Problem with removing boosters is that then traders are even more cannon-fodder against engineered ships than they are now.
Regarding the Python vid above: the courier build is just bad against SCB ships. Those pythons annoyed me that much that I educated myself on feedback rails, and use them
since then. No more problems against SCBs now.
I'm fully aware that Feedback Cascade exists. The reasons I don't carry a Feedback Cascade Railgun are that a) I'm trying to build this Courier such that it is effective against a wide range of targets - ranging from Vipers to Corvettes - and while Feedback Cascade trivializes shield/SCB tanks, hulltanks, pure shield walls and agile craft become more of a problem due to the long charge-up time and reduced damage, and b) even with the 40% thermal reduction, my Courier will overheat in short order (4A G1 Armored Powerplant nonetheless). Reverberating Cascade on Torpedoes and Mines exacerbates the issue of giving up one or even two of my three hardpoints to deal specifically with shield tanks and can be effectively neutered by Point Defense or ECM.
And that's strictly from a PVE perspective.
That said, the Courier is a wonderful ship to build off of. PLENTY of room to experiment with different module and weapon configurations, all while maintaining a very high boost speed. I even have a 3A SCB on board, which - with my 430 MJs of 2A Prismatic Shields + resistances - means that even on my small ship, the shields won't fall unless I decide to let them fall or turn them off. Or ram an NPC at 740 m/s.
I don't PvP because shields are way too strong. People use them as a crutch. It's boring as hell. You have two metas to choose from. Engineering ruined any chance at balance. Now we have god ships that keep us nice and safe and comfortable and when someone does finally shake our comfort off we get all huttburt.
Some people make it seem like they've been abused by PvPer's so much that they assume anyone with an opinion has a motive that fits snugly into their projections. I hate shields because they're wrong. They're way too strong for what they should be. Feedback cascade is a pill for the symptom, not even an attempt at a cure. I would like to PvP but it holds no interest for me in it's current form. Ting-ting-ting-ting...ting-ting-ting...ting-ting-ting-ting...what else is on...
I liked the suggestion of only being able to fire with shields down.
I love PvP, but I get where Cashback is coming from. If you don’t bring Feedback Cascade, the fight takes forever and the target wakes out anyway. If you do bring Feedback Cascade, they wake when their shields are about to drop anyway. Several times I’ve seen targets wake as soon as their first bank is cancelled.
Woo. What fun. If folks want to claim the PvP Illuminati is just out to nerf big ships then sign me up. I’ll even learn the secret handshake!
It's no small secret that I do not care about the state of PvP in Elite - it could be eliminated and it wouldn't impact how I play. But... I do understand that PvP is some peoples' only reason to log in, though no matter how much more important they feel they are than the overwhelming majority of the player base, balance is the most important and over-riding consideration.
SCB's don't only benefit PvP players - PvE players benefit from them as well. Bounty hunters and mercenaries DO enjoy seeing their shields come back up, erasing all the damage done by those they're firing on, as much as the PvP target employing these does.
Perhaps the ONLY fix needed for SCB's is simply limiting these, like Shield Generators, to 1 per ship. Done.
That gives you 3 or 4 recharges per restock. We can't synth more SCB charges, which means shorter battles for the PvP folks, adopting and adapting tactics, and of course, being a better combatant than a mere button-masher triggering shield cell after shield cell and dropping a heat sink.
That's my fix - simply limited the number of SCB's any and everyone can equip, and the non-existent problem pretty much solves itself.
That's how all fights go with a Big Three ship; they wake. There's no mystery, there's no balance. Balance would be if sometime they stayed and fought till the end, but it doesn't go that way other than maybe a Quinceconda or something. But if you see a vette or a Cutter, that ship is waking out. Period. It's not fun, or interesting, or well thought out. It's just stupid. I'd be embarrassed to be a pilot of one of these ships publicly clinging to my ridiculous shields.
That's how all fights go with a Big Three ship; they wake. There's no mystery, there's no balance. Balance would be if sometime they stayed and fought till the end, but it doesn't go that way other than maybe a Quinceconda or something. But if you see a vette or a Cutter, that ship is waking out. Period. It's not fun, or interesting, or well thought out. It's just stupid. I'd be embarrassed to be a pilot of one of these ships publicly clinging to my ridiculous shields.
Thats not strictly true, I was shooting at a cutter today, he was reversing shooting lasers from 5km away, i was firing cannons. I got bored after I emptied 20 cannon rounds into him and barely tickled a single ring of shields. I realised he was running reinforced prismatic god shields so I turned around and carried on flying around the rocks to go after a naughty FDL that was also shooting me.
