Shield Cell Battery not working?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

So, I've been using Shield Cell Batteries on my Type 10, combined with a Heat Sink Launcher, to great effect. However, tonight, I decided to break out my FDL for the first time in ages and have a play with that. As it only has 1,002 shields - albeit quite resistant ones - I fitted a C4 Shield Cell battery, unengineered for now, for situations where I might need it. Hull on the FDL is just the normal lightweight alloys, unengineered.

The problem I'm having, is that the SCB is not doing anything! I've sat here, not under fire, at 25% shields, popped an SCB then a Heatsink. All the usual noises occur and my ship heats up, then cools down as expected. However, my shield is still at just 25% From the SCB's Info panel, I can see that it should add 46.0/s to my shields for its operational time. I'm not quite sure how long it runs for, but even if it's just five seconds, that should give me a noticeable bump to the shields in that time. Not to use even a single percentage point though doesn't seem right.

I've tested this multiple times, both in and out of combat and it's just not working. I have full SYS capacitors - it's not even lost one Pip at any point - and no damage to the ship has occured, with all modules at 100% I'm at a bit of a loss why it isn't working.

Any ideas?

Scoob.

 

[Ezren]

Do you have a clip or anything?

That sounds like a bug, but it's a very strange one. Is it consuming the SCB ammo?

 

[Scoob]

Do you have a clip or anything?

That sounds like a bug, but it's a very strange one. Is it consuming the SCB ammo?

No, I don't record as I play - though I suppose I could now I've (finally) upgraded my PC.

Yes, it's using SCB ammo as expected. All visual and audio cues suggest it's working, yet my shields aren't recharging. I think I'll have to relog and test again though it's getting a little late now so I might save that for another day. Just wanted to see if this was perhaps a known issue, as I've returned to the game recently after a little break.

Edit: just got back to the station and double-checked. Looks like the 4A SCB only runs for three seconds (Duration) so that's just 138 Shield points. Still, that should be noticeable from a total pool of just 1,002 points - basically it's 13% - so my shields should have gone from 25% to 38% in my test when not under fire. While under fire though, I damage could equal the boosted recharge rate and thus negate the recharge from a pure % perspective. Still, it'd stop me dropping any lower at least. I need to test this more of course, though 4A SCB's really aren't very good unengineered.

Scoob.

 

[Ezren]

No, I don't record as I play - though I suppose I could now I've (finally) upgraded my PC.

Yes, it's using SCB ammo as expected. All visual and audio cues suggest it's working, yet my shields aren't recharging. I think I'll have to relog and test again though it's getting a little late now so I might save that for another day. Just wanted to see if this was perhaps a known issue, as I've returned to the game recently after a little break.

Scoob.

I've encountered a similar issue where my Limpets were not firing. It would make all the sounds, "programming limpet drone", but no go. Had to relog to clear it up, only ever happened the once.

 

[Scoob]

I've encountered a similar issue where my Limpets were not firing. It would make all the sounds, "programming limpet drone", but no go. Had to relog to clear it up, only ever happened the once.

Yes, I've had that myself fairly often, I know my wingmate did too. Like many of us, we did a lot of mining so the issue was quite apparent. When this occurred, a limpet was still consumed we noted. So, there are similarities to my issue this evening in that regard.

Scoob.

 

[Faded Glory]

I'd suspect that it's simply not adding enough MJ of shield to be noticeable. According to Coriolis the 4C SCB adds 99MJ, which is less than 10% of your total shield resistance. That will hardly register on the shields HUD representation. I certainly find that with my one FDL that has more than 1K MJ of shields, and I'm pretty sure I have a 4A SCB, when I use one, it's as if nothing has happened.

 

[Scoob]

I'd suspect that it's simply not adding enough MJ of shield to be noticeable. According to Coriolis the 4C SCB adds 99MJ, which is less than 10% of your total shield resistance. That will hardly register on the shields HUD representation. I certainly find that with my one FDL that has more than 1K MJ of shields, and I'm pretty sure I have a 4A SCB, when I use one, it's as if nothing has happened.

