First off I expect I'm going to get flamed and whatnot got posting this. To be frank I was comparing some of my ship's tanks recently and I realized, people who shield tank just flat out have more options for how to fit their ships. You can go passive or active just to start with. You got an assortment of active and passive hardeners in the mid slots, as well as shield rechargers and shield boosters in the mid slots. Shield tankers however also benefit from a few low slot modules, such as a damage control, and a shield power relay.
Now looking at armor tanking options. You have your active hardeners, your membranes(passive hardeners), your damage control, and your armor rep. That's it. What I'm proposing is adding in game some sort of mid slot item that helps out armor tanks, just so we have other options and choices when fitting. Some people might complain about balance, but I'm not trying to address that head-on currently. Yes if you use a mid slot module to help your armor tank, you're for one going to lose a cap recharger, or another E-WAR module, which alone helps the balance. I'm not trying to propose what kind of module this is, only sugesting we need one.
Feel free to respond with any sugestions on what this potental mod could do, and how you feel on this idea.

Well first off you forgot nano plating which takes NO CPU which IMHO makes it balanced, but secondly you are going to get flamed for even saying you fit cap rechargers unless you're talking about cap ships or PVE

Theres an intentional ballence in this.
Shields: far superior when full passive tank is ustalized (im looking at you drake, die faster!) however suffer from being hard pressed to field mid slot items. (painters, webs, scrams, afterburners, some cap, etc) However, they get all thier lows for damage mods and cap.
Armour: can dish out massive buffer tanks and can dual rep quite effectively. They suffer from having few damage mods but they have free rain with mids (minuse cap). They get room for painters, Ewar, etc.
Basiclly highs are offensive mods, mids are middle ground mods for effecting things ouside the ship (shields, painters, etc) and cap, and low for internal things (armour rep, armour res, damage mods, and slightly more effectice cap). I do agree that there needs to be some ballancing however adding mid slot armour modules isn't what is needed.

Mid slot armor tanking module isn't needed at all.
Armor tanking sacrifices Damage Mods for tank. Shield sacrifices Tank for Tackle.
Both have an interesting mix of Passive/Active modules for reps and hardeners.
Both are balanced by this shield = mid, armor = low setup along with CPU and PG requirements vs ships output.
While there might be other things that need fixing in regard to Shield vs Armor tank this is definitely not one of them.

armor tank also has remote repping which isn't broken. Remote armor rep works much better than shield transfer. Why armor preferred in fleets (well besides caldari missiles haters..but even minny armor preferred and they run guns as well)
also shield tanks are notoriously squishy once shields down. Shield tank ala drake may be a pita, but once pushed and shields gone..not hard to kill. Armor tank with some shield skills like shield op and managament and you have a ghetto 2nd tank (free ehp on shields becuase of skill better than nothing imo). Shield tankers..if not a requirement for AF's..would be no need for a caldari pilot to train mechanic 5 cause our armor sucks and 5% not a great boost imo.

Edited by: Slimy Worm on 19/08/2010 04:00:59

Originally by:Tharviolshield rechargers.. shield power relay.

gb2wowkthxbai
EDIT: From checking you on BattleClinic, you seem to have seen the light and have started PvP'ing, but yeah, no one uses shield recharges for sub-capital ships if they're playing Eve properly (i.e., not grinding missions in highsec).

In all honestly after being in lots of battleship pvp, it seems like in terms of pvp there are ships that have advantages that others don't in terms of fits, I'll explain it better this way, these are assuming above average dps/and tank fits(ie can both do damage and tank and/or tackle):
Amarr Battleships:
+weapons in high slots
+tank in low slots
+dps mods in low slots
+tackle in mid slots
Caldari Battleships:
+weapon in high slots
+tank in mid slots
+dps mods in low slots
Gallente Battleships:
+weapons in high slots
+tank in low slots
+dps mods in low slots
+tackle in mid slots
Minmatar Battleships(shield tanked):
+weapon in high slots
+tank in mid slots
+dps mods in low slots
Minmatar Battleships(armor tanked):
+weapons in high slots
+tank in low slots
+dps mods in low slots
+tackle in mid slots
Notice any patterns? anyone using a shield tank almost never has enough mid slots to afford any tackle, whereas any of the armor tanking battleships can easilly fit a cap booster and as much tackle as they want, and still have a decent tank and decent dps..
I'm just wondering, if either through power diagnostic systems or a new module in itself if we could get a low slot module that also buffs shield boost amounts not quite as much as the mid slots do(though in all honesty following the pattern the passives med slots should become low slots and mid slots should be active shield boost modules), but be a viable alternative so that shield tanking specific ships don't have to sacrifice tank in order to tackle.
Adding more mid slots for shield tankers is NOT the answer, so a low slot shield boost increase of some kind I think would do the job. What's everyone's thoughts on that.(and yes I never post with my true character name)

mid slot SBA are passsive aswell. you other option are rigs (solidifier) with the cost of more cap usage. imho the balance is fine in that regard.

