The SCB (Shield Cell Bank) Thread

[Ziljan]

Sadly true.

Well everything except that last bit about SCBs. Yes the nerfs for many things have lessened the flavor palette of gameplay, but SCBs are like the MSG of Elite. They fire a cannonball in your mouth so you can't taste any of the other subtle nuances on offer.

 

[NeilF]

Your suggestions is the same thing with a different flavor. Currently if you go into a fight with partially used banks you are at a "disadvantage", you could switch them off and others on before you go into the fight, but it's your choice. With your suggestion the economy is time based, so you end up in the same situation, unless you wait it out. I prefer the first scenario, where I get to decide how to outfit my ship and how to use what I've equipped, rather than the candy crush scenario where I have to wait 10 minutes before I get to play again.

Probably not... You have:-

SCB turned on 1/3 charges
SCB turned off 3/3 charges[/idnent]

If the turn on delay is long enough, in a given fight you might only br able to use that 1 charge...

With my simplest suggestion (only allow 3 SBC uses in X minutes) you can use three, with the inconvenience (as currently) of spending 3-4 seconds turn one SCB off, and another on.


So consider you having the above, and someone attacking you with:-

SCB turned on 3/3 charges
SCB turned off 3/3 charges​

With the curent mechanics, you'll potentially get "out-tanked", 6 charges to your 4.

With the new mechanics, assuming a long delay when turning a unit on, you'll get "out-tanked" 3 to you 1.

With my suggestion, you'll both (most likely) get 3 charges...



Personally I'd prefer a simple mechanic that as often as it can gives you a fair fight... Not throw a dice and sometimes just say, bad luck, for no real reason?


I guess we need to see the new mechanics at work first though... But do you understand my my worry?​

 

[Starender]

in 1.5 we will have a big heat increase + a big delay when activating other SCB

i hope it won't be a nerf for fighters...

 

[Yokoshima]

Going to be interesting to see all the sparks and flames from heat damage!

Especially in the conda, that thing shoots fire at you if it goes even 5 or 6% over. After what felt like endless grinding back when bounty hunting gave ~600k c/hour I bought a conda and dropped to close to a sun 5 min after I bought it and almost had a heart attack.

Also a universal cooldown rather than blowing up you ship seems like a good alternative for PvE/PvP since it still gives you the burst defense you need for PvP but not not nearly as much as before (at least 10 in 5 min). And it would still allow a ships with large shields to restore more than a ring. Or half ring. Honestly I want %s. I can't tell you how many times I thought I had a 3rd of my shield when it was far less, or when I thought I was low so I popped an SCB only to see I was on the cusp of 2 rings. But that's another topic.

 

[Ziljan]

Not so silly since they are buffing armor. 95% of that argument goes out of the window.

Armor doesn't even need a buff. You can survive any PVP encounter without using SCBs just with natural shields and ANY bulkheads. Once you add existing armor, it starts to get a little silly. An Asp can already become tougher than a B-rated Anaconda. If they buff the ships, no one will ever die for any reason, ever.

Check out the current tank Asp. With mirrored bulkheads, you can multiply the enhanced armor to a value much higher than 975 vs energy weapons. This is on a 54 Million CR Asp. I don't think that needs any kind of buff if you ask me.

 

[h347h]

Especially in the conda, that thing shoots fire at you if it goes even 5 or 6% over. After what felt like endless grinding back when bounty hunting gave ~600k c/hour I bought a conda and dropped to close to a sun 5 min after I bought it and almost had a heart attack.

Also a universal cooldown rather than blowing up you ship seems like a good alternative for PvE/PvP since it still gives you the burst defense you need for PvP but not not nearly as much as before (at least 10 in 5 min). And it would still allow a ships with large shields to restore more than a ring. Or half ring. Honestly I want %s. I can't tell you how many times I thought I had a 3rd of my shield when it was far less, or when I thought I was low so I popped an SCB only to see I was on the cusp of 2 rings. But that's another topic.

Sure as long as its added to the side since the rings are much easier to see if you are not directly looking at it. Currently the rings allow players with not have to keep a direct eye on two numbers and be able to tell how much shielding they have which is great for combat.

 

[NeilF]

in 1.5 we will have a big heat increase + a big delay when activating other SCB

i hope it won't be a nerf for fighters...

Isn't the FDL quite bad for heat as a rule already?


I do wonder if FD have thrown this heat mechanic into SCBs, and in doing so risked unbalancing all the heat balancing already applied to the ships/modules etc?

Maybe heat sinks are what they plan us to use in parallel?

 

[Metalstardust]

I had high hopes for this game. I have supported FD with what I consider a lot of money. I eagerly awaited it's release. Every update brings less fun than the last. Let's recap. I might have missed some.

