Shield Eng
- Thread starter JudeSaint
- Start date
The majority of cmdr's will say thermal...I'm with the majority 
it would depend on your hull, whats is best.
i must be in the minority.
i must be in the minority.
hs0003
Banned
It's basically a maths problem you have to consider.
Reinforced increases resistances and total shield strength, but thermal brings kinetic and thermal super close to each other which allows you to hit +50% resist to all damage types with few resist boosters and then you can toss on heavy duty boosters for the rest of your booster slots.
On the other hand, when you toss on reinforced with some resist boosters, you'll hit higher total numbers but not quite even resistance to all. Although you have to consider that kinetic weapons have a higher dps/damage than laser based weapons, and their damage drops off slower than thermals.
Personally I go for thermal resist and even out the resistances so I know my effective shield strength is the same no matter what damage type I'm up against.
Reinforced increases resistances and total shield strength, but thermal brings kinetic and thermal super close to each other which allows you to hit +50% resist to all damage types with few resist boosters and then you can toss on heavy duty boosters for the rest of your booster slots.
On the other hand, when you toss on reinforced with some resist boosters, you'll hit higher total numbers but not quite even resistance to all. Although you have to consider that kinetic weapons have a higher dps/damage than laser based weapons, and their damage drops off slower than thermals.
Personally I go for thermal resist and even out the resistances so I know my effective shield strength is the same no matter what damage type I'm up against.
Deleted member 38366
D
It seems Thermal Shields do offer the "best bang for the buck", especially with several Shield Booster slots to freely "fill in the blanks" on a Conda.
And the +Optimal Shield Strenght/+Optimal Multiplier Secondary doesn't seem too rare (worth investing a few extra rolls into), which puts the Thermal Mod back more in line with typical Resistant Shield Bonuses.
IMHO can't go wrong with Thermal Shields on a Conda.
I moved from Resistance Shields to Thermal on my Corvette and it did extremely well in prolonged CZ runs.
And the +Optimal Shield Strenght/+Optimal Multiplier Secondary doesn't seem too rare (worth investing a few extra rolls into), which puts the Thermal Mod back more in line with typical Resistant Shield Bonuses.
IMHO can't go wrong with Thermal Shields on a Conda.
I moved from Resistance Shields to Thermal on my Corvette and it did extremely well in prolonged CZ runs.
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Thermal shields only take into account if you are fighting an enemy using lasers, there are quite a lot of higher end NPCs who rarely use lasers but instead use a mix of frag, missiles, torpedos, railguns, or PAs, none of which will be affected by a high thermal resist, whereas pure shield strength at least gives a bigger shield HP pool to play around with. Plus if you are willing to grind out the shield Booster engineer too and a ton of materials for that, you can do a mix of heavy duty and thermal boosters which will put all your resists quite high ontop of sitting behind a ridiculously huge mega shield.
Also Thargoids aren't doing thermal damage so if you plan to swing by them, pure shield strength will be better, the danger of Thargoids is when shields drop for Corrosive effects to start ruining your day.
Also Thargoids aren't doing thermal damage so if you plan to swing by them, pure shield strength will be better, the danger of Thargoids is when shields drop for Corrosive effects to start ruining your day.
These answers seem to indicate you can anticipate the damage type you expect to encounter. Or am I misreading? I want to engineer my recently acquired prismatics and I STILL don't understand what I need or, perhaps more importantly WHY I need it. I'm purely a PvE player, and I don't really have any problems with NPCs unless it's a silly wing of maybe two Anacondas and a FAS or such (when I generally decide to run away ) but even so, it's there, so I want it. Except I must admit that whilst I can see that an engineer mod is generally 'better' I don't really understand what I'm looking at with all the numbers, nor what I really want to be looking for.
) but even so, it's there, so I want it. Except I must admit that whilst I can see that an engineer mod is generally 'better' I don't really understand what I'm looking at with all the numbers, nor what I really want to be looking for.What is the difference between the optimal multiplier and the optimal strength?