That was my first thought, but it wasn't the case. According to the game, an unEngineered 4A SCB will give 46 points a second for three seconds, giving 138 points total. That's 13% of my total shield strength. Not much, sure, but it should be perfectly noticeable when I'm looking at the % readout in the lower panel. That's the first thing I checked when my shield rings didn't even change colour.

Scoob.

 

[d8veh]

That was my first thought, but it wasn't the case. According to the game, an unEngineered 4A SCB will give 46 points a second for three seconds, giving 138 points total. That's 13% of my total shield strength. Not much, sure, but it should be perfectly noticeable when I'm looking at the % readout in the lower panel. That's the first thing I checked when my shield rings didn't even change colour.

Scoob.

You said in your OP that it was a C4. Is it 4A or 4C?

I think SCBs are always best used two at a time.

You need the same SCBs as what the NPCs use. They can always get their shields from nearly zero to full three times before you can kill them.

 

[Faded Glory]

That was my first thought, but it wasn't the case. According to the game, an unEngineered 4A SCB will give 46 points a second for three seconds, giving 138 points total. That's 13% of my total shield strength. Not much, sure, but it should be perfectly noticeable when I'm looking at the % readout in the lower panel. That's the first thing I checked when my shield rings didn't even change colour.

Scoob.

Can't say I've ever looked at the lower panel in terms of shield strength, so I don't know how accurate or dynamic that readout is.

I do think that if you're hearing the SCB activate, seeing the temperature rise and then fall again when the heat sink fires, then I'd be surprised if it's not working. Obviously if you've tested it when not under fire, then the shield should regenerate by the 10% or so that that particular SCB should contribute to your shield. That 10% would barely register on the rings in the HUD, and obviously if you are under fire, then your shield is likely depleting even while the SCB tries to restore it.

I just checked, and I have a 4A engineered SCB in my FDL with 1218MJ of shields, and on the odd occasion that I use it, and I tend to wait until I'm on the last ring, it's hard for me to see a difference (as I said, I've never looked at the lower panel readout).

I don't have many ships with very strong shields, the next nearest is my Python with just shy of 1kMJ, and that has a 5A engineered SCB, giving 50+MJ/s for 5 seconds, so around 250MJ, and even that doesn't fill up a full ring on the HUD readout.

Maybe try to uninstall the SCB, perhaps swap it into the other size 4 slot, and see whether that makes a difference, although I'd still be inclined to think that it's simply too small of a percentage increase to register. (Not doubting you, you understand, and if you're sure then I'd do a support ticket.)

 

[KillZoneGB]

You need the same SCBs as what the NPCs use.

I would LOOooove to have one of those SCB`s the NPC uses...

Just for the unlimited ammo, or is it just the chaff busters that have unlimited, old age is setting in i guess

 

[Craith]

I would LOOooove to have one of those SCB`s the NPC uses...

Just for the unlimited ammo, or is it just the chaff busters that have unlimited, old age is setting in i guess

Neither is unlimited afaik. They usually have 4 shield cells, some carry B-rated with 5 or two shield cells for 8 (usually one is much weaker then)
Chaff can also run out, but that takes quite a while. I run fixed on most ships anyhow, so might be mistaken here. To my knowledge only multicannon ammo is unlimited on npcs, due to it not making sense to track it.

 

[GeneralIdea1964]

Have you got enough power for the SCB unit?

If I recall the FDL has power issues.
You need to change your module power priorities.
Or have you tried this already?

I haven't seen this piece of advice so far.

 

[d8veh]

I would LOOooove to have one of those SCB`s the NPC uses...

