Newcomer / Intro Shield Booster and Bulkheads engineering guidance

[paul_mumford]

Hi folks,

I've finally got my Type 10 Defender. I am looking to do some light engineering on my Shield Boosters and Bulkheads.
However, with regards to the Shield Boosters, I am bamboozled on what to engineer them with? There are so many choices and the game doesn't give anything away.

I want to use the Type 10 in PvE only and go to a High Rez site and survive!

Do I need to engineer the Shield Boosters to all Heavy Duty, or Reinforced or do I need a selection?

With regards to Bulkheads, I assume that Reactive Surface Composite is the best as it's the most expensive?

Any suggestions are welcome!

Many thanks
Paul

 

[Marvin the Martian]

On my Type 10 I run reinforced armor with heavy duty engineering. I also run 3 hull reinforcement heavy duty modules and guardian shield boosters and I run a thermal resistant mod on my 8C bi-weave shield generator. I run 4 OA shield boosters: 2 Heavy Duty and 2 Resistance Augmented.

I run all turrets on it as well. I just drift in, set off the turrets and drink coffee while it obliterates things. I think the lowest my shields ever got was around 65% and that was a rank 5 zone.

 

[Ashnak]

It's more complicated than that - there is no simple "best". There are some good combinations, and some make more sense for some scenarios than others. Ultimately, it all depends on each other. A few points to keep in mind:

• you usually would like to have the shield strength balanced across all three threats
• likewise for the hull strength
• you shouldn't neglect your module protection (a near perfect hull won't help you if all the appendages have been shot off)
• PvE enemies are predictable, PvP less so; PvE enemies will mostly use shield damage weapons (if available) as long as your shields are up, then switch to missiles; PvP will just hammer you with everything they have
• on the other hand, shields and shiled boosters and guardian shield reinforcements use power, as do lasers

For a PvE T-10, I'd still start with unlocking the relevant engineers, collecting mats and unlocking the Guardian shield boosters. Then open coriolis and start with slapping in the FSD, sensors and thrusters I want, together with the largest powerplant.
Then decide whether I want to shield tank - no need in wasting space for hull reinforcements if I don't expect the shields to go down ever.
Then decide on the weapons. Turrets of course for a T-10 - but lasers or kinetics? Kinetics use less power and, in the case of frags, dish out a lot of damage, but run out of ammo. Lasers don't run out, but use more power. Weapons engineering - sure, but do I want/can I focus on more damage or less power?
Shields - bi-weaves offer the highest recharge power, at the cost of lower initial strength. Yes, recharging might take half an hour or so if they ever go down. Shield engineering... ok, the choice is between getting the maximum strength out of the main generator and buffing the resistances through the boosters, or get reasonably balanced resistances from the main generator and buffing the strength through the boosters. The latter may be more effective - but may also need too much power.

Here is something I cooked up some time ago when I thought about afk farming (or running the fighter while either the automatics or my NPC pilot would run the main ship), based on the assumption that the shields will never go down - the hull is just there to give me a chance (not more) of running away if they ever do. There may be tougher builds out there. Didn't pursue it further, as the engineering mat requirements are just insane.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

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I did put that together before we got the multi limpet controllers - otherwise, I might have added a multi controller in there for collecting mats, limpets would have to be synthesized on the go. Any spare power that might have yielded could have gone into either stronger guns (long range instead of efficient) or stronger shields (heavy duty instead of resistance augmented).

 

[paul_mumford]

Can I ask if Thermal Resistance Shield Boosters are of any use?

 

[Ashnak]

Can I ask if Thermal Resistance Shield Boosters are of any use?

You can ask anything - but you should evaluate the answers yourself

Ok, thermal shield boosters: if you look at the shield strengths (e.g. in Coriolis), you'll see that shields have four different resistance values:

• raw: good against ramming (or other collisions) and plasma (and IIRC rails)
• kinetic: good against kinetic weapons
• explosive
• thermal

Without engineering, shields give you good explosive, reasonable kinetic and weak thermal protection - which is why the basic newcomer's rule says to use lasers against shields and kinetics against hulls. But we're beyond that now. If you want to upgrade thermal protection from your shields, you can either use thermal resistance engineering on the shield generator, or you can use thermal resistance engineering on the shield boosters. Don't overdo it on the boosters, though - those don't stack too well after IIRC two similarly engineered boosters.
Which of these two gives you better overall protection and fits better into your overall layout and power budget is again a matter of personal taste and overall ship loadout. I prefer to use thermal resistance on the shield generator, which gives a reasonably balanced profile overall, the upgrade the raw shield strength though guardian and utility shield boosters until I run out of power, then push the overall resistances with resistance augmented boosters. The other approach is equally valid - put reinforced engineering onto the generator, then use specific engineered boosters to balance the resistances. You'll have to check yourself (coriolis or edsy) which approach suits your ship better.

 

[paul_mumford]

Alas CMDR Ashnak, I'm a total noob and have little idea of what I'm doing?

 

[Fnord Velkor]

Alas CMDR Ashnak, I'm a total noob and have little idea of what I'm doing?

Don't worry too much about that. This part of the forum is very cosy and welcoming of any call for help.

As regards getting to grips with resistances etc, what I always concentrate on is my shields - cos if they go down, I'm out of there PDQ. In that light I never replace my bulkheads but I do fully engineer them with Heavy Duty (because there is no added mass as 130% of 0 is 0) and normally deep plating experimental.

