Remote Armor Repair. Find a logi. Hug your logi. Love your logi.

Add the Armor Honeycombing skill from EVE. This gives a 5% reduction to the movement penalty per level of armor modules

reduce the movement penalty proportionally to the armor increase. Basic -> Enhanced is a 25% armor increase, so the penalty should increase by 25%, which so the penalty should be roughly 3.75%, Enhanced -> Complex is roughly 25% so the penalty should be 4.69%.

GÇó GIVE SUITS THAT FOCUS ON ARMOR TANKING, BONUSES TO ARMOR USAGE! This is probably the most important thing that would need to be looked at before changing armor tanking, because if we change all the armor modules and skills etc, then what we will create is good armor tanks, but better shield tanks. Shield tanks can stack more complex modules than armor tanks and on top of that they would now have lower penalties for armor tanking so they can go fully defensive an out tank us even more, or use up armor modules and use their excessive High slots for weapon modifiers.

Every time I make a post suggesting to fix armor I can't ever suggest anything without thinking at how much shield tanks would benefit from it, so the only way to really fix it is to add passives for the Armor races for just being the race, or increase the speed of all suits that focus on using armor so when the penalty hits it would put us on par with a normal suit that focuses on shields while both having an equal EHP with equal investment.

Also I believe that armor should fragment and increase the damage we take from explosives progressively, so instead of a MD doing 130% damage initially it would start out at 100% and go up as our armor goes down; almost everything on the field is made to destroy armor so we should have a fighting chance at least. Flux grenades should also have the ability disrupt the recharge delay and have a EMP effect, so if I get fluxed my shields would take longer to recharge and my sensors would be disrupted pretty much a flash bang/grenade.

All of these fixes together WILL BE too much, however tweaking the numbers here and there would be good.
With these numbers you can get 454 armor hp + 50hp/s regenration.
Or 1030hp with 15hp/s regeneration.
So yeah. (This is one a Gallente logi)

Also, instead of increasing the armor hp to such a high place, put complex plate to 44 hp.
So 22/33/44.
And then put complex plates at 130.
So 65/97/130.
This would put shields and armor inline in terms of increase but won't put armor at super uber high hp.

We will push FoxFour on IRC to read it.
This will hopefully make him push it to the people responsible for balance.

IMO
1.Change the gallente and amarr assault suits skill bonus from 5% shield recharge to 5% reduction to armor plates speed penality.
2.Give shields a proper drawback. In eve armor plates slows you down BUT shields increase your sig. radius.
Just give shield extender a sig radius penality like in eve so that armor is slower but shields make you more visible on the battlefield.
-Basic shield extender +3% sig radius
-Advanced shield extender +5% sig radius
-Proto shield extender +10% sig radius

I'm in agreement with the plate penalty being too heavy handed. It's penalisation being speed also puts the Gallente scout in an awkward position, having it's two strengths potentially impinging on one another. Shifting the penalty to stamina would remedy this.

Armour is in a very rough place compared to shields in almost all areas of capability. This does call for them to be evened out but this doesn't necessarily mean armour being brought up to the same kind of level as shields, bringing shields more in line with armour is also an option. Giving it trade-offs of another kind, reducing the hp granted by complex extenders, perhaps increasing the delay on shield recovery or a reduction to recharge speed. The extender is the main one I'd advocate, going overboard and reversing the situation between armour and shields I would not.

The decision about which direction to take it, which one should be made to meet the other, is a gameplay one. Where do you want the TTK to be at? Do you want to trivialise non-lethal damage or make people bear their wounds longer?

The bottom line is that by buffing one thing you are also, in essence, nerfing everything else and vice versa. As most of the tools in Dust revolve around either making someone's health hit zero or preventing your own from doing the same shields and armour tie into this particularly heavily.

Make passive shield regen slower, add shield transfer arrays. Fix modules accordingly, giving armor a pure HP advantage (still) unless shield extenders get a noteworthy penalty.

in the dust keynote a while back ( i'm going to have to re watch it there was mention of new armor mods one of them was ferro scale plates witch didn't have the movement issue but had another drawback i also think part of the issue is just what the games has set for the sentinels design they work best on maps like domination when they can either take a dropship or a lav into the lone point when its neutral or spawn there when its caped

along side ferroscale plates was mention of the sentinels opposite the commando a slightly more mobile heavy that trades a some of the heavy's trademarked shield and armor for the ability to carry two light weapons and a side arm

edit: i don't really think their is much to be changed not everything is in place yet it really kittens me off that they rushed the launch to have it take place on 5/14

starting to see your point one way to fix this is to make plate armor self healing but nickel and dime it and like you said up the amount repaired by armor reps and make reactive armor plates when the come out give damage resistance in addition to hp


edit somthing like 1/2/3 on plates and 5/8/12 on reps migt do it

I run both, does that cause some form of time paradox?

