Is bigger really better? (For shields, at least)

[btbarrett]

Thanks for that! I had thought that that may be the case since it seemed like it would be easier (and make more sense) to code it that way rather than look at the ship's base class and then make an adjustment.

 

OK, so with power-to-notshields the difference in shield power on Direction Shields on a bomber between Turbo and Large reactor is 270 shield power. On a strike that number is 324. So without shifting power to shields whenever you are regenning, the amount of time needed to make up that difference is 4.17s of regen in bombers. What I didn't realize though was that strikes have a MUCH higher base regen rate than bombers (130.5/s vs 75.0/s) so the time needed for Turbo to break even w/ Large is only 3.3s, assuming power-to-notshields. To me, that seems like a very insignificant amount of time and even w/o Large Reactors they seem to have an ample shield supply (and if you add in double front or double rear it gets even better) to absorb quick bursts of damage.

 

Edit: I had written this post about an hour before Verain made his and forgot to hit submit so it doesn't address anything he mentioned in his post. I think most of that was addressed already, but I will double check to make sure.

 

Edit Edit: And then I hit quote instead of edit. I can't brain good.

Edited November 24, 2014 by btbarrett

[Drakkolich]

I wouldn't be so affirmative of this. We can't be sure it actually doubles the regen on the strengthened arc.

After all, the discarded arc always keeps a slight amount for itself, so I doubt the regen would go 200%/0%, but more like 175%/25% (or whatever the value on shield strength Directionnals actually have) so that refilling time remains unchanged.

 

And we don't know how Directionnals' modified regen rates intereacts with Power allocations such as Power to Shield, so that's a kind of an obscure area.

 

I think you missunderstood what I was talking about with the double regen trick from directionals. I absolutely do not think that changing your shield orientation effects your shield regeneration at all. I believe it stays 100%/100% no matter how you have your shield angled.

 

However when you take damage to one side with directionals and then cycle threw all the different angles back to "balanced power" or "the middle setting" it splits all damage you have taken up to this point evenly to both sides.

 

Quick example:

You have 100%/100% on your shields, you take 50% of your back shields in damage. So your shields now look like 100%/50%. If you go threw all 3 cycles (were disregarding regeneration here because you can do this really fast) your shields once you reach "balanced power" or "the middle setting" will read 75%/75%.

 

This lets you regenerate both sides at the same time even though you only took damage to the back. This is what I meant by using the double regeneration trick on directionals.

 

Hope that clears it up.

[Drakkolich]

Mmh, I have some memory of devs stating the percentages in ability tooltips relate to raw shields... so that would be 36% of 1800, somewhere near 650.

 

Oh interesting you think that Quick charges ability is based on the base shields of the ship before Quick charge itself lowers the maximum capacity. That would be really cool, however I'm inclined not to think it works like this because 650 of 1440 is 45% of your shields. Does anyone feel like when you hit the Quick charge button you get almost 50% of your shields back?

 

If it does work like then when I do use Quick charge I would have to plan my use of the ability better.

 

Another question is if the 60% regen all the time is as terrible as we think it is Altheran and the ability is as good as you think it is, maybe we've all been taking the wrong upgrade? Maybe we should be taking the 10 seconds off the cooldown to get that 650 back more if it does work that way.

 

This brings up some interesting questions. ^^

[Verain]

Thanks for that! I had thought that that may be the case since it seemed like it would be easier (and make more sense) to code it that way rather than look at the ship's base class and then make an adjustment.

 

I thought Tune was incorrect, but I'm not sure. I do know this:

 

ALL values are percent mods to base. The devs stated this a long time ago. If your thing gives you +20% of shields, that value is always 360 for a strike fighter, 300 for a bomber, etc. The "shields to front" and "shields to back" are not exactly resolved numerically yet- we call it double front, but it is unlikely it is exactly doubled. It appears to be conserved, certainly, over a full cycle, but how much gets scooted over is a bit uncertain- I would guess something like 90% of base? I don't know.

 

The 60% of regen QCC gives you, however, is likely 60% of current in game. It's worth pointing out that no one has tested this, so we don't know.

 

We aren't sure how the powerups work exactly.

 

 

This thread is, in my opinion, based on bad numbers and rolls from there to bad conclusions. Please update your OP with my corrected numbers on regen, and definitely and absolutely add the 15% crewmember assumption and the F2 assumption. I am genuinely angry that you have quoted pieces of my post while leaving out the parts that don't back your predetermined conclusion, and I will absolutely report you for misquoting / misattributing if you do not correct this. It makes it look like the math errors were mine, not yours. I make enough mistakes on my own, tyvm.

