Shield Tanking

This is a syllabus for a class, intended primarily for the teaching staff. Teachers should only use this as a guide -- ensure there is added value for students rather than simply reading this document.

Class Information

General Information

Shield Tanking is the most common defensive method used by Caldari and Minmatar pilots, as well as some Gallente, and even a few Amarr capsuleers. Understanding how your shields absorb damage and how they regenerate can be essential for your survival in EVE. This class explores the techniques, skills and fittings for effective shield tanks.

• Class name: Shield Tanking 101
• Duration: 60-75 minutes
• Location: Docked up in any station
• Class contents:
  • Advantages and disadvantages of shield tanking
  • Shield tanking skills
  • Examples of shield tanking ships
  • Shield tanking math
  • Shield tanking modules and rigs
  • Shield tanking implants
  • Techniques for effective shield tanking
  • Q&A

Student requirements:

• Mumble registration and access - make sure you have Mumble sorted out and operational well before the class begins. Use this guide for set-up: Mumble
• Access to the Class.E-UNI in-game chat channel

Additional information:

This class is primarily lecture, delivered in the Class.E-UNI channel in Mumble, followed by Q&A. There will be no practical exercises.

Notes for the Teacher

Required materials:

• Class.E-UNI chat channel, to receive questions and post relevant links
• It's useful to have examples of each of the modules listed below, to post to chat when described.
• The class slideshow: Shield Tanking 101 Slideshow. Note the slideshow does not include every single piece of information on this wiki page - it is meant as a complement to listening to the class, not a replacement.  If you notice any errors on the slideshow, or out-to-date information, or have an idea about something that should be added, please forum-PM Kivena.
  
• Some helpful links:
  • Basic tanking guide: Smurfprime's Guide to Basic Tanking

Class Contents

Introduction

Welcome to this class on shield tanking!

This course is designed primarily for pilots that want to know more about how to shield tank their ships. That is, how to reinforce and maximize the shield protecting your ship against damage. Over the next hour or so, we'll explore various techniques, skills, modules, rigs and implants that can help you improve your ability to shield tank.

(Instructor should then introduce himself or herself - covering relevant experience level and background.)

We have a few ground rules for this class:

• Please make sure your Mumble settings are configured for "Push to Talk" if you have not already done so.
• Feel free to type any questions in the Class.E-UNI chat channel as we proceed - I will try to answer your questions as they come during the class. [At the end of my lecture, we'll open Mumble for any further questions or general discussion.]
• You should be docked up safely in a station.
• There is a slideshow that goes with this class, you can find it here: Shield Tanking 101 Slideshow

Everyone ready? OK, then - let's begin....

What is tanking?

* Damage to 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. 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.

• Tanking refers to improving your ship's defensive capabilities to resist avoid or absorb incoming damage, thus preventing or delaying your ship's destruction. There are several different tanking strategies used for this purpose. Each tanking strategy uses different modules and methods to maximize hit points, improve resistance to incoming damage, and increase the speed of repairing damage taken.
• The amount of incoming damage depends on your speed and size.  The faster you are the harder it is for turrets to track and hit you and Missiles will do less damage to you.  In the same way the smaller the ship or signature radius the harder its is to lock and hit you and missiles do less damage.
  
  
• The most common types of tanking strategies are:
  • Armour 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.
  • 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.
  • Speed tanking is a strategy which maximizes the velocity of your ship, in order to avoid damage. This approach can be effective for some extremely fast ships, though it requires a highly skilled pilot to execute.
  • EWAR tanking refers to relying on electronic warfare modules to make it difficult for enemies to inflict damage. This approach is generally difficult to execute without the support of other ships.
  • Shield tanking, the subject of this class, 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.

The Key to Tanking

• There are two ways to minimize your incoming damage - moving fast and being small. The smaller and faster you are, the less damage you take from all primary weapon systems (with a couple of exceptions, such as smart bombs - these don't care how small or fast you are).
• When you fit armour plates and armour rigs, this makes you slower and less agile.
• When you fit shield extenders and shield rigs, this makes you bigger.
• If you do both, you get slower and bigger - thus, you take a lot more damage.
• To find out why you take less damage by being small and fast, have a look at the missile and gunnery classes - the equations these weapon systems use to determine how much damage you take depend in part on your velocity and your signature radius. Gunnery 101

Advantages

• 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.

