Newcomer / Intro How do people learn to fight an Anaconda?

Newt_Othis

Newt_Othis
I'm a casual player. Thanks to work, small kids etc, I only manage a couple of hours every few days.

As a backer I started off with a Cobra and cashed in my Freagle. I've pottered around with trading, exploring and low level bounty hunting, so have upgraded my ship slightly above stock, but not by much.

Egged on by my wife, I rather rashly took on an assassination mission. Of course, when I tracked down the target they were sitting pretty in an Anaconda. I got a few shots in before getting the hell out of Dodge with 50% hull damage. Mission abandoned.

I realise it was naive of me to attempt this, but how do you go about learning to take a large ship down? I know about keeping behind it and targeting subsystems, but I still need practice to work out how to do this. It wouldn't take me many failed attempts to go bankrupt.

I'm seriously considering doing a wipe and earning my cash (and dogfighting skills) honestly with the basic Sidey instead of relying on the backer's freebies. It's do that or keep grinding away in my Cobra until I've earned enough cash to cover a crash course in advanced dogfighting (no pun intended).
 

KillaALF

K
By fighting lots of smaller ships, ie practicing. You learn with every encounter, makes no matter if you win or lose. Once you are more confident in yourself and your ships capabilities take on bigger prey and repeat the procedure. You'll get there if you stick to it.
 

ReaperAlex

ReaperAlex
simples, fit a shield cell bank to keep you alive while in range of it's guns, then fly out a bit further to where it's struggling to hit you. some people find between 1 and 2km is good for them, i prefer 2 to 3

you might struggle to do this if you use gimbled weapons though
 

Andrew Sayers

A
It's not just the ship - those high-bounty targets have the best weapons and are "elite" ranked (i.e. the best NPCs around). No matter how skillful you are, you'll be lucky to take one down without some pretty serious upgrades (many times the cost of your ship).

Bounty levels are a pretty good indicator of NPC toughness - anything over 100,000 credits being way too tough for the early game. If you go to nav beacons and unidentified signal sources, you should occasionally find well-equipped Asps or newbie Anacondas in the 30,000-90,000 credit range that provide better stepping stones for mid-level play.
 

Arda

Arda
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=82000&p=1403580&viewfull=1#post1403580
Take a look at my post above, but basicly:
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I always target the power distribution system. His general performance will go down as the percentage of if his power system goes down. The effect is he will move slower and slower. It will take longer and longer before he can use his after-burner. It will take longer and longer for his shield to regenerate and he will go faster and faster out of power for his weapon systems. In the end his ship will be a useless piece of hunk in space- easy to take down.
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When a fight starts, or if I get a head on head scenario, I pop a chaff (6 sec of incoming fire freedom so long he don’t use a fixed weapon setup) and hit my afterburners to get close / behind him. Then run the dogfight game as best as possible and always try to stay within 2km. If he win a turn and start firing on me I pop another chaff and after burn behind him again. I use my shield generator as needed, but I seldom have to. A trick when you are in the "turning" game is to use your up/down thrusters. In the turning game, I usually position myself so he is "above" me. I have my flight stick all the way down in order to follow him up and around. The trick in this position is to use your down thruster for a couple of seconds (the same you use when you are landing in a station). This will push your ship further out of the turning arc and as you let go of the down thruster you will have re-positioned yourself in such a way that you can start fire on him again (you won the turning game).
 

InMemoriamSirocco

Banned
InMemoriamSirocco
There's a combat tutorial where you can improve your skills without risk. At least for me it was part of my download. When I start the client, I have the option to either play Elite: Dangerous or the Combat Tutorials. In the last of the tutorial stages, you fight several waves of attackers in a Sidewinder until finally an Anaconda shows up as the final boss.

If you can beat these tutorials without breaking a sweat, you are ready to take on your first assassination mission.
 

Leviathan

Leviathan
The elite condas do need some practice but there are a few things you can do to make those fights a lot easier.

