Black Star - you have some really good points- I recently have been trying to assemble play style for the gallente logi and the gallente assault- I do not think that armor and shield are equal, but the benefit of armor is not as obvious and maybe me you and some other people can figure out how to exploit armor

The expert sniper seems to be where this guy will excel- Lets face it the best scout suit is gallente- so when you look at the stats for the other gallente suits they scream " sniper and long range" - you can high tank armor - throw down a little triage hive and snipe away your opponents- ( provided your in a secure location )

The gallente tank- speaks for himself

The gallente - dropship: the best for infantry killing because low slots that allow for turret modification-


I intend to write a better for formal post- currently I am in the middile of moving back home - ( San Juan ) but ill use the copious flight time to ponder the new armor changes

See thats the problem though a Gallente is supposed to reign supreme in CQC but due to our game mechanics we can exploit ourselves to be long range, this is the role of the Caldari lol.

Shields MUST have a penalty, right now they run around unhampered.

Armor tanking is best done as a group, your power multiplies greatly if you have more than 1 person. .. shields have no such benefit. You do not bring up repair tools. Imagine getting over 625 raw hp plus base if you did not have to worry about repairing because your buddy always stays close. And throw in a triage hive stacked with other triage hives and you are amazingly powerful.

So for fun I thought I'd write down some of the arguments I've heard over this campaign. Please join in if you have a good one.
4. Armor is fine because of rep guns and nanohives.
While 3 is my favorite this one is my most infuriating. Look, it is a nice bonus to armor to have outside repair sources when shields don't but to there's a reason for this. Armor has no natural repair rate. Most shields are back up before a they could be substantially repaired, the exception being the new commando suit and its 10 hp a sec.
My real reason this pisses me off is that it creates a barrier between solo play and group play. Shields are fine for both while armor would only be good for one. It's an insidious statement that allows for continued imbalance under the guise of unique game play.
The reason why people make this statement is false attribution, people working together will be more effective, doesn't matter if you're a shield tanker or an armor tanker. So when people see or are more effective in a group of armor tankers they assume it's because of the armor but I would say it's for the team work. Team play is a force multiplier which is hard to account for when measure effectiveness.

Please refer to

Kinetic Catalyzers and Shield Regulators should be moved to high slots.

Black Star - you have some really good points- I recently have been trying to assemble play style for the gallente logi and the gallente assault- I do not think that armor and shield are equal, but the benefit of armor is not as obvious and maybe me you and some other people can figure out how to exploit armor

Armor is imbalanced against shields. i think armor should be buffed drastically. as a temporary fix, all the armor mods should have their benefits doubled except the reactive plates which should have their values quadrupled.

shield extenders, should have higher pg requirement to help prevent duel tanking.

So for fun I thought I'd write down some of the arguments I've heard over this campaign. Please join in if you have a good one.
4. Armor is fine because of rep guns and nanohives.
While 3 is my favorite this one is my most infuriating. Look, it is a nice bonus to armor to have outside repair sources when shields don't but to there's a reason for this. Armor has no natural repair rate. Most shields are back up before a they could be substantially repaired, the exception being the new commando suit and its 10 hp a sec.
My real reason this pisses me off is that it creates a barrier between solo play and group play. Shields are fine for both while armor would only be good for one. It's an insidious statement that allows for continued imbalance under the guise of unique game play.
The reason why people make this statement is false attribution, people working together will be more effective, doesn't matter if you're a shield tanker or an armor tanker. So when people see or are more effective in a group of armor tankers they assume it's because of the armor but I would say it's for the team work. Team play is a force multiplier which is hard to account for when measure effectiveness.

While very true that all gain better effectiveness from team work they do not gain equally. 5 shield tankers gain more damage some tactics and maybe ammo support. 5 armor tankers, if they are set up right, gain the exact same damage and ammo plus tactics. But they also gain enhanced ability to repair. Enough people together and this is many times higher than shields could ever reach. These make the 2 "different. "

I disagree with these ideas very strongly.
That's far too much of a buff.

I recall you supporting armor mods' hp being doubled along with their fitting requirements and speed penalty, in order to open more slots for reppers and/or to enable armor tankers to have higher hp tanks with more movement penalty. Along with buffing armor reppers (make them more effective upon taking damage but less effective after some passing of time) removing Gallente Assault's current shield recharge bonus, replacing it with bonuses to the armor plate fitting requirements, making Gallente Assault 2 High/5 Low, Amarr Assault 2 High/4 Low and Amarr Logistics 1 High/5Low with more PG, I think that would fix it! :)

Example:

Basic Armor Plates: 130 HP, 6% movement penalty, 20 CPU, 2 PG

Enhanced Armor Plates: 174 HP, 10%, 40 CPU, 12 PG

Complex Armor Plates: 224 HP, 20%, 60 CPU, 24 PG

Complex Armor Repairer: 6 HP/sec (+30% HP upon receiving damage, leveling out over the next several seconds to a constant -20% HP, so a CAR would rep 8 HP/sec after getting hit, stay there for a bit, and then over the next several seconds of not getting hit it would decrease to 7...6...5...and stay at 5.