:BEGINGRIND
RARES TRADING ... NERF ... LESS FUN
MISSILES ... NERF ... LESS FUN
PYTHON ... NERF ... LESS FUN
CAPITAL SHIPS ... NERF ... LESS FUN
GALAXY MAP DRAW... NERF ... LESS FUN
POWER PLAY ... [DEAD] ... NO FUN
CQC ... [DEAD] ... NO FUN
INTERDICTION ... NERF ... LESS FUN
SLAVE TRADING ... NERF ... LESS FUN
SMUGGLING MISSIONS ... NERF ... LESS FUN
:SOON
SCB ... NERF ... LESS FUN
:CONTINUEGRIND

Every incremental improvement is overshadowed by the reversal of fun someplace else. I barely play now. I spend more time looking at these boards hoping for a miracle than playing.
Each time a advantage is lamented by the fanbois community and nerf'd, more grind and less fun is the result. People want a reward for the time they spend on an activity and adding more grind is not the answer.

That sums up my thoughts. What else is fun that needs a Nerf?

 

[Alexander the Grape]

That sums up my thoughts. What else is fun that needs a Nerf?

If you really stretch, you could argue that SCBs in their current pre-1.5 implementation are necessary.

I really really don't think you could reasonably argue that they are fun

 

[Star Lion]

I really don't see why SCBs are wanted to get a further nerf... and this is coming from someone who does PvP in a Viper already because flying my Anaconda for PvP is already stupid. I've got ~1bil in my Anaconda, and it is totally useless for PvP, certainly way too risky to fly it, since you are target #1, and it's already the case that SCB cooldown is too long and you will still lose shields, even A7, if you are up against decent fitted pilots.
Heat damage is not negligible in comparison to losing hull. It's a big deal. Heat damage will stop you in your tracks nowadays very quickly, it doesn't take much at all to totally break you down. You can probably damage the rest of your SCBs, have your engines and FSD dead... you will just sit there in your big ship as smaller ships continue to eat you alive.

I like my Anaconda for PvE, but there's no question...little ships rule in every respect for PvP unless you want to lose a lot of money.
I can take on most FDLs and below, and win 50% of the time, in my Viper, which costs me 130k to replace. That's the only ship I bother PvP with, and it's a whole lot of fun.

Nerfing SCBs just continues to devalue the big (annies and pys) ships for any sort of PvP at all. Their only value already is either to support in a wing, or to mindlessly blow up NPCs, what a bore.
I hope this isn't taken as a complaint, but rather an attack at the logic. I actually quite like cheap combat, and will continue to do it either way. A Viper, over 100 times cheaper than, say, an FDL, or hundreds of times cheaper than a Python, is a worthy adversary to both of them. Very backwards. I've killed FDLs, Pythons, and Clippers in my baby Viper about 50% of the time, and now it'll be even easier, while I risk 130k and the bigger ships are risking loss of millions. If anything, this will improve my odds of winning and make this even more absurd.

Making combat death in ED for the larger ships easier to happen doesn't make much sense at all. It's the big ships that benefit most from SCB use, and these big ships also already suck for PvP, they can't chase anyone down, but they can run from a losing battle. That's already fair. The big ships are really the only ones that can make use of popping multiple SCB at a time. I can take on 3 A's at a time in my Anaconda. I am able to evade MOST fights, but a wing of 4 has still killed me in my Anaconda popping 3 A's at a time. It really doesn't take long to remove A7 Shields with rail guns already, shorter time than SCB cooldown.

Now you just made it even more of a risk to fly about in any nice ship. Pretty silly IMO.

Sir, you are a wise man. Amen!!!

 

[Ziljan]

Isn't the FDL quite bad for heat as a rule already?


I do wonder if FD have thrown this heat mechanic into SCBs, and in doing so risked unbalancing all the heat balancing already applied to the ships/modules etc?

Maybe heat sinks are what they plan us to use in parallel?

The FDL issue won't be with heat only, but most FDL pilots don't have fully powered SCBs with hardpoints out, and need to stow them to use SCBs. With the new delay, FDL will become even less relevant. But hey if we have to sacrifice the most beautiful ship in the game to get a healthy SCB meta, I am willing to pay that price.

Besides, FDL pilots will probably just switch to an armor based meta, which is already pretty decent at ~1800 health: http://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_la...4a2b2b272f.Iw18aQ==.Aw18aQ==?bn=Heart Of Gold

 

[Alexander the Grape]

The FDL issue won't be with heat only, but most FDL pilots don't have fully powered SCBs with hardpoints out, and need to stow them to use SCBs. With the new delay, FDL will become even less relevant. But hey if we have to sacrifice the most beautiful ship in the game to get a healthy SCB meta, I am willing to pay that price.