I like somebody's suggestion that armor should have an endurance and sprint penalty rather than regular speed penalty. Basically if you have complex armor you can't 'sprint' worth crap.

My response:

1) Logi=gun off the field- sort of true, but a player hiding while their shields recharge is also a 'gun off the field'.

A logi actively repping someone during combat takes their gun off the field - the hiding while shields recharge is only 'after combat'.

2) Just to be fair you didn't factor weapon usages/effectiveness against these different suits.

For example the AR does 110% to shield and 90% to Armor.

AR-Against the complex modules...
Complex shield has 59.4 EHP
Complex armor has 126 EHP

So technically when you are considering the AR, the complex armor is 2.12x better than complex shield. When looking at scrambler rifle it is 2.61x better.

That's true, but you still need to fit repairers on armour, which reduces the buffer tank available.
In addition, that's giving a fairly narrow view of things. The AR may be the most used, but the resist profile for armour is generally worse due to the explosive hole, and there are plenty of weapons which do more damage to armour than shields. The SMG, HMG, MD, and a number of other weapons completely wreck armour. The explosive hole is so big on armour as well that it's a huge disadvantage.
I covered resist profile in the second post, I think.

3) "In the time it takes to be killed....shield recharge rep wins out over all" Shield depletion delay time is big elephant in the room here IMO. The 5-10 seconds that a shield player's shield is depleted is their big weakness.

Shield recharge delay goes down to about 3 seconds at the high end. Also, if shields aren't fully depleted, it starts ticking from the first shot, so you sometimes recharge under fire.

First. My thanks goes out to the OP. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Your OP brilliantly lays out the issues.

IMHO Speed tank is king! I've mentioned this in a previous feedback post, But due to the way DUST applies reverse acceleration penalties to fast rotational movement, it is impossible to hit fast moving targets at close range. Shield Tanking is currently better, because you can only speed tank if you shield tank [/u].

The best tank at the moment is a fast dropsuit, stacked with speed /endurance mods and some shield and damage mods. At 0 - 20 meters, you will literally strafe faster than the enemy can track with the mouse/right thumbstick. If you are engaged at 20 - 40 meters you still have the speed to sprint faster than a player can accurately track. This is compounded by the rotational penalties applied to medium and heavy suits, and any armor tank (armor plates reduce rotational speed).

Also, neither the scrambler rifle nor the Flux grenade are significant counters to shield tanking. While dealing increased damage to shields, the scrambler rifle is incredibly difficult to hit with. Hit box detection, speed tank, lag, and rotational reverse acceleration, combined with the lower rate of fire mean that actually applying scrambler rifle damage is more difficult. DUST 514's lag compensation mechanism seems to work in favor of faster rate of fire weapons (more rounds down range in any given moment means more chances for the lag compensator to apply). Also, even though the Scrambler rifle does more damage to shields, it is still incredibly effective against armor, both dealing massive damage, and better hit probability due to the slower speed of armor tankers.

Flux grenades are plagued with the same dsync and hit detection problems as Flaylocks and Mass Drivers. I can't tell you how many times I have dropped a Flux grenade directly on someone and they have not taken any shield damage. This is partially due to the speed tank. Speed tankers in scout suits can jump above the flux radius of damage. I have seen numerous people jump completely over the flux radius.

As for the shield/armor balance, I submit the following ideas which I think synergize well together.

STEP 1: What if shield extenders actually extended the dropsuit's hit box? Isn't that what a shield EXTENDER is actually doing...extending the shield? It would work something like this. If a shield extender is fitted, and the dropsuit's shield is active (not depleted) then the hitbox would be increased according to the penalty associated with the shield extender module. This penalty would increase the better the module and the penalty would stack the more modules fitted. When the shield depletes, the hitbox returns to its normal value until the shield begins to recharge.

STEP 2: Move all shield moduels to high slots. Significantly lower shield recharge rates and increase shield recharge delay across the board. Add a base armor repair rate to dropsuits (like a built-in nanite repair capability). Then give all suits a bonus to their racial tanking ability that increases with the number of modules fit. Minmatar and Caldari get a bonus to shield extender amount, shield recharge rate and recharge delay. Gallente and Amarr get a bonus to armor amount, armor repair rate and reduction to movement penalty. These bonuses would have a base value if no appropriate modules were fit, but would increase proportionally with the number of modules.