First and most important: outfit and use shieldcells ( I prefer B modules cause they have more cells than the A modules )

You need to use the cells before your shield is completly down but you don't want to waste them, so use them whenver you are down to one shieldring

The second thing you can do to make your life easier is outfitting a chaff launcher to scramble the condas weapon lock - it will still hit you but a lot less

The last point really comes down to practice - you want to stay close and behind your enemy, never let it turn and face you in a frontal attack.

Try to use your lateral thrusters to maneuver behind your target and target subsystems

You could go for the power distribution or the thrusters - this makes the rest of the fight easier

or you can go for the FSD to keep it from jumping out

or you can simply go for the powerplant for a faster kill

I myself use Beamlaser to strip shields and Multis for the hull

Hope that helps a litte ( there a lot of youtube vids on how to down elite condas you should watch a few )

Happy hunting
 

Yanaran

Y
I think the best way to learn is to put 4 pips in shields (even if this means you can't go pew-pew nonstop) and try to keep your distance. All tracking weapons lose accuracy with range, so if you stay at 1.5km you'll take much less damage than if you're at 500m. Staying behind it is therefore risky because if you screw up you're suddenly a sitting duck at the optimal turret-range and can expect to eat a lot of damage.

By starting out at range and taking your time, you can learn how much you can take and get away easier if you get in trouble. 4 pips in sys and 2 in weapons might take longer to kill than 4 to weapons, but it also helps you stay alive to kill at all. It's how people killed Anacondas before shield cells and it still works. As you get more experience and better gear you can be bolder and get closer (it IS more fun that way), but like anything it's best not to rush it. Or you come out with 50% hull and shaky hands. ;)
 

Quineloe

Quineloe
Full energy to shields, rest into weapons - face tank him in brawling distance. Takes 2 or 3 shield cells, then the power plant usually blows up.
 
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TYK

T
I have taken down an NPC anaconda with the help of the system authority. You need to wolf pack - one of you is going to be drawing fire and needs to be in full-on evasive mode with everything in engines in shields. The other two need to be blowing the snot out of the thing while that is happening. Periodically the most dangerous guy is going to switch. You need to make sure that happens at regular intervals to make sure the damage is only to shields, and he's not getting down to the hull. The best way to draw fire is to park (get yourself speed-locked) directly behind their thrusters as close as you can and just lay on the fire button until he rotates.

And then you need to do this without screwing up for a long time. And if they have a plasma accelerator, just go. JUST GO.

...Kind of not worth it.

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Andrew Sayers said:
It's not just the ship - those high-bounty targets have the best weapons and are "elite" ranked (i.e. the best NPCs around). No matter how skillful you are, you'll be lucky to take one down without some pretty serious upgrades (many times the cost of your ship).

Bounty levels are a pretty good indicator of NPC toughness - anything over 100,000 credits being way too tough for the early game. If you go to nav beacons and unidentified signal sources, you should occasionally find well-equipped Asps or newbie Anacondas in the 30,000-90,000 credit range that provide better stepping stones for mid-level play.
Click to expand...


Should probably note that I took out an anaconda at a NAV beacon, taking on those assination missions in an early ship seems like suicide.
 

ReaperAlex

ReaperAlex
TYK said:
I have taken down an NPC anaconda with the help of the system authority. You need to wolf pack - one of you is going to be drawing fire and needs to be in full-on evasive mode with everything in engines in shields. The other two need to be blowing the snot out of the thing while that is happening. Periodically the most dangerous guy is going to switch. You need to make sure that happens at regular intervals to make sure the damage is only to shields, and he's not getting down to the hull. The best way to draw fire is to park (get yourself speed-locked) directly behind their thrusters as close as you can and just lay on the fire button until he rotates.

And then you need to do this without screwing up for a long time. And if they have a plasma accelerator, just go. JUST GO.

...Kind of not worth it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -




Should probably note that I took out an anaconda at a NAV beacon, taking on those assination missions in an early ship seems like suicide.
Click to expand...
the plasma ball is very slow moving, an absolute killer if it hits you, but liberal (by which i mean constant) use of lateral thrusters kinda makes you immune to them.
 
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