Armour Tanking Changes on Sisi

In this Sisi related post, I'll explain the changes and new modules CCP has added to Sisi. If you'd like to know more about the ships that will be added, look here.The highlight of these changes is probably the Ancillary Armour Repairers. These work completely differently to Ancillary Shield Boosters, their only similarity is that they consume charges, and they don't even use the same charges. The stats are as follows:

• Always uses the same cap as a normal Armour Repper (when not loaded with Nanite Repair Paste)

• When not loaded with Nanite Repair Paste, has 3/4 the rep amount as a T1 Armour Repairer

• When loaded with Nanite Repair Paste triples rep amount (so reps 2.25x a T1 repairer when loaded)

• Same cycle time and fittings as T1 reps

• Smalls use 1 paste per cycle, mediums 4, larges 8. Can hold 8 cycles worth of paste at a time. Reload time is 1 minute just like an ASB. This means that a small AAR will hold 8 charges, a medium AAR will hold 32 and a large 64.

• Limited to one per ship

In order to see if it looked as good in practice as it did on paper, I launched Sisi and bought some reps. The first ship I tested was the Myrmidon, which is also being changed in Retribution 1.1 and is being overhauled as a droneboat, with a rather impressive 200M³ drone bay with a 100Mbit/sec bandwith. Unfortunately it does sacrifice a turret slot for this new drone bay. So how did my Myrmidon's reps fare in its first fight? Not very well.

The Vindicator smashed is way through my armour so fast I was only able to get 5 reps off, even at 15KM. When it comes to Myrmidons, I think the old strategy of fuelling two or three reps by using cap boosters will continue. I tried a similar set up to this on an Armageddon, but the amount repaired was so negligible I barely notice the red bar on the HUD recede. However, I think the AAR will shine on smaller ships. The Incursus is a prime example of where we will see many AARs, with it's 10% bonus to rep amounts per level it can rep an astonishing amount very quickly. So quick it can rep its base armour with two and a half reps.

Here on my Incursus, my first rep sent me back up to 80% armour and the second rep finished the job, that's some over powered repping there. Unlike the ASB, you can carry on (pratically) repping after it runs out of charges, albeit at a reduced rate.

Another impact of the AAR some speculative people may notice is the effect this will have on the price of Nanite Repair Paste. Unlike cap boosters, which are constantly used in PVE as well as in PVP, Nanite Repair Pastes use is pretty specific to a minority of the PVP population, since it is so much cheaper to repair damaged modules by simply docking up and repairing. However with the AAR it will become much more used, which I predict will have a drastic impact on the price, so I'm off to Jita to invest all my isk into NRP. This also represents a downside of the AAR, since they will be so expensive to run. At current NRP costs, one cycle of a large AAR will cost 200K isk, compared to the 4K isk cost of one cycle of an X-Large ASB.

• Other changes to armour tanking include the removal of velocity drawbacks for rigs that affect armour repairers, these are being replaced with an increase powergrid for reps penalty (10%). 
• A new skill called 'Armour Honeycombing' will be added which reduces the mass of all armour plates by 5%.
• The base mass penalty on 800mm, 200mm and 50mm armour plates has been reduced by 20%.
• The PG requirement of all medium armour repairers has been reduced by 20%
• The PG requirement of all large armour repairers has been reduced by 10%

In addition to this the latest wave of rebalancing affecting Tier 1&2 Battlecruisers can be found here.

Retribution 1.1 will be released on 19th February.

SiSi New Ship Testing

 As you may or may not be aware, there are some very interesting ships that have been posted to SiSi. These consist of a Jovian Battlecruiser, called the Gnosis, and five pirate faction rookie ships, one for each pirate faction. I'll go over the Gnosis first.

The Gnosis is, aside from T3 ships, the most versatile ship in the game. It's 6-6-6 slot layout and bonuses to every gun type mean you never know what it's going to throw at you. From an armour missile spamming bastard to a shield blaster shooting bastard, this ship could be anything. 

So there's my fit. Now on any other ship a dual tank would be laughed at and I would be called a noob, but it genuinely seems to work fairly well. Other single tank loadouts that may work are cap boosted triple reps, but it will be nowhere near as effective as a triple rep Myrmidon, or a passive shield tank, but this will be nowhere near as effective as a Drake. 

 

In the first fight, the guns are tested more than the tank and they perform well. 

After I warp to the next CA, I get attacked by a lot of ships, but my Gnosis is able to stay alive for a while before its armour tank is overcome. Another important thing to notice about the Gnosis is that it has no resistance holes, all shield resists are 27.5/27.5/27.5/27.5 and the armour resists are 32.5/32.5/32.5/32.5. As a final word on the Gnosis, speculation on the forums points to it being a 10th birthday present to all of us, which would make sense since Eve's 5th birthday was marked with a Jove shuttle.

 Next we have the pirate ships, I'll start off with the Echo, the Angel Cartel's rookie ship. To sum its performance up, it feels like a mini-Dramiel.

 One main problem is the lack of cap, it will only last for 20 seconds with everything running. The signature radius was also a problem, as I noticed when I got insta-popped after landing, which means no battle photos.

The next ship is the one I see the most potential in: the Violator. Though its appearance is disappointing- it's only a Velator with a paint job, its bonus to webs and damage more than make up for it. It's sort of like a mini-Vigilant in the same way the Echo is a mini-Dramiel.

 150 DPS on a noobship. Not bad. The main downside of it is that its very fragile, and it's hard to orbit in range of your target, though switching to Null ammo would have stopped that.

I managed to survive a lot longer than I did in the Echo and got away a few shots, though I notice that exploding quickly will be a trend in these ships.

I didn't have time to test these, but they look semi reasonable, although the Immolator literally looks brilliant, which is why I put a photo of it next to it.

 Those bonuses may look familiar to a Bhaalgorn's, and that's because they are.

 Last but not least the Guristas' ship called the Taipan. This one looks like it's got a lot of potential for a long range ship; similar to a Worm but with a weaker tank and drone bay.
As for the seeding of these, I assume they will be handed out at their respective NPC stations in a similar way to how noobships are seeded at the moment. All of the changes coming in Retribution 1.1, including the Battlecruiser rebalancing, duelling and info panels.
Fly safe