Engineers Engineered shields/boosters resistance values

[Charlaje]

Regardless of type, size or rating, what is the optimal value to aim for with resistances?

I understand there are diminishing returns at some point, I heard 50%. Considering that thermal starts at -20%, what should the ideal total numbers be for all resistance types? I don’t need to debate Mj vs recharge rate, just resistances. Thanks!

 

[wrmiller]

On my combat ships (FDL, Corvette), I have had decent results with Thermal and Explosive between 50-60%. I'm not saying that this is 'the best', I'm just showing what has worked for me.

FYI, I am limited to G3 mods on my shield boosters so I usually go G5 thermal on my shields to do the initial boost to about 40% or so.

EDIT: Oh, and I PvE only. I have no idea what works for PvP.

 

[Codger]

If you're talking just about shield effectiveness, then you want the resistances as high as possible. The higher the resistance, the less damage you take.

But, as you already know, once you get them to 50% it starts to get harder and harder to raise them further, due to diminishing returns.

You can just keep adding boosters until you run out of utility slots, modify them all for resistance augmented, and mod your main shield for thermal (to fix the hole in the resistance there) -- and you'd wind up with the "best" resistances.

But you'd be sacrificing weight, power draw, heat generation, etc and using up all your utility slots.

So that's where the compromise comes in.

I've found that 50% or more is an achievable target, and is quite effective. I try not to have less than 50%, but some smaller ships give you no choice.

 

[metatheurgist]

PvPer's aim for 50 across the board. The way the math works is with one resist booster you loose nothing, with 2 you lose a lot, with 3 you lose a significant amount of the benefit and it's not worth going to 4 because you lose almost of the 4th's resistance.

 

[Flin]

50-60% seems to the sweetspot.

A good G5 Thermal Resist + 2 good G5 Resist Augmented (RA) will get you close.

A third G5 RA or G5 heavy duty will depend on your specific circumstances.

 

[clinton]

FDev probably need to jump in at this point to answer this authoritatively, but I believe the resistance diminishing returns only apply to boosters, and only start to apply at 30% resistance.

This is how the calculation works:

1. Get the "damage taken value" (i.e. 100% - resistance) for your shield. So 30% resistance = 0.7, -20% resistance = 1.2
2. Do the same as above for shield pips (1 for no pips, down to roughly 0.4 for 4 pips).
3. Do the same as above for all your shield boosters, and multiply all the results for all your shield boosters. If this result is below 0.7, then add 0.7 to it and half it.
4. Multiply all the above figures.

The result in 4 is the amount of damage you will take.

This is why you can get stupidly huge shields. FDev could make the following simple change to go a long way to fixing shield HP bloat:

1. Get the "damage taken value" (i.e. 100% - resistance) for your shield. So 30% resistance = 0.7, -20% resistance = 1.2
2. Do the same as above for shield pips (1 for no pips, down to roughly 0.4 for 4 pips).
3. Do the same as above for all your shield boosters, and multiply all the results for all your shield boosters. I
4. Multiply all the above figures. if this result is below 0.7, then add 0.7 to it and half it.

All I've done is moved the diminishing returns to the entire calculation instead of a part of it.

I can't understand why this can't be implemented. It's such an easy fix and it would solve the shield bloat problem without affecting the more ordinary builds.

 

[Ton618 666]

50-60% seems to the sweetspot.

A good G5 Thermal Resist + 2 good G5 Resist Augmented (RA) will get you close.

A third G5 RA or G5 heavy duty will depend on your specific circumstances.

Need some help, i have a current set upto g5 boosters giving explosive 6.2k kinetic 5.1 thermal 6.8 woth g5 Thermal shield sysyem, is this the target? Cant find the 50 or 60 values in translation, sorry if that sounds silly

 

[Flin]

Need some help, i have a current set upto g5 boosters giving explosive 6.2k kinetic 5.1 thermal 6.8 woth g5 Thermal shield sysyem, is this the target? Cant find the 50 or 60 values in translation, sorry if that sounds silly

Looks like your shields are balanced against the typical damage types.

If you go to EDSY shield section, you can see the resistance %.

Normal shields are -20% towards Thermal damage, but a max Grade 5 Thermal Resistance mod without experimental effect is 40%.

You can then get shield booster to get them around 50 to 60% across the standard damage types (excluding absolute) at 2 pips to systems.

o7