Sorry, didn't read the whole thing, but what exactly is the problem with a one-per-ship limit? I like the simplicity of that.
The SCB (Shield Cell Bank) Thread
- Thread starter OnePercent
- Start date
I like the simplicity of that as well, but it maybe a bit more complicated issue. I was about to make some kind of conclusion here, but it would take rather long. To put it simple...
It might be actually a very good solution, but it depends in the end how the rest of the game is balanced.
To get more details, read the thread
So you jump straight in with an insult and I pick you up on it, and off you go again jumping up on some supposed moral high horse in defense of it...
Have you considered, be you right or wrong, there's actually a better (nicer) way to simply interact with people?
So I recant my previous comment about your "veiled insults"... They're just insults
The fascinating thing about the internet is how many people - protected by the anonymity of it - drop to same bizarre aggressive and rude base level they certainly wouldn't if talking to someone face to face. It speaks acres of someone's character IMHO when they do this
It's odd to be honest... so I can't fathom it.
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So you jump straight in with an insult and I pick you up on it, and off you go again jumping up on some supposed moral high horse in defense of it...
Internet has nothing to do with it. I am a ballbuster in real life too and I am paid well for it.
The sad part is that you don't understand the difference between critiquing your posts and critiquing you. People made general statements not even about you specifically and YOU chose to take it as insults. Sounds like you need to toughen up, buttercup.
Being ignorant is not a negative thing if you identify it and learn something new. That is how people grow and learn.
Being defensive about your ignorance and not learning something new is a shame.
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But they don't model exactly how the game plays out. That is easily provable with real life testing.
Example: A dev claims that putting more pips into systems will not result in faster charging.
This is easily provable as wrong by dropping your shields with silent running and putting pips into system and watching how fast the shields recharge.
Thus, even a dev is wrong about how the game works.
With weapons some factors on how damage is handled by the shield, internal system, and armor mechanics means some weapons are far more effective than others. A straight MJ rating is useless as a hard number, only as a rough guide.
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You seem to be confusing being rude and being "tough"? Personally, I'd use a word for being needlessy rude, and coincidentally it's a word you seem to brandish quite a lot, "ignorant"...
And the icing on the cake of attempting to now bring your salary to the argument? Another classy move... You're on an roll... What's next? Any chance of a simple polite conversation? I suspect not, so as you've repeatedly made you "motives" quite clear I'll use the forum feature designed just for this (you).
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I'm waiting for a good solid answer to that one too?
Needless to say it would have to be re-balanced I suspect. But I see the +ve's out weighing the -ve's.
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After reading this thread and this post by Sandro Sammarco I thought - maybe we really need more complex changes to shields meta... But simple solution to SCB have better chances to be made because they need less dev time... But more complex changes could give better results.... hmmm...
Main problem with SCB for me - no real option for "Offence is your best defence" in current gameplay. Why even bother with it, if you can have good offence and best defence at the same time?! No real choice, only to artificially limit yourself by not using SCB.
So here is an idea, little bit too complex, but...:
- Change shileds recharge rate like
E grade - 1 MJ/s
D grade - 1 MJ/s
C grade - 2 MJ/s
B grade - 4 MJ/s
A grade - 5 MJ/s
Maybe half of C-A grades recharge rates for class 1-4 shields.
- Better shield recharge rate drains SYS capacitor quicker.
- Buff class 5-8 shields capacity by ~20% for all ships.
- No changes to Shield boosters, because they already extend recharge time by extending shields capacity.
- SCB changes to some kind of recharge rate booster
No ammo in SCB, it uses SYS capacitor, and only if SYS capacitor is not empty,
When active SCB increases shields recharge rate.
- Currently if shields receive damage it stops shields recharge. When SCB active, it takes maximum possible recharge rate (based on a shields grade), multiplies it with values (and conditions) below and begins shields recharge.
- SCB recharge shields until SYS capacitor is drained or SCB stopped,
- SCB drains shields capacitor for equivalent amount of it's recharge rate increase.
- When active SCB generates a LOT of heat, like it jumps to 95% for the whole duration,
- If any other module (weapons, fsd, boost) fired when SCB is active, it will generate 200%-500% of normal heat.
- Firing more than 1 SCB will make shields unstable and there is a big chance of malfunction with additional spike of heat,
- more active SCB = exponential increase in chance of shields malfunction and heat increase.
