Here is my point....we've had multiple hardeners for literally the entire existence of Dust. There has never been a limit, and it has never been a problem until recently. What changed? A move from Active Regen modules to Passive Regen modules. People seem so very set on killing hardeners and restricting them, yet they have never been an issue prior to the original vehicle mass-rework.

Much of which happened then was a mistake, and should be reversed. I think that's the key to making things right again, not trying to place arbitrary restrictions on hardeners which have never been an issue until they were paired with passive regen modules.

This sounds good. It would definitely be helpful to "nerf" the madrugars.

yeah no.

To manage caps, especially during a fight would be hell. Especially for other vehicles. It would bring actually less balance than the current timer system we have in place now.

This is a problem when you realize that you will have to manage this one wheel, but while you are moving around and/or fighting back, and have to figure out what and what not to turn off. It works for ship combat because aiming isn't even a thing, and moving around takes much less to do, as well as being able to set modules on and off to a button.

it would work well on larger platforms, like say a MCC, but on smaller platforms, it simply won't work well.

EDIT: Look, the only thing I can see caps actually adding doing positively is making it to where you can control how long you run a module better, vs. having just a straight timer. This has been done however through the cloak. Having the timer mechanics of the cloak on active modules would effectively do just that, but still allows the current timers a thing.

I've been working on a long post about this for a while now, but haven't gotten around to finishing it.

For one thing there is a fundamental difference between vehicle play and infantry play. A huge part of what makes infantry vs. infantry fun is the simple act of trying to hit a target thats actively evading your fire. Imagine how little fun would be had in an FPS with players the size of buildings. It would be a matter of who started shooting first. Vehicles are huge and rather simplistic. Capacitors help add a ton of depth to fittings and strategy, so vehicle play becomes as much about tactics and fits as it is about positioning. Fights can last much longer and be more interesting instead of quickly blaping each other off the field.

In most cases capacitors would actually free up a lot of the obnoxious module-management that the current system uses, since you could create cap-stable fits, if that's your preferred play style. You call in your vehicle, activate your stuff and then don't worry about cap for the rest of the battle (aside from perhaps pulsing some reps after a fight).

Another problem with the current system is that adding active modules actually INCREASES the size of your "virtual capacitor," since each one basically has it's own independent capacitor. This creates a lot of weird imbalances that a single shared capacitor would solve. In EVE if you fit all active mods, your cap would only last a few seconds, in DUST each one lasts as long as its active timer. You're essentially getting capacitor batteries, and rechargers for "free" since you don't need to sacrifice a slot or the PG/CPU to fit it.

As for things being balanced in the past, I respectfully disagree. There has always been QQ about vehicles vs. AV. It was better in 1.6 than after CCP Blam ruined things, but if you search back, you'll find a lot of rage back then too (it's what motivated the rebalance in the first place). It always comes down to the central question of can one AV take out one HAV. With capacitors, one player can always tackle an HAV, but they may need help to kill it. That's a reasonable balance. HAVs can ride around feeling like gods, but they will always have that tingle in their balls that someone's going to get tackle on them.

1: If cap stable fits are anything like they are in EVE, they won't be viable for actual combat, unless it's against a idiot, or it's mostly passive stuff.

2: lel. I said nothing about AV in that, I specifically pointed out that VEHICLES were mostly balanced against each other. Also, even if AV wasn't balanced, how in the **** does that reason "HERP DERP LET'S ADD UNNECESSARY ****!!!!!!"?

It would be a start, but a vehicle could still activate it's prop mod if webbed and probably get away. With cap, and neuts, you could shut down the prop mod and kill their ability to run hardeners/reppers. The whole thing becomes a lot more deep and fun.

That's true. I'm thinking we could have lots of options for both: We could have webbing grenades, mines, handheld active tools like a re-purposed reptool, and possibly ewar small turrets (could add a lot of value to LAVs). We could have equivalent stuff for neuts. So a scout could conceivably place down a neut mine, wait for the HAV to roll through and set it off, follow that up with a few neut grenades and then switch to his handheld webifier to lock it down for his squad. You could picture dozens of different scenarios that could play out in different ways.

The point is that you've been saying it would be impossible to manage all of the modules with a capacitor because it would make driving/flying/shooting too difficult. I'm saying, if that's the case then cap-stable fits would have the advantage since they can focus 100% on driving/flying/shooting. In all likelihood the best fits will probably have a small amount of management, but not so much that it's obnoxious (i.e. because if it's obnoxious than it's probably going to cause you to loose fights).

I feel like the purpose behind this thread is being lost.

Vehicle users want capacitor for depth.
It's not "low hanging fruit".
It's complicated for the average dust player.
I propose more simple alternative that would functionally be similar, right down to having neuts in the distant future.
But we want real capacitors, except the're too complex.

Hence the compromise.

I don't want this idea to be implemented right away. I agree that many other things should come first. But changes happen WAAAY in advance, and once theyre in QA it's too late for any player input.

If and when we ever need a cap system, this idea will be here. Until then, it's fine if we focus on other things. try to understand this is a compromise, not an ideal.