Anaconda: the 2nd most maneuverable ship in the game!

[Moardak]

This has always been my take. Honestly, combat Condas make little sense to me. You take away everything you like about combat and turn it into a system management exercise.

But I'm also the guy that sees the Corvette as a waste of resources and the Cutter as a wise long term investment. Printing money with no threat is a nice way to have fun doing other things.

There's more to combat that bounty hunting, and I think bigger combat ships can be good for other combat roles. My Python for instance is great for Power Play undermining. I think a fully combat ready Anaconda or Corvette would be even better. Same with Crime Sweep and other combat zones where you'll mostly be taking on lots of smaller ships. Big combat ships flown in wings are even better since someone in the wing will almost always be in position to shoot, so maneuverability isn't as big of an issue. And the FDL is obviously one of the best PvP combat ships.

 

[d8veh]

I've done a LOT of RES bounty hunting, in a Vulture, Python, and FDL. And I can say I've never had much problems in any ship against Anacondas. Nor have I gotten the impression that the NPCs are cheating or doing anything a player couldn't do. First off you shouldn't ever engage an Anaconda until you're already up close and behind them. Once you're there, it's not that hard to stay there. Some of the Eilte ones do use FA off, and they'll fly backwards to keep you in front if you ever get in front. Once you get into this state I'll admit it's pretty hard to get out of it in a bigger ship like FDL or Python. If you boost past them you'll usually overshoot and then you'll both turn around and be facing each other again. Turns into a head on jousting match. Best bet is to avoid this state from the start. I've found the Elite Clippers and Drop Ships to be even more dangerous than the Elite Anacondas because they're more maneuverable.

I'm still experimenting with the Python and FDL loadouts, but honestly I haven't been able to find a build that's better for bounty hunting than a Vulture with 2 large pulse lasers. In a Vulture I can stay on target almost 100% of the time and Power Plants therefore go down just as fast or faster than they do using bigger ships with more firepower but less maneuverability. And I take less damage and have less repair costs, and can stay out longer. Basically what I'm saying is if you're having problems bounty hunting in a RES in an FDL, just go back to using a Vulture.. I'm very much considering doing the same. The only thing that has kept me using my Python and FDL is because I want to learn to pilot them better, not because I think they're better for RES bounty hunting.

That's more or less what I was saying earlier.

I've just done about 16 hours RES farming with a Vulture. I don't know how many Anacondas I killed, but I don't think I've taken a shot yet, apart from one that got me with a turret after he got a look at me from my clumsy flying. At one time today, I had 5 on the field at the same time.: A wing of three and a wing of two. It was a bit nerve wracking, but I got them all without taking a single shot, though I had two Fed Vipers to help me. I admit that t was just luck that I managed to get them one at a time while the others were occupied with the Feds. The Vulture really does make them easy; however, the FDL is not that far behind for easiness to keep on target and out of fire, but it has a bit more fire power to kill them more quickly, and it's a bit quicker around the field, so you spend more time killing to make money faster, but not a lot in it overall. Once you've mastered the FDL's thrusters, there's no reason to end up in front of an Anaconda. Thanks to Vindicator Jones for showing me that a couple of months ago. I couldn't do it at first, but then it just sort of came to me.

I've been using burst lasers on my Vulture, which appear to do a bit more damage than the pulse lasers that I tried first. They seem pretty quick to kill most things. I think I'll give them a go on my FDL for a change.

In my FDL, the only ship I think twice about is the FAS. I don't know whether I've improved or the Clippers have been nerfed, because I used to have trouble with them, but not anymore. Every time they face you, put 4 pips to shields and they hardly do any damage. Then, as soon as they're not facing you, 4 pips to weapons and blast them. The same as with the Anaconda, always try and get on their flank so that they can't pitch towards you. I never worried about Dropships and Gunships. It's normally a case of yawning while I massacre them.

 

[Moardak]

That's more or less what I was saying earlier.

