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[BigBrainEnergy]

   The title may sound a bit extreme, but to understand where I'm coming from let's first examine what types of ships are most inclined to use accelerated shields: omni-shielders. The reason is most omni-shielders struggle in large fleet battles due to small arcs and slow shield speeds, and being able to point said shields in any direction does not seem to make up for this. As a result, almost every omni-shield ship has to shore up its defenses by grabbing one of two hullmods: frontal shield conversion or accelerated shields. There's just one problem: NOBODY picks accelerated shields.

    The reality is that most omni-shielders take frontal shield conversion by default because once you factor in the reduced shield upkeep you're paying fewer OP for the actual shield effect than you would pay for accelerated shields. From a design standpoint I think accelerated shields provide an interesting choice that should add depth to ship design, but it costs far too many OP for what it provides. So what do we do? Reduce the ordnance cost? That's a fairly boring but feasible option, but I think I have a better idea. Why not remove accelerated shields and give its effects to stabilized shields. We can increase the OP cost to match frontal shield conversion as payment for this effect.

   I like this option because it actually hits two birds with one stone: currently, stabilized shields might be the most boring hullmod in vanilla. It's almost identical in purpose to flux distributors, but has the "unique" property of varying in efficiency based on shield upkeep. In reality, this results in a binary where some ships ALWAYS take it (looking at you, apogee) and everyone else will usually not take it. With these changes we may actually find that more ships take it because the increase in shield speed is worth the marginal loss in OP efficiency. Or it may not be. Time will tell.

   With these new changes both stabilized shields and frontal shields would offer the same upkeep reduction for the same price along with the same speed-doubling effect. Which one you pick would come down to whether you think the ship needs a larger fixed shield or a smaller mobile shield. If one choice turns far too popular it would be simple to tweak the OP cost from there to balance things out.

   These are my full thoughts on accelerated shields, but what do you think? Are accelerated shields fine as they are? Do you have a better idea for how to change them? I'd love to here other opinions on this.

[BobExplains]

Maybe make it better but stabilised shields is fine as it is, the main reason why people (including myself) don't take accelerated shields at the moment is the OP cost is not worth the "convenience" of a faster deploying shield.

If you lump it into stabilised shields it will make the whole thing more expensive and make it even LESS likely people will be willing to make the trade off, especially if they are already low on OP due to fitting in essential hullmods like Integrated Targeting etc.

Maybe buff it somehow or lower the cost, but folding it in to stabilised shields will probably ruin both of them.

Also stabilised shields is not always best even if the flux saved is more than the equivalent amount of vents since ships won't have their shields up 100% of the time.

[BigBrainEnergy]

The cost increase I proposed would change the op cost of stabilized shields from 3/6/9/15 to 3/6/10/18.
Destroyers and frigates would only get the upside, while the increase for cruisers is only 1... that's small enough that the loss in efficiency is negligible. Even capitals paying 3 more op wouldn't care all that much. Basically, you are paying the same op cost as frontal shield conversion for the reduced upkeep cost but getting a different effect attached. I think this is more interesting than just making accelerated shields super cheap, which in the current state of the game they should be for the effect they provide.

[Megas]

Accelerated Shields is nice, but I rarely take it because there are more important things to spend OP on.

I do not always take shield conversion: front on all omni-shielders.  If I cannot afford the OP, I might let it go.  Also, Paragon is too big for front shields unless it gets accelerated shields too, and the cost for both hull mods is high enough that I do not get them.

[BigBrainEnergy]

I'm aware that not all omni ships get frontal conversion (particularly larger ships), but I use it as a frame of reference to compare how much value it provides for its op cost to help demonstrate why accelerated shields is being done dirty in its current iteration.

[TaLaR]

I use accelerated shields when I pilot Conquest or Odyssey. That's a lot of flux upkeep I don't have to pay if my shield raises fast enough to allow effective flickering (and it's not without AS mod).

Stabilized shields is just tax many ships have to pay, because their base shield upkeep is outrageously high.