He got bored eventually - but I got bored first and left him to his pro reversing skills.
That's how all fights go with a Big Three ship; they wake. There's no mystery, there's no balance. Balance would be if sometime they stayed and fought till the end, but it doesn't go that way other than maybe a Quinceconda or something. But if you see a vette or a Cutter, that ship is waking out. Period. It's not fun, or interesting, or well thought out. It's just stupid. I'd be embarrassed to be a pilot of one of these ships publicly clinging to my ridiculous shields.
Once had a Cutter go to the mat so we could secure a kill on another wing commander’s Corvette. Extraordinary tense fight.
Another time watched a Cuttter take on six Commanders plus cop support. He survived like 20 full minutes. By the end we were all screaming ‘WITNESS!’ and laughing hysterically as he went up.
Point is, there’s awesome fun to be had in big ships and it’s got nothing to do with snuggling your shields and praying to Braben.
Oh there is a concerted effort going on here by the OP, who has posted on three different Things so far, to hobble the big ships. OP claims to be a non-PvP'er, and obviously does their research before posting.
But there is definitely a theme going on with the OP's posts, and it's all down to the big ships. Nerf their flight model, nerf their shields, and now it's nerf SCB's.
Just waiting for the next episode in this exciting series.
Former long-time PVE Combat Cutter pilot here, chiming in with support for the OP. For a very long time I ran my Cutter with 5000 MJ's worth of armor and an 8C Bi-Weave shield with 4 Heavy Duty Boosters, totaling ~2 GJs of raw shield strength. No SCBs.
They never fell.
I then fitted an 8A Prismatic Shield, which brought my total raw shielding to ~3.2 GJs.
They never fell.
I then said "Screw Shields!" and then built a Silent Running 7-Hammer of Doom Cutter (still uploading plz wait -- interesting fight with an Elite Dropship with Dumbfires starts at 24:47):
Didn't asplode, but the weapons/my bad aim need refinement. DARN NACELLES!
---
The point is that right now HP inflation is a problem in both PVE and PVP - shields or otherwise, and it's not just the large ships that have this problem (looking at you, Fer-De-Lance ... and my Courier too while we're at it). SCBs and their rock-paper-Spock counter Feedback Cascade are a part of that puzzle and, if solved, can bring an interesting dynamic angle to fights that would otherwise be a slogfest/DPS Facetankfest/Rock-Paper-Spock contest...fest.
Former long-time PVE Combat Cutter pilot here, chiming in with support for the OP. For a very long time I ran my Cutter with 5000 MJ's worth of armor and an 8C Bi-Weave shield with 4 Heavy Duty Boosters, totaling ~2 GJs of raw shield strength. No SCBs.
They never fell.
I then fitted an 8A Prismatic Shield, which brought my total raw shielding to ~3.2 GJs.
They never fell.
I then said "Screw Shields!" and then built a Silent Running 7-Hammer of Doom Cutter (still uploading plz wait -- interesting fight with an Elite Dropship with Dumbfires starts at 24:47):
Didn't asplode, but the weapons/my bad aim need refinement. DARN NACELLES!
---
The point is that right now HP inflation is a problem in both PVE and PVP - shields or otherwise, and it's not just the large ships that have this problem (looking at you, Fer-De-Lance ... and my Courier too while we're at it). SCBs and their rock-paper-Spock counter Feedback Cascade are a part of that puzzle and, if solved, can bring an interesting dynamic angle to fights that would otherwise be a slogfest/DPS Facetankfest/Rock-Paper-Spock contest...fest.
That's how all fights go with a Big Three ship; they wake. There's no mystery, there's no balance. Balance would be if sometime they stayed and fought till the end, but it doesn't go that way other than maybe a Quinceconda or something. But if you see a vette or a Cutter, that ship is waking out. Period. It's not fun, or interesting, or well thought out. It's just stupid. I'd be embarrassed to be a pilot of one of these ships publicly clinging to my ridiculous shields.
I get there is imbalance and perhaps I am somewhat biased here because I currently fit the category of newly acquired cutter. I might have felt less threatened had I not already A rated it and left meself with a sum total of just 4 full rebuys...my cross to bear but I will bear it if the worst happens and rest assured I wont shotgun it all over the forum...not my style
The single only reason I have an scb is because I play in open...I very rarely need it fer pve so thats not why Im holding onto it so badly. But its newly acquired and I still aint unlocked half the engineers so if Im jumped...and its becoming a sadly regular occurance lately...then I need an scb cos otherwise Im facing a 25m rebuy. Or should I spend the next two years in solo gitting gud?
