Ships Help with PvE Anaconda build with best TTK possible

[ꝁestrel]

I'm looking to optimize my Anaconda for massacre stacking. Here is what I'm currently flying. It started out as a multi-purpose build that I refitted for massacre missions. It does pretty well but I'd like to optimize it even further. Link to the build.

I could probably switch to bi-weaves for faster shield regen but shields haven't been a problem. When I run out of banks and the shield is low, all I need to do is reboot/repair and I'm back to 50%. It's so much Mj that 50% is more than enough to finish out the stacked missions.

The main issue I'd like to address is the weapon loadout. TTK is way too long on small ships. Medium and large ships melt in 20 seconds at most (usually about 10 sec). But I could spend 2+ minutes on a single small ship. In a few (rarer) cases it's been as long as 5 minutes. I do sometimes melt small ships in a few seconds but I'm looking for more consistency.

At first I thought the issue was my aim but I've ruled that out. Fixed weapon convergence on the Anaconda is such that the target has to be right next to me to do maximum DPS. Most of the time I'm just wasting half my ammo on the nimble ships. Eventually I run out of materials for synthesis and need to do a lengthy SRV run to top up.

Any tips? I'm willing to make any changes as long as it optimizes farming these missions. Also willing to G5 engineer whatever I need to.

Thanks!

 

[tolm]

Corvette?

 

[ꝁestrel]

Corvette?

Is convergence that much better? I would think the annie's 3x C3s are better for small ships than the vette's 2x C4s.

 

[d8veh]

You need a fighter with fixed weapons to stop the ships from using chaff, avoid getting shot yourself and be able to shoot the bigger ships from the side to kill their power-plants, then you can use all lasers, which will improve your overall kill rate, as there is no need to keep going back for ammo. Use a mixture of long range and efficient lasers to be able to kill the small ships and not drain the capacitor to quickly.

This is what I'd use, though I'd prefer a Corvette.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Maolagin]

Is convergence that much better? I would think the annie's 3x C3s are better for small ships than the vette's 2x C4s.

If you ask me, no, it's not such a difference as to be worth engineering up a whole new ship.

Ultimately it's correct that your problem is rounds connecting on target. Fixed multicannons is a choice for sure. Close to optimal for low TTK massacring ships you can hit with them, but not so good against small nimble targets. That's what minmaxing will do for you.

The obvious answer is to sacrifice some dps/TTK on large targets and swap some of your guns to gimbals. (Your efficient laser should probably be a turret regardless, so it can be hitting continuously chipping away shields and triggering scramble effects.) A more interesting approach could be to keep your fixed load out, hire an NPC pilot and one of you jump in a fighter to chase down the small targets.

I'm also a little puzzled by your comment about needing to refill on raw mats. If you have the materials for G5 engineering, you should be at the inventory cap on the low level mats needed for standard rearm synthesis. If you are using premium ammo on NPCs, that's honestly a waste and you're costing yourself more time in material hunting than you save on fighting.

 

[ꝁestrel]

Found a solution. Leaving an update for anyone finding this later.

Given how grindy engineering can be I didn't want to risk experimenting with the wrong build (good job FD game designers). So the only major change I made was switching to all gimballed MCs:

• With gimballed almost every one of my shots are connecting now. My fixed aim is pretty good but nothing beats convergence of gimbals and the ability to fire at extreme angles. Connecting more often and on almost every shot makes an enormous difference.
• Way more ships killed per re-arm and they go down way faster. Particularly the little nimble ships. It's good enough for any PvE situation including CZs. The only situation where fixed outperformed gimballed (in TTK) is when the target is a Federal Dropship (or similar) that's THICC and stays really close to you.
• Chaff hasn't been a problem at all. I just use that time to reposition or focus another target. If it's a hull tank that likes to get close then I can just un-target them and land most of my hits, but I rarely ever do that so I don't waste ammo. Those shields are never going down so I'd rather wait for chaff to clear and get more shots on target.
• I kept it simple with Overcharged+Autoloader on every non-small MC. NPC shields aren't that good and most of the medium-large ships are hull tanks. Incendiary felt like a waste.

Here is the build: https://is.gd/p9lKtP

Note that this build is NOT optimized. I re-fitted an existing multipurpose build with the modules I needed. If I were to fully optimize this build for the activities I'm doing (massacre stacking and gathering mats) then I would do something like this: https://is.gd/WB6Hlw

• I'm not fitting HRPs so getting hull resistances is tough. Military Grade Composite armor gets me fairly decent resistances out of the box.
• Low emission + thermal spread power plant because I don't need the power. Less heat is always good.
• Sensors are 8D and long range. No benefit to using 8A. Long range so I don't lose track of the materials that NPCs drop.
• Sticking with prismatics because I can always reboot/repair to quickly get my shields back to 50%. Also with NPCs I can always just leave in the very extreme rare case that my shields go down. Fitting an SCB just in case I get in trouble though.
• Cargo racks are for collector limpets. 2 controllers to scoop up dropped materials as quickly as possible.
• SRV bay for collecting materials when I need them. It's nice to not have to refit just for that. DSS is there for the same reason.
• Supercruise assist so I travel to locations in supercruise at ludicrous speeds (using the supercruise assist trick).
• Docking computer so I can plan out next steps on my tablet while docking.
• KWS for a few extra credits when some random NPC interdicts me.

