Playing Around With Shield Boosters

jgm

jgm
I've been looking at upgrading the shields on my Vulture from 5C to something a bit beefier. I started with the obvious thought of "go buy a 5B" but then thought I'd spend some time looking at shield cell boosters to see if they could provide me with some benefits over the simple upgrade. Turns out that they can.

Upgrading from a 5C to a 5B shield generator is costly in terms of credits, power and mass. And the end result is ~6% more shield. For the same power usage I could put a single 0D shield booster for a fraction of the credits (23K Vs. 1.2MM) and have more shield (~8%). And if I have a couple of spare slots I could put two 0E boosters on instead and save a bit of power in to the bargain.

Looking a bit further ahead, I could take a 5D shield and add two 0C boosters and end up with a better shield than a straight 5A at a fraction of the cost, with lower mass and power usage. To compare:

5A shield:
  • Mass: 20
  • Power usage: 3.64
  • Shield strength: 250
  • Cost: 5,103,593

5D shield + 0C shield booster + 0C shield booster:
  • Mass: 12
  • Power usage: 3.48
  • Shield strength: 258
  • Cost: 235,035

The downsides of adding shield boosters, for those of you who do not know it already, is that they increase shield recharge times so if you lose your shields then it'll be a while before you see them again. This time without shields shouldn't be underestimated so please beware.

Obviously there is no better combination than a 5A plus shield boosters, but in power-constrained ships being able to cut down on power usage even a little can help.

Also, note that in general you are better off buying two lower-grade shield boosters than a single higher-grade shield booster. At the least it will be cheaper, but they usually come with mass and/or power savings as well.

There are other combinations of generators plus boosters which give good benefits. I'll see if I can get around to testing out shield recharge times with boosters attached to gain a idea of just how much of a downside they introduce, and update the post with numbers as/when I do so.
 

Poseidal

Poseidal
Is the increased recharge time just due to the increased size rather than an inherent increase?

The main cost is the opportunity cost of the slot.
 

Kramster

Kramster
Interesting idea of booster use, something I hadn't considered. Might be very useful on a power starved Vulture when you want better weapons

I feel that the additional recharge time is more to the fact I am carrying more shields. I currently have 2x A0 and 1x C0 on my Vulture so in effect I have 50% more shields so would expect my shields to take at least 1.5x longer to recharge. It theoretically means that when I lose one of the three shield rings I still have full base shields.

I have not seen any numbers yet but I would think that if the boosters do add recharge time above this then it probably isn't as high of an increase as it seems when you account for the additional shielding
 
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jgm

jgm
I've just spent some time working through different combinations of shield generator and boosters, and can confirm that the additional recharging time when equipping shield boosters is down to the additional shield capacity: recharge rate stays the same.

So taking a simple example: instead of this loadout you can go for this one which gives better shielding for a much lower cost, all while staying in the Vulture's power envelope.

And as an added bonus if you lose your shields you can shut down the boosters to regain some shields back on faster, then turn them on again to top yourself back up fully.

As @Poseidal mentioned, the obvious downside is that all this takes up utility slots but if you're currently carrying empty utility slots on your ship it's definitely worth putting some shield boosters in there.
 

Quantis Trap

Quantis Trap
Hi everyone,

Several shield booster questions come to mind for anyone who knows:
1) Does placement of these shield boosters make any difference?
2) Is the useful number of shield boosters limited only by the number of free utility mounts and available power?
3) Does shield booster two and above have the same additive affect as the first one?
4) If you have shield cells will they be just as effective with shield boosters? Do shield boosters hamper the effectiveness of shield cells? Any related booster / cell combination details in other words.

Extra credit:
5) I see a wierd visual effect when putting shield boosters in a clipper. The one on the lower port (left) side sticks out while the one on the lower starboard side is flush with the mount. This is the case (that only the one of the port side sticks out) even when there is only one mounted at a time. Anyone have an idea why this is?

Thanks
 
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jgm

jgm
CMDR QUANTIS TRAP said:
Hi everyone,

Several shield booster questions come to mind for anyone who knows:
1) Does placement of these shield boosters make any difference?
2) Is the useful number of shield boosters limited only by the number of free utility mounts and available power?
3) Does shield booster two and above have the same additive affect as the first one?
4) If you have shield cells will they be just as effective with shield boosters? Do shield boosters hamper the effectiveness of shield cells? Any related booster / cell combination details in other words.

