DUST Search - [Request] Vehicle Shield Recharge Times

Ulysses Knapse wrote:

Recharge times instead of recharge rates? Let me tell you why that is a bad idea.

Do you know what flux coils are? They are the most useless modules there ever were. Let me explain.

Take a Rokh from EVE, for example. Fully skilled for the purposes of this experiment. I'm not applying resistances because they might change the actual numbers, but not the ratio, thus the conclusion is the same.

Rokh
Shield HP - 10,625
Passive Shield Regeneration - 14.2/second

Now, let's add a Shield Flux Coil II.

Rokh
Shield HP - 9,031
Passive Shield Regeneration - 17.2/second

That increases shield regeneration by a three hitpoints. To make up for the lost hitpoints, the Rokh must stay alive for almost nine more minutes. Likely less, because shield regeneration.

Let's try with a single Shield Extender II, shall we?

Rokh
Shield HP - 13,906
Passive Shield Regeneration - 18.5/second

Well, look at that. Not only did the Shield Extender greatly increase the buffer tank of the Rokh, it also increased the shield regeneration to higher-than-Flux Coil levels. And since shield tanking ships and vehicles have more medium slots (or high slots in Dust 514) than they do low slots, Shield Extenders are always the better option. Why is it this way? Because of Shield Regeneration Times instead of Shield Regeneration Rates. If it were rates instead of times, we would receive a different conclusion:

Rokh with Flux Coil - 17.2/second
Rokh with Shield Extender - 18.46/second

Now, there are some of you that might say "we know that Flux Coils suck, but what about Shield Rechargers?", so I will do another experiment for you.

Rokh
Shield HP - 10,625
Passive Shield Regeneration - 16.7/second

Yessir, that's right. Shield Extenders, modules intended to improve buffer, are more efficient at increasing recharge speeds than both Flux Coils and Shield Rechargers, modules that are INTENDED to increase shield regeneration. Does that seem fair to you? Does that seem right to you? Does that seem balanced to you? Now, you will argue that Shield Rechargers and Shield Flux Coils require less powergrid. That's true, but they use almost the same amount of CPU and the same number of slots. Slots, as we know, are a precious commodity in Dust. Point is, recharge times give both regeneration and buffer to those who choose buffer, but only give regeneration to those who choose regeneration.

