So the tl;dr version is basically....

make armor rep more per cycle, but have longer cycles, so the armor is more susceptible to burst damage. HP Regenerated per minute remains the same.

This is basically how active armor reps worked in the past (Five 3 second cycles, repped at the end of each cycle) as well as how it works in EVE, where armor repairers have much longer cycle with a large HP bonus per cycle than a shield booster which traditionally has a short cycle.

Totally on board with this, though I have concerns about how difficult it will be to alter cycle lengths, but that's more of a TechEval than anything.

We could just make reps active again.

Although this could work as well.

I agree. Active reps would be far superior, but Tenbu's idea here is certainly a lower hanging fruit and would help to address some of the current meta without stupid hard limits on module use.

I don't want to do away with passive reps myself. I think they should be here just as active reps should. In the future though, active reps would provide the burst healing against burst DPS, and we could increase the passive reps cycles even higher.

Reps at 10s passive or burst reps at 3s per tick but with activation time and cooldown. In any case, active reps aren't here so workin with what we got!

Believe it or not, I have no problem with the rep rate.

It's the fire rates on the weapons or the heat restrictions that are making this a problem IMHO.

The railgun hits more than hard enough and fast enough. But it can only fire three times. The fourth locks the gun for about 6 seconds. Result: dead gunnlogi.

I need to re-evaluate heavy missiles Before I comment.

Swarms: I hate them anyway.

Forge guns: need a rate of fire buff to combat tanks.

PLC: needs a rate of fire buff to combat tanks.

In my opinion, however, rate of fire buffs on the forge are tricky. Why? Dropships.

But I consider it the lesser of two evils. Any buffs to alpha will sign the death warrant on dropships no matter how I do the math.

Tebu please look at the current forge guns tab.

Please compare the double hardener, dual rep fit against the Ishukone Assault Forge Gun triple modded vs. Armor. I believe it is the second-to last table on that spreadsheet.

For the purpose of this exercise please assume the shields were already destroyed, HAV is at full armor.

The IAFG fires once every 3.25 seconds after the first shot, which takes 2.25 seconds. There's a 1 second reset delay after each shot before you can fire again, reload or sprint. This is included in my number.

My other question: since I am on my phone and I cannot verify, did you use the base swarm nimbers or did you use the table for max-skill wiki swarms with 3 damage mods vs. Armor?

I am going to decline to present my own math, because my presence in any vehicle thread seems to invariably attract a brown sea of sh*tposting that derails the topic.

This is the last time I will comment or respond to anyone in this thread.

Edit: modded wiki swarm does 2,032.93 damage base vs. Armor at level 5 every 1.35 seconds. This is raw stat math and is disputed by swarm operators. As I do not have swarms to 5 I cannot verify slower fire rates.

trying to balance tanks so it requires 2 AV gunners to fight with difficulty isn't a good thing.

one AV gunner should be able to fight a tank with difficulty. it should NOT be an impossibility.

It's not though. Using just their MAIN GUN, then yes, agreed impossible. Factor in Av nades, and proxies/remotes, that changes significantly. Especially if they beat the rep cycles. 9 seconds to apply 2750(base armor) + 1525 (5 second rep cycles healed) =4275 damage to kill the tank.

As opposed to having 9 seconds worth of healing at current. So at 9 seconds, 2750 + 2745 (1 second rep cycles healed) = 5495 damage needed to kill the tank. So with current, you need more damage at the same period of time to kill the tank, when at 5 seconds you need less overall to drop that tank.

This merely allows for burst DPS to be more effective against double reppers, as I think they should be to start with.

Each AV weapon should stand on it's own merits.

Forge guns are intended as long range strikers with high alpha and slow fire. Forcing them to be within grenade range annihilates all intended advantages of the weapon platform.

AV nades can't solo blap tanks. this is a feature, not a bug. But if all of the AV platforms are useless without them we might as well just buff the nova knives so you can two shot a tank with a charged strike.

Why should a weapon be ineffective at engaging and destroying it's intended target? Is this some kind of magical thing that adds fun by fostering a feeling of futility?

Why should HAVs enjoy immunity to infantry AV weapons unless they are used in a way the drivers find acceptable? Will the turrets on the HAVs be locked out from killing things until the driver completes the sacred ritual of boom that forces him to put himself into a bad position?

Tebu, Breakin never said that they should be expected to win a 1 on 1 engagement with their primary weapon, just that they should have a fighting chance...that with difficulty they should be able to triumph...supplementing their power with other forms of AV should help slightly...however, even with them equipped there should still be difficulty involved

Don't bother explaining. There's never going to be anything I say that won't be interpreted in the worst possible light.

It's just not worth it.

