Newcomer / Intro Outfitting Anaconda for trade

Noonien Soong

Noonien Soong
Hi folks,

WIth 300 million in my wallet I bought an Anaconda. Also I got myself a 6A frameshift drive and some other gear. Now I want to outfit it for trading. Is it a sensible idea to put weapons on the ship in case I get interdicted or do I just jump away when that happens? I was thinking of getting a 4A shield generator and 4A fuel scoop and advanced docking computer.That would leave me about 430 tons of cargo.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Against NPCs: don't get interdicted - the interdiction minigame is usually winnable.
Against players: you're dead. Always keep enough money around for at least two rebuys.

So, in your situation, guns on a trade Anaconda are useless. Worse, even - they may let you decide to stick around when you could already be charging your FSD. If you want to set up your Anaconda as multi purpose, you'll need to a) spend a lot more money and b) limit yourself to maybe 256 tons of cargo.

Against a player, your shields will fail from the initial blast (alpha strike), against a high level NPC, you'll have maybe just enough time to charge the FSD.
 

Lowbee

Lowbee
Agreed, you won't need weapons on a trade Conda. I do like the ADC even though many look down on it - I'm busy doing other things like planning and calculating my next runs and having the ship dock itself gives me a bit more time to do so. Heat sinks help to beat the scans if you're hauling naughty stuff. Scoop is necessary and you can store it temporarily if you are doing a loop run that your tank can manage. Other than that - cargo holds!
 

CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
You're looking at about 850mj with a 4A generator and 8 shield boosters. That should tank any NPC that the game that interdicts you, easy. With easily accessible grade 1 mods, it'll break 1,100, easy. Slap on a shield bank in the military slot if you feel like it for a little more cushion.

You'd be surprised how far 1,100 mj will go if you have full pips to SYS. Just don't linger, and you should be fine.

If you submit to an interdiction, you only have to survive what, 30 seconds of fire from drop to wake? You'll be able to tank most anything but the most determined gank wings, even then, you'll likely alright if you do everything correctly.

Bumping that shield up to a size 6 will be more than enough for any hostile encounter.

Take a peek at this when you get a chance. It's a bit NSFW language wise, but the tactics here apply to any ship.
 

d8veh

d8veh
It's not so easy to win the mini game in an Anaconda, so you need to use the submit and boost method. For that, you need A-rated thrusters and power distributor. Don't compromise on those. When the interdiction starts, go zero throttle, put 4 pips to engines and two to shields. hit the boost button the moment you drop out. As soon as you can, boost again, by which time your FSD should have cooled down, so you can jump away. Don't stop to see who's interdicting you. Don't fit weapons and waste time shooting them. You gain very little if you win and will lose everything if you lose. You also need medium shields because the NPC will land some light fire on you. Dropping a heatsink also helps because it often breaks target lock, which makes it a bit safer.

For the last two weeks, I've been using an unenginnered Anaconda for missions and carry cargo. It surprised me when I couldn't win the mini game because I'd never lost one before in other ships. It was nip and tuck whether I was going to get away because of the long cooldown period. Since then, I've had loads of interdictions and always used the submit and boost method, which has been safe and reliable.
 
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CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
Smallest I would go on a defense-only, non-engineered trader build would probably be a 6A power plant. Should have enough power to cover everything you're going to need. Skipped the fuel scoop here, since that's not really necessary when going station to station trading. Vanilla trade conda. This is a sub 200,000,000cr ship, and can be had for as cheap as 160,000,000cr with a discount in the right system.

Engineers applied to that build, at any level, would only make it stronger.

When you get deeper into engineers, you can undersize modules further to save weight, but until then, I'd consider the 6 a minimum.
 

Gully Foyle

Gully Foyle
Great hints for my new Annie, thank you!
Finally got one, equipping mines for weaps on the littles
DD drives, armored plant, eff PD, long range FSD
 

d8veh

d8veh
Gully_Foyle said:
Great hints for my new Annie, thank you!
Finally got one, equipping mines for weaps on the littles
DD drives, armored plant, eff PD, long range FSD
Click to expand...
Don't waste your time on mines or any other weapons or anything that adds unnecessary weight. You don't need them and they'll distract you from the business of escaping. Speed, cargo capacity and a minimal shield, like 5A, are all you need, then you can use a 4A power plant, like this. Any engineering should be to get more speed, and enhanced low power shields. I always engineer my drives for clean for a trade/mining/mission ship. PD should be engine focused:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
coriolis.io coriolis.io
 
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Para Handy

Para Handy
Lowbee said:
........ I do like the ADC even though many look down on it - .......
Click to expand...

The biggest benefit of the ADC is the elimination of threads complaining about getting their 'conda stuck leaving the station, magnetic station corridor slots and other related nonsense.
 
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