- SCB shields recharge rate is based on "Shields class" vs "SCB class"
- if SCB class and Shields class are the same or SCB is 1 class lower than Shields:
E grade - 500% (5x) recharge rate increase
D grade - 600% (6x) recharge rate increase
C grade - 700% (7x) recharge rate increase
B grade - 800% (8x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 1000% (10x) recharge rate increase for same class SCB, and 900% (9x) if 1 class lower
- if SCB is 1 (or more) class higher than Shields:
It will generate 20%-50% more heat and will cause overheat,
It will make shields unstable and there is a big chance of malfunction with additional spike of heat,
E grade - 700% (7x) recharge rate increase
D grade - 800% (8x) recharge rate increase
C grade - 900% (9x) recharge rate increase
B grade - 1000% (10x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 1200% (12x) recharge rate increase
- if SCB is 2 classes lower than Shields:
E grade - 200% (2x) recharge rate increase
D grade - 300% (3x) recharge rate increase
C grade - 400% (4x) recharge rate increase
B grade - 500% (5x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 600% (6x) recharge rate increase
- if SCB is 3 or more classes lower than Shields:
E grade - no increase
D grade - no increase
C grade - no increase
B grade - 150% (1.5x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 200% (2x) recharge rate increase
- if SCB is 4 or more classes lower than Shields = no recharge rate increase
- SCB have 1 second delay between activation and fire.
- All utility equipment that uses SYS capacitor (chaff, etc) will lower shields recharge rate by 1 MJ/s when used, because they stress SYS capacitor. Shields recharge rate can't be lower than 1 MJ/s.
For example:
Ship with 7A shields and 2 chaff have 5 MJ/s shields recharge rate. When 1 chaff is fired shields recharge rate decreases to 4 MJ/s for duration of chaff. If another chaff fired while first still active shields recharge rate decreases to 3 MJ/s.
if this ship fires 6A SCB with no active chaffs - shield recharge rate will be 5 MJ/s * 9 = 45 MJ/s. This boost will drain energy from SYS capacitor, and will stop when it's empty (or if stopped manually).
if this ship fires 6A SCB and then (or before) fires 1 chaff
- chaff and SCB both active - shields recharge rate will be 4 MJ/s * 9 = 36 MJ/s for duration of chaff,
- if two chaff active - shield recharge rate will be 3 MJ/s * 9 = 27 MJ/s for duration of 2 chaff,
- then 4 MJ/s * 9 = 36 MJ/s for ramain duration of 1 chaff,
- and then goes back to 5 MJ/s * 9 = 45 MJ/s.
So with those changes:
- "Offensive and defencive at the same time" is still possible, but for a much shorter periods of time, and will require additional equipment (HSL) with very limited charges,
- SCB stacking increase risks,
- Shield-tank and Armor-tank could be compared. Not ideal, but better then current state.
Additional:
- Shorter time to recharge shields on big ships while out of combat
- No need to restock SCB ammo
- Big ships can still have good counter to incoming damage, 45-50 MJ/s or more with increased risks. But it is much shorter than with current SCB stacking on some ships.
- No owerpowered small ships, because class 1-4 shields will have less effective racharge in the first place.
- No changes for "focus fire from a wing". As it should be.
There is a need to balance fitting requirements and costs, but this post is already too long...
edit: "Additional" added.
Main problem with SCB for me - no real option for "Offence is your best defence" in current gameplay. Why even bother with it, if you can have good offence and best defence at the same time?! No real choice, only to artificially limit yourself by not using SCB.
So here is an idea, little bit too complex, but...:
- Change shileds recharge rate like
E grade - 1 MJ/s
D grade - 1 MJ/s
C grade - 2 MJ/s
B grade - 4 MJ/s
A grade - 5 MJ/s
Maybe half of C-A grades recharge rates for class 1-4 shields.
- Better shield recharge rate drains SYS capacitor quicker.
- Buff class 5-8 shields capacity by ~20% for all ships.
- No changes to Shield boosters, because they already extend recharge time by extending shields capacity.
- SCB changes to some kind of recharge rate booster
No ammo in SCB, it uses SYS capacitor, and only if SYS capacitor is not empty,
When active SCB increases shields recharge rate.
- Currently if shields receive damage it stops shields recharge. When SCB active, it takes maximum possible recharge rate (based on a shields grade), multiplies it with values (and conditions) below and begins shields recharge.
- SCB recharge shields until SYS capacitor is drained or SCB stopped,
- SCB drains shields capacitor for equivalent amount of it's recharge rate increase.
- When active SCB generates a LOT of heat, like it jumps to 95% for the whole duration,
- If any other module (weapons, fsd, boost) fired when SCB is active, it will generate 200%-500% of normal heat.
