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

[JonathanVB]

I screwed up my interpolation initially, here's my table if you're interested (which is pretty much identical to yours, and still doesn't seem to have the correct values for the Asp): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ES69Lc317U/pubhtml?gid=2011892275&single=true

From the game memory, I calculate the shields should be

57.6(3E),

71.6(3D),

85.7(3C),

99.7(3B),

113.8(3A).

Either I calculated wrong from the memory, or our interpolation strategy is wrong.

EDIT (I divided the wrong way)

 

[Jumper_001]

Let me know if I've made a horrible mistake somewhere.

There are no Class 4 internal compartments on the Asp, so you should take that line off the list.

 

[BigBadB]

There are no Class 4 internal compartments on the Asp, so you should take that line off the list.

Sure, but you can fit a Class 4 generator in the Class 5 slot, if you want to.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I screwed up my interpolation initially, here's my table if you're interested (which is pretty much identical to yours, and still doesn't seem to have the correct values for the Asp): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ES69Lc317U/pubhtml?gid=2011892275&single=true

From the game memory, I calculate the shields should be

109.7(3E),

122.04(3D),

134.9(3C),

148.0(3B),

161.4(3A).

Either I calculated wrong from the memory, or our interpolation strategy is wrong.

Or the numbers that Mike gave me don't match what's in the game files.

Am pretty sure he'll have copied and pasted from a spreadsheet he had handy rather than looking it up in the DB...

 

[JonathanVB]

I divided my values the wrong way, they're broken the other way (see my edit).

 

[BigBadB]

I divided my values the wrong way, they're broken the other way (see my edit).

Hmm, weird.

No idea what's going on. If it's just the Class 3s on the Asp, maybe Mike can take a look at it when he has a chance and let us know whether we've made a mistake or there's an error in the DB somewhere.

 

[teaurn]

Interesting as all this has been...I've love to know if the OP got his shield sorted out!

 

[aeshec]

Nothing to do with the armour. The ship's "Hull Mass" is the limiting factor for shields and that is static and doesn't change based on your load out. Adding armour would increase the ship's total mass, not hull mass so it doesn't matter.

Thank you for this post. I was a little confused on the whole hull mass thing too.

 

[CMDR Bloodhawk]

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.

Um... what? Where is it available

 

[Yanaran]

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 for bringing this thread back up but are you sure that feature has actually made it into the game? I just saw a video by mr Kornelius Briedis and he tested a lot of different weapons against an Anaconda. In his test a class 1 beam laser does 39% the damage of a class 3 beam laser, and a class 1 pulse laser does 43% the damage of a class 3 pulse laser.

If I understand what you're saying, the class 1 weapon should only do 33% of it's maximum damage. The class 1 maximum damage is in turn much lower than the class 3 maximum (obviously), so the resulting damage against the Anaconda should then be much lower than 39%. I.e. if a "class 1 max" is 50% of a "class 3 max", the resulting damage on the Conda would only be ~17% with the class 1 weapon. Or am I missing something?

Video in question, fast forward to 6m12s for the full shield damage result:
[video=youtube_share;4QgoYqD2gF0]http://youtu.be/4QgoYqD2gF0?t=6m13s[/video]

Cheers

 

[Aquamonkey]

In his test a class 1 beam laser does 39% the damage of a class 3 beam laser, and a class 1 pulse laser does 43% the damage of a class 3 pulse laser.

If I understand what you're saying, the class 1 weapon should only do 33% of it's maximum damage. The class 1 maximum damage is in turn much lower than the class 3 maximum (obviously), so the resulting damage against the Anaconda should then be much lower than 39%. I.e. if a "class 1 max" is 50% of a "class 3 max", the resulting damage on the Conda would only be ~17% with the class 1 weapon. Or am I missing something?

I think it's that your assumption is wrong about relative strength (As in C1 being 33% the max dmg output of a C3). The in-game damage ratings for Beam Lasers are: C1F = 4, C3F = 6. So the max dmg of a C1 is actually 66% that of a C3, then reduced by the target size penalty.

For Pulse Lasers: C1F = 2, C3F = 4. Which is 50%, then reduced by the target size penalty.