Just for the unlimited ammo, or is it just the chaff busters that have unlimited, old age is setting in i guess

It seems like unlimited ammo because the battle always lasts so long, but I started counting them from a couple of years ago. It's always three recharges. It's the same as the chaff. It does eventually run out.

 

[babelfisch]

Can't say I've ever looked at the lower panel in terms of shield strength, so I don't know how accurate or dynamic that readout is.

Just guessing but this could be the problem. There are several panels in the cockpit which don't update in real time.

 

[Ashnak]

You need the same SCBs as what the NPCs use. They can always get their shields from nearly zero to full three times before you can kill them.

You can get that effect by using the same (weak, unengineered) shields the NPCs use. It's like day and night - when I go against NPCs, their shields drop rapidly and I don't even need to make a special effort to avoid their fire - an engineered and boostered 1k+ MJ shield will just soak up anything.
When I try the same tactics against a player
a) their shields last forever (i.e. at least as long as mine )
b) their weapons are much more effective at sending me to the rebuy screen than the NPC's

 

[Scoob]

Hi, thanks for the replies.

To clarify, it's a Class 4 (C4) A-Rated SCB - I guess saying 4A would have sufficed lol. Also, as mentioned in my original post, SYS capacitor was full when the SCB was triggered. One time I was under fire, so damage could have negated recharge - that's why I tested while not under fire.

Good point regarding the UI not updating, this is true of a few things. I've had my right-hand panel show my combat rank as 2% higher than the lower panel. Perhaps the UI simply wasn't updating after triggering the SCB? That said, it does update with normal shield recharge as I sit there watching it with 4 Pips to SYS. Though that only goes up 1% every 10 ish seconds or so, the SCB should have added over 10% in three seconds, which it did not of course.

I'm aware that a single, unEngineered, 4A SCB isn't going to do much for the shields. It was very much just a quick band-aid so the shields don't fail entirely, something I trigger when they are quite low. The FDL is fast, so the SCB would prevent shield failure while I get out of range, while also dropping chaff - that chaff seems quite remarkably ineffective vs. NPC's gimballed and turreted weapons.

Last night, I actually engineered the SCB - the effect that gives more shield points - and I added the "Boss Cells" experimental effect to further boost things. So I'll see how that improves the performance, if at all.

All that said, it could just have been a weird quirk of the instance, and things will be fine next time I go in. I'll test with a vanilla 4A SCB again if that's the case, just to double check.

Regarding NPC SCB use, they do seem to be far more effective, regularly being able to fully restore even fairly tough shields on small ships. Though I don't know the exact stats. I also regularly see NPC's fire off SCB's when their shields are already down - you get the pulsing recharge effect, but I don't think there are actually any shields there.

I do generally go for biweaves myself, so a smaller shield pool, but fast recharge with good resistances. The FDL's shield last night was a standard 5A and very resistant - just one I had in storage. I'm switching that to a biweave with about 200 less points, but it's faster charging will benefit the FDL I think.

Oh, just to add, I do of course have ample power. My PP (Guardian) has about a 5mw excess, so I've not set power priorities. The PD is Engineered for fast charge.

Scoob.

 

[photomankc]

Just guessing but this could be the problem. There are several panels in the cockpit which don't update in real time.

Shields update as you are looking. I've seen that panel updating under fire all the time.

 

[Sylow]

I would LOOooove to have one of those SCB`s the NPC uses...

Just for the unlimited ammo, or is it just the chaff busters that have unlimited, old age is setting in i guess

Old rumour. Repeating it endlessly doesn't make it any more true. There is exactly one ammo type NPCs actually have unlimited supply of: multicannon ammo. The reason for that: NPCs in combat zones started to behave eratically after using up all their MC ammo. The quick-fix for the problem was to give them unlimited ammo. As far as i know, this "temporary quick fix" was never reworked, so it's still in place. That being said, if somebodies success depends on the enemy running out of MC ammo, he might have other problems than this workaround still being in place.

