Ships Shield dynamics in ED.

[F4fred]

The PvP build: https://is.gd/66JrcE It's one of the standard builds, I used the C4 Prismatic as I didn't had any C5 left.
The CZ PvE build: https://is.gd/pzKkAx The weapons are just what I had around and was good enough to run multiple highs in a row. The rebuild of the bi-weave is 3min, you don't want to be that long without shields in an CZ. You could turn of the HD boosters and get it down to 1.5 min, but you are still vulnerable to missiles in that time. The whole purpose of the build is for longevity, running multiple high CZ stringed together without needing to go for repair or rearm. The SCBs are there for the moments I need to draw aggro from multiple npcs to help my side or if all 4 spec ops drop on me together.



A shield tank should have enough hull underneath to not get phased to death before the shields drop and/or you jump out. Real hulltanks don't have shields, but they are at a big disadvantage in today's galaxy, to many hard counters, shield pip multiplier, damage from rams,.... Hybrids are in between and you could have a small bi-weave and lot's of hull or a bigger bi-weave and hull. Which one to build is personal preference and ship related. Compared to shield tanks with hybrids you can keep fighting even if the shield goes down.
I have shield tank, hybrid, and hulltank FdLs. They are all fun, but for a serious fight I would use the standard build I posted first. My favorite on the other hand is a shieldless, stealth all PA FdL.

Thanks for the build links. Some interesting stuff to ponder. I notice your top speed and the boost are fairly modest on both builds. I have tended to go with good speeds on my builds so far.
What ships are good for hybrids? I am assuming the big 3 for a start as you probably have enough slots to do both. What about medium ships?

 

[Just Paul]

The Alliance and Fed ships are on the lighter shield hybrid side. The Kraits are more shield heavy hybrids, as they have good speed, but a low piercing value. The FdL you can build in any way, as the speed and maneuverability can keep you out of ways harm. But usually it's big shields, you need to take advantage of the 6 utility slots. Mamba is best for a big prismatic and hull underneath, also 6 utility slots. Python I would use as a shield tank, it's to slow and big. The big 3 are always shield tanks. at least for me. Again they are slow and big, so easy targets to hit. The many slots help to get got hull into them, beside ridiculous shields.

The FdLs are not the fastest, but have good survivability. I have some speedy builds too, but a few PA hit's and I'm looking at the rebuy screen, still lots of fun.

 

[Morbad]

Real hulltanks don't have shields, but they are at a big disadvantage in today's galaxy, to many hard counters, shield pip multiplier, damage from rams

It's less the counters to hull than the enormous amount of collapsed regeneration available to a hybrid setup. Barring heavy focus fire, my Kraits can expect to see half a dozen or more collapse/regeneration cycles before they pop, and even my corvette and FDL usually get a few in. That biweave shield gen is worth way more than one more HRP.

Shieldless setups used to imply stealth, which is what made them viable as it significantly reduced the engagement window for non-hitscan weapons and made focus fire in wing combat extremely difficult...but with the changes to weapon heat mechansims, the prevalence of long range weapons, and the addition of the emissive effect, it's far more situational than it was.

What ships are good for hybrids? I am assuming the big 3 for a start as you probably have enough slots to do both. What about medium ships?

A hybrid big three is hard to pull off. I think I've done it fairly successfully with my CMDR's corvette, but even with years of practice and refinement, it's not as well suited to it as things like the Kraits or any of the medium Fed ships.

The Anaconda looks like it would be alright on paper, but in practice it has more vulnerable internals and slightly less combat manuverability than the Corvette. The cutter is dramatically worse than the vette in the former, and both the vette and anaconda in the latter regard; fighting in a Cutter after shields fail, against any serious opposition, means your important modules will rapidly be cored out or stripped off.

This is an older video at this point, and I make enough mistakes in it to get shot down, but I still consider it a valuable proof-of-concept:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyX8oPhgPZ8


The corvette I use to this day is just an evolutionary refinement of that build.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

I use a lot of overcharged PP’s, but that is with ships that struggle for power. My Vulture has G5 overcharged monstered as that was the only way I could get enough power to run everything I wanted, even with shuffling priorities. Even then there are certain weapons that won’t go without efficient engineering. Most pins seem self evident.