Also, I believe the damage calculations in the video are based on DPS, and not raw damage.
Beam Lasers: C1F = 3, C3F = 5. 60%, penalized to 39%.
Pulse Lasers: C1F = 3, C3F = 4. 75%, penalized to 43%.

 

[Yanaran]

I think it's that your assumption is wrong about relative strength (As in C1 being 33% the max dmg output of a C3). The in-game damage ratings for Beam Lasers are: C1F = 4, C3F = 6. So the max dmg of a C1 is actually 66% that of a C3, then reduced by the target size penalty.

I'm not assuming anything, I'm only comparing Kornelius actual damage test to what Mike said earlier in this thread.

For Pulse Lasers: C1F = 2, C3F = 4. Which is 50%, then reduced by the target size penalty.

Outfitting "damage" is not a linear scale as per earlier Dev posts. Even if they were, by your own example the class 1 laser would then do 50% (base dmg) * 33% (small weap penalty) = 17% damage. As I said in my previous post this doesn't add up, hence my question to Mike.

Also, I believe the damage calculations in the video are based on DPS, and not raw damage.

Kornelius tested time to break shields, in seconds. Damage is the inverse of this. It's like when tech sites test GPU performance by timing a video encoding.

 

[Aquamonkey]

I'm not assuming anything, I'm only comparing Kornelius actual damage test to what Mike said earlier in this thread.

Outfitting "damage" is not a linear scale as per earlier Dev posts. Even if they were, by your own example the class 1 laser would then do 50% (base dmg) * 33% (small weap penalty) = 17% damage. As I said in my previous post this doesn't add up, hence my question to Mike.

I see. I misread what you were referring to with the 33%.

Kornelius tested time to break shields, in seconds. Damage is the inverse of this. It's like when tech sites test GPU performance by timing a video encoding.

Kornelius tested how long it takes each to do X amount of damage. Each test did the exact same amount of damage (full shields with 0 pips). This is SPD, the inverse is DPS, not damage. If he was measuring damage, Kornelius would fire a single shot with each and see how much hull integrity was reduced (since shield integrity isn't measurable to this fidelity).

The SPD difference for Beam was 39%. The SPD difference for Pulse was 43%. The SPD difference for Burst was 38%.

Since we can't use the Dmg or DPS values from the outfitting menu, then we have to use RoF to get at the actual difference in damage. Anaconda with 7A shields has a value of 595.
Beam Laser doesn't have a RoF value.
Pulse Laser:

C1F: (65 sec / 595 dmg) * 3.8 shots/sec = 0.42 shots/dmg => 2.41 dmg/shot
C3F: (28 sec / 595 dmg) * 3.0 shots/sec = 0.14 shots/dmg => 7.08 dmg/shot
​

C1F is 34% as powerful as C3F, size penalty included.

Burst Laser:

C1F: (64 sec / 595 dmg) * 1.6 shots/sec = 0.17 shots/dmg => 5.81 dmg/shot
C3F: (24 sec / 595 dmg) * 1.0 shots/sec = 0.04 shots/dmg => 24.79 dmg/shot
​

C1F is 23% as powerful as C3F, size penalty included.


EDIT: Included 595 value for Anaconda with 7A shields, based on formula Mike Evans gave. As noted in a later post, shields still recharge so long as there is energy in the capacitor. Even with 0 pips, the shields would recharge a significant amount in the ~40 sec difference in times between C1 and C3. This means that C1 has to cut through more damage than C3 in the times measured, making C1 actually more powerful than calculated here.

 

[taleden]

Has it been tested that 0 pips in shields results in absolutely no shield recharge, even if there's still some juice left in the shield capacitor?

It seems to me that even a small rate of recharge could really throw off these seconds-per-damage tests. For example, if a small weapon does 50% as much damage as a larger weapon, then it must fire for (at least) twice as long to drop the shields. But if the shields are recharging at the same time, even a little bit, then they also get twice as many seconds worth of recharge to offset the incoming damage, so the small weapon will actually have to fire for more than twice the time -- possibly a lot more, if the shield recharge rate is any significant fraction of the weapon's damage rate.

 

[Aquamonkey]

Has it been tested that 0 pips in shields results in absolutely no shield recharge, even if there's still some juice left in the shield capacitor?

