The lack of scaling gives them pretty poor utility for Sentinels relative to Scouts, and is partially responsible for the current meta of bricked Scouts.

I'm sleepy so I'll cut to the chase; rather than a plate/ext offering a flat bonus, why not have them offer a bonus based on a percentage of your base HP?

That way armour suits tank armour better than shield suits, which tank shields better than armour suits do.

At the moment this mightn't be a desirable change owing to the absence of valuable high-slot mods for armour tankers ( limited to shield extenders for the time being), but once modules are added/moved, I think this'd be a good way of balancing the frames.

Obviously the proportions would have to be small enough that Sentinel HP doesn't skyrocket, but large enough that Assaults and Logis get a meaningful bonus. The small base totals of Scouts would make plates far less desirable and implicitly encourage more 'scoutly' play.

Alternatively you could keep the flat HP, but increase heavy and medium frames PG to higher levels, with heavies having the most, and then introduce different sized plates/extenders that take more PG (and maybe CPU) the heavier they are.

Tanks do a similar thing, with 60mm and 120mm plates.
Putting on a heavy plate is difficult on a dropship but doable (though you sacrifice a lot by doing so), and I'm not sure if it's possible on LAV's because I never tried.

This is called energized adaptive plating.

I don't know what that is.

It is a plate in EVE that instead of increasing raw HP it increase your damage resistance by a flat amount, 15%-18% TECH-I 20% at TECH-II. It has low fitting costs and no speed penalty.

True shield tank takes both High and low slots.

True armor tank only takes low slots.

This would have to change. first.

Armor takes less CPU and PG to fit.....

Shield suits have wayyyy to little CPU to fit proper shield tanks, with good weapon combinations.

Armor needs to be Heavily Power Grid Intensive. Meaning it needs to take a Crap ton of PG to fit. And armor based suits need the extra PG On their suits to cater to that.

Shields are already catered to CPU, some modules not even taking any PG to fit.

All items would need a More balanced CPU and PG Suit requirement need As to be balanced going on either a Shield or Armor based suit.

True shield tank takes both High and low slots.

True armor tank only takes low slots.

This would have to change. first.

Armor takes less CPU and PG to fit.....

Shield suits have wayyyy to little CPU to fit proper shield tanks, with good weapon combinations.

Armor needs to be Heavily Power Grid Intensive. Meaning it needs to take a Crap ton of PG to fit. And armor based suits need the extra PG On their suits to cater to that.

Shields are already catered to CPU, some modules not even taking any PG to fit.

All items would need a More balanced CPU and PG Suit requirement need As to be balanced going on either a Shield or Armor based suit.

A true shield tank can work just fine without low slots.
You can just push it that much further.
Armor has no choice if it wants to push itself forward or get some utility modules.


This is true in EVE too, shields have both low and medium slots, while armor only has low.

With the way extenders are now? and Raw eHP > Regeneration yes. Specially with Extenders penalty Canceling out some of the regulator use... Making it even less effective for the fitting cost..

Other Dust Builds, Where Shields was the main choice of tank... Instead of both armor and shield.. In order to have a competitive shield tank it took low slots for Regulators as you know...

Shield suits have limited low slots... So it was a choice of utility or a competitive shield tank... No different...

Armor suits only loose their utility in the lows... for a full armor tank.. but have the entire high slot load out for utility to work with un-hindered.. Damage mods, Precision Enhancers... More eHP(Shield) To buffer the armor..


Yes EVE has what you say... But Most of EVE's utility for ships is completely based on what DUST would know as "High Slots"

So shield tankers can give up Their Shield tank for some Utility and gain benefits from the Low slots to help out the shield tank... Or loose all utility and go full out shield tank..

The balances between shield and armor in EVE is a completely different concept in how they setup all the Utility in DUST.

And all the Utility items, From Damage mods, To Scanning.. To PG and CPU... could be as much of the problem as anything.

What kind of module would be appropriate for high slot use, then?

Nerf plates and move reps to highs?

Move reactives?

Add an active resistance module?

I honestly can't think of anything else; the first would be my preference.

Cut plate HP by about 15% to compensate for the extra slot you're getting, cut reppers by say 10% to compensate for having multiple dedicated slots and move reppers to highs, leaving reactives as the sole source of reps in the low slots.
(Numbers pulled right out of my arse.

The lack of scaling gives them pretty poor utility for Sentinels relative to Scouts, and is partially responsible for the current meta of bricked Scouts.

I'm sleepy so I'll cut to the chase; rather than a plate/ext offering a flat bonus, why not have them offer a bonus based on a percentage of your base HP?

That way armour suits tank armour better than shield suits, which tank shields better than armour suits do.

At the moment this mightn't be a desirable change owing to the absence of valuable high-slot mods for armour tankers ( limited to shield extenders for the time being), but once modules are added/moved, I think this'd be a good way of balancing the frames.

Obviously the proportions would have to be small enough that Sentinel HP doesn't skyrocket, but large enough that Assaults and Logis get a meaningful bonus. The small base totals of Scouts would make plates far less desirable and implicitly encourage more 'scoutly' play.

Percentage is a bad idea. How do you balance it between all the racial suits? Minmatar who are naturally less tanky would be even less tanky because their bases are lower. It would also make modules almost useless for certain races. If Shield modules give % base it becomes extremely unhelpful for Gallente because of their lower shields. Same thing with Caldari and Plates.

If that was the road to take, it would be better to keep the flat amount but the suit has some kind of decimal modifier; say .7 for Lights 1.0 for Mediums, and 1.3 for Heavy suits. So a Complex Shield Extender would give 46.2, 66, or 85.8 depending on the suit's weight class.

Percentage is a bad idea. How do you balance it between all the racial suits? Minmatar who are naturally less tanky would be even less tanky because their bases are lower. It would also make modules almost useless for certain races. If Shield modules give % base it becomes extremely unhelpful for Gallente because of their lower shields. Same thing with Caldari and Plates.

If that was the road to take, it would be better to keep the flat amount but the suit has some kind of decimal modifier; say .7 for Lights 1.0 for Mediums, and 1.3 for Heavy suits. So a Complex Shield Extender would give 46.2, 66, or 85.8 depending on the suit's weight class.

It's a cool concept made up of a wake and bake and too much tea.

But having Armor tankers actually all about armor tanking..

And shield suits with enough CPU to fit Energizers and regulators. Leaving Reactives as an option for shield tankers that want a rep for utility...

And armor tankers with the ability to boost their tank with the high slot Repair modules + Reactive in low slots.

If it was that simple... Would you think the Shield and Armor eHP Vs Mobility penalties a fair parity in competitive play in DUST?

I can see Shield and armor eHP module values needing adjusting... Which is a can of worms....

right now i honestly dont see why a heavy would fit any hp modules
it makes much more sense to fit dmg mods kin cats or healing mods because the hp mods seem more insignificant do to the smaller percent of extra hp