Optimal Shield Strength is the shield strength (in MJ) assuming you are below the Optimal Mass (see below) of the Generator. So a bonus of 30% to Optimal Shield Strength gives you 30% more raw MJ of shield, as long as you are not too heavy.
Optimal Multiplier is a conflation with Booster terminology, he means Optimal Mass in this case, which is the amount of "Hull Mass" a shield can cover at 100% efficiency. You don't need to worry about this with Size 7 shields on an Anaconda, it only has a Hull Mass of 400t somehow, but you might if you were using undersized shields.
For a combat Conda I would actually recommend Class 7 C Bi-Weaves w/ Thermal Resist. Plenty of shield strength as long as you use boosters and it balances the inherent weakness all shields have vs Thermal Weapons easier than using SBs. You also then have a much quicker recharge rate which means you don't have to take breaks to allow your shield to recharge. What you should do is put your build into Coriolis and play around with it yourself.
Edit: Since I faced confusion in a previous thread, what you should do is first build and save your combat ship with the editor. To save it just give it a name and click the Save icon. Then you can change Opponent from Stock Eagle to your saved combat ship and use the Defence tab to judge how your different shield builds are working against a ship similar to your own.
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The majority of cmdr's will say thermal...I'm with the majority
It looks like that, but I am wondering if there is a good reason? I have been playing with shield calculators and it looks like trade-offs with thermal mod are quite significant. It obviously works well against lasers, but lacks in overall shield strength as well as against kinetic damage. Both of those see a significant penalty compared to reinforced. The overall shield strength is especially important against PAs with majority of damage (60%) being absolute.
As others have pointed out, if you expect to receive mostly laser damage, then thermal mod may be better, but I don't think it is optimal against PAs or MCs (or other kinetic weapons). So, it really depends on what kind of weapon fire you will be encountering. And then boosters need to be matched with your shield...
If I have understood correctly, thermal resistant mod is often used with bi-weaves where regen rate is more important.
I think it is a matter of preference and playing style mostly (knowing your weaknesses and strengths) and for PvE it is not that critical anyway. For PvP I have seen some recommendations of Bi-weave + Thermal or Prismatic + Reinforced, mostly against PAs and rail guns, but I am sure there are other combinations in use as well.
Thermal for sustain, reinforced for quick burst battles.
All you said is very true. My personal preference of PVE only + sustained RES & CZ + preference of resistances + Bi-weaves over quantity of MJ has skewed me towards thermal resistant shields. I have tries the reinforced shields before, and they seemed to have more downsides which meant more tinkering than I wanted to be bothered with lol.
I ended up going Reinforced with all heavy duty boosters and one thermal booster. Tried sliding a Resistance Augmented in and out but couldn't see the benefit. I'm low in thermal, but I just don't seem to see a lot of thermal weapons, at least not enough to fear. I might be wrong though?
I have Prismatics and don't want the battle to last long.
I have Prismatics and don't want the battle to last long.
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The reason is that shields start with the following resistances:
+50% vs Explosive
+40% vs Kinetic
-20% vs Explosive
Ergo, if you don't engineer your shields at all you take:
50% damage vs Explosive, 60% damage vs Kinetic and 120% damage vs Thermal.
A "Best Roll" with Thermal Resist changes this to:
50% damage vs Explosive, 64.8% damage vs Kinetic and 60% damage vs Thermal.
To summarise, a lot of people in this thread need to familiarise themselves with Coriolis. So do you, you have answerable questions because you aren't using the correct tool.
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Bob Lighthouse
Banned
When using coriolis, pay attention to the time stats of the shield metrics in the defence tab.
High MJ numbers can be misleading in my experience.
High MJ numbers can be misleading in my experience.
Out of interest, have you ever changed the Coriolis opponent from Stock Eagle to a somewhat realistic opponent??
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Thermal resistant
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Bob Lighthouse
Banned
Yes, all the time.
Did you reply in a similar vein in the other thread too?
If so, sorry I missed it.
No need to be indirect.