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]].

The Ship Status Panel shows the hitpoints of the player's ship with three rings, from outside to inside:

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.)

Most of the time a tank takes up a substantial proportion of powergrid, CPU and either midslots (shield tank) or lowslots (armor tank). If you fit a shield tank, you can put useful things (damage modules, speed and agility modules &c) in your lowslots, and if you armor tank you can put useful things (tackling modules, electronic warfare modules, propulsion modules &c) in your midslots. Both types of tank at once leave you with little space for other useful modules.

Resistances (or "resists) on a ship reduce the damage taken. A resist figure is number that tells you by how large a percentage the incoming damage is reduced. For example, 30% thermal resistance on shields means that all incoming thermal damage is reduced by 30%: 100 hit points of shield damage becomes 70.

The T1 ships have almost identical base resists, but many of the T2 ships have so called "[[T2 Resists]]" that drastically vary between races. For example, Minmatar ships with T2 resists have massive EM and thermal resists even on shields, but have low resists against explosive and kinetic.

Because of [[stacking penalties]], and the way resistances multiply together, it is not possible to be 100% resistant to a damage type<ref>It ''is'' possible to have over 100% resist by overheating a deadspace hardener on a [[Deep Space Transport]] in a red giant wormhole system. This will result in '''immediate destruction''' of the ship if any damage is taken—so don't do it.</ref>.

Certain effects will apply negative resists to a ship. These include [[incursion]] effects, [[Abyssal Deadspace]] effects and [[Capital_Ship_Modules#Phenomena_Generator|phenomena generators]]. The way these are applied may seem confusing, but they are simpler than they seem. The idea is exactly same as with normal resists explained above where the percentage change is applied to vulnerability (100% - resist) instead of resist.

The math is simply:

Armor-tanked ships generally have much stronger buffers than shield-tanked ships. This is aided by Armor having near-universally higher base damage resistances than shields (albeit with the opposite order of strengths and weaknesses), and several modules which increase armor hitpoints and resistances which have no shield equivalents.

"Rainbow" tanking refers to an attempt to maximize damage resistance by running one pure resistance module for each of the four damage types. This is generally only done on Battleships or Capital Ships, because of the large number of slots require to do it. However, because of the distribution of base armor resistances, rainbow tanking is generally not quite the most efficient way to maximize resistances. What is generally more efficient is "Rainbow -1": One Membrane or Hardener for each of Explosive, Kinetic, and Thermal, and then a single Multispectrum Energized Membrane. This strategy takes advantage of armor's naturally high EM resistance, improves the other three resistances to match, then uses a single Multispec to further improve everything. This has the added advantage of only applying 1 layer of Stacking Penalties to most resists and no Stacking Penalties at all to the EM resist, and synergizes very well in a fleet setting with [[Command Bursts|Armored Command Bursts]].

|[[File:Icon armor plate.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Armor plates}}''' increase the ships armor HP by a flat number. The drawback is increased mass that results in slower and less agile ship. It is somewhat common to fit oversized plates. For example 1600mm plates on a cruiser.

Energized Membranes come in 5 types: one for each type of damage, and one Multispectrum which moderately resists all damage.

|'''{{co|wheat|Resistance coatings}}'''  are passive modules which increase armor resists. The resist bonus is increased by Armor Compensation skills. Resistance Coatings give smaller bonuses than Energized Membranes, and are generally much cheaper to buy, however they do not cost CPU to fit and so are very useful on ships with limited fitting space.

|[[File:Icon armor thermal hardener.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Armor hardeners}}''' are active modules which significantly increase one of the four armor resistances. They consume small amounts of Capacitor energy to run, and slightly more CPU to fit than Energized Membranes. They can also be [[Overheating|Overheated]] for a further increase in strength, however they do not benefit from Armor Compensation skills.

|[[File:Icon module damage control.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon assault damage control.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Assault damage control}}''' is a variant of the Damage Control which can only be used by [[Frigates#Assault Frigates|Assault Frigates]] and [[Heavy Assault Cruisers]]. Passively, it gives weaker bonuses to shield, armor, and hull resistances than a normal Damage Control. In exchange, the ADC can be activated once every two minutes to give 12 seconds of massive reduction to all incoming damage. Like the normal Damage Control, the ADC is stacking penalized with the Reactive Armor Hardener but not with any other resist modules.

|[[File:icon_reactive_armor_hardener.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon armor repairer i.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon armor repairer i.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Ancillary armor repairers}}''' ("Ancils") are similar to normal armor repairers. These modules can be loaded with Nanite Repair Paste to drastically increase the repair amount for the first 8 cycles it is used. With paste the ancillary armor repairers repair considerably (~1.7x) more than normal T2 armor repairers. Each cycle consumes nanite paste (1 for small, 4 for medium, 8 for large). Once the paste runs out the module can still be used, however without paste the ancillary armor repairers repair considerably (~0.6x) less than T2 normal armor repairers. Reloading the paste takes one minute. During this time the module can not be used. As such, it is commonly recommended that pilots Disable Auto-Reload for ancillary armor repair modules, so that the module does not spontaneously become unavailable at an inopportune moment.

Ancillary Armor Repairers are almost exclusively used in PvP to provide strong burst of active tanking. Usage in PvE is generally not recommended due to the added cost of nanite paste and the unsustainability of the repair strength. (However this said, Ancils are still popular in [[Abyssal Deadspace]].)