I've just done about 16 hours RES farming with a Vulture. I don't know how many Anacondas I killed, but I don't think I've taken a shot yet, apart from one that got me with a turret after he got a look at me from my clumsy flying. At one time today, I had 5 on the field at the same time.: A wing of three and a wing of two. It was a bit nerve wracking, but I got them all without taking a single shot, though I had two Fed Vipers to help me. I admit that t was just luck that I managed to get them one at a time while the others were occupied with the Feds. The Vulture really does make them easy; however, the FDL is not that far behind for easiness to keep on target and out of fire, but it has a bit more fire power to kill them more quickly, and it's a bit quicker around the field, so you spend more time killing to make money faster, but not a lot in it overall. Once you've mastered the FDL's thrusters, there's no reason to end up in front of an Anaconda. Thanks to Vindicator Jones for showing me that a couple of months ago. I couldn't do it at first, but then it just sort of came to me.

I've been using burst lasers on my Vulture, which appear to do a bit more damage than the pulse lasers that I tried first. They seem pretty quick to kill most things. I think I'll give them a go on my FDL for a change.

In my FDL, the only ship I think twice about is the FAS. I don't know whether I've improved or the Clippers have been nerfed, because I used to have trouble with them, but not anymore. Every time they face you, put 4 pips to shields and they hardly do any damage. Then, as soon as they're not facing you, 4 pips to weapons and blast them. The same as with the Anaconda, always try and get on their flank so that they can't pitch towards you. I never worried about Dropships and Gunships. It's normally a case of yawning while I massacre them.

What loadout do you use in your FDL? Because I haven't been able to find one that I feel makes it better than a Vulture. I think the problem is that as long as you're going after Power Plants, 2 large lasers do more penetration on big ships and therefore take out the Power Plant faster than 4 medium lasers. Using a huge cannon on the FDL can certainly go a long way to make up for it, but you have to be pretty close to use it on a Power Plant.

I would use burst lasers over pulse on my Vulture, but the only way to make the power work out with bursts is to not use a shield cell bank. I don't think the extra burst damage is worth that tradeoff, especially since the pulse lasers can make up for the lost burst by being able to last longer. In terms of sustained DPS they're probably pretty identical. So the burst damage is really only worth it for killing smaller ships that can go down in less time than it takes to empty your weapon's capacitor.

 

[tawittle]

The NPCs don't cheat that blatantly when it comes to turning or shield regen.

People regularly talk about the "impossibly fast NPC turning" cheat, but I have observed only a very, very small number of NPCs able to turn impossibly fast. The overwhelming majority of NPC ships appear to turn a good bit slower than a player with FA off and 4 pips to ENG would. I believe the common thought that "NPCs turn faster than players can" likely stems from players trying to turn their ship with FA on and 0-2 pips in ENG, or else players using low class/rating thrusters. Even in my anaconda (which is not optimized for turning), I find that I can keep pace with NPC vipers, pythons, etc. without issue. Only vultures and eagles are able to force me to fly the ship in reverse.

As for the shield regen, put a class 4/5 shield generator on an anaconda with 4-6 boosters. You'll have insanely strong shields, but turning off all your boosters means your shield will regen fast. I don't consider that to be a "cheat" either.

The only time I perceive NPCs as "blatantly cheating" is when they have railgun loadouts, and in addition to never running out of ammo, never miss, and never overheat and have to stop firing. That is a little much imo.

 

[DaveB]

...This is the crucial point I think. Much like the AI might be said to "cheat" in games like StarCraft because they can essentially execute hundreds of actions every second with total precision, the AI here I think is simply operating at a very high level of precision and micro-management. Which isn't to say that a person couldn't come close to matching it with enough practice, and the right hardware (allowing for analog thruster inputs for example). Because of their ability to precisely maneuver like this, it gives a human pilot less room for error, unless they already have a big agility advantage (i.e. Vulture). Whether this sort of thing really counts as cheating is debatable I think. Perhaps it is somewhat unfair, but given the potential advantages that a human player still has over an NPC, it probably balances out.