 

[ꝁestrel]

I'm also a little puzzled by your comment about needing to refill on raw mats. If you have the materials for G5 engineering, you should be at the inventory cap on the low level mats needed for standard rearm synthesis. If you are using premium ammo on NPCs, that's honestly a waste and you're costing yourself more time in material hunting than you save on fighting.

Not using premiums but 100 reloads runs out fast with 8 MCs. It takes 2x synthesis per gun to not waste any mats. So it's 6x full re-arms without docking. If I'm farming massacre missions only then I'll run out of that in a session or two. Getting more is easy but it's also very time consuming.

 

[tolm]

Is convergence that much better? I would think the annie's 3x C3s are better for small ships than the vette's 2x C4s.

More agile and two huge beams will take out pretty much anything. I combine that with multis that include corrosive which massively increases the effectiveness of the beams against hull as well as boosting all the other DPS.

My current build:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

For the under nose C3 hardpoint I sometimes run a multi and sometimes run a rail with feedback cascade if I’m wanting to stop SCBs being used.

I’ve also done all lasers apart from the C1 multis for corrosive / emissive (which are then just used to debuff targets) which means ammo lasts forever … but the time to kill is slower against strong-hulled opponents so that’s more sorted to sitting in a HazRES than massacre missions or CZs.

 

[SergMx]

You need a fighter with fixed weapons to stop the ships from using chaff, avoid getting shot yourself and be able to shoot the bigger ships from the side to kill their power-plants, then you can use all lasers, which will improve your overall kill rate, as there is no need to keep going back for ammo. Use a mixture of long range and efficient lasers to be able to kill the small ships and not drain the capacitor to quickly.

This is what I'd use, though I'd prefer a Corvette.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

That's right.
Lots of points for weapons and the grouping of weapons shows that you need to put different weapons depending on the target and switch as needed.

Even the release of Odyssey, when we have 3 weapons but can only fire one at a time did not teach us how to act correctly.

 

[SENA-]

MCs are the best weapons in-game, by a far margin, when you look at dps/sec !
I do not use a Annie for massacre, I favor a lot more the Vette ( more agile, better convergence, better internals) IF I need to farm materials;

When I am full, I prefer a fully MCs FdL since that thing punch very hard and can dance circles around pirates on Annies or Vette.; Usually I do a mining run each 1-2 days - not so much about ore ( even, tough Platinum pays very nice) but more motivated for the synth raw materials ( Iron, Sulfur, etc ) so I can synth 140-160 times) ;

After I stack 4 to 6 massacre missions of 40 millions each, I dive in with the Vette or FdL - the FdL if I can choose since she can kill a lot faster than the a bulkier Vette - you cruise in FdL at 360 like a dream, more than double Vette speed, and you boost near 600 - so any target you see you get there in just few seconds only - this is the big difference - faster you get to the target, more target you kill / h.
Usually you can get 1 kill/minute in FdL, with no big sweat, small ships pops in seconds, half a minute for medium, 1-3 minutes for big boys.

Now, about OP request for Annie load out: the A4 slot - a gimballed MC overcharged with auto-loader. That thing will fire non-stop, a lot faster than a PA, with dam comparable to PA but with much better DPR ; the ammo will last a long time, usually I only need 2-3 reloads / synth per hour;

The pair of class 3 - LR beams - vented ! You will keep hitting small targets at will at long ranges and are pretty effective vs small ships.

Under belly - IMPORTANT ! - put there a frag turreted overcharged with screening shells ! Works like a charm, will pop-open all small/medium who come close, ammo will last forever ( I almost never needed to recharge that thing ! ) and the dam is far, far better than any turreted weapon ! Also, the fact your biggest weapon and almost all other weapons are MC and frag - will give you a needed extra juice on your DIS for the beams.

And at last, the pair of class II - again OC MC with autoloader , the pair of class I - again MCs - one high ammo and corrosive, other OC and autoloader.

This loadout works like a charm, hit very hard, and is effective vs any target - small, medium, big. Small ships will simply disintegrate in the rain of OC MCs, medium will not last more than 30 sec 1 minute, big ones 1-3 minutes.

PS - you have trouble with chaff on gimballed builds ? haha, ignore the fixed - just unselect the target and your gimballed become a fixed weapon ! The tradeoff is a bit less dam than a fixed, but hey, once the chaff run out, you will hit A LOT MORE a fast-moving target than you will do with a fixed, and that translate in overall much bigger dam^/sec.
And remember - chaff is USELESS if you are right on his face !