Besides, FDL pilots will probably just switch to an armor based meta, which is already pretty decent at ~1800 health: http://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_la...4a2b2b272f.Iw18aQ==.Aw18aQ==?bn=Heart Of Gold

I think we might see FDLs moving to a stealth/shields hybrid build: 1 set of 2 SCBs (4a and 2a?), heatsinks instead of boosters both to keep the temp down when using banks and also to go silent running when shields are down, with hull reinforcements and millitary armour to survive without shields.

 

[BEKTOP 3APEMOB]

With 1.5 SCB mechanics applied to PvP combat it seems that a fighter ship like Viper or Vulture will still be unable to pose any danger to big guys like Python or Anaconda (no matter the skill gap). Because one flying Viper/Vulture would have to apply damage for a long time period to drain shields, so your timeout would most likely be already over by the time Python/Conda would be in need to apply next SCB (either turn on new module, or use another charge on their current one).

 

[NeilF]

The FDL issue won't be with heat only, but most FDL pilots don't have fully powered SCBs with hardpoints out, and need to stow them to use SCBs. With the new delay, FDL will become even less relevant. But hey if we have to sacrifice the most beautiful ship in the game to get a healthy SCB meta, I am willing to pay that price.

Besides, FDL pilots will probably just switch to an armor based meta, which is already pretty decent at ~1800 health: http://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_la...4a2b2b272f.Iw18aQ==.Aw18aQ==?bn=Heart Of Gold

Good point!

 

[Frenotx]

Or, who knows, perhaps people will just have to adapt and not rely on shield so heavily (while completely ignoring armour). Frontier wants module damage / malfunctions to be a part of combat, so it's only logical that they'd want to make strictly shield tanking less of a thing.

 

[Don Alvarez]

The FDL issue won't be with heat only, but most FDL pilots don't have fully powered SCBs with hardpoints out, and need to stow them to use SCBs. With the new delay, FDL will become even less relevant. But hey if we have to sacrifice the most beautiful ship in the game to get a healthy SCB meta, I am willing to pay that price.

Besides, FDL pilots will probably just switch to an armor based meta, which is already pretty decent at ~1800 health: http://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_la...4a2b2b272f.Iw18aQ==.Aw18aQ==?bn=Heart Of Gold

I have this issue with my gunship as well. Theres already a delay in the SCB coming on when you park your weapons, now I have to wait even longer? I dont get my SCB's off half the time now in that ship to save my shields as it is. Plus I already take heat damage as it is using SCB's in my Python, I wont be able to use more than one at once after this which means I'm not going to be able to get a meaningful shield recharge anyway.
-
I'm going to wait till I get to test it before I pass final judgement, but I think there were better solutions from the community regarding SCB's than this. This seems like the easy route from a developer's standpoint because technically to implement it requires only changing heat and startup time values for SCB modules. Hopefully, beta testing will squash this. I'd almost rather they left things as they are.

 

[tawittle]

Ugh these new 1.5 changes for SCB look AWFUL. How does it solve any problems. It's just going to punish certain ships and not others.

Why don't you add a counter mechanic to SCB instead of Nerfing it?!?!?!?!!!!!

 

[NeilF]

Or, who knows, perhaps people will just have to adapt and not rely on shield so heavily (while completely ignoring armour). Frontier wants module damage / malfunctions to be a part of combat, so it's only logical that they'd want to make strictly shield tanking less of a thing.

If this make SCBs a far rarer item to use, great! Just as long as bigger ships aren't weakened because of that I guess!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Besides, FDL pilots will probably just switch to an armor based meta, which is already pretty decent at ~1800 health: http://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_la...4a2b2b272f.Iw18aQ==.Aw18aQ==?bn=Heart Of Gold

Fair point. Players will always find a way to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses in the face of changing conditions.

At least its not like Diablo 2. I had months worth of work on builds wiped out playing that by my specialized builds getting nerfed into the ground. At least in ED, if you are not happy with a change, its either just change your loadout or ship.

Anyway, i've not been much of one for PvP (which this affects mostly) or SCB stacking with PvE (i usually just run with one powered up SCB), so it doesn't affect me much. But looking at the arguments put back and forth, i think this isn't a bad compromise move by FD.

I now wait for the infamous commander with the troublesome body parts to work out how to take advantage of this to cause further mischief. But since they are already a fan of ramming, i guess not much change there.

 

[MottiKhan]

I'll hold off on opinion until I actually have one. Can't say for sure how this will affect my trusty FDL. If it's bad, I guess it's time to get something else. If that's the case, I'll remember not to buy another paint job ever in the future just to have it obsoleted. No biggie and it might save me hundreds in real money.