Alright l thought I would help this thread out and give a good starting point for some of the aspiring tankers. I personally think there are two classes best suited to tanking - logi and heavy , simply because of the required skills in defence and tbh being a tanker is just as much about staying alive as it is dishing out damage.
Most aspiring tankers wont have the skills to go above malitia tanks for a while but thats ok everyone starts somewere . So I thought id put up a list of mods that will seriously help the new tankers stay alive during battle

FOR THE SOMA
Heavy ig polerized armour repair
180mm steal plates
1 power diognostic system
1 power expansion unit
1 light clarity shield repair
And one periferal damage contoll system
This is with a 80gj blaster turret also applies when fitting the rail turret .

FOR THE SICA
2 power diognostic systems
1 heavy shield extender
1 supplamental shield extender
And 1 light clarity ward shield booster
This applyscto fitting rail turrets when fitting the blaster replace one of the power diognostic units for a power expansion unit and the heavy shield for the heavy suplamental shield booster and swap the light clarity ward shield booster for the heavy clarity ward shield booster

I hope these loadout guidlines help the aspiring tanker as I said staying alive is just as important as getting the kills especially in your early tanking days .

So your saying if you have the blaster equiped on the sica that you need 2 shield boosters and 1shield extender? Why 2 shield boosters?

No you don't, but its important to have at least 1 shield booster in case your shields go down, having a blaster as a main cannon affects nothing but the damage given and the cpu/pg used. However you must have a shield extendor on your tank to give it more of a 1st layer of defense against attacks.

Response to Covert Clay


Remove the small shield booster since you have a heavy shield booster already installed. Remove the missle turrets completely, so far due to their complete lack of accuracy since the winter updates, they are completely useless. Skill up in small blasters and railguns as your secondary turrets.

Replace the small shield booster with a shield resistance amplifier, another shield extender OR a shield hardener.

Skill up in small blaster turrets to level 4, then youl be able to upgrade to large blaster turret level 1 and have a better blaster as a main cannon.

Also skill up in vehicle command level 5 then go for Caldari or Gallente HAV level 1, militia tanks may be cheap and easy to replace, but there is a reason they are not standard issue. Go for the Gunnlogi or Madrugar as a first official tank.

Thanks for getting back to me man. Right now I changed the small shield booster to a small shield extender. (I forgot the name) I believe it is the shield extender that takes 64 PG. I'm wondering if I should replace the small shield extender for one of the things you listed and get the extra PG back for the small turrets you suggested. I have about 200k SP right now. should I spend that towards a better cannon or a better tank first.

Thanks again man

So your saying if you have the blaster equiped on the sica that you need 2 shield boosters and 1shield extender? Why 2 shield boosters?

Thanks for getting back to me man. Right now I changed the small shield booster to a small shield extender. (I forgot the name) I believe it is the shield extender that takes 64 PG. I'm wondering if I should replace the small shield extender for one of the things you listed and get the extra PG back for the small turrets you suggested. I have about 200k SP right now. should I spend that towards a better cannon or a better tank first.

Thanks again man

Assuming you have maxed circuitry and engineering because those are vital to fitting better modules, you should work on skills for those better modules. A properly skilled and fit soma or sica can be far more deadly then a gunloggi or madragaur with modules and turrets which are below grade. And with many modules such as armour plates and shield extenders for vehicles, the top tier module uses less fitting resources but provides a greater benefit. Turrets though will use more so plan your fits accordingly.

A common misconception is that you need to have a higher grade tank to do well when in fact it's more about the modules. I would focus on getting a good tank fitting scheme before dropping an easy 300k+ on a moderately fit tank. Also your support skills make a big difference such as field mechanics, shield control, shield boost systems and so on.

I have 1 heavy shield extender, 1heavy shield booster and a small shield booster with 2 PG extenders and a militia blaster as my main cannon on my sica. I also have 2 missle turrents as my light turrents. This gives me 4k shields and 800ish armor. Anything to improve?

Alright thanks for the info guys . So based on what you said, i should spend all my SP on getting a better tank and then focus on turrets. When I do unlock the the gunnlogi/Madrugar. which 1 should I use and what types of moduels should I use as well. I'm pretty sure alot of people out there are wondering the same thing.