Agreed. In fact, I think FD have done a pretty good job in making their abilities "scale" using this mechanic. It would have been "easy" to make NPCs SO good at precision mutlitasking that even the best human pilot would be toast in pretty short order. When your opponent has reaction times orders of magnitude faster than you doand has perfect precision plus an infinite number of "hands" to operate controls, you might survive but winning will likely not be in the cards. Obviously FD don't want to go there. If Elite ranked NPCs could reliably fry ANY human players, no matter how good they were, FD wouldn't have a game, they'd have an exercise in frustration that nobody would play. Having said that, at release the NPCs were too easy. This was discussed several times on here and FD have listened. They have been steadily ramping up the difficulty level of NPCs over the last year and I am pretty sure they will continue to tweak that until high ranked NPCs pose a real challenge but not a completely impossible one to a skilled pilot.

The NPCs don't cheat that blatantly when it comes to turning or shield regen.

People regularly talk about the "impossibly fast NPC turning" cheat, but I have observed only a very, very small number of NPCs able to turn impossibly fast. The overwhelming majority of NPC ships appear to turn a good bit slower than a player with FA off and 4 pips to ENG would. I believe the common thought that "NPCs turn faster than players can" likely stems from players trying to turn their ship with FA on and 0-2 pips in ENG, or else players using low class/rating thrusters. Even in my anaconda (which is not optimized for turning), I find that I can keep pace with NPC vipers, pythons, etc. without issue. Only vultures and eagles are able to force me to fly the ship in reverse.

As for the shield regen, put a class 4/5 shield generator on an anaconda with 4-6 boosters. You'll have insanely strong shields, but turning off all your boosters means your shield will regen fast. I don't consider that to be a "cheat" either.

The only time I perceive NPCs as "blatantly cheating" is when they have railgun loadouts, and in addition to never running out of ammo, never miss, and never overheat and have to stop firing. That is a little much imo.

NPC weapons not overheating was listed as being fixed in one of the recent sets of patch notes, if I remember correctly.
With how limited railgun ammo is, this is indeed an exception to the normal case where there's really no need to track NPC projectile ammo levels. Personally I would consider this a bug.
The "never miss" thing isn't exactly a cheat. Moderate to high ranked NPCs just don't take a shot unless they are on target and since railguns are hitscan like energy weapons instead of tracking a physical projectile (tracking a projectile at relativistic speeds is beyond the capability of the game engine anyway - they HAVE to be hitscan weapons), if they are on target when they fire they will hit.

 

[Moardak]

NPC weapons not overheating was listed as being fixed in one of the recent sets of patch notes, if I remember correctly.
With how limited railgun ammo is, this is indeed an exception to the normal case where there's really no need to track NPC projectile ammo levels. Personally I would consider this a bug.
The "never miss" thing isn't exactly a cheat. Moderate to high ranked NPCs just don't take a shot unless they are on target and since railguns are hitscan like energy weapons instead of tracking a physical projectile (tracking a projectile at relativistic speeds is beyond the capability of the game engine anyway - they HAVE to be hitscan weapons), if they are on target when they fire they will hit.

I think it was mentioned by a dev on here that only multi-cannon ammo is unlimited for NPCs, but I can't remember if that's the case currently or if that will be the case in 2.1 with the NPC AI changes.

 

[DanaM]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you really are just missing something. There is no "impossible" mode on the NPC anaconda. I fly one myself all the time and I out turn them almost every time, even with FA ON. I don't mean to insult you, but you are either flying a ship that has less base meneuverability or flying with crap thrusters. Anacondas are very meneuverable for their size unlike the imperial TYPE10, but they aren't going to beat anything with a higher base.

FDL with A-rated power, thrusters and distributor. I don't mind if you insult me, as long as you tell me what it is I'm missing.

