Ship Builds & Load Outs Shield recharge rates

[KayAitch]

Sometimes my shields take an impossible time to recharge; I FSD away and dock before they come back. Sometimes they seem more like 30s or so, short enough that I can survive with dodging and chaff until they come back. I feel like some ships recharge quicker than others, but not being in both ships at the same time I can't tell.

• What actually affects shield recharge rates?
• Do more pips in SYS recharge faster?
• Does relative mass of the ship slow them down?
• Do different ships recharge shields at different rates (it definitely feels that way)?
• Exactly how much do boosters slow them down? Are booster affects stacked or like compound interest?
• Has anyone tested any of this, i.e. gone out in similar ships, silent mode, and then started charging at the same time to test?

 

[newman1702]

As far as I know, the basic principle is - the stronger the shield, the longer they take to come back up. Also, yes, more pips in SYS brings them up faster; it also makes them able to withstand more fire before they go down. I believe different ships recharge shields at different rates, yes, because each ship gets a unique shield strength even with identical shield generators; for example, both the FDL and a type 6 can mount a 5A shield generator, however the FDL's shields will be many times stronger, which also means they will take longer to come back up if they go down. Boosters slow this process down by making shields stronger, basically - a 580 MJ shield will take longer to recharge than a 500MJ one, boosters or no boosters.

 

[MrFuddyDuddy]

As far as I know all Shields regardless of strength recharge at the same speed of MJ's per second (I'm not sure what the exact number is), so as an example:

An Anaconda with lets say 1000MJ's of shields is somehow at 0MJ strength, his shields will take 5 times longer to recharge than say a Cobra with 200MJ's of shields if his are at 0 as well.

I do know for a fact however if you are running shield boosters and your shields go completely down it will take less time for them to recharge if you disable your Shield Boosters first.

 

[KayAitch]

As far as I know, the basic principle is - the stronger the shield, the longer they take to come back up. Also, yes, more pips in SYS brings them up faster; it also makes them able to withstand more fire before they go down. I believe different ships recharge shields at different rates, yes, because each ship gets a unique shield strength even with identical shield generators; for example, both the FDL and a type 6 can mount a 5A shield generator, however the FDL's shields will be many times stronger, which also means they will take longer to come back up if they go down. Boosters slow this process down by making shields stronger, basically - a 580 MJ shield will take longer to recharge than a 500MJ one, boosters or no boosters.

Which is fine, but also kind of vague...

Any idea how the pips relate to shields as opposed to the bar?

Has anyone been able to verify that the rate per MJ is actually a constant? If this is the case it should have some interesting implications on tactics as it means that we're really talking about the maximum possible shield, but the rate of maintenance is the same. This means that in a endurance setting (say surviving in a CZ) then you may actually be better off with a weaker shield that you can get back up quickly rather than a shield that will reach the highest maximum out of combat.

It also suggests that the amount shield boosters slow down recharge becomes absolutely critical.

- - - Updated - - -

As far as I know all Shields regardless of strength recharge at the same speed of MJ's per second (I'm not sure what the exact number is), so as an example:

An Anaconda with lets say 1000MJ's of shields is somehow at 0MJ strength, his shields will take 5 times longer to recharge than say a Cobra with 200MJ's of shields if his are at 0 as well.

I do know for a fact however if you are running shield boosters and your shields go completely down it will take less time for them to recharge if you disable your Shield Boosters first.

Yeah, shield boosters add to your maximum shield, but do they just mean there's more MJ before it's recharged, or do they actually slow them down in addition to that?

If the latter then shield boosters are kind of a con - they make your ship more of a glass cannon, with better shields but at more risk if they are lost.

 

[newman1702]

Which is fine, but also kind of vague...
Yeah, shield boosters add to your maximum shield, but do they just mean there's more MJ before it's recharged, or do they actually slow them down in addition to that?

