No physics based changes. Current mechanics can be changed.

Cool, and appreciated. I have been thinking with the possible escalation of HAV strength, that MD and LR could be more useful against vehicles, and possibly IP and Flaylock as well.

My opinion is that active and passive fitting is perfect for vehicle combat in an FPS.

Don't forget, EVE does not have WASD movement, it is inherently less dependent on user input, and that's why it has more point and click combat, managing heat, capacity, ammo, ewar etc.

Capacitors are just one thing that could be done, needs balancing and design like any other system. Another layer of complexity does not seem like what we need when there are so many low hanging fruit.

Just going through the misery of starting to go into vehicles has opened my eyes to the HAV plight of fitting and skilling. On the other hand, in battle it's been a breeze, as in I'm having fun. I also think that a Maddie Blaster fit should be the first tank new players skill into as the turret speed is more forgiving and the charge-up of the rail makes it so much less easy to use than one might think coming from BF, for instance.

question, shield boosters in low? Given that similar to dropsuits, all vehicles get a slim natural rep, so as to not be forced to fit a rep mod in a low.

question, shield boosters in low? Given that similar to dropsuits, all vehicles get a slim natural rep, so as to not be forced to fit a rep mod in a low.

While the topic of regen is still floating about, why don't we look to EVE for ideas to implement into Dust?

Generalized summary on shields in EVE:
-Always passively recharging, though at a variable rate which is at a max around 30% shields
-Shield recharge per ship is around a base time to full recharge
---This means that adding extenders increases the hp/s
---Allows for passive fits that rely only on resists and recharge rates while maintaining a large shield buffer
-Active shield tanking draws a higher capacitor usage as opposed to active armor tanking
---Shield boosters and active hardeners are harder to run for a longer period of time than their armor counterparts
-Penalty on extenders is what would equate to an increased hitbox in Dust
-Shield tanked ships generally have less utility (medium slots), but a better ability to fit fitting enhancements and turret upgrades (low slots)
-Caldari ships are the slowest before plates are added to Amarr ships

Armor:
-Can only be repaired actively
-Armor reps and active armor hardeners draw less capacitor than their shield counterparts, allowing them to be run for a much longer time or for an indefinite amount of time
-Armor fits can get a higher armor buffer than comparable shield buffers
---Passive armor tanking uses hardeners and plates to maximize EHP (no reps)
---Theory is that you have more EHP than what you would be able to rep back in an engagement
-Gallente focus more on armor rep, Amarr focuses more on bricking

I'm wondering if it will be worth a try to implement some of these features into Dust. We could base shield recharge on a base time to full recharge (which of course means that extenders will increase the hp/s) and make it constant and uninterruptible. This could equate to somewhere between 30-40 base shield per second on an unfitted Gunnlogi. Considerably worse than what one active armor rep could achieve. For a passively tanked Gunnlogi, your base shield should be roughly doubled with two extenders, increasing your recharge to 60-80 shield/s, and with maybe two recharger modules you should be able to add around 50% more for a final recharge rate of 90-120 shield/s. You might notice that shield recharges provide a smaller boost, though they should be considerably easier to fit.

This seems to address people's concerns that shield gets a natural regen that's simply too high for having to spend zero modules on. The fit I described seems appropriate for what I consider to be a competitive passive fit. Also, fitting your high slots with damage amps and/or other utility modules and armor tanking your Gunnlogi will no longer give you the benefits of a high shield recharge.

Another parallel than can be drawn with EVE is to have armor reps have a longer active duration than shield boosters and to provide more HP at the end of their run. I forget how shield boosters and armor reps compared in terms of hp/s. Armor reps can also have a shorter cooldown to replicate capacitor recovery in EVE due to their smaller cap requirements.

One last thing I'd like to add: new module inspiration from EVE. Capacitor batteries and capacitor recharge relays. In Dust, we can have a module that increases module active duration (larger cap pool) and a module that decreases cooldown time (faster cap recovery). (I know that this is generalized but for Dust it could work). The first is a high slot module and the second is a low slot module. Perfect for making armor reps last for a longer time and reducing the longer cooldown times of the shield booster.

I agree, I think people are underestimating the power that speed offers an HAV. Slap an Overdrive and Tracking Enhancer on, get up close, and take out the UHAV from close range, moving faster than it can track. You can already do this to some effect with a Blaster fighting a rail up close, and it's awesome.

It's kind of like playing as a scout back when Heavies had reduced turn speed. You had crap for health but you could literally dance circles around the heavy and he wouldn't be able to touch you.

As for the base stats on the DHAV...it has the reduced slots as well as the reduced base HP. I agree with either of these...but not sure if I agree with having them both at the same time, it might be a little too extreme, but time will tell. Stick with both, but I'd remain open to the idea of bumping the base HP up again if the DHAV's defense proove to be a little TOO weak.