The SCB (Shield Cell Bank) Thread

[DrToxic]

I just had a run in with this guy using a stealth Corvette, he had the biggest ship with no shields he was unstoppable, and I was impressed by what he accomplished all without SCBs.

He would have been using Hull Reinforcement Packages and shiny heavy armor (I assume)... Honestly nice work. Only downer (for him) is he would be taking on repair charges.. but I like the way he was thinking.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Adapt by....................not flying large ships??? (if taken out of context I apologies - haven't read the whole thread ;-) )

This thread is geared towards SCB's but since the 1.5 Beta, things have changed so rather than just complain about how it broke for the (set in their ways) individual, why not look at alternative solutions because there are a few if you looked for them.
But you Humans can't see beyond the fact things have changed and you just might have to adapt and test from there...so engage your noodle and think how can you make your ship more likely to survive. It will do you good service.
I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm trying to make you think so I hope you take it on board as this is a Beta and the best time to test such things because it costs you nothing, if you have access to the Beta.

@Dr Toxic:
There should be a price for combat, not so much an insurance rebuy but a point when a player will retreat. Pre-1.5 SCB's denied this.

 

[Nugstar]

Seems like the SCB NERF has exposed the real carebears after all. Enough said, adapt and overcome or get left behind.

The problem with adapting is simple, Shields are less effective than armour now, so instead of balance, we are now all armour and no Shields. No Shields makes me sad.

 

[Nugstar]

If combat ships are now more effective at combat, why have a large expensive money sink like a conda? Let's all go back to vipers/vultures.

End game for me was getting into a ship that I had to work to earn. And feeling pretty powerful once I had upgraded it.

Unless something is done to the Base level of Shields then the game is still broken.

How can a Vulture have shields that are almost as good as a python? Cost versus performance doesn't make sense.

I agree the health potion mechanic needs fixing, but now all you'll get in PVE is vultures and in pvp you'll have shieldless armoured up rammers.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

The problem with adapting is simple, Shields are less effective than armour now, so instead of balance, we are now all armour and no Shields. No Shields makes me sad.

One extreme to another, right?
What will you do when good players find the balance beyond copy them.
Go no shields and it will cost, and a lot on bigger ships.

 

[Nugstar]

Yes one extreme to the other.

My fix would be to increase shield strength for bigger shields. Remove Scbs or have them limited to 1 per ship. Have the same limitation on chaff.

So when you spend 600m credits on a conda, it feels worth it. Otherwise what's the point.

- - - Updated - - -

No, that is not what is being said because the changes affect everyone.
What you need to do is adapt to a different set of circumstances.
Consider it a challenge.

Say that when you can't stand and fight a vulture off. And you should be able to in a big ship. You worked for it. You earned it. Now it's not worth its value.

Don't get me wrong, scbs are broken in 1.4. But other tweaks to shields must be done in order to keep the balance between shields and armour.

 

[Nugstar]

No, that is not what is being said because the changes affect everyone.
What you need to do is adapt to a different set of circumstances.
Consider it a challenge.

You have no idea how likely that is to work. if all of these cry-babies got out of their big non-maneuvering getting-shot-at class ships and got into something more fighter class, they might win some fights.

+rep for talking sense.

But I have those ships that fight well and turn well. What's to aim for now? There's no end game for me in this.

If the devs were to add love to base shield strength based on the size of the ship, then shields would still be viable, as well as armour.

 

[nexxo]

I can't help thinking that a lot of problems would be solved simply by getting rid of SCB's completely.

No SCB's, one less thing to get riled up about on the forums, a LOT of opportunity for everyone to rethink their fighting strategies.

The current beta might be a good opportunity for FDEV to erase SCB's for a patch or two, and see how that affects the gameplay

I wouldn't want SCBs to get hit by a giant nerf hammer until the shield recharge times are tweaked. That's just a horrible design decision, and rather than calling SCBs the root of all evil, I find that just this flat 1 MJ/s across all ships is what causes the problems. Give each ship its own value and you'll get a whole new balance tool altogether! Or bind it to the PD, or the shield generator, or whatever. Just, you know, not that.

Good post and excellent point.

I've often wondered what if...

1) SCB's didn't exist

2) Shield recharge time was boosted by assigning more pips to SYS

In my opinion that would be far simpler than what we have now. To me it's logical and in-keeping with the power-management philosophy of the game mechanics, and I've often wondered why it wasn't just as simple as that.

Much yes-ness to all this.

 

[Nugstar]

This sounds great.

Give bigger ships bigger shields. Give bigger power distributors bigger recharge rates.

Make pips to sys charge quicker.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Most of Triadius is also about this game break. Most are playing sth else. I was one of the last to stay in game despite the 1.4 bugdate and the 1.5 nerfdate
If this nerf goes down we will go accordingly. We will talk to other clans. Armor up and kill every single commander we meet. Until we are heard:-]

Is this a joke?

 

[Khelder]

But I have those ships that fight well and turn well. What's to aim for now? There's no end game for me in this.

There isn't really supposed to be an 'end game' in Elite.

 

[nexxo]

This sounds great.

Give bigger ships bigger shields. Give bigger power distributors bigger recharge rates.

