Engineers Prismatic vs Bi-Weave - cold hard numbers

pato

pato
I dont know if anyone did the math, but I did for myself to check if it´s really worth to get a prismatic with its higher energy consumption over a Bi-Weave.
Well, i think we dont need to talk about what shield is best at what, lets just let some cold hard numbers speak:

Lets use the following Situation:

You have a Conda, and outfit it with max shield boosters, all resistance agumented.
We calculate with MAX possible rolls without secondaries, because it is very easy to get stats above the max, even with extra % on shields.
The only secondary i included was shield regen for bi-weave and % max shield for prismatic

1. Bi-Weave

Shd 1274.0 (3767.8Ki/4069.2Th/4883.1Ex)
regen 4.8/sec (+9,1% secondary Bonus)

2. Prismatic

Shd 1965.6 (5813.2Ki/6278.2Th/7533.9Ex) (+8% extra shield strenght)
regen 1.1/sec

lets compare with thermal damage
With prismatics you have about 54% more effective health then with a Bi-Weave.
Now lets go to a HAZ RES with cargo in your hold to attract pirates and set both shields under constant pressure

We all know, either Bi-Weave or Prismatic survive several minutes of constant fire, lets see how effective both shields are over time:

1. Bi-Weave

SHD = 1274, effective 319%
regen of 4.8+319% = 20.11 ~ 20 MJ per second

After 1 minute of constant fire, your shield recharges 1200 effective HP

2. Prismatic

SHD = 1965, effective 319%
regen of 1.1+319% = 3.509 ~ 3,5 MJ per second

After 1 minute of constant fire, your shield recharges 210 effective HP


This means, our Anaconda with Bi-Weave produces arround 5269 effective HP against thermal in the first 60 seconds of a fight, while with prismatics it produces 6488, so in a 1 Minute battle the winner is prismatic.

If the battle lasts 2 minutes its 6469 HP (Bi-Weave) vs 6698 HP (Prismatic), after the third its allready clear: 7669 HP (Bi-Weave) vs 6908 HP (Prismatic),

We can see, the Bi-Weave has the same efficency as a prismatic after 2 minutes of a fight.
With current shield meta it is nearly impossible to strip those shields so fast, which leads me to the conclusion that Bi-Weave shields are far superior to prismatics in any case. It is better to safe the energy and go for a heat efficent power plant or other, better modules
 

ErichZann

ErichZann
From the patch notes: "Regeneration rates when shields are active but have not recently taken damage are increased. It is now the maximum between what is was before (a fixed value for all sizes) and 25% of their broken regen (40% for biweave)."

So I dont think your calculation is working when you are constantly taking damage.
 

pato

pato
no, it doesnt, this just increases the superiority of bi-weaves further, because out of a fight they get another 40% increase to regen.
 
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pato

pato
not exactly, you have a regen rate when shield is up, and a higher regen rate if shield is down (broken regen rate)

out of a fight you have your normal regen rate + 25(40)% from your broken regen rate ON TOP to your normal regen rate.
In this specific case you would have (bi-Weave) 4,8 MJ/sec + 11*0.4=4.4 = 9.2 regen (which is almost double of your normal, 38,5 MJ per second, or 2310 MJ per Minute)
 
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ErichZann

ErichZann
Ok, I just read up on it. As I understand, it is either your normal regen rate, or (for bi-weaves), 40% of your broken rate.

"It is now the maximum between what is was before (a fixed value for all sizes) and 25% of their broken regen (40% for biweave)"

Pretty sure thats what they mean with "the maximum" between. Either, or. So that will probably more help for smaller shields, for a size 7 it seems it would stay at 4.4. But the regen while under fire is more important when talking about an Anaconda I guess.
 

pato

pato
yeah, but if your class 7 bi-weave is not engineered, it provides 4.4 regen, which means, out of combat you have double the shield regen per second.
Didnt do the math for other shields yet, but on this example we can see, that a Bi-Weave is the better choice
 

mia389

M
Are you saying I need to sell my 7A for a 7C biweave? I play mostly PVE and have 4 boosters with level 5 Resistance Augmented and a 7A with level 5 Thermal resistant. I worked all weekend on the engineers and finally had enough cash for the 7A.
 

