Shield Eng

[Achibot]

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.

I may have, there was a thing, if you missed it you should count your blessings. In the end I was left questioning the value of a western education. In any case...

In brief, I agree with you, raw MJ of Shield Strength is essentially an irrelevant stat. The effective shielding per MJ vs the 3 Resistable Weapon Types is everything. That's not really an opinion, as some seem to think, it is an objective weighting of how much damage any given shield can take vs actual weaponry. In other words, the only stat that matters. As such people should evaluate their shield build on Coriolis vs "realistic opponents" by which I mean opponents you, personally, will face in battle. This changes for people who play Solo, Open CG, Open PVP, Raw PVP and whatever ship they are playing that mode in.

In short, some people are of the opinion shield types and mod choices are a religion. That's silly, it's just a bit of math and like all sums, it's dependent on the variables. No single shield type or modification is best all round.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I may have, there was a thing, if you missed it you should count your blessings. In the end I was left questioning the value of a western education. In any case...

In brief, I agree with you, raw MJ of Shield Strength is essentially an irrelevant stat. The effective shielding per MJ vs the 3 Resistable Weapon Types is everything. That's not really an opinion, as some seem to think, it is an objective weighting of how much damage any given shield can take vs actual weaponry. In other words, the only stat that matters. As such people should evaluate their shield build on Coriolis vs "realistic opponents" by which I mean opponents you, personally, will face in battle. This changes for people who play Solo, Open CG, Open PVP, Raw PVP and whatever ship they are playing that mode in.

In short, some people are of the opinion shield types and mod choices are a religion. That's silly, it's just a bit of math and like all sums, it's dependent on the variables. No single shield type or modification is best all round.

That sounds entirely reasonable.
My point in the other thread was essentially the same.
Edit: Appreciate you taking the time.

 

[andrak]

Ditch the 7a and get a 7c bi weave.

Thermal resist mod on the shield to balance resist without negatively affecting regen.

2x resist Aug shield boosters to push you resists up to 50%.

The rest of the shield boosters as heavy duty.

Best PVE shield build.

 

[LeMachine]

raw MJ of Shield Strength is essentially an irrelevant stat. The effective shielding per MJ vs the 3 Resistable Weapon Types is everything. That's not really an opinion, as some seem to think, it is an objective weighting of how much damage any given shield can take vs actual weaponry. In other words, the only stat that matters.

Sounds good but that is incorrect. PAs partly bypass resistances (=60% absolute damage if I remember correctly), so the MJ value is very important in that case.

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.

I am actually familiar with resistances and Coriolis, but I found ED-Shipyard easier to use and get values that match with the game itself. It also matches with this calculator:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vIcneODiph_g3QYEVMxkQddpjxYXUGY1F5rhFHaYpOY/edit#gid=0

It gives you all the relevant damage values and shield strength. It also shows nicely the diminishing returns of boosters (both HD and resistance).

 

[Achibot]

Sounds good but that is incorrect. PAs partly bypass resistances (=60% absolute damage if I remember correctly), so the MJ value is very important in that case.

This is correct, 60% Absolute (ie unresisted damage), 20% Thermal, 20% Kinetic. This is balanced against the requirements of Plasma weapons. By the same token, ramming is 100% Absolute damage, are you recommending ramming builds because it's the least resisted damage type? If not, why not? Is it not a logical extension of your argument?

I am actually familiar with resistances and Coriolis, but I found ED-Shipyard easier to use and get values that match with the game itself. It also matches with this calculator:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vIcneODiph_g3QYEVMxkQddpjxYXUGY1F5rhFHaYpOY/edit#gid=0

It gives you all the relevant damage values and shield strength. It also shows nicely the diminishing returns of boosters (both HD and resistance).

It doesn't make a blind bit of difference to me which shipbuilder you use, to each their own. That said I would suggest if you need a separate spreadsheet it can't be all that great. Coriolis fits all of the same information (as far as I could tell) into one page with some tabs, any objective reason you care to give why Shipyard + spreadsheet is better?

edit: didn't address your "coriolis values don't match ingame values" argument as that's simply not true and I honestly don't understand where you are getting that from. It occurred to me later that I should point out that's why I didn't address it.

 

[EvE4evah]

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.

You're not taking into account two things:
1. Shield Boosters (SBs)
2. Big Ship.

Thermal mod for Shield Gens evens out the initial resist profile upon which the SBs will work. Since we're talking about a big ship, we have lots of Utility slots. Annie and Vette have 8. This means you can fit 3-4 Resistance Augmented SBs (perfect roll gives +12.5% resistance across the board, not counting diminishing returns for stacking, not counting God rolls), and just then 2-3 Heavy Duty SBs (these give a huge boost to shield total amount specially for lower classes, D and E - use these if you're low on Power), leaving space for a KWS, a Heat Sink (if you intend to use more than one Shield Cell Bank), whatever. Using this configuration you can easily achieve 60-70% resists across the board, even more if you're rolling mods like nuts. This basically means you only take 30-40% of any damage type (not counting Caustic, Thargoids are OP). Therefore each MJ your shield has, has more value than one resist imbalanced shield, even if it has greater total shield amount.

For sustained PvE (HazRES, CZ, CNB) that definitely works for big ships. Also stick one or two SCBs and you basically won't ever have to leave the combat site.

Of course since we're talking PvE, any properly engineered thing will do. You can pretty much Reinforce mod the Shield Gen and try to plug the Thermal hole with Thermal Resist Shield boosters. But then, you're nerfing your other resistances in the process. Meaning your final MJ count will be the best, but your resist profile will suck (compared). It will still definitely work since, PvE.

