First off I expect I'm going to get flamed and whatnot got posting this. To be frank I was comparing some of my ship's tanks recently and I realized, people who shield tank just flat out have more options for how to fit their ships. You can go passive or active just to start with. You got an assortment of active and passive hardeners in the mid slots, as well as shield rechargers and shield boosters in the mid slots. Shield tankers however also benefit from a few low slot modules, such as a damage control, and a shield power relay.
Now looking at armor tanking options. You have your active hardeners, your membranes(passive hardeners), your damage control, and your armor rep. That's it. What I'm proposing is adding in game some sort of mid slot item that helps out armor tanks, just so we have other options and choices when fitting. Some people might complain about balance, but I'm not trying to address that head-on currently. Yes if you use a mid slot module to help your armor tank, you're for one going to lose a cap recharger, or another E-WAR module, which alone helps the balance. I'm not trying to propose what kind of module this is, only sugesting we need one.
Feel free to respond with any sugestions on what this potental mod could do, and how you feel on this idea.

Well first off you forgot nano plating which takes NO CPU which IMHO makes it balanced, but secondly you are going to get flamed for even saying you fit cap rechargers unless you're talking about cap ships or PVE

Theres an intentional ballence in this.
Shields: far superior when full passive tank is ustalized (im looking at you drake, die faster!) however suffer from being hard pressed to field mid slot items. (painters, webs, scrams, afterburners, some cap, etc) However, they get all thier lows for damage mods and cap.
Armour: can dish out massive buffer tanks and can dual rep quite effectively. They suffer from having few damage mods but they have free rain with mids (minuse cap). They get room for painters, Ewar, etc.
Basiclly highs are offensive mods, mids are middle ground mods for effecting things ouside the ship (shields, painters, etc) and cap, and low for internal things (armour rep, armour res, damage mods, and slightly more effectice cap). I do agree that there needs to be some ballancing however adding mid slot armour modules isn't what is needed.

Mid slot armor tanking module isn't needed at all.
Armor tanking sacrifices Damage Mods for tank. Shield sacrifices Tank for Tackle.
Both have an interesting mix of Passive/Active modules for reps and hardeners.
Both are balanced by this shield = mid, armor = low setup along with CPU and PG requirements vs ships output.
While there might be other things that need fixing in regard to Shield vs Armor tank this is definitely not one of them.

armor tank also has remote repping which isn't broken. Remote armor rep works much better than shield transfer. Why armor preferred in fleets (well besides caldari missiles haters...but even minny armor preferred and they run guns as well)
also shield tanks are notoriously squishy once shields down. Shield tank ala drake may be a pita, but once pushed and shields gone...not hard to kill. Armor tank with some shield skills like shield op and managament and you have a ghetto 2nd tank (free ehp on shields becuase of skill better than nothing imo). Shield tankers...if not a requirement for AF's...would be no need for a caldari pilot to train mechanic 5 cause our armor sucks and 5% not a great boost imo.

Edited by: Slimy Worm on 19/08/2010 04:00:59

Originally by:Tharviolshield rechargers... shield power relay.

gb2wowkthxbai
EDIT: From checking you on BattleClinic, you seem to have seen the light and have started PvP'ing, but yeah, no one uses shield recharges for sub-capital ships if they're playing Eve properly (i.e., not grinding missions in highsec).