Hmmm I'm not that good at the maths stuff, and maybe someone has figured this out before.
With much energy in engines when i fly fast i get a defensive bonus of 65% at ~26 impule. energy setting engines 45/50. (don´t have evasive trait to add 10% more(human))
With more energy in shields i'd get a shield resistance bonus, but my speed, maneuvering etc gets slower.
At the moment i prefer the speed setting, but I´d really like to know what is more effective in numbers.
my power settings wea/shi/eng/aux is normally: 25/25/50/100 and i use a hyper-impulse engine. recon sci ship.
It's not straightforward. More Engine Power means better turning, which means you can change the shield arc under fire more quickly.
Your end values on power levels are also important. Shield Resistance is (shield power / 5) %, IIRC. If you have ways to increase your shield power to 100 %, extra resistance might help more (taking no damage at all to shields is often a lot better then taking just 1 %), but this will only be achievable for a very short duration. (And who knows, maybe they will introduce a cap in the end and then it's for naught)
Hyper Impulse only does you good if your effective engine rating is above 50, otherwise Combat and Standard Impulse Engines are better. I think someone recently posted a guide on Impulse Engines.
If in doubt, maybe the most straightforward way to compare is to see what the actuall difference in percentages will be if you change your power settings, and just pretend these values can be treated equal, e.g a 50 % "miss chance" is the same as being able to resist 50 % damage to shields.
Higher shield setting also improves your shield regeneration. Its a complicated matter. I for one change frequently between 100, 50, 25 25, to 100,25,50,25.
thx for the fast answers, well the matter seems way more complicated as i thaught^^
so it probably does come down to playstyle and switching power lvls to get the most efficiency.
just maybe wanted to know which is better for lazy players who don´t want to switch much cause they don´t like using eps consoles... or other reasons.
but well ~50 shield gives me +10% resist and normal regen. ~65 at a 50 shield setting would give me more regen and +13% resist <
> ~50 in engines at at 25 setting gives me ~53% def bonus, while at a 50 (~65) energy setting engines i get 65% def bonus.
so either 3% more shield resist and some regen more or 12% more def bonus and faster turning, better evasive... for my recon and raptor i'll probably stick with the engines setting. i just hate being slow in space :cool:
A further tidbit: Shield regeneration happens in ticks every 6 seconds. So if you don't expect to stay around for long anyway, you won't rely on shield regeneration much. This will typically be true for Escorts and Bird of Preys, and not true for Cruisers and Science ships.
Overall I have the feeling the best choices might be:
- Covariant for Escorts. Since they need to survive the counter-fire they are exposed to on their attack run, but aren't around for long. High shield values don't help much here.
- Resilient shields for Science vessels. High shields, low hull. They can't field as much hull healing as other ships, so t hey need to ensure that bleedthrough isn't killing them.
- Regenerative Shields for Cruisers. Moderate hull and shields. With Emergency Power to Shields and many hull heals, they should be able to last for a while, and really be able to beneft from the regeneration bonuses.
This might be optimistic, overall. Before 1.2, regenerative were definitely not a good choice, since you were never engaged that long... Either you were dead or all opposition was dead by then, but in the meantime, you had to deal with nasty alpha strikes.
The question is, what enhancements to pick [CAP] or [REG]? Damage resistance? And where do Shield Arrays play in?
A further tidbit: Shield regeneration happens in ticks every 6 seconds. So if you don't expect to stay around for long anyway, you won't rely on shield regeneration much. This will typically be true for Escorts and Bird of Preys, and not true for Cruisers and Science ships.
Overall I have the feeling the best choices might be:
- Covariant for Escorts. Since they need to survive the counter-fire they are exposed to on their attack run, but aren't around for long. High shield values don't help much here.
- Resilient shields for Science vessels. High shields, low hull. They can't field as much hull healing as other ships, so t hey need to ensure that bleedthrough isn't killing them.
- Regenerative Shields for Cruisers. Moderate hull and shields. With Emergency Power to Shields and many hull heals, they should be able to last for a while, and really be able to beneft from the regeneration bonuses.
This might be optimistic, overall. Before 1.2, regenerative were definitely not a good choice, since you were never engaged that long... Either you were dead or all opposition was dead by then, but in the meantime, you had to deal with nasty alpha strikes.
