I think proto swarms are actually right where they need to be.

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....

a well built tank can still beat a tank with 80% without dmg mods however AV is another story

Haven't touched my Proto Swarms in 3 months.
They're utterly useless at Proficiency III.

Would you like to borrow them for a week or two?
Maybe give 'em a try so you can speak from an informed position?

Let me know.

Everyone is bitching about tanks, and rightfully so. Tanks as it stands are slaughtering everything left and right. This is as it should be, TO A POINT. A tank should be powerful and deadly, otherwise they have no use. They should not be so cheap as to lose 4 and be able to turn a profit. I should also not be able to get the same effectiveness from militia to proto modules. This is part of why tanks are hard to kill except by other tanks. For no SP investment, and not even 10% the ISK investment, I can run a tank that rivals a 10 million SP invested 500k tank. This is what cause them to be imbalanced. Because everyone and their mother can run them so easily and so cheaply, with almost no difference in performance from militia to proto. Thus the tank spam we have currently

Imagine, for instance, that the militia RR did the same damage as the proto RR, and the only difference was in the charge up time of the rifle. Why would anyone run the proto rifle when the militia one does the same damage for a tenth the price and a third the fitting cost? So I've come up with some ideas to make a proto tank as powerful as all tanks are now, while making militia tanks weaker, and giving AV some way to counter a tank either militia or proto.

Changing Active Modules

Currently, the only improvement in modules as you ascend the tiers is the cooldown time. As a tanker, this means that a militia hardener is just as effective as my proto hardener, so I gain no advantage beyond less downtime running my proto hardener. This should not be. I should have an advantage running my proto gear against militia gear. So let's redo modules to improve in efficiency, while retaining the same uptime and cooldown as you go through the tiers.

So currently, shield hardeners have these stats:

Basic Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 100s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 80s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 60s cooldown

I would have them changed to this:

Basic Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 70% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 80% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown

This gives my proto hardener a distinct advantage over a militia one (I can take more damage) while emphasizing the "wave of opportunity" concept CCP has for vehicles. It also means that even if I run 3 hardeners at max skills, there will still be a period of time where hardeners are down. If need be, perhaps even a cap on the number of modules of one type that can be fitted.

Tank Prices

Pre-1.7, tanks were insanely expensive, with some tanks breaking the 1,000,000 ISK barrier, while being annihilated by a swarm fit that costs about 150k. This was utterly imbalanced, and it is good that CCP changed them. However, they also reduced their price, and this is a large part of the reason that they are spammed as they are now. Currently, a militia tank sits at around 60k with no extra mods. This tank can easily kill a tank that has invested 500k into his fit. So let's change the base hull price, and slightly reduce the price of modules to compensate. This way, a militia tank can remain powerful, but it costs money to access it. This, along with the module improvements described in the previous section, mean that spamming militia tanks is not as effective as skilling into them and fitting them with good modules.

Infantry Counters - AV
So now we get to what should and should not kill a tank. Currently, swarms have horrid damage propagation through the tiers, with proto swarms being the only viable counter to a militia tank. I think proto swarms are actually right where they need to be. An armor tank must flee them even with hardeners up, and a shield tank can resist them and keep on repping. So let's then bring standard and advanced swarms up to proto's level. Current swarm stats are:

Swarm Launcher: 220 dpm (damage per missile), 4 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 5 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles.

Let's bring them to:
Swarm Launcher: 200 dpm (damage per missile), 6 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 235dpm, 6 missiles.

This makes them useful at all levels, while still conferring advantage to using proto.

Forge guns will be taking a huge hit in 1.8, losing 15% damage to shield at prof 5 and losing half their power from damage mods. To be honest, I find this alright for the most part. An unhardened tank will still die in 4 shots to a forge gun. However, this also means that hardened tanks, especially shield, will be able to sit there and laugh as they try to kill them. Therefore, if CCP really does want them to be mainly anti-armor damage, we should emphasize that. Give forge guns a 5% increase in armor damage, up from the current 3%. This will allow them to deal more damage to armor tanks, while being less effective vs. shields. There is now a tradeoff. a prof 5 forge gunner will lose effectiveness against shield tanks, but subsequently gain effectiveness against armor tanks. This can also be applied to the swarm launcher and plasma cannon (a 5% increase in damage to their respective damage profile) as well as whatever Amarr AV is released down the line.

I have to disagree with that part where you state that shield based vehicles should be able to resist and repair through a vehicle.

To begin, this throws balance completely out of the window, because it requires a dedicated AVer to spend an outrageous amount of SP to remain viable against both vehicle types.

