Engineers Shield + Booster Mod Calculator

Frenotx

Frenotx
With all the people asking what the "best" way to mod their shields and boosters is, I figured this little calculator I put together could be handy. It's all pretty self-explanatory. Let me know if you have any questions, or discover any faults.


For those of you trying to work out how to set up your shields, feel free to use this little calculator I threw together:
NOTE: Please do not add any new tabs to this. If you'd like to make more advanced changes, simply save a copy to your own drive, and do with it what you will. Thank you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vIcneODiph_g3QYEVMxkQddpjxYXUGY1F5rhFHaYpOY/edit?usp=sharing
If other people are attempting to preform calculations at the same time you are, just make a copy of the sheet to your own drive.
Uyqybis.jpg
 
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Ra'Kaan

Ra'Kaan
interesting, I just busted out a new shield before work, I'll gladly plug in my values tonight and see what this turns up.
 

Frenotx

Frenotx
Ben Ryder said:
Thanks. I dont understand it. Can you explain please.
Click to expand...

Sure. You enter your pre-modification shield value (with no boosters) in the top-left box marked as "base". In the white box below that, select either 1 (for regular shield generators and prismatics), or 1.8 (for biweave shields). Finally, select the boost value of the shields boosters you intend to use (white box in the center). 4% for E grade, 8% for D grade, 12% for C grade, etc. After that, just play with the drop downs along the top. The one right next to the base shield value box is where you select the shield mod (either reinforced, or thermal resistant). The ones to the right of that are where you select your boosters (heavy duty, or resistance augmented). For the sake of simplicity, all mods are assumed to be G5, with both maximum positives and drawbacks.

The yellow box in the top-right shows your absolute shield value. This is only relevant for typeless damage, such as ramming or collisions. The next yellow box down from that is how many minutes it would take for your shield to charge from 50%, all the way back up to 100%. The set of yellow boxes at the bottom show your effective capacity vs. different damage types. That is, how much damage you'd have to do to break the shield with just thermal, or just kinetic, etc., after factoring in the resistances to those damage types. The yellow boxes above those are the effective recharge rates vs. those damage types. That is, if a ship with only thermal weapons was attacking you, then due to your resistances, you'd effectively be recharging that much shield per second when they weren't shooting you.
 
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Frenotx

Frenotx
Euklides Diophant said:
Very handy tool, thank you very much for making it.

As I was just asking in on of your other threads about hull resistances (Here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ness-Piercing-Etc/page4?p=4455975#post4455975) ).
You don't happen to have a tool laying around for shiphardiness, bulkhead, HRP armour and resistance by any chance too?

I'd bake cookies in your honour if you do!
Click to expand...

I believe hull resistances use the same formulas. The formula works as follows: First, convert all the resistance values to damage multipliers. -40 becomes 140% (1.4), +20 becomes 80% (.8), etc. In other words, 1 -
[listed value / 100]. You then take the base armour damage multiplier, and multiply it one-by-one with all the HRP multipliers. [Base armour resistance] * [HRP1 multiplier] * [HRP2 multiplier], etc. Once you've done that, you should have you pre-diminishing-returns value. Convert this back to the regular format for readability by doing this: (1 - [prediminishingreturns value]) * 100

If your answer to that is 50 or less, then you're done. If it's over 50, then you need to apply diminishing returns. First, subtract 50 from your total. Next, divide the result by 2. Finally, add the 50 back. Essentially, every point over 50 only counts for half a point. In other words, the 50-100 values are all remapped to 50-75.

Example: Calculating thermal resistance with regular armour (base thermal resistance 0), and three HRPs that have a thermal resistance of 25 (possible G3 thermal resistance mod).

Damage multipliers:
Armour: 1; HRPs: .75

1 * .75 * .75 * .75 = pre-diminishing-returns multiplier= ~ .42

Pre-diminishing-returns value = (1 - .42) * 100 = 58
That's over 50, so we have to apply diminishing returns. Each point over 50 only counts for half a point.

