Interesting screen from Chinaside2

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Erendil

Gotta say tho that if those graphs are right I'm a little irritated about the Mag's armour. We were told earlier this year that the Prowler was the fastets tank but that the Mag had more armour to make up for it. Now that doesn't appear to be the case.

IMO the fastest tank should have the weakest armour. Unless the Mag significantly outdamages the Prowler up close, all the Prowler would need to do is run straight for any Mag it sees, since the Mag can't outrun it and can't take as much punishment.

I think we need to consider what "armor" means in PS2. Armor in PS1 meant raw HP. In PS2 I think all tanks have the same health but their "armor" reduces the damage they take per shot, but depending on location.

So when it shows the Prowler having more armor than the Magrider, you must also consider that armor has different values on different parts of the tank. We know front armor is the strongest, and rear armor is the weakest.

Consider a tank vs tank standoff. The Magrider is essentially always going to be facing its target (it has to due to the fixed cannon). This means its a lot easier for the mag to protect itself while maneuvering around against the other tank.

The prowler & mag have to move & turn to keep their backside protected which leaves their side armor a lot more exposed. You are less likely to be shooting a prowler in the front armor as you are a Mag, and while overall the Prowler might have more armor, the effective armor of the Mag and prowler may be the same when you factor in the advantages that maneuverability gets you with respect to different armor positions.

Further, the mag can enhance this benefit even more by adding front armor as a defensive upgrade.

Long-range unless moving tangental speed has little value compared to maneuverability. The mags can do the old side-strafe trick and moving backwards while keeping front armor and maximizing their accuracy advantage. Snipe snipe snipe, while the only thing the prowler can do is close distance and take the hits.

I think in that respect maneuverability forces it to have the lowest base armor because maneuverability increases effective armor.