ErichZann

ErichZann
For PvE, just to mention that, for PvP there are some more aspects to consider, like focus, also your shield setup is vulnerable againt kinetic and PAs. But I agree this would work very nicely in a RES, CZ or similar.
 

pato

pato
Yeah, dump it for a Bi-Weave, save the money on the module, save the energy for better weapons, or more boosters or better heat efficency.
You should go for G5 thermal resistant and shield regeneration as secondary.

My Bi-Weave 8x Booster Anaconda can facetank 4 NPC Anacondas without using shield cells.
In fact i dont use shield cells anymore
 

Kyokushin

Kyokushin
If you re receiving damages then your regen rate is 0.
If you are not receiving damage then you have your 'shields up' regen rate what is mentioned in outfit.
When you have shield down, then you have you regen rate for down shields.

i do not exactly remember what was the time of starting regen, it was something around 2-4 seconds, so if you do not received hit (you are out of combat) in 2-4 seconds (please correct the value if someone remember) then your shield is starting to regen with slow speed. If you got a damage, then regen is 0.
So if you want to use bi-wave advantage of regen rate, then you should avoid hitting.
 
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pato

pato
For PVP ist basically the same.
As i said, i made the meta without secondarys on the boosters, so you could Balance your resistances accordingly.

Lets say your Opponent is a vette with 2 x G5 OC PAs each shot does 181.54 damage on a max roll.

Lets use above resistances

181.54 - 40% = 108,6 absolute dmg = 455,03 effective dmg
40.77 thermal dmg = 12.78 effective dmg
40.77 kinetic dmg = 12.78 effective dmg

2 shots of a vette would do 961,18 dmg (this is if you use 0 pips!)
Your shield would suck up the damage within 48 seconds

If you have 4 pips in Sys you lose only 422.91 HP which is recharged in 21 seconds!

Your Opponent Needs a good aim to do enough damage, which is impossible in a high velocity FA off flight
 

Kyokushin

Kyokushin
You need to assume a almost every PvPer have an auto-aim installed in brain. Shooting an imperial fighter from rail, using plasmas or cannons are not big deal for us.

One single hit is enough to stop recharging of shield for few seconds. FA off or whatever will not help in that matter. It will increase overall hardness in aiming, but will not stop hitting.
 
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pato

pato
i dont know how you come to this conclusion, but shields do indeed recharge under fire.

I´m pretty sure you will not hit me with your PAs, we can try that if you want
 
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pato

pato
you can very easy check this by letting a friend fire at you, while you have 0 pips to sys. your capacitor will be drained while he is firing, which means your shield recharges while he fires
 

ErichZann

ErichZann
Well for PvP it will not work that way really.. For example against kinetics, my Corvette has over 11000 effective HP using only 6 boosters, this would not be achievable with these resistance setups. So your setup is vulnerable against kinetic attacks, and its not always just one ship attacking you.

Then these calculations are for an Anaconda with 8 resistance boosters, with a smaller, more agile ship that can evade kinetics better, you cant achieve those resistances easily. If you have a wing shooting you, these shields could go down before you get any noteworthy regen also. So I think incoming fire from multiple ships would be the biggest problem, since you simply loose your recharge then, but also one big ship will outpace your regen.

And I think what Kyokushin said is actually true, but will try to find more on this: I think your shields dont recharge at all when you took fire recently. This kind of unclear sentence in the patch notes means that the regen is increased when you dont take fire (and they mean increased compared to a previous patch), while it is zero if you have recently taken fire.
 

Kyokushin

Kyokushin
pato said:
you can very easy check this by letting a friend fire at you, while you have 0 pips to sys. your capacitor will be drained while he is firing, which means your shield recharges while he fires
Click to expand...

They may drain some power from capacitor but their MJ strength may not increase (somehow), because it can be scripted.

I am thinking how we can test it to be sure.
 
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pato

pato
maybe i should have added that this is mostly for PVE.

Well, last time i was grinding mats in a nav beacon and was wanted, i ended up tanking 8 Police ships (including 2 Anacondas) It works great. I didnt really test this in PVP
 

ErichZann

ErichZann
Not saying its not working in general in PvP, but I would be especially afraid in a big ship that cant evade multiple ships, and that is also often focused by multiple ships. Will let you know if I know more about the recharge under fire thing...
 
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