- Firing more than 1 SCB will make shields unstable and there is a big chance of malfunction with additional spike of heat,
- more active SCB = exponential increase in chance of shields malfunction and heat increase.
- SCB shields recharge rate is based on "Shields class" vs "SCB class"
- if SCB class and Shields class are the same or SCB is 1 class lower than Shields:
E grade - 500% (5x) recharge rate increase
D grade - 600% (6x) recharge rate increase
C grade - 700% (7x) recharge rate increase
B grade - 800% (8x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 1000% (10x) recharge rate increase for same class SCB, and 900% (9x) if 1 class lower
- if SCB is 1 (or more) class higher than Shields:
It will generate 20%-50% more heat and will cause overheat,
It will make shields unstable and there is a big chance of malfunction with additional spike of heat,
E grade - 700% (7x) recharge rate increase
D grade - 800% (8x) recharge rate increase
C grade - 900% (9x) recharge rate increase
B grade - 1000% (10x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 1200% (12x) recharge rate increase
- if SCB is 2 classes lower than Shields:
E grade - 200% (2x) recharge rate increase
D grade - 300% (3x) recharge rate increase
C grade - 400% (4x) recharge rate increase
B grade - 500% (5x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 600% (6x) recharge rate increase
- if SCB is 3 or more classes lower than Shields:
E grade - no increase
D grade - no increase
C grade - no increase
B grade - 150% (1.5x) recharge rate increase
A grade - 200% (2x) recharge rate increase
- if SCB is 4 or more classes lower than Shields = no recharge rate increase
- SCB have 1 second delay between activation and fire.
- All utility equipment that uses SYS capacitor (chaff, etc) will lower shields recharge rate by 1 MJ/s when used, because they stress SYS capacitor. Shields recharge rate can't be lower than 1 MJ/s.
For example:
Ship with 7A shields and 2 chaff have 5 MJ/s shields recharge rate. When 1 chaff is fired shields recharge rate decreases to 4 MJ/s for duration of chaff. If another chaff fired while first still active shields recharge rate decreases to 3 MJ/s.
if this ship fires 6A SCB with no active chaffs - shield recharge rate will be 5 MJ/s * 9 = 45 MJ/s. This boost will drain energy from SYS capacitor, and will stop when it's empty (or if stopped manually).
if this ship fires 6A SCB and then (or before) fires 1 chaff
- chaff and SCB both active - shields recharge rate will be 4 MJ/s * 9 = 36 MJ/s for duration of chaff,
- if two chaff active - shield recharge rate will be 3 MJ/s * 9 = 27 MJ/s for duration of 2 chaff,
- then 4 MJ/s * 9 = 36 MJ/s for ramain duration of 1 chaff,
- and then goes back to 5 MJ/s * 9 = 45 MJ/s.
So with those changes:
- "Offensive and defencive at the same time" is still possible, but for a much shorter periods of time, and will require additional equipment (HSL) with very limited charges,
- SCB stacking increase risks,
- Shield-tank and Armor-tank could be compared. Not ideal, but better then current state.
Additional:
- Shorter time to recharge shields on big ships while out of combat
- No need to restock SCB ammo
- Big ships can still have good counter to incoming damage, 45-50 MJ/s or more with increased risks. But it is much shorter than with current SCB stacking on some ships.
- No owerpowered small ships, because class 1-4 shields will have less effective racharge in the first place.
- No changes for "focus fire from a wing". As it should be.
There is a need to balance fitting requirements and costs, but this post is already too long...
edit: "Additional" added.
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I like your suggestion a lot, therefore, it was moved to the front of this thread. Hopefully, frontier will read it and get some ideas to fix SCB stacking. +1 rep from me when I get home.
Okay so I like the idea's I'm just gonna go through and say what I feel the numbers should be, changes and comments in bold.
After reading this thread and this post by Sandro Sammarco I thought - maybe we really need more complex changes to shields meta... But simple solution to SCB have better chances to be made because they need less dev time... But more complex changes could give better results.... hmmm...
Main problem with SCB for me - no real option for "Offence is your best defence" in current gameplay. Why even bother with it, if you can have good offence and best defence at the same time?! No real choice, only to artificially limit yourself by not using SCB.
My main problem is how they excessively extend combat, just keep that in mind.
