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Maybe all of MMO players get to know the role of tank but it is different in EVE online. Generally speaking, a tank is whatever you use to keep yourself alive and it's something every ship can do. The MMO holy trinity of tank, healer and damage-dealer are combined into every ship in EVE. Because of this ability to self-heal, the word "tank" in EVE generally refers to the combination of both resisting damage and healing it. Fitting your ship then becomes a matter of balancing between tank and damage.
For the most part, tanking is relevant to all aspects of EVE that involve combat, but its usefulness in PvP is somewhat limited. Once fleets begin to get above a certain size, their concentrated fire will blast almost any ship apart in short order regardless of how strong its tank is. With this in mind, it becomes clear that setting up your tank effectively is most important in missions, complexes and deep space asteroid belts. Since NPCs tend to deal a lot less damage than players, a well-designed tank can handle them reliably.
On the surface both shield and armor may seem like simple hitpoint buffers, they work very differently. Shield recharges slowly over time like your capacitor but damage to armor must always be repaired manually. If your shield drops below 25% hitpoints, extra damage can leak through and hit your armor but damage cannot leak through your armor and hit your hull.
It is a waste of valuable slots to try to tank both shield and armor and it will cripple your ship's combat effectiveness so it's best to choose only one type. When choosing which type of tank to use, you can find out which would be most effective by examining your ship's slot layout. Since shield modules go in mid slots, ships with more mid slots than low slots make better shield tankers. Similarly, armor modules go in low slots so those with more low slots make better armor tankers. As a general guideline, Gallente and Amarr ships are best armor tanked, Caldari are best shield tanked and Minmatar have ships that can handle either comfortably.
Each slot used for shield or armor modules could be used for alternative modules if you chose the other type of tank. Rather than being filled with shield modules, mid slots can be used for capacitor re-chargers and important PvP modules. In the same way, low slots can be used for damage-enhancers, power diagnostic systems and various hull upgrades. This usually isn't the deciding factor in which type to choose but sometimes comes into play in fleet PvP setups.
Relatively, armor tanking has few skills and it's advised to get the main ones to level 4 or 5 as soon as you can. The "Hull Upgrades" skill allows use of armor modules and provides a 5% per level increase in armor hitpoints. Having this at level 5 allows use of advanced tech 2 armor modules which provide a significant boost over their tech 1 counterparts for a little extra cost. The "Repair Systems" skill increases the cycle speed of armor repairers by 5% per level, which makes you repair more damage per second but consume a bit more capacitor per second.
In particular, these aren't useful as the bonus is small and only really useful on energized adaptive membranes. Training this level 3 or 4 will provide negligible benefit.
For the most part, tanking is relevant to all aspects of EVE that involve combat, but its usefulness in PvP is somewhat limited. Once fleets begin to get above a certain size, their concentrated fire will blast almost any ship apart in short order regardless of how strong its tank is. With this in mind, it becomes clear that setting up your tank effectively is most important in missions, complexes and deep space asteroid belts. Since NPCs tend to deal a lot less damage than players, a well-designed tank can handle them reliably.
On the surface both shield and armor may seem like simple hitpoint buffers, they work very differently. Shield recharges slowly over time like your capacitor but damage to armor must always be repaired manually. If your shield drops below 25% hitpoints, extra damage can leak through and hit your armor but damage cannot leak through your armor and hit your hull.
It is a waste of valuable slots to try to tank both shield and armor and it will cripple your ship's combat effectiveness so it's best to choose only one type. When choosing which type of tank to use, you can find out which would be most effective by examining your ship's slot layout. Since shield modules go in mid slots, ships with more mid slots than low slots make better shield tankers. Similarly, armor modules go in low slots so those with more low slots make better armor tankers. As a general guideline, Gallente and Amarr ships are best armor tanked, Caldari are best shield tanked and Minmatar have ships that can handle either comfortably.
Each slot used for shield or armor modules could be used for alternative modules if you chose the other type of tank. Rather than being filled with shield modules, mid slots can be used for capacitor re-chargers and important PvP modules. In the same way, low slots can be used for damage-enhancers, power diagnostic systems and various hull upgrades. This usually isn't the deciding factor in which type to choose but sometimes comes into play in fleet PvP setups.
Relatively, armor tanking has few skills and it's advised to get the main ones to level 4 or 5 as soon as you can. The "Hull Upgrades" skill allows use of armor modules and provides a 5% per level increase in armor hitpoints. Having this at level 5 allows use of advanced tech 2 armor modules which provide a significant boost over their tech 1 counterparts for a little extra cost. The "Repair Systems" skill increases the cycle speed of armor repairers by 5% per level, which makes you repair more damage per second but consume a bit more capacitor per second.
In particular, these aren't useful as the bonus is small and only really useful on energized adaptive membranes. Training this level 3 or 4 will provide negligible benefit.
