How can either option work when shield tanking and armor tanking rely upon opposite slots? Any choice is going to favor one mode over another.

Concerning the active hardener modules,

will 2 be able to activated simultaneously?
if yes how will the effects stack?

Because their are some serious pseudo numbers on the shield tank, if I am correct in my calcs!

In chemistry you often measure one variable to better observe the changes in another. Here I will use hardners to create pseudo shield values, instead of calculating av change. The pseudo values better illustrate my point!

If I am correct a single shield hardner provides 60% resistance, all in incoming damage is multiplied by 0.4, now with 2 hardners you instead get,

0.4 +ù 0.35 = 0.14

Which is a 86% resistance, now to see the pseudo values we do this calculation,

1 ++ 0.14 = 7.14

What this means is that adding 86% resistance is equivalent to multiplying health by 7 times, which is a massive amount!
This means with 2 hardners the base shield levels of ~2000 become,

2000 +ù 7.14 = 14,280

14,000 is a lot, especially considering av has confirmed to be re balanced! But this value is improved again when you add a Shield booster to the mix. A complex booster restores ~1200 in 1.5 secs, under 2 hardners this becomes,

1,200 +ù 7.14 = 8,568

In both circumstances this is a considerable proportion of the shield tanks health, over 50% of it! Meaning a shield tank will be capable of sustaining nearly 23,000 dmg while its modules are active, this is assuming the shields don't passively regenerate at any time while the modules are active. Furthermore, if the tanker is prepared to spend a little extra time out of battle this only uses a single complex mod, leaving room for better mods in the low slots.

So I am favouring shield tanks this build!

I made a radar graph of how all turrets with lvl 5 in all turret-related skill will compare to eachother.
The math was as such: 3 turrets have three different values. A (smallest), B (middle), C (largest). A was divided by C, B was divided by C, and C became 1.0- this gives us an easy to read comparision between all turrets and I am happy to say the railguns got a good buff (new rail is like a compressed particle cannon with a damage mod and a 40% heat reduction)- missiles now have the highest DPS of any weapon in the game, but they have a tiny blast radius. Blasters seem to have been nerfed, compared to the other, and in their AI effectiveness, but will still own almost as much as they do, now. Blaster maddy kills everything with 60m, missile gunlogi kills blaster maddy between 80m and 250m. gunlogi glass cannon kills everything between 250 and 600m that forgot to turn its hardeners on in no less than 3 shots (did the math, it's true), but rail maddy kills a gunlogi that misses a single shot, and a missle maddy wont exist because it will get owned by everything with a rail (long reload), any shield tank, and a blaster maddy at short range. it simply cant take advantage of it's potentially ridiculous DPS without dmods which it wont be able to fit and keep its OP hardeners (key to the madrugar, here). However, it won't do terrible against a railgun maddy if it manages to hit most of its missiles.


The odd factor here is that without hardeners on, tanks will be weaker than they are now (i doint forsee many gunlogis with more than 3k shields or maddies with over 5.2k armor. but double hardener gunlogis will have a 105% resistance (or 95%???) resistance to explosives, and every other damage type will be laughable (except lasers which dont exist for turrets or AV) however, 1 armor hardener is much better than 2 carapce hardeners we have now, so even though we have less slots, madrugars wont need PG expansions (dont need that slot now) and gunlogis wont need CPU upgrades (not that we did, but madrugars will often have to use those to make use of their second high slot). gunlogis will actually have enough pg to tank themselves with 2 hardeners and a heavy booster without a pg upgrade, and they could even stack 2 damage mods, a heavy booster, and a light plate and repper, while still functioning. the combinations of tanks will be much more than before. we did not get nerfed- we got a buff if you learn how tanks function both on paper and in the field.

For the infantry: you won't see one tank camping an objective and never retreating, anymore- it is impossible. if they stay beyond how long their hardeners last, 2-3 av grenades will kill them (or swarms a single forge gun [shields only]) and an armor tank with complex 120's and a complex heavy rep will take 40 seconds to rep back to full armor. Shields will generally take between 15 and 23 depending on the skill in regen and total extenders- or 3.5 seconds if they have a booster. AV will need to learn how ambush tanks on the way OUT instead of pushing them off the objective as the purpose of killing them. honestly, no amount of swarm launchers or av grenads will take out a gunlogi with 2 hardeners and a booster....ever. the infantry he is with will kill you by the time u bring him down to 70% shields. but if he is smart he'll only stick around for 12 seconds, then run away with 12 seconds. if you set up ambushes at where he will be at 24th second, it'll be easier to kill him than it is to kill an unfitted sica, right now.

Armor tanks will be a little trickier, though, because their hardeners last longer- however, they can only stack one. expect these guys to be more like their gallente dropsuit counterparts and be used as shock troops with 1000 HP and a duvolle. they'll kill everything they see in the first wave, but if they stick around long enough, they'll get killed by bug bites. Also, if they stick around too long and then retreat, u can chase them into their redline where they will try to rep, as the will only be at 25% armor (from 1%) in 10 seconds with the best repper. so having people standing by to whittle them away while they are attacking AND another party to keep poking at them while they leave will be key...gunlogis will just blow up after their hardeners turn off. lol (gunlogis are skirmishers with invicibility mods and self-injecting wirykomi nanite injectors)


Here is the radar graph, btw: https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1186310_10151899320333934_866490382_n.jpg

Detailed post and comprehensive opinions.

