Ships Engineering Power Distributor – What is “+% capacity” good for?

[enkidu136]

Greetings Cmdrs,

still my first year of ED, and The Dweller called me for a visit. I appreciate this very much ^^ Though, he missed to tell me what his stuff does to my ships.

Currently I follow the general advice to equip my combat ships with +% regen for SYS, ENG, and WEP. I also plan to equip my laser mining Python with +% capacitiy for WEP, for longer initial firing phase of my mining lasers.

Thought about +% capacitiy for ENG for my Mamba as a pirate ship for special ops and focus on escape. But what does +% capacity? I have more initial bursts I guess, but does this also increase maneuverability? (e. g. the blue area next to the speed bar that indicates the optimal speed for highest maneuverability)

Thought about +% capacitiy for SYS for my Type 9 (trading), but does this increase my initial shield strength? If yes, using a prismatic would be better than a Bi-weave I guess?

Have a nice flight o7

 

[Three Stars]

Unfortunately, High Charge Capacity is a fool’s gold option thanks to how the math works on distributors. The goal is always to drain in the longest possible time. The only way to achieve that is Charge Enhanced/Super Conduits, since it pours energy into the PD while you’re draining it. Making the pool larger with High Charge Capacity but filling it slower only helps with the first time you do anything. Then you have to wait longer for the distributor to fill up. There are no benefits for maneuverability nor shield strength with High Charge Capacity, so no help there either.

 

[enkidu136]

Thx for the answer!

If I understand this correctly: I dont have to spend pips to a particular category, until it runs out of bars. Having 10 bars in e. g. SYS has no benefit as to have 1 bar left. Shields are recharging. And +% capacity only extends the time before SYS runs out of bars, and I have to spend pips again.

I guess that leaves "weapon focussed" for my laser mining python as the only valuable option.

 

[Val Sylvana]

As I understand, normally about the only time you wouldn't use Charge Enhanced/Super Conduits is for an exploration ship. For that, you can use Engine Focussed so it can still boost with a 1D distributor.

FWIW, I've got a laser mining python with three class 2 and two class 1 lasers. CE/SC can keep them going for a while with four pips, certainly until the asteroid's depleted.

 

[Three Stars]

Thx for the answer!

If I understand this correctly: I dont have to spend pips to a particular category, until it runs out of bars. Having 10 bars in e. g. SYS has no benefit as to have 1 bar left. Shields are recharging. And +% capacity only extends the time before SYS runs out of bars, and I have to spend pips again.

I guess that leaves "weapon focussed" for my laser mining python as the only valuable option.

Well, the bars mostly have no benefit but the pips do. SYS pips add a separate damage reduction % to your shields that ranges up to 60% with 4 pips. ENG pips increase your straight ahead speed by a lot and your pitch speed by a little…and the benefit is further tuned depending on the ship you’re flying.

WEP pips don’t have a special benefit like the other two, but heat dissipation is enhanced the more energy is in WEP at any given time. One benefit of a WEP focused distributor is that when you fire weapons you end up with more WEP energy left over, so the heat generation from your weapons is less compared to charge enhanced. The regeneration rate is roughly the same with WEP focused as with charge enhanced. The reason why everybody doesn’t run with WEP focused is that ENG and SYS take a big hit, so your shield regeneration and boost frequency also take a hit.

 

[enkidu136]

Thx to both of you for the great infos!

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Experimental effect is pretty always going to be super conduits.
Explorers, fast light weight data courier or canyon racing ships engine focus is great.
Weapon focused if you want a specialist laser mining ship.
Pretty much every other ship role is best with charge enhanced for flexibility.
That said, I'm having a laugh with a weapon focused Anaconda with all long range beams except two large MCs. It downs shields and pops ships quite fast, is slow and slow to turn and even biweave shields don't recharge/repair that quickly. It is working well in conflict zones but you have to keep an eyes on shields and keep them up with shield cell banks. In the end charge enhanced and different weapons would-be easier and more dependable in conflict zones.

 

[sinisalo]

I think of all my ships, only my deep diver DBX uses anything other than charge enhanced and super conduits. It's important to see how any other choice affects the things it does not enhance. For example how your shield recharge rate will suffer when choosing ENG focused engineering. Opportunity cost is a big part of what makes Elite ship building so compelling.

 

[Surprize960]

I use Weapon focuses/Super Conduits on my Beamyvette. It works a bit better than Charge enhanced. With SCBs the lower shield recharge doesn‘t matter. Of course, for less power hungry Combat Builds Charge enhanced is always better.

 

[d8veh]

Unfortunately, High Charge Capacity is a fool’s gold option thanks to how the math works on distributors. The goal is always to drain in the longest possible time. The only way to achieve that is Charge Enhanced/Super Conduits, since it pours energy into the PD while you’re draining it. Making the pool larger with High Charge Capacity but filling it slower only helps with the first time you do anything. Then you have to wait longer for the distributor to fill up. There are no benefits for maneuverability nor shield strength with High Charge Capacity, so no help there either.

On a laser mining ship, weapons focused is going to be more use than charge enhanced, and on an explorer and some hauler builds or anything shieldless not used for combat, an engine focused one would be more use.