 

 

Discussing an average frequency of being struck is inherently flawed, but it is at least leading in an interesting direction. One of the big problems you face is that the most common cause of death in GSF- being burst down from max- is mitigated by large reactor, and none of the other reactors- and that it is hand waved off, while the rest of the time you are busy assigning some exponential model to everything. The point of my analysis is that even under very favorable settings for turbo (which you leave out) large wins. The fact of the matter is, when you actually watch pilots play, large is so superior that it's redic.

 

Did you post a youtube of your play? We can answer your question about what is best for you based on enough of those.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Verain

[Verain]

Oh interesting you think that Quick charges ability is based on the base shields of the ship before Quick charge itself lowers the maximum capacity.

 

I'm pretty sure (based on a bit of testing too) that QCC works like that. However, it's not 650. Again, it's off of BASE. Base is 1800. This means that the value is 540, 30% of 1800.

 

That would be really cool, however I'm inclined not to think it works like this because 650 of 1440 is 45% of your shields. Does anyone feel like when you hit the Quick charge button you get almost 50% of your shields back?

 

A strike fighter with QCC, large, and crewman large has at least 1620. That means 540 gives you back a third of that. I definitely feel that it's around a third, yes.

 

 

Another question is if the 60% regen all the time is as terrible as we think it is Altheran and the ability is as good as you think it is, maybe we've all been taking the wrong upgrade? Maybe we should be taking the 10 seconds off the cooldown to get that 650 back more if it does work that way.

 

I believe 60% is the only thing that works off ingame numbers, and I believe that based on a bit of testing I did with F2 active versus F3, but I'm really not totally sure about it. If it does work off of that, it is likely the only thing that does.

[Drakkolich]

I'm pretty sure (based on a bit of testing too) that QCC works like that. However, it's not 650. Again, it's off of BASE. Base is 1800. This means that the value is 540, 30% of 1800.

 

After looking at Quick charges upgrades more the first upgrade which I though just gave you 6% more shield regeneration actually does not affect your regeneration numbers at all which means it makes the ability give back 36% shields instead of 30% which makes the value 648. That's where we got 650 from.

 

A strike fighter with QCC, large, and crewman large has at least 1620. That means 540 gives you back a third of that. I definitely feel that it's around a third, yes.

 

This actually makes sense since almost all of my Quick charge play was with Large reactor getting back 648 of 1620 sounds like it might be right. I'm still not positive though.

 

I believe 60% is the only thing that works off ingame numbers, and I believe that based on a bit of testing I did with F2 active versus F3, but I'm really not totally sure about it. If it does work off of that, it is likely the only thing that does.

 

Because we don't have numbers for our shields it's so hard to test things to figure out if they are working or not. With all the tooltip stuff we have wrong at the moment I hate just assuming that things are working right. I'm still wondering if maybe 33% more 648 shield heals might be better then 60% recently consumed shield regeneration now though. I'm definitely going to give it some attempts, however I still can't believe giving up all the directional tricks will be better.

[btbarrett]

This thread is, in my opinion, based on bad numbers and rolls from there to bad conclusions. Please update your OP with my corrected numbers on regen, and definitely and absolutely add the 15% crewmember assumption and the F2 assumption. I am genuinely angry that you have quoted pieces of my post while leaving out the parts that don't back your predetermined conclusion, and I will absolutely report you for misquoting / misattributing if you do not correct this. It makes it look like the math errors were mine, not yours. I make enough mistakes on my own, tyvm.

 

I did make those updates, and it was never my intention to make it look like any mistakes were yours. I thought I had made that clear when I said I had made a mistake by not looking at your original post and seeing exactly where those number came from. I did not mean to implicate you in any way. That was me saying I should have done more research before I put parameter values in. If that wasn't clear before, hopefully it is now.

 

Just in case, I removed any mention of you or your post from my initial posting. Hopefully this will remove any last thought that you were responsible for my mistakes.

 

Did you post a youtube of your play? We can answer your question about what is best for you based on enough of those.

 

I answered this question already. I have not. I also indicated why I had not and what I did instead.

