What do Shield boosters do? recharge the shield when you're getting battered? I never used them or heat shields or chaff
I used to just boost into stations to evade scans so never figured cold running and heat sinks were useful (although I got battered by a star last night...hhmm would a heat sink have helped with that??)
Boosters basically PAD your shield strength by the additional percentage they list in their specs. The downside to them is that they add a lot of weight which you can see by adding one in outfitting and watching your jump range drop like a rock! They also take a lot of juice in their stock config. All of those downsides can be compensated for with Engineer upgrades though.
Heat sinks are definitely good to always have on any ship. They do immediately reduce the heat load your ship is under which can also be applied if you get too close to a star and have a forced drop out of SC. Launching a heat sink just as you are charging up your FSD to escape from a star can be a lifesaver.
These days, I pretty much consider them standard equipment on all my ships. At least one bank. I run with (3) upgraded banks of (4) per on my Corvette, since they are more or less mandatory when you use Shield Cell Banks.
You only power up one bank at a time of course using the MODULE panel on your right screen. Same goes for any multiples of anything like Shield Cell Banks.
