Faster shield regeneration when out of battle.

[ToastSky]

The most boring part of my experience with combat is waiting for my shield to regenerate so I can engage the next target. There's always SCBs if I'm in a pinch but usually I'd save them for emergencies, so if my shield is low after taking down someone I simply power 4 pips to system and tab out to do some other things until my shield comes back to 100%. In fact that's what I'm doing right now, waiting for my shield to regen.
I think this down time is just slightly too long, so I'm suggesting we get a slight shield recharge boost when out of combat, around 1.5 times faster should suffice.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

I can't say I agree wholeheartedly. Out of combat regen is a little gamey.

It takes ten minutes to bring an anaconda's shields back up. You can always fit a smaller shield to make it faster. I agree think ten minutes is a little much and something more in the five or so region would be a bit more appropriate though. Personally I think boosters should do this instead of what they currently do.

 

[Vitamin Arrr]

Agreed 100%. Except rather than "out of combat" just make the refresh rate much faster when Sys is at 4 thingies. Because it's even more critical to be able to have shields recharge quickly IN combat! And how's your ship's shield gen to know whether or not you are "in" or "out" of combat?

 

[ToastSky]

I can't say I agree wholeheartedly. Out of combat regen is a little gamey.

It takes ten minutes to bring an anaconda's shields back up. You can always fit a smaller shield to make it faster. I agree think ten minutes is a little much and something more in the five or so region would be a bit more appropriate though. Personally I think boosters should do this instead of what they currently do.

Hmmm, shield booster that boost shield regen instead of shield strength, now that's an idea.

Agreed 100%. Except rather than "out of combat" just make the refresh rate much faster when Sys is at 4 thingies. Because it's even more critical to be able to have shields recharge quickly IN combat! And how's your ship's shield gen to know whether or not you are "in" or "out" of combat?

The reason I chose to only suggest for the case of out of combat situations is because balancing combat is way more complicated then other game mechanic, and I do not have a solution for that. Though I do agree that pip in systems should make more difference beside shield strength.
The detections for "in/out of combat" is already in there, it's used to prevent you from logging out for 15 seconds while in danger, they just have to put it to use in this situation.

 

[Defacto]

Thought experiment: What if Shield recharge rate always started out slow, and then, over a period of maybe 40 seconds, started increasing rapidly until it hit a maximum? This effect would be the most prominent with large ships.
As we have it now, a Sidewinder and an Anaconda pretty much have the same recharge rate, which of course leads to a Sidewinder recharging pretty fast, while an Anaconda takes an eternity without SCB's.

With this change, shield recharge for Sidewinders would pretty much be the same as now, only minor differences. For Anacondas, shield recharge would start out really slow, but if you managed to avoid being hit for 15-ish seconds, or even more, the shields would fill up pretty fast. A very rapid recharge from the beginning for large ships is going to hurt small ship pilots a lot, but if it takes a few seconds, I think things are a lot fairer.

Because of the increased complexity, some kind of indicator of when your/the opponent's shields are recharging might be necessary.

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Also, a bit offtopic, but SCB's. Give them infinite charges, but have them drain the SYS until it's empty. Please, the spirit of Van Maanen's star commends you all.

Also, even more offtopic, but let's look at the problem of ''having to wait for the shields to recharge all the time''. In a way, I think that this is a symptom of a grindy gameplay structure. If we just started moving away from the system of static endless conflict zones with endlessly spawning bad guys, maybe this problem would solve itself, at least a bit.

 

[Iskariot]

I agree that some practical solution is needed.
Currently it is a bit annoying.

A shield recharge booster might be a good idea if it is balanced.
Perhaps using it could disable weapon recharge for the duration of the boost.
This would perhaps appease the pvp crowd.

I even prefer a somewhat gamey solution like the proposed 'out of combat' recharge speed up to no change at all.

 

[Starender]

i like the way it is now

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

Something tells me that will likely be addressed in Horizons, where we have been promised the ability to craft custom modules. SO.... If regeneration is important, you can tinker with your shield generator so that it comes back faster.... at the expense of overall shield strength, power intake, and so on.

 

[Defacto]

Something tells me that will likely be addressed in Horizons, where we have been promised the ability to craft custom modules. SO.... If regeneration is important, you can tinker with your shield generator so that it comes back faster.... at the expense of overall shield strength, power intake, and so on.

This is a bit offtopic but... I find this crafting system really interesting.
Depending on how it is implemented, it might just be a minor side thing, or something that completely changes the way people equip their ships and theorize up new builds.
At first I felt pretty negative about this whole crafting thing... it just didn't feel right for ED. I've changed my mind a bit though. There's some interesting potential for a more dynamic balancing to arise when players can tinker with stats on their own.
Really, I think that's how any ''balance'' problem is solved. Doing Starcraft II-style ''Balance meta patches'' will never solve all balance issues, not in my experience at least. That kind of balancing has always seemed to me like trying to compress a baloon evenly using only your hands.

One problem I find with this, though: If we really can make so significant changes to our item stats, it's going to be very confusing any time we go into combat with another player, since we have no idea of what they're capable of. But then, that might not be too bad.

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

This is a bit offtopic but... I find this crafting system really interesting.
Depending on how it is implemented, it might just be a minor side thing, or something that completely changes the way people equip their ships and theorize up new builds.
At first I felt pretty negative about this whole crafting thing... it just didn't feel right for ED. I've changed my mind a bit though. There's some interesting potential for a more dynamic balancing to arise when players can tinker with stats on their own.
Really, I think that's how any ''balance'' problem is solved. Doing Starcraft II-style ''Balance meta patches'' will never solve all balance issues, not in my experience at least. That kind of balancing has always seemed to me like trying to compress a baloon evenly using only your hands.

One problem I find with this, though: If we really can make so significant changes to our item stats, it's going to be very confusing any time we go into combat with another player, since we have no idea of what they're capable of. But then, that might not be too bad.

Not knowing exactly what you're up against in PvP would certainly add to the experience, in my view! And if we could tinker with power plants to generate more power at the cost of instability or greater heat output... That would be like Christmas for Vulture pilots!

 

[xondk]

Hrm, personally I'd like docking recharging shields, kinda annoying when switching them around that you need to wait for them to recharge on bigger ships.

 

[Lestat]

It fine the way it is. Dose not need a speed boost when out of combat. If they do add something like this it should damage parts of the ship like a overload in power.

 

[YinYin]

Aren't shield cells exactly the solution to this ...?