SUGGESTION:
I feel that Syndicate plates cannot effectively compete with faction plates as a viable choice due to its current cost, provided by LP shop, and propose to make some changes to syndies:
1) Syndicate Plates inherits armor HP from Imperial Plates (5000=>5250 HP)
2) Syndicate Plates inherits mass from Federation Plates (2 2500 000 => 2 250 000 kg)
3) Syndicate Plates retains its fitting requirements (35CPU, 495PG)
JUSTIFICATION:
In short, when we talking about superior plates (better than T2) we think about Federation and Imperial variants.
Federation provides better mobility and Imperial - better armor (for the cost of powergrid). Both are fairly cheap (around ~40mils) and often considered as a good buys even for the regular non-bling cruisers.
Syndicate plates provides same armor as Federation, but has less PG requirements which makes it good and often the ONLY solution for cruiser fits with lack of PG.
But I’d say, it’s rarely the case when people will spend 100mils for a syndi plate vs +1% or +2% PG implant.
Thus, leaving Syndicate Plates behind at cost/effectiveness track!
Please, note, that Battleships, having large PG capacity, don’t buy syndies when there are better options for TANK (Imp) and SPEED (Fed) are available! So, we’re dealing with Cr/BC here.
IMPORTANT!
These items aren’t participating in ISK-ITEMS-SINK rotation as they possibly could!
I see two options here: to decrease the LP cost of Syndicate Plates or to make them more powerful to match the current price tag!
MISC.:
Now, let's observe the important parameters of these plates.
Federation:
- HP = 5000
- Mass = 2 250 000kg
- PG = 550
Imperial:
- HP = 5250
- Mass = 3 000 000kg
- PG = 575
Syndicate:
- HP = 5000
- Mass = 2 500 000 kg
- PG = 495