Unlock either or, the only difference is that Claldari focus on shielding while Gallente focus on armor. When I had a madrugar before the reset, I had 9000 armor. Now I have a Gunnlogi with 6000 shields. It just depends on what type you want, shield railgun, shield blaster, shield missle or armor railgun, armor blaster or armor missle.

Awesome, I guess I'll go with the gunnlogi because I already spent allot of SP on shielding. And I saw that shield hardeners decreased damage done to shields by like 30% isn't that equivalent to getting a shield extender that increases your shields by 30%?

Thanks for this thread as an aspiring tanker i will take this advice to heart and work my way to getting a good tank setup.
As a new player i can only afford the militia tanks so will look forward on further advice on maximising thier effectiveness.
o7
and is it alright to pm you ingame?

Unlock either or, the only difference is that Claldari focus on shielding while Gallente focus on armor. When I had a madrugar before the reset, I had 9000 armor. Now I have a Gunnlogi with 6000 shields. It just depends on what type you want, shield railgun, shield blaster, shield missle or armor railgun, armor blaster or armor missle.

I would be very interested in exactly what types of modules you used to get your gunnlogi up to 6k shields. One thing I noticed is that the gunnlogi doesn't offer any more max PG than the Sica offers. Why is the gunnlogi so much better?

By the way man, keep up the good work!

It's not. Atleast not by wide sweeping margins. I've taken down plenty a Gunloggi and Madragaur with Somas and Sicas.

The devil is in the details. It's a habit from EVE but small changes are what make big differances. Between the 2 tanks, the Gunloggi gets 2 more mid slots, more CPU, and a higher base shields. This helps in several ways as Shield Control only effects base shield health so you get more out of it. The more mid slots and CPU allow better shield tanks since shield tanking modules require a lot of CPU useage. So the end result is a tougher (or more flexable depending on fit) tank.

As for getting the Gunloggi to 6k shields? That's easy to do. I've seen higher then that. Really it comes down to Shield Control skills and Shield Extenders. I'm not going to give away all my fitting secrets but if you manage your PG/CPU well and have a set fitting goal in mind it's possible. For the record I have a Sica that is over 6k shields :P

Just be sure to match Defence with Offence. You don't want to go in being a super tough tank and realize you died simply because the other tank can just output a ton of damage. I'm not going to say how but much later on you'll see Railguns doing over 2000 per shot so defences won't last forever.

Alright thanks for the info guys . So based on what you said, i should spend all my SP on getting a better tank and then focus on turrets. When I do unlock the the gunnlogi/Madrugar. which 1 should I use and what types of moduels should I use as well. I'm pretty sure alot of people out there are wondering the same thing.

That's the thing. I can only get my Sica to 4k shield because of the PG cap and the fact that I don't have my skills maxed in (whatever gives more max PG to vehicles). I only have a limited amount of SP too so its hard to decide between maxing those skills, investing SP into skills to get a better tank, investing SP into skills for shield resisters, or investing SP into getting a better blaster. SP is tight right now, only got about 225k and there are so many angles and routes to decide from.

Ha. Well I never played eve and I've only been playing dust for about 2 weeks. XD

...
FOR THE SOMA
Heavy ig polerized armour repair
180mm steal plates
1 power diognostic system
1 power expansion unit
1 light clarity shield repair
And one periferal damage contoll system
This is with a 80gj blaster turret also applies when fitting the rail turret .

FOR THE SICA
2 power diognostic systems
1 heavy shield extender
1 supplamental shield extender
And 1 light clarity ward shield booster
This applyscto fitting rail turrets when fitting the blaster replace one of the power diognostic units for a power expansion unit and the heavy shield for the heavy suplamental shield booster and swap the light clarity ward shield booster for the heavy clarity ward shield booster ...

What about shield boosters though? Like what do you do if you get forge cannoned twice and your shields are almost gone?

Alright thanks for the info guys . So based on what you said, i should spend all my SP on getting a better tank

yay more advice \o/ keep it coming ;) yep i found the approach for me is to get the best dang modules i can get to stick on my sica, that way i can beat all the other militia tankers who put minimal stuff on to thier tanks, whilehave a fair shot at the standard tanks.

While a blaster for my main weapon would be the way I'd go, are railguns for my gunners viable options for long range AV?