So here is an idea, little bit too complex, but...:
- Change shields recharge rate like
class 2 - 1 MJ/s
class 3 - 1.4 MJ/s
class 4 - 1.8 MJ/s
class 5 - 2.2 MJ/s
class 6 - 2.6 MJ/s
class 7 - 3 MJ/s
Class based because that is definitely the more important factor. Linear and only up to 3MJ/s so it still takes longer for big ships to recharge their shields than a sidewinder.
Have the rating improve this by up to ~20% for A rated
- Better shield recharge rate drains SYS capacitor quicker.
- Buff the base shield values of bigger ships by up to ~20%.
- No changes to Shield boosters, because they already extend recharge time by extending shields capacity.
- SCB changes to some kind of recharge rate booster
No ammo in SCB, it uses SYS capacitor, and only if SYS capacitor is not empty,
When active SCB increases shields recharge rate.
- Currently if shields receive damage it stops shields recharge. When SCB active, it takes maximum possible recharge rate (based on a shields grade), multiplies it with values (and conditions) below and begins shields recharge.
- SCB recharge shields until SYS capacitor is drained or SCB stopped,
- SCB drains shields capacitor for equivalent amount of it's recharge rate increase.
- When active SCB generates a LOT of heat, like it jumps to 95% for the whole duration,
- If any other module (weapons, fsd, boost) fired when SCB is active, it will generate 200%-500% of normal heat.
- Firing more than 1 SCB will make shields unstable and there is a big chance of malfunction with additional spike of heat,
- more active SCB = exponential increase in chance of shields malfunction and heat increase.
- SCB shields recharge rate is based on just "SCB class" - multiplicative bonuses lead to abusable combos, best to avoid them.
class 2 - 2 MJ/s
class 3 - 2.8 MJ/s
class 4 - 3.6 MJ/s
class 5 - 4.4 MJ/s
class 6 - 5.2 MJ/s
class 7 - 6 MJ/s
again, moving up the rating line A rated has +~20%.
This comes across as a similar overall effect to what was original here without a complex comparison. If shield and SCB are same size the overall effect is 3x recharge, which is plenty, trust me.
- SCB have 5 second delay between activation and fire.
- All utility equipment that uses SYS capacitor (chaff, etc) will lower shields recharge rate by 1 MJ/s when used, because they stress SYS capacitor. Shields recharge rate can't be lower than 1 MJ/s. Is this necessary? they're gonna hurt your recharge anyway by draining the sys.
So with those changes:
- "Offensive and defencive at the same time" is still possible, but for a much shorter periods of time, and will require additional equipment (HSL) with very limited charges,
- SCB stacking increase risks,
- Shield-tank and Armor-tank could be compared. Not ideal, but better then current state.
Additional:
- Shorter time to recharge shields on big ships while out of combat
- No need to restock SCB ammo
- Big ships can still have good counter to incoming damage, 10 MJ/s or more with increased risks (trust me, plenty good enough). But it is much shorter than with current SCB stacking on some ships.
- No owerpowered small ships, because class based scaling
- No changes for "focus fire from a wing". As it should be.
There is a need to balance fitting requirements and costs, but this post is already too long...
edit: "Additional" added.
I've broken too many spears already trying to explain why and how the SCB mechanic should be changed or removed completely to make combat more interesting. But for now I'll just add another voice in support of this thread 0P.
Thank you for the support and I agree with you 100%.
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.
Keep in mind that all numbers was only for idea presentation. Because I think that putting "correct" numbers without actual testing will be pointless speculation.
Shields recharge rate should be based on class and grade (mix of both).
In initial idea, increases based on percentages/multipliers, and not on fixed values, because Shields class and grade should be as a base for how it could be "safely" overloaded with SCB for recharge rate boost. And there is a comparison between SCB class and Shields class.
Those lead to these mechanics:
- Mixes of different classes/grades of Shields and SCB, without abusing constant recharge rate boost (even a small one) using lower class SCB on a big ship with big Shield,
- if SCB outclasses Shield, it will cause immediate overcharge and can cause malfunctions, plus generate more heat,
- if Shields outclasses SCB by more than 1 class, it will be less effective or won't have any effect at all,
Yes, maybe it is too complex, but it definitely will give more possibilities for fine tuning (tweaking) Shields/SCB in the future, if needed.
This part of idea is based on current Power Distributor / ENG boost mechanic - you can't boost with high class Thrusters and low class PD.
If by combos you mean mixing higher grade SCB with lower grade Shields - I think it's ok, and actually viable option when commander have no enough credits to by A grade shields, but want to upgrade shield-tank.
