PSA: Stop Buying Tank Armor

Yet another topic that I was totally beaten to before I had a chance to gin up the charts.

Basically, the guy ran the numbers for TTK gains (how much more time you live with frontal/side armor versus stock) against every different reasonable weapon combination. You're only looking for the purple and gray bars (how much the Magrider and Lightning gain, respectively). The first link goes to the OP, with the numeric TTK gain charts. The second link shows percentual TTK gain charts.

The thread itself is primarily whining from people who are stupid (eg, more TR whining that the bullet drop on the Prowler is bad; all tanks have identical drop), and I really wouldn't recommend reading it. The charts, though, are super nice.

The practical upshot of all of this is simple: the armor certs only really help against things that were already unlikely to kill you, and Side helps a lot more than Frontal. Frontal armor on a Magrider will give minor (insignificant) bonuses against Prowlers, and will not help whatsoever against Vanguards (except Vanguards using HE ammo with no secondary gunner, which you should be destroying anyways). Side does help noticeably, yes, but you're in a Magrider; why were you exposing your side armor again?


Get Mine Guard or Vehicle Stealth (or I guess Nanite if you have to). They're just more useful all over.

Which do you use and why? How do you prefer to build the Magrider, Lightning, and Sunderer?

Bjourk wrote:Which do you use and why? How do you prefer to build the Magrider, Lightning, and Sunderer?

Sunderer, Spawner:
Front: M-40 Fury
Rear: M60-Bulldog
Utility: S-AMS
Defense: Mine Guard -- I kill Sunders all the time with suicide AT mine rushes as an engineer. Blockade Armor is also sensible, but consider what you die to most often when choosing. For me, I (historically) lost more non-defensively-equipped Sunders to mines than anything else. Mine Guard (on a Sunder) increases the number of mines needed to kill you by 1 per rank. With rank 2 of this, I haven't lost a Sunder to mines in forever. Note that C4 is not affected by Mine Guard, but it takes 3 to kill a Sunder and you can't carry that many on LA. Engineer can, but most engis prefer tank mines for that.
Performance: Rival Combat -- The whole point of a Sunder is to sit around places, not to move quickly. Getting there ten seconds earlier is less important than being able to sit somewhere you shouldn't have been. The native Sunder's hillclimb is crap anyways.

Sunderer, Armor Support:
Front: M-40 Fury
Rear: M60-Bulldog
Utility: S-AMS
Defense: Vehicle Ammo
Performance: Rival Combat

Sunderer, Gatecrasher:
Front: M-40 Fury
Rear: M60-Bulldog
Utility: Gatecrasher
Defense: Mine Guard (again, Blockade Armor would be fine too)
Performance: Rival Combat



Lightning, General Use:
Weapon: L100 Python HE
Utility: IR Smoke
Defense: Vehicle Stealth -- You don't have enough health to eat mines in this anyways; mineguard will help, but only barely.
Performance: Racer Chassis -- keep your tank pointed such that forward is more or less a way out. This is very much personal preference, both are slightly unimportant for a Lightning.

Lightning, Skyguard:
Weapon: Skyguard
Utility: IR Smoke
Defense: Top Armor -- this actually helps vs. the Zepher and rocket pods, both of which are relatively low damage weapons (which armor helps against the most in terms of defensive TTK boost). It's worthless against a Dalton.
Performance: Racer Chassis


Magrider, General Use:
Main Gun: Supernova PC (HEAT)
Secondary: Saron HRB
Utility: Magburner
Defense: Vehicle Stealth -- The Magrider is a tank best used for maneuverability and slipping around enemy lines. Stealth lets you get into stupid locations without giving yourself away instantly. As discussed, Front Armor is mostly worthless, and in my generalist configuration I'm not usually rushing places that would be mined. I roll engineer, so Autorepair is pretty useless too.
Performance: Rival Combat

Magfarmer:
Main Gun: Supernova VPC (HE)
Secondary: Saron HRB
Utility: Magburner
Defense: Mine Guard
Performance: Rival Combat
This configuration is used mostly for spawn camping, and is thus the one most likely to eat a suicide engineer, so it gets the mine guard. I should probably switch the secondary on this for either the Kobalt or the Halberd if I want to dedicate to farming infantry, but I like keeping the tank fight option open with the Saron.