Fox Gaden wrote:
How about bringing back the +5% per level shield and armour skills, then nerf vehicles by 25% health, so you have to have full Shield and Armour upgrade skills to be as powerful as they are now. Then tanks run by people with no skills would be 25% weaker and could be killed by AV much more easily, while at the same time not penalizing pilots who specialise in vehicles once they have their skills up.
You believe having to dump a million plus SP to make something like it was before would not be penalizing pilots who specialize in vehicles? I disagree there. It is the same reason why Pilot Suits are not a great idea. It either makes vehicles monstrously powerful (bad), makes vehicles suck until they max both a Suit and their vehicles (bad), or gives such a small benefit that it is not worth putting 2.8 million SP to max them (bad).
I disagree with making Militia Tanks Standard. People need to know what they are getting into before they dump about a million SP to just be able to use a Basic Tank with a Basic Turret. It is the same reason why there should be a Militia Rail Rifle, Flaylock, Combat Rifle, etc. What can be done is to make those Militia Tanks less powerful overall. That is something that makes tanks run by people with no skills weaker while at the same time not penalizing pilots who specialize in vehicles. There are a few ways:
1. Militia Tanks reduce the effectiveness of all modules in the Tank by 20%. That means a Hardener that would grant 40% reduction instead only does 32%, a Repairer is gives 100 armor a second is only 80 a second, and a plate that would give 1500 health is only 1200. It still lets a pilot go "this is what I would want in my Tank after I put the SP" while making Militia Tanks weaker.
2. Reduce the effectiveness of Militia modules. The only difference between Basic, Advanced, and Complex vehicle modules is the cooldown, which is interesting as it doesn't make a Tank with more SP unstoppable over a Tank with less; they are just in a weakened state for a shorter period of time. However, it also means that a Militia Damage Mod is just as good in bursts as a Complex one. If the Militia modules were weakened by a certain percentage across the board, Militia Tanks would be made less sturdy while still letting new Tankers understand what each module does and how it works.
3. Just lower the PG/CPU of Tanks and modify the PG/CPU of Militia modules. This is probably what CCP will do but it isn't a great fix. A Sica with a Militia PG and CPU extender will still be the same.