Extra credit:
5) I see a wierd visual effect when putting shield boosters in a clipper. The one on the lower port (left) side sticks out while the one on the lower starboard side is flush with the mount. This is the case (that only the one of the port side sticks out) even when there is only one mounted at a time. Anyone have an idea why this is?

Thanks
Click to expand...

1) Nope
2) Yep
3) Yep. The effect is additive rather than cumulative, so 2 A0 shield boosters will give you a 40% boost rather than a 44% boost
4) Shield cell banks have a specific MJ amount per charge, so they will have the same absolute effect but a lower percentage effect if you have boosters

5) Sorry no idea, I don't do Imperial. But I haven't seen this on any other ship.
 

Odan Brota

Odan Brota
Shield boosters are really nice in trade configurations of ships, since they make you a lot tougher in sticky situations. I mount four of them on my Clipper when I trade, with a 4A shield I get 195 shield capacity, only slightly less than a 7A shield generator (197). I can't recommend using them if all you're doing is combat thanks to the recharge hit, but it's a saving grace for trade ships.

EDIT: Also, the Clipper does have that hardpoint bug, where anything mounted on that specific hardpoint floats.

EDIT2: Wow, I just looked, and a 7A shield generator with 4x A0 shield boosters gets 356 capacity! Maybe that would be worth it in combat... I need to do some testing.
 
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Paul Shroom

Paul Shroom
Max Clipper All with c3T Beam lasers x2 & (D) KW. scanner A6 Shilled cell bank all A grade with power controls set in sys
and 2x c2g for cannons or C2g malty-cannon and nerf / trade offs sensors & life support
B7 (Shilled 120T) aad = 1.48 x 426.24 = mj630.83 nerf mass & strength (heavy clipper, what good is that with no top speed?)
C7 (Shilled 80T) aaa = 1.60 x 399.60 = mj639.36 all A grade + (D) kW. scanner can fit C2g M-cannons too (my setup for PvE war zones)
A7 (Shilled 80T) aab = 1.56 x 477.36 = mj744.36 nerf rebuy cost, Life S and sensors C2g cannons only for power restraint (PvP I like my C2g M-cannons for PvE war zones)
A7 (Shilled 80T) aae = 1.44 x 477.36 = mj687.39 nerf rebuy cost, Life S. and sensors can fit C2g M-cannons to ( I like my sensors)
A7 (Shilled 80T) abe = 1.40 x 477.36 = mj668.30 nerf rebuy cost, all A grade + (D) KW. scanner can fit C2g M-cannons too (rebuy and price for not much extra)
A booster 3.5T
B booster 3.0T
C booster 2.0T
D booster 1.0T
E booster 0.5T
 
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Thebadmf

Thebadmf
Odan Brota said:
Shield boosters are really nice in trade configurations of ships, since they make you a lot tougher in sticky situations. I mount four of them on my Clipper when I trade, with a 4A shield I get 195 shield capacity, only slightly less than a 7A shield generator (197). I can't recommend using them if all you're doing is combat thanks to the recharge hit, but it's a saving grace for trade ships.

EDIT: Also, the Clipper does have that hardpoint bug, where anything mounted on that specific hardpoint floats.

EDIT2: Wow, I just looked, and a 7A shield generator with 4x A0 shield boosters gets 356 capacity! Maybe that would be worth it in combat... I need to do some testing.
Click to expand...

As mentioned previously in the thread the booster can be turned off when your shields fail. IIRC Shields come back at 50% of current max, the boosters don't increase the recharge rate per se so, just enable them when the shield is restored and hit a cell bank to top off.

Most definitely great on all vessel types if you have the slots and power.
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
Is there an actual, confirmed shield strength article or post somewhere? I've seen some best guesses and hints from Mike Evans in the past, but don't recall anything concrete.
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Here's a link to the Python code I use for my FdL (also has Python values in commented out); adjust the fU (free utility slots) and desired (desired shield strength) values in the script and run it, it will solve for mass by default and give the five lowest mass results.
Alternatively change the " resultList = sorted(resultList, key = lambda result: result[1]) " bit to result[3] (sort on power), result[4] (sort on shield-to-mass ratio) or result[5] (sort on shield-to-power ratio) for those.

There are some interesting combinations to be found. I used the edshipyard shield values but don't know whether they are strictly accurate.

(If I can be bothered, I'll add values for the other ships, GUI it up and compile, but I can't be bothered right now. ^^ )
 
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