Pips, shields and engeneers

[bladebss]

Ok so i was having a dull moment at work and was thinking how it would be nice to be able to put pips into hull, as often dipsite having 2 or 3k hull it seems to melt so much faster than shields.
My asp explorer made for combat has 390shields and 2300 hull

In battle the hull melts about as fast as the shields. But if i had 2300 shields on my asp i would be almoste invincable.


Why i thought... PIPS that why.

(EDDIT: FOR CLARITY.. I AM NOT SUGGESTING HULL PIPS this was just a story on how i got to the idea of altering how pips to sys worked.)

For ages i have been trying to work out how to get shields under controll with out nerfing them directly as aparently thats never going to happen. The answer could be pips.

If we could change the way pips effects shields i dont think that the 8k and above shields in the game would be so much of a big deal and would bring more paraty to hull tanking.
No ones precious modules need be touched.

I have many theories and ideas but i dot have time as im at work and just spat this out on my brake.. i will return.

Please feel free to add you own sugestions and ideas on this..

 

[Frenotx]

I have long felt that 4pips to SYS has far too much impact on survivability. I'd love if the bonus were reduced, or even better, moved to affect shield regeneration instead. 4 pips to SYS could significantly increases the shield-MJ-per-SYS-MJ conversion rate, making you get more shield back in gaps between getting fired on (or when rebuilding the shield), while not impacting the raw strength of the shield while getting shot at. Shields would fail quicker, but also come back quicker. Hooray more dynamic combat!

 

[NotHere]

I like being able to shore up shield resistances with PIPs. Gives it that cool Star Trek "divert power to shields" kind of feel. I just wish the effect was linear instead of exponential. (If the data from this thread is still accurate.) As it stands, if you're not putting 2 and a half or more PIPs to SYS, you might as well not be putting any. It's very counter-intuitive.

Edit: Nevermind, just stumbled upon some more recent numbers. Nothing to see here!

 

[Muetdhiver]

I have long felt that 4pips to SYS has far too much impact on survivability. I'd love if the bonus were reduced, or even better, moved to affect shield regeneration instead. 4 pips to SYS could significantly increases the shield-MJ-per-SYS-MJ conversion rate, making you get more shield back in gaps between getting fired on (or when rebuilding the shield), while not impacting the raw strength of the shield while getting shot at. Shields would fail quicker, but also come back quicker. Hooray more dynamic combat!

That in fact, would be very good.

Imagine if 4 pips to engine gave +150% speed, or +150% damage with 4 pips to weapons... XD

 

[Frenotx]

I like being able to shore up shield resistances with PIPs. Gives it that cool Star Trek "divert power to shields" kind of feel. I just wish the effect was linear instead of exponential. (If the data from this thread is still accurate.) As it stands, if you're not putting 2 and a half or more PIPs to SYS, you might as well not be putting any. It's very counter-intuitive.

Thematically I like it to. From a gameplay perspective though, I don't think it's a good fit for the game anymore. It was fine back when shields were smaller and had no other ways to be improved beyond s bigger shield generator. A shield going from surviving 20 seconds of continuous fire to 50 seconds is fairly reasonable. 2.5x a small number is still a fairly small number. Now days though, between SCBs and engineered shield boosters, the shield health values can get so high that getting through them at 0 SYS pips is already a monumental task. Multiplying that by 2.5 puts it into outright silly levels. If it somehow only gave you the extra resistance for a few seconds it could be cool "BRACE FOR IMPACT", but since it applies continuously to the now massive shield we can get "KEEP BRACING FOR IMPACT FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR", it just doesn't fit anymore.

 

[bladebss]

Ok im back. I love frenotx idea of shield regen. I have been after this for shields since 2.0 same with cell banks.

But i did also have an idea that the cap lvl could dictate protection value. So if you take a hit to the shields it drains the cap directly untill empty.. as it drains the shields absorb less damage alowing aome to bleed thrugh to the hull. So it would be a case of juggleing the cap charge lvl like with weps. When completely drained 30% of the damage bleeds thrugh.