 

[DanaM]

Anacondas are easy, especially in an FDL........... I never use FA off for them and never boost. You just have to learn how to deal with them. I've killed about 35,000 ships, so maybe 1000 Anacondas -nearly all with a FDL.

Two important things: Never let them get a look at you; stay as close as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzXWBkIaJu8

Thanks for the help. Ive actually had plenty of easy Anaconda kills myself. What puzzles me is how they seem to either be super easy or impossible. Maybe it's that I'm not dealing with "leaning" effectively and some do it and some don't.

 

[DanaM]

But one place we know that they do not cheat is on the fight model. [/B]We have that directly from MoM herself. The Mistress of Minions wrote that code and she assured us that she wrote it such that the AI code pilots its ships by providing control inputs to the same flight model that applies to every other ship in the game, ours included. They may be insanely precise with those control inputs, which will make them a real handful if they are using FA-off as they do at the higher ranks, but a skilled human pilot could at least potentially match their flight behavior in a ship of identical loadout.

This is what I want to hear. I really want this to be true, hence my frustration when it appeared not to be. Thank you.

 

[d8veh]

Thanks for the help. Ive actually had plenty of easy Anaconda kills myself. What puzzles me is how they seem to either be super easy or impossible. Maybe it's that I'm not dealing with "leaning" effectively and some do it and some don't.

That's right. They nearly all will try and lean towards you while reversing at some point. If they succeed, they'll do it again and again. The moment they start, you must thrust down. If it looks like they'll go all the way, try and get on their flank with sidethrust and opposite yaw; however, they're normally, but not always, ready for that, so they immediately roll. If they start to succeed in going all the way, point at their rear, so that you're in a "69" position, and you then head behind them. As soon as you can't see it anymore, pitch up at the same time as thrusting up, and you'll come back on the other side ready to do more damage. They remind me of heavyweight boxers, like Mohammed Ali in his later fights. They keep leaning on you, so that you can't get a shot in.

 

[Gold Member]

At least, that's what it is when MPCs pilot it in my experience. The only ship I've used that the MPC Anacondas havn't been able to out turn is the Vulture. Just got back from a RES with my FDL. Took on an Anaconda, everything going well, and suddenly it can turn on a dime. Easily out turns my FDL (4 pips to engines, throttle in blue, FA off, Boost turning). I escaped with 33% hull. I don't mind losing if my skill isn't up to the job, but I'm starting to really get tired of the sudden "impossible mode" the MPCs seem to shift into. Am I missing something?

Not sure what you use to control your ship. I use keyboard and mouse, and have learned to not fly like an airplane against Anacondas. Using all axis to fly helps. When you see the Anaconda turn, slide left up while you turn to stay out of their FOV.

Default keys are q-w-e a-s-d and mouse to point the ship. Getting stuck in thrust changes only helps somewhat.

Oh, I also carry two chaff racks. While one is reloading I still have another one I can fire. You can bind them to the same key (mine is mouse-4 button) and only one will fire at a time.

 

[dxm55]

The only time I perceive NPCs as "blatantly cheating" is when they have railgun loadouts, and in addition to never running out of ammo, never miss, and never overheat and have to stop firing. That is a little much imo.

Likewise. I don't have a problem with NPCs turning. You can turn any ship quickly with a well timed boost, and FA-off. You can even further reduce turn radius by pitching while using your vertical thrusters. I'd expect the AI to exploit it fully.

But I take issues with ships with unlikely loadouts. Like an Eagle with 2 turreted lasers and multi-cannon. Especially when you're clearly under and behind him, vertical/lateral thrusters working hard, and he shoots at you while facing away from you.

 

[DAOWAce]

I fly a cobra (not by choice, can't make money for the life of me so I'm stuck in it). I've been able to take out bigger ships many times (anacondas used to be feared, now if I get the jump on them, they're child's play).

Was fighting an anaconda in a hazardous RES.

Fight went just like all my other anaconda fights where I have the jump: He couldn't turn on me to save his life and I was whittling him down focusing on the power plant.

