Anaconda build help

[ZME_Matchstick]

going with a armed transport I was wondering if any advice can be given on my build.
https://eddp.co/u/HZqRtKfu

about 90% of it is done and was wondering about a few things.
1: Plasma accelerator, I have it in my H slot but i'm wondering if something better can go in its place

2: what should be engineered first?
3: all pulse laser turrets or a mix of multi-cannon turrets?
If anyone has suggestions not listed that would be great!

[DownSouth05]

1. A plasma weapon pulls allot of cap and is a fixed weapon so unless you are adept at fixed weapons I'd say no on the Plasma weapon and go for Huge gimballed Multi Cannon. I am not familier with the loadout on a 'Conda but. I put pulse lasers in the large and medium slots and any small slots use turrets.

Personally though, to me a ship is a cargo ship or a combat ship. At the start of your career in eltie anyway, :)

The mult cannon when engineered for rapid fire will wreck any ship once the shields go down.
The Pulse lasers engineered for effecient will pretty much never run your capacitor out, will run cooler and pack a punch.
The turrets set them to target only and long range. nothing say "I love you" more than a kick in the butt from every angle at 6000 meters with virtually no fall off.

2. If its a transport 1st to engineer is the FSD For general purpose the PP so everything has the juice it needs to power up and the PD so every is always charged and ready to go

[Leo]

Here is my PvE annie. PvE Annie[coriolis.io]

It's Huge and 3 large are multi-cannon Efficent 5 on them and my pulse turrets are also efficent. I like this because i can have 2.5 pips in shield 1 in engine and 2.5 in weap sometimes i change it around depending on the fight but it has been useful to me and it never runs out. I'm still new with my annie and i've only had it for a bit but the build i have seems to work good. I dont have any complaints. Maybe it could be better but it's been good to me so far.

I do passanger runs with it too depending if i'm going far distance or not. If it is a decent distance away i'll have it like this Armed Transport Annie[coriolis.io]

If i'm going long distance then this would be my choice Far distance Annie[coriolis.io]
I wouldn't recommend it if you're trying to be armed lol :C

[DownSouth05]

It can be a pain to setup, given its size for say combat, then a different setup for hauling cargo/passengers, then another setup for exploration. I not seen but have heard people say they set up Annie's for exoloration and getting 61 lys. The Annie seems to have the highest base jump range over any ship in Elite

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Just speaking to the combat aspects, it all is determined by what you plan to fight, how, when and why.


The Anaconda, when fully engineered to keep Manueverability as high as possible (Requires often Light-weighting any Bulkheads other than stock lightweight allows, so Lightweight Reactive would be good, as well as a full commitment to Dirty Drag Drives) can make incredible use of a gimballed Huge Pulse or Burst laser, modified to be Overcharged, then paired with 3 Fixed Large Fragment cannons (Ideally Pacifiers), 1 corrosive and the other 2 Screening shell, all modified to Overcharged.

Throw some Focused or Effecient Pulse laser turrets on the smaller hardpoints and you create one of the most incredible DPS batteries in the game. The Frags alone will near 1,000DPS under ideal scenarios (Large ships, easy to hit, close range)
You'll be able to rip apart any ship unfortunate enough to get in front of you, with one, maybe two salvos when shields are down. And having a full laser compliment on the rest of the hardpoints will aid with that.

The idea is that in Big Ships, you'll be fighting in one of two circumstances: Swatting Flies, or slugging matches with other big ships, and this setup is designed for the latter. Your goal will be just to overwhelm the target with fire. Note that frags are actually quite good against small-medium ships too, as long as you're willing to ignore ammo effeciency, it might take twice as many shots to kill a vulture, simply because you're trying to saturate it's flying space with projectiles, instead of score a 5meter grouping on the spine of a Corvette. A Huge gimballed laser helps swat down flies as well, since it'll cut right through their shields and armor like nothing.

[EvilToaster]

You have there 6A thrusters, that means zero maneuvrsbility which leads to pretty much useless plasma cuz it's fixed, why won't you get 7A?Those lasers will draw your capasitor in a blink of an eye so you won't be able to use that plasma you have there, plus you will get a lot of heat.
Uhm... i can't really get what you planning to do with that ship you've got there. It's stocked up with alot of passenger cabins so it's a transport ship, means you can easily threw off any weapons cuz this ship won't be viable in combat anyway.

