What type of Shield Generator?

Phoenix13

P
I'm not totally sure what type of shield generator I should get for my Cutter and would like some advice. Should I go with a CL8 Prismatic, normal, or bi-weave? I'm currently building up my Cutter to be a BattleCutter because of reasons that are not the point of this topic. The prismatics obviously give higher base shields, but will the extra recharge on bi-weave make it so I actually end up with more MJ over the course of a fight? I feel like the answer to that is no but am not really sure.
Also, it may be important to point out I have Horizons and thus access to engineers upgrades, so I do also plan on getting the super duper shield boosters (probably 4, maybe 5) and increased powerplant.

Thanks for any and all help, and as always, please give me a little bit of explanation so I can understand your viewpoint.

BONUS Question: would your answer differ if being used on a smaller ship like a FdL?
 
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shadragon

shadragon
Depends how you play, the type of pilot you are and the situation at the time. There is no golden bullet shield solution for all eventualities. You have to weigh the pros and cons of each and assess which works best for you.
 

Hatchepsut

Hatchepsut
Currently Using the Normal 8A Shield and All Boosters except one HeatSink.
Waiting for the 4th week so I can install The Prismatic on my cutter too.
Word of advice:
I HAD TO UPGRADE MY POWERPLANT.
With that many boosters and all the extra juice demanded by the engineer upgrades there isn't really much of a choice.
My 1st attempt to upgrade my powerplant gave me an extra megawatt and I no longer needed to power down my FSD and Fuel Scoop or cargo hatch during combat.
My latest attempt gave me an extra 10 megawatt......so I re-upgraded my Boosters and Shield reaching over 5000 Mega joules.
Other Youtube videos Show CMDRs achieving over 6000 or 7000 mj with the right lottery spins.
Overkill Perhaps ? No not really if you ever watched Shield Killer Torpedoes in action.
 
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Thetele

T
Many players in my experience choose bi-weave shields for combat ships and prismatic or normal for ships that only need to be able to run away.

Faster recharge help a lot if you want to do multiple fights after each other (res, nav beacon cz etc.) and you want to engage to other fight fast. Also engineered b-weaves aren't far from non bi-weave shields. For single engagement recharge rate doesn't matter that much if you will dock at station to use fast recharge anyway.

FDL, no the size doesn't matter as fdl has good base shield strength value and can have strong shields even with bi-weave. But i wouldn't take bi-weaves on ship that have low base shield value.
 

D.G.Cerberus

D.G.Cerberus
I purchased a Cutter on the 2.2 Beta. And thanks to fishes, modded fairly extensively.

8A Shield gen. Modded to Gd5 Reinforced. IIRC 5 shield boosters (I fitted 2x PD and a wake scanner) which are a mix of resistance augmented and heavy duty. All level 5.
Total shield strength is slightly over 3600Mj.

(PP is overcharged)

Simply put - I parked it in a insane spawning Nav beacon - can't remember whether it was compromised or not but it had the largest amount of activity going on I have seen in ages - and I was taking on wings of 3 and 4 without any concerns. Sometimes at the same time. Never dropped a ring of shields. I even left the ship sitting there as a dead stick to refresh my beverage.

Note above is PVE

What is my point: tl;dr: you don't need prismatics in my experience.
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
You could do the math ;), all with thermal resist mod L5

8A Prismatics, default booster L5 settings 4 x resist + 2 heavy you're looking at effective shielding of over 8000 thermal and 7300 kinetic but recharge time from 50% to 100% of over 27 minutes.

8A standard, default booster L5 settings 4 x resist + 2 heavy you're looking at effective shielding of over 6700 thermal and 6100 kinetic but recharge time from 50% to 100% of over 23 minutes.

8C bi-weaves, default booster L5 settings 4 x resist + 2 heavy you're looking at effective shielding of over 5400 thermal and 6100 kinetic but recharge time from 50% to 100% of over 10 minutes.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/286097-Shield-Booster-Mod-Calculator?highlight=frenotx
 

Deleted member 110222

D
KR4K40 said:
biweave for dat pimpin' purple color and dat regen. I used biweave shields on ALL my ships. Also them yummy power savings
Click to expand...

I use bi-weave shielding for exactly the same reason.
 