 

Discussing an average frequency of being struck is inherently flawed, but it is at least leading in an interesting direction. One of the big problems you face is that the most common cause of death in GSF- being burst down from max- is mitigated by large reactor, and none of the other reactors- and that it is hand waved off, while the rest of the time you are busy assigning some exponential model to everything. The point of my analysis is that even under very favorable settings for turbo (which you leave out) large wins. The fact of the matter is, when you actually watch pilots play, large is so superior that it's redic.

 

I don't feel like I hand waved that off, but again we are apparently in disagreement here. I said it was inherently difficult to model what the next damage value(s) you were going take is/are. I presented a model in absentia of that model and you are welcome to interpret its results as you may. I believe that, on average, if you can get 2-3 two second windows in a fight Turbo Reactor will perform better, on average. I then went on to say that there was a huge caveat on that in that it did not account for burst and thus Scouts/Gunships should probably never take Turbo since they were particularly susceptible to burst damage.

 

Yes, I excluded the case of having the shield regen crew member. I did this because there are literally zero builds that incorporate its inclusion. I was not trying to stack the deck in favor of Turbo. Furthermore, if you look at the portion that deals w/ different power allocations you can clearly see the pattern and extrapolate out what it would mean for the choice of Turbo versus Large reactor. I didn't conduct this analysis because I wanted to mislead people into using an inferior component: I was/am genuinely interested in knowing the result and thought others might want to know as well.

 

I did not intend to illicit such a visceral response from you, I just wanted to see if the current dogma that Large Reactor was always better held up. It is my belief that it does not.

Edited November 24, 2014 by btbarrett

[Verain]

I think you missunderstood what I was talking about with the double regen trick from directionals. I absolutely do not think that changing your shield orientation effects your shield regeneration at all. I believe it stays 100%/100% no matter how you have your shield angled.

 

I'm really unsure on this one. Again, this and many things we need to resolve with ion cannon testing if we want to talk about it with absolute assurance.

 

I believe this happens:

 

Pretend you have shields double back, and you also have no shields. I believe that your rear shields will regenerate faster than your front shields, but exactly how much faster I don't know. The test here would be to ion a test ship front and back simul, and then see which one becomes dull red first. If it is the back shields, then back is regenning faster. If it is both simul, then they regen at 100% both.

 

 

However when you take damage to one side with directionals and then cycle threw all the different angles back to "balanced power" or "the middle setting" it splits all damage you have taken up to this point evenly to both sides.

 

This definitely happens, and is by far the larger effect.

[Verain]

I don't feel like I hand waved that off, but again we are apparently in disagreement here. I said it was inherently difficult to model what the next damage value(s) you were going take is/are.

 

Concur totally.

 

I presented a model in absentia of that model and you are welcome to interpret its results as you may.

 

My concern that by presenting it as such you invite a specific conclusion.

 

I believe that, on average, if you can get 2-3 two second windows in a fight Turbo Reactor will perform better, on average.

 

This is generally not true unless you have made a lot of choices to make it true, and adjusted your playstyle to make optimal use of F2 swapping. If you are in F3 (which is often the better choice defensively) or F1 (which is always better offensively), then this becomes very burdensome. If you have the evasion crewmember (who is generally superior) over the regen crewmember, then this also becomes i big deal. If you are in F3 dodging, then you need three cycles to tie. If you are in F2 dodging WITH that regen crewmember, then you need the second one to beat it.

 

But the problem is that when turbo DOES win, it wins by a little, and when large wins, it normally wins by a lot. If you can disengage, then turbo will probably not matter but large will. You have to be harried on the same side consistently but not constantly (taking damage every 1.1 seconds has turbo doing nothing- taking damage every 10 seconds has turbo doing nothing- inside of this is some place where turbo does something, barely). It's a lot of effort for turbo to even tie large, and the very common scout with cooldown or full charge railgun rewards large as well.

 

Thank you for updating the OP. The 135 in there represents the F4 values. I think that it's worth discussing both the more common F1/F3 play and the defensive option of F2. Does anyone routinely run in F4? It has some merit as an average case, but that's about it.

 

 

I was/am genuinely interested in knowing the result and thought others might want to know as well.

 

Yea, I just got a bit defensive. I know you have good intentions, but it is very frustrating to see a mathematician resort to formulas when they should be looking at the gathered data (gameplay) and just playing data entry to get to the answer. I get that the formula is more elegant and interesting though.

 

I just wanted to see if the current dogma that Large Reactor was always better held up. It is my belief that it does not.