It seems to me that even a small rate of recharge could really throw off these seconds-per-damage tests. For example, if a small weapon does 50% as much damage as a larger weapon, then it must fire for (at least) twice as long to drop the shields. But if the shields are recharging at the same time, even a little bit, then they also get twice as many seconds worth of recharge to offset the incoming damage, so the small weapon will actually have to fire for more than twice the time -- possibly a lot more, if the shield recharge rate is any significant fraction of the weapon's damage rate.

This is a good point. Shields recharge so long as there is energy in the capacitor. Pips only affect shield strength and how fast the capacitor recharges, IIRC. Since the difference in times in the example I was using was ~40s, that is a non-trivial amount of shield regeneration and would throw off the estimate. The actual damage for the smaller weapons would be a bit higher than calculated.

 

[Mountain Dewed]

I'm new(about a week) and just found this thread from bouncing around the internet. Kinda funny how it led me back to here but what I'm getting at is this is a damn good thread and if it isn't, it should a highlight(stickied maybe?) for everyone to read!

 

[CyberGrim]

Anyway, I was bored so I worked out shield values based on the info in this thread and the Wiki. Here's the result:

View attachment 9863


Some caveats:

* These have been worked out by me in a largely manual fashion (Major Lag will be very disappointed in me )
* The numbers are based on my understanding of the mechanics as explained by Mike in this thread, and it's entirely possible I have misunderstood them or made a mistake in the maths
* The source data is from the wiki, not the game, so if there are any mistakes in the Hull Mass, Base Shield values or what class generators a ship can fit on the wiki, they will be repeated here
* I may have made mistakes

If anyone wants the data in a more useful format, I can put it into a Google sheet, text file or CSV.

So this is very interesting. Looking at a python as it has the most options. I am running a D6 rating for weight saving, but I could run an A4 a difference of only -50. The next question is do the lower class shields recharge quicker? Is there any advantage having a higher rated shield if a lower rated one gives the same(close) numbers?

 

[JonathanVB]

Has it been tested that 0 pips in shields results in absolutely no shield recharge, even if there's still some juice left in the shield capacitor?

It seems to me that even a small rate of recharge could really throw off these seconds-per-damage tests. For example, if a small weapon does 50% as much damage as a larger weapon, then it must fire for (at least) twice as long to drop the shields. But if the shields are recharging at the same time, even a little bit, then they also get twice as many seconds worth of recharge to offset the incoming damage, so the small weapon will actually have to fire for more than twice the time -- possibly a lot more, if the shield recharge rate is any significant fraction of the weapon's damage rate.

This is a good point. Shields recharge so long as there is energy in the capacitor. Pips only affect shield strength and how fast the capacitor recharges, IIRC. Since the difference in times in the example I was using was ~40s, that is a non-trivial amount of shield regeneration and would throw off the estimate. The actual damage for the smaller weapons would be a bit higher than calculated.

0 pips will still recharge the shield until the capacitor is empty.

From my testing (looking at the memory address), shields have around a 1s delay before they start charging after taking damage. This means that, for the testing, the shields weren't recharging and thus should not affect the tests.

 

[Mysturji]

The shield isn't too heavy, the ship is too heavy.
The largest internal slot the Cobra has is class 4 and these are optimal shields for the cobra. Class three will work but not as well.
If you are trying to buy a class 2 shield it is too small for the size of the cobra and won't let you fit it.

It sounds like you need bigger shields.
You can "swap" modules - including shields - to different compartments. Move your shields to a bigger compartment and try again.

 

[Aquamonkey]

0 pips will still recharge the shield until the capacitor is empty.

From my testing (looking at the memory address), shields have around a 1s delay before they start charging after taking damage. This means that, for the testing, the shields weren't recharging and thus should not affect the tests.

1s delay from taking damage. But the shield is taking damage for the duration of the 20/60+ seconds of the tests. That gives the shields 19/59+ seconds of recharge time.

 

[JonathanVB]

1s delay from taking damage. But the shield is taking damage for the duration of the 20/60+ seconds of the tests. That gives the shields 19/59+ seconds of recharge time.

That's a 1s delay from any damage, so as long as there's no continuous 1s period in which the ship takes no damage (which there shouldn't be in testing), the shield will not charge. In other words you can keep a shield from recharging by continuously damaging it (at least while the shields are online).