recharge time for big shields - is it too long?

[Quineloe]

While bounty farming for the last CG, my Python (6A shield, 3 A-rated boosters) had the shields down to this point:

So I always wondered, how slowly DO shields actually recharge? So started recharging. I also wanted to know, how fast is the power drained from the SYS doing this, and how many pips I needed to keep it charging.
The answer was simple. 1 full pip was enough to keep the SYS bar fully charged. 1 half pip very, very slowly drained the SYS.

It took this much on half a pip to drain the SYS to 1 bar

I refilled the whole thing again and started over. Finally, we reached the point where even half a pip did not drain the shields anymore - 100% reached

Now, everyone take a guess how long this took.

Spoiler

10 minutes, 30 seconds. Also means the capcitator on 1/2 pip lasted for more than 3 minutes.

The last time I've seen this type of downtime was 15 years ago when playing EverQuest. I honestly don't think shields should recharge this slowly. Another observation I made was that it takes 3:20 to rebuild the collapsed shield. That puts it right at 50%. It also drains more power from the SYS, needs more than a full PIP to stay full. The other 50% then take 5:15? It would make more sense when your shield almost failed and you ended the fight to turn off your shield and turn it on again. Feels a lot like MS windows.

Why does a collapsed shield restore faster to 50% than a non-collapsed shield? In my opinion, shields should drain what's in the SYS capacitator and the recharge rate from there on out depends on how many pips you put into it. It should not drain around 15% of the full capacity of the shield. That's a massive bottleneck on shield recharge.

Ironically, shield cells used to be good for keeping your shield up out of combat, but since the ammo reduction on shield cell banks, you don't carry enough of those anymore.

 

[Kandarus]

In the immortal words of Johnny Rico: "C'mon you apes, you wanna live forever?".

 

[Aimeryan]

Yup. Check out this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=137188

Shields regenerate at 1 MW, so for a shield that has 600 MJ of strength it takes 600 seconds, or 10 minutes (MW = MJ/s). Try recharging a shield from empty on an Anaconda with max shield boosters; that takes a while.

 

[uncle bulgaria]

I've noticed on my Vulture the shield recharge from collapsed takes an eternity. One tip is if you're using shield boosters in the utility slots turn them off to speed up the initial recharge then turn them back one as you're almost full.

When my shields go down I run, or if in a CZ or RES, I retire to a safe distance. With a CZ or RES it's usually quicker to just SC away and come back and re-set the instance and your shields but I'd (and most people) consider that exploiting in PvP and I hope FD eliminate that trick.

 

[Yabba Addict]

Try doing the test WITHOUT shield boosters. It's well known that boosters mean more recharge time, so what's the point of this?

 

[Philip Foster]

Good advice. I didn't know that trick. +1 rep for your trouble sir.

 

[Loskene]

Shield boosters increase the maximum capacity, and your recharge time when they collapse is determined by that total capacity. Switch off shield boosters when your shields fail and they'll recharge at your shield generator's base rate. When they go back up, switch your boosters back on and burn a shield cell or wait ages for them to finish filling up.

 

[Eloy]

That´s what powermanagement is for. I don´t really see the point. With half pip or one pip one pretty much sets the system´s priority low and so a long recharging time is what I´d expect.
4 pips recharges shields in no time, so one´s got the whole bandwith of priorities depending on the ongoing situation.
In fight I am constantly switching priorities depending on what I need most ... shields cos I am shot at, weapons cos I am in charge, engines when I want to flee or catch soimeone fleeing.

 

[Philip Foster]

Try doing the test WITHOUT shield boosters. It's well known that boosters mean more recharge time, so what's the point of this?

Yabba. Why can't you just let people post for the sake posting without criticising them for it? You really don't have to read it you know.

 

[Quineloe]

That´s what powermanagement is for. I don´t really see the point. With half pip or one pip one pretty much sets the system´s priority low and so a long recharging time is what I´d expect.
4 pips recharges shields in no time, so one´s got the whole bandwith of priorities depending on the ongoing situation.
In fight I am constantly switching priorities depending on what I need most ... shields cos I am shot at, weapons cos I am in charge, engines when I want to flee or catch soimeone fleeing.