I dont think its even a great mechanic but atm, its the only one available...by all means take them away and replace them with something else. But if balance is an issue then bear in mind that by removing an existing and accepted mechanic, ye reset the entire process back to square one.
And then theres the little complication of the engineers themselves...the disparity between fully engineered fer pvp ships and semi engineered ships fer pve...or not engineered at all in many cases...thats a guess based on common sense before someone calls it out. Its well known the uptake on engineers wasnt as high as the devs hoped...their own words so its a fairly good guess perhaps? Whatever. I agree that perhaps removing the mechanic would possibly benefit all...but from my point of view it would benefit pvp players the most and most likely force me into solo if I wanna play with my new toy ^
I'm in two minds on this. I suppose the question really is what are you trying to achieve? The primary objection to the existing SCB mechanic seems to be that they "make combat less fun", largely going on to elaborate that the extended time it takes to take down a SCB-equipped ship is too long. I can see the attraction of that viewpoint for fast-paced decisive combat, and if we consider small ships taking on other small ships I can see that we would definitely want those encounters to be fast and highly dynamic. Wouldn't you expect an encounter between large ships to be much more of a drawn out slugging match though? And as for taking on a larger ship with a small one, then if we're being sensible wouldn't the smaller ship pilot expect to have to keep the larger ship under fire for a while, and at the same time consistently use their greater agility to avoid being taken under effective fire by the larger vessel which naturally "only has to be lucky once"
If the aim is to bring ALL ED combat into the same "feeling" and "tactical space" as small-ship-vs-small-ship then I must register a vote against. The differences in maneuverability between smaller and larger ships is currently too great for that to ever balance. If we are keeping the handling and flight characteristics of the larger ships as different from those of the smaller ones as they currently are then they've got to fight accordingly, as a coastal patrol boat and a medium sized frigate. And that means you WON'T have remotely similar engagements between the two types.
i find it odd the way that when people moan about engineering, material collection, planetary navigation, naval rank, running missions, mission types, earning credits, travel or a whole variety of other things, there's always a queue of people lining up with the same tired old bit of advice: "If you don't like it, don't do it" and yet when it comes to combat people seem happy to prattle on about desired changes for weeks at a time.
Perhaps, rather than demanding FDev waste even more time "rebalancing" combat for the gazillionth time, maybe people should just take that same advice?
Sorry for going off topic here... but why not make shield boosters have a fixed MJ shield boost value instead of a percentage-based boost, and give them the same power requirements as Wake Scanner, Manifest Scanner and Kill Warrant Scanner.
Armour would need a rework, like having the toughness of your armour protect the internals instead of relying on MRP - say adding hardness to HRP's and extend the range of HRP's and remove MRP's from the game completely.
Class - Grade - Mass - Hull Reinforcement - Hardness Gain - Price
--------------------------------------
5 - A - 20 - 500 - 10 - 1,861,980
5 - B - 32 - 600 - 8 - 744,795
5 - C - 20 - 415 - 6 - 297,915
5 - D - 8 - 290 - 4 - 119,160
5 - E - 20 - 345 - 2 - 47,670
--------------------------------------
4 - A - 10 - 330 - 8 - 664,995
4 - B - 16 - 400 - 6.4 - 265,995
4 - C - 10 - 275 - 4.8 - 106,395
4 - D - 4 - 190 - 3.2 - 42,555
4 - E - 10 - 230 - 1.6 - 17,025
--------------------------------------
3 - A - 5 - 220 - 6 - 237,495
3 - B - 8 - 265 - 4.8 - 94,995
3 - C - 5 - 185 - 3.6 - 37,995
3 - D - 2 - 130 - 2.4 - 15,195
3 - E - 5 - 155 - 1.2 - 6,075
--------------------------------------
2 - A - 2.5 - 145 - 4 - 84,825
2 - B - 4 - 175 - 3.2 - 33,930
2 - C - 2.5 - 120 - 2.4 - 13,575
2 - D - 1 - 85 - 1.6 - 5,430
2 - E - 2.5 - 100 - 0.8 - 2,175
--------------------------------------
1 - A - 1.3 - 95 - 2 - 30,300
1 - B - 2 - 115 - 1.6 - 12,120
1 - C - 1.3 - 80 - 1.2 - 4,845
1 - D - 0.5 - 55 - 0.8 - 1,935
1 - E - 1.3 - 65 - 0.4 - 780
--------------------------------------
I'll just end by adding this unfinished idea/suggestion I had about armour.
aPD - average Penetration Depth (new value) (need data)
aBC - average Breach Chance (new value)
minBC - Minimum Breach Chance value
maxBC - Maximum Breach Chance value
sHN - ship Hardness
PDm - realtime Penetration Depth value in meters
BC% - realtime Breach Chance value in percentage
AP - Armor Piercing value
mTN - module Thickness value (new value)
If a weapon breaches the hull of a ship the damage to the hull is
offset by the real-time Breach Chance percentage,
so if the real-time Breach Chance percentage is 25% the hull
receives 75% of the damage and any module hit receives 25% of
the damage.
