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Tanking: Difference between revisions

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→Active Shield Tanking: Complete rewrite. This entire section is incorrect. This is not Active Shield Tanking, and all of the strategies spoken of in this section refer to Passive Shield Tanking.
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===Active Shield Tanking===
===Active Shield Tanking===
Active shield tanking is used primarily in PvE. PvP encounters are often over quickly, making a short term, but high mitigation tank preferable. PvE encounters tend to unfold more slowly, and in taking on opponents one at a time (or in small groups) a PvE player benefits from a renewable tank, even if its maximum power is less impressive.
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 your shield HP faster than an enemy fleet's damage can deplete it. The high Capacitor costs of Shield Boosters mean that active shield tanking is most commonly done on Battleships or Tech 2 and Tech 3 Cruisers, as their larger CPUs, Powergrids, and Capacitors give more room to achieve stability, while their [[T2 Resists]] amplify the effectiveness of their shield boosters. Active shield tanking is generally not preferred in larger-group activities, as an active shield tank can be easily overwhelmed if the pilot is outnumbered too heavily.


A combat technique known as "kiting" makes use of active tanking and is widely used in PvE. A kiting ship attracts enemies and then flees, stringing the enemy out like the tail of a kite. By controlling its speed, the player ship can allow only a few enemy ships to come into range at any given time. These are killed, and while that is happening, the player's tank is rebuilding itself. (Note that this spreads out the wrecks and makes looting and salvaging take longer.)
Here is a sample [[Ishtar]] fit, used to hunt Guristas Pirates:


An active shield fit needs enough tanking power to withstand the damage from a group a ships for some amount of time, with enough regenerating power to rebuild the shields before they collapse under the damage. If this sounds imprecise, it is - because the goal depends on the balance between power and regeneration, and there are many ways to accomplish that balance.
Here is a typical mission running cruiser fit:
{{Color box | color=#222222 | border=#ffeeee |  
{{Color box | color=#222222 | border=#ffeeee |  
'''Ship''': Caldari [[Caracal]]
'''Ship''': Gallente [[Ishtar]]
[[File:Caracal.jpg|thumb|upright:1.0]]
[[File:Ishtar.jpg|thumb|upright:1.0]]
'''High Slots'''
'''High Slots'''
*[[Missile Launchers|Light missile launcher]] x 5
* Medium Ghoul Compact Energy Nosferatu x1
''or''
* Drone Link Augmenter I
* ''3x Empty slots''
'''Mid Slots'''
'''Mid Slots'''
*[[Tanking#Fitting_a_shield_tank|Large Shield Extender]] x 2
*10MN Monopropellant Enduring [[Afterburner]]
*Compact Thermal [[Tanking#Fitting_a_shield_tank|Shield Hardener]]
*Large Cap Battery II
*Compact Kinetic [[Tanking#Fitting_a_shield_tank|Shield Hardener]]
*Drone Navigation Computer II
*[[Afterburner]]
*Large Shield Booster II
'''Low Slots'''
'''Low Slots'''
*[[Tanking#Fitting_a_shield_tank|Shield Flux Coil]] x 2
*Drone Damage Augmenter II x4
*[[Ballistic Control System]] x 2
*Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer x2
''or'
*Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer x1
*Assault Damage Control II x1
'''Rigs'''
'''Rigs'''
*Medium [[Tanking#Fitting_a_shield_tank|Core Defense Purger]] x 3
*Medium Thermal Shield Reinforcer II
'''[[Drones]]''' x 2}}
*Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
'''[[Drones]]'''
*Wasp II x13
*Warrior II x5
*Hornet EC-300 x5}}
 
While Gallente ships like the Ishtar are commonly armor-tanked, the Ishtar's extremely high Kinetic and Thermal resistances make it well suited to hunting many different NPC factions (Guristas or Serpentis especially). However, the largest benefit of using Shields in PvE is that most Shield-related modules occupy Mid Slots, while all damage-boosting modules occupy Low Slots. This allows Shield-tanked ships to achieve much higher damage outputs than Armor-tanked ships, without sacrificing defenses.
 
On this Ishtar fit, the next unusual feature is that it features no weapons. The Ishtar does not have any skill-based bonuses to any particular weapons, however it has a number of different bonuses to combat drones. As such, this fit is entirely built around maximizing those drones, and does not expend any CPU or Powergrid on weapons. It instead uses either a Nosferatu, as an emergency backup just in case it starts absorbing multiple hostile Energy Neutralizers; or it uses a Drone Link Augmenter to further extend its already impressive Drone Control Range and keep itself even further separated from the enemy. (This also plays in to the choice of not using weapons: this Ishtar's ideal combat engagement range is well beyond the range of any weapons it could fit.)
 
