Why can't I add shields to my Cobra? It tells me it's too heavy?

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Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
Cobra can also support class 4 shields. However, you may install a class 3 shield if you want to conserve mass and/or power consumption. The shields "Max mass" must support at least your ships current mass.

Wrong! It needs to support the ships hull mass which never changes. It's set in stone for the ship.
 

Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
Ok, sorry for all these questions, but it’s good to get some game designer feedback on this one.
So the below data, for shield strength of a class 4 shield on a cobra and an Asp, appears to say a Class 4 shield is stronger on the much larger Asp. You can confirm this is wrong?

Shield Capacity (in MJ)

Ship--------Shield Class -------E------D------C------B-------A
Cobra Mk. III------4------------61.7---66.4---71.1---75.8----80.6
Asp Explorer-------4 -----------76.6---84.8---93.1---101.3---109.5

It would be a lot more useful if we could just see ‘shield strength’ in the outfitting menu.

Shield and armour strength will be coming. With a Class 4 shield generator the Asp will be better off because it's base strength is high enough that even with the favourable modifier to the cobra (who has a lower hull mass than the optimal mass of the generator) it ends up with more shield strength.
 
That info has been available since it went in. You just don't have the stats in outfitting to look at but if you want to ensure you're doing the max damage the weapon is capable of you need to use a huge weapon as that will always do it's best against any ship in the game.

Hi Mike,

Sorry, stupid question time.

Why does a pulse laser blast from a class 1 pulse laser on a Sidewinder do less 'damage' to the shields on an Anaconda than it would to the shields on say another Sidewinder?
I'm probably being dense, but I would have thought the amount of energy in the pulse blast is the same, no matter the target ? ? ?
 

Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
Hi Mike,

Sorry, stupid question time.

Why does a pulse laser blast from a class 1 pulse laser on a Sidewinder do less 'damage' to the shields on an Anaconda than it would to the shields on say another Sidewinder?
I'm probably being dense, but I would have thought the amount of energy in the pulse blast is the same, no matter the target ? ? ?

Game play reasons. It ensures that it's always better to fit the largest weapons you can if you want to fight equal or larger ships effectively rather than just loading up on as many small and cheap weapons as you possibly could. Now you have to choose between wanting to target smaller ships and taking smaller weapons that will fire faster and track quicker or fighting larger ships and dealing with weapons that fire slower but do appropriate damage.
 
Game play reasons. It ensures that it's always better to fit the largest weapons you can if you want to fight equal or larger ships effectively rather than just loading up on as many small and cheap weapons as you possibly could. Now you have to choose between wanting to target smaller ships and taking smaller weapons that will fire faster and track quicker or fighting larger ships and dealing with weapons that fire slower but do appropriate damage.

Thanks for the response - and yes, it makes sense to me.
 
So I think I mostly understand by now.

Except A-F rating. All shields of a given Class have same optimal and max masses. So what changes from rating A to rating F?

Is it the 0.5..1..1.5 you described before. that becomes say a 0.2..0.7..1.2 on a lower rated shield? would you have that info for all ratings?
 

Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
So I think I mostly understand by now.

Except A-F rating. All shields of a given Class have same optimal and max masses. So what changes from rating A to rating F?

Is it the 0.5..1..1.5 you described before. that becomes say a 0.2..0.7..1.2 on a lower rated shield? would you have that info for all ratings?

It's the modifiers yes and I do have that info but when outfitting tells you the final shield strength that will cover it.
 
It's the modifiers yes and I do have that info but when outfitting tells you the final shield strength that will cover it.

Sweet! And thanks once more!

Off to the center of the galaxy (and maybe beyond) starting tonite. That change to the outfitter will be a reason to rush back to civilised space :)
 
So I think I mostly understand by now.

Except A-F rating. All shields of a given Class have same optimal and max masses. So what changes from rating A to rating F?

Is it the 0.5..1..1.5 you described before. that becomes say a 0.2..0.7..1.2 on a lower rated shield? would you have that info for all ratings?

As I understand it: the higher the higher the rating the better the shield. By better I mean more shield strength or lower mass. You can see power consumption be higher for higher rated shields because they offer higher shield strength.

As an example look at the picture below. Class 4 A-rated shield uses more power than a class 4 C-rated. By looking at the stats the A-rated looks worse because power consumption is higher. But A-rated is still considered better, due to the A-rated will actually give you more shield strength. However if thermal signature is a concern for you higher shield strength might not be better than lower power draw.

shield2.jpg
 

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Shield and armour strength will be coming. With a Class 4 shield generator the Asp will be better off because it's base strength is high enough that even with the favourable modifier to the cobra (who has a lower hull mass than the optimal mass of the generator) it ends up with more shield strength.

