(My thoughts and opinions are my own, you have been notified)
First off, let me say that while I dislike tanks as they are now I get their role in the battlefield and i get the way that they are used, and that they are most effective to the player who buys them. By all means they should be careful not to die in a tank because they are expensive, and that they want to get back rewards for their efforts. However, the tanks as they are right now are invincibility machines. They take no damage from small arms (as they should) but they also take very small damage from everything else even AV. They can sit on the top of an area safe and secure and rain down fire without worrying about damage as they can easily turn tail and run to safety to heal/recharge. As a player who focuses on AV primarily to combat vehicles I find it very frustrating to attempt to fight even a low level tank. Just today I had an instance where i shot my entire ammo cache of 6 swarm launcher rockets and threw 3 AV nades at a tank just to have him get in his safe zone and heal up. (Im still working on leveling up AV but it was only a Madrugar) While I don't think it should be easy to kill a tank I also don't think it should be hard enough that 24 rockets and 3 AV nades can't get the job done. I also don't think I should have gotten that close to the tank, but the driver wasn't that great and I got lucky. And I think thats what annoys me the most is that it makes it easy to get kills and hide while not being good at having a tank. Its just too easy not to die in a tank. My thought is that the tanks should be powerful anti ground forces that can be destroyed with effort just not enough that its next to impossible. If you have a differing opinion I encourage you to say what you think, just keep it nice.

Wot? You tried to Solo a Tank and it didn't work? OH NO!
This is the problem right here, people trying to solo a Tank that actually requires teamwork to use effectively.. With 6 Missiles in your Swarm Launcher, you deal over 7200 Damage. If you had two people using swarms, you'd of killed off the Tank. What kind of Swarms are you running?

It's extremely easy to die in a Tank. I get smashed by Forge Guns very easily, especially if they're higher up. I only run a Tank when I've got a squad backing me up (4 People including myself) to protect me, and you want to solo us?

-_-

what swarm does 7200 dmg lol

WITH 6 MISSILES IN A SWARM LAUNCHER.
What is with this community and their inability to read? It's bloody horrendous. I'm pretty sure a Swarm Launcher deals 1200HP at standard level.

Wot? You tried to Solo a Tank and it didn't work? OH NO!
This is the problem right here, people trying to solo a Tank that actually requires teamwork to use effectively.. With 6 Missiles in your Swarm Launcher, you deal over 7200 Damage. If you had two people using swarms, you'd of killed off the Tank. What kind of Swarms are you running?

It's extremely easy to die in a Tank. I get smashed by Forge Guns very easily, especially if they're higher up. I only run a Tank when I've got a squad backing me up (4 People including myself) to protect me, and you want to solo us?

-_-

part of the issue is that swarms as the default AV weapon deal lopsided damage. A single swarm has a base damage of 1200 assuming all rounds hit and excluding splash as negligible. Swarms also deal reduced damage against shields and extra damage to armor now though. The opposite is true for forge guns which deal roughly 1200 base direct hit damage themselves. We get this from the math then.

Type.........Base DMG...........VS Shield............VS Armor
SL............1200.....................840.......................1560
FG............1200.....................1560.....................840
Pro SL......1800.....................1260.....................2340
Pro FG......1400.....................1820.....................980

AV nades and all explosive charges seem to be just that, explosive. They would then also suffer from massive damage reduction against the currently popular shield tanks.

And yes those numbers suggest that were that 30% type shift not a factor and SL able to catch dropships They would be better then FG.

EDIT FOR FORMATING

u got to be kidding me. r u saying u want to nerf tanks even more??? are u drunk??? our lives are hard enough as it is. Esspecially with forge guns doing 3000 damage and swarms doing 2000(shield tank) i'm going to take it tht u r just drunk. :)

Wot? You tried to Solo a Tank and it didn't work? OH NO!
This is the problem right here, people trying to solo a Tank that actually requires teamwork to use effectively.. With 6 Missiles in your Swarm Launcher, you deal over 7200 Damage. If you had two people using swarms, you'd of killed off the Tank. What kind of Swarms are you running?

It's extremely easy to die in a Tank. I get smashed by Forge Guns very easily, especially if they're higher up. I only run a Tank when I've got a squad backing me up (4 People including myself) to protect me, and you want to solo us?

-_-

These are the basic stats on the Militia Swarm Launcher, as taken from in-game.