They don't slow them down in addition, what they do (for example) is make a 500 MJ shield a 600 MJ shield (an A0 with 20%), so now that shield recharges as any 600MJ one would. However I'd like to submit that even if the above wasn't true and they slowed down shield recharge even further (which they don't), as combat currently works with SCB spam, it wouldn't matter much as it all comes down to not losing your shields in the first place - if your shields are about to go down it's time to retreat. In a CZ it would definitely be better to have stronger shields which won't go down than weaker shields which can be restored easily - it'll still take too long, boosters or no boosters, and you'll take lots of damage before they do.

BTW, if your shields are down, go to your modules tab and turn off shield boosters, they should come up sooner. Weaker shields are better than none, and you can easily reengage them later.

 

[KayAitch]

They don't slow them down in addition, what they do (for example) is make a 500 MJ shield a 600 MJ shield (an A0 with 20%), so now that shield recharges as any 600MJ one would. However I'd like to submit that even if the above wasn't true and they slowed down shield recharge even further (which they don't), as combat currently works with SCB spam, it wouldn't matter much as it all comes down to not losing your shields in the first place - if your shields are about to go down it's time to retreat. In a CZ it would definitely be better to have stronger shields which won't go down than weaker shields which can be restored easily - it'll still take too long, boosters or no boosters, and you'll take lots of damage before they do.

BTW, if your shields are down, go to your modules tab and turn off shield boosters, they should come up sooner. Weaker shields are better than none, and you can easily reengage them later.

Yeah, the SCB spam is one of the disappointing things about PvP, as everyone targets power plants and lasers are stupid high penetration.

Ignoring that for a minute and just considering PvE - more shields are not always better. The rates at which you get shot at and the gaps between firefights will even out over a long CZ session, and your shield provides the same defence no matter how much of it is left. Given that a shield that comes up quickly (chaff, boost away, snipe a bit and come back) could be much better (with a well armoured ship) than a shield that takes minutes to recharge.

 

[newman1702]

Yeah, the SCB spam is one of the disappointing things about PvP, as everyone targets power plants and lasers are stupid high penetration.

Ignoring that for a minute and just considering PvE - more shields are not always better. The rates at which you get shot at and the gaps between firefights will even out over a long CZ session, and your shield provides the same defence no matter how much of it is left. Given that a shield that comes up quickly (chaff, boost away, snipe a bit and come back) could be much better (with a well armoured ship) than a shield that takes minutes to recharge.

Depends - if your shield will definitely go down, then yes. Otherwise, a stronger shield may give you time to hit that SCB so it doesn't go down at all. But we're now slowly creeping into personal preferences territory I will concede that for PvE, shields are a tad less important than for PvP, as NPC's don't target power plants so armor still has some use.

BTW, how silly is it that armor doesn't protect your power plant? I can understand it not protecting your sublights or guns, those being exposed systems, but one would expect your powerplant to be inside the ship, therefore armored bulkheads do go around it... I do hope they revise this mechanic soon.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

If a shield is anything less than 100%, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec to bring it back to 100%. If there's no juice in the SYS capacitor, it will stop.

If the shield has collapsed, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec (if there's juice in the capacitor) to rebuild the shield, requiring [max shield] worth of MJ (including boosters!) before it's reformed at 50% of max.

If the shield is damaged, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec (if there's juice in the capacitor) to regenerate the shield.

Nothing will change this constant of 1MJ/sec with the exception of running out of juice in the SYS capacitor and SCBs. Not pips, not ships, not boosters, not grade, not class, not mass.

 

[KayAitch]

If a shield is anything less than 100%, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec to bring it back to 100%. If there's no juice in the SYS capacitor, it will stop.

If the shield has collapsed, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec (if there's juice in the capacitor) to rebuild the shield, requiring [max shield] worth of MJ (including boosters!) before it's reformed at 50% of max.

If the shield is damaged, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec (if there's juice in the capacitor) to regenerate the shield.