Lore friendly bonuses from the EVE universe (my understanding)
Minmatar: Speed and Shield bonuses (fastest)
Caldari: Shield and range bonuses (Shield Tankiest)
Gallente: Armor and Shield bonuses (balanced tank and speed)
Amarr: Armor and damage bonuses (armor tankiest)

STEP 3 Add mid-slot range modules (increased optimal, increased falloff). This would balance the many low slot utility modules. Honestly, I'm not sure about what type of modules these should be, but there need to be more high-slot utility modules. Having the damage and range modules in high slots would seem to be EVE appropriate. Caldari and Minmatar have inherently better range projection, but to maximize it they have to compromise their tank. Amarr and Gallente are known for their close range face melting, but have to compromise tank in order to increase speed.

Here are two more threads on how Armor Plates are ridiculously penalized:

Armor Plates
[Request] Infantry Armor Plates

Here's my OP in my Armor Thread:

-snip-

1. Yes locus grenades are good against armor but everyone has shields, so there is a rechargeable barrier there preventing all that grenade going straight into armor. Armor is second line defense not first. But both kind of weigh each other out. It's just that if you put all your chips into shields then come across a flux nade you might as well be paper in the wind. Locus grenades do not always take out all your armor like a flux always takes out all your shields.
2. Yeah but a shield tanker purest lets say will fill those slots with regulators. Yes I find it off that shield tanking (infantry) supports armor regeneration but here's the thing, Armor Repairers are CPU heavy and that will cause the shield tanker to make sacrifices. However their low slot capability does not work so well.
3. Well if you move like a slug then play like a slug. Don't try to act like a cheetah if you can only move so fast. Armor tanking requires a different style than shield tanking, one that calls for the sacrifice of mobility. Move like a chess piece, think like a chess piece. Shield tanking is a little more "in the moment" while armor tankers are more long haul kind of people.
4. Well the faster recharge is a perk of shield tanking, they have to have some good points you know.
5. As do shield tankers, if they want to preserve armor. Armor tank suits favor low slots so you should have extra room to fit that armor repairer and HEY! Your shields regen for free too! *Not all armor tankers pack a repper, sometimes it's better to go all out tank and have a buddy with a tool*
6. Yes you are, an inherit risk of armor tanking, but armor plates cost less cpu/pg and give more HP (significantly) so doesn't that sort of even out? EDIT See #7
7. (first of all the HP per CPU/PG is significantly higher if you are shield tanking than armor tanking) Yes, but self repping armor is still a choice, you can do more tanking in its place. But lets suppose you do,
5 x Shield Extenders (supposing you can fit them) = 330 for 270 CPU / 55 PG
2x Complex plates = 330 for 60 CPU/24 PG

You see there ^ ? That's plenty of room for Complex armor reps, you have room for 3 but for comparable health!

I think #7 is a good example of why armor is working pretty much.

EDIT: I left out a crucial point that armor is slower than shield tanking (if you choose to use plates). That is what equalizes the playing field and again, move like a slug, play like a slug.

yeah they really need to fix armor it is so broken, yes you can heal a hole 2-5hp a second no matter what but the pg and cpu demands on a armor dude is ridiculous to get 317hp on a suit requires it to move so slow there is no point in even having them you just cant have armor plates on stuff it is how the game is right now it will change someday and maybe armor will be king in the next update/patch.

Armor shouldn't be king, but neither do shields. Deciding to pick what suit one is to run, and what tanking method they will prefer, shield tanking or armor tanking, should be a cosmetic and/or personal choice neither should be better than the other but sadly this is untrue.

How the system is now even a suit that relies on armor has to shield tank if he wants to survive.

Weapons with significantly higher shield damage than armour:

Laser Rifle, Scrambler Rifle, Flux Grenade.

Weapons with slightly higher shield damage than armour:

Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Railgun, Blaster, Plasma Cannon, Forge Gun.

Why do people always forget that Hybrid weapons actually deal more shield than armour damage? It isn't a huge imbalance, but it's still an advantage to armour tanking, particularly when the armour tankers also have higher base HP to go along with that (slight) edge in resistance against almost all the common weapons on the battlefield.

---

More seriously though, the core mechanics of the infantry side of DUST greatly favour shield-tanking, while HAVs at least (not entirely sure about other vehicles) favour armour in the game's current state.

I say we increase all Gallente dropsuits' walking/sprint speed to compensate just like their HAVs!!

Actually that was a solution I posted a while back, increasing the Gallente speed by about 6% actually mitigates the speed penalty enough that stacking an extra armor module is worthwhile and balances the builds in terms of total EHP, but as a negative it leaves us with one less low slot.

If my caldari assault loses armor, I won't get that back unless I stumble across a repair tool.

Gallente, unless they for some reason forego reppers, will always reach full health again.

That's a huge advantage. Actually... I may try fitting a repper. Many times I die when having my meager armor at 100 instead of at 30 may have saved me. Every time you end an encounter at 50 armor, know that you will not survive another encounter identical to that.