 

I believe it still does. I think in actual play you are in F1 or F3 for most of it, and I believe that you will, when pestered, almost always be able to dodge decently for long enough for solid regen. Even addressing the F4 case that you choose, I don't think it works well.

 

 

Lastly, lets look at a pretend example that demonstrates something that is, I think, missed by the analysis.

 

If you take some damage- say 1000- then you are at X-1000 or X-700. At time 1.2, you are still at X-1000, or X-700. X-700 is a much better place to be. If you then go that whole 1.8 seconds, you find yourself at X-856 or X-700. These two are much closer, but the large is still winning. If you are immediately struck again for 500, then you are at X-1356 or X-1200. Another regen cycle, and you are at X-1221 or X-1200- after two regen cycles, the two are tied almost. If you then take another 500, you are at X-1721 or X-1700.

 

And at this point, before we do that third cycle, pretend that this actually did hull damage. Pretend X was 1600 to begin with. Even in this case where turbo will actually help you a bit (once we get hit again, and then regen a little) it is helping you in a situation that will assuredly end in a puff of smoke.

 

 

Pilots choose bursty damage and things that reduce that. Accuracy is important because it lets burst happen, crits create burst, and instead of shooting at the edge of the arc with rapid fire lasers you fish for 1200 burst laser crits or 2400 railgun crits. Directionals can be easily integrated with the way you play- the whole "frequency of taking damage" thing is a red herring, because mostly you take a lot of damage and die, win, or escape. Turbo reactor would need to be a lot better to help you in the situation we're discussing- WILDLY better, in fact, better after ONE regen cycle, not 2-3.

 

My point in doing that stuff before was to show that even with everything lining up for turbo, it's still poor. And I still believe that stands: you need to have a certain frequency of assault for it to work out NARROWLY in favor of turbo, and that's just not something you normally see.

[Verain]

After looking at Quick charges upgrades more the first upgrade which I though just gave you 6% more shield regeneration actually does not affect your regeneration numbers at all which means it makes the ability give back 36% shields instead of 30% which makes the value 648. That's where we got 650 from.

 

 

oooooh ok. My mistake.

 

 

This actually makes sense since almost all of my Quick charge play was with Large reactor getting back 648 of 1620 sounds like it might be right. I'm still not positive though.

 

Yea, we don't know. But this sounds reasonable.

[btbarrett]

Thank you for updating the OP. The 135 in there represents the F4 values. I think that it's worth discussing both the more common F1/F3 play and the defensive option of F2. Does anyone routinely run in F4? It has some merit as an average case, but that's about it.

 

I will put it in a spoiler on the initial post, but I actually did this analysis already after Drak's original response alerted me to several of my errors/oversights.

 

Yea, I just got a bit defensive. I know you have good intentions, but it is very frustrating to see a mathematician resort to formulas when they should be looking at the gathered data (gameplay) and just playing data entry to get to the answer. I get that the formula is more elegant and interesting though.

 

If you know of a way that I can record video of my play without paying $37 for Fraps or downloading it for free illegally I will gladly make some recordings of my own play and upload them to YouTube. It would probably do me good to see videos of myself playing and see what I am doing wrong anyhow.

 

Lastly, lets look at a pretend example that demonstrates something that is, I think, missed by the analysis.

 

If you take some damage- say 1000- then you are at X-1000 or X-700. At time 1.2, you are still at X-1000, or X-700. X-700 is a much better place to be. If you then go that whole 1.8 seconds, you find yourself at X-856 or X-700. These two are much closer, but the large is still winning. If you are immediately struck again for 500, then you are at X-1356 or X-1200. Another regen cycle, and you are at X-1221 or X-1200- after two regen cycles, the two are tied almost. If you then take another 500, you are at X-1721 or X-1700.

 

And at this point, before we do that third cycle, pretend that this actually did hull damage. Pretend X was 1600 to begin with. Even in this case where turbo will actually help you a bit (once we get hit again, and then regen a little) it is helping you in a situation that will assuredly end in a puff of smoke.

 

 

Pilots choose bursty damage and things that reduce that. Accuracy is important because it lets burst happen, crits create burst, and instead of shooting at the edge of the arc with rapid fire lasers you fish for 1200 burst laser crits or 2400 railgun crits. Directionals can be easily integrated with the way you play- the whole "frequency of taking damage" thing is a red herring, because mostly you take a lot of damage and die, win, or escape. Turbo reactor would need to be a lot better to help you in the situation we're discussing- WILDLY better, in fact, better after ONE regen cycle, not 2-3.