If you are referring to SCB stacking - "a lot of heat" + "multiplied heat for other modules" + "(most important, imo) increased chances of malfunction" = more than needed risks increase to counter stacking, but it is still possible, just prepare to be cooked or lose shields instead of charging them.
SCB already will be less effective, and 1 second delay is more than enough. 5 seconds will simply add unneeded inconvenience, because SCB doesn't need to charge itself - it drains energy from capacitor.
They don't drain SYS capacitor that much to be even noticed. Especially when with proposed changes players will need to put more PIPs to SYS.
My numbers was based on "similar to what current SCB rates are".
I've started from (NOT totally accurate numbers, just for possible reference):
Current SCB recharge for Small ships: about 15 - 30 MJ/s,
Current SCB recharge for Medium ships: about 30 - 60 MJ/s,
Current SCB recharge for Large ships: about 60 - 80 MJ/s,
These numbers are too high, but when lowering them, I tried to keep SCB usable. And from this appeared an example with 7A shields and 45-50 MJ/s top recharge rate...
Maybe it is too much, but 10 MJ/s with SYS capacitor draining fast even with 4 PIPs to SYS is very low for a big ship.
Remember - price of stacking could be too high to consider it for a (big) costly ships.
If you need more restrictions (less power) for SCB with current idea - I think it is better to limit SCB usage with a need for a certain amount of energy in capacitor - similar to thrusters/ENG boost.
edit: couple of additional explanations and references.
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I'd like to see SCBs go completely, but if that's not going to happen, the following would at least be better:
- Link SCB, Shield Booster etc power to shield, so they can't be separately powered on/off. Total power of all these items is added and indicated as the shield power.
- Add utility mounted item "shield charger" that doubles shield recharge rate, 0.4MW power. A second of these triples shield recharge rate etc. However requires double/triple etc energy from SYS to be fully effective.
- Either:
- Limit shield cells to one per ship, and shields without a SCB reroute the wiring to the SYS capacitor, proving a free "shield charger".
- Don't limit shield cells to one per ship, but require SCBs to not only take up a cargo slot but also a utility mount (for their actual output connection to the shield).
I did not read the entire thread but as this suggestion is not listed in the OP post so maybe it was not discussed about.
The idea is quite simple, make SCB desactive shields while recharging them.
It is quite easy to justify lore wize as SCB injects a lot of power in the shield generator that could render the shield too unstable to be sustained.
As a plus you can easily adjust the balance by playing on the recharge time.
With just this modification we can have some good changes in the shield meta :
The idea is quite simple, make SCB desactive shields while recharging them.
It is quite easy to justify lore wize as SCB injects a lot of power in the shield generator that could render the shield too unstable to be sustained.
As a plus you can easily adjust the balance by playing on the recharge time.
With just this modification we can have some good changes in the shield meta :
- While the shields are down you can target specifics modules and do some hull damages :
- Targetting ships modules can be usefull again : SCB, shields generators, canopy even are juicy targets to attack
- Kinetic heavy weapons like missiles / torpedos can be more usefull as you have a window where you can use them to inflict maximum damage
- Using SCB will be more strategic :
- You have to consider the gain / risk of using your SCB :
- It is preferable to have a near 100% shield recharge than 4 25% ones as a result SCB fitting should be a little less mindless
- Pilots will tends to use SCB when their shields are almost depleated, reducing the safety margin for the recharge
- You have to be more cautious about your recharge timing :
- You should try to break your opponent lock to buy some fire free time while recharging
- You should try avoid exposing vitals modules to your opponent by knowing their position and orienting yourselve accordingly before recharging
- You have to consider the gain / risk of using your SCB :
- Some modules will become more usefull :
- PD and EC should becomes more used in case of missile spam
- Advanced bulkheads and HRP will help even for a shield tanker
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+ for outside of the box thinking
- for making SCB "use this if you want to fail" module
Couple of nicely landed shots from Rails/PA and no more PowerPlant/Thrusters for big ship in PvP
Paper thin armor of small ships won't be able to hold that long in PvE/PvP
I doubt anyone would use SCB if these changes are made. For the lulz maybe...
Could be viable, but only if there are additional changes:
- Subsystems can be damaged only if hull at 50%(80%) or less,
- Subsystems HP cut in half.
and then add "reduce hull penetration" to hull upgrades
Not sure I like it, seems like it would tie shield-tank and armor-tank too much. But maybe.
One major problem with "reduce hull penetration" and subsystems damage - if not done correctly, it could make Railguns useless, because it is already very restrictive weapon.
But yeah, why not change Railgun, if we are changing SCB
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