So there is a certain sizes of modules used for certain ships. For example, small turrets go on frigates and destroyers, medium ones on cruisers, large guns on battleships, and so on. Part of this is due to certain ships getting bonuses, like the Thrasher’s bonus only applies to small projectile weapons, not medium ones. But in other cases, there are no bonuses, but following the “conventional” sizing pattern is what generally makes sense. Three 650 mm Gallium cannons on an Executioner might look cool, but unless the next patch comes with a bug, you aren’t actually going to fit even one since the power grid is 54. A battleship could use medium turrets to deal with cruisers, but why give up that DPS?
Now it comes to Armor plates. I get larger plates are easier to fit on bigger ships, but I don’t get which one “generally” goes best with which class. Which one is often used on destroyers? Going by the fact that they use the same guns as frigates, the 100m plates seem logical. But then in my simulations, the 200m plates seem to fit on them fine and these obviously offer better armor.
Also I find it goofy that Resistance Coatings (already inferior to hardeners) can often in the simulation give more EHP than 100m or 200m armor plates in the simulation on a Dragoon. Which means not only do the resistance coatings allow you to tank more damage, but if you for some reason survived multiple hits (instead of either not being shot at or just blown up when you were shot), you waste less downtime having someone repair you. I would have thought since plates increase EHP and resistance coatings increase EHP and make repairs more efficient, plates should be straight up better at increasing EHP.
Generally plates smaller than 800mm are to be ignored most of the time.
1600 mm are for Battleships, Battle-Cruisers* ( most of the time ) and Tech 3 Cruisers
800 mm are for Battle-Cruisers* ( some of the time ) and most Cruisers
400 mm are for Tech 2 / 3 or “Non Empire Factions” Frigates and Destroyers that have high base resistances but don’t have the PG to fit anything larger.
The only reason to consider 100mm or 200mm plates on Frigates, is that lack CPU to fit anything useful in the 1 remaining low slot.
Ok thanks, I guess that answers my question and there isn’t much more to say. So I got to upgrade from the useless 100mm plates on my Tormentor to something useful then. Except the 400mm plates don’t fit without a power grid rig, so that’s not great.
We need battleship sized armor plates and extenders. It’s clearly obvious that large extenders and 1600’s are for cruisers and battlecruisers, mediums and 800/400 are for cruisers and dessies, and 200 and 100 are for frigates. We need like, 3200’s and “oversized” shield extenders for battleships.
Modules that give resistances suffer from stacking penalties, and plates often work best when paired with Trimark rigs, which multiply their bonuses. As you noted, increased resists increase the effective repping power of local and remote reps. However, devoting one slot to a plate will often give you the biggest EHP (which helps protect you from being alpha’ed off of the field before logi can get reps on you). This is especially true when you already have multiple resist mods (and possibly boosts) getting stacking penalized, and/or you have enough fitting room to fit an “oversized” plate.
I never flow a battleship since I’m a new player but I’ve seen people on YouTube. I agree with this statement. I don’t think larger shield extenders is the right choice.
This would make more sense and would be the balanced way to do it.
I’ve found in the simulation “damage control, X, armor repair, (any further low slots beyond 3rd more drone modules since droneboats like drone modules)” X being either plate or resist module, on Amarr ships EHP is usually more with resist module than a plate.
So resist modules seem to get the best of both worlds, protection from being alphaed (important) and increasing logi effectiveness (which is nice), which seems wrong.
What? If damage modules, drone modules, and resist modules all stack penalize, why wouldn’t it apply to armor plates too?
Resists do not protect against being alphaed, EHP protects against being alphaed. To get high EHP it is most effective to not just stack resists, but also add hitpoints from plates or shield extenders. Resists make plates and repairs more effective, but on their own resists (without hitpoints) don’t do much.
Resists + plate = passive tank
Resists + repairs = active tank
Resists + plate + remote repairs = fleet with logi that does not easily get alphaed
Many modules have stacking penalties, but plates do not.
On the other hand, the relative addition of a second or third plate means much less for every plate added compared to your current EHP, which often means it’s better to stack more (diminished) resists than another plate as plates have high fitting costs and significant penalties.
I don’t recall the name, but there is a module that adds a percentage of armour hp, which can be an effective choice for more EHP when you are already into resist diminishing return and already have multiple plates and still would like to dedicate more low slots to more armour EHP. Is it energised armour layers?
Armor plates and Shield Extenders provide a static amount of HP (e.g. 600 Armor HP for Tech 2 200mm Plate), and therefore aren’t stacking penalized. Trimark and Core Defense Field Extender rigs offer a percentage increase. I think the rationale is without stacking penalties, the resists on a ship (or whatever percentage change) would be able to compound, making ships that have the fitting for the modules significantly more powerful than similar ships that cannot. Modules that provide a static increase don’t really have that problem and aren’t stacking penalized.
We don’t though. Battleships can already get plenty of buffer. While you can put large shields and 1600s on cruisers and battle cruisers you can fit more of them into a BB this generally means the BB can be more flexible. It can double down on tank or fit more utilities/dps.
Unless you belive BB are some how under tanked the only way to keep things balanced if you did add another step up for these modules would be to remove slots from these ships limiting flexibility.
Maybe the devs think battleships and battlecrusiers are almost the same (I mean they both use big guns) it’s just with battlecruisers being faster but more fragile? By that logic, assuming that’s what they had in mind, the battleship wouldn’t get it’s own modules. So if we go along this line of thinking battleships just get more low and high slots and just have enough buffed base stats so that every race’s battleship on an alpha strike fit would be more tanky than a battlecruiser but not their own modules.
Huh, well I guess it’s another example of EVE terminology being different than what I’m used to. I saw a fit with large guns, so I thought battlecrusiers all used large guns because that would be consistent with my expectations.
