User:Hirmuolio Pine/sandbox2

Tanking is the act of fitting a ship with modules in order to improve its defensive capabilities to resist, absorb, or mitigate incoming damage, thus preventing or delaying your ship's destruction.

There are four principle components to tanking:

• Maximizing hit points
• Resisting incoming damage
• Repairing or recharging damage taken
• Avoiding damage altogether

The art of receiving damage without losing your ship

Ship Status Panel

The ammount of hitpoints on your ship is represented by the Ship Status Panel - the three rings on the top of the status panel represent, from outermost to the inner ring: your ship's shield, armor and structure (also called "hull"). As you incur damage, each ring will fill with red coloring, starting with your shields, then your armor, and finally, your structure. When the structure ring is completely red, that means your hull has been breached, and your ship is destroyed - and you'll find yourself floating in space in a pod.

To avoid finding yourself floating in your pod you need to be able to tank the damage. This is generally achieved through three ways:

• Increase ship raw HP. Generally known as buffer tanking or passive tanking.
• Repair damage received. Known as active tanking.
• Increase damage resists. Used to increase effectiveness of both passive and active tanking.

Passive tanking

The buffer tank is based around the principle of having high damage resistance and as many hit points as possible, thus increasing the Effective HitPoints (EHP) of the ship. The concept behind this is simple, add enough EHP to your ship to outlast your opponent through the use of active and/or passive resistance modules, which complement the Armor Plate modules that add raw hit points.

This type of fitting uses a minimal amount of capacitor to run hardeners making it easily sustainable, but can be made fully passive by using only passive resistance modules instead. The primary drawback to Buffer Tanking is that you have no way to repair yourself, so when you run out of hit points you are toast.

Most common in fleet PvP, but also group PvE with logistic support (like incursions, wormhole anomalies / signatures and a few others). In PvP a fleet will overwhelm an active tank in fairly short order, whereas a buffer tank will give you more survival time.  Although, some ships with faction gear and active tank bonuses can field some extremely resistant active tanks that can take on more than you might think.

In general if you are expecting to have Logistical support (friends to rep your armor) then you want to buffer tank more towards resistance, because the higher your resistances the more effective logistic reps are. While if you don't expect logistical support you only care about the Effective Hit Points, so whatever combination gives you more effective hit points is the best option.

Typically used for PvP, the buffer tank is based around the principle of having high damage resistance and as many hit points as possible, thus increasing the Effective HitPoints (EHP) of the ship. The concept behind this is simple, add enough EHP to your ship to outlast your opponent through the use of active and/or passive resistance modules, which complement the Armor Plate modules that add raw hit points.

Buffer Tanks use shield extenders and resistance modules (like the Adaptive Invulnerability Field, and damage control) to maximize the ship's EHP (Effective Hit Points) without concern for recharge. This type of shield tanking is often used in PvP fleet fits.

Active tanking

Active tanking is most commonly used for solo activities such as mission/complex running, ratting, and solo PvP. Active Tanking differs from Buffer Tanking in that it uses Armor Repair or shield booster modules to actively repair damage done to the ship. You should be careful to include enough resistance and buffer to keep your repair modules from being overwhelmed by incoming damage; frequently this means packing resistance modules (either passive or active) that compensate for the specific types of damage you expect to be receiving.

This type of fitting takes a lot of capacitor to sustain your cap-hungry repair modules so it should ideally include modules such as Cap Rechargers and/or Capacitor Batteries to balance out and maintain capacitor stability.

Capacitor stability is important because it allows you to leave your Tank modules turned on without ever worrying about running out of capacitor. So long as incoming damage is less than what your repair modules can handle your ship should be able to sustain that level of damage indefinitely. This is commonly referred to as Perma-tanking. If incoming damage exceeds your repair capacity you will gradually run out of Hit Points and die. This is commonly referred to as breaking the tank.

For PvP purposes a Cap Booster can be used to temporarily supplement capacitor output to allow for short bursts of heavy tanking. The primary drawback to this approach is that unlike the capacitor stable fitting described above, when you run out of charges to run your Capacitor Booster, you quickly run out of capacitor, your tank will fail and you will die horribly.

Similarly, weapon systems that drain your ship's capacitor will effectively disable your active tanking modules. As above, your tank will fail and you will die horribly. In this case, the Capacitor Booster can be used on an otherwise capacitor stable fitting to provide emergency power to prevent being drained and destroyed.