Cat Merc's idea, the one that I was supporting, isn't quite like that. I do like the idea of using fitting requirements to balance things out more, but I would be very hesitant to have 'super mods' which do massive things but need loads of resources, because then you get lots of slots free, and inherently slots can be used in turn for resource expanders so you can get more on. In addition to being disciplined with your fitting practices, you can get a situation where you can fit quite a few of these modules on and that ends up unbalancing things.

The other thing is that the penalties on those plates are very harsh. If you're going to go that route, I'd say 5/10/15 or 5/7.5/10, because if it's a jump from 10% to 20% penalty for only 60 more HP, then people will be hesitant to use them, especially with the massive requirements for the complex.

With the numbers you've suggested, I think that people would stick to using enhanced plates, or maybe even stacking basics. Indeed, stacking basics would have a very powerful effect because they have barely any fitting requirements, and they give very large amounts of HP. You could quite feasibly stack 3 of them on with a pair of complex reppers on a GaLogi and end up with 617 raw armour HP, in addition to a repair rate of 17.5 - 25 HP/s, without a very big penalty. That's actually really quite powerful, and you have to remember that it's leaving lots of fitting resources free. You could then quite easily get triple complex damage mods or proto equipment in addition to a proto weapon/grenade.

I think that the movement penalty for armour plates should definitely be there, but not in such a draconian form that it encourages people to use the lower tiers exclusively. A flat rate throughout the tiers might be ideal, like 5% all the way through, or otherwise tweak the penalty so it only affects sprint speed/stamina.

I do quite like your repairer - it's very similar to the Cat Merc idea and I've become fond of it. It's less that it's a straight buff and more that it improves role definition.




As a side note, I've been thinking about fitting resources and looking the the EvE model (which isn't the greatest comparison for dust, but in terms of fitting it really is very similar). What if HP, tank, and weapon modules were the main things which consumed powergrid? You could weight the requirements for those so you could fit a solid tank with them, but then have more CPU free for utility modules.
Basically:
- HP, and tank modules (e.g. repairers and plates) more heavily weighted for powergrid. Shields would take mroe CPU and armour more PG, but they'd still be emphasising the PG requriement.
- Utility modules (e.g. kinetic catalyzers and damage modifiers) more heavily weighted for CPU.

That would encourage people fitting a solid tank for one type of HP, but then taking advantage of the various utilities available to the tank type, like speed modules for shield tankers.
The dropsuit resources could also be tweaked so that, say, Caldari dropsuits could have lots of CPU but less PG, and Gallente dropsuits could have lots of PG but less CPU. If Amarr dropsuits were to be brought firmly into the armour tanking fold, in addition to slot tweaks they could be given a hefty chunk of PG but lacking in CPU.

What do you think?

Cat Merc's idea, the one that I was supporting, isn't quite like that. I do like the idea of using fitting requirements to balance things out more, but I would be very hesitant to have 'super mods' which do massive things but need loads of resources, because then you get lots of slots free, and inherently slots can be used in turn for resource expanders so you can get more on. In addition to being disciplined with your fitting practices, you can get a situation where you can fit quite a few of these modules on and that ends up unbalancing things.

The other thing is that the penalties on those plates are very harsh. If you're going to go that route, I'd say 5/10/15 or 5/7.5/10, because if it's a jump from 10% to 20% penalty for only 60 more HP, then people will be hesitant to use them, especially with the massive requirements for the complex.

With the numbers you've suggested, I think that people would stick to using enhanced plates, or maybe even stacking basics. Indeed, stacking basics would have a very powerful effect because they have barely any fitting requirements, and they give very large amounts of HP. You could quite feasibly stack 3 of them on with a pair of complex reppers on a GaLogi and end up with 617 raw armour HP, in addition to a repair rate of 17.5 - 25 HP/s, without a very big penalty. That's actually really quite powerful, and you have to remember that it's leaving lots of fitting resources free. You could then quite easily get triple complex damage mods or proto equipment in addition to a proto weapon/grenade.

I think that the movement penalty for armour plates should definitely be there, but not in such a draconian form that it encourages people to use the lower tiers exclusively. A flat rate throughout the tiers might be ideal, like 5% all the way through, or otherwise tweak the penalty so it only affects sprint speed/stamina.

I do quite like your repairer - it's very similar to the Cat Merc idea and I've become fond of it. It's less that it's a straight buff and more that it improves role definition.




As a side note, I've been thinking about fitting resources and looking the the EvE model (which isn't the greatest comparison for dust, but in terms of fitting it really is very similar). What if HP, tank, and weapon modules were the main things which consumed powergrid? You could weight the requirements for those so you could fit a solid tank with them, but then have more CPU free for utility modules.
Basically:
- HP, and tank modules (e.g. repairers and plates) more heavily weighted for powergrid. Shields would take mroe CPU and armour more PG, but they'd still be emphasising the PG requriement.
- Utility modules (e.g. kinetic catalyzers and damage modifiers) more heavily weighted for CPU.

