Red at Math
Royal Uhlans
Amarr Empire
41
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Posted - 2012.06.30 10:59:00 -
[1] - Quote
My thoughts on AUR expenditures are that they should be a way to exchange AUR for time. Using that as a guiding principle, I'm 100% OK with AUR items having a reduced requirement to use. I do think that they need to be standardized, and I'm fine with Standard AUR items being as good as Advanced ISK while Advanced AUR items are as good as Prototype ISK items. This leaves nothing for Prototype AUR items to upgrade to though, introducing the reduced fitting requirements.
I'm also 100% fine with the reduced fitting requirements on Prototype AUR items. An often overlooked concept when discussing how much better they can make fittings is that the Dropsuits themselves introduce a hard cap on the number of modules you can fit. If you're suit has 3 high slots and can fit 3x Complex Shield Extenders using ISK, then it cannot suddenly fit a 4th Extender because you have switched to AUR Modules and both Extenders give the same HP. As some people have asked whether a suit comprised of entirely AUR items is capable of doing things that an ISK suit cannot, the answer is that it can...but not to any degree you might expect.
Generally speaking, the difference between a completely AUR fit Prototype Suit and a completely ISK fit Prototype Suit is a single Module. The ISK fit either foregoes fitting a Sidearm, or an Equipment Slot, but is otherwise identical or it fits a single CPU Upgrade module in a lowslot in order to gain just as much (and generally more) extra CPU as the AUR suit had. This usually led to fittings where the AUR suit had an extra Armor Plate in place of the CPU Upgrade, giving it 100 more HP, but also making it slower. In several comparisons it meant that the ISK Suit also now had enough CPU to fill a second EQ slot that the AUR suit didn't have.
After looking at the numbers in a fair degree of detail, my conclusion is that the complete AUR suit isn't worth the performance upgrade that it does receive over the ISK suit. What I more often see reduced fitting AUR items being utilized by is the person who doesn't have all those fitting skills completely leveled up. Which again, I view more as an exchange of AUR for time, and as I've already stated I'm 100% OK with that.
Red at Math (Also Bad at Spelling) |