Engineers The best Heavy Duty Shield Boosters for your ship, optimisation charts and data

[thefomo]

Attention CMDRs,

FOMO Research herein presents fellow CMDRs with optimisation charts and tables for engineering the best HD Shield Boosters for your ship. Fly safe CMDRs.

SUMMARY

0A - all out max boost, when you don't care about weight and power draw.
Recommended for all large ships. Consider for small and medium ships wanting to preserve utility slots for other goodies needed in bounty hunting, pirating, or defensive combat. Also for combat ships (of any size) wanting to shield tank weaker/battered/more agile opponents in reverse with big guns (a ship ideal for noob pilots).

0D - a good balance between boost, weight and power draw.
Good for building small (and lighter medium) combat ships wanting to shield tank without sacrificing too much speed and agility. Also when power generators are undersized e.g. Vulture. FDLs may consider this option with it's 6 slots and relative light weight.

0E - the lightest and lowest power draw.
Good for building small fast hit and run combat ships. Also consider for small long range trading ships where you feel the need for a wee bit more shielding.

Additional Notes
Shield boost, mass and energy draw is not the only consideration when using HD boosters. Thermal resistance counts for a lot. It's recommended to complement the shear MJ boost you're getting here with thermal resistance from your base shield generator and/or Thermal Resistant Shield Boosters (rule of thumb: no more than +50% thermal resistance, the benefits drops off thereafter).


CHARTS

LOOK UP TABLE

 

[Mugur]

Very nice!

 

[Genoscythe]

EAT REP!!!

Lovely, I was asking myself if there might be a good way to balance out boost and weight, surely a nice thing to know.

 

[Non Grata]

Where did the boost numbers come from - they seem different to the game. Also for the boost/mw table, are D and E reversed?

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Agreed, max G5 HD for a single A booster is ~55%, and with super capacitors it's 74%.

 

[MPL3D]

Excellent. Those graphs are awesome. Well done.
Very useful information and very well presented.
I've sent you a pm.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Excellent. Those graphs are awesome. Well done.
Very useful information and very well presented.
I've sent you a pm.

It looks incorrect to me.
Just looking at the values for G5 hull boost, it's way off.

EDSY shows:
Max G5 HD for A is ~55/74%.
Max G5 HD for E is ~44/50%

 

[Fett_Li]

It looks incorrect to me.
Just looking at the values for G5 hull boost, it's way off.

EDSY shows:
Max G5 HD for A is ~55/74%.
Max G5 HD for E is ~44/50%

Values definitely are incorrect. I guess they come from before I fixed the bugs at coriolis when it comes to boost calculations. Even without super capacitors applied, you get a 65.5% shield boost from a 0A HD SB.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Values definitely are incorrect. I guess they come from before I fixed the bugs at coriolis when it comes to boost calculations. Even without super capacitors applied, you get a 65.5% shield boost from a 0A HD SB.

Correct, and strange, I don't know where I got 55.
Must have been a typo in the first post and just copied in the second.

Thanks for all the work!

 

[Fett_Li]

Correct, and strange, I don't know where I got 55.
Must have been a typo in the first post and just copied in the second.

Thanks for all the work!

55% is about the change that is displayed ingame for a 0A SB with HD+SC. Might come from there

 

[thefomo]

The figures are for HD Booster Engineering without Experimentals like Super Caps. It was a while ago, but I believe I read the data from in-game, base figures, plus engineering +/- % impact, then applied the impact calculations to the base figures according to previously discussed calculation methods in this forum.

I believe these figures were correct at the time I published them, but can't check right now as I'm out in the black exploring in my ASPX without shield boosters.

 

[Ballistic Mystic]

Why HD?

First, great job on classifying all that stuff, wow!

Second, why go HD at all? What I want from my shield (boosters) is not power but health. That is a combination of power (MJ), resistances (thermal, kinetic, explosive/blast) and recharge rate (MJ/s). In HD boosters only power is great (and in an AX build where resistances don't give a damn I like them), the rest are .

My SB's are all Resistance augmented (with force block), my shield generator (always bi weave btw) is thermal and fast charge. That way my actual shield health is as high as a combo with HD SB's with triple the MJ. Only my shields regen much faster, a SCB takes them to 100% in a jiffy and my wingmates don't have to beam me to death with regen lasers cos in seconds my shields are back where they need to be if I'm in a bind. These are all positive consequences from the low power they need to be healthy.

So, again, I applaud all your hard work, but it's only something to be considered for goid hunters, otherwise go LP and HR!

 

[Fett_Li]

First, great job on classifying all that stuff, wow!

