In another thread I mentioned that I wondered whether Directional Shields w/ the -3.0 regen delay and Turbo Reactors might actually be better than Directional Shields w/ the -3.0 regen delay and Large reactors. Verain answered with some excellent numbers from a previous analysis that was conducted. In an effort not to derail that thread I wanted to continue that conversation in a separate thread.

The question was originally in regards to a Decimus bomber, so I am going to use the number from a bomber in my subsequent analysis. If need be, I can repeat this for strike fighters.

Decimus + Large Reactor + Directional Shields = 2100 shields

Decimus + Turbo Reactor + Direction Shields = 1800 Shields

Decimus + Large Reactor + Directional Shields = 3 second regen delay

Decimus + Turbo Reactor + Direction Shields = 1.2 second regen delay

Shield regen rate = 75.0/sec

So Large Reactors buys you 300 shields versus Turbo (and more if you are directing shields to the front or back) while Turbo Reactor buys you 1.8 seconds of reduced regen delay. That 1.8 seconds translates into 135 shield power regenerated, or 165 shield power less than the amount of extra shields obtained from Large Reactor.

The argument then is whether or not you will be able to capitalize on the decreased regen delay frequently enough to make up for the diminished max shield power. Because I love procrastinating on my dissertation work, I decided to devote way too much thought into this. So let's concoct a toy mathematical model to play with.

Let us assume you have been just shot and your shields took damage equal to D. The amount of time that you will have to wait until being shot again can be model using an exponentially distributed random variable with a rate parameter Lambda, where 1/Lambda is the expected waiting time until you are shot again. This analysis can be conducted for different values of D and Lambda and it may quantitatively alter the results, but I am pretty confident that it won't alter them qualitatively. There is only one ability in the game (that I can think of) which can hit for more than 1800 damage to shields: a crit slug rail shot. We can weight the analysis by the probability that the damage you took was from just such a source, but I think that that probability will be rather low and won't impact results terribly much (just my gut intuition, feel free to disagree).

The time required to regenerate D damage is as follows:

Turbo Reactors: T(r|TR) = D/75.0 + 1.2

Large Reactors: T(r|LR) = D/75.0 + 3

The key value is the second one, the value for the Large Reactor. This is the break even value for the two reactors. If damage is not taken until t > T(r|LR) then Turbo Reactors did you no good. If the t < T(r|LR) then Turbo Reactors were a net gain in shield power. So what is the probability that t < T(r|LR)? This is pretty easily modeled: it is simply the integral of the exponentially distributed random variable with rate lambda from 1.2 to T(r|LR). This post format isn't conducive to mathematically equations, but it looks something like this:

Prob = Integral[(Lambda)*Exp[-Lambda*t] dt] from 1.2 to T(r|LR

The thing about the exponential distribution is that it is heavily weighted for lower waiting times. This makes sense in this context: if you have just been shot, the expected amount of time until you are shot again is probably pretty low. The chances that you will go minutes without receiving damage is pretty low. That agrees well with my personal experience, but your mileage may vary.

Just for fun I put some values into the parameters of the model to see where it did interesting things. As a starting point, I set Lambda to 0.25 (i.e., on average, there are 4 seconds between hits) and tried to find what values of D would result in a Prob = 0.50. That value of D is ~375. In other words, if you take between 375 and 1800 damage it is better, on average, to have turbo reactors than large reactors. If you take less than 375 damage, you simply don't have enough time, on average, to regen for either reactor to really help.

If we raise D such that D=500, we can also ask, at what value of Lambda do the two perform equally. I have already gone into way too much detail of the model, but it is basically when 1/Lambda = 11.5 seconds. In other words, when the expected time until your next damage is 11.5 seconds, then the two reactors are equal. If damage comes more frequently than that, on average, then a Turbo Reactor is superior. If D is larger, say D= 750, then Large Reactors fair worse, counter-intuitively: this is because there is a greater range of times over which Turbo Reactor can out-regen Large Reactors. For D = 750, the Large reactors require the average interval between damage to be 16 seconds or greater before they outperform Turbo Reactors.

These results should generally hold for all types of ships, but the parameter values of the different ships will vary widely. Scouts should never take Turbo reactor because they are the only ship class that has a legitimate shot of being one shot by an enemy. In my opinion, gunships should ALSO never take Turbo Reactors as their Lambda's are likely to be such that they expect damage to happen very rapidly. In those circumstances, neither shield is able to regen and the bigger shield is superior. For Strikes and Bombers though, I think Turbo Reactor (when combined w/ Directional Shields) is a very viable alternative to Large Reactor.

Edit: I updated the values to correct the mistakes that were pointed out later in the thread.

For better transparency, I have included my expanded look at shield regen in response to requests that were made in subsequent posts.

Examining Different Allocations:

This post format isn't conducive to mathematically equations, but it looks something like this:

I'm waiting for the day when most message boards will support LATEX tags.

Sigh, foolish dreams, eh?