All weapons have the ability to pass through a ship if it has
a high enough penetration depth except for reactive weapons like
lasers, explosives and plasma.
All modules has a new value called thickness,
the thickness value is fixed per class module.
Class 1 = 10
Class 2 = 20
Class 3 = 30
Class 4 = 40
Class 5 = 50
Class 6 = 60
Class 7 = 70
Class 8 = 80
This new value determines if a weapon has the ability to pierce through
a module and potentially hit another module or exit the ship if it has
a high enough penetration depth (PDm),
the way this is determined is if the weapons armour piercing value (AP)
is higher than the module thickness value (mTN) value it can go through.
Apologies Frenotx for going off topic, I was ready to scrap that HRP and armour idea as I was never going to get them done, concentration and writing are not my strong points.
Look guys, the point of this thread was not to discuss the merit of my particular idea. The thread for that would be the one I made in the suggestions forum. The point of this thread is to try and come up with interesting alternative implementations for SCBs to make them more interesting to use and fight against, and resolve the knife's-edge balance connundrum they are currently in. I don't really want them nerfed, either- I don't think the amount of health they add to the fight is necessarily excessive. In fact, when faced with their counter, they're honestly TOO WEAK.
This is what I want people to think about:
How can we change SCBs such that
1) There an effective module that's a compelling choice when you're equipping your ship
2) Not obvious to "un-fun" to deal with from the other side
3) Have counter-play options (and ways to defend against said counterplay) that involve gameplay and player input, not just special effects and rock-paper-scissors build selection.
4) Are not overly game-changing when no counter is present
5) Are not useless when a counter is present
One thing to note: I understand that super pen, and to a lesser degree missile, are currently very hard to deal with once your shields are down. THAT IS ANOTHER PROBLEM THAT NEEDS ADRESSING. That topic is beyond the scope of this thread. For the sake of discussion, please just assume that those particular problems are dealt with, or even better, come up with some clever solutions for those problems and put them in the suggestions forum! I'm not a fan of, "You can fix X! Y is broken too!" mindset, as all that does is make nothing get fixed.
Let's try to direct the discussion back to this particular topic, instead of just... whatever you'd call this.
That said, a lot of discussion has happened in this thread since I turned in last night. Since I have a hard time not responding to stuff, here we go:
But didn't you recently take out a Cutter in a Viper, while taking fire from other ships and pretty much succeed?
Someone else bullied a Corvette owner (admittedly they didn't seem to know what they were doing as much as you Pro-Pilots but still) in a Sidewinder just recently...
Personally I don't think small ships should have an easier time against larger ships than that, it's comparable to a Humvee taking on a tank. Excellent piloting has been proven to be able to take on lesser skilled pilots in larger and tankier ships. So you're looking for insta-kill? Group ganking would be made even easier.
16 seconds is enough to annihilate modules, even with 3 MRPs (need some HRPs), even annihilate hull. There would be zero point in SCBs if they could only be used as a bandage instead of a preventative.
For what it's worth, I PVE only, I prefer Medium ships and don't prioritise use of SCBs. I own a Cutter, a Corvette, and I've used SCBs of course, hell I have one on my Chiefy as a pure backup incase things get hairy.
I'm just airing my opinion on how this will affect everyone, from my perspective.
If bigger ships with bigger shields are the issue, (this is something I was thinking about recently, hearing all the polava everywhere) then simply make the boosts they receive from Boosters and SCBs diminish the higher the size, small ships still have protection they need, bigger ships aren't as OP.
However, it's already been shown how little these mean to experienced pilots with the right tools, so.
I just get the impression that things like this are because PVPers want quicker and easier kills, are fed up of their prey running or taking too long to kill etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean, you can't synthesise SCB ammo, so they're gonna run out sooner or later, if they've got more then they've opted for Shield Tanking instead and will be pretty much royally fluffed when their Shield drops.
What about some extra ability of a KWS to display how much Countermeasures your opponent has, like Chaff/HS and SBC ammo and sizes? That way it's not a guessing game for a viable Hunter, and you can plan your tactics and strategy accordingly.