Second, why go HD at all? What I want from my shield (boosters) is not power but health. That is a combination of power (MJ), resistances (thermal, kinetic, explosive/blast) and recharge rate (MJ/s). In HD boosters only power is great (and in an AX build where resistances don't give a damn I like them), the rest are .

My SB's are all Resistance augmented (with force block), my shield generator (always bi weave btw) is thermal and fast charge. That way my actual shield health is as high as a combo with HD SB's with triple the MJ. Only my shields regen much faster, a SCB takes them to 100% in a jiffy and my wingmates don't have to beam me to death with regen lasers cos in seconds my shields are back where they need to be if I'm in a bind. These are all positive consequences from the low power they need to be healthy.

So, again, I applaud all your hard work, but it's only something to be considered for goid hunters, otherwise go LP and HR!

There is a very common misconception depicted in your post I see over and over. There is no value in having SCBs bring your shield to 100%. If you like the extra regen rate of the Bi-Weave - fine. However, as shields do not regenerate when they're shot at using Bi-Weaves on the big three is kind of a waste as you get shot at pretty much all the time. If you would have taken a Prismatic Shield Generator with the exact same modifications, you would have overall more shield strength and SCBs would give you the exact same amount of shield strength but you had more to start with. Even if they don't bring you to 100% shield strength.

 

[Ballistic Mystic]

There is a very common misconception depicted in your post I see over and over. There is no value in having SCBs bring your shield to 100%. If you like the extra regen rate of the Bi-Weave - fine. However, as shields do not regenerate when they're shot at using Bi-Weaves on the big three is kind of a waste as you get shot at pretty much all the time. If you would have taken a Prismatic Shield Generator with the exact same modifications, you would have overall more shield strength and SCBs would give you the exact same amount of shield strength but you had more to start with. Even if they don't bring you to 100% shield strength.

My shields regenerate all the time using an SCB while I'm being shot at, that's the whole point of having it!

You do know that there's a difference in regen rate between 0-50% and 50-100%, and my biweaves are engineered that they regen much faster between 50-100. So, the amount of MJ you pump into a prismatic is the same with a SCB, the result is much less % and 1. won't get you to +50% when needed and 2. won't make your prismatics regen anywhere near biweaves. Prismatics are good for really short encounters (like griefing innocent ppl), but I can solo a hi cz for hours without my shields ever going down, prismatics go down slowly but come up much slower, so they do go down (and use up much more power, weigh more, ...)

The interesting thing about ED ship builds is that all modules depend upon each other and making the right choices everywhere gives you a ship that is much more efficient at reaching the intended goal than when you make 1 (or 2 now) wrong turns.

 

[Fett_Li]

[...] the result is much less % [...]

My point was just that (besides recharge time) there is no point in having more % regenerated by SCBs

 

[Ballistic Mystic]

My point was just that (besides recharge time) there is no point in having more % regenerated by SCBs

You're absolutely right, and depending on your play style, your goals, that recharge rate is exactly what it's all about if you want to stay in a fight for more than a few minutes. Soloing a hi cz there are times that RNG lets me get overwhelmed by enemies. And it takes me longer to take them all out before my shields would have succumbed, so I SCB once (or even twice if they're really messing me up), my shields don't break at all and after a minute or 2 I've taken out enough enemies that my shield regen rate is higher than the damage these enemies can put on it. And I live to fight another hour.

It's the same idea of having a weps power usage that's lower than the recharge rate of your distro. It never goes empty that way and you can fight forever. My (almost) all laser builds don't even need to rearm, so fun all around.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

SCBs have nothing to do with recharge rate.

 

[Ballistic Mystic]

SCBs have nothing to do with recharge rate.

If, as I stated before, you use a SCB to get your shield up over 50% and your setup favours a higher regen rate between 50 and 100% it has immediate influence on that regen rate. Otherwise there is no direct link between them. So, saying "nothing to do" is overstating it.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

If, as I stated before, you use a SCB to get your shield up over 50% and your setup favours a higher regen rate between 50 and 100% it has immediate influence on that regen rate. Otherwise there is no direct link between them. So, saying "nothing to do" is overstating it.

What do you mean by the bold part?

Regen rate is determined by the shield gen, and it is fixed.

 

[Ballistic Mystic]

What do you mean by the bold part?

Regen rate is determined by the shield gen, and it is fixed.

It's all in the experimental effects you put on your shield (boosters). If you use things like thermo or force block your recovery rate (between 0-50%) will go up slightly, but your recharge rate (between 50-100%) will go down. If you put on the Fast charge one, your recovery rate will go down slightly, but your recharge rate will definitely go up.

I know all these seconds don't seem like a big bother, but if you're actually in prolonged combat they do matter a lot, and you get to feel the difference in performance with experience. So, you are right for a non-engineered ship, but here it is all about the engineering.