Damage Control Gives more to Armor

Damage controls give resistance in the following order

Hull/Structure > Armor > Shields

I get why hull is the strongest since a damage control is the only module worth using to hull tank if you have CPU (sorry Providence, I guess bulkheads for you). If it is the only one in the game going to do that job, it better do it well. Also apparently it was supposed to be really good for Gallante ships for some reason.

But why does it favor armor tanks over shields?

Is it just to make up for the fact that the Damage control could be stealing the place of a hardener while in a shield tank ship it’s just free resist? Or is this resist bias a relic on an era when DCs were active module so they wanted to encourage certain types of ships to be vulnerable to neuts?

Shields are very strong. Armor deserves a boost.

No freighter gets even close to 30 cpu.

Yes, this exactly. The DCU doesn’t stack with any other resist mods (except RAH, but y’know…) at all, making them very powerful. Shield ships are alrwady fast and deal a lot of damage. Making them tankier at the expense of armor would be suboptimal. Since it occupies a low slot, other armor mods must be sacrificed in order to fit a DCU. No shield mods (except those shield recharge thingies and power diagnostic systems, but y’know…) at all occupy low slots, so it’s just free tank.

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I would say it’s this.

Damage control is a low slot so it’s competing with other armor tanking modules for a spot, so it has to be strong for armor to be considered.

For shield ships it doesn’t compete with other shield resistance or extention modules, so it’s a nice small extra boost to survivability from the low slots if there’s a low slot free.

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And don’t forget, adding up % values doesn’t equal adding numbers, so 2% + 2% != 4%, it is 2% + 2% of 2%, which is 0.04, which will make 2% + 2% more like 2.04%.

So it only looks like much on paper.

It’s more useful to think of the total resistance of your ship as the reciplricol of how much damage comes into the ship and then the calculation makes sense.

This. And armor, unlike shields, doesn’t regenerate on its’ own. There’s also the issue of armor tanks having less of their tank left when the armor actually gets used, and the armor repair modules are less convenient then the shield booster mods.

Is a shield tanked ship tackled with 8% of it’s shields and capped out that much better than an armor tanked ship tackled at 8% of its armor and capped out? Caldari ships have almost no armor if you don’t plate them (but then you’d be doing an armor tanked ship if you did plate them).

It reduces your survivability, better not getting caught.

What do you mean?

I don’t see how a damage control reduces your survivability for shield fits?

(Sure, there are situations where you can get more EHP regeneration from a shield recharger module in the lows rather than a damage control unit, but even then a DCU increases your survivability compared to not slotting it with anything defensive at all.)

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Shield ships are faster than armor, use this to your advantage and kite using a nano. Your are dead if caught as you need shield mid slots to tackle which an armor tank does not.

Caldari ships IIRC are the king of HAMs. If I’m wrong and Sacrileges are better at HAMs, correct me. Presumably, if they wanted to use them, they’d be tanking at least some damage. Shield extenders and the damage control will allow them to brawl if they aren’t in a kiting fit.

The game isn’t only about small scale PvP encounters. Not every shield tanked ship wants to kite.

Haulers, mining barges, PvE shield ships, capital fleet combat ship or other shield combat ships that intend to brawl it out probably won’t be equipping nanofibers over a DCU.

One serious consideration is that shield fitted ships are often short on low-slots. The DCU competes with a damage boosting module (such as a Ballistic Control System) or an application systems (Tracking Enhancers).
Remember: making the source of the damage “go away” quicker reduces damage taken.

Sometimes it is desirable rather than just a uniform increase in resistances to spot fill any resist holes using a resistance specific rig - but again that competes with other rigging options.

Speed/defence/firepower - they all trade off against each other. There’s no “right” just “preference”.

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It depends what you want to do with it.
For my purposes, a Bellicose is “better” than a Caracal or Arbitrator.

This is not how it works. The module with the highest bonus will apply it fully, the next highest will be 86.9% effective, the next one 57.1% effective. So 2% + 2% would equal 3.72%.

Diminishing returns indeed.

Just a side-note: Damage control is on a separate diminishing returns (together with the reactive armor hardener) and will therefore apply fully when combined with other sources of armor or shield resist.

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Yeah, but I mean two tracking enhancers are just going to get into stacking penalites so why not devote one slot to a damage control which isn’t penalized with your hardeners?

Any reason why you considered the Arbitrator for a HAM? I’ve usually seem them with turrets… but then again I usually seem them on someone ratting umainly using their drones instead of their intended PVP use.

So I guess damage control and reactive armor hardener on the same ship doesn’t make much sense?

Ah, you’re right. Thanks for pointing that out!

It does make sense (as much as fitting any other pair of modules with a stacking penalty anyway), one of them will just be slightly penalized.

From the EVE Uni Wiki:

Armor tanked ships already have plenty of things to choose from for their low slots. You would probably pick one or the other indeed.

On paper, yes, but there are a few niche situations where you do want to use both. The textbook example I can think of is the dual rep frigate, and one with particularly good capacitor. The Rifter comes to mind specifically.
Used with SAAR, RAH, DCU, SAR II or meta SAR

The damage control gives you much more buffer, allowing you to tank the initial damage more reliably, or if you are late on a rep cycle versus an Energized Multispec.
The RAH spools up resists, making it easier to tank versus the Energized once the fight has gone on a little bit. I personally like this setup better than the other options. The stacking penalties hurt, though.

DCU + Energized has great rep power and bleed insurance, but makes it harder to sustain tank and thus capacitor. I find that the RAH uses less cap than the Energized in actual fights.

Energized + RAH has fantastic rep power, but will very often get volley’d off the field at the very start of any fight that you weren’t going to win anyway with another fit.

Dual Energized is bad. Don’t do it. Not only does it have no reaction or hull insurance, but it suffers stacking penalties too!

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