Passive shield tanking

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This article discusses the proper use of a passive shield tank as intended for a PvE setting.

The principles explained here apply to many ships of battlecruiser hull size and smaller. It should be mentioned that most ships with a battleship sized hull and larger regenerate shields too slowly to be as effective with a passive tank.

Theory

Principles

There are several important principles at work to determine how much damage your shield can tank passively without breaking:

• Shield resistance reduces incoming damage by a percentage, and is determined separately for each of the four damage types.
• Shield regeneration is non-linear, meaning how quickly it regenerates changes depending on how much shield you currently have. It's very close to, if not the same as the capacitor regeneration curve and maxes at approximately 2.4x the base amount.
• Shield regeneration time is the time it takes shields to regenerate from 0% to 100% and does not change, even if the total amount of shield a ship has changes. Thus increasing the total shield amount also increases shield regeneration rate.

Characteristics

Following these principles, we can look for fittings that influence the quality of a passive shield tank.

• Shield Amount
  • Power Diagnostic Unit (low)
  • Shield Extender (mid)
  • Core Defense Field Extender (rig)

• Shield Regeneration Time
  • Power Diagnostic Unit (low)
  • Shield Power Relay (low)
  • Shield Flux Coil (low)
  • Shield Recharger (mid)
  • Core Defense Field Purger (rig)

• Shield Resistances
  • Damage Control (low)
  • Shield Resistance Amplifier (mid)
  • Shield Hardener (mid)
  • Screen Reinforcer (rig)

Snowballing

Actively improving passive shield regeneration with modules and rigs has a snowball effect. With most systems in EvE there are diminishing returns, referred to as stacking penalties, when additional fittings affect a specific attribute. On the other hand, passive shield regeneration rate is multiplicative; the more fittings you add that affect shield regeneration rate the greater effect each fitting has.

Let's look at the example of a Hurricane:

All numbers here are without skills taken into account. Mods are all T2.

Base shield: 4297 hp

Base regen duration: 1400 s

Base peak regen rate: 7.7 hp/s

Peak regen rate with

Mods	Regen rate	regen rate increase
1 shield power relay	10.1 hp/s	(+2.4)
2 shield power relays	13.28 hp/s	(+3.18)
3 shield power relays	17.48 hp/s	(+4.2)
4 shield power relays	23 hp/s	(+5.52)
5 shield power relays	30.26 hp/s	(+7.26)
6 shield power relays	39.82 hp/s	(+9.56)
6 spr's + 1 purger rig	49.77 hp/s	(+9.95)
6 spr's + 2 purger rigs	62.22 hp/s	(+12.45)
6 spr's + 3 purger rigs	77.77 hp/s	(+15.55)

The last rig adds 6.5 times more than the first power relay.

A hurricane with a purger rig alone (without any other mod) has only a regen rate of 9.59 hp/s (+1.89 hp/s compared to base)

Now if we add large shield extenders to the same setup we have:

Mods	Regen rate	Regen rate increase
6 spr's + 3 purg + 2 lse	125.28 hp/s	(+47.51)
6 spr's + 3 purg + 2 lse	172.79 hp/s	(+47.51)
6 spr's + 3 purg + 3 lse	220.3 hp/s	(+47.51)
6 spr's + 3 purg + 4 lse	267.81 hp/s	(+47.51)

Each extender adds the same amount of regen rate BUT that precise amount is because the regen duration is already modified by the relays and purgers.

A base hurricane with a single large shield extender has a regen rate of 12.36 hp/s (+4.66 hp/s compared to base)

The skills (shield operation and shield management) also add a lot because of the snowballing effect.

On a full spr, large extenders, and purgers setup the skills add:

Shield management	Regen rate	Regen rate increase
0	267.81 hp/s	+0
1	281.21 hp/s	+13.39
2	294.6 hp/s	+13.39
3	307.99 hp/s	+13.39
4	321.38 hp/s	+13.39
5	334.77 hp/s	+13.39

This skill raises shield hp's, so it adds a fixed amount like the shield extender mod.

Going from 0 to 4 in shield management adds 53.56 hp/s in our example hurricane fit.