Any other ammo is limited. It's not that hard to test, either. For chaff i did this out of curiosity. Find a ship with chaff launcher. Hit it with a gimbaled weapon. Stop fire when the chaff is triggered, wait for 8 more seconds after chaff is over. Rinse and repeat. You'll find that the enemy uses chaff exactly 11 times, then not any more. (Double as much when you find an NPC with two chaff launchers. Feel free to test. )

For SCBs my "test" on them being limited was less intentional. I was tooling around on my couriers weapons and trying some weird setup. When trying it, i fought against an elite Anaconda in a HAZRes. My weird weapons combination was not enough to break through SCBs. But while my weapons were not sufficient to overcome the targets SCBs recharge, the enemy after a while stopped using them, allowing me to finally take it down. Would it have had unlimited SCBs, i'd still today be there, fighting it.

Of course, the next enemy again had a full set of chaff and SCBs. Somehow it seems like that's what most people somehow don't realize: new enemies again come fully stocked. So while the ammo per NPC is limited, NPCs themselves seem to be infinite. So as long as you keep killing enemies and attacking new ones, you of course in a way face an infinite number of ammo resupplies.

On the topic itself: were you in your own instance? Means, were you solo? If not, this might have been a weird effect of somebody else controlling the instance and part of the communication between you not working properly. (Playing a game on P2P basis is prone to many problems and they can get even more wild if one or more of the ISPs involved use deep packet inspection. )

It's not necessarily the reason for what was described in the OP, but i also would not rule it out completely. I'd advise trying to reproduce the effect in solo mode. If the same problem is visible there, it's quite likely a bug. If it can't be reproduced in solo, there's at least a good chance that this is just yet another synchronisation problem.

 

[Ezren]

That said, it does update with normal shield recharge as I sit there watching it with 4 Pips to SYS. Though that only goes up 1% every 10 ish seconds or so, the SCB should have added over 10% in three seconds, which it did not of course.

Oof, your shields recharge incredibly slowly if that's the case. My Mamba has about as much in terms of shields, but recharges about 1% ever two seconds or so. Are you not using a Bi-Weave?

 

[Scoob]

I've observed NPC's running out of both Chaff and SCB's, though it does still sometimes seem that they manage to gain full shields after deploying one when their shields are low. Without knowing the exact stats of the ship though, I don't know if there's "cheating" going on, though I'd hope not. I thought that other than infinite Ammo for some weapons (not countermeasures) NPC's shouldn't cheat at all, once spawned in. Them leaving an instance only to return (or be interdicted etc.) with full shields, hull and deployables (Chaff etc.) is perhaps a separate thing.

Regarding the issue I experienced, my friend I wing up with is running over WiFi which is in turn linked to one of those power-socket things. There's a very valid reason for his setup being like this, and no real alternative at present. As such, I do get odd issues when he's in an instance with me at times. I can't recall who "owned" the instance (i.e who got there first) when these things were happening, but things going screwy does seem to be more common if he's the first to arrive. This could indeed be down to communication between our clients in that regard - just like when we get ships the other cannot see, SLF's surviving their mothership's demise, ships fighting on at 0% hull, despite overkill damage being built etc.

If I get the chance to get in-game this evening, I will be testing a slightly different loadout. Namely an Engineered SCB paired with a biweave shield. The extra health the Engineered SCB provides along with the lower total health pool of the biweave, should make any recharge, or lack of, from the SCB more apparent. However, I'd not be surprised if everything worked just fine, and my issues were limited to quirks of the instance. Sometimes in the past, things just seem better after exiting and re-entering the game.

We just play in a private group and it's usually just the two of us. If I team up with others - which is fairly rare - I definitely see far less obvious rubber-banding behaviour their ship and of any NPC's, plus things seem generally less quirky in general. I don't know how many things can be attributed to my friends less than perfect connection, but it perhaps does explain some of them. I may do a quick test in Solo this eve, as a control.

Scoob.