Multiple Shield Cell Banks

[Baggy MacDouche]

This is a minor gripe. Since I'm going full bounty hunting for awhile in my Cobra, I decided to swap out one of my 16t cargo holds with another shield cell bank for a max of 10 cells. Before I got the second bank, I had been using a keybind instead of assigning it to a firegroup. My gripe is, when using the keybind to use a shield cell, it will use two cells, one from each bank at the same time. Not good. The only way around this that I can see is to put them in separate firegroups, or one firegroup as primary/secondary, which would require having to switch firegroups in the heat of battle. Okay, so not a HUGE deal, which is again why I say minor gripe. I just think that if it is FDs intention that multiple banks can be loaded(they don't disallow it), then it should be smart enough to only deploy one at a time when using a keybind, regardless of which bank it comes from, until they are both depleted. Make sense?

While we're sort of on the subject of keybinds, they really need to add one for electronic countermeasures, like they do for chaff launchers. No brainer.

 

[Hethwill_Khan]

Makes sense to have them separate fire buttons.

As the system is built BOTH will drain energy from your power plant AND generate heat.

So you either want to command one or the other, or use the shortcut button and dumb the system that thinks you want to use the "shield bank" and he does it correctly, although you have two.

You have a solution ( which has been working for myself ) which is a dedicated fire group just for shield banks, one A:3 and one B:2, depending on enemies piled against myself.

 

[SilkSmith]

just a thought,but turn the power off for one of them,pressing the button should use only one,then when depleted switch power back on to the other one.

 

[dioogio]

just a thought,but turn the power off for one of them,pressing the button should use only one,then when depleted switch power back on to the other one.

Sounds like a good idea. I wonder if a voice attack command could be made to "switch shield cells" ?
ie turn one off and the other on.
(I just got voice attack and am a bit overwhelmed with what it can do)

 

[Ydiss]

just a thought,but turn the power off for one of them,pressing the button should use only one,then when depleted switch power back on to the other one.

This is fine unless in the heat of a battle. I have always used fire groups and am used to it. However, I agree that this is unintended and should only fire one shield cell when you use the hotkey. It's been like this since beta.

 

[dioogio]

This is fine unless in the heat of a battle. I have always used fire groups and am used to it. However, I agree that this is unintended and should only fire one shield cell when you use the hotkey. It's been like this since beta.

If using voice attack, I think you can set up key binds as well. Even in the heat of battle switching cell banks shouldn't be a problem if you keep an eye on available charges and switch on using the last one rather than when you realise you need it and have none left.
I do agree that it would be ideal if the standard key bind used cells from one bank only until that bank is empty and then switch. But that may not change. So any fix is welcome.

 

[Doolittle]

Or make it additive and only enough is drawn from the combined shield cell banks to recharge instead of depleting them all.

 

[Veldryn]

Since it works fine with Chaff (You only fire one at a time with the shortcut key), it should work the same way for Shield Cells. In both cases, it makes little sense to use two at the same time anyway.

Shouldn't be too hard to fix. Until then, the two possible workarounds have been explained earlier, so, not much to add.

 

[Aleksej]

Turn one of them off in the modules, when you run out of ammo for the first one, switch the second one on.

 

[Baggy MacDouche]

Some good suggestions. For now, I think I'll just stick with a separate firegroup.

Or make it additive and only enough is drawn from the combined shield cell banks to recharge instead of depleting them all.

I think of it as having more than one cargo hold module installed. They show up as separate modules in the module tab, but combine to give you one total cargo hold. Maybe multiple shield cells should show up as a combined total as well.

I'm not knocking FD for not having it setup this way. There's much bigger fish to fry, but hopefully it is something they can put on the "list"?

 

[SpacialKatana]

I use fire group method, allows ma smokin' guns to cool down a bit yo