I do agree that the Anaconda is an overpowered ship. More importantly Frontier agrees as they’ve stated publicly that it is overpowered and was a mistake. The problem is that magical hull mass, it stands out among the Elite fleet as a huge outlier because of it.
That said though, this is probably why the Anaconda is the most popular and most flown ship in the game too. For this reason I doubt Frontier would ever nerf it by increasing the hull mass to be more in line with every other ship in the game. The backlash would be immense.
Rather than nerf the Anaconda, I’d prefer to see an overall hull mass adjustment downward across the Elite fleet to improve the other ships.
Let’s take exploration for example. The top three ships with regards to jump range in the game are the Anaconda, the DBX, and the Asp X. In exploration trim carrying same gear when fully engineered in 3.0, these three ships ranges are about 65, 61.8, and 58.7, respectively (I built them all up in the beta to see). Their empty hull masses are 400, 280, and 260, also respectively. Now I’ve done the math and if you drop the Asp X mass by 30T (to 250) and also drop the DBX mass by 15T (to 245) then suddenly all three ships jump very competitively. The Anaconda would still be at 65, but the DBX goes to about 65.1 while the Asp X rises up to 64.8. Now explorers would no longer be forced to fly the Anaconda if they want high jump range, instead there would be three very competitive choices of ships, and all it took was a small hull mass decrease for the Asp X and DBX.
Likewise, other ships could be adjusted down in hull mass to bring them more in line with the Anaconda. For example the Beluga Liner is far too heavy for what it is and should truly have a hull mass much closer to what the Anaconda now has. Make small hull mass decreases across the entire fleet, and now instead of nerfing the Anaconda you’ve elevated the rest of the ships to exist in the same league as it does.
That’s how I think it should be handled. Buff slightly rather than nerf.