Disadvantages

• 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.

Common Shield Tanking Ships

The Caldari and Minmatar are the two races that offer ships with shield-tanking bonuses.

• Caldari ships are generally shield tanked, with the primary exceptions being plated Blackbirds and Scorpions.
• Some Minmatar ships are commonly seen shield tanked, such as the Rifter, Jaguar, Stabber, Vagabond, Cyclone, Sleipnir, and Maelstrom.

The Gallente and Amarr design ships which are mostly armor tanked. There are a few exceptions, and also a few ships which can mount shield buffer tanks for PvP.

• A few Gallente ships can be well shield tanked, such as the Myrmidon and the Ishtar which often use passive shield tanks in PvE. Some Gallente ships, such as the Brutix can fit viable shield buffer tanks for PvP.
• Amarr ships are almost all better suited for armor tanks, but the Arbitrator, Curse and Harbinger can mount good PvP buffer shield tanks.

Shield Tanking Skills

There are seven primary shield tanking skills, and four additional shield specific skills.

1. Shield Operation is the only Rank 1 skill in the set. It improves the natural shield recharge rate and also grants the ability to use Shield Booster modules. Tech 2 units are available between skill level III and V, depending on size.
2. Shield Management is a companion skill to Shield Operation. It improves a ship's maximum shield amount and also grants the ability to use Shield Boost Amplifiers, which magnify the size of shield repair amount for running Shield Boosters.
3. Shield Upgrades grants access to modules that increase a ship's maximum shield amount as well as passive shield hardeners and Shield Rechargers, a module that improves the natural recharge rate of shields, while also making it easier to fit all of these modules by reducing the Power Grid requirement to fit them.
4. Tactical Shield Manipulation stops damage from bleeding through low shields into armor. More importantly it is the prerequisite for Adaptive Invulnerability Fields, the most useful shield resistance modules. The skill requires Power Grid Management III and unlocks Tech 2 Adaptive Invulnerability Fields at level IV.
5. Shield Compensation serves as a companion to active shield tanking by reducing the amount of capacitor used for each cycle for shield boosters. Available after training Shield Operation III.
6. Shield Emission Systems grants the ability to use remote shield repair modules. Tech 2 units are available between skill level III and IV, depending on size.
7. Shield Rigging allows fitting of rigs that can increase total shields, shield resistances, passive shield recharge rates, and active shield booster cycle rates. Higher levels of the skill allows use of tech 2 rigs and also reduces the signature radius penalty that those rigs incur. You'll also need the basic skill Jury Rigging to fit rigs.

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:

1. Thermic Shield Compensation
2. EM Shield Compensation
3. Explosive Shield Compensation
4. Kinetic Shield Compensation

Other Skills

• Energy Grid Upgrades provides access to modules that increase shield recharge rate as well as modules that influence the operation of the ship's capacitor. Power Diagnostic Systems, for example, are low slot modules that provide small increases to shield hit points, shield recharge rate, total capacitor capacity, capacitor recharge rate, and to powergrid available for fitting.

• Capacitor Systems Operation and Capacitor Management influence the size and recharge rate of the ship's capacitor which allows a pilot to run active shield tanks longer.

• Hull Upgrades increases armor hit points, but also provides access to the Damage Control module, the only low slot module to affect shield resistances.