For strikes and scouts, one thing that the model doesn't account for is that if the initial burst isn't fatal, the defending pilot can adjust lambda downwards to a significant degree if they're good at defensive flying and not constrained too tightly by lack of engine power and availability of cover.

With exceptions for getting snared, and being pursued by skilled scouts with BLCs equipped, I generally find it practical to delay the next shots long enough to restore shields to full when flying a strike. Basically I'm doing what I can to rig the model in favor of Large Reactor, which also happens to be rigging it in favor of my ship not getting blown up. In cases where this can be done successfully on a regular basis, Turbo suffers compared to Large Reactor.

Flying style also plays a role here, if by temperament, ship build, or server meta you find you can't reliably get shields back to full while on the defensive then the case for Large Reactor is substantially weaker. (Assuming you're surviving initial bursts most of the time).

On a bomber I think there's a greater chance that Turbo is potentially superior to Large. You'd still be trying to reduce the value of lambda as a defending pilot, but due to the limitations imposed by a bomber that adjustment is more likely to put you in the region favorable for Turbo Reactor. You get to break LOS and regen on a regular basis, but it may be very difficult to get the opportunity to regen to full before getting hit again.

Basically for the small and large extremes of lambda Large Reactor is optimal, for a range in between Turbo reactor is optimal. The trick is figuring out where in that range you are in various ships. Of course to complicate things, the size of the, "Turbo is better," window also varies by ship build.

For strikes and scouts, one thing that the model doesn't account for is that if the initial burst isn't fatal, the defending pilot can adjust lambda downwards to a significant degree if they're good at defensive flying and not constrained too tightly by lack of engine power and availability of cover.

 

With exceptions for getting snared, and being pursued by skilled scouts with BLCs equipped, I generally find it practical to delay the next shots long enough to restore shields to full when flying a strike. Basically I'm doing what I can to rig the model in favor of Large Reactor, which also happens to be rigging it in favor of my ship not getting blown up. In cases where this can be done successfully on a regular basis, Turbo suffers compared to Large Reactor.

What your model doesn't take into account is that survival is rarely (never?) good enough on its own. In GSF, you are playing in a limited time window where the goal is to reach a number of kills or a score obtained by controlling satellites for a period of time. The problem with taking your time to regenerate is that you tend to be suppressed while you're doing so, so your contribution to the team is at best neutral (since you are distracting an opponent), or even negative if you're out of the fight but your attacker turns on someone else.

Obviously bombers are a pretty big exception here, since they can fly defensively and get no shots in, and yet still do damage and repair allies. If you're delaying on a neutral or controlled sat, going full survival also doesn't remove your contribution. But in most cases, the goal isn't just to survive, but to get back on the offence as soon as possible.

Of course, that doesn't actually make a difference for the final conclusion. Most builds simply will not have enough EHP to be confident of surviving a burst, so anything that increases your odds of survival is almost infinitely better that anything that increases your regen. And for one of the build classes that can achieve high EHP, more raw HP is still a very valuable insurance against the RNG.

Bombers, because of their high base HP pool and very specialised role, will most often find themselves in a situation where Turbo helps them avoid attrition. Additionally, because their base shield pool is nrelatively low, they don't get as much benefit as a strike or gunship, especially a Directional Shields strike, from Large. However, even in that case, Large is still a competitive option, because there are builds like BLC+Pods battlescouts that can kill a bomber pretty damn fast.

That's for directionals, which are the only shields which can take the regeneration delay talent.

Every other shield has a difference between 2.4-second (turbo) and 6-second (other/no reactor) regeneration delay.

The other interesting case is the quick-charger with the mastered regeneration-under-fire talent. This shield has a serious weakness against burst damage, which makes the large reactor very interesting-but the regen reactor goes very well with this talent. This shield also gives you substantially longer boost times (engine power recently consumed regeneration rate = reduced afterburner power cost), which makes it very nice for strikers which chase things (or, more likely, have angry battlescouts chasing and trying to kill them). It's not like directionals are going to help you deal with 3 BLC shots, one of which is likely a crit-and they will leave you out of power a lot faster.

That's for directionals, which are the only shields which can take the regeneration delay talent.

 

Every other shield has a difference between 2.4-second (turbo) and 6-second (other/no reactor) regeneration delay.

The other interesting case is the quick-charger with the mastered regeneration-under-fire talent. This shield has a serious weakness against burst damage, which makes the large reactor very interesting-but the regen reactor goes very well with this talent. This shield also gives you substantially longer boost times (engine power recently consumed regeneration rate = reduced afterburner power cost), which makes it very nice for strikers which chase things (or, more likely, have angry battlescouts chasing and trying to kill them). It's not like directionals are going to help you deal with 3 BLC shots, one of which is likely a crit-and they will leave you out of power a lot faster.

You are right that I did this analysis for a Directional Shield ship because that was what my original question was centered around, but the results will be more dramatically in favor of Turbo in the case of no Direction Shield (with a pretty big caveat). Simply put, the longer the regen time the greater of a reduction in actual time the -60% regen daily IS. Turbo will come out to be the better option in any situation where you will have 2.4+ second windows in fights without taking damage. Personally, I find this to be relatively frequent. This happens to me a lot in turning fights or after just about every engine ability.