Now let's proceed to a completely useless modules which is point defence and chaff launcher. Conda is too big to use chaffs, you'll still be getting hits even when you use chaff, and npc's rarely use gimballed or turreted weaponry. Point defence is pretty much useless cuz no one uses missiles.

Ok, what i'm basically sayin' here, if you want a ship for some role then go for it, don't mix things up, if it's a passenger ship so make a passenger ship, don't try to prepare it for combat because it won't be good at it anyway. I guess you're not really inclined to see a couple of rebuy screens, so spare your time and money and don't try to engage in combat using that ship.

i'd suggest you to use some of that builds provided by DeathCross they're not bad, although i would recommend use a 6C bi-weave and 7A SCB if you want to do some combat.

As for engineering first thing you must have is an FSD upgrade.

Originally posted by Skinny_Legs:

I not seen but have heard people say they set up Annie's for exoloration and getting 61 lys. The Annie seems to have the highest base jump range over any ship in Elite

Actually you can get ~70ly jumprange with conda.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Is 70LY with or without the Guardian FSD booster?

[malorob]

70ly.... april fools is been and gone

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

getting 60ly out of a conda requires such efforts that you may as well buy 2 of them, as most if not all parts are not interchangeable
combat/trader is easy enough though, that is just a few module changes and adds + perhaps 2 different sheilds (i use my asp or python sheild on the trade version)

[EvilToaster]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Is 70LY with or without the Guardian FSD booster?

Without. Max jump range you can reach with conda is 71.4ly if i remember correctly. But that's max jumprange ship is capable, laden with fuel it will be around 68ly.

Originally posted by malorob:

70ly.... april fools is been and gone

Can't be sure what you meant by that. I have an Anaconda with 67ly jumprange myself.

Originally posted by the smoking mค็็็็็n:

getting 60ly out of a conda requires such efforts that you may as well buy 2 of them

It's pretty easy to get 60ly out of conda. All you need to do is FSD upgrade + Mass manager exp. effect. And lightweight upgrades on your life support and sensors.

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

@EvilToaster
your having a laugh mate, that won't put a conda anywhere near 60ly..i do have one....40+ly at your point
i think you must have forgotten what you had to do to make it do that
you can squeeze over 40ly out of a python too, but not much of a python left after that, which is to say you don't even use many D-rated modules in correct class

for OP:
i'll point out another conda problem, ppl complain it gets mopped in combat because shields melt
reason being is they use the standard size 6 sheild, which only just covers maximum mass if you are very lucky, even engineering won't help much and the sheild melts in combat
in contrast a size 7 bi-weave which will supply no more MJ than the standard A6 shield but will take a hammering all day long (dramatization)
undersize shields are for taking bumps, not getting shot at
so the conda is the first ship most ppl come across that is not actually built right from the get go, and Fdevs way of saying "we hope you know what you are doing" you exploiting/cheating so-and-so's ( i shouldn't be telling them this, spoiling my laughs to..:-))

the exploiting is not so bad, perhaps even needed, the cheating however...serve them right

[Liduska77]

Conda can get 41 ly unengineered. Above that, its been modded.

[EvilToaster]

Originally posted by the smoking mค็็็็็n:

@EvilToaster

i think you must have forgotten what you had to do to make it do that
you can squeeze over 40ly out of a python too, but not much of a python left after that, which is to say you don't even use many D-rated modules in correct class

I was talking about exploration ship. Of course it's not capable to do anything except exploring. I'm not that kind of person who puts 7A shield generator and armor on an exploration vessel, u know.

