Shield Strength Survival

[Mayan Fury]

I read alot on here about ganking and piracy and what not and the responses are usually centered around 'git gud' or have a strong enough shield to survive the gank but, what does everyone feel is strong enough?

Lets say you know what you are doing, you can keep a cool head and are not going to panic... how strong does your shield need to be to make it to the jumping animation?

conversely, lets say, you don't know what you are doing, you panic over the slightest thing and are going to take an age to get to the jumping animation... how strong does your shield need to be to escape?

I have just popped back to the bubble to sell my explo date and quickly knocked up a G5 python for bubble running and managed a mighty... 1355 strength shield with 20% thermal res, 50% explo res and and about 40% kinetic res and ... i feel vulnerable!! should i..?

 

[Marcus]

The best advice I have seen is located right here on the FD forums by Exigeous

Best way to escape an interdiction

There have been many many threads discussion PvP, PvE, ganking, griefing, etc. etc. Invariably interdictions are discussed but I don't think I've ever seen a very simple, "here's how to escape" post anywhere. It's likely that many know this so this is probably only really helpful to the new...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Starsong]

I read alot on here about ganking and piracy and what not and the responses are usually centered around 'git gud' or have a strong enough shield to survive the gank but, what does everyone feel is strong enough?

Lets say you know what you are doing, you can keep a cool head and are not going to panic... how strong does your shield need to be to make it to the jumping animation?

conversely, lets say, you don't know what you are doing, you panic over the slightest thing and are going to take an age to get to the jumping animation... how strong does your shield need to be to escape?

I have just popped back to the bubble to sell my explo date and quickly knocked up a G5 python for bubble running and managed a mighty... 1355 strength shield with 20% thermal res, 50% explo res and and about 40% kinetic res and ... i feel vulnerable!! should i..?

I hear that the usual threshold for escaping is 1k HP. I had a shield about the same strength as yours on my Anaconda and it usually wouldn’t fail before I hyperjumped out - you should be fine.

 

[Vedmo]

For gank survival I place my concern with hull. If a ship has good shields on top of it, then all the better.

I've escaped double gank in which my shields were already down with 1k hull and 25-30% resists. Ramming Mamba and MKII with FSD interrupt hitting me off of a ram. By the time I high waked I was at 20%.

 

[Morbad]

Even being pulled is usually avoidable.

Lets say you know what you are doing, you can keep a cool head and are not going to panic... how strong does your shield need to be to make it to the jumping animation?

Zero.

My CMDR's trade ships are all shieldless at this point, and I've never lost one. The cargo trade-off for survivable levels of hull and modules via HRPs/MRPs is much lower than for shielding. Not having to worry about shields also allows one to hit silent running right out of the gate, which means if they forgot emissive and, if you know how to move, they won't be landing many hits on important subsystems or beable to lead well with FSD disruptors (which are hard to get through all the PDTs and ECMs I can run when I don't have any use for boosters).

conversely, lets say, you don't know what you are doing, you panic over the slightest thing and are going to take an age to get to the jumping animation... how strong does your shield need to be to escape?

It may not be strong enough.

 

[Bigmaec]

I go for a figure of roughly 1000 mj for a medium ship, and some more for a large.
Depending on if you run into a dedicated gank wing with frag alpha strikes, that could be even a bit short.
A single ganker usually doesn't need more.
But it is very dependent on build, maneuverability, and enemy quality.

Edit: what Morbad says works too. But only if you're as good as him

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I generally try to get over 1000 mj on large ships and about 700 for a medium. Faster ships need less. Getting ganked is really a minimal concern if you have a clue though.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It depends how easy a target you are, too.

My Krait has just 432 MJ of biweave shields (though with resistance at ~50%) and I rarely lose more than the first ring before escaping (which suggests I could probably manage with half that). But it's a heavily-engineered Krait, so it's a fairly small target from some angles, fast, and able to boost continuously with 4-2-0 pips - most of that 30 seconds of combat I'm not being hit at all.

In a large ship, or even a slower medium ship, I'd probably want quite a bit more defense than that.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Put it this way, against a single ganker, in my Cutter with a g4 reinforced class 6 prismatic and 7 g5 shield boosters (so 4000+mj with significantly positive resistances) and 4 pips to shields I was able to park up with zero throttle, pick my system I wanted to jump out, wait for the FSD to charge and only then boosting out to hit velocity to high-wake and I still had over 60% of the shield left.

This was a stationary barn door target against a full frag Challenger, so applying actual movement and a smaller ship should mean you'll have no problem with a lot less if you're willing to have your escape plan sorted before being interdicted.

 

[Riverside]

Shieldless will attract the attention of attackers (which may be desirable to some) in supercruise. Whatever your shields give them the best chance of staying up for long enough with 4 pips to sys & try to avoid getting hit if you can.

The best thing you can do for surviving is having a plan (know what you are going to do if X happens) and not panicking at a time critical moment That comes with experience.