I tried to Fraps my own gameplay to verify whether these windows occurred as frequently as I perceived, but didn't realize that if I wanted to record more than 30 seconds I needed to pay ~$40: I am not sure validating a model for a video game is worth $40 to me. Instead, I watched all of the game play videos that Drakolich made during the last Super Serious event.

What I learned was that Drak is WAAAAY better at this game then I am and really doesn't take nearly as much damage as I do. Furthermore, for many of the fights he was flying a Warcarrier which lacks engine maneuvers and therefore doesn't really participate in the types of fights I envisioned Turbo Reactor being useful for, BUT if you don't focus on the damage Drak takes but rather on the damage his targets take you can see very clear illustrations of these windows. In TDM's in particular, there a numerous instances where Drak fires off a Cluster Missile on a pass of an enemy and then circles around to try to finish him off: the lag time between the cluster hit and the follow up shots is easily 1.2 seconds and in many cases more than 3 seconds. In almost every case, Drak's targets would have benefited from having Turbo Reactors.

If you are someone who is in the command of fights nearly all of the time (and that may apply to many of you reading this since you are likely the 1% of player skill), Turbo may not be beneficial. As Ramalina made mention, the smaller your Lambda value, the less useful Turbo Reactors are. If you are the aggressor in the fight and have an opponent on the ropes, your Lambda value is likely to be quite small. For folks whose skill level is more in line with mine where you don't always control a fight or for people who just tend to get shot a lot, I think Turbo is a beneficial tool. As someone said previously, Large Reactors are never a BAD choice, but I think it is not the optimal choice in all circumstances (which is the current paradigm).

You can use your battle records and/or post-match stats to refine your model. E.g., total time played, total damage dealt, total damage received, number of weapon hits.

On average, D depends on your opponent's ship class and may be something like 400 for a Strike Fighter, 600 for a Type 2 Scout, 1100 for a Gunship. Note that the Scout may be hitting you with burst laser and rocket at about the same time.

Assuming 1 vs. 1, average T may be 10 seconds for this Strike Fighter. This is more problematic because GSF isn't 1 vs. 1, and even if it were, a uniform probability density function has very poor correlation with the actual game. On the first pass, it can hit you with heavy laser 3 times in the span of 1 second.

You can use your battle records and/or post-match stats to refine your model. E.g., total time played, total damage dealt, total damage received, number of weapon hits.

 

On average, D depends on your opponent's ship class and may be something like 400 for a Strike Fighter, 600 for a Type 2 Scout, 1100 for a Gunship. Note that the Scout may be hitting you with burst laser and rocket at about the same time.

 

Assuming 1 vs. 1, average T may be 10 seconds for this Strike Fighter. This is more problematic because GSF isn't 1 vs. 1, and even if it were, a uniform probability density function has very poor correlation with the actual game. On the first pass, it can hit you with heavy laser 3 times in the span of 1 second.

Interestingly, this case where we are looking to estimate the waiting time until an event occurs is EXACTLY what the exponential distribution is meant to model. The model doesn't care where the next source of damage comes from, so in that sense 1v1 holds no meaning in this mathematical context. However, practically, it will influence what your value of Lambda is, but I tried to illustrate what varying Lambda means in terms of shield choice.

I agree completely that a uniform probability density function would do a terrible job of accounting for any realism.

I think your suggestion of looking at battle records is an interesting one. I think in practice, it would be very difficult to extrapolate statistics such as average damage taken per match (DTPM) into average time between hits (which is really what we would care about) or even average D taken. You simply don't know if you 15k DTPM is a result of big hits occurring rarely or small hits occurring frequently and those two scenarios would have huge impacts on the results of the model.

Honestly, I didn't model this as anything other than a caricature of actual events in game so the values that I report don't really matter. The point is that if you are taken damage relatively frequently, but with windows of no damage within a fight, Turbo Reactor should outperform Large Reactor. That being said, building your ship to maximize your potential to absorb large bursts of damage with Large Reactors is never a bad call.

This whole discussion has gotten me thinking that I might want to look at Regeneration Reactor when couple with Quick Charge Shields.

You are right that I did this analysis for a Directional Shield ship because that was what my original question was centered around, but the results will be more dramatically in favor of Turbo in the case of no Direction Shield (with a pretty big caveat). Simply put, the longer the regen time the greater of a reduction in actual time the -60% regen daily IS. Turbo will come out to be the better option in any situation where you will have 2.4+ second windows in fights without taking damage. Personally, I find this to be relatively frequent. This happens to me a lot in turning fights or after just about every engine ability.

 

I tried to Fraps my own gameplay to verify whether these windows occurred as frequently as I perceived, but didn't realize that if I wanted to record more than 30 seconds I needed to pay ~$40: I am not sure validating a model for a video game is worth $40 to me. Instead, I watched all of the game play videos that Drakolich made during the last Super Serious event.

