You could still have the target indication text. I"m not saying get rid of it. Also your suggestion (show info being the main source of resistance intel) wouldn't be helpful in that it doesn't fix the problem of real-time target intel. Anyway, with regard to the 'over 100% damge issue' that's where the heuristic design comes in. I specifically color coded the bars as a way to suggest that. A ruby red (the same color as regular health bar) indicates 100% (or +/- 5%) damage, a darker red is <95% and a pinkish red is >105%. Then with that and the relative length of the bar on either side of the line, you'd get to see how much more damage your weapon does to shield relative to armor. If the bar on the left looks 50% longer than the bar on the right (120% shield to 80% armor damage) then you know that your weapon will be 50% more effective to shield.

This idea seemed pretty intuitive to me, but then again, I'm a visual/charts kind of person rather than a tables kind of person.

No, you're completely misunderstanding my post. Adding a shield recharge penalty to all shield extenders can in no way make shield tanking any better than it currently is. It only makes it take longer for their shields to reach full power. It is NOT intended as "the fix" to make shield tanking and armor tanking equal. I have already stated that....

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.

I'm trying to understand your last point. It sounds like you are saying that if every item is tag "NOT GALLENTE" then you would be able to do racial bonuses. If this is the case, wouldn't the inverse be true as well? That is you can tag Gallente items "IS GALLENTE" and exclude any item that does not have that tag?

This makes a lot more sense, and yes I did use skills. But many of us suggesting for an armor fix do not wish for shields to be touched. We aren't even asking for armor to be brought up to the EXACT same level as shields. All we want is armor to be competitive, we aren't even asking for armor to repair just as fast as shields we only asked for a small repair bonus to armor tanking suits so that the OVERALL recharge rate of all suits is equal. But aside from this, your post makes sense and I now understand what your suggesting and I do say it isn't a bad idea.

Well the biggest drawback is almost double the cost in CPU but 1 PG cheaper than armor, and the low HP added. That's why I say that ferroplates NEED to be higher because yet again, shield tanking will have lesser drawbacks.

Yes, the fitting requirements of shields in DUST are currently rather high. Although I'm sure I'll hear rage about this, let me make a comparison using like-EVE modules.

Small Shield Extender II:
263 Shield HP
+2m Sig Rad penalty'
23 CPU, 3 PG

100mm Reinforced Steel Plates II:
300 Armor HP
+37,500kg mass addition
11 CPU, 6 PG

First things we notice are that the armor plates take about half of the CPU, but double the powergrid, and that they give slightly more HP than the closest related shield module. The reason it gives a bit more HP than shields is because shields constantly regenerate in EVE so adding extra shield HP also increases not only how much your shields regen each second but also the length of time they have to naturally regen before depleting, so it evens out a bit.

As for the drawbacks, the 2m sig penalty on the Extender makes your ship easier to track. The mass addition from the armor plate reduces your speed while boosted (3m/s under Afterburner and 9m/s under MicroWarp Drive before skills are factored in [NOTE: numbers taken from a Corax class Destroyer]). The gap in speed becomes much much more obvious with the higher tier armor equipment on heavier ships. Actually, it is because of this that I support armor modules not reducing your speed directly but having a more significant impact on your stamina. This feels like it fits more with EVE to me and a lot of people seem to support the idea as well.

Just something to think about.

Absolutely not. Armor and Structure only regenerate with an armor/structure repair module equipped (and unlike in DUST, the module requires capacitor management to utilize, it isn't free passive armor regen).

Basically this offers you the choice of getting an extremely high armor buffer tank in the hopes that you can defeat your opponent before they can break down your wall (with no capacitor draw from a repper) or you can choose to go active armor tank which gives you less EHP but the ability to repair your damage both during and after battle (assuming you survive) but it takes a lot of capacitor to run.

Hmm this is interesting, this makes sense with the speed penalty, but I don't think EVE ships can dodge bullets so it kinda balances for them, but not for us.

EVE ships can indeed "dodge" bullets though not quite through the same mechanism as in a FPS. A tracking formula is utilized that includes:

1) Ship Signature Radius
2) Weapon Signature Resolution
3) Distance to Target + Target speed (Transversal Velocity)
4) Weapon Tracking speed in radians per second

It is referred to as "speed/sig" tanking when you attempt to "dodge" enemy fire by combining as high of a speed as you can with as low of a signature radius as you can. This works best for smaller ships, such as frigates, versus larger ships such as battleships. Think of this as a Light suit vs Heavy suit.

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.

they can still achieve this, however not when repping has no impact in battle

the only impact in Dust is buffer, then how fast you can get that buffer back and get back into battle

then we just add on the penalty for armor

I would be happy to see solo players using more shield and group players using more armor

but currently there is just no advantage for groups to even use Armor and rely on logi etc

i want to see armor squads and shield squads

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.

Is there a time period set for 1.2's release?

[FEEDBACK] Shield > Armor and detailed explanation why: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=83983&find=unread
Update: New armor modules being introduced in the next patch should address this issue.

Next week is the Dragon Boat festival in Shanghai and our Shanghai office will be on haitus from June 10-12. We will resume our weekly updates on June 20.

Thank you for your interest and support in DUST 514.

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.

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.

Explosives actually do a massive 150% damage against armor, while doing reduced damage against shields. That's completely ridiculous - there is no weapon that even comes close to doing that against shields. There's a difference of 80% damage between an armor tanker and a shield tanker when being hit by a grenade. Flux grenades may do vast amounts of damage against shield - an Allotek flux grenade might do 1800 shield HP damage, but this is restricted to shields only. That might be a slight advantage for armor, but a Core locus grenade will do 900 amour damage (enough to one shot any medium armor suit). This damage can actually kill the player as well, as opposed to flux which allows the shield tanker to retreat and regenerate. While splash damage isn't entirely accurate as displayed (like being close to the center will do more damage), the Core locus will only do 420 to a shield tanker. That's under half of what it did to the armor tanker, and easily survivable even if hit solidly by the grenade if you have a decent shield tank.

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.

We haven't yet seen the bonuses that are being put in, or the stats on the new stuff and tweaked stuff.

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.