Question about Shield Generators (Also side note)

OK so in my viper I have a 500k shield gen and you'd expect it to have a good recharge rate? Wrong, it is incredibly slow. But then you see cobras with shield generators which recharge almost instantly? What sorcery is this!?! In all seriousness though, in the shop I did notice there were two different rankings of shield gen Does that mean one shield is weak but recharges very fast whilst the other class is very very sturdy but recharges at snail pace? On a side note, I have recently gotten a permit to the Beta Hydri system from the federation and it says I will get a communique or something. That just extra text for show or do I actually have to meet an npc in a uss in the system?
 
Shield recharge rate depends on your Power distributor, not shield itself. :) If power distributor can't feed enough power into your shield and have too small reservoir, the shield will come down easy and recharge like a snail, no matter how good it actually is.

And I don't know what exactly you need to know about "rankings". If you mean the letters and numbers - Letters basically mean quality. "A" is the best. The number is a class of the module. Ships have different maximum class they can equip. If you look at the module name in equipping screen you see two numbers on the right side of the field. Top one is the class of your current module and bottom is maximum class your ship can carry.
Higher classes are stronger (when comes to shields) but also heavier and more power hungry, so you usually have to compromise. (Basically, You can't just upgrade shields. They eat more power, so you need a better power plant, but it's heavier, so your jump range goes down so you have to upgrade the FSD and thrusters so your ship can move. Then the power distributor and of course weapons, which brings you to another powerplant upgrade and so it goes over and again... :D
 
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What's the difference between the different Shields? The only value that seems to change is power draw and optimal mass. What does optimal mass mean though? Do I only need to buy a shield that has the same mass number as your ship, and any better, bigger shield is wasted credits?
 
What's the difference between the different Shields? The only value that seems to change is power draw and optimal mass. What does optimal mass mean though? Do I only need to buy a shield that has the same mass number as your ship, and any better, bigger shield is wasted credits?

As far as I understand the better shields have more "hitpoints".

Basically, but it also depends on shield's "optimal mass". The same shield on heavier ship will be weaker, whereas on lighter ship (bigger difference between ship's mass and shield's optimal mass) it will be stronger. Imagine it like a baloon that has to stretch around bigger object.
 
However, "OPTIMAL mass" suggests that you should get a specific shield for your current mass range, not the shield with the highest optimal mass. So no reason to save up for a A or B shield if you already have your mass covered with a cheaper shield. I mean if shield cost = hitpoints, why doesn't it say so anywhere? Well guessing doesn't really help us, is there any dev statement on this?
 
For the fast shield recharge, those are shield cell banks. They are like shield cell banks and ridicilously useful for pretty much everything combat related. Can not be used when shields are down, though.
 
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