Can anyone explain how shield strength Modifier works, regarding ship mass?

[Jake Savage]

How does the shield modifier work?
i know if the ship mass is below the optimal shield generator mass then the shields will be stronger.
Is that the total ship mass, the ship mass before all modules are fitted or what?
which figures should I be looking at?
if I make my ship lighter will this increase shield strength, or would I have to make the ship lighter then re engineer the generator again?

 

[CMDR Greg Wayne]

How does the shield modifier work?
i know if the ship mass is below the optimal shield generator mass then the shields will be stronger.
Is that the total ship mass, the ship mass before all modules are fitted or what?
which figures should I be looking at?
if I make my ship lighter will this increase shield strength, or would I have to make the ship lighter then re engineer the generator again?

What you should be looking at is the base hull mass. If you go to Coriolis for instance you look at the stat below "Hull". Laden and unladen masses do not matter. If you take the Anaconda for example the base hull is 400T.

https://eddp.co/u/rsc6Ccgj

In other words, this is a fixed value that can't be affected through making the ship lighter. However, shields can be engineered to have optimal mass increased (or lowered) through secondary effects thus adding some extra MJ of shield strength.

 

[Jake Savage]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Bummer though, I thought lowering my mass might make the shields stronger.
its all down to the optimal multiplier when engineering.

 

[CMDR Greg Wayne]

On thermal resistant shields for instance you can get both optimal strength and optimal mass as positive side effects. I think I've got one with 12% optimal mass and 10% optimal strength with good resists. This will take the Vultures shield (5C bi-weave in this case) from 317mj to 368. Might not look like much but that is quite the increase percentually. On an FDL (which uses the same size) you'll get a 62mj increase (from 380 to 442).