A large part of why the Sentinel Damage Resistance is limited to specific damage types is because a blanket damage resist is because resisting all types of weapons would make them too powerful in all situations. The idea was to create situations where a Sentinel would be resistant to specific types of weapons. The concept of AV Damage vs Turret Damage is not that different. You're creating a situation where the UHAV is exceptionally good at fighting one type of weapon, but not as good fighting another type.

The issue I'm seeing is some people are envisioning it as such:

UHAV is the Defender
DHAV is the Attacker
MBT is in Limbo

This seems reasonable enough in a general sense, however we've already established that as things are currently listed, the UHAV will take about 60% longer to kill than the DHAV in direct combat. While the DHAV has advantages of speed and tracking rotation, a 60% difference is simply too large of a difference to overcome with secondary advantages. Additionally, this places the MBT in an awkward position. It would have the same TTK as the DHAV in a head on encounter, but likely falter due to lower speed...this much is ok. The issue then comes down to the UHAV in which the TTK would be about 60% longer, only to exchange marginally better speed and tracking, but to a lesser extent than the DHAV has. This clearly puts the MBT on the bottom rung, as the DHAV will struggle to kill the UHAV given its massive TTK differential (Even with taking secondary effects into account). Since the advantages the DHAV has over the UHAV (Speed, Damage, and Tracking) are actually weaker on the MBT (Its slower and does less damage than the DHAV, but has drastically inferior defenses to the UHAV) it will actually struggle even more to kill the UHAV.

The issue is that the more extreme the DHAV and UHAV get, the more trivialized the MBT becomes. Additionally, as has been pointed out, you'll be running into situations where DHAVs are basically being 1 shotted by AV Infantry, 1 shotted by other DHAVs, and will have to struggle to kill UHAVs. The only think they'll be marginally good at is killing MBTs. UHAVs on the other hand will be able to tank infantry, tank DHAVs, and tank MBTs. You can argue "Well its only on paper!" but when the numbers imply such a massive difference in TTK, you're going to really struggle to try and balance that with secondary advantages (which indeed have to be field tested).


For me, I'm starting to think of it like this:

UHAV is extremely good at fighting infantry
DHAV is extremely good at fighting vehicles
MBT is decent at fighting both infantry and vehicles

Its a departure from the "UHAV = Defense Tank" and more to a "UHAV = Anti Infantry Tank" but Im curious on why some are so against this concept and I'd like to hear why exactly.

Making the UHAV EXTREMELY slow might help this problem. Say the MBT has 100% movement speed. UHAV has 50% movement speed, and the DHAV has 150% movement speed. Now the MBT can basically do what the DHAV does when fighting a UHAV, to a lesser extent. Another thing that might help is giving UHAV's a flat range reduction of 25% or so, so the MBT can engage it from a safe distance, although this probably shouldn't be done with my other idea because It would mean the UNAV would lose every single time. I'm trying to think of some ways to keep the UHAV as the defender tank, so I'll get back to you on that.

I mean sure there are extreme options like absurdly slow, or locking the large turret so it can't rotate independently from the frame...but that itself has issues. If you're fighting something and try to flee, in theory if it takes you twice as long to run, you have to tank twice as much damage....so where does that land you? Additionally you start to run into that 'fun' factor where secondary attributes are so restrictive that the gameplay itself doesn't feel enjoyable.'

Also I'm not typically a fan of negative bonuses to damage or range, otherwise I'd just nerf UHAV large turret into the ground, but that will then negatively affect its AP capabilities which isn't the intention.

I think we're digging in our asses a little deeply to justify things guys.

MBTs are reasonably speedy now. all the UHAVs would need to slow down would be 20-30% speed loss AT THE ABSOLUTE MOST.

Because they NEED a chance to escape if Infantry get gud and threaten to overwhelm them. It doesn't have to be a HUGE chance. But there has to be a chance.

Further there's no need for DHAVs to be able to go more than 20% faster than an MBT. They're fragile but there should never be a guarantee of escape.

20% was about the range I imagined for speed differential.

