Gallente should trump all other race's innate repair rates by a wide margin.

To be fair, The CalLogi Incident did happen. But back then, Caldari logis were given +5% Shield Extender efficacy per skill level... who the **** thought that was a good idea?! That's more that the skill bonus itself for chrissakes.

No. Not a wide margin.
If this is the case, the base Armor of the Amarr suits should trump the Gallente by a wide margin. Or the base speed of the Minmatar should trumt the others by a wide margin.
It shouldn't be a wide margin. It should be marginally the best, just like the Minmatar speed, the Caldari Shield HP, or the Amarr Armor HP. Enough to insure that the suit will be the go to suit for that type of thing, no more.

Anyway, back on topic. Pokey's spreadsheet is interesting, but I think I'm OK with the numbers still... the use of %'s sorta skews things a little as I'm not sure how big a deal that is considering the sizeable differences in raw HP numbers.

Dear players

we have been discussing this topic on and off for quite a while, especially concerning shield tanking, and the inherent need to always use a low slot to have "any" armor reps, which is bad for shield tanking, and quite hampering for racial fitting styles.

We are not proposing this, but would like to get your opinions on the general idea that we have been formulating (particularly with CPM Logi and Commando threads), and it ties well into empowering Logis and Commandos on top.

Without further ado:

Gallente (Current Gal Value) - Armor Rep kings

Minmatar - Hit and run, hybrid armor and regen

Amarr - slowly returning to high base ehp

Caldari - shield tankers ("gain" a low slot)

Anyway, back on topic. Pokey's spreadsheet is interesting, but I think I'm OK with the numbers still... the use of %'s sorta skews things a little as I'm not sure how big a deal that is considering the sizeable differences in raw HP numbers.

Totally agree. The Amarr make sizeable treadeoffs for a not exactly "wide margin" of extra buffer.

Look at the assault dropsuits. Amarr: 315, Gallente: 275. That is a 13% difference in the Amarr's favor. We could widen that more by increasing Amarr armor to 335; making it an 18% difference*. Amarr are supposed to be buffer tank gods anyway.

Amarr armor HP does trump the Gallente armor HP by a noticeable amount.

Look at the assault dropsuits. Amarr: 315, Gallente: 275. That is a 13% difference in the Amarr's favor. We could widen that more by increasing Amarr armor to 335; making it an 18% difference*. Amarr are supposed to be buffer tank gods anyway.

13% is not a wide margin. That's a pretty small margin. About -+ of a basic plate. That about the advantage the gallente assault should have over the Amarr assault. About -+ of a basic repairer.

And really, the Amarr Assault doesn't need 20 more HP. It has plenty as it is.

Dear players

we have been discussing this topic on and off for quite a while, especially concerning shield tanking, and the inherent need to always use a low slot to have "any" armor reps, which is bad for shield tanking, and quite hampering for racial fitting styles.

We are not proposing this, but would like to get your opinions on the general idea that we have been formulating (particularly with CPM Logi and Commando threads), and it ties well into empowering Logis and Commandos on top.

Without further ado:

Gallente (Current Gal Value) - Armor Rep kings
Commando 4 (1.00)
Logi 3.5 (2.00)
Sentinel 3.0 (1.00)
Assault 3.5 (2.00)
Scout 2.0 (3.00) - (GA Scout is very strong right now)

Minmatar - Hit and run, hybrid armor and regen
Commando 3.5
Logi 3.0
Sentinel 2.5
Assault 2.0
Scout 1.5

Amarr - slowly returning to high base ehp
Commando 3.0
Logi 2.5
Sentinel 2.0
Assault 1.5
Scout 1.0

Caldari - shield tankers ("gain" a low slot)
Commando 2.5
Logi 2
Sentinel 1.5
Assault 1
Scout 0.5

Thanks for going into more detail.

1. Can you explain how native repping conveys the need to fit a repper? A shield suit needs no repper and armor starter suits have them prefitted, right?
If you're worrying about new players that select a shield-heavy race and never learn about reppers I'd guess the 'selected race <-> starter fit race' link should be broken up so everyone can see what a shield and armor based suit looks like. On the other hand, by the time a player moves on from his own race's suits he will probably have gotten a picture of the available modules in the game.

2. Personally, if I had innate reps I'd drop a regulator to fit more armor on my Caldari suits. Isn't that the logical thing to do? This is an honest question, I'm not trying to be provocative here.
If the issue is that shield-heavy suits can't utilize a certain part of their tank in their second or third engagement we can maybe discuss shoveling some more suit-armor hp into suit-shields.

3. There is no mandatory slot requirement as far as I'm aware? My Caldari suits work with no reps?
I know that running around with 50 armor hp missing is concerning, but by that time I'm on a 5 kill streak. Does anyone really complain about not being on full-hp anymore in their 3rd or n-th engagement? I don't think our main focus should be balancing suits for their ability to go on 10-kill streaks.

Here you go

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13j77OkeazhiHNcg7C9GShM3eu0GjsfIJyGm51svxbX0/edit?usp=sharing

After letting this sink in for a while I think I can support this change.

The core mechanical issue this resolves is that shield naturally repair but armor doesn't. That's good. That's important in the long run.
We buy that at the price of buffing armor without adjusting shields at the same time. That'll have to be rectified at a later stage then.

It's not very notable of a buff for armor tankers. It's just a little thing that rounds out the regen.

However for shield tanks it's a game-changer. it's going to have more effect on cal/min survivability than Gal/AM because the latter two have deeper HP pools than this buff can make a meaningful dent in.

Here's the biggest reason why we shouldn't do this: it makes absolutely no sense in terms of the already established design in dust and eve online.

Shields have native regen. Not armor.

You change this and shields go from low HP with free passive regen to simply low HP, and regen that can be interrupted vs high HP armor with free constant armor reps.

When you look at it like that, armor tanking is the more attractive choice.

Here's the biggest reason why we shouldn't do this: it makes absolutely no sense in terms of the already established design in dust and eve online.

Shields have native regen. Not armor.

You change this and shields go from low HP with free passive regen to simply low HP, and regen that can be interrupted vs high HP armor with free constant armor reps.

When you look at it like that, armor tanking is the more attractive choice.

I would agree with you if it were possible to properly pure tank in Dust, but you can't. Shields come back much more quickly in Dust than they do in EVE, so an armor tank can still expect his shields to provide a reliable buffer much of the time. It isn't like EVE where it's going to take 5-10 minutes for your shields to come back 100% after depletion. This means that an armor tanker will continually use both his shields and armor as a primary means of defense, even if the slots favor the armor more.

Conversely, shield tankers are expected to rely entirely on their shields, despite armor tanks enjoying an extremely high shield recharge rate, despite the fact that they're armor tanks? All suits in varying degrees will hybrid tank and make use of both shields and armor in the long run, and as such with the way the game is set up, it makes sense that all suits have some limited form of self armor reps.

Now if you advocated for dropping shield regen on armor tanks to like 5HP/s, then you might have an argument.

Why is it not possible to extend armour suit shield recharge times as well as reduce per pulse values?

Forgive me if I'm misreading, but are you essentially saying to reduce recharge rate of shields on armor suits?

Fundamentally I guess. I'd prefer to feel more reliant on my armour as my primary HP buffer than the shield.

I must respectfully disagree...

Just kidding. This statement IMHO is spot on.