That would encourage people fitting a solid tank for one type of HP, but then taking advantage of the various utilities available to the tank type, like speed modules for shield tankers.
The dropsuit resources could also be tweaked so that, say, Caldari dropsuits could have lots of CPU but less PG, and Gallente dropsuits could have lots of PG but less CPU. If Amarr dropsuits were to be brought firmly into the armour tanking fold, in addition to slot tweaks they could be given a hefty chunk of PG but lacking in CPU.

What do you think?

A bit of context, at ~3.645 speed a suit is no longer able to jump over small lips or ledges causing it to become trapped in many areas as well as being quite slow moving across the ground (note: this limit may be reached earlier as well, my testing hasn't been exhaustive, but I can confirm that by 3.645 such limitations are definitely in place).

This is important to keep in mind as it's a major debarkation point for what a fitting can and cannot do on the field and on the Amarr Logi for example it occurs with the use of two complex plates (~20% speed reduction).

Cheers,
Cross

The problem with that idea is that it limits what the Gallentes can fit since most modules are in the lows.

Yeah, jumping with armor is ridiculous.

Yes, of course that's an issue.
It's no magic bullet and it's not the only fix - It's just something to think about when fitting.

DONT NO BODY FORGET ABOUT THE AMARR.. just because CCP cocked up the slot lay out does not means we aren't as dedicated armour tankers as you Gallenteans are.

Just want to say this thread continues to be full of win with rational discussion, innovative ideas, and objective scrutiny of concepts. There should be a like all thread button.

I wanted to discuss the effect of armor on side stepping. As far as movement goes I am ok with sprint being significantly reduced. However armor has the undesired effect of making you easier to hit in a fire fight. Basically you take more damage which negates the point of armor.

So I now leaning more towards the armor reducing sprint penalty but not walk penalty. How do y'all feel about that?

DONT NO BODY FORGET ABOUT THE AMARR.. just because CCP cocked up the slot lay out does not means we aren't as dedicated armour tankers as you Gallenteans are.

Amarr has far superior PG/CPU, so while Gallente people may have to run around with Enhanced with maybe 1 complex mod, we can usually roll the opposite (Lots of complex with maybe 1 enhanced).

It balances out.. Eventually..

Cat Merc's idea, the one that I was supporting, isn't quite like that. I do like the idea of using fitting requirements to balance things out more, but I would be very hesitant to have 'super mods' which do massive things but need loads of resources, because then you get lots of slots free, and inherently slots can be used in turn for resource expanders so you can get more on. In addition to being disciplined with your fitting practices, you can get a situation where you can fit quite a few of these modules on and that ends up unbalancing things.

The other thing is that the penalties on those plates are very harsh. If you're going to go that route, I'd say 5/10/15 or 5/7.5/10, because if it's a jump from 10% to 20% penalty for only 60 more HP, then people will be hesitant to use them, especially with the massive requirements for the complex.

With the numbers you've suggested, I think that people would stick to using enhanced plates, or maybe even stacking basics. Indeed, stacking basics would have a very powerful effect because they have barely any fitting requirements, and they give very large amounts of HP. You could quite feasibly stack 3 of them on with a pair of complex reppers on a GaLogi and end up with 617 raw armour HP, in addition to a repair rate of 17.5 - 25 HP/s, without a very big penalty. That's actually really quite powerful, and you have to remember that it's leaving lots of fitting resources free. You could then quite easily get triple complex damage mods or proto equipment in addition to a proto weapon/grenade.

I think that the movement penalty for armour plates should definitely be there, but not in such a draconian form that it encourages people to use the lower tiers exclusively. A flat rate throughout the tiers might be ideal, like 5% all the way through, or otherwise tweak the penalty so it only affects sprint speed/stamina.

I do quite like your repairer - it's very similar to the Cat Merc idea and I've become fond of it. It's less that it's a straight buff and more that it improves role definition.




As a side note, I've been thinking about fitting resources and looking the the EvE model (which isn't the greatest comparison for dust, but in terms of fitting it really is very similar). What if HP, tank, and weapon modules were the main things which consumed powergrid? You could weight the requirements for those so you could fit a solid tank with them, but then have more CPU free for utility modules.
Basically:
- HP, and tank modules (e.g. repairers and plates) more heavily weighted for powergrid. Shields would take mroe CPU and armour more PG, but they'd still be emphasising the PG requriement.
- Utility modules (e.g. kinetic catalyzers and damage modifiers) more heavily weighted for CPU.

That would encourage people fitting a solid tank for one type of HP, but then taking advantage of the various utilities available to the tank type, like speed modules for shield tankers.
The dropsuit resources could also be tweaked so that, say, Caldari dropsuits could have lots of CPU but less PG, and Gallente dropsuits could have lots of PG but less CPU. If Amarr dropsuits were to be brought firmly into the armour tanking fold, in addition to slot tweaks they could be given a hefty chunk of PG but lacking in CPU.

What do you think?