I remember seeing old enforcers (and even regular tanks) getting chased around by infantry av squads inside LAV's.

they want DHAVs to be able to outrun LAVs loaded with AV gunners. they're being coy about it.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at?

Standardize plc charge time at .45s, change operation skill to 3% reload per level, up damage by one tier level (so basic does current adv damage, which is +~170 damage per tier upgrade). It puts the plc in a better place without making it op vs infantry. And increase ammo by one.

Standardize plc charge time at .45s, change operation skill to 3% reload per level, up damage by one tier level (so basic does current adv damage, which is +~170 damage per tier upgrade). It puts the plc in a better place without making it op vs infantry. And increase ammo by one.

Hmmm it feels odd to have an operation skill that ups reload speed and then a reload skill which does the same thing....

It is odd but its much better than current operation skill which shaves of 15/100ths of a second which is negligible, reloading is the primary drawback to a plc.

I will admit that the benefit of the operation bonus feels pretty negligible, but at the same time I don't really like doubling up on the same modifier with 2 skills. Perhaps projectile speed?

Projectile speed is not a problem, it is currently in a decent spot. Reload speed is the bottleneck.

Back on topic...Ok lets take a moment to look at bonuses under the premise of damage resistance against infantry AV.

MBT
+2000 Base Shields
+2650 Module Shields (2 Extenders)
=4650 Raw Shields

UHAV
+3000 Base Shields
+1325 Module Shields (1 Extender)
=4325 Raw Shields

So before Bonuses, MBT will have 325 more shield HP more than the UHAV. Our general goal is to make the MBT slightly better at dealing with enemy vehicles than the UHAV, so similar levels of eHP against turrets with the MBT being faster/better tracking achieves this goal fairly well. Since there is a fairly small difference in HP (325) we'll just leave that as is with the understanding that it might be slightly tweaked in the future.

So it comes down to upping the UHAV's resistance against infantry. If the resistance is specifically towards infantry AV, It is more reasonable to go with a pretty high eHP. We'll shoot for what Ratatti initially proposed to see how it looks.

Ratatti's Initial "Ultra Bonus": +3210 HP

Oh boy, that's a bit of a jump. So in order for the UHAV to gain that much eHP against AV using its base HP, you're looking at ~75% resistance, or +15%/lvl. Eeeeesssh thats pretty intense, landing the UHAV at about ~11700 eHP once its in a hardened state.

Note:
MBT eHP = ~7300 (~40% less than UHAV)
DHAV eHP= ~4500 (~60% less than UHAV)

Discuss?

Don't forget about passive SP Tesfa. That's separate from the 750,000. This needs to be accounted for in your math.

Also frames are a x6 skill. Specialist dropsuits are x10. The HAV skill at x2 provides a similar SP paywall to the dropsuit command skill.

However, that being said I think the racials should be x10 like tge dropsuits, not x12.

Save x12 for post-level 5 content if we ever get it.

The UHAV skill books has got to change in SP requirement.

To unlock the skill book for racial UHAVs you need to spec into Level 3 HAV operation, Level 3 UHAV, and then spec into UHAV

HAV x 2 skill
Level 1: 24,880
Level 2: 74,640
Level 3: 174,160


UHAV x 6
Level 1: 49,760
Level 2: 149,280
Level 3: 348,320

Racial UHAV x 12
Level 1: 74,640
Level 2: 223,920
Level 3: 522,480
Level 4: 1,044,960
Level 5: 1,866,000

Total required SP 4,553, 040. Minimum time to unlock (divide by cap = 750,000) 6 weeks.

Both the DHAV and the UHAV should be a 8x skill, not a 10x or a 12x skill.

There is also the possibility of reskinned amarr and minmatar versions, unless there is a respec planned for their release ( which i doubt) then i don't see the need to put an extraordinary SP investment burden on tankers. Most of whom will want to have different types available. Certainly the SHAV or MBT to PRO, at least one destroyer and one UHAV. Having the right tool for the right job is important. Thats should be more than enough of an SP sink for a while, rather than 12 x skills to inflate it.

8x means less investment of SP than a dropsuit.

10x.