Active tanking is most commonly used for solo activities such as mission/complex running, ratting, and solo PvP. Active Shield tanking differs from Passive Shield tanking in that it uses active Resistance and Shield Booster modules to actively repair damage done to the ship. You should be careful to include enough resistance and buffer to keep your Booster modules from being overwhelmed by incoming damage; frequently this means packing resistance modules (either passive or active) that compensate for the specific types of damage you expect to be receiving.

This type of fitting takes a lot of capacitor to sustain your capacitor hungry Shield Hardener and Booster modules so it should ideally include modules such as Cap Rechargers to balance out and maintain capacitor stability. Unlike the Passive Shield tank Shield Power Relays are not recommended because they cripple your capacitor recharge rate making capacitor stability difficult to achieve. Shield Flux Coils still suck for the same reasons mentioned previously.

Active Tanking uses energy from the ship's capacitor to run a Shield Booster module which repairs damage to shields. Active shield tanks are stronger against higher bursts of damage but tend to drain the pilot's capacitor over time resulting in the tank 'breaking' during long engagements and are vulnerable to capacitor warfare (tactics which drain a ship's capacitor actively, such as Nosferatu and Energy Neutralizers, see the Capacitor Warfare Guide).

Capacitor stability is important because it allows you to leave your Tank modules turned on without ever worrying about running out of capacitor. So long as incoming damage is less than what your shield booster modules and passive recharge rate can handle your ship should be able to sustain that level of damage indefinitely. This is commonly referred to as Perma-tanking. If incoming damage exceeds your recharge capacity you will gradually run out of Hit Points and die. This is commonly referred to as having a broken tank.

For PvP purposes a Capacitor Booster can be used to temporarily supplement capacitor output to allow for short bursts of heavy tanking. The primary drawback to this approach is that unlike the capacitor stable fitting described above, when you run out of charges to run your Capacitor Booster, you quickly run out of capacitor, your tank will fail and you will die horribly.

Similarly, weapon systems that drain your ship's capacitor will effectively disable your active tanking modules. As above, your tank will fail and you will die horribly. In this case, the Capacitor Booster can be used on an otherwise capacitor stable fitting to provide emergency power to prevent being drained and destroyed.

Resists

Resistance percentages are calculated in a way that many people find confusing. A module may list itself as having a 30% bonus to resistances -- but the only time you'll actually see a 30% increase in resistance when using it is if your current resistance is 0%.

The way the calculations work is that the percentage is applied to the remaining vulnerability. If things didn't work this way, you'd easily get resistances above 100%, and shooting you would cause armor to grow on your ship.

Resistances are easier to figure out if you think in damage vulnerability rather than damage resistance.

Because of stacking penalties, and the way resistances multiply together, it is not possible to be 100% resistant to a damage type.

It's often more sensible to increase the resistances of your ship than to increase the total number of shield points. The damage reduction of resistance modules is a constant where as the shield buffer reduces with each attack. The fitting requirements for resistance modules are often less than the fitting requirements for Shield Extenders. The one drawback is stacking penalties these will inhibit the effectiveness of additional resistance modules but do not apply to Shield Extenders.

Armor tanking

Armor tanking emphasizes the use of the low slot modules described in the previous section to increase armor hit points, resistance to damage and repair damage done to it. Regardless of the approach taken to armor tanking, it is wise to understand that armor has an inherent weakness to explosive damage and plan your resistance modules accordingly.

Armor Tanking: Focuses on maximizing strength and effectiveness of your armor to withstand and/or repair damage. This is the most common type of defense for ships with a greater number of low-slots, where most armor-related modules are fitted.

When you fit armor plates and armor rigs, this makes you slower and less agile.

There are many more modules to choose from when armor tanking than when shield tanking, probably one will fit your specific requirement.

Active armor tanking modules are more capacitor-efficient than shield tanking modules.

Your midslots are left free for afterburners, tackling modules, and other very useful utility modules.

Unlike shields, there is no inherent regeneration rate to armor.

When your armor tank fails, you have less of a buffer before your ship is destroyed than a shield tank.

Armor mods occupy low power slots, reducing your ability to fit damage mods.

Although active armor tanking modules are more cap-efficient than shield tanking ones, armor repairers cycle are a lot slower than shield boosters, repairing fewer hitpoints per second.

Armor tanking modules

• Armor plates
  • Armor plates increase the ammount of raw armor HP a ship has by a flat number.
  • The drawback is that they increase ship mass thus reducing top speed and agility.