Vulture and courier are some of the few ships that mostly need overcharged PP. Though I'm willing to bet that your Vulture doesn't actually need monstered and you could've gone thermal spread instead. Still, of my 26 ships, only 6 of them have overcharged PP's and none of them are more than G4.

 

[SergMx]

Vulture and courier are some of the few ships that mostly need overcharged PP. Though I'm willing to bet that your Vulture doesn't actually need monstered and you could've gone thermal spread instead. Still, of my 26 ships, only 6 of them have overcharged PP's and none of them are more than G4.

you did AX ?

 

[F4fred]

Vulture and courier are some of the few ships that mostly need overcharged PP. Though I'm willing to bet that your Vulture doesn't actually need monstered and you could've gone thermal spread instead. Still, of my 26 ships, only 6 of them have overcharged PP's and none of them are more than G4.

I was going by Coriolis. Planning to run APA’s on it when I unlock them and even with overcharged monstered still need to set stuff to switch off when weapons deployed.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

I was going by Coriolis. Planning to run APA’s on it when I unlock them and even with overcharged monstered still need to set stuff to switch off when weapons deployed.

Then your ship isn't built very well. I have a prismatic with two 5A SCB's and am able to use a G4 overcharged with thermal spread.
Also, don't waste your time with APA's. Get pacifiers, Cytoscrablers, the small multi from Antal (can't think of the name of it). APA's are borderline useless now.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

you did AX ?

What do you mean?

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

I was going by Coriolis. Planning to run APA’s on it when I unlock them and even with overcharged monstered still need to set stuff to switch off when weapons deployed.

Eh, I forgot this was a stripped down PvP build. Still it's one of the only ships that uses a G5 overcharged PP. Every other ship I have had an Armored PP.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Morbad]

Don't have APAs, but if I did, I'd probably fly a Vulture similar to this: https://is.gd/OtItHW

 

[Madrax573]

Vulture and courier are some of the few ships that mostly need overcharged PP. Though I'm willing to bet that your Vulture doesn't actually need monstered and you could've gone thermal spread instead. Still, of my 26 ships, only 6 of them have overcharged PP's and none of them are more than G4.

Vulture I agree will but not courier.. I don't think I've ever fitted a full size OC PP to any courier build I've done. Even energy heavy AX builds....
I've had full sized Armoured PP but OC PP is a very rare thing for me to fit to any of my ships tbh…. Interesting to hear why you need it...

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

Vulture I agree will but not courier.. I don't think I've ever fitted a full size OC PP to any courier build I've done. Even energy heavy AX builds....
I've had full sized Armoured PP but OC PP is a very rare thing for me to fit to any of my ships tbh…. Interesting to hear why you need it...

For my prismatic build.

 

[Innocentius]

I use a lot of overcharged PP’s, but that is with ships that struggle for power. My Vulture has G5 overcharged monstered as that was the only way I could get enough power to run everything I wanted, even with shuffling priorities. Even then there are certain weapons that won’t go without efficient engineering. Most pins seem self evident.

I remember the times before engineering: Vulture builds were PP constricted so you had to make compromises between shields, engines and weapons. You could not have them all the way you may have wanted. When engineering came out, that limitation was removed for the vulture. It is one of the only ships of that type where OC is required for many builds. Most other ships have a higher base PP size compared to their internal slot sizes, weapon slots and utility slots so armored + possibly monstered is often enough. That being said for PvE I just use overcharged often and I may downsize the PP to get rid of some extra weight instead. For the PvP pilots its a different story, but so are many other things about shipbuilding also >> This also shows up in Sir Ganskalot preference of Exigeous, Hazzmango, Rinzler o7o7o7 contrary to D2EA for advice. D2EA makes some mistakes in his recommendations, but overall his advice is decent for PvE pilots. For PvP you would definitely want to look into those other sources though. Exigeous is just solid on all of his videos though and has a lot of well thought trough beginner friendly material on his channel. Vindicator Jones ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5QlW7L8XZcVBmRvpScs8kA/videos ) can also be added to the list for very solid PvE combat related advice.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

I have more overcharged powerplants than I thought. It's mainly my medium ships that run armored, all big ones have overcharged for their beefy shields, SCBs and lot's of weapons.

