Capacitor Management 101

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Contents

Class Information

This chapter contains the standard information of this class pertaining to scheduling and class contents. The General Information should be sufficient to create a proper class topic for scheduling on the Eve University forum. Additional information relevant to the teacher is listed under Notes for the Teacher.

General Information

(Though the official name of this course is "Capacitor Management 101", post it to the calendar as "Cap is Life!")

Illustration link for class description on the Eve University forum: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/w/images/7/72/Flux_capacitor.gif

In EVE, your capacitor is life! If you run out of cap energy, your turrets don't fire, your active tank fails, your modules stop working and you soon end up stripped of your ship, floating in space in a pod.  This class will explain how ship capacitors work, how you can improve their performance, and how you can become their master - instead of the other way around.

Duration:

Location: Docked up safely in any station

Topics include:

Student requirements:

Additional information: This class is primarily lecture delivered in the Class.E-UNI channel in Mumble, followed by Q&A. This class may be recorded for UNI student purposes.

If you have any additional questions, please post them here and I will respond.

Notes for the Teacher

Required materials:


Class Contents

Introduction

Welcome to this class on Capacitor Management!

This course is designed primarily for pilots who want to understand how to maximize the performance of what is perhaps the most important piece of equipment on your ship: your capacitor, also generally known as a "cap" in EVE jargon. Your capacitor supplies energy to your modules, enabling you to fire weapons, engage EWAR, maneuver your ship, maintain a defensive tank, and warp away, if required. If your capacitor empties, then your ship becomes impotent, immobile and immaterial. A drained capacitor in a fight translates quickly into finding yourself floating in space in a pod. Your capacitor, quite literally, is life.

Over the next hour, we shall cover the information you need to manage your capacitor effectively.

(Instructor should then introduce himself or herself - covering relevant experience level and background.)

We have a few ground rules for this class:

Everyone ready? OK, then - let's begin....

Your ship's reactor

Every ship includes a reactor, which provides electrical power.

FYI: each race has a different type of reactor - Amarr: Antimatter; Caldari: Graviton; Gallente: Fusion; Minmatar: Nuclear - though they all operate exactly the same way.

Power from your reactor is routed to two uses: your powergrid and your capacitor.


What is a powergrid?

(slideshow page 3)

Many people confuse capacitor and powergrid, but they are two completely different features of any ship.

While the capacitor stores power from the reactor for use on demand by modules, the powergrid is a static, constant flow of energy from the reactor used for fitting modules on your ship. Most modules require a minimum amount of power just to be fitted and maintained "at the ready" on a ship - to be "plugged in" to your ship's systems.

In short, capacitors are used for module operation, while powergrid is used for module fitting and readiness.

Powergrid is measured in megawatts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#Megawatt ), and can be seen by selecting "Show Info" on your ship, and looking at the Powergrid section. You can also find this information in the fitting window.

There is no direct relationship between your capacitor and powergrid. You can increase your powergrid with certain modules, skills, implants and rigs, but increasing your powergrid has no effect on the capacity or recharge rate of your capacitor. A larger powergrid enables you to fit bigger and more power-hungry modules.


What is a capacitor?

(slideshow page 4)

The capacitor is a power storage unit that is tapped to activate fitted modules on a ship. While your reactor supplies a flow of power, such energy is difficult to store. Imagine trying to store electricity from the outlets in your home. Your ship's capacitor has the ability to store a certain amount of power, and to draw power from your reactor at a certain rate. Capacitor management is therefore all about maximizing these two factors - capacitor capacity and the recharge rate - while minimizing the consumption of power out of your capacitor.

Capacitor is measured in gigjoules ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule#Gigajoule ).

When you activate modules, the amount of cap required is deducted from your total cap, which you can see in the middle of your HUD on the overview. Mouseover gives you more information.

Generally, the larger the ship, the larger the amount of capacitor capacity. Capacitor capacity can be increased by certain skills, modules, and rigs, and also by certain booster drugs.

Capacitor recharge rate can likewise be improved by skills, modules and rigs, and also can be affected by some implants.

