Caldaris don't need any armor plates, you guys are good enough tanks as it is :(

What about armour plates giving a penalty to strafe speed only but leaving sprint speed unaffected?

Or they give a stamina penalty?

Or have many different kinds of plates giving different penalties for more variety?

It would just create a greater gap when it comes to sacrificing speed for defense, the Caldari will have more total HP than any other class for less of a speed sacrifice.

Yea so as a Caldari you will keep your amazing shield capabilities while extending them into the Armor tanking realm.

On the other hand for races that depend on armor we will get to finally wear a good armor plate but we will still suck with shields, therefore a Caldari can have really good shields, while wearing the same armor plate as a Armor race, what this means is that the Caldari will still be better at taking hits without sacrificing as much speed as another class for the SAME effect.

The only way this will be viable is if any of the races that depend on armor get a passive armor regen, while Shield classes don't; or give armor races a -X% reduction to armor penalties. And CPU/PG is so easy to counteract, but there is nothing to fix speed penalties.

Armor races = Gallente and Amarr.

I expect the right solution is to add the proper downside to the shields, like a larger sig radius or even maybe a larger hit box if that's possible within the engine.

Lowering the penalty to 0% for basic, 0% for advanced, and finally 0% for complex would be the best way to balance armor plates against shield extenders. Just the fact that they share a slot with armor repairers and dont passively repair at 20/s should be enough.

No matter what, I feel like complex modules should be MORE efficient than basic modules for buff per penalty.

If we kept with the 3% move penalty / 65 armor you're looking at 0.046% move penalty per armor point... At which point advanced should be like 0.035% and complex at 0.03%...

So..
Basic, 65 Armor - 3% move penalty
Complex, 115 Armor - 3.45% move penalty.

That way, it is never more efficient to run basic > complex.

The incentive is that you get more armor. This seems simple to me. Yes the ratio of Armor to speed reduction decreases, but when you have limited slots and want maximum armor, well, you go for the big plates.

Gallente armor tanker checking in.

Please add Armor Plate Profficiency skill. Speed penalty reduction 10% per skill level. For Shield Extenders, add 3, 5, 10 percent scan profile penalty respectively and a corresponding Shield Extender Proficiency skill. Scan profile penalty reduction 10% per skill level.

There's already been a thread on this. But, as we've had no reaction from CCP dudes and dudettes, I recap some options here.