Tanking: Difference between revisions

In EVE Online, '''Tanking''' is the combat science of resisting, absorbing, or mitigating incoming damage. A player upgrades their ship's defense grid, commonly called its '''tank''', to prevent or delay their ship's destruction.

Tanking is a core part of most ship combat in EVE Online. Ships may specialize in different variations of shield, armor, or hull tanking, each with its own resistance to different [[damage types]]. Damage-type resistances reduce damage by a percentage and can be improved by fitting modules and rigs. Shields regenerate over time, while armor and hull do not, though with the right equipment each defense pool can be repaired by the self or remotely repaired by other ships. Even a basic understanding of tanking can greatly increase survivability in EVE, while more advanced knowledge and optimization can give competitive pilots and ship planners an edge. [[EVE University]] members are encouraged to direct questions to experienced corporation mates or to the #fitting-chat channel on the University [[Discord]].

Ship defenses suffer damage in this order, marked by red coloring filling in each ring. When the last ring, the structure ring is completely red, the ship's hull has been breached and the ship is destroyed, ejecting the pilot into space as an escape pod.  

Increasing damage survivability follows one of two tactical approaches:

Buffer tanking involves fitting passive armor, shield, or hull HP modules. These passive modules do not require control, but generally come paired with negative side effects. In contrast, active tanking employs equipment that requires capacitor energy or specialized ammunition.  

Damage-type resistances reduce incoming energy, thermal, kinetic, or explosive damage by a percentage, increasing a ship's effective hit points, or EHP. Shields, armor, and hull have their own innate type resistances, and modules can further increase specific resistances for each.  

Buffer tanking has low or no [[capacitor]] demands, freeing up the capacitor for other tactical equipment. In the same way, having no active modules to manage liberates a pilot's attention for other challenges. However, a buffer tank without repair support has a set lifespan. Once the HP buffer is compromised, an unsupported buffer tank will soon reach the end of its engagement value.

Any damage threat that can overwhelm a ship before it can actively repair itself calls for buffer tanking. PvP fleet combat is a key example as it subjects players to focus fire. Solo PvE [[missions]] have sustained damage threats that limit the value of buffer tanks, though group PvE fleets may use buffer tanks and [[Logistics|logistics]] support together: this is common in [[Incursions]] and in [[wormhole]] PvE battles.

Ship planners can combine raw HP and damage resistance to achieve an optimum level of effective health points (EHP). Focusing on more damage resistance, at the expense of EHP, enhances the value of remote repairs by decreasing the damage others must repair.  

An "active tank" uses armor repair or shield booster modules to restore damage done to the ship. Active tanks use energy from the ship's capacitor to run local armor-repairing or shield-boosting modules. So long as the incoming damage never exceeds your restoration capacity and your capacitor never gives out under the pressure, an active tank can last forever ("perma-tanking"). If either of these two things happens, your tank will collapse ("break") under the pressure.

Active tanks can achieve either high burst restoration or sustained restoration over a long (potentially endless) time period. They require more management from the pilot than buffer tanks, and are often vulnerable to [[Capacitor Warfare]] that drains the ship's capacitor dry.

A PvE active tank uses one or more armor repairers or shield boosters, modules to boost either shield or armor resistances to damage, and modules to support the recharging of the ship's capacitor so that the rest of the tank can keep on running. For most PvE combat, players can look up ahead of time what types of damage they are likely to receive, and will fit modules which harden their resistances against that type of damage in particular.

Though fleet PvP can deliver incoming damage beyond the capacity of any subcapital sustained active tank, solo and small gang PvP often involves lower incoming damage, which a short-term active tank can fend off. The modules central to this tactic are Ancillary Armor Repairers (AAR) and Ancillary Shield Boosters (ASB). These modules can be loaded with Nanite Repair Paste (armor) and Cap Boosters (shield). While these modules have charges, ancillary armor repairers repair far more hitpoints than any other repair module, and ancillary shield boosters consume 0 capacitor to cycle.

The size of charges used and the rate at which they are consumed is based on the size of the module. Larger ancillary armor repairers hold more paste, but consume more paste per cycle, and larger ancillary shield boosters require larger cap charges to be loaded. While ancillary shield boosters may have multiple different sizes of charges loaded, larger charges offer no benefit over smaller charges (and with their larger volume, allow fewer charges to be loaded at once), and so only the smallest available charge should be used.

Because [[Overheating]] repair modules increases both the cycle speed and the amount of hitpoints repaired, ancillary repair modules should always be run overheated to maximize the value of their limited cycles. (The overheat damage sustained can then be repaired while the modules are reloading.)