I am in massacre mission right now, so I recorded 2 kinds of common kills : a single Annie - 24 seconds to kill;
Next one - Annie with 2 small - Annie more or less the same, (29sec) - and 2 DBS in 40 sec, so 3 kills in a bit over 1 minute...
As you can see, at that range, chaff have no relevance

So, the FdL is a FAST killer, much faster than a Vette and a Annie. And she can take on squads of 3 at will with no sweat.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-HDf-xbo0g&ab_channel=SENPt

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjcoxZjAqAE&ab_channel=SENPt

 

[d8veh]

I am in massacre mission right now, so I recorded 2 kinds of common kills : a single Annie - 24 seconds to kill;
Next one - Annie with 2 small - Annie more or less the same, (29sec) - and 2 DBS in 40 sec, so 3 kills in a bit over 1 minute...
As you can see, at that range, chaff have no relevance

Those kill times need to be put in context of the low (Master) rank of those Anacondas. It might have taken a bit longer against a reverski Elite one with SCBs..

 

[SENA-]

Those kill times need to be put in context of the low (Master) rank of those Anacondas. It might have taken a bit longer against a reverski Elite one with SCBs..

Not by much, the FdL can stay glued on the target six, and a slow ram when the reverski coupled with non-stop fire will negate much of SCBs. And no Annie can reverskie faster than a FdL cruising, lol - a decent FdL crusise at more than 350, and that is a lot more than Annie in reverse - even more than Annie boosting ahead, lol.

So, in FdL controlling distance is childishly easy vs a NPC Annie. I am disabled and I use only one hand, with a good mouse - I do not touch the pips in fight often - and I have no trouble at all controlling the distance. A normal dude will do that even better than me.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I've got an Annie for CZ with mainly PAs. Lots of DPS. Problem is its speed. I've found in terms of overall time to complete a CZ the Mamba is better because i spend less time getting to targets. By the same token the Corvette is even worse, and my corvette is all MCs. Also a bit of a shout out to my Frag Krait which combines speed, agility, and a boatload of damage.

Not sure how this translates into doing massacre missions, but overall i'd say speed > max firepower for efficiency.

 

[SENA-]

True, the time to reach the best target is often not taken in consideration when one plan x kills / in "x" time .
Mamba and FdL are great - probably the best - since both offer not just brute raw firepower, great shields ( you can run both at some 2,5k shields easily) but they have a cruising speed who put in shadow the Annie and the Vette, and the boost speed is glorious - no target can escape you.

 

[d8veh]

True, the time to reach the best target is often not taken in consideration when one plan x kills / in "x" time .
Mamba and FdL are great - probably the best - since both offer not just brute raw firepower, great shields ( you can run both at some 2,5k shields easily) but they have a cruising speed who put in shadow the Annie and the Vette, and the boost speed is glorious - no target can escape you.

Neither can carry an SLF. I used to use an FDL exclusively for RES farming. It's speed was a massive advantage, but now it can't get anywhere near the overall kill rate of a Corvette with an SLF, long-range A-rated sensors and some long-range weapons. I'm talking about the kill rate over say a 3 hr session, not dashing out, killing ten ships then coming back to re-arm.

 

[SENA-]

Neither can carry an SLF. I used to use an FDL exclusively for RES farming. It's speed was a massive advantage, but now it can't get anywhere near the overall kill rate of a Corvette with an SLF, long-range A-rated sensors and some long-range weapons. I'm talking about the kill rate over say a 3 hr session, not dashing out, killing ten ships then coming back to re-arm.

FdL can kill 2x more ships than the Vette or Annie in the same amount of time, easily... Speed is a great factor - both Annie or the Vette are lacking that.

 

[SergMx]

FdL can kill 2x more ships than the Vette or Annie in the same amount of time, easily... Speed is a great factor - both Annie or the Vette are lacking that.

Sometimes it is important not only dps, but also the ability to hold damage from multiple ships.
My favorite mission is when I kill the pirate lord and his 4 assistants on Vultures.
I kill them all in succession on my corvette.
The mission for the wing I do in one.

 

[SENA-]

Sometimes it is important not only dps, but also the ability to hold damage from multiple ships.
My favorite mission is when I kill the pirate lord and his 4 assistants on Vultures.
I kill them all in succession on my corvette.
The mission for the wing I do in one.

Agree, the Vete can tank much more, a lot more.... but for those massacre staking missions ( 3 - 4 of 30 kills each ) FdL is much better, she does the job in half-time for real credits.

 

[SergMx]

Agree, the Vete can tank much more, a lot more.... but for those massacre staking missions ( 3 - 4 of 30 kills each ) FdL is much better, she does the job in half-time for real credits.

Then I have to kill the main man and fly away, and I won't be able to collect all the materials from the ships.

 

[SENA-]

Then I have to kill the main man and fly away, and I won't be able to collect all the materials from the ships.

Materials ? well, you know, those 50 millions mining missions for wing ? Those are my preferred, because usually each mission send 9 Conda Pirates to intercept you - take 4-5 missions and you have 40-60 high rank Annies to harvest ! Plenty of fun and the pinnacle of materials harvesting - some Pirates even give you DOUBLE class V materials ( 2 kinds of class V materials from just one ship ! )