Making Skills Matter

Now, we come to my personal pet peeve of tanking. With 7 million SP in tank modules alone, let alone the SP in areas that affect all vehicles, I find that a militia tank with no SP investment can still deal the same damage as me, kill in as many shots as me, and take the same amount of damage as me. So let's put some of those unlocking skills to use.

Take large railguns for instance. Currently the stats are:

80GJ Railgun: 1450 damage
80GJ Particle Accelerator: 1667 damage
80GJ Particle Cannon: 1885 damage

Let's nerf them by 15% We end up with:

80GJ Railgun: 1233 damage
80GJ Particle Accelerator: 1417 damage
80GJ Particle Cannon: 1602 damage

Now let's give the large railgun skill a 3% increase in large railgun damage per skill level. Now, in order to get tanks that are as powerful as they are now, you must invest SP in them. There is nothing wrong with this. If you want to be the best with something, you should put the time and SP into it. This is to me, the most needed change. This would separate the FOTM chasers from the actual tankers. It means that I didn't waste my SP skilling up tank skills when I could have gotten the same results from a militia tank and no investment.

Identifying the Tank's Role on the Battlefield

I think this is where most of the tank QQ comes from, and is concurrently the hardest one to figure out. Each suit and vehicle needs to have a place. Assaults should be the general attack suit, with bonuses to racial weapons and dealing damage. Scouts are sneaky suits with bonuses to cloaks. Logi suits are the lifeline of the assaults, with bonuses to equipment. So what role is the tank supposed to play? What job does it perform to help shape the battlefield? I would have them be the kings of AV, with the ability to shred any vehicle, while simultaneously relying on small turrets to defend itself from infantry. However, one problem with this, is that currently there really isn't much for tanks to shoot at. Other than large blaster tanks and the occasional good ADS pilot, what have I to destroy that is a threat to my infantry counterparts? So I hesitate to make the large blaster into an AV weapon, because then tanks will have next to nothing that they need to kill.

But let's go ahead and assume that down the line, CCP releases some new vehicle types for HAVs to shoot at. Now tanks can fufill the role of AV kings. But how to accomplish this? Currently rail tanks are the best example of what to do. They can decimate any vehicle they come across, but it takes lots of skill, and occasionally luck, to kill infantry. So it should be with blaster tanks. Current large blaster stats are

80GJ Blaster: 105 dmg, 0.14 ROF (equates to 428.5 rpm)
80GJ Neutron Blaster: 120.75 dmg, 0.14 ROF
80GJ Ion Cannon: 136.5 dmg, 0.14 ROF

Let's change this to:

80GJ Blaster: 130 dmg, 0.14 ROF (equates to 428.5 rpm)
80GJ Neutron Blaster: 149.5 dmg, 0.14 ROF
80GJ Ion Cannon: 169 dmg, 0.14 ROF

Now they deal more DPS than before. But now we add dispersion to the large blaster. I don't know how to calculate it, but large enough that shots begin missing the broadside of a tank beyond 40m. The objective is to ensure that a dropsuit is small enough that a large blaster cannot consistently apply their DPS to them, while improving their effectiveness against other vehicles, which they are sorely lacking.

All in all, I want my tank to be a great asset to my team. I want to be a powerful force that can help change the tide of battle, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. But I want this power to come at a cost, both SP and ISK wise. I want someone who is trying out tanks to get an idea of how they behave, while those who spend SP in them reap the fruits of their investments. And I want AV to fear me when I roll up with my hardener activated. But I want to fear them should that hardener turn off.

80% is near indestructible...



STD: 40% resistance, 24s, 100s cooldown
ADV:50% resistance, 24s,80s cooldown
PRO:60% resistance, 34s, 60s cooldown


Armor:
STD:28% resistance, Time, 100 seconds
ADV: 35% resistance, Time, 80 seconds cooldwon
PRO:40% resistance, time 60 seconds cooldown


(I dont know much about armor tank module cooldowns and stuff....

Here is the problem:

madrugars make insanely good infantry stompers due to long hardener duration, high dps, and scanners, but are relatively easy to kill compared to gunlogis. pretty balanced, honestly.

gunlogis would be fine IF stacking 3 hardeners was impossible.

A tank with 2 hardeners should be nearly unstoppable. However, when the hardeners turn off, the HAV should be 1-hkd's by proto AV, 2-hkd by std, and 3-hkd by std.

Tankers who are stupid should be weeded out like they used to be. Only the most cautious should be rewarded.

Prior 1.7, you DID NOT ENTER COMBAT without every active module you had running because without them, you didn't last 2 seconds against any reasonable AV threat.

Also, I have no problem with tanks being cheap if they perform as such.

A 75k isk tank should go down to av just like a Frontline suit goes down to a rifle of a similar meta level. On the opposite spectrum, a GOOD tank should cost 600,000 ISK, but no more than that.


TLDR:

Hardened tanks are fine.

Perma-hardening should be impossible.

Unhardened tanks should go down like they did in 1.6.

[*] Cheap tanks should perform badly.

I'll keep this short as it turns out my next video contains my full reply. And I don't mean this in a nasty way; but everything you suggest in the OP (post 1; not the continuation) will not help at all and will in-fact make things worse. I can't type up a response as it's way too much. But Suggesting an 80% resistance module shows a limited understanding of the mechanics of the vehicle damage model. I almost stopped reading as soon as I saw that.

That said, I do approve of the effort and thought you put to this, I just think you missed the mark by a long, long way.