Quick question about "pips" to SYS

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Like the title says, quick question about allocating pips to SYS: if my shield is offline, will giving 4 "pips" to the SYS restore them any faster? In my own experience, it doesn't seem so, but maybe my observations are incorrect. I'm expecting they will based on the fact that if you give 4 pips to ENG, you can boost way faster than if you only give 1 pip.

Anyone knows?

 

[Mohrgan]

Pips to SYS effectively 'hardens' your shields, nothing more. As long as you have a full capacitor, all the bar graph filled, your shields will recharge. More pips will not ever make them return/refill faster. There is one shield recharge rate across all ships. The only difference in refill time between ships is the max shield 'pool' you need to fill. The bigger shields have a bigger pool to fill.

 

[Evil]

I think you need a single pip to SYS to get the shield to re-activate/charge, I've not noticed any large difference between 1 and 4 pips, but if you have shield boosters, turning these off will decrease the time required for the shield to come back online.

 

[h347h]

I think you need a single pip to SYS to get the shield to re-activate/charge, I've not noticed any large difference between 1 and 4 pips, but if you have shield boosters, turning these off will decrease the time required for the shield to come back online.

Yeah this is one of those things you learn as you go. System management can be a much bigger deal that it at first seems when you start. As well as properly tuning your priorities so can run 3 or so SCBs at once during a fight and then turn that one extra off afterwards with out a major power loss to 'combat' important systems. Losing life support for example once you have 15-25 miutes of it for a minute or two during a tough 3v1 pvp match can be a big deal.

 

[Kzak]

Shields recharge as long as the SYS bar has energy in it. Commonly, one should have at least half a pip in SYS to facilitate this. As is mentioned above, pips in SYS also harden your shields and lessen the damage they take from attacks. Four pips give up to 50% damage reduction (might be wrong, but a substantial increase nevertheless).

 

[Gray Lensman]

Yes, as said, don't think of the pips themselves charging the shield BUT they provide energy to run the shield charger mechanism.

 

[Monk]

Proper use of SYS will make you less dependent on SCBs by making your shields last longer. Once I start taking fire, I sacrafice ENG and WEP to boost my sheild. There is usually enough left in the other capacitors to get another boost in and unleash a good salvo of death.

Now, once the shields are down...I put all pips into ENG and WEP because it doesn't even start recharging until the cooldown has ended. Once it starts to recharge, I let it drain the capacitor and once that is empty I'll put one or two pips (depending on the ship/shields) to SYS as that is enough to maintain the standard charge rate.

More PIPs do not equal faster recharge (unless comparing an empty capacitor with no pips to an empty capacitor with one pip)

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Yeah this is one of those things you learn as you go. System management can be a much bigger deal that it at first seems when you start. As well as properly tuning your priorities so can run 3 or so SCBs at once during a fight and then turn that one extra off afterwards with out a major power loss to 'combat' important systems. Losing life support for example once you have 15-25 miutes of it for a minute or two during a tough 3v1 pvp match can be a big deal.

I agree that it's not very logical. If you put more pips in ENG or WEP, you can boost far quicker and shoot a lot more. Not sure why the same doesn't apply to shields, e.g. if you put 4 pips, they should recharge faster but from the replies I got, that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[Monk]

I agree that it's not very logical. If you put more pips in ENG or WEP, you can boost far quicker and shoot a lot more. Not sure why the same doesn't apply to shields, e.g. if you put 4 pips, they should recharge faster but from the replies I got, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, the logic comes in when you consider it is about capacitor availability.

All parts drain their respective capacitor equally. A boost knocks down your capacitor by the same amount each time. Firing your guns reduces the capacitor by the same amount each time. Shield recharge reduces your capacitor the same amount each time it needs juice.

The difference here is that Shields consume power at a continuous rate (when there is shield damage) while the others use power as needed. So the buff to putting pips in ENG and WEP is obvious as there is more power available for them to use as needed. Whereas pips in SYS need a different boost to stats...that comes in the form of stronger shields. I just think of it as there being a limit to the power capacity of the conduit connecting your capacitor to your shield generator.

While i would love for shields to charge faster with more PIPs I think it adds another layer of tactical consideration. Do you put big fat shields on so you can tank or do you put light shileds on so you can zoom in and out on your target while having shields that come back up quickly.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Well, the logic comes in when you consider it is about capacitor availability.

All parts drain their respective capacitor equally. A boost knocks down your capacitor by the same amount each time. Firing your guns reduces the capacitor by the same amount each time. Shield recharge reduces your capacitor the same amount each time it needs juice.

The difference here is that Shields consume power at a continuous rate (when there is shield damage) while the others use power as needed. So the buff to putting pips in ENG and WEP is obvious as there is more power available for them to use as needed. Whereas pips in SYS need a different boost to stats...that comes in the form of stronger shields. I just think of it as there being a limit to the power capacity of the conduit connecting your capacitor to your shield generator.

