First, some math.

Swarms do 220 per missile. x6 missiles at proto is 1320 damage. This is without proficiency or any damage mods. I can do math vs hardeners if someone wants, but the point of hardeners is to severely hinder AV, and as such AV should not be expecting to destroy a tank when hardeners are up unless they bring lots of friends with them. As well, I am doing calculations based on a single magazine of swarms. Swarmers can of course reload and continue firing until their ammo reserves are exhausted.

Now, let's see how much one magazine of swarms would damage an unmodded sica/gunnlogi. Shield has 20% resistance to swarms. 1320x0.8 gives us 1056 per volley on the shield. x2 volleys is 2112 damage. 2650-2112 is 538 shield left. third volley gets tricky. The first part of the damage has a 20% resistance to swarms. 538x1.2 gives us 645.6. In other words, taking the bonus into account, swarms must deal 645.6 damage to remove the remaining 538 damage. 1320-646 (rounding for easy numbers) is 674 remaining damage. Now this damage gets a 20% bonus due to being in armor. 674x1.2 gives us 808.8 damage. 809 rounding. 1500-809 is 691 armor left.

Now, the soma/madrugar. Again, assuming no mods on the tank, and no damage mods or proficiency on the swarm. First, we have the 1200 shield to chew through. With a 20% resistance to swarms, 1320 damage would take out 1056 shield. This leaves 144 shield. 144x1.2 means a swarm must deal 173 damage to finish off the shield. 1320-173 means the swarm now has 1147 damage with which to hurt the armor. This remaining damage gets a 20% bonus vs armor. 1147x1.2 is 1376 damage. 4000-1376 is 2624 armor left. Now the final volley. 1320x1.2 is 1584. 2624-1584 is 1040 armor left.

As you can see, the problem is not the damage. A little in proficiency and the tanks would be destroyed easily. The issue is the application of that damage. Tanks can easily escape a swarmer before all the missiles can be hit. THIS IS THE ISSUE. Swarms vs dropships and vs LAVs is pretty solid right now. Tanks are the aberration. Tanks need to be slowed down. 25% seems a good starting point.

The other issue, and the one that more complicated to handle, is that we are talking proto swarms against standard vehicles. A lot of the imbalance is because of this. Pre-1.7, tanks were easy fodder for anyone running proto swarms. 2 mill skillpoints could wreck 20 million SP tankers, and this made tankers mad. Now we have people who have invested nothing into tanks being able to avoid people who have invested millions of SP into swarms. I can't really see a solution while we have proto AV and not proto vehicles. Tiericide on AV and vehicle mods would be a good starting point. But that's a whole other can of worms.

All in all, swarms are not as weaksauce as everyone complains about. They can kill a tank, albeit after some sp investment in proficiency and damage mods. The issue is that tanks can escape from them too fast. if we slow down tanks, swarmers will find that their weapon is suddenly much more deadly than they previously realized. And tanks will find that fitting their vehicles properly means a whole lot more, since one magazine of proto swarms can almost kill them.

Yes, our proto swarms that have the same damage output as militia swarms last built are perfectly fine against unfit militia tanks

Again, the issue isn't damage, but the application of such. These numbers are to give a general idea. I won't run numbers for all possible combinations of Swarms vs tanks because that'd take forever. But they aren't as bad as people make out. The issue, again, is that tanks can easily escape that damage.

As an infantry example, the DPS of HMGs before the hotfix was perfect. The reason it suffered was the application of its dps, which was hotfixed.

Maths good, your logic based on a lack of experience though is profound. Without all the maths, heres how you know its weaksauce, 10 tanks on the field and none get killed by swarms. Simple maths. Now all your clip size and prof is im sure correct, but the swarmer will very often not have time to get all of these away much less reload due to the fact that he has to be within 100 meters, infantry that immediately kill you, the tank will target you and wisely so, and if all else fails they will out run your swarms, math doesnt account for practicality.

I don't think your math is accounting for all the factors. Not many tanks worth worrying about would be running without reps for armor, so though you said no mods, you should at least account for the 100hp per second the lowest mod gets you. If you want to talk about mod less tanks, then keep the swarm numbers to militia.

So with that in mind, two questions.

Question 1. How much shield and armor can recharge/regen between volleys? Then Reloads?

Question 2. How much distance can be put between a tank and a merc firing swarms accounting for your proposed speed reduction

Question 3. How many volleys do you think a merc with a swarm launcher can realistically get off before that tank can escape his firing range?

Fact is it takes multiple proto swarm volleys to take out a militia LAV at the moment, do you think there is a problem with that?