It costs 5,907,480 SP to max out the skills for the Swarm Launcher. Take the SP and double it because youGÇÖd need an Anti-Shield AV weapon to remain viable as an AVer. Now weGÇÖre looking at a whopping 11,814,960 SP. And thatGÇÖs just for the weapons alone. Throw in some accessories such as Weapon Upgrades and now weGÇÖre looking at 12,436,800 SP. This is far too much SP for a role that is only useful when someone brings out a vehicle; which wonGÇÖt be a guarantee once they are no longer broken.

Some could argue, well vehicle users have to spend that much SP, so why canGÇÖt you? Well for one, a vehicle user can use their vehicle at any point and time, and still have use for it. While there are some maps that limit how useful a vehicle is, they can still manage to be of some service with it. AV on the other hand, relies on the enemy team fielding a vehicle, which as I stated earlier Is not a guarantee, and it wonGÇÖt even be close to one once HAVs are balanced. Half of your SP for a role that has only 1 use, and its use will sometimes not be used at all? That doesnGÇÖt sound right.

Furthermore, there is still only one Anti-Shield AV weapon in the entire game, and that is the Plasma Cannon. If you make it to where Anti-Armor AV weapons are useless against shielded HAVs, then everyone will flock to the Gunnlogi, as the only effective way to destroy them (using conventional AV) would be either the Plasma Cannon (which isnGÇÖt effective at all), or another HAV. I donGÇÖt believe I need to explain why making HAVs the best or only counter to HAVs is a bad idea (at least in its current state) and how it is bad game design.

Awaiting your next post.

Missiles tanks only good at taking out Armor tanks, Massdrivers only good at taking out armor. What makes swarms different?

BTW- A foregegun is more Anti Shield tank Armour. An armor tank can rep through a FG hit at 250 armor a sec while when you hit a shield vehicle, you completely stop the shield recharge and you can keep the recharge stopped even with a Breach FG. Breach FG is one of the most useless things to use on an armor tank because they can rep right through the damage.

There is a mistake in your post. Forge Guns actually have a +10% modifier towards armor.

I have to disagree with that part where you state that shield based vehicles should be able to resist and repair through a vehicle.

To begin, this throws balance completely out of the window, because it requires a dedicated AVer to spend an outrageous amount of SP to remain viable against both vehicle types.

It costs 5,907,480 SP to max out the skills for the Swarm Launcher. Take the SP and double it because youGÇÖd need an Anti-Shield AV weapon to remain viable as an AVer. Now weGÇÖre looking at a whopping 11,814,960 SP. And thatGÇÖs just for the weapons alone. Throw in some accessories such as Weapon Upgrades and now weGÇÖre looking at 12,436,800 SP. This is far too much SP for a role that is only useful when someone brings out a vehicle; which wonGÇÖt be a guarantee once they are no longer broken.

Some could argue, well vehicle users have to spend that much SP, so why canGÇÖt you? Well for one, a vehicle user can use their vehicle at any point and time, and still have use for it. While there are some maps that limit how useful a vehicle is, they can still manage to be of some service with it. AV on the other hand, relies on the enemy team fielding a vehicle, which as I stated earlier Is not a guarantee, and it wonGÇÖt even be close to one once HAVs are balanced. Half of your SP for a role that has only 1 use, and its use will sometimes not be used at all? That doesnGÇÖt sound right.

Furthermore, there is still only one Anti-Shield AV weapon in the entire game, and that is the Plasma Cannon. If you make it to where Anti-Armor AV weapons are useless against shielded HAVs, then everyone will flock to the Gunnlogi, as the only effective way to destroy them (using conventional AV) would be either the Plasma Cannon (which isnGÇÖt effective at all), or another HAV. I donGÇÖt believe I need to explain why making HAVs the best or only counter to HAVs is a bad idea (at least in its current state) and how it is bad game design.

Awaiting your next post.

Oh before I forget, I think 60% shield resistance should be at proto level while 40% is militia/standard. 60% is too much resistance for no SP while 80% at proto is game-breaking. And keep the current cooldowns. 45 seconds of cooldown is long enough at max skills for proto.

Haven't touched my Proto Swarms in 3 months.
They're utterly useless at Proficiency III.

Would you like to borrow them for a week or two?
Maybe give 'em a try so you can speak from an informed position?

Let me know.

You're a tanker? I've never seen you before. Did you pick up tanking when 1.7 came out?

You're a tanker? I've never seen you before. Did you pick up tanking when 1.7 came out?

To be honest, IGÇÖm a bit weary with increasing the price by too much. While I do agree that you should not be able to lose 4-5 HAVs and turn a profit, I believe every role should be able to turn a reasonable profit. If we made HAVs cost about 900k ISK, what would happen when they are lost? YouGÇÖd be forced to run another role to grind ISK, and are effectively locked out of a role that you spent a majority of your SP into.

I agree that there needs to be a consequence for loosing a tank, but lets not make it to where only the wealthy and elite few can afford to run HAVs consistently.

