Ultra Fast Shield Recharge/Recovery v's Shield Tank

[Nutter]

I'm toying with some PvE builds that rely on fast charging shields rather than brute MJ

Can this still be viable on a large ship? - Even with strong amour would it be better to go with a build that needed to re-boot due to the ridiculous recharge time?

Anyone already experimented with this?

 

[Bigmaec]

For PvE builds I generally prefer bi-weave setups with high resistances.
And on a Cutter/Corvette you usually even then run so high mj that nothing except those FdL plus 4 Vulture missions or high CZs with spec ops focusing on you ever come close to drop your shields. And then the high regen rate of the bi-weaves pay off.
Specify for what you want to use the build and on what ship plz...

 

[Nutter]

I do favour resistance on thermal and kinetic but as soon as you start boosting the base MJ the regen time increases...
I'm playing with a corvette at the moment, with regen at 40 seconds but if you can't get away from multiple targets (fighters) I fear they will just wear you down before you pick them all off... not that has happened yet..
Build purpose - Fun Fighting

 

[Bigmaec]

Why though?
On PvE I'd wager you need no hull tanking at all. A decent shield is more then enough. The active regen of the bi-weave does the rest as you can control the engaments as you like. Sure, the spec ops do some hull damage by phasing, but even with my hull-skipped FdL with 940 hull, I barely lose more then 10-20 percent. And the Corvette and Cutter have the space to fit a dual 7A SCB or a 8A, so why let them drop in the first place at all?

 

[Nutter]

Never want the need for SCB's I prefer a natural build. I want a fast recharge that I would hope negate the need for SCBs

 

[Amanojaku]

Depends on the Ship, base shield strength, agility and the size of the shield generator that can be put in the ship.

For example, a Chieftain has relatively low shield strength. It's MUCH better imo to run biweaves and lots of hull reinforcements on it. The shields regenerate very quickly and while they are down the Chieftain is nimble and tanky enough to avoid too much damage. I've noticed it's much more effective than running A rated or Prismatics.

However, on slow lumbering beasts like the Cutter prismatics are far superior. Biweaves only regenerate if a window of time goes by when you are NOT taking damage. They don't regen while you are being shot. If it's harder for you to avoid getting hit, especially in a large ship that can get it's modules sniped, you want A rated shields or prismatics.

On some of the larger ships like the Conda or Corvette you can still get away with biweaves because they are maneuverable and tanky enough to absorb some hits to the hull. I actually run 7Cs on my Conda, and I have a reinforced Power Plant and modules. I still run SCBs because the shields WILL drop on occasion if I don't, but it works quite well considering the DPS is much better than the Cutter (for example).

Actually, imo biweaves are better in most cases unless your Power Plant can actually handle prismatics AND lacks agility. They are lighter weight so they give you more maneuverability, and they can often be run without SCBs... which means even more agility and it frees up utility slots that normally have to be used for heatsinks. They have way more advantages than disadvantages when compared to prismatics.

I run biweaves on everything except cargo ships and my Cutter.

 

[Bigmaec]

Depends on the Ship, base shield strength, agility and the size of the shield generator that can be put in the ship.

For example, a Chieftain has relatively low shield strength. It's MUCH better imo to run biweaves and lots of hull reinforcements on it. The shields regenerate very quickly and while they are down the Chieftain is nimble and tanky enough to avoid too much damage. I've noticed it's much more effective than running A rated or Prismatics.

However, on slow lumbering beasts like the Cutter prismatics are far superior. Biweaves only regenerate if a window of time goes by when you are NOT taking damage. They don't regen while you are being shot. If it's harder for you to avoid getting hit, especially in a large ship that can get it's modules sniped, you want A rated shields or prismatics.

On some of the larger ships like the Conda or Corvette you can still get away with biweaves because they are maneuverable and tanky enough to absorb some hits to the hull. I actually run 7Cs on my Conda, and I have a reinforced Power Plant and modules. I still run SCBs because the shields WILL drop on occasion if I don't, but it works quite well considering the DPS is much better than the Cutter (for example).

Actually, imo biweaves are better in most cases unless your Power Plant can actually handle prismatics AND lacks agility. They are lighter weight so they give you more maneuverability, and they can often be run without SCBs... which means even more agility and it frees up utility slots that normally have to be used for heatsinks. They have way more advantages than disadvantages when compared to prismatics.

I run biweaves on everything except cargo ships and my Cutter.

All true... but:
We're talking about PvE.
Res - you decide when you're shot at - active regen of bi-weaves.
CZs - limited number of enemies you have to kill, 8 for med, 14 for high iirc. You control when you fight and a Cutter /Corvette has enough raw mj to force it.
Assassination missions - 5 targets max, one of which you have to kill. You control the combat, you allow the active regen.
Interdictions - you can run a cutter shieldless if you're not totally harmless, you control if you fight at all and the thread is near zero.

The active regen in a PvE setting is imho superior, combined with a ammo-less build you can stay until bored.

 

[ALEX CAOS]

i did a funny setup on my corvette with b-weave RENFORCED and 1* 6scb and 2 * 7scb fun thing in combat zones 1 mostley dont need even a scb only if things get mad . Can recommand it

build like that https://inara.cz/cmdr-fleet/83308/437534/

 

[Vandaahl]

For PvE builds I generally prefer bi-weave setups with high resistances.

Yeah, me as well. They are much more forgiving then prismatic shields that recharges like a turtle on roofies. If the latter goes down because the whole playfield suddenly decides to target you, than you've grown a beard when the thing is up again.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

The general rule of thumb for me is if it fast and nimble then it'll work nicely with bi weave and high resistance if its sluggish and not very maneuverable then i go prismatic and high capacity with a couple of resistance boosters.