On the same setup with shield management at 5, shield operation adds:

Shield operation	Regen rate	Regen rate increase
0	334.77 hp/s	+0
1	352.39 hp/s	+17.62
2	371.96 hp/s	+19.57
3	393.84 hp/s	+21.88
4	418.46 hp/s	+24.62
5	446.36 hp/s	+27.9

Short summary of skill effects: No skill: 267.81 hp/s Both at lvl 4: 401.72 hp/s Both at lvl 5: 446.36 hp/s

As you can see, there's little use trying to go half passive. It starts to work when you add lots of modules and have well trained passive tanking skills.

Passive Shield Tanking and PvP

Passive tanking is generally not advised for PvP pursuits. PvP altercations tend to consist of high damage concentration for a brief period of time and will almost always break a passive tank. For more information regarding tanking in PvP see Armour Tanking, Shield Tanking, and The Guide to Basic Tanking.

In practice

Mods

Shield power relays

Pro: Relays reduce your regen time, they start being useful if you have many.

Cons: Relays kill your cap regen rate

Shield flux coils

Pro: Coils reduce your regen time but less than relays, they start being useful if you have many.

Cons: Coils have no drawback except being weaker than relays.

Shield extenders

Pro: Extenders add to your shield hp's. So they both gives you an hp buffer AND raise your regen rate.

Cons: Extenders raise your sig radius, making you take more damage from npc's.

Shield rechargers

Pro: Rechargers reduce your regen duration, like power relays and flux coils.

Con: Rechargers have no drawback except being weaker than relays and coils.

Shield rigs (extenders and purgers)

Pro: shield rigs add to the shield hp's or reduce the regen duration.

Cons: They raise your sig radius, making you take more damage from npc's.

Powerdiagnostics

Pro: Powerdiags add to the shield hp, reduce the shield regen duration, add to the capacitor hp and reduce the capacitor regen duration.

Cons: Their effect is lower than the other mods.

Ships

Most ships smaller than a battleship can be passive shield tanked, even armor bonused ships like the Myrmidon.

Battleships and larger are better with active tanking. The reason being that cruisers and battlecruisers can fit the largest shield extenders available, so battleships have difficulties increasing their shield amount enough to reach good regen rates. There are, of course, exceptions such as the rattlesnake or rokh, because they have shield resistance bonuses.

Overtanking

If you fill all of your low and middle slots with a passive tank, you don't have any propulsion, utility, or damage mods. This is typically less than an ideal setup. There is often a sweet spot between tank and gank/usability. The trick is to decide an amount of dps to tank and reach it with the fewest possible mods, dedicating the remaining slots to damage, speed, and/or utility.

It's also very important to remember that PvE tanking is against specific damage types, so there's no need to try to omnitank unless you're facing sleepers.

Fitting tips

What to choose between all those modules, what combination is the best? Instead of making convoluted excel sheets, your best bet is to fire up EFT and try. (if you don't know EFT, look here)

The base idea is to fill all low slots with shield power relays, all mid slots with the bigger shield extenders you can use and use 3 purger rigs. (For PVE purger rigs are better than extender rigs in all cases)

I've yet to see a fit under battleship size where a shield recharger is better tank-wise than an extender or an hardener.

So, when the above is done, remove one extender and add an hardener for the primary damage type of the NPC's you'll be facing. See if the tank amount is higher.

If yes, remove another extender and add another of the same hardener. If it's better, remove yet another extender and add an hardener for the secondary damage type of those NPC's.

If the second hardener for the primary damage type tanks less than an extender, swap it for an hardener of the secondary damage type.

Now look at your cap, if it's stable you're good to go. If not, swap a shield power relay for a shield flux coil, see if it's stable now. Continue swapping relays for coils until you're stable.

Sometimes, if you have to swap more than two relays for coils, you may try putting all the relays back except one and add a capacitor power relay.

I usually use low range, high damage weapons (autocannons) which means I need an afterburner to dictate range. Being able to perma run said afterburner often mitigates enough incoming damage due to speed to justify the tank reduction for cap stability.

Example fits

Here are some example fits and tank comparisons between passive shield and active armor/shield. Skills are All lvl 5.

More ship examples will be added later.