Nothing will change this constant of 1MJ/sec with the exception of running out of juice in the SYS capacitor and SCBs. Not pips, not ships, not boosters, not grade, not class, not mass.

Cheers, that's a lot of the detail I was looking for, especially on the relationship to the SYS bar - I also didn't realise 50% was the threshold where they come back up or that class had no factor on the rate.

Are you sure it's 1MJ per sec? Is that a developer statement or something we've found through testing?

 

[Psycho Romeo]

Cheers, that's a lot of the detail I was looking for, especially on the relationship to the SYS bar - I also didn't realise 50% was the threshold where they come back up or that class had no factor on the rate.

Are you sure it's 1MJ per sec? Is that a developer statement or something we've found through testing?

I believe it was both.

 

[KayAitch]

I believe it was both.

Cool, cheers.

I've written all this up in an ArQAde/Stackoverflow post: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/q/238884/13264

 

[Pepe]

I just tested on my Vulture with 5A shields + 0A booster (+20%) what you talked about. I turned my shields of and on - and counted time up.

It starts recharging after 15 sec, in any case.

sys 1pips: 159 to get shields on again (at half strength, ofc)
sys 2pips: 162 to get shields on again
sys 4pips: 160 to get shields on again

I turned my booster off and it saved me over 20 seconds:
sys 1pips: 138 to get shields on again
sys 2pips: 138 to get shields on again
sys 4pips: 139 to get shields on again

Looking at those numbers someone might say it should save me almost 30 seconds, but I remind you: recharging starts after 15 sec delay. However, there is no save with big shields that can save you - when you go no-shields. Run, run to fight another day.

I'd recommend boosters on all ships that can't run from multiple Clippers and Couriers in CZs. I traded my engines from 5A to 5D to have a booster and more chaff. Losing shields with Vulture in a CZ is good as jumping to a sharks pool - dressed in a raw sausage necklace.

 

[X-Terminator]

Thanks for the study here. Shield Boost OFF will get you more rings but when is Boost effective?
I did the same for my Vulture: 5D Thrusters to add Shield Boost. It used to be good to use 4A Shield Gen - no longer!

 

[Pepe]

20% boost gives you 20% more defence megawatts - or simply saying: shields. It doesn't improve anything else. Seems like shields recharge rates are fixed to 1MW/sec for all shields, plants, distributors, ships... players... So it takes longer for stronger shields to recharge/regenerate, mate.

But boosters are awesome to play with.

For example: using 5D shields on Vulture + 20% booster gets you to (almost) same shield strength like 5A shields w/o booster, but saves you 0,36MW of power. And you can get faster charge by switching booster off until fully charged. Whatever shieldcake you make, booster is like a cherry on top.

 

[Mephane]

If a shield is anything less than 100%, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec to bring it back to 100%. If there's no juice in the SYS capacitor, it will stop.

If the shield has collapsed, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec (if there's juice in the capacitor) to rebuild the shield, requiring [max shield] worth of MJ (including boosters!) before it's reformed at 50% of max.

If the shield is damaged, it will drain the SYS capacitor at 1MJ/sec (if there's juice in the capacitor) to regenerate the shield.

Nothing will change this constant of 1MJ/sec with the exception of running out of juice in the SYS capacitor and SCBs. Not pips, not ships, not boosters, not grade, not class, not mass.

Repped for good explanation. I also want to add to this with a few more numbers.

If you are flying a typical Python, let's say your shields have a capacity of 600MJ. That means it takes 600MJ / 1MJ/s = 600s = 10 minutes for them to regenerate from 0% to 100%.

If you are flying a fully militarized Anaconda, let's say your shields have a capacity of 1800 MJ. That is 1800 MJ / 1MJ/s = 1800s = 30 minutes.