The capacitor has a natural recharge rate, replenishing it's energy (from your ships reactor) over time. If you use this energy – by activating modules – faster than it can replenish the energy, you will eventually run out of cap and not be able to activate any modules (and not be able to enter warp, because entering warp requires an amount of capacitor energy proportional to the distance you are warping).


Capacitor in the fitting window

(slideshow page 5)

So let's have a look at the ingame fitting screen and what it shows you.

The first line is simple, it's the total capacitor capacity, followed by how long it takes to recharge it from empty to about 98%. Note that it takes a very long time – much longer than the time stated here – to fully recharge it to 100%.

The second line shows you firstly the excess recharge rate. This is essentially the difference between the usage rate – the rate at which you use energy, assuming all fitted modules are running continuously – and the recharge rate. A negative number implies that you are using more energy than you can recharge. This rate is measured in gigajoules per second.

The second part shows the same thing, except in percentage form. This is your excess or deficit recharge rate, as a percentage of your peak recharge rate. CCP could just add a line actually telling you your peak recharge rate, but for whatever reason, they don't. I'll tell you how to work out your peak recharge rate later.

Finally the top right corner tells you if you are cap stable, or if not, how long it takes for your capacitor to run out of energy (again assuming all fitted modules are running continuously).

Howevering over the small capacitor icon to the left of these values shows you at what capacity level your capacitor will stabilise (if you are cap stable) – or how long it takes for your cap to run out if not.

You can turn off (or unfit) various modules to see how they change these values. MWDs are a good one, because they use and affect your cap in a big way.


Capacitor in EF / Pyfa

(slideshow page 6)

Now lets have a look at the same screen in our external fitting tools. This is somewhat more useful, telling us again how long we have until the cap runs out – assuming modules that that we have marked as active are running continuously. If we are cap stable though, it tells us at what capacitor level the capacitor will stabilize. As you can see this value varies depending which program you use!

It also tells us our peak recharge rate, and also our usage rate - assuming modules that that we have marked as active are running continuously.

I've been referring to 'peak recharge' quite a lot now, and you might be wondering what that is. Well, the capacitor does not recharge at a constant rate. On the next page you can see the results of experiments run by an E-UNI teacher/graduate, Kivena.  (All of the maths behind it was deduced by an ex-E-UNI professor, Dust Puppy.)


Graphs!

(slideshow page 7)

The large blue graph shows how quickly the capacitor recharges. On the y-axis you have current capacitor level – in this graph as a percentage of total capacitor. This is plotted against time in seconds on the x-axis – this is time since we drained the capacitor to zero by activating modules.

You can easily see that the capacitor starts off recharging fairly slowly before quickly speeding up it's recharge rate. It then slows down, tailing off to very slow indeed as the capacitor becomes almost full.

I've added a best-fit curve to this line, the equation for which is in the top-left corner. C0 is total capacitor capacity, x0 is the recharge time listed on the in-game fitting window, and k is a constant, which Dust Puppy thinks is 5.0, Seamus Donohue thinks is 4.8 and Kivena thinks is 4.9. The x axis is obviously time.

For a source of this, the word Source there on this page is a link to the wiki page detailing the maths behind this equation. Warning, contains lots of maths. It's not necessary to understand this for effective capacitor management, so only for the interested.

The more important graph for our purposes is the smaller orange one. This is a graph of recharge rate (as a percentage of average recharge rate, which is simply total capacitor divided by recharge time) on the y-axis, plotted over current capacitor level on the x axis (again as a % of total capacity like the bigger graph).

These particular graphs are only of one ship (Maelstrom), although I have also tried out other ships and I got exactly the same graphs.

We can see from this small graph that the recharge rate peaks at about 2.5 times the average recharge rate.

The other thing to take away is where the peak occurs in capacitor capacity – i.e. somewhere around 24-25% of total capacity. This orange graph is probably the single most important thing to take away from this class – if your capacitor is slowly running down, remember that peak recharge occurs at about 25% of capacity. If you pass this level, then you will run out of cap pretty swiftly as the recharge rate drops off.

Remember this is with no other factors – if other people are draining your cap with energy neutralizers or energy vampires, it will drop off even faster.


What is "cap stable"? Do I want it?

