As the title say, I finally got those coveted prismatic shields, I'm wondering on how to engineer them. I'm hardcore into bi-weaves, and I go for thermal resist on the shields. But I'm wondering on what works best for them. I'm weighing on whether to go for resists, or all in on raw MJ. I bought two of each (or more) so I can try out both methodologies, but I'd like to know what is ideal before I commit a bunch of engineering resources?
Ship Builds & Load Outs Just got shiny new prismatics! Recommended Engineering?
- Thread starter WhiteWeasel
- Start date
Prisms give big shields. So you can argue that you need to make the shield even bigger. If you do not then you can also deploy a A rated shield. Unless you are downsizing your shield to free a bigger slot of cargo for instance
So reinforced shields would have my vote. Do consider recharge times. Some builds take 15 minutes or longer to recharge when using prisms
So reinforced shields would have my vote. Do consider recharge times. Some builds take 15 minutes or longer to recharge when using prisms
Yeah, that's what I've heard, I've seen the numbers or Coriolis and well, I think it's safe to say the best situations to use prismatics is when you don't care about the regen and just need raw MJ.
All or nothing. 5 mins of recharge in combat is like eternity, just like 10 or 15 mins so get the best out the them by going reinforced all the way. Boost thermal resistances by applying thermal resistant shield booster until you meet desired resistance level. Also enhanced low power mod works pretty good as well by giving you less power hungry shield, lighter yet still powerful.
Correct!
Then balance resistance a bit with Shield Boosters.
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The class 5 priamatic in my Fer-de-lance is modded for Thermal resist with double bracing.
The thermal resist does two things. It helps counter the shields weakness towards thermal damage and it increases the modules integrity. Which is further increased by the double bracing.
This increases the modules integrity from 115 stock to 185. Which means that it will now take 5 reverb cascade torpedoes to kill the shield generator instead of 3.
The thermal resist does two things. It helps counter the shields weakness towards thermal damage and it increases the modules integrity. Which is further increased by the double bracing.
This increases the modules integrity from 115 stock to 185. Which means that it will now take 5 reverb cascade torpedoes to kill the shield generator instead of 3.
If the FDL is afraid of torpedoes, then it is better to use a conventional class B shield.
Not afraid but situational awareness is a thing. One one one, you can dodge easily. But if you're in the middle of a conflict zone and another commander pops in you might not notice till you've taken a few hits.
If all you are going for is integrity, then sure, go for the B rated. With the same engineering as my prismatics you'll get an integrity of 217. This means that it will take 6 torpedoes to break your sheild generator instead of 5 for the prismatics.
You'll also shave around 3 minutes off of the rebuild and refill times. 3m25s is definitely better than 6m46s for rebuld to 50%. But from 50% to 100% you're still going to be waiting almost 12 minutes vs just over 15 minutes for the prismatics.
And for these savings your going to be sacrificing almost 22% of your total shield strength going from 4,558Mj to 3,581Mj.
Given that most torpedo builds usually carry 4 torps due to how many hard points they can take up my feeling is that being able to tank 4 hits and still have working shields is good enough.
On the other hand it costs you 1000 mj absolute, or roughly 1/3 of the overall protection of a prismatic build, with a ship that can run circles around torpedos.
Not sure this trade-off is wise.
I'll go with @Paul Smith the 3rd 's reinforced / high cap.
Alright, thanks for the input! Seems like the idea is go for raw MJ on the shields, and fix resists with boosters, as well as pair them with an SCB or two. I'll have to do some paper crafting on coriolis, but I'm exited to see what these green things can do!
Also, I've been thinking, is it normal to undersize a shield and then use the largest optional internals for SCB's?
Also, I've been thinking, is it normal to undersize a shield and then use the largest optional internals for SCB's?
In most non-PvP builds it's nice to be able to put a Prismatic in a smaller slot and still get the same strength as a bigger shield at the same mass.
e.g. - in a Cutter you can easily get by with Class 6 Prismatic and then have 2 class 8 cargo racks.
It's also an effective strategy in medium and small vessels. I use a Class 3 Prismatic on my Python hauler. More than enough in most use cases other than PvP.
e.g. - in a Cutter you can easily get by with Class 6 Prismatic and then have 2 class 8 cargo racks.
It's also an effective strategy in medium and small vessels. I use a Class 3 Prismatic on my Python hauler. More than enough in most use cases other than PvP.
It might not be the norm as you loose a lot of upfront shield, but if you are confident that you get your SCBs off without being cancelled you get more overall MJs.
Here is my favorite Conda: https://is.gd/2Mzudz.
If you want a shield tank get a Cutter and add:
1 (8) Prismatic - Reinforced/High Cap
6 Shield boosters - Heavy Duty/Super Cap
stir in:
2 Guardian Shield Reinforcement Packages
Various hull reinforcement packages
leave the station as soon as possible and have some fun. Nothing can take you down unless you hang around for it.
Its all about the trade offs. Comparing Reinforced / high cap vs Thermal / double braced on my FDL.
NOTE numbers and times are with 4pips in SYS.
You get more absolute strength 6,667Mj vs 4,558Mj
You get better effective strength for Kinetic damage 19,992Mj vs 9,510Mj
And, better effective strength for explosive damage 23,991Mj vs 13,694Mj. Really an, impressive number.
BUT for these benefits you trade off the following:
You get lower module integrity 115 vs 185. This means that the Reinforced / high cap generator will be destroyed with just 3
reverb cascade torpedo hits vs 5 hits for the Thermal / double braced.
You get a lower effective strength for Thermal damage 9,996Mj vs 11,412Mj.
And you also have much higher times for Rebuilding and Refilling your shields. 10m49s vs 6m46s to Rebuild and
15m12s vs 22m17s to Refill.
