Guide / Tutorial How to dock an Anaconda without risk

Rowander

Rowander
Nice writeup pal. Most people don't notice the bridge position in the Annie and scrap the belly on their first landings.

And remember: don't drive if sleepy.

Yesterday I accidentally pushed the "BOOST" combo when entering the letterbox instead of the "Gear Down" combo. I thought "I'm toast" as the wall in the back of the station was closing in, but a combination of back thrust, heavy nose up (so I hit with the belly instead of the nose) and class 3 shield saved my ship (with 452 tons of gold...). 81% Hull remaining though...

Love the Annie for trading and PVE.
 

Kitfox

Kitfox
cowasaki said:
By landing gear DOWN I mean DOWN as in DEPLOYED/IN USE.... I didn't think DOWN was confusing :S

This brings the docking thrusters into play and also has the useful side effect of turning off BOOST.

- - - Updated - - -

This thread gives a virtually risk free docking procedure for new Anaconda pilots. I'm not suggesting that anyone else's options are wrong just that this works and is nice and precise so taking away the panic.
Click to expand...

You know the lateral thrusters and fore/aft over-rides can be kept active all the time, without need to be attached to undercarriage state?
Whatever I fly, I don't drop the legs until almost on the pad - would rather keep the speed and agility in case the Clipper driving tool is lurking in station again.

Would have thought that by the time someone can afford an Annie they may have figured out how to fly... but hey, what would I know? I've only got to the Python.
 

cowasaki

cowasaki
Kitfox said:
.......Would have thought that by the time someone can afford an Annie they may have figured out how to fly... but hey, what would I know? I've only got to the Python.
Click to expand...

I had a Python before the Anaconda and the Python is easy to dock/undock without any issues whatsoever.

I did scrape the Anaconda a few times when I got it and have seen no end of "problems docking in an Anaconda" posts/thread hence writing up this.

It was no skin off my nose but thought that a few new Anaconda pilots might well find it useful.

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Kitfox said:
You know the lateral thrusters and fore/aft over-rides can be kept active all the time, without need to be attached to undercarriage state?
Whatever I fly, I don't drop the legs until almost on the pad - would rather keep the speed and agility in case the Clipper driving tool is lurking in station again.
Click to expand...

Yes I know you can set it up that way but this is the way I do it plus it works (it also stops the boost button working) and these are my instructions hence they show how I do it. I've said that this isn't the only way to do it just that it works.
 
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Zplintz

Zplintz
Landing gear down when going through the docking bay sounds like a good way to reduce your manoeuvrability, makes your ship taller, can get snagged and sounds like terrible advice to me.

Go through at 100m/s (scraping your cockpit if you need to) and lower landing gear once through.

It seems to me there is a point when you are half in and half out of the docking bay that the lateral thrusters don't work. Go through too slow and you hsve to spend longer without being able to adjust your flight.
 
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Chaz

Chaz
I have my thrusters setup on the hat switch of my HOTAS and only deploy the landing gear when through the slot to slow me down, but anyway, thank you for this.

I used to line up and go through at that height shown in your pics, but the other night I suddenly found that this was causing me to hit the ceiling on exit. Something I haven't done for ages. No idea if FD have been mucking about with some of the parameters but it definitely felt off to me a few nights ago.
 

cowasaki

cowasaki
Zplintz said:
Landing gear down when going through the docking bay sounds like a good way to reduce your manoeuvrability, makes your ship taller, can get snagged and sounds like terribke advice to me.

Go through at 100m/s (scraping your cockpit if you need to) and lower landing gear once through.

It seems to me there is a point when you are half in and half out of the docking bay that the lateral thrusters don't work. Go through too slow and you hsve to spend longer without being able to adjust your flight.
Click to expand...

If the landing gear is still down as I suggest then the thrusters will work even outside the station. The landing gear doesn't catch and I'm not talking about going through at 5m/s or something like that, maybe 50-60m/s and as you leave power up the main engine. I'll add the speed to the instructions, it's a good idea to mention it :)

Oh and if you take it slow and precise you don't need any more manoeuvrability having more allows you to introduce mistakes - just my opinion but it seems to work every time.
 