Yes, I took out a cutter in a viper iv. That was, however, a poorly flown NPC cutter with very a non-optimized shield (and hull) setup. I was firing on them almost continuously for around 4 minutes. About 1 minute 20 seconds of that was after their shield failed, and this part was somewhat shortened by them losing 12% of their hull to my phasing sequence cytoscrambler while their shield was still up. The fact that they lost 12% of their hull to the phasing sequence from a single small weapon should be telling about how non-optimized their hull build was. Their first SCB came into play about 30 seconds into the fight, by which point they had been reduced to 1 ring of shielding. 30 seconds for 2/3s of their shield. THAT should be telling regarding how non-optimized their shield build was. That means about 2 minutes of the fight was them just hanging on to that last little bit of shield via SCB spam.
I don't mind the fight being that long. If anything, that's a little on the short side for a small ship vs. a big ship. What I DO mind is how much of that fight was just shooting at a seemingly endless "last little bit" of their shield. I would have MUCH preferred if that fight instead involved their shield failing about 45 seconds in (since it took 30 seconds for the first 2/3), followed by 16 seconds or so of fighting the hull, followed by their shields actually coming back UP (via the proposed SCB rapid rebuild), then more shield fighting, followed by more hull fighting, etc. Basically, instead of the fight being organized like, "kill shield -> kill hull", it would be, "kill shield -> damage hull -> take shield down again -> damage hull some more -> repeat until dead". The fight length wouldn't necessarily be shorter, but you would feel like you're making progress throughout.
That would simplifiy things a lot, but I doubt that would ever happen. It would also potentially cut out some interesting build descisions. Instead, I suggested moving all defensive modules to dedicated slots (kind of like how military slots work, but enforced). This allows traders, miners, and other PvP players to mount a similar defense to that of the dreaded PvP ganker / dualist. You'd still have build choices to make (how to balance your defenses), but you'd no longer have to give up tools to "actually play the game" just to try and have a comperable amount of raw defensive strength to someone built exclusivly to kill players. The suggestion can be found here, and below in the spoiler:
Currently, defensive modules compete for space with a variety of other things. Shield cell banks and hull / module reinforcement packages compete with all other optional internals, and shield boosters compete with anti-missile systems, heatsinks, and the various scanners. On paper, this seems like a good design direction; reinforcing your ship comes at the cost of flexibility. In practice though, I believe it's actually hurting the game.
The Solution:
Military slots were a step in the right direction, but didn't quite go far enough. I propose the following:
Bulkheads (the core armour module) now have "module bays", similar to how the SRV bay works.
You can only fit hull and module reinforcement packages in these slots.
This is THE ONLY PLACE you can fit hull and module reinforcement packages.
The size and number of slots available will vary, depending on how durable FDev wants a given ship to be.
Shield generators now have "module bays", similar to how the SRV bay works.
Shield boosters and shield cell banks can be fit in these slots
Size and class of generator decides how many slots it will have, and what class they are
You can only fit a module of the matching class in a given slot, similar to how sensors work
Larger class shield boosters provide the same boost percentages of smaller ones, but draw more power
The idea is to keep the relative cost of a shield booster consistent as you go up in ship sizes.
The lore justification would be that it takes more power to boost a larger shield.
Why this is good:
FDev can now more tightly control the durability of a ship as a point of balance.
The base stats of a ship are now relevant again, instead of only the thing mattering being its internal and utility slot count
A player encountering a given ship will have a pretty decent idea of how tough that ship can be. With the current system, it's really anyone's guess.
Players are still faced with several decisions when building their ship's defenses: "What ratio of hull-to-module protection do I want? Do I want large shields (boosters), or would I rather have the ability to rapidly replenish them more (shield cell banks)
Players no longer have to choose between engaging with the various in-game activities, OR fitting their ship with enough defense to handle a PvP fit attacker.
Cargo ships can mount a respectable defense, AND haul a lot of cargo. This allows pirating to be a more interesting activity for all parties.
Since defenses are more even across the various professions, this allows organic player-on-player interaction to flourish and for people to play in open more comfortably.
Gankers will have a much-smaller raw durability advantage when attacking unwilling victims.
Players looking to engage in PvP (bounty hunters patrolling a CG, for instance) wont have to "lock themselves out" of all other activities (by using all their internals for defense) just to keep up with the defense of the baddies.
Specializing in combat can be more about utility and endurance, instead of just raw defense. This keeps the single-fight performance difference lower, and thus the fights more fair.
The Problem I'm trying to solve:
Defensive modules competing for space with everything else stifles the possibility of "organic player-on-player interactions", drives people out of open, and makes balancing PvE combat extremely tricky.