 

[Old Duck]

My CMDR's trade ships are all shieldless at this point, and I've never lost one. The cargo trade-off for survivable levels of hull and modules via HRPs/MRPs is much lower than for shielding. Not having to worry about shields also allows one to hit silent running right out of the gate, which means if they forgot emissive and, if you know how to move, they won't be landing many hits on important subsystems or beable to lead well with FSD disruptors (which are hard to get through all the PDTs and ECMs I can run when I don't have any use for boosters).

I've always said that real men fly shieldless!

 

[CMDR Harada]

It's a very situational question, depending on ship/pilot/enemy. But using the best medium ship in the game, a Python, makes it a lot easier.

You didn't mention the type of shield you ran. I usually go with an engineered prismatic shield in a class 5 slot ( thereby getting a class 6 standard ) and saving the class 6 slots exclusively for cargo. Drop on a pair of HD boosters to level your resistances to 40% or more across the board. That should put you at 825 or so absolute, with a 1400-1500 effective. Your low thermal resist would worry me a bit. Gankers usually have ammo based load-outs doing kinetic/blast damage ( higher, but ammo limited, DPS ). But you never know, you could see a LR based laser-vette..

You also didn't say what you ran in the utility slots. I usually add a point defense and a chaff in the two remaining util mounts. Chaff won't work against a pro ( who'll be using fixed weapons ) but will against a wanna-be and gimballed. It can't hurt.

Engineered armor ? Again, going for a resistance balanced effect. If you get hit hard, that will save your bacon ( and cargo ! ) if the shields drop.

I'd feel invulnerable against a run of the mill ganker, and pretty confident against a really good one. It would be a 'toss of the dice' against a top flight one in a full fledged murder wagon using the latest meta-game tactics. It would be pretty hard to peel 1400 effective shields and your armor in the time it takes to hi-wake but theoretically possible.

 

[Morbad]

Shieldless will attract the attention of attackers (which may be desirable to some) in supercruise.

You can always name your ship "HRP smuggler" or something to encourage people to go after softer targets. Though the really bad ones don't know how to read, and the good ones like a challenge, so it's not perfect.

But if you really want to guarantee interdiction, equip a docking computer and supercruise assist....the equivalent of a "kick me" sign spelled out letter by letter in individual sticky notes.

I've always said that real men fly shieldless!

Such sentiments are probably why venereal disease persists into the 34th century.

 

[CMDR Harada]

Such sentiments are probably why venereal disease persists into the 34th century.

Thats why they invented remloc suits...

 

[Bortas]

conversely, lets say, you don't know what you are doing, you panic over the slightest thing and are going to take an age to get to the jumping animation... how strong does your shield need to be to escape?

As some other players already pointed out, knowing what to do and staying calm is probably the more important part, than shield strength.

One additional advice I can give you - never just boost away in a straight line. Your trading ship is probably slower than the attacker, making it exceptionally easy for them to hit you and disable your drives. It's more advisable to maneuver around the enemy like a fly around a head, so he has to constantly turn to keep you in sight, while your FSD is charging. Once it is charged you can then boost into the direction of your target system and be gone.

 

[Morbad]

It's more advisable to maneuver around the enemy like a fly around a head, so he has to constantly turn to keep you in sight, while your FSD is charging.

Also easier to see and evade FSD disruptors if you're facing the ship firing them.

 

[rekurzion]

how are people calculating their mj? is it 1000mj base with zero pips or 1000mj base with 4 pips meaning an even higher rating? and is that absolute or an average?

 

[Bortas]

how are people calculating their mj? is it 1000mj base with zero pips or 1000mj base with 4 pips meaning an even higher rating? and is that absolute or an average?

Usually the base value as shown in outfitting / ship stats. Of course there is little reason to ever use anything but a 4-2-0 setting on a trading ship.

 

[CMDR Harada]

how are people calculating their mj? is it 1000mj base with zero pips or 1000mj base with 4 pips meaning an even higher rating? and is that absolute or an average?

Base versus Effective ( use Coriolis to experiment ) :

Base is the actual MJ of your shield.

Effective is based on the resistances and what they will mitigate. If you had a base 1000 MJ shield, and a +50% resistance to thermal ( lasers ), then you'd have an effective 2000 MJ shield versus thermal, because the lasers do "effective" half damage. If you have the same shield, and used the base shield resistances of -20%, you would have an 800 +/- effective shield. Shield/booster engineering for resistances is a very effective way to maximize your defenses. Really a requirement, IMO. I strive for 50% across the board, but in reality get it in the mid 40's. There is a point of diminishing returns and how high the game will let you take them.

PIPs management :
This takes resistances another level. How many PIPs you have in SYS does affect shield resistances, but what the cap/rate is, I am not sure. I've seen some places claim a 58% increase in resistances. But if you had some engineering and 4 PIPs, then you could have over 100% mitigation ( 45% engineering and then add another 58% with 4 PIPs for 103% ?! ).. and that simply doesn't fly with what I've seen. It may be that shields take the better of the two ( PIPs versus engineered ). Or not. What I do know that my shields hold a heck of a lot better with 2 or more PIPs, and leave to it someone more knowledgeable to explain the exact mechanics.

 

[The Roofus]

Meh, easier to combat log - if you can't kill me in 15 seconds you don't get to; I got schtuff to do.