Why is the Solar Shield so expensive?

[curby]

MicroCorp's LXS Class C gives 9 "bars" worth of shielding as shown below the ship, and costs 5000. Gencore Solar Shield only has 7 bars, but costs twice as much! I did some basic tests and it seems that recharge rates and damage absorption (the amount of shield reduction for a given enemy shot) are the same. So... any ideas?

Thanks!

[galaxieretter]

Possibly because of this:

MicroSol was on top of Gencore in everything. Both technology and ship design were dominated by Microsol, hence the raids Gencore would do on MicroSol's research facilities. (Also makes you wonder if Transon / Gencore are really the "Good guys.") Most of the high quality shields in the game are MicroSol. That's why the Savara merchant was all "OMG WE JUST GOT MICROSOL SHIELDS!" The best available shields from Gencore is the "High Energy shield" which doesn't do crap against hoards of MicroSol's ships.

In order to compete in a market mainly dominated by MicroSol, Gencore had to somehow come up with a shield design that would compare to the protection offered by MicroSol's hardware. It seems though, that Gencore had to reverse engineer a base off of MicroSol's HLX class shields. (Hence the icon's similarity.) PROBABLY the problem was that Gencore couldn't manufacture their shields with the efficiency that MicroSol could, obviously using a copied design that they couldn't figure out.

To justify the price of manufacture, and give a reason to make it more desirable, Gencore included a recharge system that worked completely separate from the ship's main power source. If it really runs off of the ambient, solar light, uses a particle collection system like how it worked in Solar Winds, or possibly even a battery that charges when the ship is not in battle, we will never know. The fact is though, that the "solar" shield works in the stargate where there aren't even stars visible.

The advantage of the Solar Shield is that, as mentioned, it won't draw off of your space ship's power supply. This makes using, say, the fully upgraded lightning cannon more desirable with the micro fusion generator.

I would always select the Solar Shield simply because it didn't draw off of your ship's power. Even though by that stage in the game it doesn't matter. Up until I get to the HXS class shields that is.

[curby]

Ah, I see. I was using a very powerful generator at the time, so I didn't notice that the Solar Shield could self-regenerate. Thanks!

[bb1]

The shop fails big time with shield placement. This was a huge discussion point on Tyrian 2 in the old forums. You could only go up and never down, and when they give you solar shields you are already decked out and don't need it.