Which shield booster mod should I go for? Details inside.

[Deleted member 110222]

Viper Mk IV vs human ships, both NPCs and players. (mostly NPCs)

I've got a 4C bi-weave, thermal resistant. A single A-rated booster. What mod do you reckon would see more benefits? Heavy or resistance? I already have a heavy, but that's for Thargoids where resistance is meaningless.

 

[Crank Larson]

I always put the build into EDShipyard and then check the shield strength for each booster (only try heavy or resistance augmented, though). For one, this is very straight-forward - choose whichever gives you the highest overall values under shield rating (or, the resistances that you prefer). I find that when using several boosters, a combination of heavy and augmented give the best results.

 

[Aashenfox]

It's a no-brainer if you have thermal resist shield, you need heavy duty boosters, with as much additional kinetic resist as you can get via specials (your shield special should also be kinetic resist). The other way to go, if weight is an issue, is change engineering on the shield to reinforced with fast charge and fill out your resistances with boosters, but this is trickier to balance.

I wish coriolis would update with 3.0 values for ships, I could show you a few scenarios and you could decide. #lesigh

 

[Crank Larson]

In this case, heavy duty gives a significantly better result: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=B0S0,...KE0Bb60,,7RWGr34wPcasPcgy0005U0mpT02M0mpT2Uc0

 

[Frenotx]

As one viper IV pilot to another, I suggest resistance augmented with the resistance experimental. The thing's shield is small. Get used to it going down, but coming back up. Get comfortable taking hull damage, and putting pips in SYS as needed to rebuild the shield as quickly as possible. Resistance augmented gives you the best effective recharge rate.
[video=youtube_share;xTBV4LoADgk]https://youtu.be/xTBV4LoADgk[/video]

 

[Crank Larson]

As one viper IV pilot to another, I suggest resistance augmented with the resistance experimental.

A single resistance augmented booster will give you these shield values: 365.1Ki/438.1Th/525.7Ex
Heavy duty will give you these: 418.2Ki/501.8Th/602.1Ex

Heavy duty is significantly better in this case for shield strength (though admittedly, I'm discounting experimental effects and recharge).

 

[Vardaugas]

Thing about a heavy duty is that it increases the time needed to regenerate. As your shields go down often enough, you want them back up again quickly. It kind of contradicts the use of a Bi-Weave.

 

[Aashenfox]

In this case, heavy duty gives a significantly better result: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=B0S0,...KE0Bb60,,7RWGr34wPcasPcgy0005U0mpT02M0mpT2Uc0

I agree, but only if you are going to seriously fix that kinetic resist later with specials. 28% kin resist is going to be detrimental against the AI, they love multicannons and cannons nearly as much as they love lasers.

One of the big changes with 3.0 engineering is that there are no free resist mods any more, they all reduce an existing resist to increase another. If this drops your thermal resist below about 38% it's less than optimal. Gotta be really careful with the resist boosters now, that you don't gimp your overall resistances or balance of such. Suddenly res aug has become a much more viable mod in combination with reinforced and fast charge special, as it has no downsides.

 

[Frenotx]

A single resistance augmented booster will give you these shield values: 365.1Ki/438.1Th/525.7Ex
Heavy duty will give you these: 418.2Ki/501.8Th/602.1Ex

Heavy duty is significantly better in this case for shield strength (though admittedly, I'm discounting experimental effects and recharge).

With a viper IV, you can't just look at effective capacity. Recharge is of significant importance on that ship. Trying to set it up like a classic "my shields never fall" shield tank is just... Overly optimistic. Watch that video I posted, and count how many times the shield fell and reformed. You have to consider what gives you the most shielding over the coarse of the whole fight, not just what gives you the most at the start of it.

 

[Crank Larson]

I agree, but only if you are going to seriously fix that kinetic resist later with specials. 28% kin resist is going to be detrimental against the AI, they love multicannons and cannons nearly as much as they love lasers.

The percentage resistance is irrelevant - the heavy duty mod gives a greater total kinetic resistance, even though it has lower percentage kinetic resistance. This is why with more shield boosters, a combination of heavy duty and resistant boosters give the best result. Remember that the percentage is a modifier on the base shield strength. A lower percentage on a higher base shield can be much better (as in this case).

With a viper IV, you can't just look at effective capacity. Recharge is of significant importance on that ship. Trying to set it up like a classic "my shields never fall" shield tank is just... Overly optimistic. Watch that video I posted, and count how many times the shield feel and reformed.

Discounting experimental effects, recharge rate is 1.8/s whether you use resistance augmented or heavy duty. You can affect recharge with experimental effect, but that can be applied to whichever booster you choose.

