The SCB (Shield Cell Bank) Thread
- Thread starter OnePercent
- Start date
Sorry? Please. I appreciate you have a view - but the FAS strength isn't it's shields. It's speed with a godly hull. I am safe as a house in a FAS. I can run and unlike a Python that loses its canopy with 70% hull I can get down to 15% before I even need to care.
A FAS that has armour stacking is scary as hell.
SCBs aren't the issue; they are a symptom of the issue and the result of people trying to mitigate the actual problem. Shield regen.
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Don't use them then. I am quite surprised by people who say they are OP, use them anyway but believe everyone shouldn't use.
That's is not true, and here something is wrong with PvP voices again, ED is not and never be core PvP game, you few here, misunderstand concept of Elite
No loss...
I didn't say that. I just said to make it so putting more pips in sys increases the shield regen. You can kick out the damage reduction. I'd rather have that mechanic instead of damage reduction anyway - better for ships that are tight on power not needing a SCB (or SCBs), and less downtime between combat being able to recharge your shields faster. Besides, the damage reduction mechanic never really made sense to me.
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Proof please, or this is unsupported speculation. A few PvPers on the forums or some friends tell you they are not playing because of SCBs is not indicative of anything on the large scale, it may even be people just flouncing and they will continue playing.
From what i understood, the hardcore PvPers loved the SCB meta. Always so hard to tell with all the arguments that go back and forth around here. I sometimes get confused which side of what argument i'm on!
Proof please, or this is unsupported speculation. A few PvPers on the forums or some friends tell you they are not playing because of SCBs is not indicative of anything on the large scale, it may even be people just flouncing and they will continue playing.
From what i understood, the hardcore PvPers loved the SCB meta. Always so hard to tell with all the arguments that go back and forth around here. I sometimes get confused which side of what argument i'm on!
Whats really weird is that, even though I dont SCB stack on my FDL (cause its just impossible) I quite enjoyed fighting Battery Pythons... It was a real challenge to overcome, now they have been nerfed, its going to be REALLY interesting to see how things pan out. But I agree, most PVP'ers didnt leave the game because of SCB's If anything it would be for other reasons that I wont go into... I am sure some did leave because of SCB's but not the majority.
Proof please, or this is unsupported speculation. A few PvPers on the forums or some friends tell you they are not playing because of SCBs is not indicative of anything on the large scale, it may even be people just flouncing and they will continue playing.
From what i understood, the hardcore PvPers loved the SCB meta. Always so hard to tell with all the arguments that go back and forth around here. I sometimes get confused which side of what argument i'm on!
As soon as the person comes up with proof this change is going to make a lot of pvpers leave.
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This is what I'd do. As well as retaining the current changes, I'd:
- Shield cells act as a "bubble" around the ordinary shield. They can be fired whether the shield is up or down. However, they can only be fired when your weapons are retracted. Deploying weapons removes the bubble. So they're a defensive item only. However even when retracted the shield cell bubble "leaks" 20% of damage to the ordinary shield/hull.
- This bubble slowly decays, at half the maximum rate an ordinary shield can recharge.
- Add a utility mounted item "shield charge speed booster", which doubles the ordinary shield charge rate (naturally requiring the energy in SYS). A third would triple, etc.
- Ships without shield cells automatically reroute their shield cell wiring to the SYS capacitor, effectively giving a free "shield charger".
- Reduce damage reduction from SYS pips from 2.5x to 1.4x for 4 pips, with 1.3x, 1.2x, and 1.1x for 3, 2 and 1 pips respectively. SYS pips bonus however doesn't apply to shield cell bubble, just the ordinary shield.
Shield cells are still a very useful defensive item. Even a 2B version gives 450MJ of bubble, which is much more shield than most ships. Even with a 20% leak through when you're running, you basically increase your survivability 5 times, and this includes hull. But you now can't just pump shield pills all guns blazing. If combat ships want to recharge shields quicker, they can, but they'll have to add shield charger speed boosters, instead of shield cells. These have a few tradeoffs, as they require SYS energy (so less to put in WEP and ENG), require a utility mount (competing with shield boosters and chaff) and aren't instant. Indeed it takes around 5 minutes to get the extra charge from one shield charger from SYS as just one 6B shield cell provides, so it's a more moderate boost.
So shield boosters will become what I suspect they were always intended as, a panic defensive mechanism. And they will become more useful for those who most need it, those in ships with weak shields to begin with, instead of being completely the opposite at the moment, where SCBs are most useful to ships with strong shields (as the ones with weak shields have trouble keeping them up long enough to fire them). The more balanced "shield charge speed boosters" will provide that badly needed shield recharge boost without having to use shield cells for just general recharge (as I don't think they were ever intended).
I think this is a balanced approach that could be implemented fairly easily.
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I suggest not changing this game. I actually had an SCB in my ship for two weeks while I was exploring without a shield. That is the one scenario where SCB is a stupid item to have on your ship...
Sandro did (quite honestly) say it was the route of least resistance. ie: The method of doing something in the most straight forward way?
Guess we need to try it and give feedback... Maybe it's a step in the right direction ?!
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I do not use SCBs and i only rarely play open, so i am not referring to anything related to PvP.
SCBs are useful as a way out from most dangerous situations, but stacking them is almost useless in PvE. A good shield is more than enough to whitstand any PvE contest, if it is taken strategically. Moreover, if you get a good shield, an A-rated SCB shoot only gives back a portion (like 1/3) of the shield, so it cannot be considered "overpowered".
I just use SCBs when i make a mistake and find myself in a very bad situations (ex. front attacking an anaconda thinking you are engaging it from behind), but they shouldn't be considered a viable PvE strategy (excluding, as i said, the "emergency" cases!).
So, from a PvE perspective, i dont think they need any nerf
SCBs are useful as a way out from most dangerous situations, but stacking them is almost useless in PvE. A good shield is more than enough to whitstand any PvE contest, if it is taken strategically. Moreover, if you get a good shield, an A-rated SCB shoot only gives back a portion (like 1/3) of the shield, so it cannot be considered "overpowered".
I just use SCBs when i make a mistake and find myself in a very bad situations (ex. front attacking an anaconda thinking you are engaging it from behind
), but they shouldn't be considered a viable PvE strategy (excluding, as i said, the "emergency" cases!).So, from a PvE perspective, i dont think they need any nerf
I see this as a bad move from ED, nerfing the SCB in the way they have will create unbalance across the whole board. They should just get rid of them altogether i think. Nerfing them they way they have done is gonna cause trouble among the masses. More combat logging and more people going solo is the result.
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And now, it requires even more skill, as you need to activate modules in advance and giving your ship the power management to utilize parallel activation.
Indeed! I'll be using my "skill" to adjust me module power scripts to now give me the option to automatically fire off an SCB, wait X second, then immediately turn it off, and turn on the next one ASAP so it's ready when I need it
I appreciate your try cheering me up... let's hope the warm-up delay is not too annoying to make module switching senseless.
Incase you missed it, Sandro mentioned it's about 20 seconds... So for those people who stow weapons to use an SCB, this is now not a wise move in battle it would seem?
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oh my gosh... I feared something like that...