[...]

that's a lot of numbers which you have no means of testing of verifying in any way shape or form.

at a glance your hardener numbers look to high, blaster accuracy looks too low (40m, my scout has a passive scan of around 40m), swarms need a fix(see judge's video). buffing rail damage? no. just no.

regards Ko6, chromo tanker

Maybe you shouldn't shoot at shiny shield tanks.

Everyone is bitching about tanks, and rightfully so. Tanks as it stands are slaughtering everything left and right. This is as it should be, TO A POINT. A tank should be powerful and deadly, otherwise they have no use. They should not be so cheap as to lose 4 and be able to turn a profit. I should also not be able to get the same effectiveness from militia to proto modules. This is part of why tanks are hard to kill except by other tanks. For no SP investment, and not even 10% the ISK investment, I can run a tank that rivals a 10 million SP invested 500k tank. This is what cause them to be imbalanced. Because everyone and their mother can run them so easily and so cheaply, with almost no difference in performance from militia to proto. Thus the tank spam we have currently

Imagine, for instance, that the militia RR did the same damage as the proto RR, and the only difference was in the charge up time of the rifle. Why would anyone run the proto rifle when the militia one does the same damage for a tenth the price and a third the fitting cost? So I've come up with some ideas to make a proto tank as powerful as all tanks are now, while making militia tanks weaker, and giving AV some way to counter a tank either militia or proto.

Changing Active Modules

Currently, the only improvement in modules as you ascend the tiers is the cooldown time. As a tanker, this means that a militia hardener is just as effective as my proto hardener, so I gain no advantage beyond less downtime running my proto hardener. This should not be. I should have an advantage running my proto gear against militia gear. So let's redo modules to improve in efficiency, while retaining the same uptime and cooldown as you go through the tiers.

So currently, shield hardeners have these stats:

Basic Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 100s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 80s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 60s cooldown

I would have them changed to this:

Basic Shield Hardener: 60% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
Enhanced Shield Hardener: 70% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown
Complex Shield Hardener: 80% resistance, 24s uptime, 120s cooldown

This gives my proto hardener a distinct advantage over a militia one (I can take more damage) while emphasizing the "wave of opportunity" concept CCP has for vehicles. It also means that even if I run 3 hardeners at max skills, there will still be a period of time where hardeners are down. If need be, perhaps even a cap on the number of modules of one type that can be fitted.

Tank Prices

Pre-1.7, tanks were insanely expensive, with some tanks breaking the 1,000,000 ISK barrier, while being annihilated by a swarm fit that costs about 150k. This was utterly imbalanced, and it is good that CCP changed them. However, they also reduced their price, and this is a large part of the reason that they are spammed as they are now. Currently, a militia tank sits at around 60k with no extra mods. This tank can easily kill a tank that has invested 500k into his fit. So let's change the base hull price, and slightly reduce the price of modules to compensate. This way, a militia tank can remain powerful, but it costs money to access it. This, along with the module improvements described in the previous section, mean that spamming militia tanks is not as effective as skilling into them and fitting them with good modules.

Infantry Counters - AV
So now we get to what should and should not kill a tank. Currently, swarms have horrid damage propogation through the tiers, with proto swarms being the only viable counter to a militia tank. I think proto swarms are actually right where they need to be. An armor tank must flee them even with hardeners up, and a shield tank can resist them and keep on repping. So let's then bring standard and advanced swarms up to proto's level. Current swarm stats are:

Swarm Launcher: 220 dpm (damage per missile), 4 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 5 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles.

Let's bring them to:
Swarm Launcher: 200 dpm (damage per missile), 6 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 235dpm, 6 missiles.

This makes them useful at all levels, while still conferring advantage to using proto.

Forge guns will be taking a huge hit in 1.8, losing 15% damage to shield at prof 5 and losing half their power from damage mods. To be honest, I find this alright for the most part. An unhardened tank will still die in 4 shots to a forge gun. However, this also means that hardened tanks, especially shield, will be able to sit there and laugh as they try to kill them. Therefore, if CCP really does want them to be mainly anti-armor damage, we should emphasize that. Give forge guns a 5% increase in armor damage, up from the current 3%. This will allow them to deal more damage to armor tanks, while being less effective vs. shields. There is now a tradeoff. a prof 5 forge gunner will lose effectiveness against shield tanks, but subsequently gain effectiveness against armor tanks. This can also be applied to the swarm launcher and plasma cannon (a 5% increase in damage to their respective damage profile) as well as whatever Amarr AV is released down the line.

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 like it, although you won't be able to tell the difference between standard swarms and proto swarms before you get hit. Also, will they still travel at the same speeds, or will they increase with cost? Or will that be the new assault swarms. I don't see many people using assault swarm launchers, so maybe if you gave them an increased flight speed, they would become more common. Anyways, +1 for the original topic