 

What I learned was that Drak is WAAAAY better at this game then I am and really doesn't take nearly as much damage as I do. Furthermore, for many of the fights he was flying a Warcarrier which lacks engine maneuvers and therefore doesn't really participate in the types of fights I envisioned Turbo Reactor being useful for, BUT if you don't focus on the damage Drak takes but rather on the damage his targets take you can see very clear illustrations of these windows. In TDM's in particular, there a numerous instances where Drak fires off a Cluster Missile on a pass of an enemy and then circles around to try to finish him off: the lag time between the cluster hit and the follow up shots is easily 1.2 seconds and in many cases more than 3 seconds. In almost every case, Drak's targets would have benefited from having Turbo Reactors.

 

If you are someone who is in the command of fights nearly all of the time (and that may apply to many of you reading this since you are likely the 1% of player skill), Turbo may not be beneficial. As Ramalina made mention, the smaller your Lambda value, the less useful Turbo Reactors are. If you are the aggressor in the fight and have an opponent on the ropes, your Lambda value is likely to be quite small. For folks whose skill level is more in line with mine where you don't always control a fight or for people who just tend to get shot a lot, I think Turbo is a beneficial tool. As someone said previously, Large Reactors are never a BAD choice, but I think it is not the optimal choice in all circumstances (which is the current paradigm).

On the drak shooting targets example, remember that most of the time when what you are talking about happens, the person is dead very soon after wards, meaning that even with turbo reactor they would not have recovered that much shields, and usually they would have recovered less shields then Large granted them.

On the drak shooting targets example, remember that most of the time when what you are talking about happens, the person is dead very soon after wards, meaning that even with turbo reactor they would not have recovered that much shields, and usually they would have recovered less shields then Large granted them.

That depends on how many passes it takes. If he doesn't kill them on the second pass Turbo has been a net positive. If he kills them on the second pass it is only a little bit worse than Large. Furthermore, most of the time you won't be facing folks of Drak's caliber. All of those factors go into your Lambda value, but I would wager that most of your engagements are unlikely to be against the absolute best players in which case Turbo gets even more viable.

This whole discussion has gotten me thinking that I might want to look at Regeneration Reactor when couple with Quick Charge Shields.

Actually, among all shields, Quick-charge is probably the one with the worst compatibility with Regeneration Reactor...

Low Shield values, Shield and Reactor attributes being additive, the active power replenishing shields without relying on hard regeneration... All of these gets in the way for Regeneration Reactor to be useful.

That's probably the worst choice of reactor you can do when it comes about a pairing with Quick-charge.

 

Actually, among all shields, Quick-charge is probably the one with the worst compatibility with Regeneration Reactor...

Low Shield values, Shield and Reactor attributes being additive, the active power replenishing shields without relying on hard regeneration... All of these gets in the way for Regeneration Reactor to be useful.

Doesn't the t3 ability allow you to regen at 60% even when being fired upon? Essentially you are ALWAYS regenerating. That was how I had read it anyhow.

Hey Risto very interesting conversation you started here, I always use Large reactor with my Directionals and there is a few reasons I do this that I don't think your math covers. Now these points aren't me trying to argue which one is better because I think it might be play style dependent.

- Shield Regeneration suffers a lot from the different power management options. While Maximum Shields suffer very little.

- Most fighting is done in Power to Weapons or Power to Engines. Most players that I've seen (This is also how I play) will only swap to Power to Shields after the fighting is done to get all that extra regeneration. The big exception to this is when you are defending a node in domination.

- If you like the style of swaping to Power to Shields every time you start regenerating Turbo is probably for you. However knowing that you're done taking damage 1.2 seconds after getting shot is a really hard task. Swaping to it after 3 seconds is much easier.

- Just wanted to mention that you put that the shield regen on the Decimus was 86.3/sec and then you used Verain's number of 267.3/sec as your 1.8 second time frame. This was for a strike fighter that was in Power to Shields for the 1.8 seconds. Your 1.8 second time frame would be 155.34 and you would compare this number to 300 Shields from Large reactor.

I figure not everyone knows the numbers on power management so I'm gonna put them here just for convenience sake. The are only the shield numbers. Source

- Increasing power to a pool boosts its regeneration rate by 50%, and reduces the regeneration rate of the other two pools by 25%.

- Increasing shield power boosts max shield capacity by 20%, while increasing weapon or engine power reduces shield capacity by 10%

So what happens when I try to play with a Turbo Reactor is most of the time the 1.8 seconds of extra regen I do get is at only 75% of the base value anyways because while fighting I'm never in Power to Shields. Once the fight is over I swap to Shields to Regenerate back up and this is where Turbo Reactor isn't useful anyways.

I think if a player was willing to swap to Power to Shields every single time they weren't shot for 1.2 seconds all that extra regen might actually add up to an advantage in shields vs Large Reactor. However the amount of damage and engine power you would sacrifice to me to do this just isn't worth it. I'm of the opinion that engine power is more valuable then shield power in combat.