The question is, what enhancements to pick [CAP] or [REG]? Damage resistance? And where do Shield Arrays play in?
Really regen for cruisers, I can see your logic but with the beta stacking and sensor scan stacking I can only imagine how long a cruiser can withstand the pounding with so little in the way of shielding. In a 2 v 1 maybe but beyond that once RSP, RSP, and EPtS are all on coold down a cruiser goes pop.
You could run 2 copies of EPTS to keep your shield power inflated pretty much constantly. You can dump all your extra power into engines. Spend skill points in Shield maintence to max EPTS, and Efficency so you get a nice bump when at 25 power. With Skill spend and EPTS rocking my 25 shield power is really always over 70 while my engines are still at 52.
Really regen for cruisers, I can see your logic but with the beta stacking and sensor scan stacking I can only imagine how long a cruiser can withstand the pounding with so little in the way of shielding. In a 2 v 1 maybe but beyond that once RSP, RSP, and EPtS are all on coold down a cruiser goes pop.
Since I don't have a fleet for PvP and play with or against premades, it's hard to say how well it really fares in a highly competitive arena.
But against those damage spikes and debuff stacks, I think EptS and Rotate Shield Frequency will probably still do a lot, making the incoming damage not that impossible to deal with.
I would expect that in a premade environment, cruisers are not the primary target for the damage dealers, since they just take too long and in the time you need to kill a Cruiser, you still have to deal with the barrage of Escorts against you. If you focus on "crowd controlling" the Cruiser (Scramble Sensors to make his heal targeting more difficult, Viral Matrix, Tractor Beam Repulsors, Photonic Shockwave), and focus your damage on a weaker target...
All theorycrafting here. If you can survive the onslaught without Covariants or [CAP]s, alternatives will probably work better. If you can't , they are clearly not.
Regenerative works fine on me on escort. *shrug* Im pretty sure i will always loose shields, while covariant may have large cap, i will never restore it on my own, and they will save me like 6K hull dmg which i can heal up more easily. While having constant 700 hps surges on all my facings every 6s is alot more potent, when i lost my shields..as i said, *shrug*. Its probably tied heavily to playstyle and situation.
I'm interested in this issue as well. I'm still working on my hit and run style but I've seen escorts who don't duck out frequently take quite a beating while simultaneously dishing it out.
I run Hyper-Impulse Engine Mk X and Regenerative Sheild Array Mk X on my BoP with a general attack power setting of 100/25/50/25 but that's because I don't actually plan to stick around too long. If I'm not gone by the time the battle cloak cool down is up I pretty much expect to be a cloud of plasma and debris in space.
A little well known "secret" is that speed = defense, and in some cases a lot of it.
I made the change from the +5 power engines a while back because of the defensive bonuses that are applied to your ship when you're running at high speed.
Sometimes you can increase your defense by 20%-25% with just a simple engine swap and running @ full combat speed. Just watch out for the drift if you're in a cruiser.
I'm interested in this issue as well. I'm still working on my hit and run style but I've seen escorts who don't duck out frequently take quite a beating while simultaneously dishing it out.
I run Hyper-Impulse Engine Mk X and Regenerative Sheild Array Mk X on my BoP with a general attack power setting of 100/25/50/25 but that's because I don't actually plan to stick around too long. If I'm not gone by the time the battle cloak cool down is up I pretty much expect to be a cloud of plasma and debris in space.
Forget regenerative shields unless you have like 70-80 shield power in combat (with EP-S), shields do not regenerate if you shield power is below 50. For a hit running BoP, covariant is probably the best. You dont regenerate shields while cloaked.
That's just it though, I don't plan on regenerating while fighting so much as spamming redistribute shields when I'm slipping out, at which point of course I've switched to boost power to shields and engines. Generally I have my shields back to full just as I've built enough distance to safely recloak again. Since, as you mentioned, you can't recover while cloaked and because I don't want to leave my team a man down for too long these have been working relatively well.
I experimented with defense and engine power. It looks like defense caps at 65% with roughly 60-ish engine power. Excluding being able to turn faster and/or move farther away to take less energy damage at a distance...I guess I'd say go with shields after you cap defense. *shrug*
Forget regenerative shields unless you have like 70-80 shield power in combat (with EP-S), shields do not regenerate if you shield power is below 50. For a hit running BoP, covariant is probably the best. You dont regenerate shields while cloaked.