As for your question, PvE combat sites will have all kinds of damage generally (Thargs have Caustic though). Plasmas, Rails, Missiles, Lazors, Dakadaka, we've seen them all in a single site. So, an evenly spread resist profile is what I go for.

Oh, and Thermal Gen plus Aug Resist SBs also works well for 7As and Prisms, not only for Bi-Weaves.

 

[EvE4evah]

Ramming is actually very very OP for PvE sites, if you're flying a Vette or Annie for example just stack lots of HRPs, a Military hull and boost into the enemy, full pips to shields when getting close, and there go the enemy Annie shields. Or half its hull.

 

[LeMachine]

This is correct, 60% Absolute (ie unresisted damage), 20% Thermal, 20% Kinetic. This is balanced against the requirements of Plasma weapons. By the same token, ramming is 100% Absolute damage, are you recommending ramming builds because it's the least resisted damage type? If not, why not? Is it not a logical extension of your argument?

Hmm, why not?

It doesn't make a blind bit of difference to me which shipbuilder you use, to each their own. That said I would suggest if you need a separate spreadsheet it can't be all that great. Coriolis fits all of the same information (as far as I could tell) into one page with some tabs, any objective reason you care to give why Shipyard + spreadsheet is better?

edit: didn't address your "coriolis values don't match ingame values" argument as that's simply not true and I honestly don't understand where you are getting that from. It occurred to me later that I should point out that's why I didn't address it.

For some reason, I couldn't export engineered modules into Coriolis from my ship and after inputting the same values manually, it was showing different shield values than those other tools. I admit however that I didn't test it extensively for that case since ED shipyard was able to handle engineered modules by import from EDMC. That was good enough for me. Otherwise I have been using Coriolis for shipbuilding though.

You're not taking into account two things:
1. Shield Boosters (SBs)
2. Big Ship.

Thermal mod for Shield Gens evens out the initial resist profile upon which the SBs will work. Since we're talking about a big ship, we have lots of Utility slots. Annie and Vette have 8. This means you can fit 3-4 Resistance Augmented SBs (perfect roll gives +12.5% resistance across the board, not counting diminishing returns for stacking, not counting God rolls), and just then 2-3 Heavy Duty SBs (these give a huge boost to shield total amount specially for lower classes, D and E - use these if you're low on Power), leaving space for a KWS, a Heat Sink (if you intend to use more than one Shield Cell Bank), whatever. Using this configuration you can easily achieve 60-70% resists across the board, even more if you're rolling mods like nuts. This basically means you only take 30-40% of any damage type (not counting Caustic, Thargoids are OP). Therefore each MJ your shield has, has more value than one resist imbalanced shield, even if it has greater total shield amount.

For sustained PvE (HazRES, CZ, CNB) that definitely works for big ships. Also stick one or two SCBs and you basically won't ever have to leave the combat site.

Of course since we're talking PvE, any properly engineered thing will do. You can pretty much Reinforce mod the Shield Gen and try to plug the Thermal hole with Thermal Resist Shield boosters. But then, you're nerfing your other resistances in the process. Meaning your final MJ count will be the best, but your resist profile will suck (compared). It will still definitely work since, PvE.

As for your question, PvE combat sites will have all kinds of damage generally (Thargs have Caustic though). Plasmas, Rails, Missiles, Lazors, Dakadaka, we've seen them all in a single site. So, an evenly spread resist profile is what I go for.

Oh, and Thermal Gen plus Aug Resist SBs also works well for 7As and Prisms, not only for Bi-Weaves.

My personal experience is related to FDL. I guess you can stack more boosters in larger ships, although there will be diminishing returns and it is impossible (or at least not practical) to reach the same raw strength by Thermal + HD boosters (compared to reinforced shield + HD/resist boosters). You just have to pick your poison. Balanced resistance is fine, but it comes with the weakness to absolute (Plasma) damage which ignores resistances. Which is actually what big ships may encounter more since they are easier to hit...

 

[Achibot]

Hmm, why not?

Because even your vaunted FDL can't reliably ram smaller ships. But, of course, you are being facetious. I do believe my point stands.

For some reason, I couldn't export engineered modules into Coriolis from my ship and after inputting the same values manually, it was showing different shield values than those other tools. I admit however that I didn't test it extensively for that case since ED shipyard was able to handle engineered modules by import from EDMC. That was good enough for me. Otherwise I have been using Coriolis for shipbuilding though.

To be fair this is a genuine issue. I've not had that experience, was it an older version or anything? Mismatched version close to patch day? Anything like that?

My personal experience is related to FDL.....

Which is very relevant to Shield Tech on that particular ship, but only goes so far as to Shield Tech on ships with different roles and so on. I mean, if you are coming from a PvP perspective, then honestly I couldn't challenge your analysis. That said, the OP is asking about the PVE environment and that's a much simpler equation, there's no reason to make it harder than it is. I believe Eve4Evah is making that same point - it's not that you are wrong, you are just right in a different sport. This thread is more non-league, to be fair.

 

[LeMachine]

To be fair this is a genuine issue. I've not had that experience, was it an older version or anything? Mismatched version close to patch day? Anything like that?

It looks like I still have the same issue: EDMC Data export to Coriolis loses all the engineering data. It shows all of the modules but no engineering effects. I know that it happened in the old versions, but though that it was updated at some point. Anyway, fortunately ED shipyard works for me with that same data export.