The impact that defensive modules have on the survivability of a ship is immense. Especially when you get engineering involved, a ship with several structural reinforcement packages, shield cell banks, and shield boosters will have potentially several hundred percent the total effective health of a ship that just has upgraded bulkheads, and a shield generator. What this leads to is the following: a ship that's built specifically and exclusively just to kill another ship is WILDLY more health than one that's built to perform a variety of activities in-game. What this means is that a player that's specifically geared their ship for PvP has an enormous advantage over someone who's ship has been built to engage with the rest of the game's content. A pilot of a PvE ship, even one geared for the various PvE combat activities in the game, will need to potentially do several times as much damage as their attacker to have a chance at victory. If someone has a ship designed for non-combat-focused PvE activities, the difference becomes even more immense. A fight is completely out of the question, and even just escape is dubious.
A cargo ship can choose between being able to haul a respectable amount of cargo (doing the thing they actually want to do), or have an even remotely respectable amount of defense. The obvious choice is to fit cargo racks, then simply avoid risk by hauling in solo / pg.
A fight that is an appropriate difficulty for a general-purpose fit combat ship (with several internals dedicated to things like a fuel scoop, SRV (for scanning planetary installations), small cargo rack (for cargo mission rewards), limpet controller (for collecting materials), etc.) can be made trivial if the player instead just stack defenses.
Balancing a given ship becomes difficult, since things like optional internal slots and utility slots can be converted directly into raw survivability instead of just utility. The FDL is a great example of this: a lot of its strength comes from its 6 utility mounts. Those were presumably added to give the ship the ability to fit all the bounty-hunting frills like KWS, anti-missile systems, and heatsink launchers (in keeping with its luxury bounty hunter lore). In practice however, many of those slots just get used for shield boosters leaving the ship extremely durable.
A small general-purpose ship like the Diamondback Explorer stuffed with hull reinforcement packages can have almost as much armour as an Anaconda with military bulkheads. The range of possible durability for a given ship is immense, and potentially eliminates a lot of the character of a ship.
I must disagree here. Nerf boosters, yes, but SCBs? The current implementation is fine as is. The ultra long fights last because of G5 DDs with 145% multiplier, generating as much acceleration to make it mathmatically impossible to hit with considerable force from beyond 500m - 1000m.
That said, we rely on either hitscan weaponary (that have much less DPS overall) or on long range blueprints (that have less DPS compared to OC or other bluepritns as well).
The origin of the ultra long TTKs does not come from the SCBs but from the insane agility plus hitpoint inflation in regards to base strangth (both, hull and shields).
HD stacked FDLs or Cutters tanking between 3k and 11.6k MJs is beyond any ammo capacity, even with high cap or OC. SCBs only contribute to a minor fraction of these eHPs. They are mos teffective in high resistances builds as each MJ you restore is multiplied by SYS pips and resistances, multiplaying the eHPs from SCBs by around 4.
That said, Bi-Weaves with their utterly fast charge rate also contribute to hitpoint inflation. They technically generate ~ 6 - 7 MJs/s which you have to multiply by 4 again (SYS pips, resistances) and you end up with a broken regeneration rate of ~ 25 - 30 MJ/s (eHPs) ... which is about the raw DPS of a C3F beamlaser.
With that in mind, I would stay away from SCBs (especially for large ships) and take a look on HD stacking (both, hull and boosters), resistances (resistance boosters and HD HRPs) and FCR (to make it less OP against big ships ... change the FCR so it deals raw SCB MJ damage ... like 120 MJ/shot. This would reward hittign small targets but is less effective against big ones ... big ships could sustain more shots but are easier to hit anyways.).
Change the HD and resistance bluepritn so they don't give resistances across the board but one or two resistance types (like bulkheads) at the cost of the other resistance type and total hull/shield strength.
For example:
"Reinforced Shield Booster": +12% kinetic r. +16% explosive r. -8% thermal r. -20% shield boost multiplier (from 20% to 16%).
"Thermal Resistant Shield Booster: -8% kinetic r. -12% explosive r. +32% thermal r. -20% shield boost multiplier.
"Overcharged Shield Booster": +50% shield boost multiplier -10% thermal r. -6% kinetic r. -4% explosive r.
"Reactive hull reinforcement": +22% kinetic r. +28% explosive r. -34% thermal r. -20% hull reinforcement.
"Military hull reinforcement": +50% hull reinforcement -8% kinetic r. -4% thermal r. -12% explosive r.
etc.
This way we would have significant choices to make instead of just having a hand full of "go-to" blueprints as they have basically no downside.
If this owuld take place, we would see builds again that are actual hybrid and have strengths and weaknesses instead of overall protection against everything. For example a kinetic resistant shield loadout with a thermal resistant hull loadout underneath make it still an all-round build, but the playstyle will need to be adapted for each opponent and their damage type loadout. Especially challenging in wing fights as you'd have to adapt to whatever is currently shooting at you.
