The SCB (Shield Cell Bank) Thread

ok but let's not kid ourselves, SCB lovers - they are in the minority.

SCB's are boring because there is no other internals worth taking, they are super strong and make ramming even more powerful. It's a battle of attrition and scb win every time. Multi-purpose ships are OP because of it - 30+ SCB's

No they are not. You forum nerfers are the minority. If you can't adapt - again - lego batman.
 
Yes, 2 years ago I spent $200 and I brought elite dangerous, a game with billions of stars and complex player interactions so I could go slug it out in an arena that wouldn't be made for another year and a half. I want to pirate and fight pirates, I want to win wars and be the last stand, I want to have a hand in seeing empires fall and I want to have fun.

1 and half years ago elite promised all of that, the dog fighting was being tuned in to perfection, the interdiction mechanic was on the horizon with hundreds of escort vs pirate, mercenary vs defender and empire vs empire battles in the future. Then they added SCBs and ruined the dogfight they had so carefully tuned. The pirates and the bounty hunters became invincible (provided they knew when to run) and many of the traders fled to open play.

Sandro told us it was a good mechanic to help traders survive. We told him is wasn't he didn't listen. 1 and half years later and our point has been proven ten fold. SCBs have only served to make traders more defenseless as even an escort can't kill the pirate quick enough to save the trader.

So let me guess, I should "git gud" as I watch all I hoped to defend and attack be destroyed or flee to solo in the face of overwhelming odds, all due to one badly designed mechanic?

This isn't about pvp or pve. Both of those interactions imply something far to simple to encapsulate this game. This game is full of interesting and complex interactions where even the predators would have to be on guard, but SCBs devolve this interaction into "who has the bigger fish".
You nailed it, Ive been here since Beta as well and combat was fun and challenging, I had to actually outweigh risk vs reward. That all changed when they introduced SCB's, facepalm.
 
Soooo you have a Python. Bot dont have the fire power to get threw SCBs.


Sounds like its a user issue rather then a game mechanic.
I could outfit my whole Python with SCBs just to stay competitive, but is that all my options at the moment? seems like it until they remove SCB for noobs.
 
I am also in the "SCBs are not fine" camp, but I might be less extreme than many. My main problem with the current meta can be summarized with a response to this argument:

Open your mind and get it out of the smothering grip of having to categorize everything. Every ship is it's own category. And there are Builds. You can compare a ship to a different ship, with a certain build.

That's why we talk about "stock" or "maxed" or "A-graded" ships, not just ships. Because builds matter. They matter a lot. But a build contains ship+equipment. Which in turn means full price.

About ship categorization
I think in the beginning ships were clearly intended to have categories. And I like it. IMHO some ships should be better at trading, some better at fighting and some should be good allrounders that can be made into very effective traders/fighters/explorers with clever outfitting.

But as many commenters have pointed out, the way SCBs currently work leads this categorization ad absurdum. SCBs simply make the multi-roles too powerful. Want some proof? Jump over to the Federal Corvette thread and read the comments. People are afraid the Corvette will be a less powerful fighter than the Anaconda. Why? Because the Corvette will be a dedicated fighter. It will probably be power starved and wont have the internals to load up on a gazillion SCBs. Of course this may turn out to be false, but I believe it highlights the current problem very well.

But on to my main point..

Builds
Yes, builds matter. They should. I love tinkering with the build of my ship until it feels perfect. Its one of my favorite things in computer games. But in ED there currently is NO build variety at all. There is one build which is the clear winner: As many SCBs as possible. For PvP there simply is no viable alternative at the moment, there is no counter to that strategy. And many people - me included - find that boring.

Its not that we cant adapt to the meta, I am pretty sure many people in the "Nerf SCBs" camp have PvP optimized Pythons or Anacondas in their hangar. Its just that having only one viable PvP build template has become stale.