 

My point in doing that stuff before was to show that even with everything lining up for turbo, it's still poor. And I still believe that stands: you need to have a certain frequency of assault for it to work out NARROWLY in favor of turbo, and that's just not something you normally see.

 

I understand that reasoning and it is why I don't think Large Reactors is ever a bad choice. But, I don't think it is necessarily a red herring. I suppose I can't give a convincing argument to you without video evidence to support my claim, but this whole conversation spawned off of my suggestion for a Decimus build I have/had been playing with. It is my perception that I can/do get harangued by scouts/strikes in TDM's, but with Directional Shields and Power Dive the proportion of those attacks that kill me, or even penetrate my shields, is very small. It had occurred to me that if I was regenerating shields every time I ditched a scout around a corner or power dived (dove?) behind an asteroid it might be a net positive for me. I still believe that, but that may just be because of how I play. I find that it is infrequent that someone rips through double front/rear shields in a single pass on me, but I do often engage in prolonged turning fights which afford lots of little windows of time (<2 seconds) where I could be making marginal regens. This whole post has ALMOST convinced me to shell out the money for Fraps. It is just that $40 seems like a lot to spend to generate videos that no one is ever going to look at.

[btbarrett]

So I have been playing with Turbo vs Large reactors again and want to once again suggest that folks give turbos a try. In particular, I think that ships that feature Directionals and Power Dive (T3 strike, T3 bomber, T2 scout, T3 gunships) benefit more from Turbo reactors than they do from Large reactors since it is so easy to give yourself a damage-free window in the fight. If you are effective at cycling shields, the lesser overall capacity is hardly crippling.

[Zharik]

So I have been playing with Turbo vs Large reactors again and want to once again suggest that folks give turbos a try. In particular, I think that ships that feature Directionals and Power Dive (T3 strike, T3 bomber, T2 scout, T3 gunships) benefit more from Turbo reactors than they do from Large reactors since it is so easy to give yourself a damage-free window in the fight. If you are effective at cycling shields, the lesser overall capacity is hardly crippling.

 

Don't use Turbo with directionals. Directionals get a 3 second reduction in delay already which makes turbos only half as effective. Now paired with DF and you have an argument (most "experts" argue for larger to counter burst, but that really depends on flying style and reaction time) that I can understand.

[Nemarus]

So I have been playing with Turbo vs Large reactors again and want to once again suggest that folks give turbos a try. In particular, I think that ships that feature Directionals and Power Dive (T3 strike, T3 bomber, T2 scout, T3 gunships) benefit more from Turbo reactors than they do from Large reactors since it is so easy to give yourself a damage-free window in the fight. If you are effective at cycling shields, the lesser overall capacity is hardly crippling.

 

This has been my experience as well. That being said, I have had more success with Feedback + Turbo on the Jurgoran.

 

I think it also depends heavily on the mode you are flying. I tend to design ships for either TDM or Donination. On my Imperium, which I only fly in Dom, I use Turbo, since I know I can use the satellite cover to get frequent bursts of 1.2 seconds of safety. I even use Directionals + Turbo on a Dom Sting! It lets me facetank multiple seeker mines, cluster missiles, turret shots, and feedback zaps. I use the satellites cover for protection against railguns and, again, to earn brief safety windows in which Turbo can justify itself. I very, very frequently own other BLC Scouts in duels because I can just tease them into using their DF, then I Power Dive, recover some shields, recycle my shields, then come at them again with a double arc.

 

However, my TDM Decimus is all about extended jousting in open space, so Large is more desirable so as to compound the directional effect.

[btbarrett]

Don't use Turbo with directionals. Directionals get a 3 second reduction in delay already which makes turbos only half as effective. Now paired with DF and you have an argument (most "experts" argue for larger to counter burst, but that really depends on flying style and reaction time) that I can understand.

 

As it turns out, the math does not support this statement. Counter-intuitively, the delay reduction works best when used in conjunction with the delay reduction supplied by directional shields because it gives you a higher volume of regen windows in the course of an average fight. As it turns out, the difference between a 1.2s delay and a 3s delay is more important than the difference between a 2.4s delay and a 6s delay. Basically, if you are getting the opportunity to regen unmolested for over 3+ seconds, there is a good chance you are out of the fight already and in such cases your regen delay is relatively irrelavent. However, regenning for 1.2 - 3s is possible while still being actively engaged in a fight, which is where the difference between Turbo and Large reactors becomes interesting.

