What’s the difference between shield rechargers and shield boosters?
Shield Recharger modules are mid-slot modules which provide a modest increase to the shield recharge rate.
So, its going to increase the speed at which your shields recharge.
Shield Boosters
These modules repair, or boost, your ship’s shield amount
Boosters are typically paired with a shield booster amp, just not on anything cruiser or smaller, be a waste of two valuable mid slots.
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A big difference is that the shield booster uses capacitor energy to give you bigger boosts to your shields. The recharger does not use capacitor and thus the amount it helps is smaller.
Which one to use - depends on the ship and what you will be doing. Both of the modules have situations where they work better than the other one.
| Shield Recharger | Shield Booster |
|---|---|
| Passive module - Always works. (You don’t have to switch it on) | Active module - You have to manually switch it on. |
| Makes the shield recharge faster (reduces the total recharge time) | Immediately adds a number of ‘points’ to your shield each cycle while it is active. |
| Does not use capacitor. | Uses lots of your ship’s capacitor. |
| Works even if you have 0 capacitor energy left | Stops working if you don’t have enough capacitor energy |
| Can’t overheat. | Can overheat. (which will gradually cause damage to the module) |
| 1 size. | Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, Capital sizes. |
| Uses less CPU and powergid | Uses more CPU and powergrid. |
| Used along with other passive modules, for example shield extenders, shield flux coil, shield power relays, etc. | Generally used along with boost amplifiers, and modules for improving your capacitor amount/recharge. |
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A passive shield tank (shield rechargers, shield extenders, passive resist mods, purger rigs) provides a moderately good tank at a fairly low price, especially on ships which have a decent inherent shield regen. It’s very useful in situations where there are neuting rats, which would shut down an active tank.
An active shield tank (shield boosters, shield boost amps, active resist mods, cap mods and rigs) provides a high to very high tank, depending on how much bling you put on, but it’ll cost more. It’s very useful in high damage situations, but risks getting your ship blown up if the capacitor runs out.
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shield booster repairs more shield more quickly, but uses up your capacitor. it’s good for “burst” tanking, or if you have alot of capacitor to keep it running.
shield rechargers are passive, don’t use capacitor and don’t heal as much. however, they stack nicely. people usually use them if they don’t have enough capacitor, or expect their capacitor to be sucked dry by enemies.
Shields all have a “passive” recharge rate, meaning they always regenerate at a certain rate on their own based on your ship type and modules fit.
So you can either boost this passive, all the time regeneration with certain modules or you can use active modules to repair your shields.
One thing to note is the recharge rate is to reach maximum no matter how much max shield you have. So for example a shield extender while only adding maximum shield HP in its stats also boosts your passive regen because by having a higher maximum with the same “time to reach maximum” that translates to a higher regen amount to get there. Similarly, modules that reduce your maximum shield also reduce the passive shield regen amount.
Generally active shield modules can reach a higher repair speed but at the cost of capacitor. This means you’ll be able to get a high burst repair but may not be as cap stable or you’ll be vulnerable to energy neutralizers. A cap booster or modules that increase capacitor regen can help with this.
Many passive regen options have other down sides built into them so think about how those effect your ship. Boosting passive regen while reducing shield amount means the module is partially cancelling itself out. Boosting regen but reducing capacitor regen means less capacitor to operate resist modules, guns or your propulsion. Good passive tanks use a lot of slots. Using a slot for passive regen takes a slot that could be used for damage, damage application or resists.
Not being cap stable isn’t necessarily a problem. You can learn to use the booster when needed for a burst of fast repair and turn it off when not needed to let your capacitor recover. You can think of how long the battle might last. If your fight only lasts 1 or 2 minutes, do you really need to be cap stable? Not really. Even in prolonged fights many times you won’t be taking damage 100% of the time. Learning to pilot your ship well in of itself can reduce damage by controlling range, speed, traversal. So you really only need to boost when taking damage and let cap recover in between. Also you won’t be using all your cap hungry modules all the time. For example your propulsion mod might be turned off if in certain circumstances. When its off it isn’t consuming capacitor. This capacitor could be used to keep the shield boost more stable.
Also remember resist modules, depending on the stacking penalty can sometimes provide more protection then upping regen or boost. For example, if you can choose to mitigate 15% more damage through resists but only add 10% more to regen or repair using that slot which is better?
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thank you. Very thorough analysis!
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