This is a galactic myth, as proven time and time again. Shields recharge at a fixed rate, as long as there is power in the capacitor. It doesn't matter whether it's 4 or 1/2. Just like weapons don't deal more damage when you have 4 pips in them. I only used half a pip so I would actually see the changes of the SYS bar.

Try doing the test WITHOUT shield boosters. It's well known that boosters mean more recharge time, so what's the point of this?

It would take around 6:30 without boosters, still too long in my opinion.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

That´s what powermanagement is for. I don´t really see the point. With half pip or one pip one pretty much sets the system´s priority low and so a long recharging time is what I´d expect.
4 pips recharges shields in no time, so one´s got the whole bandwith of priorities depending on the ongoing situation.
In fight I am constantly switching priorities depending on what I need most ... shields cos I am shot at, weapons cos I am in charge, engines when I want to flee or catch soimeone fleeing.

The point is that shield recharge rate is independent of SYS pips...

...until such time as SYS is drained. At that point, recharge will stall due to the empty SYS capacitor.


1 pip to SYS, 4 pips to SYS... as long as there is energy in the capacitor, it doesn't make any difference to recharge rate.


[edit] Hiiiiyaaaaa! Ninja'd

 

[jgm]

I struggle to believe that this is by design and suspect that the recharge rate is a property of the shield generator but has not been set up properly in their metadata. I bugged it a while back but haven't had any response to date.

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Try doing the test WITHOUT shield boosters. It's well known that boosters mean more recharge time, so what's the point of this?

Makes no difference to recharge rate, which is the real issue.

 

[Troa Barton]

IMHO yes shields take too long to come back online or recharge.
But with everyone stacking 500 shield cell banks it would be a bad thing to change right now.
limit the amount of SCBs, make armor useful, and make shield charge persistent in SC. After that then shield recharge rate would need to be scaled or able to be augmented via distributor, powerplant, modules, ect.

 

[Eloy]

Huh? I learned something again, thanks !
But it is proven that 4 pips on shields makes them a lot stronger than no pips? I think I just don´t understand the thing.

 

[Aimeryan]

That isn't to say SYS is useless - pips in SYS make your shields resist damage; the more pips the more resist. Check out this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=138536

4 pips in SYS means the shields last 2.38 times as long as they would on 0 to 1 pips (resist only starts at 1.5 pips).

 

[Quineloe]

IMHO yes shields take too long to come back online or recharge.
But with everyone stacking 500 shield cell banks it would be a bad thing to change right now.
limit the amount of SCBs, make armor useful, and make shield charge persistent in SC. After that then shield recharge rate would need to be scaled or able to be augmented via distributor, powerplant, modules, ect.

SCBs work in combat, shield recharging does not. That is basically the big difference that makes these two incomparable. Can you explain how it would be bad if a strong shield recharged fully in just 2 minutes of not being involved in combat?

 

[soma]

One more thing comes to mind: this also means shield recharge rate is more or less independent of the installed Power Coupling, right? As long as there is SOME power left in the SYS capacitor, my shields will always recharge with 1MJ/s , no matter if I have an E or an A rated power coupling fitted.

I think this could do with some improvement. Especially since they are gonna fix the supercruise shield recharge exploit soon..

 

[xondk]

Too slow? no, a large system should recharge at the rate the power it has and is given from distributor allows, not any faster, shields are not meant to be up constantly.

 

[Troa Barton]

I struggle to believe that this is by design and suspect that the recharge rate is a property of the shield generator but has not been set up properly in their metadata. I bugged it a while back but haven't had any response to date.

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Makes no difference to recharge rate, which is the real issue.

youre right and wrong on this one.
You are correct that currently the shield recharge rate is static it is the same for every shield and cannot be changed.
however
shield boosters augment your total capacity making the time they take to recharge effectively longer. Also when your shields go completely down they will come back online at a percentage of 33%. Turning off your boosters lowers the total capacity of your shields making that 33% come sooner bringing them back online faster than they would have had you left them turned on.

 

[Eloy]

SCBs work in combat, shield recharging does not. That is basically the big difference that makes these two incomparable. Can you explain how it would be bad if a strong shield recharged fully in just 2 minutes of not being involved in combat?

I think he means dogfights could last forever with shields recharging "too fast"...