The SCB (Shield Cell Bank) Thread

Fixed that for ya. The major gripes about SCBs all come from PvPers because NPCs dont stack SCBs but players looking to tank PvE most definitely DO, and benefit from it. PvP on the other hand gets bogged down by stacked SCBs. Given that it's totally a PvP "problem" I'm all in favor of a "fix" that makes the problem go away, but ONLY if it doesn't disadvantage other play styles that are equally valid in ED.


I only PvE and I hate them. Unless you want to fly a paper ship around or go back to restock all the time you are forced to use SCBs and agile ships due to many balance issues.
 
. Against chaffs you can use fixed weapons at least.
Vs a Courier? In a Conda? I...no. Just no. Condas have insanely high operating costs, cost by far the most credits, and carry very, very high risk. So yeah TWO of them should be a serious threat against 3 Couriers. Its like pitting two destroyers against 3 littoral combat ships. [h=2][/h]
 
So it then becomes a question of who has the biggest SCB. Or who has the most hull reinforcements behind their military composites. The point I was making is that nerfing or eliminating SCBs doesn't take the problem away. Without SCBs in the mix, folks would find another way to build a tank and that will then do the same thing to PvP combat, in terms of matching ship vs ship instead of player skill vs player skill. That's why FD limited the ship and loadout options available in CQC - because that has to be balanced for PvP because that's what it's there for. Just don't expect a perfect PvP balance to show off your superior skill in the main game. There's just too many other ways to play it for it to be optimized for that. In the main game there will always be a "toughest tank" build, if it isn't a stack of SCBs on a big ship, it will be something else, some other combination of hull and modules that will be almost impossible for a ship built out any differently to take down because it just outlasts what its pilot can't outfly.

Trying to create the kind of balance you are looking for in the main game just isn't going to work. Not unless you make it impossible to build a tank with decent firepower or multirole capacity and that will be so much to the detriment of folks playing a different way that FD would be idiots to do it. It would annoy WAY more play styles than it pleased.

I would like very much to read what you would suggest for tanking if SCBs were removed from the game.
 
Why not triple the weight and power consumption and takes occupies 2 slots. Also charge $20M for each. Nerfing is a cheap way to balance. Low budget producers can be excused, but it's beyond comprehension why anyone would encourage such low brow techniques. People sacrifice much in power and slots to stock them as it is. But they are free to choose what to outfit.

Requiring SCBs to use a utility slot as well as a cargo slot, and also not giving them separate power up/down options (so that can only be powered down by powering down the shield generator) would actually go a long way to balancing them.
 
So it then becomes a question of who has the biggest SCB. Or who has the most hull reinforcements behind their military composites. The point I was making is that nerfing or eliminating SCBs doesn't take the problem away. Without SCBs in the mix, folks would find another way to build a tank and that will then do the same thing to PvP combat, in terms of matching ship vs ship instead of player skill vs player skill. That's why FD limited the ship and loadout options available in CQC - because that has to be balanced for PvP because that's what it's there for. Just don't expect a perfect PvP balance to show off your superior skill in the main game. There's just too many other ways to play it for it to be optimized for that. In the main game there will always be a "toughest tank" build, if it isn't a stack of SCBs on a big ship, it will be something else, some other combination of hull and modules that will be almost impossible for a ship built out any differently to take down because it just outlasts what its pilot can't outfly.

Trying to create the kind of balance you are looking for in the main game just isn't going to work. Not unless you make it impossible to build a tank with decent firepower or multirole capacity and that will be so much to the detriment of folks playing a different way that FD would be idiots to do it. It would annoy WAY more play styles than it pleased.

The reason why I want to see SCBs go or nerfed isn't for "balance", it's for good gameplay, and importantly, dangerous gameplay because it's supposed to be, you know, Elite DANGEROUS. Unlike SCBs, which carry no risk as long as you fire them off before your shield goes down, hull tanking does have risks. In particular module damage. Whilst a hull tanker would have an advantage in a fight, their external modules are still exposed, and lucky shots can still hit internals, making the fight not a foregone conclusion. This makes for more interesting and dangerous gameplay. There's a fantastic damage model underneath those shields, and nerfing, or better yet, removing the SCBs exposes it. Combat will more often end with both ships taking hull damage, making combat more dangerous and making people take it more seriously, regardless of their loadout.
 
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The reason why I want to see SCBs go or nerfed isn't for "balance", it's for good gameplay, and importantly, dangerous gameplay because it's supposed to be, you know, Elite DANGEROUS. Unlike SCBs, which carry no risk as long as you fire them off before your shield goes down, hull tanking does have risks. In particular module damage. Whilst a hull tanker would have an advantage in a fight, their external modules are still exposed, and lucky shots can still hit internals, making the fight not a foregone conclusion. This makes for more interesting and dangerous gameplay. There's a fantastic damage model underneath those shields, and nerfing, or better yet, removing the SCBs exposes it. Combat will more often end with both ships taking hull damage, making combat more dangerous and making people take it more seriously, regardless of their loadout.