(slideshow page 8-9)

A "cap stable" ship is one in which the power demands of your modules will not exceed your capacitor's recharge rate, when all of your ship's fitted modules are operating. In other words, the aggregate rate of power drawn from your capacitor by your operating modules will not exceed the capacitor's recharge rate, and your capacitor will never empty.

In general, your ship will remain cap stable if the energy in your capacitor does not fall below 25% of your total capacity. This is because the highest recharge rate occurs when your capacitor is at about 25% of full capacity.

Why is being cap stable good?

A cap stable configuration means that you can engage all fitted modules, and unless disrupted by energy weapons, your capacitor will be able to keep your modules operating indefinitely.

You can be cap stable and still run out of cap though, primarily through external effects such as people activating energy-neutralizers on you.

Overheating modules can also make you no longer cap stable – because some modules gain a duration bonus that makes them cycle faster and thus use up more cap.

Should I be cap stable?

In PvP (player vs. player) engagements, having a cap stable configuration is not required. In fact, a cap stable configuration can limit the damage per second (DPS) potential of your ship, and make your vessel less effective in combat.

To achieve a cap stable configuration, you must limit the size and energy requirements of any active modules: weapons, shield, armor, EWAR, sensors, or any module that consumes power from your capacitor. In addition, you must often fit modules that expand capacitor capacity, recharge rate, or both - such as cap rechargers, power diagnostic systems, capacitor flux coils, and capacitor power relays - which then occupy fitting slots that could be used for offensive and defensive capability enhancements. Also PvP ships very often fit microwarpdrives – it's almost impossible to be marked as 'cap stable' with a MWD, because they reduce your capacitor whilst fitted and use so much cap when active.

When deciding whether to be cap stable, take into account how long your encounters will last for. PvP invariably is over swiftly, so cap stability is usually pointless. Incursions only last around 10 minutes maximum – if your cap can last that long, you don't need to be cap stable. Missions are probably the longest combat encounter, with L4s sometimes lasting up to 30-40 minutes (in the worst case). For these being cap stable can be very useful.

Being marked as cap stable assumes you run all your modules constantly. If you don't, then you might be cap stable anyway.


Energy Transfer

(slideshow page 10)

Some text about energy transfer.  Slideshow says it all, to be honest.


Improving Capacitor Performance

(slideshow page 11-12)

Improving capacitor performance is a somewhat arcane science. Modules and skills will affect your ships in different ways than you think they might.

The equation on page 11 shows you how the two basic capacitor stats affect your peak recharge rate.

You will often find bonuses simply listed as “capacitor bonus” – this increases the total size of your capacitor, and because the recharge time does not change it also effectively increases your recharge rate.

The other basic bonus is “capacitor recharge rate bonus”. EVE names this rather badly, because it doesn't actually increase your recharge rate, at least not directly. What it really does is reduce the recharge time by the % listed – and because the capacitor capacity does not change, it also effectively increases recharge rate.

Page 12 shows a worked example. Note how CCP rounds down the values in their fitting window information. I don't know whether this rounded down value is the actual value used in-game, or whether it's just rounded-down for display.

There are six ways to improve the performance of your capacitor:

Capacitor Enhancing Skills

(slideshow page 13-14)

Capacitor-related Modules

(slideshow page 15)

While all modules use some powergrid to fit, and all active modules draw from the capacitor to operate, some modules also serve to modify and improve your capacitor's recharge rate or available energy amount. Fortunately, modules that affect powergrid, CPU, or capacitor are spared from the usual stacking penalties. For example, you can fit as many Capacitor Recharger I modules as you want, and each will improve cap recharge time by a full 15%.

Capacitor-related Rigs

(slideshow page 16)

There are several important starship modification components, otherwise known as "rigs", that are designed specifically to enhance your capacitor management abilities. Rigs come in small, medium and large sizes, for fitting on frigates/destroyers, cruisers/battlecruisers, and battleships/capitals, respectively.