• • Armor hardeners
• Armor Hardeners are active modules that boost one of the four armor resistances: EM, Thermal, Kinetic or Explosive.
• Compared to membranes, they use capacitor (not much though) and slightly more CPU but offer a large boost in effectiveness

• Energized resist memranes
  • Passive modules that boost armor resists.
  • Resist increase is smaller than on active hardeners.
  • There are both type specific modules that increase only one resist type and an energized adaptive membrane that increases all resist types.
  • The resist bonus is increased by corresponding Armor Compensation skill. For example EM Armor Compensation increases EM resist of memranes by 5% per level.

• Resistance platings
  • Passive modules that boost armor resists.
  • There are both type specific modules that increase only one resist type and an adaptive plating that increases all resist types.
  • Resist increase is smaller than on active hardeners and smaller than on energized resist membranes.
  • These modules require practically nothing to fit only 1 PG.

• Damage control
  • This passive module increases the ship's shield, armor and hull resist.
  • This module is not stacking penalized with most other resist modules. Only the reactive armor hardener is stacking penalized with damage control.

• Reactive armor hardener
  • Gives total of 60% armor resist. When you first activate the module the resists are evenly split to 15% per damage type. As you receive armor damage the RAH will adjust its resist at the end of cycle by increasing the resist against two highest received damage types and reducing the resist against rest of the damage types. The resists shift by 6% per cycle.
  • Very effective in PvE. Almost all rats deal only two types of damage resulting in 30% resist against both.
  • This module is not stacking penalized with most modules. Only the damage control is stacking penalized with this module.

• Armor repairers
  • These modules consume moderate ammount of capacitor and use it to repair ship's armor.
  • The capacitor is consumed at the beginning of the cycle but the repair happens at the end of the cycle.

• Ancillary armor repairers
  • Similar to the Armor Repairers with the following differences
  • Can be loaded with nanite repair paste to increase repair ammount. Each cycle consumes one unit of paste. With paste the ancillary armor repairers repair considerably (1.25x) more than normal armor repairers.
  • Once the paste runs out the module can be used without paste. Without paste the ancillary armor repairers repair considerably (0.75x) less than normal armor repairers.
  • Reloading the paste takes one minute. During this time the module can not be used.
  • Limited to one per ship.

• Layered platings
  • These passive modules increase the ships raw HP by a percentage ammount.
  • Come in energized and non-energized variants. The energized ones require same CPU as energized resist membranes while the non-energized requires only 1 PG.

• Remote Armor Repair Systems
  • Remote armor repairers consume significant ammount og 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.
  • Long optimal range, short falloff range. As a result the effectiveness drops rapidly if the target is beyond optimal range.

• Rigs
  • Trimark Armor Pump increases the raw HP by a percentage. Reduces maximum speed.
  • Anti-damage type rigs increase damage resist to single damage type. Reduce maximum speed.
  • Auxiliary Nano Pump 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 by. Again at the cost of 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.

• Implants
  • Repair Systems RS-6xx series - Slot 6 - reduces armor and hull repair systems duration by 1% to 6%, depending on model number
  • Remote Repair Sustems RA-7xx series - Slot 7 - reduces capacitor need for remote armor repair modules by 1% to 6%, depending on model number
  • Repair Proficiency RP-9xx series - Slot 9 - increases armor repair system amount by 1% to 6%, depending on model number
  • Hull Upgrades HP-10xx series - Slot 10 increases armor hit points by 1% to 6%, depending on model number
  • There is also the incredible Slave set of pirate implants.
    • This is a series of implants that fit into slots 1-6. Each provides a bonus to armor hit points, but when you fit the entire set, it provides a multiplicative total bonus of 53.63%. Unfortunately, a complete Slave set cost about 1.8 billion ISK or more.
    • There is a less expensive low-grade Slave set, which provides an aggregate bonus of 33.83% to armor hit points. These are a relative bargain at only 750 million ISK or so.
    • You can mix & match HG and LG Slave implants, for a final armor HP bonus partway in between.