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Nervous Energy

N
Cargo space is so much, i dont care and use a docking computer, line it up and then let the puter take over, that just me being lazy and web browsing in the time being.
 

Hank

H
Does the docking computer work fairly well with the Conda?
.
When I first get a large ship (and I've only had two - a T7 and Python), I let the DC land me a few times (in solo) to see how it does it. As somebody mentioned above the python is a breeze to land. I was always a bit nervous with the T7.
.
I marvel at how a T9 gets through the slot. That's got to be a nail biter.
.
regarding landing gear ... I've always deployed and retracted landing gear very near the pad. (except at outposts, I deploy sooner since I have to think a little harder to land at outposts - for some reason that escapes me)
.
maybe in the distant future I'll have something as big as an Anaconda. ...later
 

specialsymbol

specialsymbol
Vatos Turkos said:
Why you not use full boost? :rolleyes:
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Most people haven't figure out yet that you can crash-land almost every ship with full pips on shields without significantly slowing down. On outposts I always hit the deck full speed (no boost though), barely leaves a scratch on the shields. Not immersive, but efficient. Raises my profit / hr by at least 5%.
 

Joey2o15

J
Egg90 said:
Well someone had to post it
biggrin.png
Click to expand...

Wonder how many attempts that took.....damn impressive though :)
 
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Makya

Makya
Hank said:
Does the docking computer work fairly well with the Conda?
.
When I first get a large ship (and I've only had two - a T7 and Python), I let the DC land me a few times (in solo) to see how it does it. As somebody mentioned above the python is a breeze to land. I was always a bit nervous with the T7.
.
I marvel at how a T9 gets through the slot. That's got to be a nail biter.
.
regarding landing gear ... I've always deployed and retracted landing gear very near the pad. (except at outposts, I deploy sooner since I have to think a little harder to land at outposts - for some reason that escapes me)
.
maybe in the distant future I'll have something as big as an Anaconda. ...later
Click to expand...
Suprisingly, the T9 is not bad. I started out with a docking computer but removed it for more cargo. It was incredibly slow. I think I bumped my 'head' more going through the slot in a T7.
 

Berty Dastard

Berty Dastard
+1 docking computer

And btw the T9 is easy compared to the Annie

But I'm surprised there is little mention here of the elephant in the room - leaving the station. If you leave too slowly you get locked against the roof of the the entrance, no matter how well you line up, and then have 30 seconds of panic to try to reverse and try again. The thrusters will not work to cure this. If your throttle is set to forward only that's an even bigger problem which can cost you millions :eek:

The only solution is 'combat logging' because you certainly don't have time to do it any other way. When you log back in you are outside the station. This has to be a bug, which ED knows about, and encourages the use of an 'exploit' and breaks the immersion
 
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Zplintz

Zplintz
Berty Dastard said:
+1 docking computer

And btw the T9 is easy compared to the Annie

But I'm surprised there is little mention here of the elephant in the room - leaving the station. If you leave too slowly you get locked against the roof of the the entrance, no matter how well you line up, and then have 30 seconds of panic to try to reverse and try again. The thrusters will not work to cure this. If your throttle is set to forward only that's an even bigger problem which can cost you millions :eek:

The only solution is 'combat logging' because you certainly don't have time to do it any other way. When you log back in you are outside the station. This has to be a bug, which ED knows about, and encourages the use of an 'exploit' and breaks the immersion
Click to expand...

Going slowly was mentioned a few posts back.

You are left outside the station if you combat log inside because it is safer than if you logged back in inside the station. How can this be any less immersion breaking than the fact you just combat logged in the first place.?
 
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SteveMallam

S
I always keep my gear up until I'm through the slot.

I USED to have gears down, until I got the Anaconda... If you catch the landing gear just so on the rack you can explode instantly, no warning, no shield or hull damage, go directly to rebuy. There are a few notes of this on the bugs forum and I lost my first Anaconda (total loss of about 10 million) within an hour or two of buying it.

I'd also recommend docking faster - at or just under 100m/s.
You lose sight of the slot before you're all the way through (in OR out) so it's very difficult to judge when the auto-rotate kicks in (or off, if you're leaving the station).
Going slightly faster minimizes the chance of station rotation trapping you
 
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