No need to go that far fella. I think it's ok for us to disagree. But it's not becoming very constructive, therefore we should stop. We have different points of view and styles apparently (I get in close and use those AV nades to kill a tank quickly, been doing that tonight to some success). Nothing wrong with that and Thaddeus and yourself make a good point.

I do still think that if you have the power on your suit, AV nades / damage mods, they should be taken into account with your main weapon base effectiveness.

That said though, this idea of mine should make a difference when a lone AV attempts to take on a tank, by giving them an ability to break the double hardened and repped fit by getting within their rep cycle. Without changing other values on AV main weapons. I think it's important to note too that It's quite easy SP wise and isk wise, to deploy AV infantry. Much easier than it is to deploy an effective tank.

And honestly, AV isn't terrible atm, values that is. I'll admit, it's not easy to take on a tank solo, but it IS possible. Just not relying solely on my main weapon to do the job, a pro tank at least. Lesser tanks though are quite easy to down running pro AV.

In any case, let's just drop the back and forth.

But 5 seconds per cycle... Are you also multiplying the rep rate by 5? Or keeping it at 3.
If keeping 3, that's an indirect nerf to reps By 40% i also think 5 seconds is a bit too long... Just count 5 seconds...... You see what I mean?

But! Having 3/4 second for passive, active should be 1 second or streamed like reptool.. Best of all worlds?

But 5 seconds per cycle... Are you also multiplying the rep rate by 5? Or keeping it at 3.
If keeping 3, that's an indirect nerf to reps By 40% i also think 5 seconds is a bit too long... Just count 5 seconds...... You see what I mean?

But! Having 3/4 second for passive, active should be 1 second or streamed like reptool.. Best of all worlds?

I find the idea of simply taking the gun without any consideration as the sole point of balance to be the worst possible way. There's a reason why I included asstons of tables for each weapon to show the progression.

If one thing is balanced in a vacuum without considering the things that might affect it, things get ugly REALLY fast. The forge gun doesn't dictate the engagement for AV anymore than "just" the heavy turret. The whole fit matters. If it doesn't matter, why did you bother? I don't bother saying it because (insert AV only needs to skill into a gun to autowin) here from any given peanut gallery.

Count 5 seconds... How about count the length of time it takes to fire a forge gun... 1 shot isn't going to kill the tank, build some hp if that becomes a problem.

The other option would just be to make armour reps costs the same as shield boosters... But that **** everyone off.

So, if we are more or less on the same page, what were we arguing about?

I know I said the main gun, for example my first SL, would be ineffective. But I also was just looking at raw base stats with no modifiers beyond those provided by skills. Damage modifiers can have a rather large impact on total damage, negating a larger portion of that hardener.

I mean we could take an AV weapon, modified by nothing but the skills, and compare that to the base hulls, modified by just the skills(What skills lol). No other fitting involved. I think it's rather obvious what happens then. The AV weapon on it's own would be far more than sufficient to finish the tank off.

So technically, when you look at just a weapon and do the same for the tank, just the tank, AV is far stronger.

You cannot take an unmodded AV weapon and use that to balance. It invariably results in a sudden wash of overpowered weapons as soon as people realize "hey! I can get 12-20% more damage!

Yes, I realize that. I'm starting with base damage without any modifiers to start. I'm in the process of making a spreadsheet to simulate damage in a 60 second time frame to see what happens for a single AV weapon against reps at 1, 3, and 5 second intervals. I'm interested in comparing these scenarios to see how longer heal cycles will affect the ability for an AV weapon to kill in that interval with just a weapon alone.

Not there yet, bit rusty on my spreadsheets, and keep thinking it would be MUCH easier to write a program over the sheet. Once I get my basics back in order, I'll fill in the data for damage modifiers, suit bonuses and secondary sources of AV weaponry.

From what I've seen thus far out of it though, at 5 second intervals, remaining armor is much lower at the same point in time than when reps are per second or per 3 seconds based on swarms thus far. Meaning a single AV nade(or damage mods) would make a large difference in killing the fit over shorter cycles. Swarms though are quite tricky I'm learning.

wiki swarms could *slightly* but they lose all the headway the instant you have to reload. the problem isn't inherently the reps.

Giving leeway for reload is exactly what longer cycles does. I think longer cycles will improve the AV vs Tank interaction, by allowing for reload to get within the rep cycle at some point in time. Maybe not in the first clip with the weapon alone but in the second or third clip.

So I think that reps, or the short rep cycles, does present a bit of a problem. And by fixing that, we will see a large decline in the extreme viability of a double repped / hardened tank. It will still be a viable fit, but it won't be one that can simply continue taking damage without the use of cover against a single AV'er attempting to kill it.