Module integrity is irrelevant in a FdL. If you get hit by torps you deserve to blow up.
Rebuild and Refill is also irrelevant, your shields won't do any of them, but you can just repair&reboot to get back half strength again
in a PvE situation, in PvP not so much. Coincidentally, repair&reboot gives you 1.5 times more back again with reinforced, too.
The only thing I'd grant you is the better thermal resistance, which in PvE means you're more resistant against the NPCs.
In PvP again, it's all about kinetics and plasma and rails. The rails do thermal, granted, but that won't save you against 1.5 times your
shields in a proper reinforced/high-cap build.
But to each his own...
tldr:
reinfored high cap
long version
Why you build shields with high megajoules and why resistance is not so important
The most frequently used weapon, especially by anarchists, are plasma attacks and especially the so-called plasma ram. The plasma Ram is a maneuver where you ram the enemy frontally at full speed and shoot the plasmas shortly before. Add to this the fact that many plasma weapons are reinforced with thermal conduit (increases the damage by 60% if you fire the salvo at 101% or higher ship temperature) which has been officially reported as broken to Frontier.
here the link to the issue report:
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/16198
here is an example of a plasma ram. i one shot here a fully equipped bi weave pvp mamba that still has 40% of its hull and thus over 50% of its combat power
Plasma ignores the resistance of the shields to 60% and ram attacks to 100% with other words. only the Raw shield protects you here. a shield with say 1000 mj but resistances over 60 would have several 1000 hitpoints and it would take forever to shoot it down with laser and kinetic weapons.
But not plasma. A Fdl loaded with Thermal Conduit can take 150 Raw Shield on an approach even when someone has 4 pips in sys.
With Plasma Ram up to 400, in other words a 1000 mj shield would be down after 3 Plasma ramms and there would already be heavy damage to the hull when you have 4 pips in sys.
in addition, a very heavy shield with 4000 mj (standard for PvP Fdls in our community) has more hitpoints on the 3 damage types than a 2000 mj shield with very good resistances because the mj itself is a stronger multiplier than the resistances.
this is the shield configuration of my shield tank fdl. try to aim for a thermal value > 20%
reinfored high cap
long version
Why you build shields with high megajoules and why resistance is not so important
The most frequently used weapon, especially by anarchists, are plasma attacks and especially the so-called plasma ram. The plasma Ram is a maneuver where you ram the enemy frontally at full speed and shoot the plasmas shortly before. Add to this the fact that many plasma weapons are reinforced with thermal conduit (increases the damage by 60% if you fire the salvo at 101% or higher ship temperature) which has been officially reported as broken to Frontier.
here the link to the issue report:
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/16198
here is an example of a plasma ram. i one shot here a fully equipped bi weave pvp mamba that still has 40% of its hull and thus over 50% of its combat power
https://youtu.be/p2hlukUmE8A Plasma ignores the resistance of the shields to 60% and ram attacks to 100% with other words. only the Raw shield protects you here. a shield with say 1000 mj but resistances over 60 would have several 1000 hitpoints and it would take forever to shoot it down with laser and kinetic weapons.
But not plasma. A Fdl loaded with Thermal Conduit can take 150 Raw Shield on an approach even when someone has 4 pips in sys.
With Plasma Ram up to 400, in other words a 1000 mj shield would be down after 3 Plasma ramms and there would already be heavy damage to the hull when you have 4 pips in sys.
in addition, a very heavy shield with 4000 mj (standard for PvP Fdls in our community) has more hitpoints on the 3 damage types than a 2000 mj shield with very good resistances because the mj itself is a stronger multiplier than the resistances.
this is the shield configuration of my shield tank fdl. try to aim for a thermal value > 20%
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Yes and no.
Everybody who is getting serious about PvP will learn to use PAs as they have the highest burst damage output and once you git gud they are relatively easy to use. As you rightly said 60% of their damage is absolute therefore high raw MJs are important then facing them. With rams being broken a high raw shield value is again better than balanced resists. Agree with you there too. With the pip multiplier shield tanks have the advantage compared to hulltanks in rams. A plasma ram is just combining the 2 things and used if you have the upper hand in the numbers game. I wouldn't PA ram in my 2 booster bi-weave.
About TC, the heatbug was fixed and heat damage is no longer that bad. It is still a skill you need to git gud to keep you ship in the right heat window for TC without burning your modules off. 60% damage increase for TC might be to much, a number closer to 30% would probably be better. On the other hand anybody can use it and git gud with it, so there is an even playing field after all. Plus who doesn't like to fling little suns at their opponent.
My Conda after a duel there I messed up my heatsink to bank ratio. I run all TC PAs on it. Still won, but it was close with most of my weapons gone.
Off topic
Do some research on Anarchy, Anarchism, and what the description of the in-game Anarchy factions are. I know lots of in-game Anarchists who do not use PAs or fixed weapons. Some are actually in-game pacifists
.anarchist /= outlaw, griefer, ganker, ....., eating little children. Stop confusing things or worst do it deliberate to further your agenda.
My favorite quote about Anarchism: "Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship." Voltairine de Cleyre
Learn about things before you start attacking them, you might cut your own leg off in the process.
Back to topic
The heavy gamer-de-lance has 3.6k MJ raw shields (6 boosters), but it's not what most people use though. I do hope you didn't skip on hull day with that 4k shield thingy. If not it's a slow hog, also something you don't want to have in a non-1v1 situation.
Your build seem to mainly focus on PvP. While I'm mainly PvE.
In fact, out of my entire fleet I only have two ships that are focused to PvP. A Viper Mk IV packing dual Cytoscramblers and Double Shot Frags and
a Dolphin with Dual long range rail-guns both of which are running Bi-Weaves.