Because of the limited number of full-strength cycles the module can perform, Ancillary Armor Repairers should always be run [[Overheating|Overheated]]; and because of their extremely powerful repair cycles, Ancils are often only activated for single cycles at a time.

|[[File:Icon energized membrane.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Layered Energized Membranes}}''' are passive modules that increase ship's armor by a percentage amount. These are very rarely used, as a plate and resist module are usually better than this module.

|[[File:Icon adaptive nano plating.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Layered Coatings}}''' are passive modules that increase ship's armor by a percentage amount. These are less effective than the energized membrane variant but do not cost CPU to fit. These are almost never used, as plates and resistance modules are more effective in almost all cases.

|-

|'''{{co|wheat|Remote armor repair systems}}''' consume capacitor to remotely repair armor on single target. The repair again happens at the end of the cycle. This can make it hard to repair targets if they die before the repair lands. Fairly short range when not fitted to a dedicated Logistics Frigate or Logistics Cruiser. Relatively long optimal range but short falloff range; as a result the effectiveness drops rapidly if the target is beyond optimal range.

|[[File:Icon remote armor repair i.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Module icon armor rig tech1.png|link=|]]

* Anti-damage type rigs increase damage resist to single damage type, at the cost of reduced maximum speed.

* Auxiliary Nano Pumps increases a ship's armor repairer repair amount per cycle. Increases the power grid use for local armor reps.

* Nanobot Accelerator speeds up armor repair module cycle times at the cost of armor repairers' power grid use. In theory this is more effective for active armor tanks than the Auxiliary Nano Pump, but note that shorter cycle time also results in higher capacitor use.

|[[File:Icon_implant_hardwiring.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon exile.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Exile}}''' medical booster greatly increases the ship's active armor repair amount, however they carry a chance to reduce your Armor hitpoints, capacitor capacity, turret tracking, or missile damage application.

===Armor tanking skills===

* {{sk|EM Armor Compensation}}, {{sk|Thermal Armor Compensation}}, {{sk|Kinetic Armor Compensation}}, {{sk|Explosive Armor Compensation}}

** 5% increase per level in the corresponding resist for membranes and resist plates

Active shield tanking is most commonly used in higher-level PvE, but also has a place in solo or small-gang PvP. Active shield tanking is based on using a shield booster to recover shield HP faster than incoming damage can deplete it, while also fitting modules to harden the shields' resistances.

Shield recharge rates above ~98% shield arr extremely low. For ships with small shield capacity it is essentially non-existent. The shield recharge rate also drops sharply below 25% capacity. Once shields have been damaged beyond 25% the passive tank "breaks" and the ship dies rapidly.

[[File:Shield_recharge.png|400px|thumb|Measured shield HP during passive recharge from zero and theoretical shield HP from formula plotted. Click to enlarge.]]

[[File:Shield recharge rate.png|400px|thumb|Shield recharge rate as function of shield HP according to the formula. Click to enlarge.]]

The fact that these attributes are both set has some interesting consequences. Notably for this calculation, recharge time is ''not'' dependent on anything else, including maximum shield capacity, as you might have intuitively expected. This has the effect that if two ships have the same "recharge time" attribute, and one has more capacity, then the one with the larger capacity will get more raw HP/s regeneration, and appear to "repair faster" in a passive tank despite reaching its maximum level in the same time.

|[[File:Icon shield extender.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon resists.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon thermal amplifier.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon module damage control.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Damage control}}''' is a passive module that increases ship's shield, armor and hull resists. This module is not stacking penalized with any other shield resist module.

|[[File:Icon shield recharger.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Shield power relays}}''' are passive modules that increase ship's shield recharge rate at the cost of reduced capacitor recharge rate. This module defines a passive shield tank. Since the relay modules fit in low slots, this means more Extenders may be fitted alongside them. On the other hand, this also means no low slot weapon upgrade modules for high damage. This will limit the situations where a passive tank may be used. One of the few low slot shield modules.

|[[File:Icon shield recharger.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon shield recharger.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Shield rechargers}}''' are passive mid slot modules which provide a modest increase to the shield recharge rate. If there is fitting room for shield extender then that may be a better choice.

|[[File:Icon shield glow.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon ancillary shield booster.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon shield boost amplifier.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon shield transporter i.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon_shield_transporter_i.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon powergrid.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon capacitor recharger.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Module icon shield rig tech1.png|link=|]]

* Screen reinforcers increases a ship resistance to single type of damage. The most commonly used is the anti-EM and anti-thermal reinforcers as the shields are naturally vulnurable to these damage types.

|[[File:Icon implant hardwiring.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon blue pill.png|link=|]]

* {{sk|EM Shield Compensation}}, {{sk|Thermal Shield Compensation}}, {{sk|Kinetic Shield Compensation}}, {{sk|Explosive Shield Compensation}}

|[[File:Icon reinforced bulkhead.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon module damage control.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon hull repairer i.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Icon remote hull repair i.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Module icon armor rig tech1.png|link=|]]

|[[File:Hobgoblin.png|link=|]]

|'''{{co|wheat|Hull Repair Bots}}''' allow a logistics ship to remotely repair another ship's hull. These are the only form of hull logistics that are commonly used, as they count as Logistics Drones and thus receive bonuses from certain Logistics Cruisers. They are commonly used as an emergency backup, to patch up the hull of an allied ship which recently took a little too much heat.

This is an advanced tactic hat requires a good deal of coordination to function effectively. It is most commonly used with battleships, particularly the [[Dominix]], which has no weapon bonuses (only drone bonuses), and so can mount remote restoration modules in its free high slots if pilots do not want to use those slots for weapons.