How shield (and armor) resistances work

• 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 shield to grow on your ship.
• Resistances are easier to figure out if you think in damage vulnerability rather than damage resistance.
• Example: let's say we're flying a Drake, and we want to buff up our EM resistance. The Drake has a per-level shield resistance bonus of 4%, so at level 5 of Caldari Battlecruisers we already have a built-in 20% EM resistance. This means we have an 80% vulnerability, and if we get hit by a missile that does 100 EM damage, we take 80 damage. Pretty simple.
• That's still a lot of damage, so we now fit an EM Ward Field I, which gives us a 50% EM resistance bonus (the game lists this as a -50% resistance bonus which is also confusing). This 50% is applied to the remaining vulnerability, which if you remember is currently 80%. Half of 80% is 40%, which means this is our new vulnerability, and thus an EM resistance of 60%. If we get hit by that missile that deals 100 EM damage, we are now taking only 40 damage.
• (Now on slide 8) But we want to reduce this even more. So we fit an Adaptive Invulnerability Field II. This is a super active module that gives us an extra -30% resistance to all four damage types. However we now run into stacking penalties, which apply to armour and shield resistance modules and rigs. The second module (that is the module or rig with the second-biggest bonus) that affects a specific damage resistance is only 86.9% effective, the module with the third-biggest bonus is 57.1% effective, and it gets less and less effective as you fit more of the same thing. Because we now have two modules that affect EM resistance, the smaller bonus (i.e. the -30% from the Ward Field) is actually only 86.9% effective, which means it only gives us a 26.1% bonus to shield EM resistance. Note that the other explosive, thermal and kinetic resistances are unaffected because we only have one resistance bonus for each of them, so those three still give the full 30%.
• Remember we had a vulnerability of 40% from the previous slide. The 26.1% EM resistance is applied to this 40% vulnerability, which results in a 29.6% vulnerability, and a 70.4% EM resistance. The missile that was hitting us for 100 EM damage now only deals 30 damage to us.
• Because of stacking penalties, and the way resistances multiply together, it is not possible to be 100% resistant to a damage type. The best possible resistance is about 99.3% EM armor resistance, which is possible on a Loki with officer modules (link in chat: https://www.i.imgur.com/FHaNYk4.png - point out the use of 100% EM incoming damage) - if doomsday devices could be used on sub-capital ships, this Loki would survive three strikes. I'm not sure what the highest possible shield resistance is.

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 (linear) 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 approximately 2.5 shields per second and will occur when the shields are damaged to somewhere near 25% of shield capacity remaining. Page 10 of the presentation shows this behaviour graphically.

This imaginary shield tanked ship above takes a constant damage of 5 damage every 8 seconds  It will 
slowly lose shields as the incoming damage is greater than the amount of shields recharging.  Somewhere
around 50% shield capacity the shields will start to heal about 5 damage every 8 seconds and the tank
will stabilize at this equilibrium.
...
When a new damage source is then added to the scenario, adding an additional 5 damage every 8 seconds
the ship will begin to lose shields again.  Somewhere around 35% the incoming damage will barely be 
more than the ship replenishes and the shield tank will be broken as the ship falls below it's 
peak recharge rate.  From here the ship's recharge rate drops off quickly and the shields will be
exhausted soon.
...
If the original damage source is removed just as the ship is at 30% shields, leaving only 5 damage
every 8 seconds the shields might stabilize again but if the original damage source is removed as
the ship reaches 10% shields the recharge rate will be too low and the ship will continue to lose
shields, and continue into armor and hull damage unless the incoming damage is effectively reduced
to zero.  

Shield recharge rates above ~98% shield is extremely low. For ships with small shield capacity it is essentially non-existant.

As we increase the total shield capacity, the average shield recharge rate will increase

The ship before with 440 shields and a 440 second recharge period is improved to have twice the shield 
capacity:  880 shields and a 440 second recharge.  The average shield recharge rate will be 
880 / 440 = 2.0 shields per second, and peak recharge will be near 3.8 shields per second.

Similarly improving the shield recharge rate will increase the average shield recharge rate

We double the shield recharge rate instead:  440 shields in 220 seconds. Now
the average shield recharge rate will be 440 / 220 = 2.0 shields per second. Peak recharge increases
as well.

Shield Tanking Styles

Shield tanking comes in three types.

• Active shield tanks use 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).

• Buffer shield 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.

• Passive shield tanks rely 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). For more details, see Passive Shield Tank.

Fitting Strategy

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.

Imagine you have a shield booster that repairs 100 points per cycle. If someone 
deals you 1000 points of EM damage, to which you have a 10% resistance, will result 
in 900 points of shield damage. Your shield booster will repair this in 9 cycles.  
If someone deals you 1000 points of explosive damage to which you have 70% 
resistance, you'll only sustain 300 points of shield damage, which the shield 
booster will fix in three cycles.