I mean just reducing the effect to half what it is now would help, right now its so important to have 4 pips to systems during moste of a fight it realy cuts down on large wep cap drain wepons. It why every one loves efficient mods so much, amd why multis were such a strong meta untill plasma got that sweet buff and now its all people use as the shields resistances are also so imbalanced... or rather so balanced.

 

[NotHere]

If it somehow only gave you the extra resistance for a few seconds it could be cool "BRACE FOR IMPACT", but since it applies continuously to the now massive shield we can get "KEEP BRACING FOR IMPACT FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR", it just doesn't fit anymore.

True enough. I've noticed that I do significantly less fiddling with PIPs now than I did in the past with smaller ships and before engineering. Anymore with my Corvette I just set 4 PIPs to weapons and 2 to engines at the start of a fight and never touch them again what with all the resistance mods and SCBs I've got. (I'm PvE only of course.) I remember messing up my positioning in my Eagle on several occasions where frantically pushing all those PIPs over to SYS was the only thing that saved my bacon. Good times

But i did also have an idea that the cap lvl could dictate protection value. So if you take a hit to the shields it drains the cap directly untill empty.. as it drains the shields absorb less damage alowing aome to bleed thrugh to the hull. So it would be a case of juggleing the cap charge lvl like with weps. When completely drained 30% of the damage bleeds thrugh.

I like it. Would make shield tanks have to consider adding some H/MRPs instead of going pure SCBs as I have.

It why every one loves efficient mods so much, amd why multis were such a strong meta untill plasma got that sweet buff and now its all people use as the shields resistances are also so imbalanced... or rather so balanced.

I think I must be the only person on the forums who hates multi-cannons with a passion. We're in such a lovely futuristic sci-fi setting, and you hand me a machine gun? I want the ray guns

 

[Truesilver]

Galloping galaxies ... guys when it comes to hp we need to be going down, not up.

4 pips to hull? Effectively, multiply hull hp by 2.5? Please, have mercy. A bi-weave hybrid medium could literally take over an hour to kill.

EDIT: Hang on, perhaps I'm losing my mind. You mean, leave hull as it is and nerf all hell out of shields? Oh, in that case, sorry, sorry, carry on, please...

 

[XW_Ziggy]

250% multiplier on shields for SYS pips is just bonkers; The same four pips in your ENG capacitor changes your top speed by no more than 75%, and a boost on zero pips is the same as a boost on four pips.

I'd rather see FDev remove the shield multiplier at the same time as they remove the mechanic that halts shield regeneration after taking damage too - making the difference between bi-weave and prismatic more pronounced - where bi-weave becomes the choice for endurance combat and prismatic becomes the choice for hit-and-run. Ignoring regen rates in combat just means that the choice of bi-weave/standard/prismatic isn't really important for combat, only for reducing the downtime between fights - and as of 2.4 we have R&R which does this better (and faster) anyway. It's about time these differences were revisited and looking at SYS pip shield scaling would definitely be part of that.

 

[Sylow]

I have long felt that 4pips to SYS has far too much impact on survivability. I'd love if the bonus were reduced, or even better, moved to affect shield regeneration instead. 4 pips to SYS could significantly increases the shield-MJ-per-SYS-MJ conversion rate, making you get more shield back in gaps between getting fired on (or when rebuilding the shield), while not impacting the raw strength of the shield while getting shot at. Shields would fail quicker, but also come back quicker. Hooray more dynamic combat!

.
I'd fully support that.
.
I mean, it comes at one price: the present system (at least in theory) rewards quickly moving power to shields at the right time. In practice many people fly with permanently four pips to shields and configure their ships accordingly. So thanks to charge enhanced distributors and adequate weapon selection, this factor is smaller than it formerly was.
.
Thus i think the advantages of this change would outweight the costs and i'd be for it.
.

