I don't know if you ever fought against a good sabre. You stick 1 Mirage and 2 FR86 and you have a recharge rate greater than 2x S2. With only 2 sec down time.
FR-86 is a S3 shield. I take you meant FR-66.
If adding mirage reduces the regen delay on FR-66, that would surely be a bug, right? So you'd have 342hp/s regen after 2 seconds, and the full 954 hp/s regen after 4 seconds.
But anyhow, the problem isn't how much of a delay there is, the problem is there is a delay. Any recharge frequency slower than RoF of the attacker has a drastic effect on the survivability.
It can easily turn shields never going down to shields going down in a few seconds.
It's very easy to sustain fire on a big slow ship. It is the opposite for small fast ships. You be lucky to get a shot in here and there, so 2 sec down time makes it very tough.
I mean, neither of them is particularly large or particularly small. They're very similar in size and manoeuvrability. Yes, nomad is slightly smaller, slightly faster and has slightly better turning rates. But nothing particularly significant. It might be the difference between getting through a small wormhole or not, or being able to land on one size smaller pad or being able to fit in some hangar, because there could be some very strict cutoffs for those types of actions. But when it comes to combat, I think the differences between the two in the areas of size and nimbleness are negligible.
To put down some figures:
Nomad with FR-66x2 + Mirage = 15300/4 = 3825 HP per shield face, and overclocked they got 500 regen after 2 seconds and 1500 regen after 4 seconds. And I mean, I'm assuming mirage doesn't affect the regen delay on FR-66, if I'm wrong, well, my bad. But ultimately, that doesn't really matter.
Freelancer with 2xFR-76 = 49586/4 = 12396 HP per shield face, and overclocked they got 961 hp/s constant regen.
From top/down the freelancer is 38*23.5/(26.5*18.3) = 1.841 = 85% larger target
From left/right the freelancer is 38*9.5/(26.5*9.2) = 1.480 = 50% larger target
From front/rear the freelancer is 23.5*9.5/(18.3*9.2) = 1.326 = 30% larger target
Let's say the attacker is 315p with two overclocked Dominance-3s for a total of 4284 dps. Now, they're scatterguns, so most of the shots will miss. But they're scatterguns, so you're almost guaranteed to always hit with a few. Let's say it's a good pilot who has, at the very least, had the sense to stagger the scatterguns, so even if one or two blasts miss entirely, it's not going to be more than 2/3rds of a second window. 315p is faster and nimbler than either Nomad or Freelancer, so given the same skill level, I wouldn't count either of Nomad or Freelancer outmanoeuvring the 315p.
Let's say 20% of the scatter hits Nomad from front, 30% from the side and 60% from the top. (Based on the relative size of the target from these different angles).
So freelancer would get 25% from front, 45% from left/right and 100% from the top.
For the 315p to take down the Nomad from front/rear
3825/(4284*0.2) = 4.5 seconds.
For the 315p to take down the freelancer from front/rear
12396/(4284*0.25 - 961) = 112.7 seconds.
(These are the two most important directions in combat if you ask me, think that chase position is where we all want to be and strive to get to)
Side:
Nomad: 3825/(4284*0.3) = 3 seconds
Freelancer: 12396/(4284*0.45-961) = 12.82 seconds
Top/down (and this will actually be hitting all the shield faces)
Nomad: 15300/(4284*0.6) = 6 seconds
Freelancer: 49586/(4284-961) = 15 seconds
(These being the least important directions, yeah, more of the scatter will hit but even if you got to this position in the first place, it's just going to hit all the shield faces anyhow, mostly negating the benefit of more scatter hitting. And this is also the most difficult position to maintain unless the target is like, a capital ship or something. Pretty much every ship has easily enough roll to just present a side view instead.)
Now, one major flaw here is that the original 20% figure, on which all the other figures are based on, is just a guesstimate based on me having used scatterguns against various ships.
Let's say I'm wrong and it's actually only 10%.
Then it'd be 10%, 15%, 30% vs. (I've been rounding to 5% so far but guess I got to get more accurate here) 13%, 23%, 55%
Front/rear:
3825/(4284*0.1) = 9 seconds
12396/(4284*0.13-961) = Never
Side:
3825/(4284*0.15) = 6 seconds
49586/(4284*0.23-961) = 2038 seconds = 33 minutes = I'll just watch this one episode of the Simpsons while you're at it, then make some tea, then quantum away.
Top/down:
15300/(4284*0.3): 12 seconds
49586/(4284*0.55-961) = 35 seconds
Now, of course this isn't a perfect combat simulation, I mean, the freelancer and nomad will likely be shooting back at the 315p and with the distances varying during the combat a lesser or greater amount of shots would land. But I think the point is well illustrated, that the S2 shields on freelancer make a world of difference, seen how the ships are very similar in size. Yes, the freelancer is larger, but really not by much. Especially since, in my experience, most of the combat will be either approaching the target from the front, and if it didn't blow up on approach, then a short bit of chasing it from behind. Having the shields start recharging at some point in the future will make no difference during the combat itself, especially since it takes a very short bit of sustained fire to take down S1 shields. Even if there are 3 of them.
And yeah, just multiplying, for example, L x W to get the size of the target presented from above isn't the best method, but it's a method that immensely favors the Nomad, seen how Nomad is roughly a big flying box, which could be roughly represented as O O O from top, front, side. Meanwhile Freelancer is more of a T -⟨⟩- O from top, front, side. If one were to perfectly measure the sizes from each direction, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out the freelancer actually presents a smaller target from some direction, though yes, it is larger overall.
Furthermore, yes, the nomad is, apparently, also bit more manoeuvrable than the freelancer, but only by 20-30%. I honestly wouldn't have noticed if I didn't look it up, though granted it's been a while since I regularly flew a freelancer. I did compare the two during the free fly though, and now I've been doing some bounty missions with the nomad. Y'know, to give it a fair chance and all. As for the effects of that 20-30%, well, I wouldn't say it translates to any more missed shots by the 315p, definitely not with scatterguns anyhow, and I don't think with other weapons either. It would however help the nomad aim a bit better with fixed weapons when shooting back at the 315p, but the freelancer uses turrets anyhow so those are already gimballed 4xS3.