However, I feel like the limited HP ceiling and the lack of passive resistance will cause a massive amount of tanks to be destroyed by sudden and unexpected long range AV attacks (or railgun strikes either) without any possibility for the pilot to react fast enough.

I predict much more raging among tankers...

This is an important observation. To use an active hardener effectively and not waste it, you can only activate it when you know you're going to be attacked. This means a rail gun turret from halfway across the map or a few protoswarms will inevitably get through before you can activate hardeners.

Will you be refunding SP invested in vehicles to go along with the changes? There are a number of new skills that you have introduced.

As a practical matter, will unused modules/ships/whatever be deactivated while something like this goes live, then turned back on? Or... just refunded straight out?

People might have MLT BPOs for some Module that doesn't exist in this framework for example, would those sit around while this balancing happens and potentially be never added back...?

Also, do you have projected stats for the other races, even if the ships don't exist yet? Like... slot layouts or what-not for Amarr/Minmatar versions of things?

Edit: As to what happens to our old stuff... it's kinda pressing considering you've suggested people "stock up" on MLT BPOs before they're gone and we don't know what will happen to them.

Detailed post and comprehensive opinions.

However, I feel like the limited HP ceiling and the lack of passive resistance will cause a massive amount of tanks to be destroyed by sudden and unexpected long range AV attacks (or railgun strikes either) without any possibility for the pilot to react fast enough.

I predict much more raging among tankers...

EDIT: The map design in this game won't help, since the wide open areas are huge and vehicles are exposed 90% of the time. Sometimes you just want to retreat, but there is no place to hide. Not to mention that tanks will be slower, I guess. Is this confirmed?

Stopped reading at page 20 so apologies for missing anything that already got addressed.

- I want a helicopter

- after you give me my helicopter, I want a chinook that can carry tanks

I'm really happy to see CCP take the positive steps in allowing the community to provide feedback regarding these changes before they are actually implemented. I hope this will become the norm in the future and not the exception.

What does "CPM", stand for?

no, it will be a good thing bc it'll restore the parity between armor and shield tanks. also it'll make only the smart tankers any good, which is what i want.

still gotta see the AV tho.

Hes right

Rail could be king again, i expect it to be king with range anyways but if it hits you with no hardners on you get popped before you know whats happening

If it comes to this rail tanks will be in all matches trying to pick off ppl, 2k damage from 600m how can you close the gap in a blaster or missile? by time you have done your hardners could be off and you die in2-3 shots not accounting AV chasing your ass around like they do now

Add in 400m locking swarms and PG you can get hit easily before you even get to your objective

If tanks are weaker with no hardners on they will die before they reach the objective either by rail or AV spammed from the redline or towers

Take PC matches, maybe tanks could make a difference but i doubt it and if swarms/FG still have the long range capabilitys then tanks will be worse off

Even if you survive and see the AV or rail tank and activate your stuff to survive you are then ****** afterwards

The sizes of the maps are massive, AV currently follows you and can cover the maps we have now, how would a tank like this survive going across 5km map?

5km? Furthest objective I've seen is still less than 700m away.

5km? Furthest objective I've seen is still less than 700m away.

5km by 5km district

Eventually all that red area they will want us to use at some point but that will take time

But even now blaster/missile cannot shoot more than 300m, rail is 600m with new stats and AV yet to see, but assume swarms and FG still have 300m range minimum, it means hitting the redline rail tank is a ***** to get to since you have to get through the AV nade spamming infantry if it still exists

I really hate that dropships will not get any WP for people spawning on them. Drop-uplinks get WP for people spawning on them.

Drop-Uplinks
Can deploy multiple uplinks at the same time.
Cost PG/CPU and an equipment slot to fit

mCRUs
Costs lots of PG/CPU
Only applied to one location (the vehicle)

Logi Dropships
Costs lots more than a drop-uplink
Cost a lot more SP to use than a drop-uplink

CCP, why do you hate dropships so much? The 1minute WP commission that's there 1 after transporting 100m thing is not a good replacement for giving WP for people spawning in. What if your dropship is hovering less than 100m over an objective for people to spawn in and capture it? In that scenario the pilot will not get any WP for helping out the team and would need to fly around then stop periodicly to try to get WP.

If you think its a good way to prevent a person from WP farming, that's the wrong way of looking at it. Also its much easier to WP farm with uplinks than a vehicle with a CRU and far less costly.

helicopter=dropships
chinooks=bolas (RDVs)

love how the best possible tank railgun turret doesn't even do half what a breach proto forge gun does? will that be fixed?

Probably not, because infantry wants a counter to tanks that can destroy them in one shot. Hardly a fair fight.

....its completely fair, don't feel so bad tanks cost so much, its a reality of the game and that's never gonna change..