Armor Tanking Skills

• Hull Upgrades
  • 5% armor HP per level
  • Required for armor plates, hardeners, membranes and resist plates.
• Mechanics
  • 5% hull HP per level
  • Reqruired for armor repairers
• Repair Systems
  • 5% reduction in armor repair module cycle duration. It should be noted that a reduction in activation time increase the capacitor need of the module.
  • Required for armor repairers
• EM Armor Compensation
  • 5% increase per level in EM resist for membranes and resist plates
• Thermal Armor Compensation
  • 5% increase per level in TH resist for membranes and resist plates
• Kinetic Armor Compensation
  • 5% increase per level in KIN resist for membranes and resist plates
• Explosive Armor Compensation
  • 5% increase per level in EX resist for membranes and resist plates
• {sk|Armor Rigging}}
  • Reduces the drawbacks of armor rigs by 10% per level.
• [[Skills:ARmor Layering]]
  • 5% redution in mass penalty of armor plates per level.
• [[Skills:Armor Resistance Phasing]]
  • 10% reduction in cycle time and capacitor usage of reactive armor hardener per level.

Shield tanking

Shield Tanking: Focuses on maximizing your shields' ability to withstand and/or repair damage. This is the most common type of defense for ships with larger numbers of mid-slots, where most shield modules are fitted.

When you fit shield extenders and shield rigs, this makes you bigger.

Shields heal themselves over time at a natural recharge rate. Armor and Hull damage taken is going to sit there until it is repaired.

After shields are exhausted there is still some armor and hull remaining, leaving a little more room for error.

Active shield boosters repair faster than active armor repairers, meaning you can effectively tank more incoming DPS

Shield tank modules & rigs don't affect your speed or maneuverability, thus keeping you fast and agile.

Low slots are left free for damage modules, etc.

There's a smaller range of different modules to choose from when shield tanking than when armor tanking, giving you less choice in how to fit your ship.

Although shield boosters repair faster than armor repairers, they are also less capacitor efficient.

Shield tank modules & rigs can increase your signature radius, that attribute of every ship that affects how fast other people target you, and how easy it is to hit you with turrets & missiles.

Passive resistance modules are less effective than the armor equivalents, and there is no single passive resistance module that boosts all shield resistances at once.

Shield tanking modules are almost exclusively fit in mid slots, competing with tackling, EWAR, and propulsion modules.

Unlike Armor Repairers, Shield Boosters give the boost at the beginning of the cycle time instead of at the end, meaning you can wait until you need the shields to activate the shield booster instead of activating it in anticipation of needing it, as is commonly done with armor repairers.

Passive Shield Tanking

Unlike Armor hit points, shields will recharge themselves after taking damage. The Passive Shield tank is designed to maximize this natural recharge rate without the use of active Shield Booster modules. The concept behind the Passive Shield Tank is deceptively simple: find a ship with a relatively high natural recharge rate (Shield HP / Recharge time = Average recharge rate), then add as many additional shield hit points to your ship as possible using shield extenders. Because the recharge time for a given ship is a fixed amount no matter how many points of shields you have, adding multiple shield extenders not only adds a lot of buffer, it indirectly increases the recharge rate because more Hit Points are being recharged in the same amount of time. Now add passive modules that increase the recharge rate even further, such as Shield Rechargers, Shield Power Relays and Power Diagnostic Systems; and you have a monster sized Buffer tank that regenerates very quickly without using any capacitor making your defense invulnerable to weapons that drain the capacitor. Shield Flux Coils also increase recharge rate, but should be avoided because they also lower your shield hit points, which is self defeating for the same reason adding Shield Extenders improves your recharge rate.

As the name implies, a fully passive tank does not require any modules that need to be “turned on” to function, and therefore does not require capacitor. The drawback to Passive Shield tanking is the number of modules required to pull it off, which leaves very little room to fit other useful modules such as damage improvement and tackling equipment, which makes this fitting of limited use outside of mission running and bait ships.

Passive Shield Tank relies on the fact that shields will naturally recharge themselves over time. This is achieved by increasing the resistance to various damage types, increasing the natural recharge rate (by adding recharge rate bonuses), and increasing the overall size of the shield (because recharge rate is proportional to shield capacity).

Note: This fitting is more about raw hit points than it is damage resistance, but if you have enough fitting room, Shield resistance amplifiers can be added to provide a little damage reduction. Some people use Adaptive Invulnerability Fields and Shield Hardeners to improve damage resistance, but these are active modules that require capacitor, thus making your Passive Shield tank not quite passive any more. This can be problematic because the Shield Power Relays you depend on to increase your shield recharge rate also totally gimp your capacitor recharge rate. For this reason careful balancing is necessary to make the Passive Shield Tank effective. When done correctly, however, Passive Shield tanking can be used to handle tough missions with a single ship.