The Mid rack of this ship features the 3 common features of an Active Shield Tank:
#A Large Shield Booster. It is very common in active shield tanking to use 'oversized' shield boosters. (Medium Shield Boosters on Frigates or Destroyers; Large or even X-Large Shield Boosters on Cruisers and Battlecruisers)
#An Afterburner (allowing the ship to mitigate or evade some incoming damage, and stay mobile on grid, but ''without'' compromising its capacitor with the penalties of a Microwarpdrive)
#A Large Cap Battery. It is also very common in active shield tanking to use oversized batteries to give enough capacitor capacity (and thus regeneration) to power the oversized shield booster. The Battery also gives some resistance to Energy Neutralizers, which are otherwise one of the largest threats to active shield tanked ships because their entire defense is in that very hungry shield booster.
The fourth mid slot is used for a Drone Navigation Computer, to improve its ability to send Drones after targets. Because this Ishtar wants to be fighting at long range, a Drone Nav reduces the time required for its drones to fly out to, and fly between, targets.


This ship has five mid level fitting slots. This is typical of shield tanked ships and also typical of Caldari ships, which often prefer shields.  
While not featured in this fit, another common component of an Active Shield Tank is a Shield Boost Amplifier, which increases the effectiveness of a Shield Booster. (And in many cases, an SBA is actually a more effective module than a Multispectrum Shield Hardener.)


The high slots will be filled with offensive weapons - depending on the players preference and skill level. Missiles are used here because the Caracal has bonuses for missiles. Note that the more power and cpu used by the weapons, the less power and cpu available to the shields. This is the trade-off that every player must make. If your missile skills are high, and your engineering skills low, you might want to downgrade the launchers in order to have more cpu and power available for shields. (There are a very large number of possible combinations.)
The Low rack of this ship is an extremely greedy rack: Four Drone Damage Amplifiers, and two Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers. Four damage modules is often considered excessive (as with more than two, [[Stacking Penalties]] start to become a problem), however between this ship's very high resistances and long range, it can afford to run maximum damage with no sacrifices. The two Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers are used to improve the accuracy of its Heavy Drones against smaller ships.


In the mid slots, the two shield extenders increase the shield's toughness in general. Note that these are Large modules rather than the usual Medium fit. The thermal hardener increases thermal resistance, and the same for the kinetic hardener. The hardeners can be swapped out to match the damage giving [[NPC_damage_types|characteristics of the NPCs]] to be engaged.  
There are some Ishtar variants which use an Assault Damage Control as one of their few Defensive modules. To this point, as a Damage Control (or Assault Damage Control) is the only Low-slot module which directly affects Shield resistances, it is an extremely useful module to have in most Active Shield Tanked ship fits; and in most fits which are less greedy than this Ishtar, it is an extremely common feature.


The low slot fittings represent another choice for balance. The two flux coils draw capacitor to rebuild the shields. Among these kinds of modules, flux coils have the best recharge rate, but they use capacitor and are thereby vulnerable to neuting. This is why active tanks are primarily used in PvE. The two ballistic control systems increase the missile damage and rate of fire. A player may want to remove a ballistic control system and add another shield rebuilding module - exactly which module is a matter of skill level and preference.
The Rig slots are used for damage resistance to the NPCs which are expected to be fought. However, many Active Shield Tank fits will in stead fit Capacitor Control Circuits to help power their Shield Booster. In some cases, a Core Defense Operational Solidifier Rig can also be used, to reduce the cycle time of Shield Boosters, thus increasing their shield recovery rate but also further increasing their capacitor consumption.


The rigs are all core defense field purgers. These increase the shield recharge rate, which is key to an active shield tank. If, however, your skills leave you short on capacitor, you may want to install rigs to remedy that.
This fit has three sets of Drones onboard:
*13x Wasp IIs. This is more drones than are required, but they give the pilot a large number of spare drones in case anything goes wrong (abandoned drones, drones which are shot down, etc.) The drones chosen should fit the enemy being fought. As the Ishtar has a full 125MBit Drone Bandwidth, only Heavy Drones should be used most of the time.
*5x Warrior IIs. These are anti-Interceptor drones, for if the Ishtar comes under attack and needs to fend off an Interceptor and escape.
*5x Hornet EC-300s. These are a second type of drones used for emergency escape. While the Warriors are meant to scare off Interceptors, the EC-300s can be used to (possibly, it is at random) break the target lock of a ship which has [[Tackle]]d the Ishtar, giving it a few seconds in which to warp out.


Drones should be chosen to match expected NPC damage types.


A caracal fit similar to this on can be viewed at [https://www.eveworkbench.com/fitting/caracal/a6b20479-c676-4a2c-8f42-08d7a5bfb70f EVE Workbench]. Other typical ships that benefit from active shields include the: [[Drake]] (battlecruiser), [[Hurricane]] (battlecruiser), [[Raven]] (battleship) and [[Maelstrom]] (battleship).
Certain ships like the [[Vargur]] have bonuses to the strength of Shield Boosters, and are deliberately designed to be Active Shield Tanked. Other commonly shield-tanked ships include the [[Rattlesnake]], [[Gila]], [[Tengu]], and many ships flown in the [[Abyssal Deadspace|Abyss]].


=== Understand Shield Recharge Rate ===
=== Understand Shield Recharge Rate ===
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