Ok, thanks for taking the time to answer, and it’s great hear shield and armor strength are coming.
To be honest this is what I meant by imbalanced, a Class 4 shield generator should not give better protection in a larger ship, you should have to pay more for that. And an A rating shield of optimal size should give better protection than an E rating of optimal size for another ship.
Anyway good to know.
 
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Shields are not well balanced in the game, A 3E class shield on a viper is stronger than a 4A on the Cobra because of hull mass.
The Viper is a specialized fighter ship, the Cobra is not. I would expect the Viper to have better shields. Looks pretty balanced to me.
 

Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
Ok, thanks for taking the time to answer, and it’s great hear shield and armor strength are coming.
To be honest this is what I meant by imbalanced, a Class 4 shield generator should not give better protection in a larger ship, you should have to pay more for that. And an A rating shield of optimal size should give better protection than an E rating of optimal size for another ship.
Anyway good to know.

Think in terms of the ship itself driving the strength of the shield and the generator just augmenting the final resistances and what not. Some ships just have better base shield strength built in and the generator can make that better or worse.
 
Those formulas have a lot of magic numbers in them; a sure sign that it isn't what we're using. The shield formula is pretty simple. Take the base strength, look at the difference between hull mass and optimal mass and create a modifier to the base strength based on the linear interpolation between the shields best and worst modifier depending on whether you're over or under weight.

If you're exactly at the optimised mass then you'd get a modifier of 1 so no change.

A C2 shield generator has 28t 55t 138t mass curve and modifier limits of 1.5 to 0.5. So being at 28t would give you a modifier of 1.5 to base strength. Being at 138t would give you a 0.5 modifier to base strength. Being somewhere in between would be a linear interpolation of those values and 1.

So in otherwords, the word "optimized" is really a misnomer, and would be better described as baseline? "Optimized" implies most efficient, best for the situation, etc. What I gather from what you wrote, the strongest shielding will come from your ships hull mass being as close to the shield minimum value?
 

Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
So in otherwords, the word "optimized" is really a misnomer, and would be better described as baseline? "Optimized" implies most efficient, best for the situation, etc. What I gather from what you wrote, the strongest shielding will come from your ships hull mass being as close to the shield minimum value?

Sure but I like to think that you're over doing it both ways even if one way happens to be better overall. I would argue we need a secondary effect whereby the further from the optimal you are the more heat it generates or something so there is a trade off.
 
So in otherwords, the word "optimized" is really a misnomer, and would be better described as baseline? "Optimized" implies most efficient, best for the situation, etc. What I gather from what you wrote, the strongest shielding will come from your ships hull mass being as close to the shield minimum value?

Yup. Have a ship mass that's under the shields listed optimal mass, and you get the best protection out of it
 
The Viper is a specialized fighter ship, the Cobra is not. I would expect the Viper to have better shields. Looks pretty balanced to me.

The Viper is a fighter so is designed with less cargo space and better maneuverability. Why would you not put decent shields on a multipurpose ship like a Cobra? They still need to defend themselves. A pure trading ship like a T-6 maybe.
Anyway, my point is the Viper should have better shields at the same rating, but E rating shields on a Viper should not be better than A rating larger shields on a Cobra (which cost several times more than both ships put together). And the exact same shield should not be better on a much larger Cobra.

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Think in terms of the ship itself driving the strength of the shield and the generator just augmenting the final resistances and what not. Some ships just have better base shield strength built in and the generator can make that better or worse.

So like a ‘shield generator’ does not generate the shield on its own, it enables and then augments the ships base shield? Ok I can do that, but if I was been pedantic I’d say they’re not shield generators then, but that’s a fair enough explanation.
 
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Sure but I like to think that you're over doing it both ways even if one way happens to be better overall. I would argue we need a secondary effect whereby the further from the optimal you are the more heat it generates or something so there is a trade off.

Why have a secondary effect, this allows people to effectively run their shields at a higher rated performance and surely this should be allowed.

I have a Cobra with A4 shields and pretty much everything else A4 or A3 now, I also have 44 tonnes of cargo space. I use my Cobra to bounty hunt and it's light and turns nice and fast as I have the cargo holds empty (also no shield cells). I also use it to trade and then I have 44 tonnes of cargo on board which would give me a disadvantage if I went bounty hunting.

I would like to see other stats incorporated like, turn rate, max speed etc and how the modules effect these. this then allows proper ship tuning and adds to the game as no NPC or player for that matter is the same.
 
The lowest grade shield that a Cobra will take is 3; You can't use anything lower because the Cobra is too big for them. If you want shields on the Cobra, you have to use one of the Class 4 Internal Compartments.
 
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