Direct Damage Per Missile: 300
Splash Damage Per Missile: 15
Blast Radius: 1.0m
Missiles Per Shot: 4

4 x 300 = 1200.

Add splash of 4 x 15 = 60

That's a total of 1260 damage if all missiles hit, because splash damage applies to anything in their blast radius, including the target they dealt direct damage to.

Add Weaponry level 5, Swarm Launcher Proficiency level 5 and Damage Mods, and you can be pouring a LOT of damage out with high-tier Swarm Launchers that fire more missiles per lock.

Where did you get these figures from ?

part of the issue is that swarms as the default AV weapon deal lopsided damage. A single swarm has a base damage of 1200 assuming all rounds hit and excluding splash as negligible. Swarms also deal reduced damage against shields and extra damage to armor now though. The opposite is true for forge guns which deal roughly 1200 base direct hit damage themselves. We get this from the math then.

Type.........Base DMG...........VS Shield............VS Armor
SL............1200.....................840.......................1560
FG............1200.....................1560.....................840
Pro SL......1800.....................1260.....................2340
Pro FG......1400.....................1820.....................980

AV nades and all explosive charges seem to be just that, explosive. They would then also suffer from massive damage reduction against the currently popular shield tanks.

And yes those numbers suggest that were that 30% type shift not a factor and SL able to catch dropships They would be better then FG.

EDIT FOR FORMATING

Umm.... ok so 1260... How did you guys get 7200? Prove with math, please. Otherwise, you are talking out of your S

1 AV guy can solo a tank

Yes.....your point is?

It's not easy to solo a tank. Especially the ones that are well known for being absurdly fine tuned and specialized. (Lurch, Ted, Bad Furry, etc etc).

It can be done, but it's a almost like a completely separate match between you and the tanker.

TBH it really shouldnt happen unless its a badly fitted tank

2 builds ago it took a little thing called TEAMWORK and at least some serious investment in AV, now its the opposite

As for no teamwork to drive one i really dont know where you are going with this, currently i have to drive/watch out for threats/activate mods while driving and GTFO of dodge/also aim main turret and if the tank survives its mainly because of the driver tbh and its even more so now

That's an example of something requiring skill, not teamwork.

Anyway, like I said originally, "I know I'll just get shouted down by the community" on this. I understand a lot of people want to keep single player tanks, I just don't happen to agree.

I don't believe it will ever be possible to balance tanks/AV and keep everyone happy without requiring multiple players to operate a tank. Expect to see a continuous cycle of nerfs & buffs as CCP struggle on without addressing the real issue.

That real issue being that tank drivers want to balance in terms of ISK, almost everyone else wants to balance in terms of players, and the ratio of ISK to players will be different depending on whether tanks are involved or not.

First off, 1260 is Militia with NO skills and NO Damage Mods applied. And I never stated the 7200 as confirmed, because I haven't confirmed it for myself yet. Here's what I CAN say for sure though:

+25% for Weaponry 5.
+25% for Swarm Prof 5.
There are 6 missiles per shot with a Prototype Launcher instead of the 4 from Militia/Standard models.

That comes out to a total of either 2835 or 2953, depending on how those skill bonuses are applied. Now add the damage increase from 2 Damage Modifiers. I don't think it'll hit 7000, but I'm pretty sure 4000 is a low estimate.

I don't have the exact numbers on hand right now, but anyone can feel free to work it out for me (I'll probably check properly when I have time).

Tank drivers want balance in terms of being able to play to their chosen specialty.

Exactly skill not teamwork

Teamwork a tank isnt exactly easy to do since the driver does it all half the time with driving/aiming/killing and activating mods and the gunners are ther for the ride

Only way is to split the main turret from the driver, then you come across the problem that most likely the guy driving still needs all the turrets skill to be bale to put it on a tank

Unless by teamwork a tank you mean to fully outfit a tank with gunners they can train up skills for certain turrets and then buy the turrets to fit onto the tank and the driver doesnt need them skilled to fit them because a gunner already has them which i can see being hard to implement and confusing for alot of ppl

Or even skills in general for players which help the tank, so i dunno pilot suits in which mods can be added to the suit which help imporve the tank in some way ie armor shield hp/regen/resistances/speed/acceleration/dps/ROF etc

So you are suggesting that Tanks should not require teamwork, but that AV to kill them should. I don't agree.