[Drakkolich]

So I have been playing with Turbo vs Large reactors again and want to once again suggest that folks give turbos a try. In particular, I think that ships that feature Directionals and Power Dive (T3 strike, T3 bomber, T2 scout, T3 gunships) benefit more from Turbo reactors than they do from Large reactors since it is so easy to give yourself a damage-free window in the fight. If you are effective at cycling shields, the lesser overall capacity is hardly crippling.

 

I understand the math and all of trying to get those brief windows to extend the fight and let your shields recharge in them. However I think at the high skill end of Directionals, especially with Power dive it's still worse because of how you can abuse your other arc shield regen with Directionals.

 

With Directionals if you continually cycle from balanced to balanced again every time you Power dive. It makes it so you have 1/2 your shield regen at all times. Because your rear shields will continue to regen even while your taking damage in the front, after a brief battle you simply power dive and cycle while power diving and you gain half of what your rear shields regenerated during the whole fight.

 

So really all Turbo is gaining you if you use this strategy is 1.8 seconds worth of shield regeneration on only one arc per encounter. While Large is gaining you 20% more upfront shields when you open the fight and it gives your rear arc a 20% higher maximum it can regenerate too for when you want to recycle to balanced.

 

 

This Directional shield play is actually really hard to do, especially while still in combat. Thinking about cycling your shields while trying not to die with Power dive can be very taxing. So if you aren't able to execute this kind of strategy I could kind of see a reasoning for Turbo, because you would be doing the same kind of flying.

 

 

For anyone interested in some math.

F1=Power to weapons F2=Power to shields F3=Power to engines

 

On an Imperium with Power dive, Directional shields and Large reactor.

 

1.8 seconds of shield regeneration = 162 (in F1/F3 it's 121.5)(in F2 it's 243)

Your Shield arcs have 360 (in F1/F3 324)(in F2 432) more shields each then with Turbo.

 

Most fights happen in F1/F3, this means that in order to make up the 360 difference on just the front arc you have to get out of combat and regenerate 2+ times (2.666 for anyone really nitpicky). Not to mention your first cycle from your rear shields with Large will give you 162 more shields. (which is more then one Turbo regen cycle)

 

 

Now lets assume perfect play, you begin the fight in F2 and once you lose the extra maximum shields it gives you, you swap to F1/F3 for the fight and every time you hit 1.8 seconds of not getting shot at you swap back to F2 to gain the extra regeneration.

 

This is on an Imperium with Directional shields, Power dive and Turbo reactor

 

Alright so we begin the fight in F2 making our shields 2592 on each arc. (Large reactor would have been at 3024 so we are already down that 432) Now once we take exactly 432 damage we swap to F1/F3 to continue fighting. Once we take a bunch more damage or need to break a missile to break a missile shortly we go back to F2 wait a couple of seconds and we Power dive. (remember this is absolute perfect play, in a normal scenario you probably wouldn't even bother pressing F2) Now at this moment we were already 432 shields behind so we power cycle. The power cycle will rebalance our shields giving us exactly half the damage we took in the fight back. (Large reactor would give us another 216 shields here so with turbo we are now down 648 shields so far) After we do that cycle our turbo regen kicks in on our front shields and we get 1.8 extra seconds of regen which equates to 243 extra shields. (We compare this to Large reactor at this point and Large reactor is now only 405 ahead)

 

Now this was one entire cycle of fighting, you would do this pretty much every time Power dive was up to get the absolute most out of your Turbo reactor. Every cycle Turbo reactor gains 27 shields compared to Large. So it would take 16 cycles of this for Turbo reactor to just even out on the shields that just cycling Directionals with Large reactor equiped would do.

 

Alright so the scenario above is only considering that you take damage on one arc and that you don't get shot while Power diving, or even shot by someone else in the rear arc while fighting to stop that regen. So in practice not only does thought experiment fall apart because of that but the idea that a player would be able to predict 2 seconds ahead of needing to Power dive and swap to F2 for it is really hard to see coming, I mean it's possible it's just at the really high end of the skill gap.

 

 

All I'm trying to say with all this is that if you use your other arcs regeneration with Directionals to power the shields you are taking damage on Turbo reactor loses a lot of it's power.

