Pips to shields...,.

Pips to shields has no effect on recharge times. I keep reading people's posts where they put all pips to shields, in reality as long as your capacitor is registering just one bar the shields charge at the same fixed rate. You cannot accelerate recharge time or for that matter charge times with pips.
 
Pips to shields has no effect on recharge times. I keep reading people's posts where they put all pips to shields, in reality as long as your capacitor is registering just one bar the shields charge at the same fixed rate. You cannot accelerate recharge time or for that matter charge times with pips.

Really? is that a feeling or did you actually test it? If true then thanks for telling us, I will keep my pips to engines now if my shields go down.
 
Really? is that a feeling or did you actually test it? If true then thanks for telling us, I will keep my pips to engines now if my shields go down.

I have tested it myself and I have seen it confirmed by dev's also. Once your shields go down pips to sys are useless. Easy way to test, drop out of supercruise somewhere random where you are safe. Have 4 pips to sys. Go into modules on your right hand panel and switch off shields, then switch back on and time how long it takes to recharge. Now do the same with 1 pip in sys. It’s the exact same time.
A hint though, if you have shield boosters and your shields go down, go into modules and switch them off. Your shield will recharge and be back online quicker, then you can switch them back on and if you have a SCB charge use it then.
 
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Really? is that a feeling or did you actually test it? If true then thanks for telling us, I will keep my pips to engines now if my shields go down.

You need 0.5~1 pip to allow energy into the sys capacitor.
If 0 pips, shields won't recharge once the cap is empty.
 
I have tested it myself and I have seen it confirmed by dev's also. Once your shields go down pips to sys are useless. Easy way to test, drop out of supercruise somewhere random where you are safe. Have 4 pips to sys. Go into modules on your right hand panel and switch off shields, then switch back on and time how long it takes to recharge. Now do the same with 1 pip in sys. It’s the exact same time.
A hint though, if you have shield boosters and your shields go down, go into modules and switch them off. Your shield will recharge and be back online quicker, then you can switch them back on and if you have a SCB charge use it then.
This test may not work (depending on ship). For smaller ships (with smaller power distributor) like courier you have to use 3 pips to sys just to maintain some power in capacitor.
 
This test may not work (depending on ship). For smaller ships (with smaller power distributor) like courier you have to use 3 pips to sys just to maintain some power in capacitor.

Very true, if your distributor is weak compared to your shield size, you may need a minimum pips just to maintain charging, however this isn't a question of recharge speed as much as if recharging is happening or not.
 
Think of the capacitor as a barrel with a hole in the bottom, a small hole. The barrel gets filled by the number of pips and the capacity of the barrel is the class and grade of distributor you have. Now, perversely, all barrels regardless of how big they are, have the same size hole in the bottom! You can pip in as much water as you like but it can only run out the bottom at the same rate. This is why small shields get 'filled' or charged faster than large ones.
So really all you need is for that flow out the bottom to be there, the barrel need not be full or continuously being topped off by full pips. An inch in the bottom is as good as a full barrel. Pips are almost irrelevant.
 
I guess this is more a rule for larger shields as small ones can recharge fast with the power supplies by the distributor and so need pips to shields. But they are not charging faster with more pips if the capacitor has any bars filled.
 
as long as you have energy in the SYS capacitor then your shields will recharge, the rate does not change no matter what pip settings you use. The benefits of pips are to
a) strengthen the resistance a working shield
b) keep the capacitor topped up when shields are recharging.
So you can have 0 pips to SYS when your shields are down and they will recharge but if the capacitor reaches 0 then recharge will stop and you will need to move pips back to SYS to carry on.
 
So cliff notes?

4 pips to sys while shields are on = stronger shields.
4 pips to sys while shields shut down = you're wasting energy allocation
 
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