That said, I think armor plate speed reduction should be reduced slightly (2/3 of what it is now?) And reppers boosted by about 1 or 2 HP / second.

Just looking at stats I'd guess that they're balanced when you can fit good reppers (at least 15 / second) but are weak at basic and questionable at advanced until you skill up.

I am going to be honest, I learnt a fair bit reading this post. I actually asked Arkena to make this post as he was explaining armor tanking to me in IRC.

I can't really comment on this very much though as it is not an area I work on. I can and will say however that those that do work on this stuff have read this thread. It actually made it into our weekly community report today that gets sent around to everyone working on DUST.

Thank you very much for this post. :D

After having thought about this some more... I think i'm starting to get a feel for what CCP intends with armor tanking.

First off, buff armor tanking, dont nerf shield tanking!! Shield tanking is in a great spot right now in terms of TTK.

Just a few small changes that would make armor tanking completely viable.

First... I think enhanced shield extender should be 44 hp, to make it 22-44-66. Not bringing complex down to 22-33-44

Now, I think they need to buff armor plates hp a lot while changing the speed penalty to 6-8-10%. Probably have armor plates with triple the HP of shield extender. So... 66-132-198 armor per plate. This leaves higher tech plates more efficient, and crazy EHP. The idea behind these plates is... medium suits should not want to use them. These should be for armor tanking heavies that dont feel the move speed penalty so badly, and get high EHP for their money. However, if a medium suits wants to take the move speed hit, they can get some nice ehp as well. However, for medium suits.. move speed is king/

Next, introduce the ferroscale plates. These should have no move speed penalty at all, and be at 2x shield extender hp which puts it at 44-88-122 hp. These are the medium suit's desired low slot extender.

Next, passive armor reps in high slots. This allows armor tanks to fit both plates and reps at the cost of neither. And also have room for a cpu/pg upgrade as needed. Change armor reps to 2-4-6 per second, they should rep slowly. Shield tanks should have burst regen at the cost of EHP.

Finally, reactive plates, which give reduced hp with armor regen. This is for shield tankers, when we want small passive reps to slowly bring back that armor we cant passively rep anymore due to armor reps being a high slot item. Reactive plates will have 'around' the same hp as shield extender, not even gonna bother with numbers, and have small hp rep... probably 2-2-3 per second or so.

This makes armor tanks absolutely viable and effective.

I'm sure its where CCP intends to go, but they just haven't coded it yet. Another example of balancing against items that are not yet in game.

Yeah fair enough, shield tankers have to go between rechargers and extenders too, its just not that big of a deal with the passive recharge that comes with the suit.

Maybe moving all EWAR modules to high slots would be the better way to do it.

That way shield tankers have to decide between profile dampening vs shield mods and armor tankers have to decide between sta/speed mods and armor mods. Lending to each types inherent weakness in EVE.

What I don't get is why don't shield extenders increase your sig radius? Shields should make you easy to spot on the minimap. The bigger your shield the harder it is to hide.

Also proposed numbers...

Standard Armor rep +4 hp/sec
Enhanced +8 hp/sec
Complex +12 hp/sec

Also why did CCP pick bonuses out of a hat for dropsuits? Eve online has been going through a huge overhaul of all ships bonuses. Yet in dust they can't even get that right?

Solutions could easily be introduced into the already existing skills.
The 2% bonus to armor reps is laughable. 5 levels to gain a Minmatar Medium Assault armor rep bonus when using a Comples repairer.

Plates shouldn't reduce movement speed, only sprint.

If CCPs solution to armor tanking is to introduce less HP no movement penalty modules, armor suits will need an extra low slot.

My number one issue with armor tanking, is that I can't stack armor plates as effectively as a shield tanker can stack extenders.

While I *do* stack them, I end up with less HP *and* penalized. Sure enough, a heavily shield tanked assault suit doesn't have damage mods, but in the long run, it doesn't matter as much.

Gallente suits for one, should have a 1 HP armor rep to armor repairers per level for Assault Suit (and the fitting bonus for the spec.)

GALLENTE!
REJOICE!

^^this. the heavies base EHP is 800. so these guys are running around with the strength of a heavy the faster shield recovery (yes thier shields recharge faster than heavies as a base ability), faster turning speed, faster sprint/movement speed, and over all greater mobility. add in the bunny hopping, and you can basically do the job of a heavy at half the price, and be twice as effective.

CCP why do you hate heavies?


P.S. don't even talk about heavies armor or shield tanking the amount of slots we get at proto level are laughable.

the primary concern about heavies is that approaching 1300 HP requires at least 2 complex plates and a crippling speed penalty. Further, without completely maxing out both armor and the shield upgrade skill the base health of a heavy is less than a tanked caldari medium suit.