Note that E-UNI does not allow rigged Tech 1 frigate or destroyers to be flown in wartime fleets, so rigging these ships will limit their use to peacetime activities only. However, the UNI recommends rigging of wartime vessels at the battlecruiser and battleship sizes to enhance their performance and survivability. UNI Wartime Standard Operating Procedures: Wartime Standard Operating Procedures

Therefore, UNI pilots should train Jury Rigging to level III as a prerequisite for other rigging skills. You will then also have to train additional specialty rigging skills to at least level I to mount various types of rigs on your ship.

Training specialty rigging skills to high levels produces relatively little benefit -- they reduce the impact of drawbacks for using rigs, but those drawbacks are generally not onerous to begin with. To fit Tech 2 rigs, you must train relevant rigging skills to level IV, but T2 rigs are extremely expensive and not recommended for any but the most wealthy of capsuleers.

The most commonly used rig for capacitor management is the Capacitor Control Circuit, which increases a ship's capacitor recharge rate by 15%. Many pilots fit one or more CCCs to achieve cap stability for PvE missioning.  You can see why this one is more popular (and thus more expensive) - it provides a greater benefit to peak recharge rate than the other primary rig, the Semiconductor Memory Cell - which increases capacitor capacity by 15%. 

In some situations you might find having more initial cap preferable than a faster recharge rate - certain PvP ships possibly, in which the encounters are generally very short.

Much like skills, there are many other rigs that decrease the capacitor need for specific modules.  Take a look in the market in the different rig sections for them.  The only one that's used a lot is probably the Egress Port Maximizer, which is really the only rig to increase your energy neut/vampire effectiveness.

Cap-improving Implants

(slideshow page 17)

Implants are items that you can plug into your character's brain to boost skills and attributes. You have ten slots available in your head for implants. Not all implants can fit an any slot, however. Slots 1-5 are for Attribute Enhancers, and slots 6-10 are for Skill Hardwirings, and certain implants only work in specific individual slot locations.

Implants are similar to rigs such that they are semi-permanent enhancements. They cannot be removed without destroying them. For this reason, pilots should consider the mix of implants in their ten available slots very carefully before plugging them in to their heads.

The main advantage to implants is that their bonuses apply to any ship that you fly, and these bonuses generally do not stack! In other words, if you have a capacitor enhancing implant, and your ship has capacitor enhancing rigs and modules fitted, your implant bonus applies completely, without any stacking penalties. (Note: there are a few exceptions to this - for example, the Snake series of implants does stack to prevent absurdly high speeds from being obtained.)

To use any implant, you need at least Cybernetics trained to Level 1, which itself requires Level 3 in Science. The more powerful and expensive implants require higher levels of training in Cybernetics, and often cost large amounts of ISK, but they can give you very useful improvements in your abilities.

Note that you can keep separate sets of implants in various jump clones, and then jump to whatever clone you need for different purposes. Many pilots maintain separate clones for combat, with PvP and ship-enhancing implants, for learning, with high attribute improvement implants, and/or for industry, with special implants for mining or hauling, for example.

If you want to use implants to improve your capacitor management, the most useful to install are:

Other capacitor performance enhancing implants include:

Cap-affecting Ship Bonuses

(slideshow page 18)

Some ships provide capacitor reduction bonuses for starship command skill levels for that ship type. For example, most Amarr combat ships give 10% cap reduction per Amarr Frig/Cruiser/etc level for lasers, which is probably the most important skill for managing cap on those ships.

Cap-affecting Booster Drugs

Booster drugs are designed to produce a temporary effect which lasts between 36 minutes and 1 hour, depending on the pilot's Biology skill level. The Mindflood Booster will temporarily increase the pilot's ability to manage ship energy, resulting in an effective capacitor capacity increase of between 3% and 20%, depending on the strength of the Mindflood booster taken. They act like a temporary implant.

Boosters have several disadvantages, however:

Boosters are commonly used by advanced pilots in null security space, where they are easier to acquire. These pilots typically train the specialized skills and fit certain implants to minimize negative effects of boosters. Most UNI pilots would be well advised to avoid booster drugs.

Capacitor Management Techniques

(slideshow page 19)

Here is some general advice and a few tips about actions you can take to manage your capacitor more effectively - and to help ruin your opponents' day, too.

Q&A

Class Wrap-up


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