), allowing you to free some of the slots used to make Active Tanking work. Th ammount of nanite repair paste used would be limited, for instance, creating a new sort of ammo (small repairer charge, medium repairer charge, large repairer charge, etc) for the market.

Further, given that Active tanking relies so heavilly on the resists, maybe a small inherent, stackable boost to the lowest resists should be in order, much like the Damage Control module does. I'm suggesting only the lowest resists 'cause else there's already better ways of improving your resilience.

Those are my thoughts/sugestions.

If you go look at singularity, easyness of overheating is being finnaly applied. shift+click ftw!

Yeah, on the old board it was suggested adding a bit of resistances to the repairers themselves to bolster total tank, but theoretically it doesn't matter whether one adds more repaired or higher resists.

The 'ammo' solution runs into indestructible ships if they have cans nearby and eliminates cap warfare as a means to counter it, think it is a round-about way of handling it .. at least at present.

Also one from the old board if I recall. Would be a straight forward and rather elegant solution with very little against it. Balancing it is another matter though, but reckon it could be done by tweaking heat performance of the mods in questions.
Can't remember what the arguments against it were back then, something about not wanting to make heating a prerequisite for competitive play or some such nonsense .. why the hell else would people want to spend time training and ISK using if not to get the 10-15% extra edge

You jest, surely. They finally managed to improve heating? What have they broken to get that far, randomly offlining mods?

Well there is one thing they can do.
They can turn the Active Mod's into While Active REGEN TIME to Set amount armor/shield on the repair mechanism within that time period

So the ships regenerate shields / armor at the divided rate of return instead in set chunks over the cycle time.
I think this would work best overall, or even make it drain power at a more active rate for both.
Keep the power fee's the same, shields at beginning, and armor at the end of cycle.

It may need some fine tuning in the end, but I think it would work. Unless it would cause undue strain on the node due to the updates in numbers.