Thanks for watching my videos, I actually don't play Warcarrier/Legion that often it just happened that was my job on the team vs heavy scout teams that night. I usually play a ton of Directional Shield Clarion/Imperium on stream next time I will try to upload a few to youtube for ya, or even better I could play some Decimus/Sledgehammer games.

Let me know what you think of this and if it changes your math, maybe I missed where you did put it in your analysis. Very interesting conversation so far keep up the civil arguments guys this is the kind of forum stuff we should be doing.

You are totally right, Drak. I did not account for the Power to Shields and I, like you, am almost never in power to shields so it completely should be factored into the analysis. I am ashamed to admit that I hadn't read Verain's original post and just quoted his values. Had I looked at them more closely it should have been obvious that 86.3 over 1.8 seconds would not get me the values I was inputting. I will rerun the model with the correct regen values and the regen penalty for power-to-notshields, but it will definitely shrink the values of Lambda over which Turbo Reactor is more useful. I will also run the model for the non-directional shields case to see if there are realistic parameter values for which Turbo Reactor is useful in that case.

Silly question about the shield/energy/weapon pool increases/decreases: do they increase/decrease by a percentage of the base value of the component or by the modified value (after equipment is factored in)? Or do we not know? It seems as if many of the pieces of equipment only add percentages of the base (e.g., +10% and +20% to power pool end up at 130 energy as opposed to 132 energy if the values were multiplicative), but it seems like having the in-game power decisions affect a percentage of actual (rather than base) values would be simpler coding-wise.

Silly question about the shield/energy/weapon pool increases/decreases: do they increase/decrease by a percentage of the base value of the component or by the modified value (after equipment is factored in)? Or do we not know? It seems as if many of the pieces of equipment only add percentages of the base (e.g., +10% and +20% to power pool end up at 130 energy as opposed to 132 energy if the values were multiplicative), but it seems like having the in-game power decisions affect a percentage of actual (rather than base) values would be simpler coding-wise.

Rycer/Starguard

Directional Shields Stock = 1800 per shield arc

Directional Shields with Mastered Large Reactor(20%) = 2160 per shield arc

Mastered Directional Shields(10%) with Mastered Large Reactor(20%) = 2340 per shield arc

Mastered Directional Shields(10%) with Mastered Large Reactor(20%) and 10% shield crew passive = 2520 per shield arc

As you can see all these percentages are from the base shields and are added up. They help each other at all.

Oh and Riste if you're looking for more stuff to do to put off your homework or you just plain don't mind doing it. Could you also do the math for turbo reactor with your equation for if you actually were in Power to Shields?

I'm really curious by how much it would win because of the huge amount of extra regeneration Power to Shields does give. No presure though I know it's a lot of work.

Doesn't the t3 ability allow you to regen at 60% even when being fired upon? Essentially you are ALWAYS regenerating. That was how I had read it anyhow.

That's right. But the problem is how much.

Long Story Short : the regenerated amount of shield during the initial 6s is much lower than many people believe.

This upgrade is from a mechanism standpoint like Directionals Turbo upgrade. It is not a usual modifier, but a "changer", and will change values before other modifiers are applied. You can see when taking this upgrade that it will be displayed :

Recently used Shield regen rate

+60

No percentage. It's the sign that it works like explained above.

So the thing is that it won't grant you 60% of your mighty regeneration rate, but 60% of your basic regeneration rate, and only then other modifiers from Quick-charge and Reactor will apply multiplicatively (but Reactor and QC bonuses are not multiplicative to each other for the "normal" rate bonuses).

If you want we can compare the time needed to refill one QC shield from empty to full (without accounting Large Reactor's extra) :

Amount to refill = 80% of base value (taking the 10% crew to maximize the importance of Regen Reactor...)

Base regen rate = 5% of base value per sec.

Recently used = 60% of Base regen rate, upped multiplicatively by 20% for Regen reactor = 3% of base value per sec, 3.6% for Regen reactor.

"Normal" Regen rate = 160% of Base regen rate, or 180% for Regen Reactor = 8% of base value per sec, 9% for Regen reactor

Amount regenerated during initial 6s :

Large = 6 * 3% = 18%

Regen = 6 * 3.6% = 21.6%

Turbo = 2.4 * 3% + 3.6 * 8% = 36%

Remaining shield to refill :

Large = 80 - 18 = 62%

Regen = 80 - 21.6 = 58.4%

Turbo = 80 - 36 = 44%

Time spent finishing refilling :

Large = 62 / 8 = 7.75s

Regen = 58.4 / 9 = 6.49s

Turbo = 51.2 / 8 = 5.5s

Regen doesn't beat Turbo, in the situation it's meant to maximize Regen efficiency.

The only way for Regen to beat Turbo, are :

• forbid Turbo to kick in (never entering "normal" regen rate)
  => generally Large realm if you die in one go
   
  
• damage has been non-bursty
  => Has to spread for over than 6s to exceed Large's extra 20%
   
  
• spend the whole initial 6s in a power mode that reduce the rate (Engine for ex) so that Turbo's lead is minimized
  => But then you'll switch to Shield mode at a time, in which even Large which is the worse at regenerating will only spend less than a sec extra time for the same result.
  

