Kallas Hallytyr
Skullbreakers
351
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Posted - 2014.02.15 18:30:00 -
[1] - Quote
Currently, we have two vehicle types: Caldari, a shield tanking race; and Gallente, an armour tanking race. The two kinds of tanking are relatively balanced with one another: shields have a low hit point ceiling with great resistances for a short period of time and a fast regeneration; armour has a high hit point ceiling and can last for longer in a combat situation but takes longer to recover out of combat.
These two forms of survivability are effective in their own right, but there are some issues I have:
1) Shields have a high regeneration rate, which is part of their style, but when Hardeners are active they are essentially immune to lower damage weaponry even AV weaponry like Swarm Launchers, small Railguns and even large Blasters.
Essentially, the issue is that some anti-vehicle weaponry is unable to threaten shield vehicles despite their nature because of the high threshold on regeneration cancelling. A simple solution would be to reduce the regeneration cancelling value down to something like 500 damage within a certain time-frame (1-2 seconds, for example.) This change would allow lower threat AV weapons (Swarm Launchers, for example) to still threaten a shield vehicle by keeping it's threat window open, because it pauses their shield regeneration.
This, I feel, would be reasonable, since currently a shield vehicle can entirely ignore Swarm Launchers unless they are accompanied by more powerful weaponry.
2) HAVs, in general, are too fast. This has little to do with armour or shields specifically, but the speed of HAVs in general is an issue in AV/V balance and ties in somewhat with my third point.
3) Armour Repairers are incredibly effective. At the upper limit they are repairing almost two hundred HP per second. While this is not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, it is, however, an infringement on the effectiveness of shield tanking.
Let's have a look at infantry repairers/shields for an example (using rough numbers for the most part):
- Infantry shields have a delay of around 4-8 seconds/6-10 depleted: vehicles have a delay of 4-8 seconds/6-12 depleted.
- Infantry shields have a regeneration rate between 20-50: vehicle shields have a regeneration rate between 100-250.
- Infantry shields range from around 120-500 base (light-heavy shield suits): vehicle shields range from around 1500-2700 base.
From these - rough - numbers, we see that the transition from infantry-vehicle shields is fairly reasonable: the increase is, as a close approximation, about five times from infantry base to a relative vehicle base (light suit -> LAV; heavy suit -> HAV, for example.) Base shield HP adheres to this, regeneration is roughly this (though a little less) and the delays are roughly equivalent.
- Infantry repairers range from 2-6 per second (skill inclusive): heavy vehicle repairers range from 100-180 per second (skill inclusive): light vehicle repairers range from 25-94 per second (skill inclusive.)
- Infantry armour ranges from 120-500 base: vehicle armour ranges from 2100-4000 base.
- Infantry armour plates range from 80-140: vehicle armour plates range from 400-1900.
From these - rough - numbers, we see that the transition from infantry-vehicle armour is unreasonable: the increase is inconsistent.
Armour HP bases are roughly four times for LAVs/Dropships and eight times for HAVs; these seem reasonable increases.
Amour Plates are roughly five times as effective for LAVs/Dropships and more than ten times as effective for HAVs. More to the point, an infantry armour plate equates to, at most, a ~20% increase in armour, whereas an HAV's armour plate can equate to an almost 50% increase. This is an unreasonable amount.
Repairers are roughly twenty times as effective as an infantry version. This is entirely unreasonable. Even the weakest light repairer is roughly five times as effective as the most effective infantry module: while this is, itself, fine the difference between light and heavy repairers is immense. The difference between a light and a heavy repairer is incredible. An infantry armour repairer will, at most, represent a 5% per second regeneration (complex on an untanked light); a light vehicle repairer can represent a rough 3% per second regeneration; a heavy vehicle repairer can represent a rough 4% per second regeneration.
What I'm trying to waffle on about is that the armour tanking mechanics are not quite what they should be, considering the intention of shields vs armour. Shields are supposed to be fast to recover but fast to exhaust: armour is supposed to be slow to recover but slow to exhaust. The above is an (undoubtedly messy and poor) explanation that armour tanking is incredibly quick despite the intention stated by CCP previously.
I believe that the following changes would greatly enhance the armour/shield distinction:
- Increase Vehicle Armour HP base values by 40-50%: this means that they will, naturally, have a harder to exhaust primary tank method. This would mean that a base Soma/Madrugar would have around 6000 armour; base Grimsnes' around 3100; and a base Methana around 3700.
- Reduce all Vehicle Repairer module effectiveness by roughly 40%. This would take Light Repairers to a range of 15-56 and Heavy Repairers to a range of 60-108.
I believe these changes would have three effects:
- It would allow armour vehicles to soak more damage over a longer period of time: they would be less vulnerable to sudden bursts of firepower.
- It would reduce the effectiveness of armour vehicles' ability to absorb sustained fire because of their reduced regeneration potential.
- It would increase the tactical value of supply depots as staging points for vehicles: either as a target for destruction by shield vehicle users or as a repair point for armour vehicle users.
I'm certain these aren't perfect solutions, and more likely than not they're probably imperfect conclusions. |