I'm trying to decide if I can last longer in a fight if I have better armor (kinetic/all) or shielding boosts.

I have a pretty decent shield, it's the shield array mk xi [cap] (uncommon) with 7650.5 capacity/238.1 regen every 6 seconds.

I'm running with uncommon neutronuim armor mk. xi and uncommon diburnium hull plating mk. x.

Just thinking I could swap out one or both of those for something that boosts my shields.

Thoughts?

Use science consoles to make your shields better. Use engineering console to make your hull better.

Yes, I understand that. It's just that the field emitter is an engineering console where I've got my armor consoles and my isometric charge that I don't want to part with.

I use neutronium on everything, so I guess hull would be first. Probably because I don't fly cruisers due to turn rates (nothing wrong with them, just not my thing).

I maxed out the neutronium on my Vesta to get rid of the tissue paper hull effect. Now up to solid construction paper. Maybe even a paper plate!

I've got two neutroniums and a plasma relay (or whichever one it is that increases your weapons power) on my Armitage because the hull was naturally higher and it's more escort than the Vesta, so it is better at dodging incoming fire.

These are the only two ships I really play. Sometimes I take the Oddy out for a spin, but then put it back in the garage.

Look. First off, what are you flying? Second off, what do you get smacked with the most? Lastly, why are you using diburnium?

A standard setup for a 3 engi console is 2 neutroniums 1 monotanium. A standard cruiser setup is 4 neutronium. If you have only 2 engi consoles available, just run double neutronium. If you have 3 available, you can either run triple neutronium, or double with a mono. If you have 4, just use full neutronium.

As for your shields? They block energy damage well enough as is. Your engi consoles are mostly to protect from bleedthrough. And if your shields drop, your passive hull resistances plus the neutronium will protect you well enough from energy weapons (provided it's not PvP), which only leaves you to worry about torps on unshielded hull (which hurt like a mother ****er), so run that monotanium.

Four neutronium is honestly overkill, if you're in PvE just run monotanium and if you're in PvP try to fit a few team consoles in there (like SIF gens).

As a shield-boosting console, the Field Emitter leaves much to be desired. The Science-slot Shield Emitter or Field Generator consoles would get you more bang for your buck, and the former are available in Romulan versions (so far as I've seen, [+Th] only, though, so probably best for an otherwise tough setup).

Not to sound mean but they are not "pretty decent" at all 7k for shields is quite low.

Drop the diburnium and add some shield power mkxi are 3.5 base bonus also it helps to know what your skills are as you get a better bonus from consoles depending what you have trained in (don't forget to check your passive skills as well).

What about diminishing returns on multiple armor consoles? Each one adds 50% less resistance than the one before it (100/50/25/12.5/6.25)

I thought that was if you stacked the same console.