Actually regeneration stops at 25 power. Most people get more than this through various efficiency and performance skills.
About defense, defense caps at +50% from speed at 26 impulse speed. Hover over the throttle to see your speed, that number is the only relevant number for speed related defense purposes. At 0 speed, though, this bottoms out at -15%.
You can also get +15% from maxing out the starship combat maneuvers skill. And you can get another +10% from the elusive trait.
Altogether the best case defense you can have is 75%. However no one realistically gets that in PVP.
In tier 5 its realistic to expect most people to have purple weapons, and the majority of those weapons have +10% accuracy. Also, you get +15% accuracy from the starship attack vectors skill, which basically cancels out the combat maneuvers skill. And you can get another +10% if you have the accurate trait. Its also theoretically possible to find weapons with [acc]x3 so someone might have 20% more accuracy than everyone else if they are exceedingly lucky.
So realistically, your actual defense rating is 30-40% at 26 impulse speed, or 40-50% if you have elusive. Negative defense is possible and likely if you are stopped, and is bad. I'm not sure exactly how negative defense works, but I believe it increases the crit rate on you.
If you want to go for defense, you need to get your speed up to 26. This varies based on your engines and ship class. Hyper impulse engines are best for this as you will need a power setting high enough where they will get their bonus speed.
As to the original question, shields or speed, it really depends on what you want to do. If you need to flee, then full power to engines and the rest to shields is best. But if you want to tank and endure a bit, you will probably want maximum shield power with the rest to speed.
In my experience that is generally best, because you can't get a defense rating high enough due to all the accuracy bonuses, while if you get 125 shield power, you have 25% shield resistances, much better regeneration, and of course you can get extra resistance and easily cap shield power by cycling EPtS as well.
Science ships do shield tanking best, of course, having higher base regen rates and capacity, and regenerative shields work very well for them. Escorts can get 26 speed and max out shield power at the same time because they are faster. Cruisers cannot depend on speed if you intend to turn, because with the inertia problems, you will lose all your speed in a hard turn.
Comments
Your end values on power levels are also important. Shield Resistance is (shield power / 5) %, IIRC. If you have ways to increase your shield power to 100 %, extra resistance might help more (taking no damage at all to shields is often a lot better then taking just 1 %), but this will only be achievable for a very short duration. (And who knows, maybe they will introduce a cap in the end and then it's for naught)
Hyper Impulse only does you good if your effective engine rating is above 50, otherwise Combat and Standard Impulse Engines are better. I think someone recently posted a guide on Impulse Engines.
If in doubt, maybe the most straightforward way to compare is to see what the actuall difference in percentages will be if you change your power settings, and just pretend these values can be treated equal, e.g a 50 % "miss chance" is the same as being able to resist 50 % damage to shields.
so it probably does come down to playstyle and switching power lvls to get the most efficiency.
just maybe wanted to know which is better for lazy players who don´t want to switch much cause they don´t like using eps consoles... or other reasons.
but well ~50 shield gives me +10% resist and normal regen. ~65 at a 50 shield setting would give me more regen and +13% resist <
> ~50 in engines at at 25 setting gives me ~53% def bonus, while at a 50 (~65) energy setting engines i get 65% def bonus.
so either 3% more shield resist and some regen more or 12% more def bonus and faster turning, better evasive... for my recon and raptor i'll probably stick with the engines setting. i just hate being slow in space :cool:
Overall I have the feeling the best choices might be:
- Covariant for Escorts. Since they need to survive the counter-fire they are exposed to on their attack run, but aren't around for long. High shield values don't help much here.
- Resilient shields for Science vessels. High shields, low hull. They can't field as much hull healing as other ships, so t hey need to ensure that bleedthrough isn't killing them.
- Regenerative Shields for Cruisers. Moderate hull and shields. With Emergency Power to Shields and many hull heals, they should be able to last for a while, and really be able to beneft from the regeneration bonuses.
This might be optimistic, overall. Before 1.2, regenerative were definitely not a good choice, since you were never engaged that long... Either you were dead or all opposition was dead by then, but in the meantime, you had to deal with nasty alpha strikes.