Honestly, I'm not sure how any of you could think that regeneration times are better than regeneration rates.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 0 post(s)
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 12	Posted - 2013.04.07 00:35:00 - [1] - Quote TL;DR at bottom. I have been looking at this for a very long time and it has always stuck out to me that in EVE ships have base shield recharge times while vehicles in Dust have base shield recharge rates. In EVE: Every ship has a base shield recharge time. You can decrease this time by adding specific modules. Some modules will reduce the recharge time by more than their counterparts, but will end up decreasing your shields by a certain amount as well. What does this mean? Adding shield extenders increases your shield recharge rate. Don't get this confused with shield recharge time, as extenders don't affect time. This simple effect allows you to increase your shield buffer without sacrificing unnecessary time waiting for your shields to recharge at a uniform rate. In Dust: Vehicles have a base shield recharge rate. Same as in EVE, Dust offers modules to increase this rate of recharge. However, as the game currently is, there is hardly any benefit to using these modules. In the spot of one of these modules, you're better off fitting a shield resistance amplifier. Or a shield booster/extender if you have the fitting capability. Current shield vehicle fits in Dust: Active Tanking: This fitting choice is where you have a shield extender and a shield booster on your fit. With above average skills in engineering (3 and beyond), a Gunnlogi sits around 5,000 shields. If you lose some of your shields, you can always go hide and kick up your booster to replenish your shields, and wait out the timer on your booster or charge back into battle. Passive Tanking: This fitting option is where you replace your booster with another shield extender. Since my Gunnlogi has a tight fitting (many threads on buffing powergrid on shield tanks), I can only use the most powergrid/CPU efficient modules, so I'm only using the extenders granting 1,700 shields. So this puts my Gunnlogi at 6,700 shields. A booster during its period will grant only 1,100 shields or so. Replacing a booster with an extender gives the operator more shields to work with. The drawback? When my shields go downwards, I can use my buffer advantage to find a good spot to hide, but I then need to wait a lot longer for my shields to fully recharge than if I had a booster. How will changing the base recharge rate to a recharge time change things? Won't this make shield vehicles OP? No, this will not make shield vehicles OP. As mentioned above, one can either pick active tanking or passive tanking. As my 6,700 shield Gunnlogi sits, it would receive a recharge rate of roughly 62hp/s (assuming base recharge rate is 25hp/s when calculated from recharge time and a base shield capacity of 2,700). This will help to passively increase the tanking ability against AV, it would not be anything too significant. As the game currently stands, armor vehicles are more capable of taking a beating than shield vehicles. This increase to recharge rate will not upset this balance, and armor vehicles will still be able to actively absorb more damage. The biggest change that would be seen is that passive shield tankers will be able to come back into action more quickly as opposed to hiding for a considerable amount of time. Shield boosters will still have more hp/s than a passive fit, such as a shield booster capable of recovering 300hp per 3s pulse would mean 100hp/s. --TL;DR-- EVE and Dust shield recharge mechanics differ Two types of shield vehicle fits: active (shield extender+shield booster) or passive (shield extender in place of booster) Active allows the driver to get back into battle more quickly with full shields than a driver with a passive fit who will need to wait a longer amount of time for full shields This change will not make shield vehicles OP: active fits will still receive more hp/s and armor vehicles will still be known for being capable of taking a bigger punch This change will only allow passive fits back into battle more quickly as opposed to hiding and not contributing for a considerable amount of time
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 13	Posted - 2013.04.12 20:33:00 - [2] - Quote bump
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 13	Posted - 2013.04.14 02:44:00 - [3] - Quote Takahiro Kashuken wrote: I agree on the point that shield extenders increase the hp rate, DUST doesnt have this at all and really it should since it would help out shield tankers to an extent knowing that they could get 50hp/s passive or more with perfect skills Thanks! I'd still like to hear from more people!
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 14	Posted - 2013.04.14 04:36:00 - [4] - Quote Ulysses Knapse wrote: Recharge times instead of recharge rates? Let me tell you why that is a bad idea. Do you know what flux coils are? They are the most useless modules there ever were. Let me explain. Take a Rokh from EVE, for example. Fully skilled for the purposes of this experiment. I'm not applying resistances because they might change the actual numbers, but not the ratio, thus the conclusion is the same. Rokh Shield HP - 10,625 Passive Shield Regeneration - 14.2/second Now, let's add a Shield Flux Coil II. Rokh Shield HP - 9,031 Passive Shield Regeneration - 17.2/second That increases shield regeneration by a three hitpoints. To make up for the lost hitpoints, the Rokh must stay alive for almost nine more minutes. Likely less, because shield regeneration. Let's try with a single Shield Extender II, shall we? Rokh Shield HP - 13,906 Passive Shield Regeneration - 18.5/second Well, look at that. Not only did the Shield Extender greatly increase the buffer tank of the Rokh, it also increased the shield regeneration to higher-than-Flux Coil levels. And since shield tanking ships and vehicles have more medium slots (or high slots in Dust 514) than they do low slots, Shield Extenders are always the better option. Why is it this way? Because of Shield Regeneration Times instead of Shield Regeneration Rates. If it were rates instead of times, we would receive a different conclusion: Rokh with Flux Coil - 17.2/second Rokh with Shield Extender - 18.46/second Now, there are some of you that might say "we know that Flux Coils suck, but what about Shield Rechargers?", so I will do another experiment for you. Rokh Shield HP - 10,625 Passive Shield Regeneration - 