Shield recharging components question...

[Taz-in-Space]

I have questions about those components that recharge a shield when hit by a weapon.
1)if you have a shield recharge component, say that gives 10 points back into the shields, do you get those points immediately or only at the end of a combat round?
2)will such a component work only when that particular component is hit or always work until destroyed.
3)what TYPE of shield energy is given: plain shields or phased shield?
4)does question number 3 depend on what kind of shields are present?
5)I've never used shield rechargers - am I missing out on a good thing?
6)Has anyone done a study on the usefulness of this kind of component?

[Fyron]

1) You get them after that shot damages your ship. So, the shields generated from shot 1 will be there when shot 2 hits the ship.

2) They work until destroyed, and multiple components stack.

3) I think standard shields.

4) I wouldn't imagine so.

5) Not really. Standard (unmodded) Crystalline Armor isn't worth 1500 racial points.

6) Probably.

[Baron Munchausen]

1) They seem to operate at the beginning of the combat round, actually. Although there's never any 'drain' on shields in the first round of combat so it's hard to tell. Between rounds, let's call it.

2) Shield Regenerators work all the time, unless they are destroyed by enemy weapons. It's Crystalline Armor that requires a hit to regenerate shields.

3) Whatever type you have. If there are only phased shield generators present, it's phased shields. Remember that the presence of 'normal' shields causes phased shields to act like normal sheilds. The 'normal' shields have to be destroyed before the phased shields get their 'special' quality back.

4) Yes. See above.

5) Yes. In the right proportion they add tremendously to the effectiveness of shields.

6) I think so. I don't have any references but I think someone has posted carefully though-out ratios of shield power to regeneration power as optimal.

[ September 04, 2002, 21:22: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Fyron]

BM, Taz's question wasn't worded very well. While what you have said is true, I _think_ he was asking about Crystalline Armor, not Shield Regenerators. Look at this line:

components that recharge a shield when hit by a weapon...

That makes me think he means Crystalline Armor, cause Shield Regenerators don't do anything when hit by a weapon; they add shields between rounds. I could be wrong, of course.

[Escaflowne]

In either case, whether it is Crystal Armor or Shield Regenerators, I think they are too weak by default and need to be upgraded.

Unmodded shield regenerators are a joke. You can't get any useful amounts of help from them because you would need to fill the ship with them in order to give you a useful amount of shielding in the middle of a fire fight.

In my game I modded them by boosting thier regen rate by a factor of 5. I put 3 of them on my ships and then they give a decent amount of output in the middle of a battle.

As for Crystal armor, I respect it for its low cost, high durablity, and light weight. But its shield regen properties are worthless. 25 points of shields from an incoming bLast isn't going to dull anything but the smallest and weakest weapons. Anything able to do a decent amount of damage will plow through the skeleton shields, rip through the armor, and tear into the ship.

But that's just me venting about the lack of usable shield regenitive abilites in an unmodded game.

[Wardad]

Just my 2 cents....

Boarding parties are obstucted by shields. Shield regen will restore some shields and keep the boarding ships from using the boarding strategy in strategic combat. This is true even if the shields are knocked down by the first shot of a combat round.

Of course security stations would be more useful. I once built an armor only Magnet ship to trap boarding ships. It had 4 security stations on board.

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