I have to admit that the Omega shield shocked me at start with its gas activation cost! After that I had to think about Hades' game designer and that he must have done some calculations to set that price. Let's found out what did he possibly think...
Starting with the main differences between both shields, i.e. the way they are working:
- The Passive Shield is always active and recharges by time, but adds fuel consumption per AU to the BattleSip (BS), while
- The Omega Shield shall/can be activated once needed, unfortunately it lasts just 5 minutes but does not cost additional fuel.
Of course like everything else in Hades, upgrading those shields enjoys more strength but rises the gas expenses. Apart from the high levels where the Omega Shield adds more health than the maximum Passive Shield, let's focus on the gas comparison at middle levels, e.g. starting with 8000 shield strength - Passive Shield level 4 vs. Omega Shield level 1.
How bad is the gas consumption?
To be able to compare them, let's take an intermediate Red Star mission, where the BS travels at least 4 sectors to clean-up some Cerberus. As the sectors in RS are 433 AU high and 500 wide, let's take the mean value of that, i.e. 466.5 AU. So the traveling would be about 1866 AU long (one way). With BS speed of 600 AU/min it will take 3.11 min just to move around. Include some fighting time and thus the total time may amount convenient to ca. 5 min, i.e. same as the activation duration of the Omega Shield.
Another simplification I make is to take just the comparable shield strengths, i.e. shield levels with same strength.
So, the Passive Shield lvl 4 (8000 strength) would need 287.4 gas to travel through those 4 sectors, where the Omega Shield lvl 1 (same 8000 strength) needs 600 gas to activate for just 5 min.
Passive Shield lvl 5 (9000 strength) needs 369.5 gas, where the Omega Shield lvl 2 (9000 strength) needs 800 gas.
Passive lvl 6 (10000 strength) needs 533.7 gas, and Omega lvl 3 (10000 strength) 1000 gas.
Passive lvl 7 (11500 strength) needs 698 gas, and Omega lvl 4 (11000 strength) 1250 gas - almost doubles.
Passive lvl 8 (13000 strength) needs 862 gas, and Omega lvl 6 (13000 strength) 1750 gas - already more than double.
Passive lvl 10 (16000 strength) needs 1231 gas, and Omega lvl 9 (16000) activation 3000 gas.
A reverse calculation from the Omega Shield gas consumption leads to the result, that Battleship with Passive Shield lvl 4 has to travel more than 8.4 sectors (6.5 min) to burn more than 600 gas,
Passive Shield lvl 5 has to travel more than 8.7 sectors (6.7 min) to compare to Omega Shield lvl 2,
Passive Shield lvl 6 more than 7.5 sectors (5.8 min),
Passive Shield lvl 8 more than 8.1 sectors (6.3 min), and
Passive Shield lvl 10 more than 9.7 sectors (7.6 min) to compare with Omega lvl 9.
Conclusion
If you don't move too much in RS- respectively WS-missions you don't need the Omega Shield.
If you are RS/WS-aggressor there is this nice trick to start the Omega Shield 1-2 minutes before entering RS/WS. Thus you have almost the double shield strength once arrived at the front line. This can't be compared to the Passive Shield.
Soon or later, progressing through the game Hades Star toward RS6 (red star missions) raise the need to research transports level 4 (4 t) and their cargo extension level 7 (another +12 t). Best for RS6 is to have 16 t transports as the artifacts are 8 t each. Unfortunately, those transports require about 50 gas/100 AU to move around, which is a lot!
For reference, one delivery run of my 11 planets including the satellites and 3 trade stations over 4 warp lanes takes with two 16 t transports about 10 kgas. And I'm doing that twice a day. Connecting the warp lanes costs about 4 kgas. Without warp lanes I'm not starting it anyway as it takes lots of gas and a lot of time. In total, 25 kgas/day are needed just for trading... but there is always one or another RS run, which increases the daily gas demand. Standard RS6 mission takes 10-15 kgas with 16 t transports.
Let's talk about possible solutions!
1) You can regularly buy gas with crystals! The developers shall be happy if you choose that way :) !
2) You can just wait until the planets produce new gas for you. With production rate of 150 gas/h it would take about a week to have the needed gas for a day.
3) You can regularly collect all sectors in your home empty. Once empty, the game produces new asteroids in every sector - gas amount between 1000 up to 1600 per sector per 24 h. Collected game data for the natural asteroid creation in 8 sectors during a week. In average about 1150 gas/sector/day is possible to earn that way.
4) Setting-up asteroid farms. As shown in next table, max gas amount from 1000 up to 3787 per sector per 24 h is possible. The table represents the situation of maxed out sector with 14 full asteroids 1500 gas each.
You would need Miners equipped with Genesis and Enrich modules to create a farm sector. I'm using two Miners with Genesis and four miners with Enrich.