Weak thermal shields? All pips to weapons and engage if under laser fire. Or just facetank against multicannon builds as your shields are suited better against it. Shields down? let them recharge vs your laser opponent and avoid fire from these multicannons now.
However, as it stands now we all have ~ 50% shield and ~ 40% hull resistances which is why PAs are the meta now and rails are used for their special effect to bypass SCBs and hulltanks by killing the cells and later the moduels as they have far less hitpoints and can't be protected by anything except. TLBs help it a little but doesn't protect you from skilled blind snipers that just snipe your modules without targetting. With TLBs being basically the only defense to super pens, PAs move even more into the focus.
Conclusion: SCBs are fine as they are now. The real problem is too even resistances and HD stacking for both, shields and hulls. Removign the "across the board" blueprints and adding loadout choices to be needed would created weaknesses for each ship and allow for appropiate counterplay without the outcome of "rock-paper-scissors" as we have seen in 2.1++ as you'd still be able to protect your ship all-round but not at a single defense type (shield, hull, hitbox, agility, etc.). You'd be forced to adapt and use certain defense types/strategies instead of just soaking up ALL kinds of damage with a single all-round defense strategy/system.
My intent is not to nerf SCBs. I am also not necessarily aiming to make fights shorter with this change. The amount of MJ SCBs can add to your total health would be unaffected by my suggestion. The idea is to basically reorganize that added health so its woven between moments of shields-down combat, instead of all just front-loaded onto the shield at the start. If anything, this could actually increase the efficacy of SCBs a bit, since you would have to destroy the SCB to stop its charge from happening, and a player can protect their SCB via MRPs, AFMUs, and angling their ship. If your opponent keeps doggedly focusing and destroying your SCB as you repair it, then well, they're not shooting at your other modules, and your natural regen is still rebuilding your shield the whole time anyway. If they're overwhelming your MRPs with superpen (which honestly needs its own balancing pass, as it's kinda ridiculous), then angle your ship so as to give them a clean shot at your SCB. The shot will JUST hit the SCB, thus its damage wont get multiplied, thus your MRPs wont get overwhelmed.
The only group of players that has any problem with any of this are PVPers. Everyone else is totally fine with the shield systems just the way they are.
Considering my main activity is PvE, I'd have to disagree with you assessment that "Everyone else is totally fine with the shield systems just the way they are." If you just automatically assume that anyone that expresses an interest in improving combat balance, gameplay, and challenge is a PvP player, then yeah, it will appear that only PvP players care about that stuff.
The current implementation is good and if you are in a slow ship then use long range weapons and for your feedback cascade rails. Try adapting rather than complaining about something good. Your proposal would defeat the purpose of having feedback cascade at all by the way it would be redundant, if the shields are down then superpentrator is all you need. And people would go staight for the generator itself.
If you're in a slow ship, your opponent can outrange you. If you have long range modded weapons, your opponent can just fly that extra 3km. That doesn't really change anything. More importantly, if you're in a slow ship you can't outrange THEIR weapons, making your SCBs somewhat useless if your opponent is packing feedback cascade. If you're in a big ship, there's not really anything you can do to stop someone from hitting you with feedback rails. This makes SCBs functionally weaker on big ships than small ships. If superpenetrator is too strong vs. unshielded ships (which I'd argue it is), then it needs balance work- that's no reason to not make changes to other mechanics too. As an aside, if you angle your ship such that the superpenetrator has a clean shot at your SCB, then the benefit of superpenetrator would be made moot. They'd only be hitting that one module, thus the damage wouldn't be getting multiplied, thus your MRPs would be able to protect it.
I think you're right on the quick kills thing for the people always suggestibg way to make shields weaker, they just want quick instant gratification kills with no stratedgy or skill required.
I included this in the multiquote because reading it instantly rustled my jimmies, but now that I get to it, I honestly don't know what to say. This is just so incredibly far from what I want for the game that I don't know where to start. For lack of any other words coming to me, I'll just reiterate what I said earlier in this post: the point of this is not to nerf SCBs, or to reduce the total amount of health the provide in a fight. The point is to reorganize that health such that the fight is composed of many periods of shields up and shields down fighting, instead of just being "fight huge boring wall of shield all at once, then fight hull" (or in the case of PvP, "fight huge boring wall of shield, then watch the opponent leave when the interesting part of the fight is about to start")
No. I am not wanting to necessarily be able to kill things quicker- just make the flow of combat more interesting. Also, this applies to ships of ALL sizes.