 

 

Just to show I'm not biased I'll show what it would be if you only used the absolute perfect circumstances for Turbo reactor.

 

You would begin the aforementioned 360 shields down compared to Large reactor. Basically you just don't do any F2 play to make your shields go to 120% of their maximum because that favors Large reactor. On your first cycle you wait 1.8 seconds then hit F2 to get the extra 75% regeneration for your Turbo reactor. (We cycle while the rear shields are still at 90% because this favors Turbo) This gives you 243 extra shields from the regen and only 162 from the cycle. Meaning after one cycle Turbo has caught up on the initial 360 that Large was ahead by 240. So in this ludicrously Turbo reactor favored scenario it still takes 1.5 cycles for Turbo reactor to even catch up to Large reactor.

 

 

 

That was way longer then I wanted it to be, sorry for the wall of text. I hope this helps explain why I don't use Turbo though.

[btbarrett]

With Directionals if you continually cycle from balanced to balanced again every time you Power dive. It makes it so you have 1/2 your shield regen at all times. Because your rear shields will continue to regen even while your taking damage in the front, after a brief battle you simply power dive and cycle while power diving and you gain half of what your rear shields regenerated during the whole fight.

 

So really all Turbo is gaining you if you use this strategy is 1.8 seconds worth of shield regeneration on only one arc per encounter. While Large is gaining you 20% more upfront shields when you open the fight and it gives your rear arc a 20% higher maximum it can regenerate too for when you want to recycle to balanced.

 

Just to clarify, in the event you take damage solely on the front arc and then rebalance three times you have the damage spread out across both arcs. In that case, doesn't the unassaulted (but yet still damaged arc) require the same regen delay that the assaulted arc does? My understanding was that it was a delay from when damage was inflicted and in this case redistributing damage is akin to damaging the arc. If it doesn't function that why, I am unclear how the game decides when the regen delay on the assaulted arc begins and ends when you are rebalancing. It always seemed to me that the delay was 1.2 seconds after I finished rebalancing and thus the turbo reactors were actually fairing better when taking rebalancing into consideration since their advantage was doubled.

 

So to convince myself of this I watched a recording of your Twitch stream from October 16th (http://www.twitch.tv/drakolich/v/20898194). At the 8:03 mark you eat a cluster on your front arc, finish off an opponent, and then rebalance your shields. You will notice that BOTH arcs begin regenning at the same moment, 3 seconds after your last rebalance. This means that had you been using Turbo Reactors you actually would have had 3.6 seconds worth of extra regen (1.8s for each arc) by the time you began regenning with Large Reactors.

 

I think that high skill usage of Directional Shields actually is more favorable towards Turbos than mid-skill play for the exact reasons you pointed out.

[Drakkolich]

Just to clarify, in the event you take damage solely on the front arc and then rebalance three times you have the damage spread out across both arcs. In that case, doesn't the unassaulted (but yet still damaged arc) require the same regen delay that the assaulted arc does? My understanding was that it was a delay from when damage was inflicted and in this case redistributing damage is akin to damaging the arc. If it doesn't function that why, I am unclear how the game decides when the regen delay on the assaulted arc begins and ends when you are rebalancing. It always seemed to me that the delay was 1.2 seconds after I finished rebalancing and thus the turbo reactors were actually fairing better when taking rebalancing into consideration since their advantage was doubled.

 

So to convince myself of this I watched a recording of your Twitch stream from October 16th (http://www.twitch.tv/drakolich/v/20898194). At the 8:03 mark you eat a cluster on your front arc, finish off an opponent, and then rebalance your shields. You will notice that BOTH arcs begin regenning at the same moment, 3 seconds after your last rebalance. This means that had you been using Turbo Reactors you actually would have had 3.6 seconds worth of extra regen (1.8s for each arc) by the time you began regenning with Large Reactors.

 

I think that high skill usage of Directional Shields actually is more favorable towards Turbos than mid-skill play for the exact reasons you pointed out.

 

Exact same link at 27:00. I'm being shot from behind I put full shields back and you can clearly see my front shields begin regenerating immediately. I would surmise that the the shield transfer at the 8:03 mark you showed he was shooting lasers at me and because of server lag one of them hit after he passed me and counted as a strike on my rear shields killing their regen as well.

 

You can see it again at 29:20 and again at 1:02:00.

