Are NPC's using shield cell banks now?

The Philostopher

T
Been MIA for a few months, decided to come back and fly around in my Viper MK4. Flew in to a high intensity conflict zone and got in to a tiff with a clipper. For some odd reason, I wasn't putting a dent in his shields at all and that bothered me, lol. Doesn't seem right. He was eating me for breakfast. I would get it down to 2 rings, and then the 3rd ring would just come back. Or am I mistaken?

2nd question: When we look at the ratings of NPC's, elite, master, dangerous, how does this rating affect their gear? What are they using, A, B, C rated items?
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
The Philostopher said:
Been MIA for a few months, decided to come back and fly around in my Viper MK4. Flew in to a high intensity conflict zone and got in to a tiff with a clipper. For some odd reason, I wasn't putting a dent in his shields at all and that bothered me, lol. Doesn't seem right. He was eating me for breakfast. I would get it down to 2 rings, and then the 3rd ring would just come back. Or am I mistaken?

2nd question: When we look at the ratings of NPC's, elite, master, dangerous, how does this rating affect their gear? What are they using, A, B, C rated items?
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They always used SCBs. They're just better at it now.

Dunno about rating-rank relations, but higher ranking definitely means better gear.

Also, fighting in a CZ makes it that bit tougher. You definitely can't pick fights with much larger ships in a CZ unless you have allied (NPC) ships helping out
 

The Philostopher

T
Oh definitely. I only went after the big ones when 4 of my allied ships went too. I kept getting ganged up on and ran away. Honestly never noticed they used SCB's, but good to know.
 

Cpt Shadow Wolfe

Cpt Shadow Wolfe
Not only are they using them, but they appear to have an unlimited amount, and they dont seem to need heat sinks. And there SCBs are better then what you have, I use a 7b SCB on my Corvette, it charges about 1 ring but the NPCs can go from almost zero shields to max shields with one charge. Quite frustrating taking 5 mins to get their shields down, then before you can spit they are back to full shields.
 

GTwannabe

GTwannabe
Yes. Pythons and Anacondas are the worst for shield cell spam. They don't use heatsinks and don't overheat at all.
 

Retu81

R
Cpt Shadow Wolfe said:
Not only are they using them, but they appear to have an unlimited amount, and they dont seem to need heat sinks. And there SCBs are better then what you have, I use a 7b SCB on my Corvette, it charges about 1 ring but the NPCs can go from almost zero shields to max shields with one charge. Quite frustrating taking 5 mins to get their shields down, then before you can spit they are back to full shields.
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NPCs do run out of Shield Cell Banks and they do suffer from heat damage. Case in point: I was fighting against a Python who was using shield cell banks. A quick check on the subsystems showed a steady increase of damage. It's not a huge percentage but it's there. After about 4 or 5 SCBs he finally ran out and I could drop his shields for the first time.
 

digitalscream

Banned
D
Yep. Came across a Cutter for a massacre mission last night. He had banks and banks of shield cells - took about 20 minutes to kill him with my Vulture's pair of pulse lasers (they don't have high enough DPS to take the shields down before the SCB recharge starts).

In the end, my phasing sequence laser had taken his hull down to 62% before the shields finally popped.
 

Cliffson

Cliffson
Retu81 said:
NPCs do run out of Shield Cell Banks and they do suffer from heat damage. Case in point: I was fighting against a Python who was using shield cell banks. A quick check on the subsystems showed a steady increase of damage. It's not a huge percentage but it's there. After about 4 or 5 SCBs he finally ran out and I could drop his shields for the first time.
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I can second this, had the exact same situation after 5 cells, so one 6a bank, he stopped using them and had a reasonable amount of module damage. His shields came back before dying and he seemed to have cells again though so don't know if they juggle banks/get a reload or something?

However there is the glaring issue that they don't seem to get malfunctions from the heat damage like we do.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
The scb of AI does run out. I'm always amazed how some here apparently cannot count all the way to six. How many rings you get back depends also on total shield size, and AI runs with far lower shields than most cases in big ships.
 

Nerwan

Nerwan
sleutelbos said:
The scb of AI does run out. I'm always amazed how some here apparently cannot count all the way to six. How many rings you get back depends also on total shield size, and AI runs with far lower shields than most cases in big ships.
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Absolutely, the NPCs use really small shields compared to most commanders, so the key is to do some really good alpha damage (possibily combined with a ram depending on your ship) to break the NPCs shields before they get the chance to perform their first bank. It's either that or you go the efficiently route (using pulse lasers perhaps) and do it by exhausting their banks. It takes a lot longer to kill them by doing that but it works..
 
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d8veh

d8veh
You need to knock down their shields quickly. 4 pips to shields and ramming them usually does the trick, unless you want a long battle. Two class 4 grade 5 overcharged multi-cannons does the trick as well.
 

Soup Grelos

S
hey, Frontier, when will we be able to also have those marvelous shields cells banks that with just one charge your shield is totally restored and which nps have been enjoying for such a long time¿? It would be nice we could mate them with their exclusive super gimballed 100% accurate railguns as well....;)[???]
 
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