Alena Ventrallis
Osmon Surveillance
Caldari State
66
   |
Posted - 2013.08.14 02:25:00 -
[1] - Quote
This post is an observation on the state of vehicles, notably HAVs, of both the shield and armor variety. I will do my best to refrain from QQ, as there has been plenty of it on the subject of vehicle tanks and it frankly does no one any good. This is simply my thoughts on where vehicles stand (well known to everybody, but merely reiterating) and where I believe the changes should be made.
First off, some battlefield notes. I am specced almost exclusively into vehicle shield tanks. I got the gunnlogi and have been using it exlusively until the last few battles, where I began using a Soma for comparison. So that there is no arguing, and to make all variables as transparent as possible, I will list my vehicle skills in regards to shield and armor tank.
Vehicle Core Upgrades 3
Vehicle Electronics 3
Vehicle Engineering 4
Vehicle Armor Upgrades 2
Armor Adaptation 1
Vehicle Armor Plating 1
Vehicle Armor Repairing 1
Vehicle Shield Upgrades 4
Shield Adaptation 3
Shield Boost Systems 3
Shield Transporting 1
Vehicle Shield Extension 3
As you can see, I have invested barely anything into armor, and can fit all shield related modules. First, the fitting stats. All stats are what is displayed on the fitting menu.
On the Gunnlogi, I fit one of the best shield extenders, the best heavy shield booster, and three of the best passive upgrades. I have 5435 hp in shields, with 37.82 resistance, and can rep it back at a rate of 328hp per sec for ten seconds. To fit this required 2 of the best powergrid expansion units, filling up all the low slots.
All modules on the Soma were the least intensive on pg/cpu available (the names are too long to list, you can look them up on the market) which were the 180mm plate, heavy armor rep, energized nano plating, active heat sink, and active tracking enhancer. This gave 5236hp, repped at a displayed 342 hp every 3 sec (we all know about the bug) with 14.35 resistance. This took one of the best powergrid expansion units to fit.
As you can see, already armor has an advantage in slot fitting. A Soma (a militia tank) has only 4 lows for tank as opposed to the Gunnlogis 5 highs, and can still get comparable amounts of raw hp. The resistances are far less on armor than shield, but that's because of my skills being low, rather than the modules themselves. As well, the armor tank is able to fit dmage modules in the highs, something the Gunnlogi cannot do without sacrificing tank.
Now as for performance, the Gunnlogi was able to take hits without losing much hp, on account of the resistances coupled with shields natural resistance to most forms of AV. However, it was unable to repair that damage in any sort of reasonable time, taking 2 full cycles of the rep to go from near 0 back to full. The acceleration was very slow, and top speed wasn't much better, which made getting out of harm's way extremely difficult. All in all, I was forced to kill one or two people before retreating to spend almost a minute repping my shields before going back out, or just hunting people with a railgun.
Now the Soma, which is the militia tank I remind you, Was simply a beast. It didn't Take the hits very well, for the opposite reasons the shield did, but it was able to retreat in fair order, due to the much faster acceleration and response time of the Soma. As well, with the glitched rep, I was able to get back into the fight before my rep even finished cycling, meaning I could take a few hits before worrying about losing the tank. The top speed was slightly less than the Gunnlogi, on account of the heavy plate, but acceleration was unaffected, and reaching that top speed was very noticeable better. In nearly all aspects, the Soma outperformed the Gunnlogi, and I can only assume the Madruger would perform even better.
Now, my request to CCP. DON'T NERF ARMOR TANKS. I still felt that AV was a threat, but I was able to still be a presence on the battlefield and not running away to hide for most of the battle. As well, you definitely feel the weight of the plate, but I could fit an overdrive to compensate for it if I wanted. Instead, BRING SHIELDS UP TO ARMOR'S LEVEL. Everyone always wants things dragged down. Why not buff something for a change? With AV as powerful as it is (Forge Guns do more damage than a proto large railgun!!!) This wouldn't cause much duress to AV, and would definitely make vehicle vs. vehicle battles more even, while both wouldn't run as soon as AV rears its head. |