recharge time for big shields - is it too long?

[Guidebot]

Yes shields take too long to recharge. I don't mind the downtime on lost shields, but it can take an age for a class 6/7 generator to give you fighting shields again, which is just very, very boring.

If you haven't been hit in the last 30 seconds, give the shields a regen boost. Please. Or something like that.

 

[jgm]

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.

Yes, but the point here is that the recharge rate is the same regardless of the class of distributor (and more importantly, shield generator).

 

[Surround]

So does it matter do I have 0,5 or 4 pips on SYS when I recharge my shields? I always thought they recharge faster with 4 pips

 

[Quineloe]

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

You are aware shields don't recharge after being hit for some time?

 

[jgm]

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.

It's 50%, and I was pretty clear in stating that the recharge *rate* stays the same regardless.

 

[Poseidal]

So does it matter do I have 0,5 or 4 pips on SYS when I recharge my shields? I always thought they recharge faster with 4 pips

Only factor is if you have energy in the capacitor.

4 pips is to stop you from losing as much shield if you get attacked and fills the capacitor quickly; it does not increase charge rate in and of itself.

 

[Quineloe]

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.

So why does rebuilding the shield drain more power from the capacitor than recharging the intact shield?

 

[puca]

4 pips recharges shields in no time

This community would be much better if people stopped spreading misinformation like this. Pips do not affect recharge time, pips only affect how quickly the bars in SYS fill up.

 

[soma]

So does it matter do I have 0,5 or 4 pips on SYS when I recharge my shields? I always thought they recharge faster with 4 pips

It appears that the only thing that matters for recharge is, if you have more than 0.5 pips in SYS. 0.5 will make your SYS capacitor drain slowly, and at some stage your shields will stop recharging because SYS is empty. More than 1 pip seems to make no difference on RECHARGE, however 4 pips make your remaining shields tank far more damage (someone recently did some very extensive tests on the effects of pips on shield damage resistance)

Edit: here is the thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=138536

 

[Eloy]

So why does rebuilding the shield drain more power from the capacitor than recharging the intact shield?

Could be technical reasons ... higher startup power like in neonlights or something.

You are aware shields don't recharge after being hit for some time?

Yes sir. I mean if they were recharging a lot faster whilst not being completely offline, dogfight would last longer. I have no opinion about if that would be good or bad.

This community would be much better if people stopped spreading misinformation like this. Pips do not affect recharge time, pips only affect how quickly the bars in SYS fill up.

Sorry for that. At least partly this is due to FDs politic of not explaining things (what makes me hooray more when I finally learned something new). I really was convinced of what I wrote.

 

[Troa Barton]

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?

Out of combat shield recharge rate without shields going completely down I don't see a problem with buffing the rate. The recharge time after they go down to back online could not be changed without other factors being addressed or PvP fights would last virtually forever.
im agreeing with you but on both fronts not just on static shield regen.

 

[Surround]

There is so much stuff that I would have wanted to know when starting to play this game

I really hope the lack of information in the game is because FD didnt have time to properly to put it in the game yet. The lack of info makes the game so much harder to understand in the beginning.

Even playing 4 months now I feel lost sometimes.

 

[Ydiss]

It would be better if the current regeneration rate was enforced if you've taken hits in the last 15 seconds. But after that, the regeneration increases by 3-4 times.

This would make down time outside of combat more bearable for larger shields but maintain the combat balance.

And how to explain it? Shield generators automatically divert all power to strength when under stress but will divert all power to regenerating when not.

And when shields are down? Attacks disrupt power to the shields. But if you're out of combat they're able to recharge much faster.

 

[Morbad]

I know shield recharge can be painfully slow (I regularly fly an FDL with 600-800MJ shield strength), however I don't necessarily think it's too long. If it were not for silly oversights that allow it to be easily bypassed, it would be an important tactical consideration that would need to be carefully weighed, and would add considerable depth to the game as well as be a necessarily limiting factor on the incredible shield strength some vessels have.

Ideally, if you expected to reenter the frey in any reasonable amount of time after your shields absorbed a huge amount of punishment, you'd have to burn SCBs to top off.

I'd still like to see recharge rate have some variability to it based on ship shield capacity vs. shield generator power consumption, possibly including PIP settings, but I am not opposed to long shield recharge times.

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

Shield boosters don't increase recharge time any more than they add in shield strength. If that shield strength is depleted, it needs to be restored. Weakening shields by not ever using boosters isn't a solution to anything.

It's prudent to disable boosters if shields are fully collapsed, as that means you get some shielding up sooner, but when you turn them back on, that extra capacity still needs to be recharged some how.

they will come back online at a percentage of 33%.

50%.

Can you explain how it would be bad if a strong shield recharged fully in just 2 minutes of not being involved in combat?

Right now it wouldn't change much of anything since most people I've encountered seem to be perfectly willing to enter SC to recharge shields.

However, if shield state was persistent, the slow recharge rate we have now would make battles more decisive, because if you heavily depleted someones shields, you'd either force them to burn consumables to return to the fight, or they would be out of the fight for a longer period of time. Battles would be more decisive.

So why does rebuilding the shield drain more power from the capacitor than recharging the intact shield?

This facet has possible the greatest number of most plausible explanations of anything related to shields.

 

[imashination]

This is one of those things that comes up every few weeks and it always ends up the same way. Most people realise that having a 10 minute recharge on a shield serves no purpose, especially as you can get a 100% free recharge by leaving and coming back 10 seconds later. Everyone else pipes up with the usual "They made it that way for a reason!, dont change anything ever!"

ED should really use a simple 'are they in combat?' check, and if theyre not in combat and not near any immediate threats, recharge the sheilds back up in a few seconds so we don't have to around jumping into SC just to exploit the system.

 

[xondk]

Yes, but the point here is that the recharge rate is the same regardless of the class of distributor (and more importantly, shield generator).

ah, I misunderstood, I thought power distributor affected recharge, not shield generator though just power destributor.

 

[CMDR Darkler]

I am sure that I read something about module tuning coming later (or something to that ilk.), if nothing else that might be one of the tuning parameters <shrug>.. but I suspect that will be fairly far in the future..

 

[Mephane]

I really dislike the fact that all shields recharge at the same rate. It means the bigger your shield, the longer you simply have to wait, or shield cell guzzling becomes almost mandatory. I don't understand why the SYS->shield transfer rate doesn't simply depend on class and rating; since weapon fire pauses shield regeneration, they don't become impenetrable to weaker weapons, as long as they are being fired at, shields don't regenerate.

 

[Morbad]

ED should really use a simple 'are they in combat?' check, and if theyre not in combat and not near any immediate threats, recharge the sheilds back up in a few seconds so we don't have to around jumping into SC just to exploit the system.

I think this is absurd. Basically taking the flaws that exist now, but making them even more profound and easy to execute.

 

[Troa Barton]

So if elite shipyard is to be believed an A7 power distributor regens sys capacitor at a rate of +4 MJ/s.
im not sure why you can route more power to the capacitor but not draw from it any faster from a realistic perspective.
shoddy wiring on one end?
the zero to 50% recharge rate indicates that whatever is distributing that power in the form of a shield can handle that amount of output.
i really can't come up with a reason why recharge rate wouldn't correspond with how many pips to sys or rating of power distributor, in or out of game.