Then all of a sudden he starts accelerating rapidly, and before I know it I'm being faced down, all guns blazing.

My shields go down in a second (A graded with A booster). I start taking severe hull damage.

I boost away, only to find myself facing an asteroid.

Lost a few million in bounties, a cargo hold of rares and a lot of exploration data, along with a few hundred merits.

I called complete bull on its ability to accelerate and turn like that. It cheated. I got screwed.

Now I read this thread and see discussion about flight assist being off. I don't know remember what rank it was.

Can anyone link a good tutorial explaining FA-off flight and how to control it? I've attempted to use it as a temporary maneuverability boost, but it's never seemed to actually work beyond cutting engines and spinning in place while I zoom off in the original direction. I don't know how someone can fly with it. Edit: And yes, I've seen Isinona's videos. They're unbelievable, literally.

 

[Soopyyy]

The NPC's can't fly an Anaconda any better than I can... You have to use FAOFF though.

The only bullsh--t thing I've seen is the 100% accuracy the Asp's have with rail guns.

 

[Mephane]

The NPC's can't fly an Anaconda any better than I can... You have to use FAOFF though.

The issue is, the Anaconda is too maneuvrable and suffers far less agility penalty when outside the blue zone than any other ship. So it is really a problem, but not with Anaconda NPCs but Anacondas per se, that they can pull these stunts.

 

[Urbanski101]

I've never had an issue with fighting condas until last night when I took on a deadly one in a RES site.

They appear to have been buffed hugely from where they were previously. In my A rated FDL, 4 pips to engines I still couldn't out turn the damn thing.

Ended up using a combo of FA off, chaff (which only half works now) and boost turning to bring him down and I used all my SCBs in one fight!

I didn't get a huge buzz from the engagement either, just a sense of relief that I won and frustration that this huge behemoth of a ship is now more agile than an FDL.

Not noticed any real difference with the other ships other than they appear to be pulling more stunts to get away from incoming fire.....still getting the rotisserie of death from some Python NPCs though.

 

[OCD]

I love their new "FWAM" Fixed Weapon Avoidance Module

Im right on their 6 in my corvette and fire my 2 A4 Plasmas and as I press the fire button ... they dodge up or to the side. No way they could see fixed weapons coming in from behind.

Unfortunately, all of these things are the effect of immediate ways the FDEV can make the AI harder to kill and some of this is skewed to the larger ships.

I watched my friends single A3 plasma cannon on his python do more damage than my 2 A4's when we munched our way through a few 100 large ticket customers.... of course, at point blank range so their FWAM couldnt be used ... dodge that one you &^&&R%

FDEV needed to make AI trickier I can understand why it just needs a bit more tuning I think.

 

[Krieger]

Thanks for the help. Ive actually had plenty of easy Anaconda kills myself. What puzzles me is how they seem to either be super easy or impossible. Maybe it's that I'm not dealing with "leaning" effectively and some do it and some don't.

There is a bug in the AI pip management currently. It results in the Anaconda not firing weapons and manoeuvring sluggishly (for an Anaconda that is). Certain conditions during a fight can trigger the pip management into proper operation (e.g. flying in front of the Anaconda). That is the moment they switch from super easy to nearly impossible to beat.
.
With release 2.1 many AI bugs will be fixed and on top of that flying skills for the higher ranked NPCs will be upped. I expect to be humiliated by NPCs the first time I enter a RES in 2.1. No more endless RES farming. I'll have to work hard to become Elite one day.

 

[Soopyyy]

The issue is, the Anaconda is too maneuvrable and suffers far less agility penalty when outside the blue zone than any other ship. So it is really a problem, but not with Anaconda NPCs but Anacondas per se, that they can pull these stunts.

It's really not. Leave FA on and it is a giant brick.

 

[CMDR Kovax Votu]

I have been noticing NPCs trying to ram now. I enjoy smart AI, but now it seems like every Anny fight is like dodging their nose. Now it's harder with the new turning skill of NPCs.