I'd love to see a test of how many volleys it takes for a proto swarm to kill and unfitted Sica (just sitting stationary) and a Soma fitted with 1 Rep. I bet it's more than the math you have up says.

1 mil ISK to the person who puts this video up first, showing both militia and proto swarms.

I don't think your math is accounting for all the factors. Not many tanks worth worrying about would be running without reps for armor, so though you said no mods, you should at least account for the 100hp per second the lowest mod gets you. If you want to talk about mod less tanks, then keep the swarm numbers to militia.

So with that in mind, two questions.

Question 1. How much shield and armor can recharge/regen between volleys? Then Reloads?

Question 2. How much distance can be put between a tank and a merc firing swarms accounting for your proposed speed reduction

Question 3. How many volleys do you think a merc with a swarm launcher can realistically get off before that tank can escape his firing range?

Fact is it takes multiple proto swarm volleys to take out a militia LAV at the moment, do you think there is a problem with that?

I'd love to see a test of how many volleys it takes for a proto swarm to kill and unfitted Sica (just sitting stationary) and a Soma fitted with 1 Rep. I bet it's more than the math you have up says.

1 mil ISK to the person who puts this video up first, showing both militia and proto swarms.

That's what my point is. Tanks can too easily avoid swarms. The problem is swarms cannot apply their dps to a tank.

I don't know if this was made clear in the initial post - but I take your point (but as non-AV infantry, so make of that what you will). Tanks can just clear they battlefield if they get in any trouble, they are like an unholy hybrid of rhino and field mouse.

And that is just scary.

All swarms really need is a sp refund so we can pretend they don't exist like flaylock pistols.

Edit: Also assuming tanks won't have any mods. What are you? The representative of the special tank Olympics?

No one runs a tank without mods out of the battle academy.

That's what my point is. Tanks can too easily avoid swarms. The problem is swarms cannot apply their dps to a tank.

Answer 1: On a Sica, the shield delay is 4 sec. Swarm relock spped is 0.3 seconds. You can easily launch all 3 swarms before the shield begins its recharge. Once you need to reload, the shield will have been depleted, which means you have about 9-12 seconds to reload and continue firing. Shield regen therefore is not a factor. On the Soma, the 100hp/s rep would rep 200 armor if you took two seconds to get all swarm volleys off in 2 sec.

Answer 2: This one is tricky. A tank needs some speed in order to get to where it is needed in a timely manner. But it also needs to be slow enough that swarms can apply their damage to it. Perhaps a combination of tank speed nerf and a swarm speed buff would be perfect.

Answer 3: This is another tricky one. How far away is the swarmer when he begins firing? What direction is the tank moving? Toward him or away from him? I'm not sure how to answer.

A militia LAV is in a good place against swarms, because his tank comes from his speed. It would take one, maybe two swarms to down most any LAV. The LAV therefore avoids damage through speed.

EDIT: I will gladly sacrifice some of my militia tanks to swarm launcher testing if someone is willing to make a video of it to post here. I have no video recording equipment nor the knowledge of what to do, or I'd do it myself.

True/False. I killed a Maddy yesterday that had no hardner and an advanced rep. I'm assuming dual damage mod in the highs. The lows.. No clue. It had mods, but not good ones.

Second case. Noob tanks with ABs.

I don't think your math is accounting for all the factors. Not many tanks worth worrying about would be running without reps for armor, so though you said no mods, you should at least account for the 100hp per second the lowest mod gets you. If you want to talk about mod less tanks, then keep the swarm numbers to militia.

So with that in mind, two questions.

Question 1. How much shield and armor can recharge/regen between volleys? Then Reloads?

Question 2. How much distance can be put between a tank and a merc firing swarms accounting for your proposed speed reduction

Question 3. How many volleys do you think a merc with a swarm launcher can realistically get off before that tank can escape his firing range?

Fact is it takes multiple proto swarm volleys to take out a militia LAV at the moment, do you think there is a problem with that?

I'd love to see a test of how many volleys it takes for a proto swarm to kill and unfitted Sica (just sitting stationary) and a Soma fitted with 1 Rep. I bet it's more than the math you have up says.

1 mil ISK to the person who puts this video up first, showing both militia and proto swarms.

Pro SL can take down my Gunnlogi if they are used in a team of 3, I dont bug out of their engagement range and my harderner is on cooldown cycle.

One can argue 3 guys to kill a HAV, fair play, however if my hardener is up, the deal is off. One way to offset the hardener is to give the SL more targeting range, which I completely agree with.

A Pro Maddy with dual reps probably wont be in any kind of realistic danger from Swarms at any point, dual reps on HAV need a look at as they are insanely powerful, I wouldnt however say thats a call for a dmg buff for SL, just better planning from AV runners.

