Elite Dangerous: Class 5 Bi-Weave vs Regular shield

No matter how many pips to SYS you have shield recharge speed is exactly same as long as you have energy in SYS capacitor but when you run out of energy in your SYS capacitor you need at least minimal charge per second to charge at maximum speed.

Bi-Weave shields require more energy per second to charge at maximum speed, for regular A5 Shield with A6 Power Coupling 2 pips are enough while for Class 5 Bi-Weave shields you need 3 pips.

How many pips you need depends on your shield and power coupling class and rating because different power couplings have different recharge speeds for SYS capacitor.

In this case Bi-Weave shields came back online in 1 minute and 7 seconds with 3 and 4 pips to SYS while regular shields with 2-3-4 pips came back online exactly at same time after 1 minute and 51 second.

So pips to SYS will not speed up shield recharge as long as you have required energy per second, try this test for your setup to know exactly how much pips you need so in combat you can distribute pips properly.

And with 1 pip to SYS there were just not enough energy coming into SYS cpacitor to use Bi-Weave shields effectively and even while this test started with full SYS capacitor which is best case scenario Bi-Weave shields with 1 pip to SYS came back 20 seconds after regular shields came back online with 2-3-4 pips to SYS.

To use Bi-Weave shields effectively you need to pay attention to your SYS capacitor and never have it completely empty or if it is empty then have minimum required pips to SYS to charge shields at max speed,in this case on Fer-de-Lance with Class 6 rating A Power Coupling I need 3 pips to SYS.

Video

In this video you will see side by side comparison for Bi-Weave Class 5 Shields with 1-2-3-4 pips (on the left) and Regular A5 Shields with 1-2-3-4 pips to SYS on the right.