Intermediate Guide to Tanking by Friedrick Psitalon
Active Shield Tanking
Active shield tanking (AST) relies heavily on two items – shield boosters, and shield boost amplifiers. The AST name comes from the nature of the defensive style – you use your shields as your main source of damage absorption, and you actively reinforce them as they take damage. Both a shield booster and a shield boost amplifier use mid-slots; active shield tanking does not utilize low slots.
Shield boosters grant a very quick boost in shields for (usually) a similar amount of capacitor energy. Boost amplifiers increase that amount gained by a percentage, thereby allowing you to “heal” more per boost – considerably more energy efficient than using two boosters. While the overall healing rate may not be as fast as two boosters, the energy usage makes it superior in efficiency. For players who may not be able to afford the burn of two boosters, this is a viable option.
- Medium Shield Booster (x2) uses 120 energy to give 120 shields every 3 seconds. (40 energy per 40 shields per second)
- Medium Shield Booster and Shield Boost Amplifier uses 60 energy to give 78 shields every 3 seconds. (20 energy per 26 shields per second)
Thus at the 30 second mark, the pair of boosters will have repaired 1200 shields, but also burned 1200 capacitor in the process. The booster and amplifier will have repaired 780 shields, but done so at a cost of 600 capacitor. If your tank is sufficient so that a little more than 600 shields per 30 seconds will suffice, you can save yourself a lot of capacitor this way. (Alternatively, you can simply leave 1 booster on automatic and manually trigger the other, but that requires more attention than many players would prefer to devote.)
AST users should seriously consider investing in a Capacitor Booster. Cap Boosters are a sort of “gun” for your capacitor – requiring cap booster ammunition, this injects raw capacitor energy into your cap, giving you more juice to funnel into your shields. Cap Boosters take a mid slot, and have a pretty significant cost in CPU and Grid as they increase in size, however. The larger your Cap Booster, the larger (or more) ammunition you can put in it, and the longer/faster you can inject energy into your capacitor before it needs to reload., temporarily stopping the “refueling” process.
Active Shield Tankers should train in…
- Shield Compensation: this cuts the amount of capacitor energy used per boost. Essential!
- Shield Upgrades: this cuts the amount of grid needed to install your extender, but not the booster, sadly. Still somewhat handy for keeping fitting manageable.
- Energy Management: this grants you more capacitor. Not vital for small ships, but it can make a real difference in bigger ones.
- Energy Systems Operation: This may not grant you lots of extra boosts, but in longer fights, faster capacitor regeneration might come in quite useful.
Advantages of Active Shield Tanking – Defensive regeneration “on demand.” Boosters are very quick reacting. Their regeneration speed as a result is very customizable; on precisely when you need it, off precisely when you don’t. Unlike armour tanking, it is very difficult to overestimate or underestimate your needs, and it responds much more quickly than armour tanking to a “panic” situation (most armour repairers take 9-12 seconds, vs. a shield booster’s 3 seconds.) Of the three major types of tanking, AST is the most micro-manageable. AST grants much faster regeneration, on average, than the same number of modules allocated to Passive Shield Tanking. As a rule, a good AST can use as few as three modules, all of them middle slots; making it far superior than a PST in this regard, which can use several mids and lows when really optimized.
Disadvantages of Active Shield Tanking – You pay a price for your regen-on-demand. Active Shield Tanking is inherently less damage-efficient than Armour Tanking, as the total base resistance on Shields is 120% - 0% Electro Magnetic, 60% Explosive, 40% Kinetic, 20% Thermal. Armour Tanking, in contrast, has a base value of 140% - 60% EM, 10% Exp, 35% Kinetic, 35% Thermal. Active Shield Tanking uses a great deal more capacitor energy than Armour Tanking, as well – Armour is repaired at least a 2 armour to 1 capacitor ratio or better, often as high as 3-to-1. Since Passive Shield Tanking uses no capacitor at all, it is vastly superior in this regard.
An Example of an Active Shield Tank System:
Cyclone (Minmatar Battlecruiser) – bonus to shield boosting per BC level
3x Assault Missile Launcher (anti-frigate)
5x 650mm Artillery Cannon I (anti-larger)
1x Large Shield Extender I (Damage Padding)
1x Large Shield Booster I (The tank regen tool)
1x Medium Capacitor Booster I (For refreshing the capacitor)
2x Damage-Specific Hardeners (See last section for notes on resistance)
2x Power Diagnostic System (Increase regen rates, total shield, and provide more grid for above grid-hungry modules)
1x Co-Processor (More CPU for all above)
1x Gyrostabilizer (Increased damage mod to compensate for no heavy launchers)