However Pro Maddy with blaster and the deal is off lol.

SL needs its 400m range back for sure, dmg is ok imo. Blasters need a nerf via greatly increasing their PG requirement, in line with their armor pg reductions, so maddys can only go as a pure slayer or a pure tanker, at this time they have zero compromise.

Again, it seems a lot of the issue is proto swarms and standard tanks. I'm for a swarm buff, don't get me wrong, but not a buff to its raw damage. I would also see a hardener limit, and have all hardeners have the same long cooldown, to emphasize the wave of opportunity concept.

ratamaq, I sent you an in game mail.

I pointed this out in the OP. Proto AV vs Standard vehicles is going to cause imbalances. Honestly, a simple solution might be making the current proto swarms into standard swarms, and removing advanced and proto swarms. Then when advanced and proto vehicles are introduced, we can bring back advanced and proto av, balanced off of the new standard swarm launcher.

No, the problem is ABSOLUTELY damage. The fact that you had to use Proto Swarms as the baseline for your argument is as much proof of that as anything else. STD and ADV swarms are, in most cases, not even worth mentioning on the battlefield and with the way that Swarms scale as you level them up, even at ADV you'll have trouble taking out any sort of LAV let alone being a threat to any Militia tank someone takes 2 seconds to call out on the field.

1. AV needs damage done to vehicles reflected as a WP bonus to further incentive their continued use.

2. Damage for STD/ADV swarms needs to be raised SIGNIFICANTLY in order to compete with the proto variant. There is a MASSIVE 50% bonus to damage going from STD -> PRO, this is unprecedented when it comes to literally any other weapon in the game. Toss the +1 Swarm per tier thing and just raise base damage of the 4 base swarms as you level up, keep PRO where it's at in terms of overall damage and make STD and ADV much closer to that base.

If by that you mean standard swarms would fire 6 missle per shot then I would agree, as then the isk cost would be well worth throwing 5 av swarmers (And temporarily cripple your team against the 13-15 infantry vs. your 11 infantry) at them if each suit costs 8k each.

Again, the issue isn't damage, but the application of such. These numbers are to give a general idea. I won't run numbers for all possible combinations of Swarms vs tanks because that'd take forever. But they aren't as bad as people make out. The issue, again, is that tanks can easily escape that damage.

As an infantry example, the DPS of HMGs before the hotfix was perfect. The reason it suffered was the application of its dps, which was hotfixed.

All an increased cool down would do would have the tanker recall instead of waiting for cool down. The duration needs to be shorter. Tanks don't leave the redline with their hardeners on and only stay out as long as they're active. They activate them IF and WHEN they start getting hit by AV. At that point they have the length of their hardener to neutralize that threat. Only if the hardener goes down and the threat is still present do they need to retreat. The rest of the time they can just keep their figure on the god mode button without using it.

I understand what you're getting at and would agree if not for the passive reps. There are times when tanks just seem to passively rep through my 2 clips of ammo before moving on. No hardeners are required for a tank to ignore a SL.

What bugs me about the SL is that they are too easily countered. All that it takes is a hardener or a repper. Just about every tank runs at least one of these things. I've sat there with 2 other blueberries just desperately pelting a tank with SLs while it sat killing others with hardeners and reps. This is unacceptable. It should not be "one module to counter one infantry". Right now a tank's survival is not necessarily dependent on the pilot's skill when it comes to AV. It all comes down to whether or not the SL pack can be within 100 meters when it's hardener runs out.

The situation you outlined is militia tank, unfitted, sitting there taking a beating from a proto SL. This never really happens in practice so I don't really concern myself with how quickly I could or couldn't destroy it.

I appreciate you taking the time to run some numbers and I realize you acknowledged that you only ran them for this scenario. I would suggest someone takes this to the next level and includes a module of some sort (rep/hardener) as this is the case that people see most often. To base an opinion about AV based on a scenario like this would be like basing an opinion of the flaylock on a situation in which someone stands still to take the direct impact shots.

The point of hardeners is to neutralize AV damage. The issue is tanks can run multiple hardeners to bypass the cooldowns. Limiting one hardener per vehicle, and having the same uptime and cooldown throughout the tiers, would go a long way to fixing this.

So if you were to rephrase you OP, swarms damage is fine if all the following are true:

STD gets 6 missiles
Cool downs take twice as long
Vehicles can't be called in for 2 minutes after return (which wouldn't work because you call before you recall)
Only one hardener per vehicle.
Reduce tank speed

Is that the base we are working from now?

That's what my point is. Tanks can too easily avoid swarms. The problem is swarms cannot apply their dps to a tank.