The question is, what enhancements to pick [CAP] or [REG]? Damage resistance? And where do Shield Arrays play in?
Really regen for cruisers, I can see your logic but with the beta stacking and sensor scan stacking I can only imagine how long a cruiser can withstand the pounding with so little in the way of shielding. In a 2 v 1 maybe but beyond that once RSP, RSP, and EPtS are all on coold down a cruiser goes pop.
But against those damage spikes and debuff stacks, I think EptS and Rotate Shield Frequency will probably still do a lot, making the incoming damage not that impossible to deal with.
I would expect that in a premade environment, cruisers are not the primary target for the damage dealers, since they just take too long and in the time you need to kill a Cruiser, you still have to deal with the barrage of Escorts against you. If you focus on "crowd controlling" the Cruiser (Scramble Sensors to make his heal targeting more difficult, Viral Matrix, Tractor Beam Repulsors, Photonic Shockwave), and focus your damage on a weaker target...
All theorycrafting here. If you can survive the onslaught without Covariants or [CAP]s, alternatives will probably work better. If you can't , they are clearly not.
It's not bad. Personal preference and if you have a Star Cruiser you can also pickup Hazard Emitters.
I run Hyper-Impulse Engine Mk X and Regenerative Sheild Array Mk X on my BoP with a general attack power setting of 100/25/50/25 but that's because I don't actually plan to stick around too long. If I'm not gone by the time the battle cloak cool down is up I pretty much expect to be a cloud of plasma and debris in space.
I made the change from the +5 power engines a while back because of the defensive bonuses that are applied to your ship when you're running at high speed.
Sometimes you can increase your defense by 20%-25% with just a simple engine swap and running @ full combat speed. Just watch out for the drift if you're in a cruiser.
Forget regenerative shields unless you have like 70-80 shield power in combat (with EP-S), shields do not regenerate if you shield power is below 50. For a hit running BoP, covariant is probably the best. You dont regenerate shields while cloaked.
Actually regeneration stops at 25 power. Most people get more than this through various efficiency and performance skills.
About defense, defense caps at +50% from speed at 26 impulse speed. Hover over the throttle to see your speed, that number is the only relevant number for speed related defense purposes. At 0 speed, though, this bottoms out at -15%.
You can also get +15% from maxing out the starship combat maneuvers skill. And you can get another +10% from the elusive trait.
Altogether the best case defense you can have is 75%. However no one realistically gets that in PVP.
In tier 5 its realistic to expect most people to have purple weapons, and the majority of those weapons have +10% accuracy. Also, you get +15% accuracy from the starship attack vectors skill, which basically cancels out the combat maneuvers skill. And you can get another +10% if you have the accurate trait. Its also theoretically possible to find weapons with [acc]x3 so someone might have 20% more accuracy than everyone else if they are exceedingly lucky.
So realistically, your actual defense rating is 30-40% at 26 impulse speed, or 40-50% if you have elusive. Negative defense is possible and likely if you are stopped, and is bad. I'm not sure exactly how negative defense works, but I believe it increases the crit rate on you.
If you want to go for defense, you need to get your speed up to 26. This varies based on your engines and ship class. Hyper impulse engines are best for this as you will need a power setting high enough where they will get their bonus speed.
As to the original question, shields or speed, it really depends on what you want to do. If you need to flee, then full power to engines and the rest to shields is best. But if you want to tank and endure a bit, you will probably want maximum shield power with the rest to speed.
In my experience that is generally best, because you can't get a defense rating high enough due to all the accuracy bonuses, while if you get 125 shield power, you have 25% shield resistances, much better regeneration, and of course you can get extra resistance and easily cap shield power by cycling EPtS as well.
Science ships do shield tanking best, of course, having higher base regen rates and capacity, and regenerative shields work very well for them. Escorts can get 26 speed and max out shield power at the same time because they are faster. Cruisers cannot depend on speed if you intend to turn, because with the inertia problems, you will lose all your speed in a hard turn.
Actually it's all about timing.
The good offensive Cruisers lower their engines to half briefly to make the turn then raise back to full while engaged the entire time.
You only have a small window of reduced defense unless of course you're stopped by some other means.
Good defense writeup btw.