Before anyone says defensive roles, that's a s**tty copout. sentinels are defensive. Heavies are heavy. Further, the speed penalty is crippling when the defender is so pathetically easily outflanked.

until CCP does 64v64 or higher matches people do not have the manpower to park 4 or more fatties on a cap point.

In ambush fatties are sitting ducks.

to a lesser extent so are gallente and amarr medium/assault suits.

After i play my heavy alt more and skill him up we can talk. I can already say that HMG + Militia Heavy suit often gets wtfpwned by newbie suits. the EHP is laughably low.

I pretty much have maxed support skills and often a militia fit caldari medium frame (standard) lives longer than my heavy fit. It depends what I'm fighting though.

As always some enemies are easier than others.

Oh and the points you made apply to heavies as much if not more in your OP. There's really no functional difference in the downsides between the various classes. it's just more obvious in the heavy, but proportionally equally problematic.

At the current rate the smart thing for hevies will be to jump ship to caldari/minmatar as soon as the suits are released.

my thoughts are that CCP has always kinda had a bass-ackward view of shield Vs. tank. It's evident in EVE online especially.

Shields are the tougher nut, you only need to wait for them to recharge, and there's ways to make that happen insanely fast.

Armor is pretty much SOL without local reps.

Shields tend to be standoff and long range.

Armor tends to be wade-in-and-smash.

Shields seem to be faster

Armor is slower.

Armor needs to be able to get in fast in order to deliver anything resembling damage properly.

So far the OP has given a nearly flawless description of shield vs armor in the 3 pages.

1. At first I thought that 25 HP constant regen was a little too much but then I remembered this: Caldari Assault suit with cpu upgrade, 2 complex regulators, and 1 complex shield recharger. Base Armor rep of 4, 7, and 10 is acceptable.

2. Stamina penalty means nothing once you're already engaging an enemy. Have it be 2%, 4%, and 6% movement penalty.

OR

3. Increase plate bonus according to the suggestion of 65, 97, and 130.

4. Mandatory.

5. Not necessary, Gallente suits were actually supposed to be initially slower for having higher base armor :P

6. No, doing this will make the overall gameplay seem a little frustrating on all suits for having to back away from combat too long.

We'll be addressing armor tanking with multiple updates going forward:
- New armor modules will be released with the Uprising 1.2 patch:
- Ferroscale plates (smaller HP buff but no speed penalty)
- Reactive plates (small HP buff and minor repair rate buff - plates that heal themselves! )
- We'll be reducing the movement speed penalty slightly on armor plates in a future hot-fix.
- Giving proper racial bonuses! The reason the Gallente don't get (the very obvious) bonus to movement speed when armor tanking at the moment is because we use a tag system to confer bonuses to items and currently there is no way to exclude an item from getting a bonus. The only way to do this would be to tag EVERYTHING in the game that isn't the Gallente suit with a tag, which is error-prone and likely to ensure we unintentionally screw up some unrelated skill at some point. This will be corrected as soon as is feasible.

damage mods aren't AS good as you think. Most good players use shield extenders and skip damage mods entirely. Defense in DUST is worth more than a few more DPS unless you're talking about some very specific weapons.

To CCP_Remnant, please do share the numbers you have in mind for the new modules, and the penalty tweaks. Those things need to be out to the community as soon as possible. It will allow discussions and maybe avoid you guys some issues afterwards.

In my opinion, ferroscale plates, those with no penalty should give less HP than a shield extender of the same tier. Especially if at some point shield extenders get a penalty like many suggests they should have.

Energized plating will probably be the type of modules you use to fill a hole in your fit lol.

After some contemplation I'd like to point out that we can't balance armor too well. The OP suggestions are excellent and the inclusion of any one or two of them would fix armor tanking. As our dear Dev mentioned earlier - a few of these things will be going in and they look to solve many problems. However - there is one problem it may inadvertently create that I would like to point out.

That is the potential of a damage disparity.

The one sacrifice shield tankers must make is the damage mod. Damage mods are very powerful. If armor tanking becomes just as viable as shield tanking stand alone - then armor tankers will be able to HP up and run a set of damage mods. Shield tankers will not be able to HP up and run damage mods. They will only be able to HP up more with the use of regulators and speed up with the various mobility mods. Armor tankers will have that option as well however giving the shield tanker a bit less in the way of options.

So either armor gets equal parity to shield stand-alone plus has some of their options removed or its not quite as good as shield.

I'm Amarr so I'm tanking mix tanking - I just wonder if the shield tankers might find themselves a bit hard up in comparison to what they can do once armor gets up to where it should be.

Regardless I love the changes listed. They are good needed steps forward.

