Change Shield Boosters

[CMDR Corlas]

I think - and based on change attempts in previous betas, I think Frontier agrees - that hugely stacked shield boosters, especially with engineering, are problematic.

Yes, there's reverb cascade, but that only applies to a very limited set of weapons that are themselves also very limited in their usage. It's not really a solution. A pro/con solution to shield booster stacking is better than just a hard counter based on someone's potential loadout.

So instead, I propose this: Have shield boosters (perhaps only after your shields have been boosted over 20%), cause a portion of damage absorbed by your shield to be done directly to the shield generator. Have this damage bypass module reinforcements (the damage the shield generator is taking is internally inflicted, due to running beyond spec, not externally inflicted), but it still would be mitigated by increases to shield integrity. The percentage of damage that's transferred to the shield gen directly would grow the more your boost your shields.

This would allow mega-shielded ships to still get to keep their mega-shields if they chose, but make it more of a pro/con decision-making process rather than just the mindless "add more shield boosters, obviously" it is today.

It also would create a small bit of much-needed upkeep costs for higher-end ships, without penalizing those just starting out.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

How about the shield boosters themselves take a bit of damage from shield hits, and become less effective, until they fail completely?

Eventually, they'll wear out, and fail. But you can repair them with an AFMU, but while you do, that Shield Booster isn't providing any boost.

You'd still start with Uber shields, but a sustained attack with damage them until they fail. But you can retreat and repair the boosters to get back up.

Seems like a fair trade off.

 

[GJ51]

What a great idea!

That way I would have a reason to go back and re-outfit/Engineer all of the 100+ ships I own.

That would be so much fun...

 

[CMDR Corlas]

What a great idea!

That way I would have a reason to go back and re-outfit/Engineer all of the 100+ ships I own.

That would be so much fun...

Well, given that the specific goal there was to provide some disincentive to overpowered shield-tank builds like you claim to have 100+ of, I'm taking that as positive feedback.

 

[MK Regular]

How about the shield boosters themselves take a bit of damage from shield hits, and become less effective, until they fail completely?

Eventually, they'll wear out, and fail. But you can repair them with an AFMU, but while you do, that Shield Booster isn't providing any boost.

You'd still start with Uber shields, but a sustained attack with damage them until they fail. But you can retreat and repair the boosters to get back up.

Seems like a fair trade off.

Seems reasonable enough. However, I do have two questions:
1) How long would it take to get a booster down to 0%?
2) Could shield boosters malfunction if they are below 80% integrity? (and does this currently happen in the game?)

For the first question, I don't really have a good answer. If this were to be balanced around PvP, I think it would make sense to have boosters start failing towards the end of a fight between two wings of players (this would probably break a good portion of PvE combat though), although other people might think differently. As for how the damage is calculated, I would think it would have something to do with both the % shield boost and resistances of the booster in question. For example, would a thermal engineered booster take increased or decreased damage from a cannon round? Would a booster with a higher % shield boost take more or less damage than a stock booster?

For the second question, I would think that having boosters malfunction in the middle of the fight would add more variables to manage on a shield tank build. What a malfunction do? Maybe a booster malfunction should have the shield bost and resistances of the booster? It would still be better than not having a booster, but not as good as having a working one. Of course as spacehead mentioned, an AFMU could be used to repair the boosters, but this would require temporarily removing the booster from play putting you at a potential disadvantage. This would give players more options in combat and could lead to more interesting gameplay.

Overall, +1 on this idea.

 

[GJ51]

Well, given that the specific goal there was to provide some disincentive to overpowered shield-tank builds like you claim to have 100+ of, I'm taking that as positive feedback.

Indeed

FD's propensity to undermine all previous efforts based on known criteria is indeed a big incentive to maintain interest in ED.

Brilliant

Just Brilliant

I'm really hoping they kneecap FSD's just after I've jumped 60 LY's somewhere out in the black without any Jumponium.

Now that would be really special...

Big improvement

Here, here...

 

[Whatnow]

No.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

How about the shield boosters themselves take a bit of damage from shield hits, and become less effective, until they fail completely?

Eventually, they'll wear out, and fail. But you can repair them with an AFMU, but while you do, that Shield Booster isn't providing any boost.

You'd still start with Uber shields, but a sustained attack with damage them until they fail. But you can retreat and repair the boosters to get back up.