Make pips to sys charge quicker.

Indeed. You'd think this is no rocket science, is it?

- get rid of SCB
- bigger ships can fit bigger shield generators, hence have bigger shields (duh)!
- Bigger shields take longer to take down, and longer to charge, but put in a bigger (again: bigger ships, no?), higher class power plant and power distributor and they charge faster.
- More pips to SYS recharges shields faster still, but of course at the expense of other systems.

The circle of death applies: bigger ships can defeat smaller ships, but a group of agile small ships acting together can take down a big ship.

 

[Nugstar]

No, that is not what is being said because the changes affect everyone.
What you need to do is adapt to a different set of circumstances.
Consider it a challenge.

Indeed. You'd think this is no rocket science, is it?

- get rid of SCB
- bigger ships can fit bigger shield generators, hence have bigger shields (duh)!
- Bigger shields take longer to take down, and longer to charge, but put in a bigger (again: bigger ships, no?), higher class power plant and power distributor and they charge faster.
- More pips to SYS recharges shields faster still, but of course at the expense of other systems.

The circle of death applies: bigger ships can defeat smaller ships, but a group of agile small ships acting together can take down a big ship.

Make it happen Frontier!

 

[Lobstris]

I can't help thinking that a lot of problems would be solved simply by getting rid of SCB's completely.

No SCB's, one less thing to get riled up about on the forums, a LOT of opportunity for everyone to rethink their fighting strategies.

The current beta might be a good opportunity for FDEV to erase SCB's for a patch or two, and see how that affects the gameplay

I wouldn't want SCBs to get hit by a giant nerf hammer until the shield recharge times are tweaked. That's just a horrible design decision, and rather than calling SCBs the root of all evil, I find that just this flat 1 MJ/s across all ships is what causes the problems. Give each ship its own value and you'll get a whole new balance tool altogether! Or bind it to the PD, or the shield generator, or whatever. Just, you know, not that.

Oh look. Two diametrically opposite posts that both make great points! Who'da thunk it possible on these forums.

- - - Updated - - -

Indeed. You'd think this is no rocket science, is it?

- get rid of SCB
- bigger ships can fit bigger shield generators, hence have bigger shields (duh)!
- Bigger shields take longer to take down, and longer to charge, but put in a bigger (again: bigger ships, no?), higher class power plant and power distributor and they charge faster.
- More pips to SYS recharges shields faster still, but of course at the expense of other systems.

The circle of death applies: bigger ships can defeat smaller ships, but a group of agile small ships acting together can take down a big ship.

And apparently I must spread some reputation around before I give you any more.
.
There is just so much that could be done with shield strength and regeneration times, and armour size, resistances, and quality alone without additional 'magic' on top.

 

[Heater]

Here is a quick video of the heat damage with and without a Heat Sync being used, and the re-boot time for the SCB,

I am all for changes and making it balanced, however I think this this one went a bit to far, do not get me wrong, there should be cost for using them and there need to be trade off's
The first one in the clip is a "cold" ship and a single B6 SCB, watch the heat, the second one is after firing a Heat sync, then I reboot the SCB. I am fine with the re-boot time etc... but the heat damage needs to be worked a bit, as a 6B SCB will not even give you 1 ring on the Shields.

Here is the config for the Ship:
http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_...o05053704032f.Iw18ZZA=.Aw18ZCMpA===?bn=cutter

Here is the video clip:
https://youtu.be/Oe-VBGtsU_U

What bothers me most, is the fact that the recharge rate for the shields are the same regardless of the power distributor, This needs to be changed!!!

 

[Nugstar]

No, that is not what is being said because the changes affect everyone.
What you need to do is adapt to a different set of circumstances.
Consider it a challenge.

There isn't really supposed to be an 'end game' in Elite.

What I mean by end game is something to aim for, some sort of progression. It's nice to earn that new ship, to set yourself a goal and earn it.

I know there are other things to do in the game. And I might end up exploring instead of upgrading my python. If exploring gets old I might end up not playing for a while. And that's a shame.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Shield base recharge rate does need to be looked at. I hope it varies on whether you're in a fight or not: tanking damage = current rate, not taken damage for 1 minute = 5x current rate etc. What would be really naff is if they increased base recharge rates to the point that large ships regenerated faster than small ships could damage them

 

[NeilF]

Started V1.5...

Was in my Combat Python... in space... so fired off my standard dual SCB charge... 210%+ heat, just sitting there doing nothing

Probably 5% module damage across a number of them...

 

[Alexander the Grape]

The problem with adapting is simple, Shields are less effective than armour now, so instead of balance, we are now all armour and no Shields. No Shields makes me sad.

Nah it's pretty even. I don't think you want to sacrifice shields completely unless you are silent running. Shield ranking is still viable, just hull tanking has got better, as has hybrid builds that do both

 

[Dym]

One SCB per ship and only one charge.
SCB come with zero charge when you buy them.
The only way to power a SCB up is to sacrifice a weapon module, if you do so the charge of the SCB is locked till you use it.
It´s not possible to sacrifice more than one weapon module to get a higher charge.
SCB charge amount depends on weapon class you sacrifice. The sacrificed weapon module health drops to zero, it can not be used till repaired.