So you would use three times as much energy, and take three times as long to repair the EM damage because of the lack of resistance.

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

Shield Tank Modules

Shield Extenders

Shield Extenders are a mid slot mod are pretty straightforward -- they add base shield points. Remember that as increasing shield capacity also effectively increases shield recharge rate, they are also useful on passively tanked shields. As a drawback they increase the ship's signature radius which makes you faster to target and somewhat easier to hit with bigger weapons and for more damage. They also use significant power grid to fit. You can easily oversize these modules; try fitting medium shield extenders to frigates and large ones to cruisers or battlecruisers.

Damage Control

A Damage Control module gives a significant boost to any ship's durability by giving resistance bonuses to armor, shields and hull. This is the only module to increase hull resistances, which makes it very valuable in any tank. It is an active module, but it is easy to fit and uses very little energy. These resistance bonuses don't incur stacking penalties with other shield tanking modules, making it very effective when combined with other hardeners and resistance amplifiers. If you fit only one tanking module to your PvP ship, the DC is the module to use. Just don't forget to turn it on.

Shield Hardeners

Shield Hardeners require varying amounts of CPU and only one MW of power grid to fit, but do almost nothing to improve resistances when they are not activated. Like all active modules they will not run when you don't have enough energy in your capacitor to run them, or when you cannot activate them (such as when docked or cloaked). As an example, see the Explosive Deflection Field I.

Adaptive Invulnerability Field

Among the Shield Hardeners, but worth mentioning separately, is the Adaptive Invulnerability Field which grants a bonus to resistance of all four damage types with one module. Although it requires more capacitor and more CPU to fit than the damage specific hardeners, it is still a very useful module.

Resistance Amplifiers

There are four damage-type specific resistance amplifiers -- these are used to boost one of the 4 resistances. They use no capacitor and require less CPU than active shield hardeners, and can thus be quite useful.

The Basic modules use less CPU than the normal variants and no power grid, but are much less effective. They are useful if you're unable to fit a standard Resistance Amplifier.

Shield Dampening Amplifiers have two varieties: those that require more CPU and one Power Grid and have higher resistances such as the Explosive Deflection Amplifier I, and those that have lower CPU requirements and no Power Grid and provide lower resistances such as the Basic Explosive Deflection Amplifier.

The EM/Thermal/Kinetic/Explosive Shield Compensation skills will increase the benefit gained from these passive amplifiers.

Shield Power Relays

Shield Power Relays are low-slot modules which trade capacitor recharge rate for an increase in the shield recharge rate, resulting in a significantly higher regeneration of shield points per second. This may endanger capacitor longevity when running active Shield Hardeners and is not compatible with Shield Boosters. Since shield power relays fit in low slots, they do not compete as directly with resistance modules and shield extenders when fitting a passive tank. Beta Reactor Control:Shield Power Relay I this one has a 35% reduction in capacitor recharge rate and a 24% increase in shield regeneration.

Shield Flux Coils

Shield Flux Coils are low-slot modules which trade the maximum shield capacity for an increase in the shield recharge rate, resulting in a higher regeneration of shield points per second. The trade off is smaller buffer which increases shields fail point and reduces the natural shield recharge amount and for this reason they tend to be less popular than shield power relays. That they fit in a low-slot means they do not compete as directly with resistance modules and shield extenders when fitting a passive tank. So when the damage is relatively low but constant they may be affective modules when using a passive tank.

Shield Rechargers

Shield Recharger modules are mid-slot modules which provide a modest increase to the shield recharge rate. M51 Iterative Shield Regenerator

Shield Boosters

These modules repair, or boost, your ship's shield amount. The better modules are more efficient, and may cycle somewhat faster. Shield boosters are not very efficient, giving somewhere near 1 shield for 1 unit of capacitor for the meta 0 version and 1.5 shield for 1 unit of capacitor for the tech 2 version.

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.