Best suitable for planting gas are the far corner sectors, which remain mostly untouched from the Miner automatic mining ability. Once sector mined empty, new asteroids are appearing - sometimes relatively rich with 300-350 gas, sometimes not. If the gas amount thereof is 100-140, 8-12 asteroids may grow in the sector. But to wait for that event is not productive because the game engine tries to keep the total asteroids amount in the galaxy at reasonable levels. It is rare where more than 8 asteroids grow naturally in an empty sector.
So, the solution is to use Genesis. Therewith the number of asteroids in a sector can be risen to max 14. Moreover, using Genesis makes your gas density per sector better. Genesis lvl 1 creates 2 new asteroids 75 gas each once a day; Genesis lvl 2 creates 2x 100 gas each; Genesis lvl 3 creates 3x 80 gas; etc. I strongly recommend to collect the existing asteroids in a sector down to your Genesis creation amount before using Genesis and Enrich!
While using the Enrich module every asteroid becomes percentage gas increase. Enrich is available every 12 h, i.e. twice a day. Unfortunately one sector can be enriched just once a day. So, after 12 h the Enrich goes to the sector next door.
But let's do some calculations when such "farming sector" is ready to be exploited!
To the moment the maximum gas amount on asteroid is limited to 1500. Next graph gives an overview on how long does it take (the time in weeks is given on the horizontal axis) to reach that maximum amount (gas amount is shown on the vertical axis) when using different Enrich module levels. Assumed was starting amount of 100 gas in a farm sector with 14 asteroids!
Enrich lvl 1 adds just 5% to asteroid amount and takes about 54 days to reach 1500 gas/asteroid, if enriched every day;
Enrich lvl 2 goes up to 8% and 34 days to reach the max of 1500 gas;
Enrich lvl 3 gives +12% and 23 days are needed;
Enrich lvl 4 gives +14% and 20 days are needed;
Enrich lvl 5 is +16% and 17 days;
Enrich lvl 6 is +18% and 15 days;
Enrich lvl 7 is +19% and 14 days;
Enrich lvl 8 is +20% and 14 days;
Enrich lvl 9 is +21% and 13 days;
Enrich lvl 10 is +22% and 13 days.
If the consideration is limited to just stacking gas on the asteroids it is obvious that upgrading the Enrich module after lvl 3-4 does not extensively speed up the process.
But stacking is not the point. You would like to farm the gas, i.e. enrich and collect. BTW, note that it is not collect and enrich on lower levels :) , not before you have maxed out the sector!
So, the next question is: How much could be collected a day to keep the farm working; and when shall mining be started?
First things first - you can't leave the Miner working and go sleep! The farming has to be done "manually" or you risk to empty the whole sector over the night and loose the growing work for weeks.
Once this is claimed, let's prune the consideration to Miner basic hydrogen capacity, i.e. Miners level 1 and 2 are pretty low, thus let's start with level 3, which can contain 600 gas, level 4 - 1200 gas, and level 5 - 2000 gas.
The next diagram shows how much gas adds the daily Enrich in accordance with its level in a farm sector. On the horizontal axis is the time since starting to create the farm sector. On the vertical axis is the daily gas you can earn.
It shall be read e.g.
"If I have Enrich lvl 4, and use it on the same sector for 9 days, it will give me about 650 gas on the 10-th day, i.e. one full Miner level 3.";
or another example:
"If I have Enrich lvl 5, and use it on the same sector every day 12 days long, it will add about 1320 gas on the 13-th day, i.e. one full Miner level 4, or two full Miners level 3.";
and last example:
"If I have Enrich lvl 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 I can't add more than 3000-3600 gas during the last days due to the asteroid cap of 1500 gas."
For the last example, refer to the table at the beginning. It makes more sense to collect the gas and enrich before leaving the sector once all your asteroids are maxed out at 1500 gas.
It is clearly visible that after 13 days the highest Enrich level 10 can't add more hydrogen as the 14 asteroids will reach their max 1500 gas each.
The same saturation point is reached after
14 days with Enrich 9 and 8,
15 days with Enrich 7,
16 days with Enrich 6,
18 days with Enrich 5,
20 days with Enrich 4,
24 days with Enrich 3,
5 weeks with Enrich 2, and
almost 8 weeks with Enrich 1.
Conclusions
Progressing past RS5 shall be supported by hydrogen farms.
Higher Enrich than lvl 6 is not really needed for making hydrogen farms as the benefit with every next level is just 150 gas/day more.
About two weeks patience is needed to grow up asteroids in a farming sector.
Always farm manual if you like to keep your farm longer.
Start ASAP converting as many sectors as you can into gas farms. The benefit of the farm-sector can be used just once per 24h, therefore about 8-10 sectors shall be out there.