 

[jasonbarron]

As one viper IV pilot to another, I suggest resistance augmented with the resistance experimental. The thing's shield is small. Get used to it going down, but coming back up. Get comfortable taking hull damage, and putting pips in SYS as needed to rebuild the shield as quickly as possible. Resistance augmented gives you the best effective recharge rate.
https://youtu.be/xTBV4LoADgk

That's a great video, and it makes me sad that I don't qualify for the cyto scramblers. I love seeing videos of small starter level ships in the hands of a pro bringing the pain as it goes a long way to dispelling the myth that you need an "end game" ship to be effective. Another one I watched that I thought was pretty awesome was Na'Qan in a viper armed with flechettes taking on a player in a Corvette

 

[Aashenfox]

The percentage resistance is irrelevant - the heavy duty mod gives a greater total kinetic resistance, even though it has lower percentage kinetic resistance. This is why with more shield boosters, a combination of heavy duty and resistant boosters give the best result. Remember that the percentage is a modifier on the base shield strength. A lower percentage on a higher base shield can be much better (as in this case).

The heavy duty mod gives a fixed amount to all resistances and does NOT change the resistances as granted by the shield (to be honest, I'm sure we are both explaining the same thing to each other).

If you add a kinetic resist booster, it will lower your thermal resist, negating the effort and materials spent on the shield. This is not insignificant, it starts lowering your thermal resistance fast. Resistance boosters are no longer worth it, they impact other resistances and you end up playing whack a mole. I have both my Chieftain and my Corvette PERFECTLY balanced, shield and hull, 39% kin, 40% therm, 50% exp, and my hull at 46% everything. I;ve spent the last two weeks doing this, it's very fresh in my mind.

Like I say I think we're just saying the same thing in different words and confusing each other anyway, I know you know what you're saying, you know I do...

 

[Frenotx]

The percentage resistance is irrelevant - the heavy duty mod gives a greater total kinetic resistance, even though it has lower percentage kinetic resistance. This is why with more shield boosters, a combination of heavy duty and resistant boosters give the best result. Remember that the percentage is a modifier on the base shield strength. A lower percentage on a higher base shield can be much better (as in this case).



Discounting experimental effects, recharge rate is 1.8/s whether you use resistance augmented or heavy duty. You can affect recharge with experimental effect, but that can be applied to whichever booster you choose.

It is the same MJ/s rate, but the higher your percentage resistance is, the higher your EFFECTIVE recharge rate is. Consider the following: a shield with 0 percent resistance, and one with 50 percent resistance. Both have the same 1 MJ/s recharge rate. For each second these shields recharge, it will take 1 damage to cancel the progress of the first, but 2 damage to cancel the progress of the second. Thus, even though they're both recharging 1 MJ/s, the EFFECTIVE recharge rate of the higher resistance one is higher.

 

[Crank Larson]

It is the same MJ/s rate, but the higher your percentage resistance is, the higher your EFFECTIVE recharge rate is. Consider the following: a shield with 0 percent resistance, and one with 50 percent resistance. Both have the same 1 MJ/s recharge rate. For each second these shields recharge, it will take 1 damage to cancel the progress of the first, but 2 damage to cancel the progress of the second. Thus, even though they're both recharging 1 MJ/s, the EFFECTIVE recharge rate of the higher resistance one is higher.

That makes no sense to me. If your shields are down, you have no resistances (your shields are down), and won't have until the shields are back up (the only thing that affects that is recharge rate and avoiding taking fire)... What am I missing?

 

[Frenotx]

That makes no sense to me. If your shields are down, you have no resistances (your shields are down), and won't have until the shields are back up (the only thing that affects that is recharge rate and avoiding taking fire)... What am I missing?

Look at the effective health numbers for both the heavy duty build, and the resisted augmented build. Now look at the time it takes to reform both of those shields. Divide the effective health by the time it takes that shield to reform. That's the effective recharge rate while your shield is down. Note that the result for the resistance augmented setup is considerably higher.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

I’m with Frenotx. RA booster all the way.

 

[Crank Larson]

Look at the effective health numbers for both the heavy duty build, and the resisted augmented build. Now look at the time it takes to reform both of those shields. Divide the effective health by the time it takes that shield to reform. That's the effective recharge rate while your shield is down. Note that the result for the resistance augmented setup is considerably higher.

Well yes, but that's because the base shield is stronger when using heavy duty (so it takes more power to recharge). But this also means that the shield won't go down so quickly in the first place (so you have longer shield up time as well as longer shield down time).

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

That’s why recharge is so important and why the RA booster is a better choice. You’re gonna be losing your shields in a ship like a Viper IV. RA plays into that way better than HD.

 

[pzykozomatik]

I've yet to test out all the new experimental effects, but when I outfitted my first fully 3.0-engineered ship, a chieftain, the "fast charge" effect for my thermal resist bi-weaves struck me as the best bargain (I also have 2 resist and 2 heavy SBs fitted), giving an increase in regen and broken regen rate of 15% for a slight resistance decrease for all 3 types (iirc it was -2.something, but don't quote me on that), so I'd recommend giving that a try too. I'd also like to hear other people's opinion on this.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Fast recharge absolutely the way to go on a Viper IV along with most other small ships and hybrid hull tanks.

Regen and broken regen were the holy grail of bi-weave Engineering in 2.4. It’s so nice to have it easily available in 3.0!