I'm still a major proponent of increasing the buffer provided by an armor tank as part of a fix.

Having said that here are some ideas (many already mentioned in this thread) that I think would combine well with buffer to near a fix on basic plates. With the basic type of armor mod fixed we'd have a baseline to balance the others around.

Changes to basic plates

1. Increase total buffer HP offered
2. Fix internal scaling so that the value of fitting the plates increased with meta level
3. Normalize the movement penalty from plates and/or provide a 'honeycombing' skill to lessen impact
   • Replace the speed penalty with a penalty to total stamina and/or stamina regeneration
   • Move the speed penalty to a sprint penalty, thereby still limiting movement while not impacting basic functions
4. Add a signature profile debuff
5. Retouch CPU/PG fitting requirements to provide an even eHP per CPU/PG spent with shields. This must be eHP specific not HP because the innate regen of shields needs to be accounted for in mod balance.

Specific values have intentionally been omitted because many of these aspects interact heavily so their values will be interdependent. Giving suits with more armor stacked on them a higher presence on TacNet preserves some of the current play where armor tankers draw more fire thus relying on their buffer as opposed to the shield skirmish tactics. However drawing fire due to being seen more often creates less of a hard counter situation than the current stacked speed penalties which prevent taking cover, jumping over even small objects, correcting aim to engage a hostile etc.

Other options listed with a * are alternatives for handling the speed penalty and not specifically intended to be stacked. All three options for #3 are also geared to be less Dev intensive regarding new code and tools (although this effort is based on my own guesswork so may not be accurate).

I'd be very interested in thoughts on these ideas and other ways to deepen balance between the two tank types while maintaining clearly unique methods for each to accomplish their goal of enhancing survivability.

Cheers,
Cross

The only problem with this is that the buff needs to be large enough were stacking that extra low with a armor module makes a significant difference but doesnt actually hinder playability. The best way to resolve this is by providing a bonus to armor efficacy not higher than 40%, and a small bonus to base armor not higher than 60, along with passive repair to all suits nothing above 5. So basically it fixes armor.modules for all suits, but st the ssme time extends the usagr of them for srmor duits keeping them ontop as buffers at any level, even eithout stacking modules.

I think I like where you're going with this (I'm doing three things so may have overlooked an aspect lol) would you mind elaborating a bit or providing an example case (I'm not worried about use of 'actual' numbers per se, just an example to make sure I'm properly following you, though if you have specific numbers those would be great too ).

Cheers,
Cross