Net-FX

Net-FX
Wow, having read all this, and thinking my 2400 sheild value on my cutter was epic....seems I need to revisit the engineers again lol
 

Nine19CnynCrvr

Nine19CnynCrvr
Think I'm going to give Bi-Weave a try after reading all the posts about them. I've been using the standard on all my other ships having a blast in RESs, CZs, and general BHs. By the time my hull was down enough to repair I had to go reload anyways. But on my Annie, that recharge rate is so long I find myself having to recharge in SC then go back in to fight. However, I am pushing my limits to see how many ships I can take at once and going after bigger prey.
 

Madhuntr

M
if you want a real battlecutter. shield strength is only the second most important thing. you gotta think about when the shields really are down to let´s say 1 ring. Battleship without SCB? abd choice. my cutter currently has 3600 MJ with 4 grade 5 boosters. I also got 3 class 6B SCBs and a class 8B SCB. all in all i have an effective shield strength of about 18000 MJ with recharging from SCB. might sound overkill for NPC because my grade 4 high capacity magazin multicanons are empty before i get through the first two class6 SCBs. But it´s more orientated to the worst case. a PROPER PVP fight, not this heat or cascade bull    . one heat weapon? i can live with that. ships with only heat weaponor cascades? NO skillers atm. so never forget about the SCBs :p
Mfg
Mad
 

Alex Brentnall

Alex Brentnall
Phoenix13 said:
I'm not totally sure what type of shield generator I should get for my Cutter and would like some advice. Should I go with a CL8 Prismatic, normal, or bi-weave? I'm currently building up my Cutter to be a BattleCutter because of reasons that are not the point of this topic. The prismatics obviously give higher base shields, but will the extra recharge on bi-weave make it so I actually end up with more MJ over the course of a fight? I feel like the answer to that is no but am not really sure.
Also, it may be important to point out I have Horizons and thus access to engineers upgrades, so I do also plan on getting the super duper shield boosters (probably 4, maybe 5) and increased powerplant.

Thanks for any and all help, and as always, please give me a little bit of explanation so I can understand your viewpoint.

BONUS Question: would your answer differ if being used on a smaller ship like a FdL?
Click to expand...

Personally i'm currently using a trade-cutter with this in the community goals:
https://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial...404040000070705054f0404032f.Iw18ZZA=.Aw18ZZA=

At present even with the 7D thrusters and 6A shields I feel very comfortable flying open against any other ship as I can hit 330m/s and simply high wake out with 4 pips to shields. I do worry a touch against enemy wings but for the most part I can chaff and dodge damage for a high wake.


If I was taking it into battle I'd be looking at the top thrusters and 8A Prismatics. The Cutter is a shield tank plain and simple but I'd be swapping out some of the boosters for point defence and heat sinks whilst still getting good shielding (2.1 changed things). I may even swap the chaff out but I'd not feel overly confident saying without testing that first.

https://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial...203030000p761---2d2d-2f.AwRj4yu8g===.Aw18ZZA=

Now the interesting bit for me is I normally fit bi-weave on fast ships and those ships where the shields are a token gesture. Also ships where powerplant is too low to fit good shields. Things like Eagle, clipper, FDS, T6/T7 etc.
Prismatics go on high base shield ships or those with large amounts of utility slots and power to spare: Anaconda, Cutter, Corvette, FDL
The Cutter does fall into the bi-weave category with it's speed allowing it to control the fight and stay out of range to re-charge but considering we can get 1800Mj without engineers that puts it in a whole different league. It has the powerplant capacity to ramp the shields up and still run an 8A cell bank without power management. That's a rare thing so tank it all the way!

As for the bonus question I think I've answered that in the fact that the FDL has the power to spare and utility slots to ramp up the shield value to insane levels. Sure it can dip in and out the fight to regenerate bi-weave but imho it'll work better shielded up.

Not everyones view but I've got my reasons in there and what I believe works best is to work with the ships natural conditions :)
 
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Ceekay

Ceekay
Net-FX said:
Wow, having read all this, and thinking my 2400 shield value on my cutter was epic....seems I need to revisit the engineers again lol
Click to expand...

The shield values you get from outfitting and coriolis are the raw shield strength when you start engineering the shields for specific defence (thermal resist) the "effective strength" against that type increases significantly, the 8A example in my earlier post has a raw shield strength of 2765 MJ but with the added resistances and boosts it has an effective strength of over 6700 thermal and 6100 kinetic.

Unless you've used Frenotx's calculator the values you'll see in game wont be the effective values I've quoted, an 8A on the Cutter with 6 x 0A boosters is over 2000 MJ anyway so it's a real shield monster even before engineering ;)
 
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