I am still wondering whether someone at FD had done this very calculation initially, when deciding how shield regeneration should work and (not) scale, and concluded these times were fine, or whether they never even considered at all what a fixed, non-scaling 1MJ/s means in practice.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

Repped for good explanation. I also want to add to this with a few more numbers.

If you are flying a typical Python, let's say your shields have a capacity of 600MJ. That means it takes 600MJ / 1MJ/s = 600s = 10 minutes for them to regenerate from 0% to 100%.

If you are flying a fully militarized Anaconda, let's say your shields have a capacity of 1800 MJ. That is 1800 MJ / 1MJ/s = 1800s = 30 minutes.

I am still wondering whether someone at FD had done this very calculation initially, when deciding how shield regeneration should work and (not) scale, and concluded these times were fine, or whether they never even considered at all what a fixed, non-scaling 1MJ/s means in practice.

I do feel that there should be some form of scaled shield rebuilding (and to a much lesser extent typical regeneration). Personally I think this is what boosters should do instead of what they currently do.

However, if anyone is not willing to accept a 30 minute rebuild time, they shouldn't take 1800 MJs of shield.

 

[Mephane]

However, if anyone is not willing to accept a 30 minute rebuild time, they shouldn't take 1800 MJs of shield.

Well, I think that even 10 minutes is horribly slow, and you get that already with 600 MJ of shields. I'll quote from another post of mine where I suggested some actual numbers:

- 0.5 MJ/s per class for E rated shields.
- 1 MJ/s per class for A rated shields.

E2 = 1 MJ/s
A2 = 2 MJ/s
A3 = 3 MJ/s
A4 = 4 MJ/s
A5 = 5 MJ/s
A6 = 6 MJ/s
A7 = 7 MJ/s
A8 = 8 MJ/s

As an example, an FDL with A5 shields and enough shield boosters to reach a capacity of 750MJ, that would still mean a regeneration time from barely failed to full of 750 MJ / 5 MJ/s = 150 s = 2 minutes 30 seconds, which is much more reasonable than the current 750s = 12 minutes 30 seconds.

(Btw, maybe we should have this thread merged with the other one?)

 

[Psycho Romeo]

Well, I think that even 10 minutes is horribly slow, and you get that already with 600 MJ of shields. I'll quote from another post of mine where I suggested some actual numbers:

I don't think that it's a good idea to address this in the shield itself, as you are simply making better shields better again. This is why I suggested the function be given to boosters: a multiplicative bonus per booster that could pull DBS rebuild times down to just a few seconds (which sounds to me what these small shield ships should be like) or also bring FDL rebuild times to something more manageable (using the large number of utility slots).

 

[KayAitch]

I don't think larger shields should recharge any faster - that gives even more advantage to larger ships that they just don't need and makes taking out a large ship with a medium one (for instance Vulture vs Anaconda) ridiculously hard.

However, if the shield recharge rate is a constant then shouldn't the shield downtime be too? Your shields come back after 15s + 60MJ of recharge or half your total (whichever is lower) but at that point you would only have 30 shields and they'd be very quick to take down again.

 

[Thygrrr]

Sorry to be so blunt - but fixed shield recharge is entirely idiotic and counter-intuitive. The responsible game balancer needs a slap on the wrist! Losing your shields even in a Cobra is often a death sentence, or causes you several minutes of downtime from gameplay. With flight speeds of ships being nearly identical (meaning at close combat range, it will take you 2-3 minutes to get out of firing range for most opponents, IF you are faster), a more agile shield management would add depth to the game (a mile wide, an inch deep... you know what I mean)

Shields at 4 pips should recharge much faster than at 1 pip.

At 0 pips, the capacitor should drain at 1 MJ/s (= 1 MW) fixed, that's it.

At 1 pip, the capacitor should discharge at 1 MW + 1 MW from the power plant should be added.

At 4 pips, I'd expect at least 4 MW additional recharge rate; maybe more, to reward using 4-2-0 pips over the 3-3-0 or 2-4-0 people usually use when their shields go down.