Elite is a great game, I am sure most of the "whiners" dont want to ruin it. They want to tune it, make it even better and increase the fun that can be had with the game in the long run.
 
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There is a clear winner build because the SCB's are the only game in town as far as combat internals are concerned.

Why not have the AFMU do the following :


  • Auto repair the most damaged modules, with PP always being first.
  • When repairing, does not need to switch the modules off.
  • Can also repair the hull of the ship
  • In addition, have the hull package bring in a %modifier to hull as the shield boosters.
  • Lower the price and mass of armor by a factor of two.

Then, voilà, two other worthy combat internals. Build variety stems from the availability of options, not the removal of options
as some seems to be so fond off.

If hull tanking was a thing, with the possibility of repairs and stuff, then :


  • Lasers would become less dominant, which is an other balance issue.
  • SCB's become less attractive, esp. if heat gen was raised. Make it so that lasers + SCB's + boost = big trouble or heat sinks. (more heat sinks => less shield boosters)
  • Increase the attractivity of high hull ships, like the Dropship.

    *edit : added in suggestions
 
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There is a clear winner build because the SCB's are the only game in town as far as combat internals are concerned.

Why not have the AFMU do the following :


  • Auto repair the most damaged modules, with PP always being first.
  • When repairing, does not need to switch the modules off.
  • Can also repair the hull of the ship
  • In addition, have the hull package bring in a %modifier to hull as the shield boosters.

Then, voilà, two other worthy combat internals. Build variety stems from the availability of options, not the removal of options
as some seems to be so fond off.

If hull tanking was a thing, with the possibility of repairs and stuff, then :


  • Lasers would become less dominant, which is an other balance issue.
  • SCB's become less attractive, esp. if heat gen was raised. Make it so that lasers + SCB's + boost = big trouble or heat sinks. (more heat sinks => less shield boosters)
  • Increase the attractivity of high hull ships, like the Dropship.

Good suggestions.

I think people mostly cry for an SCB nerf because SCBs are part of the problem and it is the easiest thing to demand. New outfitting options that make other loadouts more viable are probably a much better solution. At least they would be for me.
 
There is a clear winner build because the SCB's are the only game in town as far as combat internals are concerned.

Why not have the AFMU do the following :


  • Auto repair the most damaged modules, with PP always being first.
  • When repairing, does not need to switch the modules off.
  • Can also repair the hull of the ship
  • In addition, have the hull package bring in a %modifier to hull as the shield boosters.
  • Lower the price and mass of armor by a factor of two.

Then, voilà, two other worthy combat internals. Build variety stems from the availability of options, not the removal of options
as some seems to be so fond off.

If hull tanking was a thing, with the possibility of repairs and stuff, then :


  • Lasers would become less dominant, which is an other balance issue.
  • SCB's become less attractive, esp. if heat gen was raised. Make it so that lasers + SCB's + boost = big trouble or heat sinks. (more heat sinks => less shield boosters)
  • Increase the attractivity of high hull ships, like the Dropship.

This is a good idea.
 
I saw one video recently with the same statement "it comes down to who has the most SCBs"
Here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31obck-XM64

If you fight like that - that's not the SCB problem.

Well said, If you joust like that then you can't fire at them for long enough to stop them using SCB's; get behind them, full pip's to weapons and when they pop the SCB keep hammering them. You can do more damage than the SCB can recharge you just need to stay with them.

Yeah small ships like eagles and vipers are always going have difficulty with combat builds on the big ships but that's because you're bringing a knife to an artillery duel!

There is a clear winner build because the SCB's are the only game in town as far as combat internals are concerned.

Why not have the AFMU do the following :


  • Auto repair the most damaged modules, with PP always being first.
  • When repairing, does not need to switch the modules off.
  • Can also repair the hull of the ship
  • In addition, have the hull package bring in a %modifier to hull as the shield boosters.
  • Lower the price and mass of armor by a factor of two.

