Ship Builds & Load Outs Shields, mass and strength (coriolis.io)

[Mike Syron]

TLDR; please point me to a thread, where I can find some explanation for this topic. Somehow I can't find it myself in this forums.

I was playing on coriolis.io with different ships and outfits when something got my attention. I'm not sure if coriolis got if wrong (I don't think so given that this very useful and helpful website is actively maintained), but the way how the strength of shields are calculated seems mysterious to me.

Take a vulture with 5A shields, you get 357 MJ of shielding. Hull mass 230 T.
Take a FDL (still) with 5A shields, you get even astounding 468 MJ. Hull 250 T.
Take a ASP-X with 6A shields, you get lousy 234 MJ. Hull 280 T. With A5 its only 208 MJ.

It just doesn't make sense to me even if I try to get behind this "optimal mass" mambo-jumbo logic. And since shield boosters add up to 20 percent to the strength it even gets more extreme. I don't call this balanced nor comprehensible.

Where's the error?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Certain ships are geared more towards shielding, the generator is better positioned, the emitters are better placed, the hull is configured to adapt to it.
Yeah handwavium...

I try to imagine it like a car, you can go for front engine, mid/rear-engine. Each have their advantages depending on your viewpoint and intended use.

The T-type ships shields suck but combat ships obviously more towards shields and hull. Fed ships have epic hulls but shields suffer, imperials are the opposite. It's all somewhat balanced but there are some odd points that need some re-balancing in my opinion.

Taking your example the Vulture and FDL are primed for combat whereas the Asp really isn't. The Vulture is built around 2 guns with everything else thrown into the smallest space possible rather than placed optimally whereas the FDL has had money thrown at it to make it a well shielded, defended and agile fighter with no real obvious weaknesses.

 

[goemon]

here is a devs answer:

Those formulas have a lot of magic numbers in them; a sure sign that it isn't what we're using. The shield formula is pretty simple. 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.

A C2 shield generator has 28t 55t 138t mass curve and modifier limits of 1.5 to 0.5. So being at 28t would give you a modifier of 1.5 to base strength. Being at 138t would give you a 0.5 modifier to base strength. Being somewhere in between would be a linear interpolation of those values and 1.

above and below that quote are more answers.

each ship has a base shield value, which is very different - this is why a courier gets much more MJ shield froma A3 then an eagle (they don't differ that much in mass). because the optimal mass of an A3 shield is much above the actual hullmass of an courier - and so is an A2 shield, you don't gain that much by fitting an A3 on a courier instead of a A2.

basically you want to check at coriolis whether a higher shield "is worth it" (e.g. i still remember my surprise when fitting an A6 shield instead of an A5 on my first AspE, and finding out, it isn't worth it...)

 

[Mike Syron]

Thanks, guys. I got it though I think now Lakon made a lousy job. Shields are essential (in the bubble) and they really messed them up, even a bigger generator can't help much. This is not a "design compromise" this is simply a tremendous waste of resources and energy. ;-)

[...] (e.g. i still remember my surprise when fitting an A6 shield instead of an A5 on my first AspE, and finding out, it isn't worth it...)

Yeah, that just happened to me too. 6A shields costs about 15 Mio, that's still a sh*t load of money for me and ... not worth it. I get the half of the power that a FDL gets with a 5A. That's a lousy and terrible deal. I stick with A5 and two boosters till I get brutally murdered by some merciless killer-Elite. 64 T of cargo space can be useful doing missions too.

 

[goemon]

Thanks, guys. I got it though I think now Lakon made a lousy job.

very funny, that even the same manufacturer like guatamaya is on the one hand able to give a ship such a crazy good shields base value like a courier, and such a lousy one like the clipper ;-)