While i would love for shields to charge faster with more PIPs I think it adds another layer of tactical consideration. Do you put big fat shields on so you can tank or do you put light shileds on so you can zoom in and out on your target while having shields that come back up quickly.

That's a very good explanation, thank you.

 

[Elpapo]

SYS is for:

Things like chaff, EMC, heat stinks all uses energy from SYS. Just like shields recharge/regen... if there is any energy in SYS, they will work.

4 pips in SYS, makes shields much more stronger, and only that. No any diffrence in recharge speed at all, long as there is no empty bars in SYS.

Would be nicer, if 4 pips in SYS would also make Shields regen faster, by same way it makes them more stronger.

 

[robbyp]

In a light combat scenario, you can fight with 1-1-4 (S,E,W) distribution, or even 0-2-4. But in high CZ zones, I find a 2-0-4 or even 3-0-3 distribution needed to keep the shields as hard as possible so I don't need to use too many SCBs.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

SYS is for:

Things like chaff, EMC, heat stinks all uses energy from SYS. Just like shields recharge/regen... if there is any energy in SYS, they will work.

4 pips in SYS, makes shields much more stronger, and only that. No any diffrence in recharge speed at all, long as there is no empty bars in SYS.

Would be nicer, if 4 pips in SYS would also make Shields regen faster, by same way it makes them more stronger.

Are you saying that if I put 4 pips in SYS, my shields will be stronger and take longer to go offline?

 

[Monk]

Are you saying that if I put 4 pips in SYS, my shields will be stronger and take longer to go offline?

That is correct. A person who is using their power management correctly, will seem to have forever shields...as opposed to the folks who run around with 1 or 0 pips to sys and just rely on their SCBs. Both strategies work, I prefer the former in conjuction with shield boosters.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

That is correct. A person who is using their power management correctly, will seem to have forever shields...as opposed to the folks who run around with 1 or 0 pips to sys and just rely on their SCBs. Both strategies work, I prefer the former in conjuction with shield boosters.

Thank you, that's going to change a bit how I play. Until now, when getting in a fight, I give 4 pips to WEP (all laser-based) and usually 2 pips to SYS. If at some point, I feel that I need some engine boost, I'll give it one pip which result to 1 1/2 pip to SYS and 3 1/2 pips to WEP. If weapons are causing overheating, then I'll usually give it to SYS but sometimes, depending on the needs, I might give the extra to ENG. I'm going to try starting with 3 pips to SYS and 3 pips to WEP and will see from there.

Thanks again, CMDR Monk!

 

[Elpapo]

Are you saying that if I put 4 pips in SYS, my shields will be stronger and take longer to go offline?

Yep, 4 pips on Shields makes them stronger, dont remeber by how much % exactly... few Cmdr's did tests with shields, and it was something around 50% stronger.

 

[Frenotx]

Shields draw a constant 1 MW per second from the sys capacitor while recharging. I noticed this when working on that ancient shield research thread, and used it to measure the size of a given shield. One megawatt times one second is one megajoule, so that's the unit I assigned to shield capacity. While the specifics and formulas in that thread are now out of date, the unit remains accurate and ultimately caught on. What this means in regards to your question is that as long as your sys capacitor is not empty, your shield will recharge at the same 1 MJ per second. If your capacitor is completely depleted, then your shield will recharge at the rate that your sys capacitor refills (up to one MW per second, naturally).

Since more pips in sys linearly increases the rate the sys capacitor fills (with 4 pips giving you the sys recharge rate listed on your power distributor), assigning more pips to sys may increase your shield recharge rate if you have a small power distributor. For reference, the vulture uses a class 5 power distributor. The 5A PD has a listed sys recharge rate of 2.5 MW. 2 pips in sys would give you 1.25 MW of recharge, which is more than enough to cover the shield's recharging needs. Anything more than that will not be speeding it up at all.

Note that things behave a bit differently if you shield fails entirely. First, there is a 16 second delay. After that, the shield "charges" up internally to 50%. That's what's going on with the red boxes. Once that is done, the shield will come back online at 50%, and begin to charge normally. This is why switching any boosters off speeds the process up. By lowering your max shield value, you're also lowering your 50% value, thus decreasing the time and energy it takes to charge to 50%.

Yep, 4 pips on Shields makes them stronger, dont remeber by how much % exactly... few Cmdr's did tests with shields, and it was something around 50% stronger.

Having 4 pips in sys (vs. 0) effectively makes your shields about 2.5 times stronger, actually (they basically negate 60% of the damage done to them). It makes a huge difference.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Wow! Thanks for the very detailed explanation! +1 Rep!