 

[bladebss]

My main worry in nerfing SYS pips is that it will effect all ships and some realy dont need a nerf, passive or otherwise.

I mean, in a small fighter you usualy have to fly down the throat of a large ship before you can stick to its rear for as long as possable. Ot if you are under attack from 2 or more ships. The ''block'' effect from SYS pips is a life saver in that instance, but when you can just slap on the ''block'' and stay there even whalst firing all your guns at once. It kinda ruins things.

I dont know if it would be ok regardless of this. I mean the big 3s weakness is manuverability so the idea is to dodge and wittlr them down.. but the fdl is both mega shielded and manuverable so would be at a stronger advantage than now in the new ''nerfed pips'' paradigm.

 

[Truesilver]

I mean the big 3s weakness is manuverability so the idea is to dodge and wittlr them down.. but the fdl is both mega shielded and manuverable so would be at a stronger advantage than now in the new ''nerfed pips'' paradigm.

Yes. Every proposal that affects shielded defence needs to be accompanied by a counter-buff proposal for the Big 3. Otherwise they are just dead.

 

[[VR] Zakk]

No offense, OP, but "pips to hull" would not make any sense at all. The pips determine how the power that your PP generates is distributed to the components that use power. Shield generators do, hull doesn't.

I don't have any issues with the current approach. Yes, thrust boost speed is the same with 0 and 4 pips to ENG. But with 0 pips, you can only boost once or twice, and that's it. With 4 pips, you can boost all the time, which can be a life saver.

I usually enter fights with SYS 2 / ENG 0 / WEP 4. If the fight turns against me, I switch to 4 SYS / 2 ENG / 0 WEP if my shields are still up, or 2 SYS / 4 ENG / 0 WEP when they are down already and I need to get the hell outta there.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Thematically I like it to. From a gameplay perspective though, I don't think it's a good fit for the game anymore. It was fine back when shields were smaller and had no other ways to be improved beyond s bigger shield generator.

Yes. In CQC, shield strengths are still generally low, and there it works - you can go 4-2-0 or 4-0-2 for survivability, but if you stay there for very long you end up being a sitting duck with no boost, no weapons, no speed, and a shield that won't last that much longer. But if you don't go 4-x-x when under fire, you're probably dead.

So it gives a good competition between options, the feeling that you never have enough pips, and while never putting 4 to SYS makes you dead ... always putting 4 to SYS doesn't delay it that long either. And that's with CQC still maintaining the original SYS curve where anything short of 4 might as well be zero.

In the main game the same applies on the smaller ships, but it's just a way to take shield strength from invincible to ultra-invincible on the big (or engineered) ones. Additionally in the main game, fleeing to hyperspace is an option, so there's no need to take pips out of SYS to try other survival strategies.

I'm not sure what it could be replaced with, though - it needs to be something compelling enough that people don't just go 0-2-4/0-4-2 all the time with all the advantages that brings.

 

[Truesilver]

Currently 4 pips to Sys reduces damage, after all prior reductions, by dividing it by a further 2.5

I would be happy for Frontier to trial 1.5

In other words, under the current system 100 damage becomes 40. Under the above it would become 67

Naturally lower Sys pip benefits to scale in linear fashion, as now.

(I would repeat, however, that the big ships would need some form of compensation.)

 

[RamirezKurita]

I have long felt that 4pips to SYS has far too much impact on survivability. I'd love if the bonus were reduced, or even better, moved to affect shield regeneration instead. 4 pips to SYS could significantly increases the shield-MJ-per-SYS-MJ conversion rate, making you get more shield back in gaps between getting fired on (or when rebuilding the shield), while not impacting the raw strength of the shield while getting shot at. Shields would fail quicker, but also come back quicker. Hooray more dynamic combat!