And this doesn't even take into account the active power, which will make so that you're not aiming to refill your whole 80%, but only around half of it (the advertised 36% refill is also 36% of "base", which is effectively 50% in the case you're standing at 70% of base with a raw QC shields, without Large reactor or "Large-alike crew")

I see the Quick charge regeneration discussion is popping up again. This one is always fun.

Lets look at a best case Quick charge scenario.

Rycer/Starguard with mastered Quick charge shields, mastered regeneration reactor and both shield crew passives which are 10% max shield and 15% shield regeneration.

Shield Power Regen per arc is 175.5/sec with a max shield power of 1440.

Now as Altheran pointed out the tooltip for the recently consumed section of Quick charge says +60. Now to make things even more complicated on Dulfy's starfighter calculator which has every number right from every time I've checked the recently consumed regen rate says it's 40.5/sec.

Alright so if the recently consumed regen rate is in fact 40.5/sec all these arguments are moot because that is just awful so lets assume just for fun that it actually gives you 60% of 175.5/sec all the time.

So now lets compare Directionals and Quick charge and see what happens.

Quick Charge Shield, Regeneration reactor and 10% shield max and 15% shield regeneration.

Regeneration rate 175.5/sec after 6 seconds.

Regeneration rate all the time 105.3/sec

Max Shield 1440 per arc.

30 second cooldown which gives you about 400 shields (It's like 390 or something) Comes out to 13.3/sec

Engine regeneration when recently consumed goes from 2/sec to 2.9/sec

Directional Shields, Large reactor and 10% shield max and 15% shield regeneration.

Regeneration rate 103.5/sec after 3 seconds.

Regeneration rate all the time 0.

Max Shield 2520 per arc.

The ability to swap shields from side to side.

Alright so the first huge difference is the Max shield totals. The difference is a whopping 1080 shields, while under fire it would take Quick charge 9 seconds just to catch up to directionals meaning any fight that is over in under 9 seconds directionals just wins. This is also not counting the ability to swap your shields to the correct side but however is counting the use of quick charges cooldown.

The really interesting part is if both shields only take damage on one side lets say the back and then the engagement ends you can cycle threw on directionals to split the damage evenly between both sides afterwards and will actually out regenerate Quick charge shield. Because one you split the damage to both sides you can regenerate both at the same time on directionals giving you 207/sec vs Quick charges 175.5/sec.

On top of all that Directionals after only 3 seconds of not being shot at has a very similar regen rate to Quck charge and still has the ability to split it to do the double regen.

After all that where does Quick charge win? It wins in engine power regeneration, this is really the only reason to use it.

Directional engines with 0 engine changes.

100 Engine pool

6 power to activate boost

12 power per second to continue boost

2 power per second recently consumed regeneration

This means after you activate your boost you are at 94 and then use up 12 each second but also regenerate 2 which gives you 9.4 seconds of boost until you run out.

Quick charge engines with 0 engine changes other then quick charge have.

100 Engine pool

6 power to activate boost

12 power per second to continue boost

2.9 power per second recently consumed regeneration

This means after you activate your boost you are at 94 and then use up 12 each second but also regenerate 2.9 which gives you 10.32 seconds of boost until you run out.

Now I'm going to do this exact same scenario with both shields only they will also have mastered regeneration thrusters and both engine passives (13% efficiency and 10% power pool)

Directionals

110 Engine pool

5 power to activate boost

10.4 power per second to continue boost

2.4 power per second recently consumed regeneration

This means after you activate your boost you are at 105 and then use up 10.4 each second but also regenerate 2.4 which gives you 13.1 seconds of boost until you run out.

Quick charge

110 Engine pool

5 power to activate boost

10.4 power per second to continue boost

3.3 power per second recently consumed regeneration

This means after you activate your boost you are at 105 and then use up 10.4 each second but also regenerate 3.3 which gives you 14.8 seconds of boost until you run out.

Alright so in conclusion I find that because starfighter is so bursty and because of the rediculous amount of time it takes for Quick charge to even catch up to Directionals much higher maximum shields it just isn't worth giving up the tankiness for the 11.5% extra engine power that Quick charge shields supply. (13.1 is 88.5% of 14.8, that's how I got the 11.5%)

Look forward to all the Quick charge lovers out there yelling at me.

So now lets compare Directionals and Quick charge and see what happens.

 

Quick Charge Shield, Regeneration reactor and 10% shield max and 15% shield regeneration.

 

[...]

30 second cooldown which gives you about 400 shields (It's like 390 or something) Comes out to 13.3/sec

[...]

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.

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

Yes, I think so too. The combination with a large reactor gives a nice plate of 2450. Insignificant little as directional and higher mobility.

And not as dangerous as a false-oriented directional shield.

That would also be coherent with my habit to facetank an occasional Cluster Missile by pressing Quick-Charge and be as if nothing happened.