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

Originally posted by EvilToaster:

Originally posted by the smoking mค็็็็็n:

@EvilToaster

i think you must have forgotten what you had to do to make it do that
you can squeeze over 40ly out of a python too, but not much of a python left after that, which is to say you don't even use many D-rated modules in correct class

I was talking about exploration ship. Of course it's not capable to do anything except exploring. I'm not that kind of person who puts 7A shield generator and armor on an exploration vessel, u know.

well, my point was there is not to much difference between a trade/passenger conda than a combat one, other than sheilding which i explained in full
an explorer is a completely different beast, and you did seem to imply it was some how not

[HamakiBCN2]

@OP:

You have received lots of good tidbits here and there, so let me aggregate all that in a single comprehensive design philosophy you can apply to all builds. It's going to be a long read, though:

When you design a new build, you thought process should be, in that order:

1-What are you going to do with it. In this case, armored transport, so passenger missions with shady passengers.

2-What tactical scenarios would that actyivity get you into. In this case, being interdicted and attacked by NPC's, for the most part.

3-Decide what you would do in those scenarios. For instance, in this case, your options would be a) withstand the fire until you can get away or b) turn around and fight back.

4-think of everything you'd need your ship (and what you wouldn't need) to be able to do to succesfully complete your chosen tactical option, as opposed to what's available to you.

5.Put in what you need, take out what you don't.


Now let's apply that to your build:

let's say your tactical choice is to run away. What you need is for your ship to be fast, nimble, and have really strong shields, which you'd usually only need to use once. What you don't need is much in terms of weaponry, as fighting back is not a priority, just making it out of there.

With that option, what you need to put in is anything that makes your ship fast and have powerful, single-use shields, and take away anything that makes your ship heavier and doesn't provide either speed or better shields.

So first, you put the biggest shields your ship can carry. Prismatics would be ideal. If not available, i wouldn't quite go for Bi-weave, i would go with class A instead.

But let's go back to the core Internals for a minute:

Military grade armor: Don't need it. Since you won't be able to carry much in terms of armor reinforcements, your primary defense will have to be shields. Military grade weights a lot and makes you slower. they need to go away. Lightweight Alloy, maybe engineered to Heavy Duty, as it doesn't increase the mass.

Power plant: again, 8A is too heavy. Makes you slow. You won't need the power, since we're going to get rid of those pulse lasers, too. We'll replace them with something much less power hungry and more effective for that tactic. So a 7A or even a 6A may be more than enough.

Thrusters: i don't know what you were thinking with those 6A, to be honest. Should be 7A, better if they're engineered to G5 Dirty Drive.

(FSD and life support...yeah we can keep those. D-rate the life support, though. It's still heavier than it needs to be)

Power distributor...you've got to be kidding me with those 160 tons...away with that ♥♥♥♥. All you'll need is to be able to boost once or twice. Downsize and engineer to Engine Focused.

Your optionals:

Biggest one should be, as mentioned, your shields. Everything else should be cabins. Lose all the combat stuff, like the fighter hangar (which won't be used) and the Interdictor (an interdictor? really?). A module reinforcement for your military slot is advised so that they don't take out your FSD, but not a Hull reinforcement package...remember, your defense is shields, not armor.

Also, what's with that fuel scoop? a size 4 is all but useless in a Conda: it'll take so long to refuel that you'd be better off not having one and just refueling at stations. Either you put in a bigger one or get rid of it altogether.

Hardpoints: that's an easy one.

All those turrets and plasmas, gone. Don't need them. they add mass and they're power-hungry, and you're not in for a fight, you're in to deliver your passengers safely. Put mines in your backward-facing smalls to provide a nasty surprise to any NPC behind you (that's where they should be...behind you). The Ion Disruption experimental will reboot the target's drives, which maky come awfully handy.

Utilities: those Shield Boosters not only you can keep, i'd put more of them. there'll be room for them once you take out the heat sink launcher (there's nothing in that ship that even needs one) and the chaff launcher (chaff? on a conda? do you realize how big and easy to target manually is that thing?)

Engineer three of the SB's for resistances, the rest to Heavy Duty. All with supercapacitors.

Oh, forgot to mention...your shield generator, that should go with Thermal. Use the experimental of your choice.

So here you go, fast and strong shields that can take a beating. Once all the outfitting and engineering is done, it should look like this: https://eddp.co/u/UjGXZjQe


(Edit: Forgot to mention, the Conda is actually not even the best ship for such a build...An Imperial Cutter would end up being faster and with better shields.)

[HamakiBCN2]

I'll handle option B, stand and fight, soon in a separate post, for, well.. ease of reading? :p