Harry Voyager
   |
Posted - 2005.03.02 08:24:00 -
[1]
Fitting a shield boost amplifyier brings shield tanking on par with armour tanking in terms of energy efficiency. Considering that armour tanks have to fit two armour repairers to have the same boost rates as a compairable shield booster with amp, that is actually the most balanced aspect of shield tanking.
The problem is that it is simply impossible for a shield tanked ship to to regenerate power at the rate an armour tanked ship can. Most battleships have a combined 11 Medium and Low slots. A proper tank requires 5 of those slots, be it 5 mids for a shield tank, or 5 lows for a good armour tank.
The problem comes in when they try to power that tank. An armour tank can choose from Capacitor Power Relays, and Capacitor Recharger IIs, at no penalty to their tank for a 25% effective increase in cap generation per unit (1/0.8). (Yes, an armour tank's passive shield regeneration does in fact at a small, but significant amount to their defense. It may peak at only 5-10 points per second, but it is there, and it is meaningful.)
Shield tanks, however can only use Capacitor Recharger IIs and Power Diagnostic Units to supliment their capacitor, due to the -10% penalty Capacitor Power Relays impose upon shield boosting. Cap Charger II give an effective 25% boost to recharge rate. PDU's however, only manage a bare 15% improvement.
Let us consider the most ship most drastically effected by this, the Tempest class battleship. With 5 Mid slots, 6 lows and both a reasonable CPU and Power Grid, the Tempest would seem to be a ship equally suited for both armour tanking, or shield tanking, as the pilot so desired. For simplicity we will consider a Tempest using XLarge Shield Booster IIs and Large Armour Repairer IIs, rather than the XL Clarity Wards and Large Accomodations typically favored. This is simply to make the math simpler and does not really affect the results.
Now, the Shield Tank:
1x XL Shield Booster II: 400 Energy, 5s
200tf, 500MW
1x Shield Boost Amplifier:
50tf, 1MW
3x Shield Hardeners: 20 Energy, 10s
40tf, 1MW
Total:
370tf, 504MW
80 Energy/s, 780s/cycle, 156 shld/s, 1.95shld/energy
Armour Tank:
2xLarge Armour Repairer IIs: 400 energy, 15-11.25s
50tf, 2000MW
3xArmour Hardeners: 30e, 20s
Total:
220tf, 4003MW
71.1 E/s, 1600armour/cycle, 142.2 armour/s, 2 armour/energy
As you can see, armour tanks and shield tanks are, on the surface, fairly compairable. Now we shall try to power them:
Shield tank:
6xPower Diagnostic Unit IIs: 5% Cap bonus, 8.5% recharge bonus
20tf, -MW
Effective recharge rate multiplier: [1.05^6]/[(1-0.85)^6] = 2.28x
Armour tank:
1x Cap Power Relay
5x Cap Recharger IIs:
Effective Recharge rate multiplier: [1]/[(1-0.2)^6]=3.81x
Cheap armour tank:
1x Cap Power Relay
5x Cap Recharger Is
Effective Recharge rate: [1]/[(1-.2)*(1-0.15)^5]=2.82
That's the real difference between armour tanking and shield tanking. A Tech I armour tank is going to have 50% more power avaliable to it than even a Tech II shield tank can ever hope for. A Tech II armour tank is going to have close to double the power avaliable for armour regeneration, than a compairable shield tank it going to get.
That, and that alone, is why shield tanking is completely and utterly gimped.
Harry Voyager
|