What in God’s name does it do? What situations do you use them? I’ve searched and searched and all I found was this useless quote from some forum post:
Wha…? I don’t even…?
Is it just literally a shield type with 0 resistance and a cheap way to charge shields or does it have some other function?
Side question is how exactly does DR effect shields? Strength/resistance/recharge - all, one, some?
Hi, not sure what you mean by DR?
The shield capacitor has shield strength, but no resistance. This means if you only use capacitors, your shield resistance is zero, and thus anything can damage the shields.
If you use a shield capacitor with a high-resistance shield module, you get the benefits of high resistance AND high shield strength.
This brings up another question. On a one per one basis, is it more effective to have a shield generator paired with a capacitor, or just equip two shield generators? Does shield resistance stack or is it a flat number no matter how many generators you have?
I’ve never equipped a capacitor because I have no idea what the actual numbers or effectiveness of the component is. All my ship designs just carry multiple shield generators the same way they did back in GSB1.
DR: Deminishing Returns
I’m just going to keep hitting you with shield questions 
I need to know how DR effects them because otherwise I can’t figure out if I should have 1 Heavy shield with 4 capacitors or 2 and 2 or what
Capacitor has half the strength, but is a fraction of the cost and energy/crew costs, so if DR is only hitting shield strength it’s probably worth it to go 1 heavy and 4 caps. If DR is hitting regen too then it might be worth picking up fewer shields that are stronger. Also if I am tight on space how much am I screwing myself by doubling up on Heavies instead of spamming capacitors? I struggle to determine these factors.
Also I have been using one ECM shield. Not sure if it works - my ships certainly still get “Systems Scrambled”. There is no DR that I can see for ECM shielding, but do you get anything out of having more than one?
Finally on resistance - I would like to know Sable’s question too. Do resistances stack? Do you just get the biggest number? I seem to recall Destroyer’s Heavy shield has only like 30 strength compared to the Med that has 70. Sure one less on recharge but I still can’t see a reason to ever take two Heavies. And It doesn’t really make sense that the Heavy would have less strength than the Med.
Please shed some light here!
You get the largest active shield resistance.
If a shield is depleted or the module is destroyed, it’s effective resistance is zero. On rare occasion you can sometimes catch pulse fighters penetrating a cruiser shield that’s been destroyed by an explosion.
The stacking penalty in GSB1 was capacity only, I believe. Don’t know what it is here.
Let me rephrase the question, because I simply can’t figure out the details of shield mechanics.
Say you have 2 shield generators of the same type, with a shield strength of 100 and a shield resistance of 25, and a stacking effectiveness of 80%. Most things bounce off when they hit these shields. As far as I can tell, when the shields do take damage, it’s randomly applied to one of the two generators. Once the shield bar is depleted from one generator, the shield never recharges and is basically a useless hunk of metal (other than a few extra HP).
The two stacked generators have a total “shield HP” of 180 points. The resistance doesn’t stack, I know this, but, if the first If one shield drops, you’ll still have 25 shield resistance until the second generator also fails. Also, the 80% restriction vanishes (I assume) once the first shield generator fails, so theoretically, if all the damage goes to one generator first, you’ve essentially got a brand new, 100 HP shield behind it as soon as it falls. This is where I start getting confused on shield mechanics; does this in fact happen, or is the 80% effectiveness penalty permanent based on the number of modules installed, rather than the number of active “shield bars”?
Why I think that shield capacitors are a poor investment (ignoring concerns like crew and power requirements) is that, if the main shield generator fails first, you now have a shield “HP bar” which has zero resistance and takes damage from everything that hits it, meaning it will vanish pretty much instantly. Unless the capacitor takes on the resistance value of its concurrent shield generator permanently, in which case it’s a flat increase to the HP bar of the shield. If that’s the case it becomes a no-brainer that they’re a far better investment than a second shield generator. But if that’s the case, what happens if you have two shield generators of different resistance values and a capacitor installed? Does the capacitor switch resistance values to the next one when the first fails?
So how do the shield stacking mechanics actually work?
I have a couple answers for you, although they are mostly from armchair observations. It looks like shield damage gets divided by the number of shield modules you have and spread out evenly to each module. As long as one shield module remains with some shield strength, all modules can regenerate. However the logic for this is a bit odd. If you have a 300 strength heavy shield and 150 strength capacitors, the caps will all go dry by the time the heavy is at 50% and they won’t recharge until the heavy goes back above 50%. They can potentially recharge to full at that time.
As far as the resistance goes, you take on the resist of the highest resist shield module that isn’t destroyed, regardless of how much strength is left in it. So in your example, say you have a heavy shield, a medium shield and a capacitor. The heavy gets destroyed you now have the resistance of the medium. If the medium then dies you have a capacitor with 0 resistance. This would only happen under serious shield disruption or from a blast wave.
In terms of diminishing returns, I’m pretty certain you always suffer the amount of DR that was stated when you built the ship, regardless of the condition of each module.
Hope that helps.
Yup, the stacking penalty for shield modules is fixed at construction and never recalculated during battle.
Since this is the case, this basically means the most efficient way you can configure shields is a single generator with the highest resistance possible for that hull type, and then stack several capacitors along with it to increase its “shield HP bar”, correct?
Simple test:
Terran Yamamoto Dreadnought.
Maximum Shield Strength:
Stacking 9 OR 10 Heavy Shields - 852.32. After 10, it starts to get LESS, due to shield stacking (90%) effectiveness. At 4 you get 641, so the next 5 are relatively inefficient.
Stacking 1 Heavy Shield and 2 Capacitors - 445.5. After 2, it starts to get LESS, due to capacitor stacking (80%) effectiveness.
Stacking 8 Heavy Shields and 2 Capacitors - 809.71 and cannot be improved by adding either.
So if you have the slots, power, engines to support them, shield generators are better than capacitors always.
I posit that the absolute maximum shield strength is 1007.29 on a Socrates class Dreadnaught (30% shield boost) with 9 Heavy Shield Generators.
So unless you’re really, really strapped for power or crew to run them, Generators are always superior to Capacitors. That’s all I need to know, I will continue ignoring Capacitors the way I already do.