 

Swaping faces on your Directionals absolutely does not kill their regeneration. The next time I stream a ship with them I'll swap the third upgrade on them so that the shield regen delay is still 6 seconds and it will be very apparent. I mean you could even test it yourself, just put directionals on with a 6 second shield delay and as you cycle your shields swap to F2. Your shields will regenerate instantly.

[btbarrett]

Exact same link at 27:00. I'm being shot from behind I put full shields back and you can clearly see my front shields begin regenerating immediately. I would surmise that the the shield transfer at the 8:03 mark you showed he was shooting lasers at me and because of server lag one of them hit after he passed me and counted as a strike on my rear shields killing their regen as well.

 

You can see it again at 29:20 and again at 1:02:00.

 

Swaping faces on your Directionals absolutely does not kill their regeneration. The next time I stream a ship with them I'll swap the third upgrade on them so that the shield regen delay is still 6 seconds and it will be very apparent. I mean you could even test it yourself, just put directionals on with a 6 second shield delay and as you cycle your shields swap to F2. Your shields will regenerate instantly.

 

The 29:20 time point it looks like you start regenning before you rebalance actually, so I don't think that is a good example and I am not sure I agree with the 1:02:00 either, but you are right that it will be easier to see with the typical 6s delay. I had actually been in queue to test it out myself but I was struggling to get a pop and remember that I had access to your VODs.

[RickDagles]

I usually go one step further than Drak. After a joust, I will power dive away, put all my shields to the rear, and then when they're blue I'll turn around, put them forward and joust the next guy chasing me. It's basically instant regen. Lately I've actually tried using the right side of directional shields tier upgrade and I honestly can't really notice much of a difference unless I am heavily focused. I can see directional + turbo working really well if you are just super heavily focused the entire game. But then you'd probably be wanting to switch to an evasion scout or something in order to keep your sanity.

 

I think the best use of turbo shields might be with the overcharged shield bomber.

Edited October 18, 2015 by RickDagles

[Drakkolich]

The 29:20 time point it looks like you start regenning before you rebalance actually, so I don't think that is a good example and I am not sure I agree with the 1:02:00 either, but you are right that it will be easier to see with the typical 6s delay. I had actually been in queue to test it out myself but I was struggling to get a pop and remember that I had access to your VODs.

 

I went ahead and tested it out just to make sure. You can see me testing it at 7:20 of this link.

 

If you want to make sure I have a 6 second shield regeneration delay just rewind the video I make sure to show it off while I'm in queue.

[Lavaar]

Sooo what I'm basically taking away from this thread is...it's not about size...it's how you use it?

[btbarrett]

I went ahead and tested it out just to make sure. You can see me testing it at 7:20 of this link.

 

If you want to make sure I have a 6 second shield regeneration delay just rewind the video I make sure to show it off while I'm in queue.

 

Sorry, I think I was unclear on what I actually believe is happening. I believe that after you take DAMAGE and cycle the shield both arcs begin regenning when the cycle completes. In the case you demonstrated your ship had not taken damage, you had merely switched power configurations and altered your max shield amounts. I will try to watch your streams for more instances of what I am talking about.

 

Edit: OK, I was wrong. 10:06 of that same link illustrates the case I was talking about. You take damage on your front arc and cycle shields, but your rear arc begins regenning well in advance of the front arc.

Edited October 19, 2015 by btbarrett

[btbarrett]

Sooo what I'm basically taking away from this thread is...it's not about size...it's how you use it?

 

In your case, you need all the help you can get. ZING!

[Nemarus]

So it's been confirmed that arcs each have their own regen delay counter?

 

i.e. If I'm not using Directional or Turbo, and I get hit on the front shields at T=0s and I get hit on the rear shields at T=2s, my front shields will begin regenerating at T=6s and my rear shields will begin regenerating at T=8s?

 

I've never noticed that.

 

So with Directionals (ignoring Turbo for the moment), if I get my front shields hit, I want to balance shields in order to allow rear shields to regenerate (which begins immediately since they haven't been hit within the last 3 seconds). Then I recycle to front when I need them again.

 

That correct?

 

Doesn't really change my playstyle any, since I was already fighting with front, setting to balanced to regen (since two regenerating arcs is faster than one). This just means that's even more effective than I previously thought, because the back arc begins regenerating immediately. And that means that Turbo + Directional is slightly less good for jousting.

 

That being said, Turbo + Directional is still great for satellite defense, as usually in those cases you keep shields balanced while you use the satellite for brief bursts of of sight.