Removing an entire mechanic to make you feel better about your play style, isn't enough of a reason, imho. Any more than it would be perfectly valid for my play style.

There are fundamental reasons SCBs are used; it doesn't matter how you re-arrange the deck chairs, or change how many chairs exist on said deck, you haven't solved the underlying reason for them.

Less doesn't fix shield regen. Arguing utility slots are the answer ignores the massive difference in utility slot count. It also ignores that quite a few combat ships actually have pretty awful armour and so will become much less useful.

Ignoring input factors and removing crap, in isolation, is partly why we are here in the first place. Shield nerfs! The entire debate is hilarious in that it's yet another example of trying to solve symptoms (and once again we have a call to nerf a specific thing in isolation) whilst ignoring the illness.

Agree entirely that SCBs are a busted mechanic. I'd far prefer the cause of that busted mechanic be worked on. Because you then solve both.
 
So many ideas, so much to discuss.

My idea of allowing missiles to bypass shields didn't get too far, though.

same thing of my idea of ion guns, that drain shields but don't do physical damage. Personally I think SCBs should be buffed in how quickly they shoot off but keep their ammo count low like they are now.
 
I reiterate that it makes no sense to change SCBs. Or anything else for that matter.

This is a simulated universe. My ship has SCBs. What are you proposing? That elves come in the night and rewire them? What in-game story explanation would there be for the operation of SCBs suddenly changing?

If we're going to be altering the game-universe, why not just make all planets into earthlike planets while we're at it? That'd be a nice update for explorers. But you don't see explorers here begging Frontier for that. Because it's supposed to be hard to find earthlike planets. Just like it's supposed to be hard to kill other people in PVP.

So I would appreciate it if you'd all quit thinking about the game in terms of how you'd change what is already in the game. Personally, I think it would be incredibly lame for Frontier to change things that are already in the game, because it makes no sense how those things would change. I bought SCBs and equipped them onto my ship; unless they get destroyed why should they ever go away? It's hardware. If I login one day and they're not there anymore, or they don't work the same anymore, that would be totally unrealistic. What would the in-game explanation be? That the SCB company issued a firmware update to the SCBs that bricked a bunch of them? What if I said my guy has a firewall that blocks firmware updates?

I'll quit if they start mucking around with the existing simulated hardware, which works perfectly, and is perfectly fair since all the same gear is available to all players. If they're going to make changes they should concentrate on adding new features and fixing the numerous bugs and issues, many of which still linger after having been reported many many months ago. THAT is what will retain the player base and bring more noobs into the game for you to all get your PVP fix against.
 
I reiterate that it makes no sense to change SCBs. Or anything else for that matter.

This is a simulated universe. My ship has SCBs. What are you proposing? That elves come in the night and rewire them? What in-game story explanation would there be for the operation of SCBs suddenly changing?

If we're going to be altering the game-universe, why not just make all planets into earthlike planets while we're at it? That'd be a nice update for explorers. But you don't see explorers here begging Frontier for that. Because it's supposed to be hard to find earthlike planets. Just like it's supposed to be hard to kill other people in PVP.

So I would appreciate it if you'd all quit thinking about the game in terms of how you'd change what is already in the game. Personally, I think it would be incredibly lame for Frontier to change things that are already in the game, because it makes no sense how those things would change. I bought SCBs and equipped them onto my ship; unless they get destroyed why should they ever go away? It's hardware. If I login one day and they're not there anymore, or they don't work the same anymore, that would be totally unrealistic. What would the in-game explanation be? That the SCB company issued a firmware update to the SCBs that bricked a bunch of them? What if I said my guy has a firewall that blocks firmware updates?

I'll quit if they start mucking around with the existing simulated hardware, which works perfectly, and is perfectly fair since all the same gear is available to all players. If they're going to make changes they should concentrate on adding new features and fixing the numerous bugs and issues, many of which still linger after having been reported many many months ago. THAT is what will retain the player base and bring more noobs into the game for you to all get your PVP fix against.

Well they elves came and swapped my missiles with worse ones and at the same time rammed a spanner into the Pythons maneuvering thrusters. Why? Because that made the game better, the Python was very simply the Master of all Trades and missiles caused more grief than ramming ever did. After the nerfs the Python is still heavily used and the preferred ship of many players, but now the alternatives are much more viable. Even the choice between clipper and python is a interesting decision now. As for missiles... yeah that's a good example of a bad nerf but still i prefer them being near useless to being hands down the best weapon.