Shield boosters are not usually recommended on Uni fleet operations, because while they typically cycle fairly quickly, they do not give large boosts to shields for each cycle and they are hard on your capacitor. If your ship is called primary, it's likely that the booster won't keep up with the incoming damage. Similarly, passive tanks that emphasize shield recharge rate likely won't keep up with the incoming damage. Fitting shield hardeners or resistance amplifiers with shield extenders and being prepared to warp out if you take fire is the recommended strategy.

Shield boosters can be useful in PvE activities. Typically you can reduce the incoming damage by eliminating some of the NPC ships to slow the incoming damage. This combined with pulsing the shield booster on and off (or setting Auto-Repeat to off) and/or using a capacitor booster and other capacitor modules can help pilots establish a balance point between the incoming damage and the capacitor energy used to run the shield booster. This is an active strategy and does require more focus than a passive tanking PvE strategy but can bring other benefits in fitting. Large Clarity Ward Booster I

Shield Boost Amplifiers

These modules improve the efficiency of Shield Boosters. Given that they occupy a valuable mid-slot, they are infrequently seen on cruiser sized and smaller hulls, but are more commonly seen on battlecruisers and battleships in PvE activities. These modules have a stacking penalty and typically no more than two is ever appropriate on any ship. 'Copasetic' I Particle Field Acceleration is the best t1 module having the lowest CPU requirements. Tech II gives 36% increase compared to a 30% for tech I. Note that they will boost the Ancillary Shield Booster as well.

Ancillary Shield Boosters

The Ancillary Shield Booster works in the same way as a normal Shield Booster does: it transfers capacitor energy into shield hit-points (HP), but it repairs a lot more shield HP per cycle than a normal Shield Booster does. It has an efficiency of around 1 shield unit to 1 capacitor unit, and this means it would use a huge amount of capacitor per cycle. However, the main advantage of the Ancillary Shield Booster is that it is able to use Cap Booster Charges as a direct source of cap energy. The size of the charge depends on the size of Shield Booster. It always uses 1 charge per cycle, and when the cap booster charges are spent, only then does it use the ship's capacitor. The maximum number of charges an Ancillary Shield Booster can hold is 10. The recharge amount doesn't depend on the charge size, so always load the smallest possible charges to give the largest number of cycles per reload. Due to the short cycle time the Ancillary Shield Booster depletes within 20 to 40 seconds depending on the module size. After the charges are depleted you can run the Ancillary Shield Booster without charges (it then uses your ship's capacitor) or you can reload it. But here is the biggest drawback of the module, the reloading time is 60 seconds. Currently only a tech 1 version is available. The quick transfer of cap energy to shield HP has made this popular in PVP.

The Ancillary Shield Booster's main features:

• It works like a Shield Booster
• It repairs more shield HP than a Shield Booster per cycle (around 1:2.2)
• It needs high amounts of capacitor if you run out of cap booster charges (around 1:1)
• It can use Cap Boosters as charges and uses one charge per cycle
• Its reload time is 60 seconds

Remote Shield Boosters

Remote Shield Boosters operate similarly to local Shield Boosters by converting capacitor energy into shields, except in this case the shields are added to your target (ships, drones, anchored structures, etc). Note that you must target lock the ship to be repaired, and that your cannot repair your own ship with a remote shield booster.

They can be more useful in fleet operations than shield booster, for a couple of reasons. First, one RSB can repair many ships. Second, an RSB is generally more efficient than a shield booster. Third, if several ships have them, they can focus their repair power on whatever ship in the fleet is being attacked, giving that ship a great deal of shield repair capability. This tactic is used by Logistics cruisers and several T1 cruisers to try and repair the damage being done to friendly ships; thus the ship is either saved, or at worst survives a while longer, allowing the rest of the fleet some more time to burn through the hostile ships.

Remote repair is also the favoured form of defense in Incursions; ships will mount a large buffer tank to be repaired by a small number of highly skilled Logistics pilots.

Note that remote repair modules take a significant amount of capacitor to run -- your ship will probably need a cap booster module to use it for any length of time.

Power Diagnostics Systems

Power Diagnostics Systems are low-slot modules that increase your shield points, capacitor points and power grid while also reducing the recharge time of both shield and capacitor by a small percentage. Beta Reactor Control: Diagnostic System. They are not shield modules, strictly speaking, and can be found in the Engineering equipment section.