Preface: What bugs me with this thread is that everything in it has been said many many many many many times before. By before i mean for more than a year. But people were just NOT using armor except heavies as any suit was pretty much shield oriented as soon as T2, B-s and Vk1 landed. And even before, people were just mostly using shield.

Nonetheless, OP's work is solid and well detailled. So Kudos. I'm gonna try giving a reply worth the worthy of it.

This shield vs armor debate is tough to break down as you need to take into account an awfull lot of different criteria. Things as they are could be balanced with only a few changes. Too many could simply turn the OPiness the other way around.

1.My main issue with shield, and it's been discussed a bit is that it doesnt have any real penalty being used. The bigger hitbox suggestion is a good one but it may prove being difficult to code (only assuming there, no knowledge) and not very gameplay friendly. People would need to be able to assess or even see the growth of their hitbox so they can play accordingly. And balancing it, god the horror.

I would simply go with the same thing EVE has : Adding shield extension raises you radar signature, making you a lot easier to be detected.It may push at some point shield user to not just use buffer but also profile dampener. The same way armor users are kinda pushed to use biotics to compensate for their loosy speed.

2.Regarding the armor penalty, it's just a total non-sense. Proto plate giving 1.5 more HP but 3.3 more penalty is like saying "DONT USE ME". There we all agree. HP numbers should be re-assessed to follow a more logical progression.

I'd go with unchanged numbers for shield.
Armor plates : 45, 90, 135.

At max skill, you'd get 148 HP for a complex plate. Which compared to the 72 for a shield extender sounds about right. (after all, basic shield is 22 and basic plate is 45)

3.Regarding the movement penalty, it shouldnt be reduced too much. Worse, it should be bigger Why ? because it wont only help armor users, but also shield users. "Why not add a plate as it wont slow me down so much anyway"
=> 4,8,12%

4.You could thus have a racial skill for every basic frames that would add up to specific specialty\racial bonus. Remember those are wild examples to illustrate my post.

5.Last but not least. Repair rate vs recharge rate.

omg the armor tankers are getting a buff lol this is epic ccp if this is your plans just take the caldari class out its complete crap...not even a challenge for me to pop. armor tanks are the only tanks in dust that are even remotely worth it that is why all the old caldari pros have switched out to gallente tanks ccp pay attention. not saying amor is good i think these improvements are awesome and may even make your tanks more than an expensive coffin. but you are incorrect in thinking as far as tanks go you have the worst of it. i have been running tanks and av in dust 514 for over a year. tanks in general are under powered. i hope armor gets some serious buffs as then there will be ONE good type of HAV in dust.

Gun off the field?

No.

Logi's have their place and their Rep tool is just as good.
They can equip rifles as well and aggress the target, just as anyone else.

SUPPORT is necessary.

Run without it, and you will complain about the mechanic.

Those without support, fail. Horribly.

Why not have a visual indicator to represent efficiency on the weapon radial indicator, as in next to the ammo count or something. As you point different targets it would fill-up or empty based on your target's efficiency rating.

Just gonna throw a random thought out there, but what if the downsides to shield extenders were that they actually reduced shield recharge rate as well? (can be done alongside other changes for balance)

As is, in my armor tanked suits, my shields restore to full effortlessly. Adding a few hundred HP to shields and it's still not a huge time to wait for them to restore, unlike armor which can take quite a seriously long time. But if the more shield buffer you put onto a ship, the less HP/sec your shields would restore, and I think that may be a step in the right direction?

At the very least, it gives shield tanking a noticeable drawback similar to how armor tanking noticeably reduces speed.

You don't actually recharge any slower though. You just have a lot more HP to charge (and proportionally, it still takes shields pretty much no time at all to fill up to maximum compared to armor) You also have modules and skills that affect shield regenerative abilities, which creates a bit of diversity with playstyles and fittings and skillpoint allocation (depending on if pure buffer or regenerative abilities are more important to you)

This also plays out better with Caldari/Matari differences, where Caldari would prefer shield buffers and Matari prefer shield regeneration.

I think keeping shields and armor distinct should be done. making one function like the other is undesirable

1) Bigger hitbox i dont dislike but i'm pretty sure it's a massive pain to code. And i dont see it happening to be honest.
But still, everything has a downside. The point being shield having a smaller downside than armor as it gives, for equivalent tier less HP amount.

Agreed.

Regarding the signature malus on shield. You cant rule it out because the current system isnt perfect. You say most dots come from people spotting the enemy. Yes, most. Not all. And bigger signature could go with longer display on the tacnet, or being spotted from a longer distance. Plenty of choices there.

Most, being the vast, vast majority, like over 90%. It depends on how scanning evolves tbh.

2/3) There i feel you misunderstood me. Like a lot. The whole point, the main idea of my previous reply is to enhance the efficiency of armor oriented suits to use armor modules. And same goes with shield.