Whilst I empathise with your pain over shield tanking, I'd point out that the ships intended for the shield tanking role get a lot more mid slots as a general rule. Both armour and shield tankers have to make tradeoffs. Shield tanks have to sacrifice tank to fit tackle, ECM, and other such mid-slot goodness - armour tanks have to sacrifice tank to fit damage mods, tracking enhancers, speed mods etc. Given that you can fit, albeit with some effort & loss of dps, a 4k shield buffer onto a merlin frigate and still have room for tackle, I'd argue there is quite a bit of room for shield tanking to be useful. If anything's 'wrong', it's that active tanks (which is where shield boosters come in) are much harder to justify in PvP than buffer tanks currently, barring specific fits.
The whole shield boost amp thing is a bit strange anyway - armour tanking has no equivalent module that boosts repair amount; you have to fly a ship with bonuses to it. Most would argue shield tanking != armour tanking and leave it at that. That stated, there is a type of fitting that will boost both styles of tanking and not take up mid-slots - the boosting rigs.

well armor tank has no SBA like module and the shield tankers got no Aux Nano Pump like rig. differences are good imho

Originally by:Astria TipharethWhilst I empathise with your pain over shield tanking, I'd point out that the ships intended for the shield tanking role get a lot more mid slots as a general rule. Both armour and shield tankers have to make tradeoffs. Shield tanks have to sacrifice tank to fit tackle, ECM, and other such mid-slot goodness - armour tanks have to sacrifice tank to fit damage mods, tracking enhancers, speed mods etc. Given that you can fit, albeit with some effort & loss of dps, a 4k shield buffer onto a merlin frigate and still have room for tackle, I'd argue there is quite a bit of room for shield tanking to be useful. If anything's 'wrong', it's that active tanks (which is where shield boosters come in) are much harder to justify in PvP than buffer tanks currently, barring specific fits.
The whole shield boost amp thing is a bit strange anyway - armour tanking has no equivalent module that boosts repair amount; you have to fly a ship with bonuses to it. Most would argue shield tanking != armour tanking and leave it at that. That stated, there is a type of fitting that will boost both styles of tanking and not take up mid-slots - the boosting rigs.

I'd only agree if various armor ships didn't get 8 slots worth to play with, sure to do dps and tank you can only really invest 4 and 4 or 5/3(armor/dps) type setups, but you also have the choice of spending all 8 slots into primary armor modules, where as shield's tanking can't. An abaddon for example could fit 3x 1600mm plates, a dcs2, 2 large reps, and 2 eanm's and before rigs have a better tank then a rokh fitting for the same thing(which for arugment purposes would be x-large shield booster, 2 shield boost amp 2's, cap booster to sustain that cap drain, and 2 invuln 2's. They could be about the same if they didn't have to use cap booster but theres no low slot modules that even compete to that kind of drain, now granted thats more of an argument of shield boost vs armor repair which I think is balanced just that the module requirement isn't.
since both of those are about on par, the abaddon can still fit 2x cap boosters a scram and a web, or 1 booster a scram a web and a disruptor..what can the rokh also fit..nothing..
Even an abaddon can do 3x heat sinks 2xLR2 2eanm and a dc2 and have a very decent tank with dps with tackle that still compares to the active tank of the rokh, and again nothing the rokh can fit without killing it's tank to nothing.
sure you can go with solidifiers but nothings gonna counter that cap drain, if shields were increased in amount boosted but increased the amount of time between boosts I could see that being viable but I've yet to see a viable solidifer build only because the cap drain is insanely high and you can't use your mid slots really for cap boosters..

Posted - 2009.12.16 23:28:00 - [7]

I had a similar idea quite some time ago.

Quote: Phased Shield Boost Amplifier -> low Slot shield boost Amplifier
T1: +10% shield boost increase, +5% increased cap need for shield boosters Fitting: 20 CPU, 1 powergrid
T2: +15% shield boost increase, +7.5% increased cap need for shield boosters Fitting: 25 CPU, 1 powergrid

It would allow shield tanks to perform like armor tanks(similar advantages/drawbacks, full tackle, less cap efficient tank, less dps etc.) and gives you more flexibility to shift between gank/tank in T2 setups if you go with active tanking, while the cap penalty and stacking makes it less attractive for high end tanks.

Originally by:The DjegoI had a similar idea quite some time ago.

Quote: Phased Shield Boost Amplifier -> low Slot shield boost Amplifier
T1: +10% shield boost increase, +5% increased cap need for shield boosters Fitting: 20 CPU, 1 powergrid
T2: +15% shield boost increase, +7.5% increased cap need for shield boosters Fitting: 25 CPU, 1 powergrid

It would allow shield tanks to perform like armor tanks(similar advantages/drawbacks, full tackle, less cap efficient tank, less dps etc.) and gives you more flexibility to shift between gank/tank in T2 setups if you go with active tanking, while the cap penalty and stacking makes it less attractive for high end tanks.

I like that setup