If I hadn't recently shaved, I'd be stroking my beard.
Since the battlefield is far from static, how do you tank drivers handle different situations? I'm sure there wouldn't be much point in keeping different fittings for different situations since you can't change your loadout once you call your tank (unless it gets popped, anyway).

If I hadn't recently shaved, I'd be stroking my beard.
Since the battlefield is far from static, how do you tank drivers handle different situations? I'm sure there wouldn't be much point in keeping different fittings for different situations since you can't change your loadout once you call your tank (unless it gets popped, anyway). While a blaster for my main weapon would be the way I'd go, are railguns for my gunners viable options for long range AV?

I believe armor is better for anti-infantry because it is PG heavy. It is also able to repair its armor much faster than a shield tank can rep its shield. Armor tanks also have better damage reduction mods and great low slots, which allow you to have more EHP than a shield tank.

PG is good for an AI tank because blaster is much better than a railgun for mowing down enemy infantry. Blaster uses more PG and less CPU. Railguns use more CPU and have less PG. If you want to AI on a shield tank, you'll have some serious PG problems if you want to keep your tank alive. Again, the slow shield recharge will not allow you to tank enemy AV. You'll have to use the shield booster twice times to recharge your shields from even 50% to full.

edit: I wouldn't start over if you put points into shield. Eventually (if you're going all tank) you'll probably want to have the option of going shield tank too. You can't have spent too many points on shield tanks alone because armor tanks use shields too. I'm 100% shield tank atm, but once I finish my shield tank I'm getting my armor tanking skills up.

I think I'm the loudest proponent of specialization on these forums lol. I see tanking as a specialization in itself. Turrets are one of the most important things to a tank, and fortunately blaster and railguns are both hybrid and require the same skills to level up. The amount of points you spend on shields or armor can easily be done in a few weeks at most. If you started with the arbiter class it's much easier to go from shield tank to armor than it is to go from armor to shield. Armor skills don't have the expensive prerequisites that the shields do. It's just one more reason why the arbiter class is pretty much the best class for almost every role.

Thanks man. Well since I just started playing this game like 2 or 3 weeks ago and I've never played eve before so just went with the Amarr bloodline and enforcer class. So different classes do influence more than I thought. I'll have to look into that. Do you think its worth making a whole new character just to get the advantages of the arbitor class? I meen, you can't switch classes, can you?

Sorry for so many questions, I'm such a noob

There is no point choosing a new class or bloodline. It has no effect other then starting skills and since you're 2-3 weeks in, you'll just be farther behind. There is a saying in EVE that "no skill goes wasted" to mean as things change with patches what is best will change. One day it's shields, next day it's armour.

You are better off just skilling into the stuff you need now rather then restarting since you'll have skills now that can still be useful rather then have to get them again. You also have to remember there is no limit on the SP your character can have. So eventually you could get everything. (But new content usually prevents that as there is always something new to skill into :D)

Haha ok. Thanks man for the advice I'll look into armor tanks and see if I can throw a few SP that way and experiment. I guess it just comes down to personnel preference at this point. That being said, almost every game,e comes down to personnel preference at some point and time. The only real way to find out what's "best" is to experiment. Thanks everyone for your help

Absolutely. That's the attitude to have :D

Send me a mail in game. We should have a few games together :)

But really it doesn't take much SP to get into armour tanking. Field mechanics to 5, repair systems and armour upgrades to 3, and adaptation to 1 for starters gets you everything you need to build a good, strong armour tank. Even just getting lvl 4 mechanics and 1 in each is a good start to expand from.

Question is there any restriction or reduced effect on the number of armor repairs/ shield boosters / hardeners you can have in effect at 1 time?

So I'll share with you one of the best tricks I know.

If you're really annoyed at the randumb blue dot gunner, you CAN get rid of him!!!!!!!!!!

So you know how friendly and enemy LAVs explode in a large ball of fire if you hit them head or or rear end them? Well the explosion can kill your gunner! For the front gunner, hit the LAV with the front of your HAV, and make sure the front right corner is in the explosion. For the rear gunner, just ram an LAV while you're in reverse.

^_______^

You're welcome!

Ok so I can tell you what not to do! haha.