It is generally advised NOT to mix modules that increase shield recharge rate with modules that repair shield damage.

Understand Shield Recharge Rate

It is valuable to understand the mechanics for shield recharge rate before you continue. All ships have some shields, and all shields have a recharge rate so this concept applies to every ship shuttle and pod in Eve, and thus to every pilot who undocks, and is similar to the recharge rate of a ship's energy capacitor. In fact it is the same as your capacitor's recharge rate.

In a ship's information screen, on the attributes tab, under the shield heading, is listed the total shield amount of the hull, and the shield recharge time. The recharge time expresses how long it will take to go from 0% shields to roughly 98% shields when the ship is sitting idle in space and no one is repairing the shields or damaging them. That last ~2% of your shields will take much longer.

But shields do not recharge at a constant rate. Imagine a ship with a 440 shield and a shield recharge time of 440 seconds. To find out how many shield points you regain per second you might divide: 440 shields / 440 seconds = 1.0 shields per second.

That is close but not quite correct. The average shield recharge rate is going to be 1.0 shields per second but sometimes it will be higher, and sometimes it will be lower.

The actual behavior is that when the shield is near 0% or 100% it replenishes slower. The peak recharge rate will be 2.5 times the average rate and will occur when the shields are damaged to 25% of shield maximum capacity.

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

Shield tanking modules

• Shield extenders
  • Shield extenders increase ships shield HP by a flat number.
  • The extenders also make the ships signature radius larger making it easier to hit.
  • "Oversized" modules are often used. Medium on frigates, large on cruisers/battlecruisers.

• Damage control
  • This passive module increases the ship's shield, armor and hull resist.
  • This module is not stacking penalized with most other resist modules. Only the reactive armor hardener is stacking penalized with damage control.

• Shield hardeners
  • These active modules increase shield resist to single damage type.
  • Adaptive invulnerablility field increases resist to all damage types but less than type specific modules. The name is misleading and the module does not adapt to damage like the reactive armor hardener.
  • Higher resist bonus than on shield resistance amplifiers
• Shield resistance amplifiers
  • Passive modules that increase resist to single damage type.
  • Easier to fit than active hardeners but considerably lower resist bonus.
  • The resist bonus increases with apropriate shield compnsation skill.

• Shield power relays
  • Increase the passive shield recharge rate at the cost of reduced capacitor recharge rate.
  • Low slot module.
  • 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.

• Shield flux coils
  • Increase the passive shield recharge rate at the cost of shield capacity.
  • The reduced shield capacity reduces the shield recharge rate but the recharge rate bonus on flux coils is larger than on power relays resulting in higher recharge rate.

• Shield rechargers
  • 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.

• Shield boosters
  • These modules repair, or boost, your ship's shield.
  • The repair happens at the beginning of the module cycle.

• Shield boost amplifiers
  • Passive mid slot modules that increase shield booster repair ammount.
  • About same fitting requirement as a medium shield booster makes these impractical for sub battleship hulls.
  • The repair increase is without additional capacitor usage. If capacitor is limiting then a boost amplifier can be used instead of second shield booster.
  • Doubles the module damage from overheating.

• Ancillary shield booster
  • The Ancillary Shield Booster works in the same way as a normal Shield Booster does: it transfers capacitor energy into shield HP, but it repairs a lot more shield HP per cycle than a normal Shield Booster does.
  • Repairs around 40% more than a normal shield booster
  • Can be loaded with cap boosters. While the module has cap boosters loaded it uses no capacitor at all.
  • After the cap boosters run out the ancillary shield booster uses over three times more capacitor than a normal shield booster.
  • Reloading the cap boosters takes one minute. During this time the ancillary shield booster can not be used.
  • The size of used cap booster has no effect. The smallest useable cap booster should always be used to maximize number of cycles. With smallest navy cap boosters the ancillary shield booster always fits 10 charges.
  • This module is used to get very high active repair for short duration. More than one ancillary shield booster can be fitted.

• Remote shield boosters
  • Use capacitor to repair shields of single target.
  • You must target lock the ship to be repaired, and that your cannot repair your own ship with a remote shield booster.

• • Power diagnostics system
  • Low slot engineering module. Small percentage increase to shield capacity, capacitor capacity, powergrid output, shield recharge rate and capacitor recharge rate.