The "Elves" have made the game better.
 
Bingo. If you want variety, that necessarily means that there will be ways to optimise an outcome. CQC needs to be balanced pretty religiously because that format is more about skill, cunning and abilities. Using a ship to its fullest potential. You eschew vibrancy and component choice to ensure combat is balanced.

Open isn't balanced. 3x 3 medium guns of any sort aren't going to do too much to an Anaconda with an A class shield, regardless of boosters. Against 2? Not a hope.

This also illustrates a fundamental point, people assume they can win regardless of the asymmetry of a battle, because they often don't actually understand the mechanics. Class 2 weapons have an approx 33% damage penalty against large ships. So more helps. This is why FDL in a competent pilots hands can be deadly. There are 4 points that stack damage, overcoming a lot of the penalty.

However a courier has 3 points. Even with 2 rails and a plasma, it's going to be a tough job to kill a commander in an Anaconda. Why is the assumption the combat guy will win? If they are a) in a wing b) have a fit out the overcomes the damage penalty (rails and plasma and c) work as a solid team, with some cunning - they will be quite a match.

However taking on two commanders in Anacondas, that have a considerable weapon advantage (at this point the shields are almost irrelevant, the multiple class 3 weapons alone will cause utter destruction) should be a serious cause for concern, if you are rocking a courier.

There are examples being given when SCBs aren't actually a deciding factor. This doesn't help prove SCBs are bad.

I am all for a shield and SCB balance; it think however making everything killable by a couple courier pilots, regardless of situation, is not the sensible approach.

Where is it written that there must be "balance"? I think balance is a terrible concept in general, and should never have found its way into the dialectic about games. There should not be balance. The entire point of games is to prevail against imbalance. That is literally the basis of every known game going all the way back to the very oldest known game: Go, where black has a significant advantage from having the first move, much like White does in chess. And of course Go and Chess are considered to be the most balanced possible games that exist.

Further, within any game, the entire point is to create imbalance giving yourself a competitive edge, whether it be by taking the enemy's queen in Chess, or, as in sports, by recruiting superior players so that your team has as significant an advantage as possible from the get-go.

What we want is a game that's fair, and Elite Dangerous right now is perfectly fair: all players have access to the exact same set of gear they can equip their ships with. Beyond that, how space combat flows is purely the product of your skill level as a pilot and your ability to recruit a team to hunt with you. I guarantee you there are groups of players out there that could care less about SCBs because their team has enough firepower to melt right through any number of SCBs.

What all your complaints boil down to, is you don't want the game to require you to be a good pilot with a strong team to defeat opposing commanders. You want to be able to solo-gank people, or to destroy a player in a much better ship than yours because you caught them off-gaurd or whatever.

But, frankly, I think what you're asking for is for Frontier to ruin this game, which is fine as it is right now, just so that it will be easier for you to ruin other peoples' days and feel good about yourselves for it.

I don't mean that in a rude or inflammatory way, and I apologize my earlier comment was rude and inflammatory, but I just think that if Frontier becomes influenced by these sorts of threads, then this will be doomed to the same mediocre fate that has befallen every major MMO where the developers kept changing things based on complaint threads, which were usually just veiled attempts by a very small, vocal minority of players (usually 20 or less) who spent inordinate amounts of time pushing and pushing for changes that, in reality, were just designed to benefit them personally in various ways, tilting the tables of the game towards people of their play-style. I sincerely hope Frontier does not fall victim to this type of thread.
 
Well they elves came and swapped my missiles with worse ones and at the same time rammed a spanner into the Pythons maneuvering thrusters. Why? Because that made the game better, the Python was very simply the Master of all Trades and missiles caused more grief than ramming ever did. After the nerfs the Python is still heavily used and the preferred ship of many players, but now the alternatives are much more viable. Even the choice between clipper and python is a interesting decision now. As for missiles... yeah that's a good example of a bad nerf but still i prefer them being near useless to being hands down the best weapon.

The "Elves" have made the game better.

Well, I can only speak as an XBOX player, but none of those changes came since the game was released on this platform. But I can definitively say that missiles are the most useless thing in the game since I started playing. I literally laugh when I see something launch missiles at me. If that was a change made based on some complaint thread, then it only proves my point.

As for Python's maneuvering thrusters, I don't know how much it was changed or what it was like before, or whether that change was made during or after beta, but I wonder if they were correcting a bug or if they were actually trying to change the Python based on people saying it was too good. Even with reduced thrusters, I couldn't sell my Clipper and get a Python fast enough. I could see the Clipper having a purpose in certain special scenarios like piracy, due to its speed, but for any practical trading or mining purpose, the Python is vastly superior in every conceivable way except possibly turning. Clipper has super-crappy shields, handles like a school bus on ice skates, and is restricted to large landing pads only.