Alternatively, all passive bonuses could be removed from pips and instead all benefits shifted into the capacitors themselves, coupled with engine capacitors being drained during normal maneuvers. So shield generation goes faster the more charge is left in SYS, but also drains said SYS capacitor more (as the efficiency would be the same). The same principle could be applied to the other two, where full engine capacity gives a massive boost to engine performance but at the cost of draining capacitors quickly while running near-empty would reduce performance. Weapons, similarly, wouldn't just shut down at 0% WEAP distributor and be completely fine until then, but would instead see a steady decrease in RoF as the capacitors run down (beam lasers would simply see a DPS drop instead, with proportionally lowered PD draw and thermal load) before eventually reaching such a low fire rate that they effectively can't drain themselves.

This would turn pip switching into a foresight and planning tool rather than twitch reflexes and macros for optimisation, as players would want to charge their important capacitor in advance of a fancy maneuver. Twitch reaction FPS players would likely be against this, but as any strategy player will tell you - it's much harder to predict and prepare for things in advance than it is to react to them. Sure, it takes reactions to immediately switch to 4 pips to weapons when an enemy is in a vulnerable spot, but it takes much more skill to know that an enemy will be in a vulnerable spot in 5 seconds time and it is time to get that WEAP capacitor charged posthaste.

This could also make high capacity PD mods actually useful, as combat could become much more bursty rather than a battle of attrition. This would particularly be the case if the increased performance from charge were to be related to the absolute charge in the capacitor and not simply the percentage (although likely not linearly scaling, as that would likely be dumb because of how easy it is to get high numbers). The extra balance lever of ENG draw for thrusters might also give other thruster mods a day in the limelight, as I'd imagine that dirty drives wouldn't be ENG efficient.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I have long felt that 4pips to SYS has far too much impact on survivability. I'd love if the bonus were reduced, or even better, moved to affect shield regeneration instead. 4 pips to SYS could significantly increases the shield-MJ-per-SYS-MJ conversion rate, making you get more shield back in gaps between getting fired on (or when rebuilding the shield), while not impacting the raw strength of the shield while getting shot at. Shields would fail quicker, but also come back quicker. Hooray more dynamic combat!

Great suggestion!

 

[Pauciloquent]

I have long felt that 4pips to SYS has far too much impact on survivability. I'd love if the bonus were reduced, or even better, moved to affect shield regeneration instead. 4 pips to SYS could significantly increases the shield-MJ-per-SYS-MJ conversion rate, making you get more shield back in gaps between getting fired on (or when rebuilding the shield), while not impacting the raw strength of the shield while getting shot at. Shields would fail quicker, but also come back quicker. Hooray more dynamic combat!

I really like the idea to remove (pips to SYS = shield reinforcement) and replace it with (pips to SYS = increased shield regen rate/broken regen rate), I'm trying to do the math on how much regen increase we could expect per pip... and with that in mind I have a question, is the shield generator distributor draw of 0.6MW per 1MJ of regen? I think it is but I'm not sure.

 

[Frenotx]

I really like the idea to remove (pips to SYS = shield reinforcement) and replace it with (pips to SYS = increased shield regen rate/broken regen rate), I'm trying to do the math on how much regen increase we could expect per pip... and with that in mind I have a question, is the shield generator distributor draw of 0.6MW per 1MJ of regen? I think it is but I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure it's a 1-to-1 ratio still, by default. That's why I used MJ in the first place, way back when I did that first shield research thread.

Edit: And yet, looking at my T10's class 8 biweave, the distributor draw is listed as .6 MW. Interesting indeed. I suppose it may be different with biweaves, and or changes there may have happened when FDev did that big shield regen buff / rework.

 

[Pauciloquent]

I'm pretty sure it's a 1-to-1 ratio still, by default. That's why I used MJ in the first place, way back when I did that first shield research thread.

Edit: And yet, looking at my T10's class 8 biweave, the distributor draw is listed as .6 MW. Interesting indeed. I suppose may be different with biweaves, and changes there may have happened when FDev did that big shield regen buff / rework.

All Shield Generators has a distributor draw of 0.6MW and a thermal load of 1.2, that's why think its per MJ... probably best to find a way to test it in game to be sure.