This gave me a good chuckle and I was thinking the same thing after watching the OP kill a deadly ranked Cutter in a wing with his Viper IV and the recent Sidey/Corvette video.
I almost hate to say this, but with the recent requests to nerf reverse thrusting and now SCBs, it seems some commanders want an "I win" button against big ships.
I also noticed the OP conspicuously ignored your observations.
I ignored the observation because it was not a carefully considered one. See the part of the post at the top for my specific addressing of it. In a nutshell, the cutter was flown poorly, had a poor shield build, and had a poor hull build. The fact that it was even numerically possible for me to kill the ship in that amount of time (without module sniping) using only 2 mediums and 2 smalls (one of which was a burst laser turret) is a testament to this. That's like pointing to a video of someone killing a minimum-shield trade fit AFK cutter with a sidewinder and saying, "See? The cutter's shield and armour are pathetic."
I do not want an "I win" button against big ships. If I wanted that, I probably wouldn't fly little ships with little guns. I also probably wouldn't be saving all my money to finish my T10 build.
Oh there is a concerted effort going on here by the OP, who has posted on three different Things so far, to hobble the big ships. OP claims to be a non-PvP'er, and obviously does their research before posting.
But there is definitely a theme going on with the OP's posts, and it's all down to the big ships. Nerf their flight model, nerf their shields, and now it's nerf SCB's.
Just waiting for the next episode in this exciting series.
Guess you're just going to ignore how my idea would actually make SCBs more functional on big ships, when faced with feedback cascade. Guess you're also going to ignore how I've been campaigning for better turrets literally for years. Guess you're going to ignore my suggestion to move defenses to dedicated slots, so that FDev can actually have more control over how much health ALL ships have. Guess it's also irrelevant that I supported the hull hardness changes in that one beta that made big ships VASTLY more durable vs. small weapons. Guess you're going to ignore that suggestion to make it possible to more quickly repair weapons, thus making it harder for a small ship with missiles to cripple a big ship without having to deal with all its health. Guess you'll ignore me asking for FDev to make the T10 better, back before 3.0. Guess you're going to ignore me asking for armour prices to get looked at, which largely affects big ships the most (crazy expensive armour, thus rebuys). Guess you're going to continue insinuating that I'm secretly a PvP player out to get everyone, with language like, "OP claims to be a non-PvP'er". If you have no interest in discussing game design, mechanics, and balance, and your only objective in responding to any of my threads is to attack my character, then I kindly ask that you just don't bother. Just add me to your ignore list, and go on about your merry way.
The issue here isn't shield cell banks or shield boosters, it's engineers. Sure, there is still a bit of an issue without engineers, but engineers has made the issue a million times worse.
Now lets throw an OC powerplant on the cutter and see where that takes us. Just putting a g5 overcharge mod on the powerplant and not moding anything else, we are able to fill all of the cutter's optional internals with shield cell banks. Granted we run out of power when we do this, but still. This gives us an average strength of 18,915 MJ. So already we have doubled the effectiveness of our shields. But we're not done, now we get to mod the shield boosters. Removing all SCBs, and just modding the shield generator and boosters, we can get an average strength of 11,445 MJ, with a third of out power output spare for weapons. Engineering allows us to increase our shield strength to ABOVE what a stock build that devoted all it's energy to shields could achieve, AND still have plenty of power for weapons.
Lets go even further. Lets put plasma accelerators on all our hard-points, but mod them efficient because we want to save energy for shields. A more realistic build would use something other than plasma accelerators, but since they are the most energy intensive weapon we can guarantee anything that replaces them will be more efficient. Lets also do the standard DD5 and long range fsd upgrades. Now lets invest our remaining power into shields. We are going for a pvp build, so we want rapid charge recycling cell to minimize the effectiveness of feedback rails. This actually decreases the amount of shield charge we get from each bank, but we have plenty of power to spare. The result, a whopping 25,439 MJ of shields, or nearly 3 times what our dedicated shield tank stock build could get.
The issue is engineers negating the factors that were supposed to balance out SB and SCB, mainly their power usage, and also making the boosters about 8 times as effective as they used to be when you get 8 of them and engineer the resistances optimally.
You won't be able to fix this as long as engineers are a thing unless you basically remove SB and SCBs.
Back when AI where to hard debate was going strong these guys were all about git gud and know when run. Now that commanders know when to run they are whining that they can't kill them fast enough. ? Op is a big ship headhunter and wants his bloody kill.
Back when AI where to hard debate was going strong these guys were all about git gud and know when run. Now that commanders know when to run they are whining that they can't kill them fast enough. ? Op is a big ship headhunter and wants his bloody kill.