 

[F4fred]

Then your ship isn't built very well. I have a prismatic with two 5A SCB's and am able to use a G4 overcharged with thermal spread.
Also, don't waste your time with APA's. Get pacifiers, Cytoscrablers, the small multi from Antal (can't think of the name of it). APA's are borderline useless now.

No other way to build it. It is the APA’s that take the power. It is an experiment. Something to have a play with. Plan to try out everything in the game at some point. What did they do to APA’s that nerfed them? Are the small Multis the Retributor?

 

[F4fred]

I remember the times before engineering: Vulture builds were PP constricted so you had to make compromises between shields, engines and weapons. You could not have them all the way you may have wanted. When engineering came out, that limitation was removed for the vulture. It is one of the only ships of that type where OC is required for many builds. Most other ships have a higher base PP size compared to their internal slot sizes, weapon slots and utility slots so armored + possibly monstered is often enough. That being said for PvE I just use overcharged often and I may downsize the PP to get rid of some extra weight instead. For the PvP pilots its a different story, but so are many other things about shipbuilding also >> This also shows up in Sir Ganskalot preference of Exigeous, Hazzmango, Rinzler o7o7o7 contrary to D2EA for advice. D2EA makes some mistakes in his recommendations, but overall his advice is decent for PvE pilots. For PvP you would definitely want to look into those other sources though. Exigeous is just solid on all of his videos though and has a lot of well thought trough beginner friendly material on his channel. Vindicator Jones ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5QlW7L8XZcVBmRvpScs8kA/videos ) can also be added to the list for very solid PvE combat related advice.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will check them out. I have seen some of Exigeous vids, and Vindicator Jones, but a lot of his stuff is out of date. Not interested in PVP for now. So I build ships for HazRes and CZ’s. Not a min/maxer either and have unconventional tastes in ships. Buy an AspX it is a great exploration ship, everyone says. Bought it, flew it a bit, hated it. It is now a module storage hanger queen. Don’t bother with the Clipper everyone said, useless piece of junk. Bought one, love it, despite its flaws. I have some of the popular ships. Python best ship in the game, all the vids say. Have one, appreciate it for what it is, a great medium size hauler. Have flown it a lot. Made some cash on Robigo runs and a bit of mining, but I can’t say I love flying it.

 

[Innocentius]

Python used to be a great ship originally, but then it's flight model was nerfed badly and it got that "stalling" in flight. It is now only flyable with dirty G5 + drag drives in my opinion, but with those I just love the ship and that combo basically un-nerfs it again :-D. Anyhow, engineering makes all the ships viable for various roles for PvE. Just pick the ones you generally like and push those ships further with engineering.

 

[F4fred]

Python used to be a great ship originally, but then it's flight model was nerfed badly and it got that "stalling" in flight. It is now only flyable with dirty G5 + drag drives in my opinion, but with those I just love the ship and that combo basically un-nerfs it again :-D. Anyhow, engineering makes all the ships viable for various roles for PvE. Just pick the ones you generally like and push those ships further with engineering.

Why do they change the flight models? If it was for balance it hasn’t worked!

 

[Morbad]

Why do they change the flight models? If it was for balance it hasn’t worked!

They cut it's speed and rotationals by one-sixth and it's base shield strength by one-third, about five months after release.

Prior to this, the Python was far and away the best combat ship in the game. It was too close to the Vulture in rotationals, too close to the FDL in speed, and too close to the Anaconda in durability.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Of course before the nerf the FdL and Vulture didn't exist, so it was kinda logical the Python was so good. FD shadownerfed the Anaconda drift and maneuverability as well when they introduced the Corvette.