Final value = [(58 - 50) / 2] + 50 = 54

So starting with neither a resistance to, or weakness to, thermal damage, adding three "25 thermal resistance" HRPs bring the armour to 54 thermal resistance (not the 75 you'd get if all things were additive).
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
Thanks for this Mr Frenotx it certainly explains why my Pythons shields are so tough, with raw MJ rating around the 500 - 600 level the thermal bi weave + 3 L5 resist augmented has thermal shielding performance of over 1200 MJ and over 1000 for kinetic and mixed :)
 

goemon

goemon
very nice to play around with it.

question - in my understanding, reinforced shields increase "optimal strength" - doesn't play hullmass and optimal shield mass a role in this? looks to me like the calculate calculates that without taking hullmass into account?
 

Frenotx

Frenotx
Euklides Diophant said:
Much obliged for the explanation.

Do you also perhaps know of the addative pre module/hull damage reduction that HRPs apply that sandro mentioned in this old patch note ( https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=200980 )?

Edit: And how much it is?
Click to expand...
I think what they're referring to is the slight amount of resistance baked into the HRPs. .5% per class. (.5% resistance to all types at class 1, 2.5% at class 5)

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goemon said:
very nice to play around with it.

question - in my understanding, reinforced shields increase "optimal strength" - doesn't play hullmass and optimal shield mass a role in this? looks to me like the calculate calculates that without taking hullmass into account?
Click to expand...

I'd have to double-check, but I think due to the nature of how shield strength is calculated, a % increase to the optimal strength will result in an equivalent % increase in shielding.
 

Euklides Diophant

E
Frenotx said:
I think what they're referring to is the slight amount of resistance baked into the HRPs. .5% per class. (.5% resistance to all types at class 1, 2.5% at class 5)
Click to expand...

Ok, I guessed that was the case as well, makes me a bit more certain if you would assume that is what they meant too.
 
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Heavenly-Hammer

Heavenly-Hammer
Very nice.

And speaking of shields, I've noticed a number of CMDRs are putting 6 and 7 boosters on their ships and no heat sinks. Why is that? At least on the big ships, you can't put on enough boosters to present a stronger defense than a couple of heat sinks and a high quality shield bank. Or has something changed?
 

Frenotx

Frenotx
Heavenly-Hammer said:
Very nice.

And speaking of shields, I've noticed a number of CMDRs are putting 6 and 7 boosters on their ships and no heat sinks. Why is that? At least on the big ships, you can't put on enough boosters to present a stronger defense than a couple of heat sinks and a high quality shield bank. Or has something changed?
Click to expand...

Perhaps they're concerned about the anti-scb rail guns.
 

goemon

goemon
coming back to this:

Frenotx said:
I'd have to double-check, but I think due to the nature of how shield strength is calculated, a % increase to the optimal strength will result in an equivalent % increase in shielding.
Click to expand...

i guess, this is the relevant dev quote:

Mike Evans said:
Take the base strength, look at the difference between hull mass and optimal mass and create a modifier to the base strength based on the linear interpolation between the shields best and worst modifier depending on whether you're over or under weight.

If you're exactly at the optimised mass then you'd get a modifier of 1 so no change.
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... now, if you are at optimised mass you get the 29% max. increase on optimal strength from reinforced shields.

but what happens to the "best and worst modifier" - are they also increased for 29%? if not, in my understanding the gain would be smaller, when you are far below optimal mass?
 

Frenotx

Frenotx
goemon said:
coming back to this:



i guess, this is the relevant dev quote:



... now, if you are at optimised mass you get the 29% max. increase on optimal strength from reinforced shields.

but what happens to the "best and worst modifier" - are they also increased for 29%? if not, in my understanding the gain would be smaller, when you are far below optimal mass?
Click to expand...
Assuming it works like thrusters, the "best and worst" modifiers get modified by the same percentage. Because of this, the shape of the curve stays the same, and you receive an equivalent percentage increase.
 
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