I should probably stop doing that by the way... I may be wasting my CD

EDIT : oh, forgot one thing...

The really interesting part is if both shields only take damage on one side lets say the back and then the engagement ends you can cycle threw on directionals to split the damage evenly between both sides afterwards and will actually out regenerate Quick charge shield. Because one you split the damage to both sides you can regenerate both at the same time on directionals giving you 207/sec vs Quick charges 175.5/sec.

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.

Rycer/Starguard

 

Directional Shields Stock = 1800 per shield arc

Directional Shields with Mastered Large Reactor(20%) = 2160 per shield arc

Mastered Directional Shields(10%) with Mastered Large Reactor(20%) = 2340 per shield arc

Mastered Directional Shields(10%) with Mastered Large Reactor(20%) and 10% shield crew passive = 2520 per shield arc

 

 

As you can see all these percentages are from the base shields and are added up. They help each other at all.

Right, I actually knew this part. What I meant to ask was whether power to shields gave you +504 capacity (+20% of 2520) or +360 capacity (+20% of base). So, do the on-the-fly power allocations use the base values or the modified values? Again, all of the out-of-flight modifications use the base values so it would make since if the in-flight did the same, but I just wasn't sure.

Oh and Riste if you're looking for more stuff to do to put off your homework or you just plain don't mind doing it. Could you also do the math for turbo reactor with your equation for if you actually were in Power to Shields?

This is actually very little trouble and who wants to create analytic models of how beneficial mutations can impact chromosomal structure when there is video game math to be done!

I'm really curious by how much it would win because of the huge amount of extra regeneration Power to Shields does give. No presure though I know it's a lot of work.

So the result is sort of surprising, but makes complete sense now that I think about it. Having a slower base regen rate actually favors Turbo Reactors over Large Reactors. It is completely counterintuitive, but it is because with a slower regen rate you regenerate the entire value of D slower, but Large Reactor doesn't start to outperform Turbo until it has regenerated the full value of D. The longer the amount of time is to do that, the larger window of time where Turbo is a net positive. Weird, huh?

Lemme give you some numbers:

Let's assume you just took 500 damage, your mean expectation is that you will be hit once every 4 seconds, and we are dealing with a build that has the -3s Directional Shield talent taken. Let us further assume that we are in a bomber that has a base regen rate of 75.0 shields per second and that, for starters, we are using the default power configuration. The probability that Turbo Reactors will regenerate more than Large Reactors before the next time damage is taken is ~54.8. The probability that you will be hit before either has the opportunity to regen is ~36.2%, and the probability that you won't be hit until both have regenerated the damage is ~8.9%. This is the version of the model I was dealing with in my initial post (the 267.3 actually didn't factor into the model, just into the interpretation).

What if you have power to shields? With all other parameters being constant we see the following: the probability that Turbo regens more than Large is down to ~48.2%; the probability that neither regens is 36.2% (this shouldn't change since it is really just a function of Lambda); and the probability that both fully regenerate is ~15.6%. Clearly those numbers aren't as good for Turbo shields.

Now let us suppose that you have power to not-shields, but that all of the other parameters are the same. In this case the probability that Turbo will regen more than Large is ~58.6%; the probability neither will regen before the next hit is still ~36.2%; and the probability that both have the opportunity to regen to full is a measily ~5.1%.

HERE is where my question about how power modifications impact shield pools becomes relevant. If it is +20%/-10% of base values, then the difference between the two reactors should always be 300 shields. The amount of shields regenerated in 1.8 seconds in low, medium, and high power allocations are 101.25, 135, and 202.5, respectively. In order to recoup that difference in total shields you would need 5.3s, 4s, and 2.7s of extra regen time under the various low, medium, high power allocation between occurrences of your shield arc being completely depleted. If, however, power allocation is a function of ACTUAL shield strength rather than BASE shield strength those numbers change. I won't go into the numbers of how it changes, but suffice to say that if it is ACTUAL shield strength it favors Turbo Reactors since power away from shields will hurt the Large reactor shields more than the Turbo reactor shields (10% of a bigger number is bigger than 10% of a smaller number).

As the damage values go up, Turbo Reactor becomes more preferable, up until a point where Large becomes the clear choice. If we up the value of D to 750 but leave all of the other values the same and use a power-to-notshields allocation, the probability that Turbo will regen more than Large before the next hit is ~62.1%, whereas the probability that both will regen to full is only ~1.7%. Here I would like to take a moment to remind you that D is really only a measure of how much damage you have taken up until now. You can get to D through one hit or through several, it does not impact the model at all. It does impact the interpretation though. If you have taken 750 damage to shields and you expect that your average hit is 750, you can only take 2 hits on your shields with a turbo reactor until you start taking hull damage. If you have taken 750 damage and the average hit is 400, you can take 4 or 5 hits (depending on regen) before you take any hull damage and that has huge implications on the results and it something that I have not chosen to model because I am not really sure how you WOULD model it.

Ok.