Being an eve player, im used to 'dodgy fits' so I tired Shield tanking a madrugar with max damage n tracking.
It only has 2 mid slots so i went for dual shield extenders.

It works and it has a lot of damage , however once your shields are down, recharging them will take forever if you dont have someone to repair you. (aka specialized fit even at best, not recommended to shield tank an armor TANK)

yeah, the thread was dead for a month but im going to revive it.

Hey void, I see you switched from shield to armor. We should talk sometime. I'll give you a few secrets to my armor tanking success.

I have been doing some experimenting and made 2 very dangerous tanks.

Madrugar:

HP-
1034 Shields
10424 Armor

Turrets-
1 80GJ Scattered Neutron Blaster
2 Prototype 20GJ Scattered Ion Cannons

Modules-
1 180MM Reinforced Polycrystalline Plate
1 120MM Reinforced Nanofiber Plate
1 180MM Reinforced Nanofiber Plate
1 Light Polarized Armor Regenerator
1 Supplemental Shield Regenerator
1 Supplemental Shield Amplifier

Gunnlogi:

HP-
7418 Shields
1249 Armor

Turrets-
1 80GJ Compressed Particle Accelerator
1 Prototype 20GJ Compressed Particle Cannon
1 Prototype 20GJ Scattered Ion Cannon

Modules-
1 Heavy Azeotropic Ward Shield Extender
3 Azeotropic Ward Shield Extenders
1 Heavy Clarity Ward Shield Booster

And void. You need to check the fitting on the armor tank. It simply doesn't fit.

Your living on the edge there void with only a small armor rep and no armor hardeners.

What do you put on the low slots on the logi . On mine I have a powerdiognostic system and a dammage amplifier for the rail tank.

I have circuitry level 5
cpu upgrades level 3
nanocircuitry level 3
combat engineering level 5
powergrid upgrades level 3
field mechanics level 5
armor upgrades level 3

and a lot more **** at level 3

I have circuitry level 5
cpu upgrades level 3
nanocircuitry level 3
combat engineering level 5
powergrid upgrades level 3
field mechanics level 5
armor upgrades level 3

and a lot more **** at level 3

Void, I'm very interested in how the fit you mentioned above it working for you. I can't see it working at all without constant infantry support. Have you tried running with a Efficient armor rep, armor hardener, 2 passive 15% resists and the proto armor plates?

each tank driver in dust514 has their own style of play, just like me. rolling with a squad is better for me because I get support against enemy AV and I get orbital strikes faster. it just depends on who your with

I'm glad your fit is working for you man. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come across as "My fit is better than yours" I'm just surprised this is working. I'll have to give it a shot some time.

Erm its the proximity mines that give off the beeping sound not remite explosives . Remote expkosives have no signature other than being visible if your paying attention. If you hear the beeoing from prox mines then back up straight away you never know they could be proto abd decimate yoir tank.

Are there any skills that a Gunner would have that carry over to the tank in terms of non-weapon performance? The teamwork is what fascinates me about DUST, and I'd like to know if there's beneficial skills besides maxing damage for the turret you're manning.

I appreciate your work on this thread, Void Echo. We need more tankers that are fun and challenging to blow up. Too many pushover's this build. Even in PC it's "meh', usually.

I would say mr echo that myself and a few other seasond tankers could and would helo you start a fresh thread for this build given all the changes (nerfs) our tanks have been through.

Iv had prerty much the same problem for say 4 tanks in the past 2 weeks have got the better of me . (2 of them called in a rail right at the end and poped me just before calling it back again. Cowards I say.)

Im not complaining but anyone who callsit back right after poping another tank only to hide for the remainder of the game is a coward. I have the option yes but I acctually like going toe to toe with other tanks battleing through each others reos and resists the better the pilot im facing the longer the fight .

Im also a really sneaky bugger . I love flanking red tanks and rolling up beside them before blowing the crap oit of them. Iv even had one of my gunners put a round from the cycled missile into a red madruger that i had literally rolled right up to and waited for his turret to face me before I blew the crap out of them ,

Only posting here as not ro clog your new guid . I think you should add an essential skills section and malitia build section for the new tankers.

Ill put some stuff in here tomorow when im at my computer and you can copy and paste what you want to the relevent sections inyour new guide.