Perhaps I did. I don't think racial bonuses are the way to go for it though - perhaps a role bonus would be better?

Regarding base HP of the plates. I merely use a roughly x2 multiplier compared to what shield module gives you at the same tier. So yes, i lowered the std one so it would suit that idea.

I don't really like doing that, because the lower tiered plates would really start to suck when you put on a bigger speed penalty as well. And yes, I know it's mitigated by the bonuses you propose, but remember at the basic level people don't have that SP to invest.

And regarding the penalty, this suggestion only applies with the other suggestion to add specific bonuses to the basic frame skills depending on the race. (copy pasting here)

- Gallente racial bonus : 10% reduction to armor penalties per level. (You would reach 6% penalty for a complex plate.)
- Amarr racial bonus : 5% reduction to armor penalties per level and 5% reduction to heat build up per level (9% penalty)

So in the end, gallente, the most armor oriented suit gets a way lower penalty that it does now (6% for complex) and with more base HP. 6% penalty for 148 HP. How does that make armor tanking worse ?

It makes it worse because you -absolutely must- spec the skills to all 5 before you get to that point. It's not overall worse if you can do that, though.

Regarding ferroplates now. when i said they shouldnt give much armor, it was in the same idea. If a complex ferroscale gives 90 HP without any kind of penalty ? What do you think shield tanker will do ? Both shield and armor tank. And in my opinion, buffing HP with a defense type that isnt originally the suits purpose should either bring you a very limited advantage, or come with a bigger penalty than the specialized suit. eg, minmatar assault using plates. It happens often in EVE.

This is true, but that then effectively nerfs armour tankers because you don't want shield tankers to use it too. You can't balance a module to make it ineffective because otherwise other people will use it. We also don't have that kind of thinking with shield tanking, and it shows. Shield tanked Gallente dropsuits are already on the battlefield.

So yeah, movement penalty would be higher, but only for the race who wouldnt get a penalty reduction through one of their skill bonuses. Is it more clear now ? And again, i also think movement penalty shouldnt impact base movement speed as you cant buff it back.
I must have missed your comment on base movement speed. That makes things make a lot more sense.

You mention something about low level tanking being awfull. yes it is. i'll admit it tend to think at high levels coz that's ultimately where you will end up. But the SP investment isnt that high as you WILL skill into suits pretty quickly, especially when knowing that reaching level 3 only cost an overall 273600 SP. Which would already give 30% penalty reduction.
Aka 6% penalty for enhanced plates using a gallente suit. If this only affects spring and not base movement anymore, then you're way better off than what you get now.

I think a better solution to this would be using role bonuses to mitigate the armour penalties instead. You could also solve the ferroscale issue if you want to make armour tanking reliant on bonuses by bonusing the ferroscale HP.
I don't agree with having to use suit bonuses to make a tank type worth using, because in this case it's only applying to one kind of tank. Shield tankers still don't have to do that, making shield tanking viable on any suit.

To be continued.

next part of the reply

Also, at the moment, those basic frame skills have absolutely NO value beyond that 3rd level as people wont waste almost 1M SP to get the proto basic frame when they can go for a specialized one even if it's more expensive SP wise. (that's still a million SP saved).

And i dislike useless skill levels (like dropsuit command 4 and 5...)

As much as I also dislike useless skills, if we have too many expensive, useful ones, we end up with a massive SP sink for people to be 'competitive'.

4) The bonuses i gave were examples that just came to mind. But i like buffing base hp for heavies.They overall start with 820-850 base HP, even a 3% to both shield and armor per level is, in the end a free complex plating.

Fair enough. The heavies need a good bonus, though this isn't about them.

But anyway, those were merely rough examples to make a point about specialization bonuses needing to be neutral regarding the different racial suits. Like many said before.

Yep.

For logistics, it's been said that at the moment, equipments cannot be tied to bonus in a very specific way. Sadly.

Och, that's a shame. Good to know though, thanks.

5) Yes armor gets a lower repair rate than shield. But if you manage to lower the impact of the armor penalty for armor oriented suit (the way i suggest, through skills) and give bigger buff with one plate (like i suggest, except for std), then your overall HP should be higher than your shielded enemy.

The HP buff you've given the two better plates is 3 and 15, respectively. That's... tiny. That won't solve the imbalance. Reducing the speed penalty helps, but it doesn't change the HP situation, or the regen situation.

Right now, shields get higher HP overall than armour if the armour tank wants a decent regen without being massively slow. While reducing the speed penalty helps with that, you still have a situation where shields have higher HP and regen. The marginal buff to the highest tier plates helps with the HP -slightly-, but you've also nerfed the low tier by about 1/3rd of its HP. That keeps shields superior in raw tank, and when armour is being penalised for that tank it becomes simply inferior. I know you've suggested a penalty to sigrad, but that really wouldn't change much, unless scanning was overhauled.