Seems like a fair trade off.

I think my main problem with this is that the idea was to have a bit of a downside to having multiple boosters, so it's actually an interesting choice. This idea doesn't really accomplish that. By having the boosters themselves take the damage, multiple boosters are still better because the damage would be spread out, and the "downside" of the booster failing would generally only kick in when you've taken enough damage for the booster's shield contribution to be gone anyway. So I'm honestly not really seeing much of a downside.

I guess you're nerfing mega-shielded ships for sustained PvE, but that's about it.

I think it's better to take the one or two specialist hard counters - reverb torpedoes and mines - and spread them out more evenly throughout the game. You can then nerf or remove the hard counters too. It's poor game design to have builds that are functionally invincible except for a few situations, and have them be fully nullified in those instances. The idea is to take the black-and-white of that and mix into a more continuum of greys.

/I've decided to just ignore people who's only real comment is "But I wanna be overpowered! (unless you specifically equip your ship to fight me and me alone)"

 

[Starwolfe]

Horribly flawed idea. No.

You are basically arguing for the removal of shields entirely on some ships that can only really function with boosters, and drive players to a few select ships with decent shield levels that can get away without boosters for... what?

No. Horrible idea.

 

[NotHere]

I wish there more things to equip in those utility slots. Interesting things and QoL things. Things that might make me want to ditch a shield booster or two to pick up. For example:

• Cameras, with little picture-in-picture displays somewhere on the HUD. I would love to put one of these on the top and bottom of my Anaconda so I can better judge distances while docking, and I imagine it'd help with overall situational awareness during combat, too, above and beyond what the sensor display provides. Heck, next time one of those silly NPC station rammers does their thing, I'd have video evidence!
• Solar panels that allow me to recharge SCBs between combat.
• Something that takes a portion of incoming damage against the shields and converts it into energy for the power distributor. Engineering would allow customization of the spread over WPN, SYS, and ENG.
• Thruster pods with a single use that significantly increase max. speed for a short duration but also make any sort of maneuvering nearly impossible. Nice get-away tool for traders/explorers and a nice way to get to the action quicker for others.
• Gravity field generators that increase the mass-lock factor of the ship while enabled but take a good deal of module damage any time the ship is struck, whether shieldless or not. Might be wiser to turn and fight a bit to knock out those generators instead of just boosting away immediately.
• FSD field stabilizers that make the ship more difficult to interdict by decreasing required distance and angle.
• A module that scans the system and shows you the best route to your destination while in supercruise, taking into account gravity wells along the way. It wouldn't take into account strategies like spiraling or lining up to approach the station slot-on, so experienced pilots still have a leg up. I see it functioning more like training wheels, teaching newer pilots that the shortest path isn't always a straight line. Maybe have it already outfitted in the stock sidey you start with.
• FSD field boosters with limited uses that propel you rapidly through supercruise for a short time but can't be used, and automatically disengage, within X LS from any body. Tweak the numbers so that it makes it less of a pain to get out to those 50k, 100k, and 200k distant bodies but doesn't trivialize things like the Hutton run. Make 'em cost an arm-and-a-leg to restock and allow the ammo to be synthesized from rare materials found on planet surfaces so it gives explorers another reason to get out of the honk-scoop-jump loop. I can't tell you how many otherwise promising stars and worlds I had to abandon on my last trip because I took one look at the SC distance and decided "nope!"
• A "prospector scanner" that shows the contents of nearby asteroids without percentages so as not to make the controller obsolete but give me a better idea where to send those limpets if I'm looking for something specific.
• A tractor beam of sorts that can be used to slow the rotation rate of asteroids in order to create a safer and more pleasant working environment for my collector limpets.

Some of those ideas may be stupid, I know, but I think the best way to deal with booster stacking isn't to put more limitations on them but rather to make them compete with other desirable modules. Similar to how SCBs, HRPs, and MRPs compete for military slots or how they and every other optional module compete with one another for the optional internal slots.

 

[rrobes]

Every time I see these proposals, I think back to all the tinkering that was done to weapons, shields and whatnots.

That was just busy work and most us got tired of the useless re-do's.

Leave shields alone, there are so many combinations that are available that ensure variation. Play the game, leave us in peace to enjoy the stability.

Change what needs attention, there's plenty of that.