.

First, just ROFL. Your stats are horribly off.

Weaponry lv5 =10%
SL prof lv5 = 15%

So there is 25% bonus, NOT 50% like you are calculating before damage mods. Now dont remember if he said he damage mods or not, so for example give credit for 1, thats another 10%.

So you are looking at 20% bonus, as assume he has weaponry lv5, as he doesnt have prof, so 1 volley of basic/militia swarms = 1512, assuming all rockets hit

Now being that 1/2 my sp is into av, i find it funny how he is complaining about not being able to solo a gung/mad in that, as even w/ my proto av i barely can solo a gung/mad , which i still find messed up that in my 1mil sp in av, im only doing about 400 damage more per shot, but thats a totally differ topic

Umm.... ok so 1260... How did you guys get 7200? Prove with math, please. Otherwise, you are talking out of your S

Sorry if I wasnt clear, I added up all the damage using all the Militia Swarm Launcher ammo. (So 6 volleys) which will equal a minimum of 1200 HP. With high level reloading it's pretty much instant anyway. So without a Nanohive and in a good position you will deal 7200 HP minimum. This will solo many tanks with ease. Some better fits will survive, providing you didn't bring a nanohive. And that's a Militia Swarm Launcher I'm talking about.

Should we not be considering these things in the same sort of sense that tanks in reality operate? How many hits from a rocket launcher could a real life tank take? Two? Three?

I never said that it was in response to your quote that it takes driver skill to survive and that it doesnt take teamwork becuase the 2 gunners are next to useless

Ther is no teamwork for the tank driver but its all on him to survive against AV

AV should take teamwork, as it is now it doesnt its an option but you can solo a tank no problem on your own

So you are suggesting that Tanks should not require teamwork, but that AV to kill them should. I don't agree.

(My thoughts and opinions are my own, you have been notified)
First off, let me say that while I dislike tanks as they are now I get their role in the battlefield and i get the way that they are used, and that they are most effective to the player who buys them. By all means they should be careful not to die in a tank because they are expensive, and that they want to get back rewards for their efforts. However, the tanks as they are right now are invincibility machines. They take no damage from small arms (as they should) but they also take very small damage from everything else even AV. They can sit on the top of an area safe and secure and rain down fire without worrying about damage as they can easily turn tail and run to safety to heal/recharge. As a player who focuses on AV primarily to combat vehicles I find it very frustrating to attempt to fight even a low level tank. Just today I had an instance where i shot my entire ammo cache of 6 swarm launcher rockets and threw 3 AV nades at a tank just to have him get in his safe zone and heal up. (Im still working on leveling up AV but it was only a Madrugar) While I don't think it should be easy to kill a tank I also don't think it should be hard enough that 24 rockets and 3 AV nades can't get the job done. I also don't think I should have gotten that close to the tank, but the driver wasn't that great and I got lucky. And I think thats what annoys me the most is that it makes it easy to get kills and hide while not being good at having a tank. Its just too easy not to die in a tank. My thought is that the tanks should be powerful anti ground forces that can be destroyed with effort just not enough that its next to impossible. If you have a differing opinion I encourage you to say what you think, just keep it nice.

Am I only one who thinks that tanks are balanced this build? I'm not a tanker btw.

I think that missiles should be better cuz they're useless now but as far as tank health and survivability and whatnot, I think it's fine.

See, I think the problem is that while it should take a lot of teamwork to defeat a tank (I agree 100% on this btw) it doesn't currently require any teamwork to drive one.

The most scare resource in Dust warfare isn't ISK or Aurum or skill points; it is players. The game should be balanced around that, not around ISK. Who gives a stuff if your tank is more expensive than my dropsuit; the constraint is the players, not the ISK. Trying to balance using ISK has failed dramatically in Eve (Titan blobs anyone?) and I strongly suspect it will do so in Dust.

The solution seems simple to me (but I know I'll just get shouted down by the community): balance around a 3 player tank team fighting a 3 player AV team, assuming equal ISK on both sides.

Reds have a 1.2 million ISK tank fit that requires a driver, a gunner and a commander (driver can't fire the main gun, both driver and gunner have limited field of view, commander has good visibility and an anti-infantry HMG).

Blues have 3 x 400K AV dropsuits.

That should be an even battle and player skill would be the decider.