Then, voilà, two other worthy combat internals. Build variety stems from the availability of options, not the removal of options
as some seems to be so fond off.

If hull tanking was a thing, with the possibility of repairs and stuff, then :


  • Lasers would become less dominant, which is an other balance issue.
  • SCB's become less attractive, esp. if heat gen was raised. Make it so that lasers + SCB's + boost = big trouble or heat sinks. (more heat sinks => less shield boosters)
  • Increase the attractivity of high hull ships, like the Dropship.

    *edit : added in suggestions

That's an excellent idea, adds variety to the combat builds and also increases the usefulness of kinetics.

I also like "attractivity", not a word but totally should be!
 
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There is a clear winner build because the SCB's are the only game in town as far as combat internals are concerned.

Why not have the AFMU do the following :


  • Auto repair the most damaged modules, with PP always being first.
  • When repairing, does not need to switch the modules off.
  • Can also repair the hull of the ship
  • In addition, have the hull package bring in a %modifier to hull as the shield boosters.
  • Lower the price and mass of armor by a factor of two.

Then, voilà, two other worthy combat internals. Build variety stems from the availability of options, not the removal of options
as some seems to be so fond off.

If hull tanking was a thing, with the possibility of repairs and stuff, then :


  • Lasers would become less dominant, which is an other balance issue.
  • SCB's become less attractive, esp. if heat gen was raised. Make it so that lasers + SCB's + boost = big trouble or heat sinks. (more heat sinks => less shield boosters)
  • Increase the attractivity of high hull ships, like the Dropship.

    *edit : added in suggestions

No, because the answer to bringing SCB's in line with their drawbacks (Power requirements, heat, charges, weight, etc...) is not to buff other modules to break them just as badly as SCB's.
 
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Because fixing the imbalance in combat internals is best done by removing said internals altogether... lol.

I will not go further than that about your idea of buffing the FDL and nerfing everything else, because this all this is about, in fine.
 
Because fixing the imbalance in combat internals is best done by removing said internals altogether... lol.

I will not go further than that about your idea of buffing the FDL and nerfing everything else, because this all this is about, in fine.

SCB's are the only internal that were put in the wrong slot to begin with. They are directly combat related, they have a number of charges before they are depleted, and they are a defensive module.

What other modules fit these three requirements?

Chaff

ECM

Point Defense Turrets

Plain and simple: SCB's are in the wrong slot. Frontier screwed up.
 
No, because the answer to bringing SCB's in line with their drawbacks (Power requirements, heat, charges, weight, etc...) is not to buff other modules to break them just as badly as SCB's.

You can either make everything useful or make everything useless. The later has people saying "Who cares?" and the former makes people think. I would rather they didn't make everything about this game totally beige.
 
SCB's are the only internal that were put in the wrong slot to begin with. They are directly combat related, they have a number of charges before they are depleted, and they are a defensive module.

What other modules fit these three requirements?

Chaff

ECM

Point Defense Turrets

Plain and simple: SCB's are in the wrong slot. Frontier screwed up.

They wouldn't fit on a utility slot, its a battery array...
 
You can either make everything useful or make everything useless. The later has people saying "Who cares?" and the former makes people think. I would rather they didn't make everything about this game totally beige.

We're saying fix it, not grind it into dust. Pretty big difference, especially because there is so much room to play on the SCB's before they become undesirable.

- - - Updated - - -

They wouldn't fit on a utility slot, its a battery array...

A heat sink for my 1000 ton ship fits on a one meter square platform and jettisons with enough energy in it to power a small town for a day, I'm sure Frontier can find a way to explain SCB's.
 
They wouldn't fit on a utility slot, its a battery array...

Many things don't make sense in ED .. moving it to a utility slot would force players to pick what they need and not just stock pile them (as they do now). Watching a lot of videos on YouTube showing PvP combat fights and it becomes a game of endurance - the one with the most tends to win.
 
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