 

[Northpin]

The active regen in a PvE setting is imho superior, combined with a ammo-less build you can stay until bored.

This ^^

With my corvette i can chain High CZ until i get bored. Most of the time i dont even bother to swap out the Fuel Scoop and the FSD Booster.
I have to get focused by an entire wing of SpecOps to have to use a double-bank of SCB.
Or i can stay for hours in a Security Zone in a Hudson expansion system.
And all those only because of high regen of bi-weaves.

 

[GeoJase]

You can get better shield regen rates by putting system focus engineering on your power distributor. You'll probably need low energy weapons though. It's not something I've tested mind you

 

[Voracity_T]

You can get better shield regen rates by putting system focus engineering on your power distributor. You'll probably need low energy weapons though. It's not something I've tested mind you

I can see the logic here, but CE distributor is king, by a large amount too.

Lo Draw shields would be a better choice if your distributor is running on an empty SYS cap a lot.

 

[Stealthie]

Anyone already experimented with this?

TBH, I kind of thought this was what (almost) everybody's already doing, especially for combat ships.

If you aren't interested in combat, you want the biggest shield possible to give yourself the biggest opportunity to escape.
For combat - sustained combat in particular - regeneration rate is far more important than overall strength.

It's no good starting off in combat with 8,000mj of shield if, once it starts to erode, it's going to take half an hour to recover.
Far better to have, say, 2,500mj of shield that can recover completely in a couple of minutes.

Equally, I tend to find that SCBs aren't much use for mega-shield builds cos, even if you fit a heap of big SCBs, they don't fill the dent in your shield made by cumulative attacks.
They're going to do a much better job (in terms of getting you out of trouble or getting you back into a fight) by completely restoring a more modest shield.

My Corvettes run a 7C Bi-Weave and a bunch of SBs/GSBs (no SCBs) to boost them and tweak the resistances.
Happily completes wing assassination missions, CZ's and HazRES's without losing a ring of shields (with a constant 2 pips to sys).
About the only time the shield takes a dent is if I go full kamikaze in a CZ... and then it only takes about 4 minutes to recover again, with 4 pips to sys.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Nutter]

TBH, I kind of thought this was what (almost) everybody's already doing, especially for combat ships.

If you aren't interested in combat, you want the biggest shield possible to give yourself the biggest opportunity to escape.
For combat - sustained combat in particular - regeneration rate is far more important than overall strength.

It's no good starting off in combat with 8,000mj of shield if, once it starts to erode, it's going to take half an hour to recover.
Far better to have, say, 2,500mj of shield that can recover completely in a couple of minutes.

Equally, I tend to find that SCBs aren't much use for mega-shield builds cos, even if you fit a heap of big SCBs, they don't fill the dent in your shield made by cumulative attacks.
They're going to do a much better job (in terms of getting you out of trouble or getting you back into a fight) by completely restoring a more modest shield.

My Corvettes run a 7C Bi-Weave and a bunch of SBs/GSBs (no SCBs) to boost them and tweak the resistances.
Happily completes wing assassination missions, CZ's and HazRES's without losing a ring of shields (with a constant 2 pips to sys).
About the only time the shield takes a dent is if I go full kamikaze in a CZ... and then it only takes about 4 minutes to recover again, with 4 pips to sys.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Well I've been busy experimenting and now have a shield that will recover in 2:00 and regen in 4:20 - not too shabby. My next task is to get the right priority resistance, currently i've gone for thermal giving me 10,470mj. Thing is i'm not sure what the most common damage type NPCs launch at you.
Is there a reference guide or similar that shows what NPCs use the most?

 

[Kzak]

Yeah, me as well. They are much more forgiving then prismatic shields that recharges like a turtle on roofies. If the latter goes down because the whole playfield suddenly decides to target you, than you've grown a beard when the thing is up again.

Or just use reboot/repair to get the shield back up when you have a little time in between shooting enemies.

 

[Vandaahl]

Or just use reboot/repair to get the shield back up when you have a little time in between shooting enemies.

Does that recharge the shield faster than normal? If yes, that would almost be an exploit.

 

[Nutter]

Does that recharge the shield faster than normal? If yes, that would almost be an exploit.

IRC - it gives you half a shield back, plus you are dead in the water while re-booting

 

[Stealthie]

Well I've been busy experimenting and now have a shield that will recover in 2:00 and regen in 4:20 - not too shabby. My next task is to get the right priority resistance, currently i've gone for thermal giving me 10,470mj. Thing is i'm not sure what the most common damage type NPCs launch at you.
Is there a reference guide or similar that shows what NPCs use the most?

In my experience, they mostly either attack with lasers or, once in a while, with missiles.

TBH, I've rarely found that either causes a problem.
If you engineer a bi-weave shield for Reinforced, your Explosive and Kinetic resistances will be higher than Thermal anyway.
You can then optimise the shield with a combination of RA/TR SBs to enhance Thermal resistance and HD SBs to add mj.

 

[Stealthie]

Does that recharge the shield faster than normal? If yes, that would almost be an exploit.

Reboot/Repair instantly puts your shield back to 50%.
You could, theoretically, build a 10,000mj shield and then simply accept that it will, effectively, be a 5,000mj shield that required manually rebooting when it fails.

Never really been keen on the idea of being able to restore a shield using Reboot/Repair.
From a gameplay POV it's pretty "exploity" and it makes no sense at all from "realism" POV.
I mean, apparently your shield needs energy to be restored.
If Reboot/Repair can magically find the energy to do that, why wasn't that energy available to prevent your shield from being broken in the first place?