Not sure if this is working as intended or not, so figured I'd post to check in case it's a bug.
I naively assumed (before testing) that when you have engineers assist a damaged shield, they'll recharge it at a rate and cost based on that shield's stats to construct it. So, a T2 shield will recharge quicker, and more cheaply, than a T3 shield (when applying the same build power).
However, I can't actually figure out what the relationship is - using some crude testing by having a T3 artillary firing at an assisted T2 sera shield, and a t3 sera shield, with 12 T3 engineers assisting it, the T3 shield cost 13 mass/s per engi, vs 12 for the T2 shield, but the T3 shield recovered all damage a bit before the next shell landed, vs the T2 shield. The t3 engi power usage was almost twice that of the T2 shield engis though (125/s for the T2 shield, 231 for the T3 shield.
So in short, the following appear to be the case:
-Mass cost of restoring damage is roughly the same for T2 shield vs T3 shield
-Energy cost of restoring damage is about 70-80% higher for T3 shield vs T2 shield
-T3 shield restores damage slightly faster than a T2 shield for the same build power
-The amount of build power needed to restore damage is significantly more than if the same build power was used to build a brand new shield (e.g. you can build a fully charged T2 shield in a similar time as it took the engineers to repair the damage from 1 artillery's shell; a new T2 shield would have 13k shield health, vs the 5.5k damage from the artillery shell
In terms of numbers, 12 T3 engineers assisting the T2 shield cost about 126 mass/s and 3k energy/s and was almost recharging at the same rate as the damage taken from the arti (but not quite)
By contrast, if you compare the T2 and T3 shield stats, to construct them:
-T2 shield is far more mass (and energy) efficient for the shield health
-T2 shield constructs far faster
In terms of mass efficiency of 'assist vs construct new', for a T2 shield you get 13k health for 700 mass; A t3 UEF arti with T3 power around it deals 5500 damage every 6s I think, or 917dps, so the mass cost per second of building T2 shield where the shield health gained equaled 917 would be a 49 per sec mass cost.
I'm aware from forum posts of a FAF feature where overlapping shields take damage to prevent shield stacking; is there some similar behind the scenes script that causes this outcome? If so, is it documented anywhere?
Replay ID of me attempting to test this is #14393241