Explosive dampening isn't enough. A resistance to damage added to the plates or put in a high slot would be happily accepted.

Yes, sign me up for using all my low slots and some of my mid slots for my tank.

Honestly, more modules is not the answer. Balanced ones are.

I can't +1 this enough.

I want to see how CCP is fixing armor tanking, I have a feeling they are just buffing modules but forgetting that Shield suits can equip those same modules, and both shield and armor suits have the same module distribution due to us losing a slot for repairs.

Honestly, a straight buff would still help.
There are imbalances between the suit types but note that we can shield tank as well. That's always worth noting whenever using dual tanking as a point in any debate between shields and armour.

Yes but a dual tanked Gallente suit is < a dual tanked Caldari suit. Even if the modules were buffed this difference would still remain, the only way to make this at least close to equal would be by adding a degree of passive armor repair thereby freeing up 1 low slot.

Why?
I don't disagree, but I want to hear your explanation.

Well it depends on the mindset of both players but,
lets say a Caldari suits equip 3 slots with armor modules, then we have a Gallente suit and equips 3 armor modules this leaves him with the decision of sacrificing his only form of repair to his main tank for a bit of HP or sacrificing that HP for a small repair if he goes with the repairer, his overall repairing and HP is actually lower than the Caldari suit, while if he goes with armor his HP is only a tiny bit higher than the Caldari. If we had passive armor repair and some buffs to modules, then armor repairers would be a choice not a requirement just like regulators are to shields.

Although I personally think that buffing armor via racial bonuses would be the best option since it gives armor the choice of always being higher in HP, and makes it more significant to us and at the same time it gives us the ability to sacrifice it for repairers and active tank, or to build on it for buffer tanking.

Check out my post about tracking w/ armor tanking.

Until both the skill buffs and the "naked" mods are balanced for both sides of tanking there won't be actual balance between the two types.

0.02 ISK
Cross

The problem with your post is that it isn't the ability to outtrack turning ability - armour still makes it easier to aim at a target. It's easier to hit a slow moving target than it is to hit a fast moving target, even if you can turn fast enough to somewhat hit the fast one.

Well it depends on the mindset of both players but,
lets say a Caldari suits equip 3 slots with armor modules, then we have a Gallente suit and equips 3 armor modules this leaves him with the decision of sacrificing his only form of repair to his main tank for a bit of HP or sacrificing that HP for a small repair if he goes with the repairer, his overall repairing and HP is actually lower than the Caldari suit, while if he goes with armor his HP is only a tiny bit higher than the Caldari. If we had passive armor repair and some buffs to modules, then armor repairers would be a choice not a requirement just like regulators are to shields.

Although I personally think that buffing armor via racial bonuses would be the best option since it gives armor the choice of always being higher in HP, and makes it more significant to us and at the same time it gives us the ability to sacrifice it for repairers and active tank, or to build on it for buffer tanking.

I want to just tease out that point you made there Cross about armor and how the points that logis can get from armor tanks, in a way, shouldn't be disregarded as a side-benefit of an armor meta. Theoretically, armor tanking teams SHOULD be able to get orbitals faster, and in a way are REWARDED for taking extra damage, and even dieing in battle, if they can revive their teammates into survivable situations. Suits with more than 2x the armor HP as shield HP are better oriented to make use of injectors anyway.

Also, I'm spamming this in a lot of places, I REALLY think 'range' is an underestimated form of 'resistances' right now. Somebody with a weapon that allows them to both stack damage mods for ~20% extra effectiveness, while also taking -25% to -50% damage at >50m from AR can make the speed penalty from armor, and the slower armor regen not as much of an issue.

Alright, another module idea then...

IF a problem with armor tanking is its ability to be annihilated by explosives so as to completely nullify their teamwork aspect.

What if: you added a highslot Damage Control module.

It could increase the clone survivability rate after being killed. Basically it would increase that extra HP that is hit after all armor is depleted. Or it could give clones a few extra seconds after dieing.

I am understanding and agreeing more though, that WHILE the key to armor tanking is teamwork, explosives are in very direct oposition to that teamwork. I am still undetermined whether the problem is that people haven't learned to adapt out of the solo focus yet or if mechanics make it that much more difficult.

For example, remote repair tools have the ability to repair outside of anything's splash range. So if an armor tanking team were to attack an objective, they could all fight withing eachother's optimals while exposing each other only to isolated explosives damage.

Also, being able to identify and stay up to date on targets easier, would let your team know, "Hey this area is covered by explosves we can't go there until we can suprise them" would help. They have talked as if this is a direction they may take EWAR, where you can scan an area and see the suit/weapons of the chevrons.

...
1) The other thing to consider with range is that not all armor tankers have it, the HMG is attached to the Heavy, the Heavy suit armor tanks (most often) and the HMG is not a long range weapon. A Heavy with a LR is usually less effective than a faster frame with the same weapon and that can be extended to the AR and Scram as well (if perhaps to a lessor extent). For the Heavy to gain ranged advantage they essentially need to FG snipe after being placed by a DS...

2) ...Further if a major value of the "slow-moving-can't-out-run-anyone" armor tanking line is range then we have a serious problem because the armor tankers have no way to maintain that range against the faster moving shield tankers.

Stuff

Please, please, please stop coming up with new module ideas. I'm not saying the ideas aren't creative, because they are, or have no use, because they could, but they sideline examining the actual problem. The problem is that those who spec into shields have a competitive advantage over those who choose armor. Until that ceases to be true adding new wrinkles with modules will only complicate the issue.
For example. It was put forward that the ferro and reactive plates would solve the armor tanking issue in uprising 1.2. They did not. The issue is a core issue and cannot be solved without looking at the the most basic components. Until repair rates, penalties and other armor issues are fixed there can be no magic-bullet-module that can help.
It's like fixing a motorcycle engine by adding a sidecar.



Tracking is a great idea to bring down from eve and if the modules found their way to high slots it would be even better. Though it seems many of the examples provided all seem to put two opponents at certain ranges from each other with little cover in between which is not how I've found Dust to play like. Very rarely do I get into a distances match, most of the time there's darting into cover. Cover, a shield tankers best friend.

I do think adding an armor tank related mod to a high power slot position would help the situation. Not be a complete fix on its own of course, that requires internal scaling of mod types et al but having some armor tank options in the highs would help. However that doesn't require a new mod, in fact I've long supported the idea of putting the Reactive plates into a high powered slot.

In any case you observation is a good one.

Cheers,
Cross

Adding full-fledged tank mods to the high slots worries me, generally. They're not hugely powerful as such in this instance, but comparatively I'd say they're more powerful than shield regulators and combining that with a buff to other armour tanking capabilities tends to make me worry about buffs going too far.

It's tricky balancing a full on tank mod like a reactive plate in what is, effectively, a utility slot.

How would you assess the comparative balance risk of moving the ferro as opposed to the reactive?

high-slot Armor modules have to be force multipliers rather than pure +ehp, IMO (otherwise just put on complex shield extenders since they regen by themselves anyway).

So, something like 10% armor damage reduction is useless on a Caldari suit, but if you can scrape up 500 armor hp (262.5 from a GK.0 + 253 from two complex plates) then you've added 73EHP as well as made your armor repairers 10% more effective.