You're entitled to the view that making these changes made the game better, but don't act like it's a "fact" that it's better as a result, because frankly I could see the case either way. I could see it being better if missiles were strong because you SHOULD be able to get owned by missiles! And since the Python is actually the only sensible choice for many activities, then it having a good turning radius would only improve the game for people who fly it. But I guess people complained. So here we are.
 
And of course Go and Chess are considered to be the most balanced possible games that exist.

Not really no. Both are finite state games with no random element. There exists an optimum strategy in chess where white ALWAYS wins or at least forces a draw. It's only a considered a good game because we haven't yet found that strategy. Go is in a similar situation but because it has far more possible game states than chess we are far more unlikely to find the optimal strategy.

Pong* is a much more balanced game (provided you play a version with a randomized starting vector).

As for the rest of your post you fail to actually address most of the reasons we want change, balance is only a one of the reasons. Game play is another, many pre-SCB players agree the game was funner and more challenging before them.
 
However a courier has 3 points. Even with 2 rails and a plasma, it's going to be a tough job to kill a commander in an Anaconda. Why is the assumption the combat guy will win? If they are a) in a wing b) have a fit out the overcomes the damage penalty (rails and plasma and c) work as a solid team, with some cunning - they will be quite a match.

However taking on two commanders in Anacondas, that have a considerable weapon advantage (at this point the shields are almost irrelevant, the multiple class 3 weapons alone will cause utter destruction) should be a serious cause for concern, if you are rocking a courier.

However these conda pilots were bad as hell. As I already stated, we were bringing down the condas shield to the last "layer" already when he started going into Invulnabru-mode due to stacking SCB. I am totally fine with being able to fit one - even so with more than a handful of charges.
Btw we had fixed beams I personally had one fixed one, the other two I think had two fixed beams (dont know for sure) at least 3 fixed beams, most probably it were 5 though.
A courier is a lot more nimble than an anaconda but in he current meta that doesnt count for crap when you can boost scb with imunity, fire away with impunity and due to no masslock can switfly high wake out if you get low on SCBs.
 
nobody here wants the perfect balance, i agree that unbalancing in a game where every player can access to all the content would be ok, BUT this is fine UNTIL that supposed ''unbalancing'' doesn't kill variety:

i don't want kill a player anaconda in my little viper,this would be patethic,but we need to give different specific features to different ships class (traders,fighters and multirole) and size.

The problem here, is that all ships don't have a specific characteristic.
As i suggested, Limiting SCB and allowing them just for specific ships would be great, since we already have this kind of balancing in game, but not for SCB.

TRADERS: good shields,great hull,poor modules,bad agility,bad firepower,good power distribution and average power capacity ,2 SCB racks,

MULTIROLES: great shields,good hull,great modules,average agility,good firepower,good power distribution and great power capacity,no SCB racks,

FUGHTERS: Poor shields,poor hull,good modules,great agility,great firepower,great power distribution,average power capacity1 SCB rack.

That's how i think IMHO is a good balance that doesn't kill variety in game.l
 
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This thread is still running?

...and like in annother thread regarding SCBs most commanders argue in a way to promote their own playstyle. In short: "My super agile combat ship should also be (nearly) on par with the python/anaconda in terms of overall shield performance". E.g. all suggestions which allow to use only one SCB; yes, this is VERY good for your combat ship, isn't it? As long as this stays I can't take them serious. My preferred combat ship is the FAS, not espeacially famous for it's shield capability, but in HI RES and even in conflict zones it is more effective than my conda, so I don't see the big problem. I made a suggestion in this thread for small/medium balancing, to bring the SCBs a bit more on par with the hull reinforcements, but major changes are not required in my opinion.
 
How much DPS is required to melt through each type of ships' shields and render SCB useless?

If you do sustain enough DPS to an enemy ship, even if they pop some SCBs, you still can melt their shields to zero, rendering the SCBs useless. Has anyone determined precisely how much DPS would be required to melt each type of ship's shields fast enough for this?

For example, lets say 50 Vultures with beam lasers all focused fire on a single Anaconda. Surely it could not get through all its SCBs before dropping shields. So how many Vultures with beam lasers is the minimum required to achieve this for each type of ship? Can this be computed in terms of DPS?

Just curious, because I hear a lot of complaints about SCBs, but not a lot of people engineering a way to melt past them. Rather than try to convince devs to change the game, which I believe they shouldn't, how about we engineer a way to break the meta with superior firepower and numbers.
 
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