I've always been puzzled how the Armour Plates are the only module with a drawback. I've heard some explain this as weight slowing you down, but in the far future why do we make things stronger by making them heavier? Why can't we just use more durable material that isn't made out of concrete? (better material would explain the increased cost in ISK as well as the increased CPU/PG strain on the suit).

As it seems counter-productive to complain about the speed penalty (as I'm sure it is a balancing factor), I'll focus on the way that it scales as I think it is absolutely absurde. The basic module grants you 65 hp to armor and a 3% speed reduction. This module is, in my opinion, the BEST armor plate you can purchase. While the Advanced and Proto armor plates grant more HP, they also take an inordinate amount of speed with them. Here's the current spread between HP gained, Speed Reduction, and SP required to use these modules:

Module________________Armor HP__Speed Decrease__SP Investment
Basic Armor Plates_________65________3%____________55,970
Advanced Armor Plates_____85________5%___________242,510
Complex Amor Plates______115_______10%___________932,760

So while Complex Plates offer less than 2x the protection of Basic Plates, they reduce your speed by more than 3x!! Advanced Plates aren't any better, giving you 1.2x more protection, again at the cost of almost 2x speed reduction over the Basic Plates.

While using a Complex Armor Plate does save you a module slot, it costs you almost 1mil SP to get a massive speed reduction that is far worse than 2 Basic Armor Plates in armor granted, speed penalty, SP investment and ISK cost.



I like ZDub's suggestion better than mine (as it has math and stuff), so while you'll see it later in this thread:

imo, removing the speed penalty would require a major rework of all the dropsuits and a specific weapon to balance the change.

1. in order to prevent caldari and minmatar from abusing the additional armor hp, it would require that all caldari and minmatar suits have their low power slots reduced to 1 forcing them to be shield tankers
2. In order to prevent the gallente from abusing the lack it speed, it would require that all gallente suits have their high power slots reduced to 1 forcing them to be armor tankers
3. In order to prevent the amarr from abusing both shields and armor, it would require making them all a little slower
4. Finally, it would also require an introduction of a weapon whose damage output was the complete opposite of the scrambler rifle, doing 50/150 vs shield/armor.

Only then will changing/removing the armor penalty will balance the game...theoretically.