Like I said, from what I've seen from my simulation now, a single swarms clip will have the armor at a much lower value at the 9 second mark, with 5 second rep cycle, over the per second rep cycle. And his with just BASE swarms and no outside damage modifier other than that from skills.

Meaning any other form of damage in that same frame of time will spell doom for this type of tank fit. Emphasize the fact that a double rep fit isn't meant to take heavy alpha like they seem to do of current.

I'll get the simulation worked out eventually, busy during the week so it will take some time. If I end up being wrong, it's fine of course, but I'm betting this would actually work out in the AV's favor against a duel repped fit. I'm not saying that this is a total fix for AV of course, but it might be an important step to getting that balance.

Reps hasnt changined with Hot fix Echo

The issue is the hardeners not reps.

extending the rep cycles won't actually fix the problem, all it does is stretch the result out. Since there's no weapon that can land more than 500/hit and the FASTEST rate that can happen is with the swarms, you're at best looking at the illusion of progress, as the window of destruction only exists for at most, 5 seconds. that's 1500 damage recovered every 5 seconds. the fastest forge gun will hit just shy of twice in that time period for a total of 1000, and the breach would hit once for roughly 700. still negated.

By proxy swarms over the course of 4.05 seconds (assuming machinelike perfection in shot timing) will do 1500 (3 round mag) and spend three seconds reloading. so a damage cycle time of 6 seconds. also negated.

the problem isn't the double-hardener, nor is it the twin-reps. the problem is that you can COMBINE the two. It's why the Railgun can't make any headway, nor can the missiles. When the twin hardeners can almost negate the incoming damage and the reps have the output to eat the rest momentarily you will always have a net gain of zero unless you can sustain in excess of 1200 DPS burst rates.

And as far as AV goes, 900 single-magazine DPS is what I consider the rough range of what the AV ceiling MUST be, not SHOULD be. Because once you pass 900 DPS, bearing in mind this is after profiles and after mods, you will utterly negate any prayer that dropships can or will remain viable. there's no reality in which they can stand up to that. Even with that ceiling in place it necessitates that dropships get the next priority for a fix, and I mean top priority. this is assuming no increase in base alpha capacity and all of the work is done via rate of fire. because increasing the alpha on the AV weapons would pretty much sign and seal the death of dropships, and make the fact that LAVs can be fitted to survive an AV impact now irrelevant.

Believe it or not, there is no factor I consider in a vacuum, I actually do consider all of the interactions. My ability to articulate said situations is often dubious at best, however.

The issue is both, it's simply that hardeners has more of an effect. Reps needs to be active imo, they weren't as bad because they had a very long downtime.

Also, I think that armor hardeners should be nerfed by about 5-10%.

If both of those things were done, it'd probably be better overall.

And I would rather not see a one of this only restriction. What I do want to see, is a double repped hardened fit actually be viable without being overwhelmingly OP.

mathematically this will require a significant baseline nerf to the hardener amount absorbed, or the repairer efficacy cut in half.

I think it's obvious hardeners need to be brought down (nerf is so negative), but it should be obvious that there is a bottom line that makes them useless (25%). I'd rather not see repairs cut, again.

But do you think that by reducing the cycles and dropping the armor hardener number down, that we might get a better balance for a double repper double hardener fit. Maybe decreasing the cycles will allow us to drop the hardener down by a lesser extent, letting burst alpha do what it's supposed to do and break the fit.

even dumping the hardeners by 10% is iffy, I have to actually do the math again for that. Another person suggested dropping them to 30% and re-introducing the old +10% addition from skills. The end result of this change would end up being that nickel-and-diming the target for a net gain of 100 damage per shot until the armor was reduced below 1096 total armor when the next shot went off. At this point, your suggestion of reducing the cycle times to 5 second intervals MIGHT actually work, but that's in-depth math I don't want to do right before it's time to go to bed.

Any time I try to crunch numbers in a sleepy haze I wind up having to go and correct all of my spreadsheet numbers.

35% means two stack for roughly 58%. Currently second hardener at 66% effectiveness, totals for 66 current. Nearly a 10% gap.

2 35%=54.25%

2 40%=60.86

2 30%=48.25%

And I actually wrote a goddamn KILL TIMELINE for Rattati's original plan for the HAVs using the pre-buff allotek PLC and IAFG.

Minumum engagement time for either versus a pilot who was a complete blistering IDIOT would have been 18.5 seconds, roughly in both cases versus the HAV vulnerable to their particular attacks.

Minimum engagement time using the wrong weapon for the enemy tank would be about 25 seconds.

In both cases I have a hard time envisioning a solo AV gunner killing either before they broke line of sight or gutted him in any circumstance.