However, I am not a combat pilot so don't have any expertise in ship builds. Just wanted to point out the Heavy Duty mod and highlight that what you engineer for is dependant upon how you will fight.

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

I basically copied the T10 build from The Blitz. You can google it. I do not run it AFK, I run it for learning to fly the SLF fighters, and I need more practice. But it is fun, and if you take time to get allied first for pirate massacre missions you can make decent money. I have yet to buy reactive armor, but I do go for military composite usually and heavy duty deep plating on the armor. A Bi weave shield in the larget optional slot, and then alot of shield boosters and guardian shield boosters in the other optional slots. Which takes alot of power, and then you have to deal with the heat etc. Good luck let us know how it goes

 

[Ashnak]

Alas CMDR Ashnak, I'm a total noob and have little idea of what I'm doing?

So, what do you have in terms of engineers, and what do you want to do in terms of in-game acttivities?

The T-10, I'm afraid, is a sort of endgame ship, like the other big ships (Anaconda, Corvette, Cutter), and as such requires a lot of effort (and money) to fit out.

If all you want to do is to survive a high RES - well, you can do that in any ship with any loadout as long as you neither aggro the natives nor carry anything they might want to have. If you want to make money by killing wanted NPCs, you could start with Vulture.
One of the Alliance combat ships (Challenger, Chieftain, Crusader) or Federal coffins (Dropship, Gunship, Assault ship) or a Krait Mk.II will kill NPCs faster than a T-10 - you won't be restricted to turrets if you can point your ship at the enemy, and you won't have to suffer from the damage drop-off if you can get up close and personal. Most weapons that are not long-range engineered work best at knife fighting distance.

That fully engineered T-10 I linked- it puts out a DPS of 72, at a range of up to 500 meters - if you can get all the guns on the target at once. Beyond those 500 meters, the DPS drops off to 24 for a range of up to 4.8 km. The same constraint for the gun applies.
My (more or less) general purpose Krait Mk.II (similarly engineered to the hilt) puts out 1139 DPS (yes, over one thousand) if I can get the enemy within 200 meters in front of me (depends on the ship size - larger ones are easier to hit). Ok, in reality, the reload probably reduces this number to half of that. The major downside is that it practically breathes ammo - good for dealing with whatever gets sent after me when I'm running cargo missions, not so good in a RES when I have to go for reloading after 5..8 kills, outright dangerous in a combat zone when the spread of those frags tends to obliterate anything in front of me, no matter which side they're on.
Yes, on that loadout I spec'd reactive surface with thermal resistance engineering for the hull - but I tend to run if my shield goes down. Hull repairs cost money.

 

[paul_mumford]

Money is no object. I keep taking 50,000,000 Betrandite mining missions and buy the material from another station. I make 35,000,000 per trip.
I have enough mats to long range/thermal vent my laser turrets. I got this idea from a YouTube video!

 

[Ashnak]

Long range/thermal vent isn't going to help you much if you can't also overcharge your power plant
Go into Coriolis or EDSY and try your building ideas there. You can check there whether a themal resist shield with heavy duty boosters will work out better or worse than a reinforced shield with thermal resist boosters.

 

[paul_mumford]

The Power Plant is overcharged to level four and is monstered. I got this from a video too!

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

I use my T10 in resource extraction zones of different difficulties, low, med, or high. I made all my T10 turrets either smart munitions or concordant sequence. Basically I take mission cargo (which cannot be stolen from you) or buy cargo, and spin the T10 with FA off. So pirates chase me, no looking for them required, and if I leave 'report crimes' on the space po po will show up and help out (as long as not in a haz res). So smart munitions or concordant make sure no oops you tagged a space po po, who get rather mad at you. It takes a fair amount of time and eng materials to even G3 with experimentals all the turrets, modules, and shield boosters of the T10. I did not start out with the T10, I went Viper 3, Vulture, Chieftan, Fdl, Krait Mk2 and finally the T10. The Corvette is in my future, but I need more mats, like alot more. Right now I am having fun with the SLF.

I would long range thermal vent only one turret, as long as it hits the target you get the thermal vent benefit. For the rest of the turrets either more damage, healing beams, smart munitions, long range, lower power draw, etc makes more sense to me.

The UTube videos are usually good however they are only ideas, you need to figure out what works for you. And your game sessions may or may not match what is on most videos.

 

[SlickPBW]

My opinion is that the power plant should be the last consideration. After you have decided on everything else, go with armored if that can still meet your power needs, or overcharged only to the level you need. Armored adds additional power with less heat, overcharged adds lots of power with lots of heat. extra power plant capacity does not help at all. If you want advanced techniques, you can use even less power engineering with the setting of power priorities to intentionally allow some unnecessary systems to be shut down when you deploy weapons.

 

[paul_mumford]

To be honest SlicklPBW, I'm completely in the dark! I assume that I have to get my thermal, kinetic and explosive shield resistances as high as possible?

 

[SlickPBW]

For PVE, you can’t go wrong with:

Thermal resistance on shield generator, with fast charge

1-2 resistance augmented SB’s with super capacitors

2 or more heavy duty SB’s with super capacitors

For bulkheads on a fast ship: light weight, deep plating (if using the default bulkheads, they are weightless so use heavy duty, deep plating)

For bulkheads on a big/slow ship: heavy duty, deep plating

 

[paul_mumford]

Thank you SlickPBW, that's just what I need.