16.7/second Yessir, that's right. Shield Extenders, modules intended to improve buffer, are more efficient at increasing recharge speeds than both Flux Coils and Shield Rechargers, modules that are INTENDED to increase shield regeneration. Does that seem fair to you? Does that seem right to you? Does that seem balanced to you? Now, you will argue that Shield Rechargers and Shield Flux Coils require less powergrid. That's true, but they use almost the same amount of CPU and the same number of slots. Slots, as we know, are a precious commodity in Dust. Point is, recharge times give both regeneration and buffer to those who choose buffer, but only give regeneration to those who choose regeneration. Honestly, I'm not sure how any of you could think that regeneration times are better than regeneration rates. . EFT warrior alert! But back to all seriousness. You had to use the Rokh as your example? I get my drake up to 150+ shield/s with decent resists on top of that. For real though. Shield power relays and flux coils are LOW slots while shield extenders are HIGH slots. Sure, you got shield rechargers in mids as well. Point is, you can stack extenders with shield power relays to furthermore increase recharge rate. I don't see where your argument is going. And to answer your question, YES, it seems right to have a recharge time as opposed to a recharge rate. Nobody wants to wait X times longer for shields to recharge if your shields are X times the base. But don't forget, kind sir, that active tanking will ALWAYS be able to tank more than passive tanking.
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 15	Posted - 2013.04.14 12:07:00 - [5] - Quote Ulysses Knapse wrote: Your point? I thought we were talking about buffer tanks and passive tanks, not active tanks. Either way, it doesn't change what I'm trying to say: shield extension modules provide the best of both worlds, shield regeneration modules don't. Why would you want to bring that faulty system into Dust? I haven't seen people complaining about it in EVE until now. Perhaps you find the system to be faulty because people manage to fit shield ships (smaller than battleships) with shield extenders one class size bigger than the ship itself (i.e. large on cruises/bc and mediums on frigates, and nobody uses smalls unless they don't know what they're doing). You can't abuse the system on Dust. Light vehicles will only be able to use light extenders, medium vehicles can fit up to medium extenders, and heavy vehicles up to heavy extenders.
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 15	Posted - 2013.04.14 12:41:00 - [6] - Quote Either that or have some penalty on shield extenders, just as armor slows down movement, shield extenders will increase recharge time, but overall hp/s will be increased as well. I also think that 19% boost to recharge on the best module in Dust is simply too low to make it viable to a vehicle with 24hp/s base rate. That's adding 4hp/s, but you'd be much better off with a resist that would bring up your effective hp by 25%. Using a base shield amount of 2000, you'd need to survive for 125s in order for the shield regen bonus to be better than a resist, and everything dies in less than half a minute unless it manages to run away.
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 15	Posted - 2013.04.14 17:46:00 - [7] - Quote Vermaak Doe wrote: Wouldn't the increased recharge time simply be offset by the larger buffer of shield extenders? That's too small of a penalty in my opinion, it should be something more prominent such as an increase to the overheat rate of all weapons on the vehicle or being automatically on your enemy's hud after entering x meters. I personally find the current system fine because it forces both buffer and passive fits to bring a logi while in Eve passive has an unquestionable advantage by not needing a logi between fights. Exactly, EVE does not force you to use a logi for buffer ships in small scale fleets or solo, because you can always dock up to recharge shields or pay a 'small' fee to repair armor. Dust forces buffer fits to have a logi otherwise you'll be waiting for a large fraction of the game for shields to recharge. And I feel like that's punishment for those who fit themselves accordingly to survive massive damage. At least a higher rate of recharge on buffer fits will keep shields recharging at the same %age rate, so you will always get full shields after a set amount of time no matter how many shields you have. Another simple suggestion is to make supply depots help recharge vehicle shields, when no damage is being taken.
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 15	Posted - 2013.04.14 18:10:00 - [8] - Quote That's what makes shield fleets stand out, they can recharge to full shields fairly quickly no matter how much shield they have. All they have to do is bounce around avoiding any combat until they are ready. So why not let shield vehicles in Dust have the same ability to move around avoiding contact while shields recharge?
Harpyja DUST University Ivy League 15	Posted - 2013.04.15 04:25:00 - [9] - Quote The current mentality for CCP on armor vs shields is that armor can take a lot of damage at once and recover while shield vehicles can take sustained but smaller amounts of damage over a much longer time period. My opinion is that shield vehicles currently fail at taking sustained damage over long time frames. Their recharge is too low and the shield booster is nowhere near as effective as an armor repper. I see where you're getting at with two tanks and their different HP amounts, but the operator with more shields chose an extender over booster while the other operator chose booster over extender. The extender fit allows to take more alpha, while the booster fit allows full shield recovery more quickly. Having full shields means you will be fighting at maximum efficiency. Going to fight with 5/7 shields is not as efficient. Also, the 5000 shield tank plus booster will still recover full shields before the 7000 shield tank without booster. Right now those who fit to take a lot of damage are punished with ridiculously long recharge times. I've never driven any armor HAV above the Soma, but I know you can fit Suryas with a lot more armor than a Sagaris with shield, plus it's armor rep is a lot more efficient than a shield booster. Currently armor fits 1) can rep full armor quickly and 2) take a lot more damage than shield vehicles. Shield vehicles not only have to wait a lot longer for full shields, they simply can't take quite as much damage.