All of these examples were done with the edge case of Direction Shields w/ the -3s talent. What about everyone else? In the case of our normal 6s regen delay Turbo is shaving off far more time than it did in the 3s regen delay case (3.6s vs 1.8s). Clearly this means that Large will have a larger gap to make up, but it also means that the two shields are more likely to not be able to regen anything before the next hit. Let's see how those probabilities shake out.

I will use all of the same parameters as the earlier case (D=500; Lambda = 0.25; regen rate = 75.0) to make comparisons simpler. With a default power allocation, the probability that Turbo regens more than Large is only 36.4%, the probability that neither has the opportunity to regen is 59.3%, and the probability that both regen to full is only 4.2%. As was the case before, that 59.3% is only a function of lambda and so there is very little you can do to increase the probability that Turbo will outregen large outside of flying in such a way as to reduce lambda. In my limited search of parameter space, there is no place where Turbo outregenning Large is the most probable outcome.

One last thing to acknowledge before I end this gargantuan post. Turbo Reactor will most consistently outperform Large Reactor in those cases where you will have multiple opportunities to regen (even for a short bit of time) between occurrences of your shields being completely depleted. I talked at length about how this was more likely with Directional Shields with -3s talent, but there is another reason it may be the ideal choice for Directional Shields. If you are good at positioning your Directional Shields you will greatly reduce the amount of time your shields have been exhausted. Those regen values of 75.0 or what-have-you are per arc. If you double-front your shields to absorb a big burst of damage and don't lose all shields, then when you start to regen (both arcs) the benefits of Turbo Reactor are magnified. If you can't be bothered to move your Directional Shields around Turbo may still be the better choice, but you won't get as much benefit from it as you would if you properly positioned shields.

So there was a lot to digest there. If you made it this far and found some errors, please let me know and I will happily correct/reanalyze as needed.

Edit: Corrected bomber base regen rate and subsequent calculations.

To awnser your question, the In-game modifications are based on current shields. (actually dulfy tries to say this)

The +% before power setting is addative, the power setting itself is multiplicative.

The question was originally in regards to a Decimus bomber, so I am going to use the number from a bomber in my subsequent analysis. If need be, I can repeat this for strike fighters (which are the numbers Verain used).

This made me groan. Mostly because the numbers will all need to be checked a whole damned bunch extra. Anything you find as regards strikes will apply to bombers and vice versa, so this strikes me as an extra complication.

The base shield value for a bomber is 1500. The base shield value for a strike is 1800.

So Large Reactors buys you 300 shields versus Turbo

Correct. On a bomber, this value is always 300. On a strike, this value is always 360.

As Verain correctly noted, that 1.8 seconds translates into 267.3 shield power regenerated, or 32.7 shield power less than the amount of extra shields obtained from Large Reactor.

This begins a cascade of math errors.

First, you forget the HUGELY important detail of "USING F2", that is in my post and left out of yours. Most pilots use F2 sparingly, and many never even use it. You simply MUST mention this, and it's the biggest deal, because do you even use it? Second, you forget that my stuff is using the 15% regeneration crewman. Do you run that crewmember? I was proving a point that you should always choose large reactor, so I picked everything to be stacked against large reactor, to show that large reactor is still best. Because it is.

But the REAL math error is that this is a strike fighter value, not a bomber value. The strike fighter 267.3 F2 + regen crewguy is compared to the 360 that they get from large reactor. The bomber in the same situation will get less. Specifically:

Strike Fighter, with +15% crewmember passive (+13.5% / sec).

F4 Regen: 103.5 / sec

F1/F3 Regen: 81 / sec

F2 Regen: 148.5 / sec

Strike Fighter without the crewmember regen passive.

F4 Regen: 90 / sec

F1/F3 Regen: 67.5 / sec

F2 Regen: 135 / sec

Bomber, with +15% crewmember passive (+10.5% / sec).

F4 Regen: 85.5 / sec

F1/F3 Regen: 66.75 / sec

F2 Regen: 123 / sec

Bomber without the crewmember regen passive.

F4 Regen: 75 / sec

F1/F3 Regen: 56.25 / sec

F2 Regen: 112.5 / sec

This means if you bomber runs the 15% regen crewmember and is in F2 when the 1.2 seconds expire and begin the countdown to 3 seconds, you'll get back 221.4.. 221.4. is pretty far from 300. The 267.3 is for strikes and their 360 comparative large reactor.

I'll look through the rest later, but I suspect you have some calculations to update?

Also, if you don't use the regen crewmember, then instead you should never use the big values. Instead your values are:

Strike Fighter F2: 135 per second for 243, versus 360 from large.

Bomber F2: 115 per second for 207, versus 300 from large.

And PLEASE note that these are WILDLY stacked- F2 timing is perfect, and that you get your full 1.8 seconds instead of the frequent times you get a fraction or not at all, and that large can never zip back up to full.

To awnser your question, the In-game modifications are based on current shields. (actually dulfy tries to say this)

 

The +% before power setting is addative, the power setting itself is multiplicative.

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 4.8s 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: Corrected bomber base regen.