Capacitor Power Relays

These are not a shield tanking module, but I mention them because they have an adverse effect on shield tanking. Capacitor Power Relays are a low slot module that greatly increases capacitor recharge, which would be an active shield tanker's dream, except that to balance this capacitor power relays apply a penalty to shield boost amount when fitted. As such, they are not recommended for active shield tank fits. Capacitor Power Relays do not penalise passive shield tanks, and the penalty does not apply to Remote Shield Boosters. Capacitor Power Relay I

Shield Rigs

For shield rigs, Jury Rigging III and Shield Rigging I are required to fit T1 rigs, though not to use them. All shield rigs bring with them the penalty of an increase signature radius on the ship using them.

There are several commonly used shield rigs.

• Core Defense Field Extender works similarly to a Shield Extender by increasing shield capacity.Large Core Defense Field Extender I
• Core Defense Field Purger works similarly to a Shield Recharger by increasing 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. Large Core Defense Field Purger
• Screen Reinforcers increases a ship resistance to single type of damage. The most commonly used is the Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I, because typically shields are vulnerable to EM damage.
  • Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer
  • Anti-Explosive Screen Reinforcer
  • Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer
  • Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer
• Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard makes a shield booster run more efficiently reducing the cap requirement, whilst the Core Defense Operational Solidifier makes the booster run faster, increasing tank but also capacitor use. Unlike its armour equivalent, usually ignored in favour of a boost amplifier module Large Core Defense Operational Solidifier I
• Core Defense Charge Economizer reduces 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 Large Core Defense Charge Economizer I

Other rigs

• For Active shield fits capacitor will be a major concern and many will rely on a Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I to make the tank work. So depending on the ship and the skills it may be more effective than the Medium Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard and has no drawback.

Shield Implants

There are various shield implants available on the market. These can be interesting for various shield fits. This is especially true for passive tanks, where the tank can be increased by 6% for just a few million.

• Slot 6: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Upgrades SU-6 series... Reduces shield extender power needs by a few %. Rarely used
• Slot 7: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Management SM-7 series... Bonus to shield capacity. Useful for buffer and passive tanks
• Slot 8: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Emission Systems SE-8 series... Reduced capacitor need for remote shield repair equipment. Useful for logistics fits
• Slot 9: Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Operation SP-9 series... Increases shield recharge rate. useful for passive tanks
• Slot 10: Siege Warfare Mindlink; technically not a direct shield implant, but increases the effectiveness of shield leadership skills in fleets.

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 to 6, and taken together will increase your shield boosting rates to fantastic levels - such as this Sleipnir (link in chat: https://www.i.imgur.com/hwsM51F.jpg) which tanks nearly 1900 DPS of incoming damage, and that's without overheating or using a booster. 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. (See here for boost percentages.)

Boosters

Speaking of boosters, the "Blue Pill" range of boosters adds bonuses to the repair amount of shield boosters.

You could add an Improved Blue Pill booster to the Sleipnir I linked just now, which increases its tank to over 2300 incoming DPS, or, if the shield booster module is overheated, a shade under 3000 incoming DPS.

"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 Tanking Examples

Pages 18 and 19 of the presentation show some examples of shield tanked ships, for both PvP and PvE. These are just examples of one way to fit your ships, as always you should use EFT, Pyfa, or another fitting tool to create your own fit that suits your skills - don't just blindly take fits from other people and assume they will work for you.

A couple of PvP fits on page 18; the Scythe is a Minmatar Tech 1 logistics ship that specialises in remote shield boosting. It would work well in a cheap fleet of shield tanked cruisers. The Jaguar is a heavy tackler, designed to grab a target and not let go. Having two oversized shield extenders provides a huge shield buffer tank.

On page 19 are two PvE fits. Firstly a Drake for clearing out Sleeper sites in C1 or C2 wormholes - this would work solo or in a 2-4 person fleet. The Caldari Navy Raven (or CNR for short) is a level 4 mission fit that is quite expensive, but should make short work of level 4 missions.

Class Wrap-up

• Thanks for attending this class!
• I would appreciate any feedback from people on how to improve the class.
• Any questions on shield tanking?