• • Capacitor power relay
  • Not exactly a shield module. Passive low slot engineering module that increase capacitor recharge rate at the expense of reduced shield booster repair ammount. Thse modules are generally avoided on active shield tanked ships. The penalty does not apply to remote shield boosters.

• Rigs
  • Core defense field extenders increase shield capacity by a percentage ammount.
  • Core defense field purgers increase the shield recharge rate. It is however, a lot more effective than a Shield Recharger, and is a staple on almost all passively-tanked ships.
  • 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.
  • Core defense capacitor safeguards make a shield booster run more efficiently reducing the cap requirement
  • Core defense operational solidifiers make the shield boosters run faster, increasing tank but also capacitor use. Unlike its armour equivalent, usually ignored in favour of a boost amplifier module.
  • Core defense charge economizers reduce the powergrid need of shield extenders. Rarely used except in some very large buffers to pvp fits. Much cheaper than the general PG upgrade rig.
  • For active shield fits capacitor will be a major concern and many will rely on a capacitor control circuit I to make the tank work.

• Shield implants
  • Slot 6: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Upgrades SU-6XX series reduces shield extender powergrid needs by a few %. Rarely used.
  • Slot 7: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Management SM-7XX series bonus to shield capacity. Useful for buffer and passive tanks.
  • Slot 8: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Emission Systems SE-8XX series reduced capacitor need for remote shield repair equipment. Useful for logistics fits.
  • Slot 9: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Operation SP-9XX series increases shield recharge rate. useful for passive tanks.
  • You can also pick up the 'Crystal' pirate implant set for a large amount of ISK. This is a set of 6 implants that fit in slots 1-6, and taken together will increase your active shield boosting rates to fantastic levels. The 'Crystal' set comes in high-grade, mid-grade, and low-grade versions, low-grade being for the poor people out there that can't afford the real deal. You can mix and match from different grade sets for a final boost bonus somewhere in between the two values stated on the presentation.

• Medical booster
  • The "Blue Pill" range of boosters adds bonuses to the repair amount of shield boosters.
  • "Mindflood" boosters can also come in handy, as they increase capacitor capacity, which in turn boosts cap recharge rate and allows shield boosters and active shield hardeners to run longer.

Shield skills

The following skills are required to field a full Tech 2 Shield tank:

• Shield Management
  • 5% increase in shield capacity per level.
  • Required for shield boost amplifiers.

• Energy Grid Upgrades
  • 5% PG per level. Required for shield power relays and power diagnostic units.

• Shield Upgrades
  • 5% reduction in shield extener PG usage.
  • Required for resistance amplifier, shield recharger modules.

• Shield Operation
  • 5% reduction in shield recharge time per level.
  • Required for shield boosters and maximize shield recharge.

• Tactical Shield Manipulation
  • Reduces damage bleeding to armor through shields-.
  • Required for shield hardeners. No good reason for training beyond IV unless you want to use certain capital modules.

• EM Shield Compensation, Thermal Shield Compensation, Kinetic Shield Compensation, Explosive Shield Compensation
  • Increases the specific resist of the passive shield resistance amplifiers.
  • Training the four damage type-specific shield compensation skills is less important. The passive Shield Amplifier modules benefit most from them, but are not widely used, but active resistance modules (like Adaptive Invulnerability Fields) get no benefit at all. These skills are:

• Shield Compensation
  • 2% reduced capacitor usage for shield boosters.

• Shield Emission Systems
  • 5% reduced capacitor usage for remote shield boosters.

• Shield Rigging
  • Reduces the drawbacks of shield rigs.

• Hull Upgrades
  • 5% hull HP per level. Required for damage control.

Hull tanking

Hull Tanking: Focuses on reinforcing the structure of your ship to withstand and/or repair damage. Generally, hull tanking is not considered to be very viable, as hull repairers are relatively inefficient.

Remote repairing

Spider Tanking: Focuses on a fleet tactic in which ships mount remote armor repair modules so they can repair each other.

Spider Tanking

In simple terms, Spider tanking involves the use of a Buffer and/or highly resistant tank that is repaired remotely by other ships in your squad who are in turn repaired by remote repair modules on your ship. This is an advanced technique that requires a good deal of coordination to function effectively.

In simple terms, Spider tanking involves the use of a Buffer and/or highly resistant tank that is repaired remotely by other ships in your squad who are in turn repaired by shield transporter modules on your ship. However, this is an advanced technique that requires a good deal of coordination to function effectively, and is better left for discussion later in this guide.