So yeah, in a fight if you both hide he'll beat you to regen. but thing is he'll have to go into hiding before you.
That's the dream. :P

Design is that shield should buff less hp but recharge faster when armor should buff more HP but repair more slowly. With armor having the possibility to be remote repped.

I agree with that design, but we have some way to go with that.

One complex repairer cannot reach 10HP\sec. otherwise it becomes a non-sense. If your plate gives twice the buff than the shield extender, and you get even half (using 2 reppers) the regen, you'll be at a clear advantage imo.

If you fit even a single shield recharger, your shield regen rate skyrockets to nearly 47 HP/s. If you fit four complex reppers, a repper in every slot, you can only just get to that level, and you have no buffer at all.

Let's look at that last statement - "If your plate gives twice the buff than the shield extender, and you get even half (using two reppers) the regen, you'll be at a clear advantage."
You only have half the slots to spend on plates. The others have to be spent on repairers to ensure you get a regen. So, the HP becomes approximately equal. However, you've also said that if you have even half the regen you're at a clear advantage.
Well... No. Because you're at equal HP with a lower speed. If you have half the regen rate as well, that doesn't constitute an advantage.

In the end we both agree on what needs to be done but have different views on it. But i run armor, runned armor in EVE and really would like to see both shield and armor be viable solutions. But not the same play style.
Indeed. What I'd really like to see is for armour to be genuinely tough, at the cost of speed, compared to shield, which is weaker but faster.

CCP Remnant!
First of all, thank you for finally balancing armor!
Secondly, from numbers crunching, it seems Caldari are still on top.
Whai.
I will release the c¦¦r¦¦a¦¦c¦¦k¦¦e¦¦n¦¦ SoxFour to shout at you.

I used logical numbers.
I assumed ferroscale between shield and armor.
I assumed reactive the same as shield, and I assumed in HP/s:
1/2/3.
Still doesn't fix many many problems, like Caldari having more eHP and regeneration than armor because armor has to give up eHP for a mere 5hp/s.

if armor is fixed so it is as good as shields... I must stress I do not want them to be identical... ever...

then there is no reason to not have a handheld infantry shield transporter to boost caldari/minmatar dropsuits in the field.

So long as insta-kill contact Locus grenades exist (and do 600 damage to armor), armor will be inferior to shields.

I've not seen them in pub matches yet, only PC a couple times. Somewhat amusingly, the existing issues with armor tanking and, consequently, the relative rarity of primary armor tankers may serve to keep their use deflated. (Thanks, murder taxis! ) Still, when I have run into them they were pretty much an IWIN button.

Highly doubt we would get some solid numbers, CCP doesn't love numbers as much as I do >.<, my suggestion is that you get a friend go to FW join opposite sides and test it out.

I would be very interested in your results.

Bump. This thread won't die until fixes are made or real answers are given.

bump

Lolshields

Sincerely~ Flux grenade

Well I agree with a lot of post but the one main thing here id like to say is, at least dont pretend that fitting damage mods arent important, there more than just a little bonus for armour tankers. ;)

Fixed that for you, the anti-armour crew doesn't like being under-represented

Perhaps provide a link when the thread is made? Because with the newly "unveiled" equipment, we need a place to put numbers for CCP again.

What I found a bit counter-intuitive in this game is how I as a new player come into it thinking "Oh, there are a lot of weapons being used which deal extra damage to armour, and grenades always do...I know! I buff up my armour! That'll counter..." BAM DEAD!
Because increasing your armour doesn't increase your armour in practice. Increasing your shields does, in order to protect your armour like some sort of eggshell. And by the time most of us figure that out you are 1-2m SP invested into the plates and reppers.

Lower the Shield Recharge Rate about 57 % for all class suit (include racial also) , make Shield Recharger to Infantry Low Powered Module instead of high slot. and remove the useless bonus of most racial suit (each racial of class suit should have the same bonus 5 % per lvl) :::example All class Gallente dropsuit would have + 25 % to Reactive Plates efficiency , Caldari would have 25 % bonus to shield extender, amarr would get a 25% bonus to standard armor plate and Minmatar get 12% sprint and 5% movement bonus.
Also rep mod should be in high slot not low slot this would force the amarr and gallente to armor tank only .Reduce standard plate speed penalty to 1%(basic) ,3%(enhanced),5% (complex) and 10 or 15 % hp buff
getting Shield recharger in low mod would ''force'' the caldari user to not armor tanking because of the low Shield recharger rate.

wutt but this is the only way to make it work and all the other player suggestion sux compared to mine .