Looking for a recent (non-dated), solid Anaconda PvE build.

Soothsayer

Soothsayer
I'm kind of having trouble deciding what to fit as far as weapons, utility mounts, and internals are concerned. Most of the material I'm finding online is quite old, and was posted before the extremely recent SCB nerf. I'm wondering if using three 6A SCBs is still a viable option, for example -- and whether I should use chaff, or simply stack shield cell boosters. I'm also wanting a class 4 PA, but I've heard it can be a bit tricky to outfit and use.
 

Fendalton

Fendalton
8A PP
All Turreted Pulse Lasers
Best Shield
Stack Shield Boosters
2nd monitor so you can watch TV shows while you farm credits in nearly all PvE engagements.

/thread
 

CMDR Noodles

C
The old builds will work just fine.


http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=706,7...0_g0_g,2-CgB69Y8SCgD88I,7Vs7jw7jw7jw7iM7iM7iM

The SCB change has barely changed the PVE meta for large ships at all. The only difference being that you'll need to pop your SCBs a tad earlier than normal, and you'll only want one on at a time. Just cycle the empty ones off to turn on the new ones. You won't even need to stop firing when you pop it, despite what people say. The worst that happens is you get a couple % module damage, which is absolutely nothing to worry about.

The easiest, fastest-kill-per-hour-no-nonsense only-derp-skill-required pve build will be gimballed pulses and the C4 cannon (which is what I posted). For internals, fill everything Class 5 and up with SCBs, and everything lower with hull reinforcements (or nothing. Your shields should never go down anyway). Utils are all Shield Boosters. D-class sensors and life support, everything else A.

There's certainly more fun builds out there, but this one is for pure efficiency. Another efficient but more fun variant would be to replace the 7A Shield Gen with a 7C Bi-weave and use a 4A Plasma accelerator in lieu of the Cannon; the power usage is virtually identical, though the capacitor drain suffers.
 
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Soothsayer

Soothsayer
CMDR Noodles said:
The old builds will work just fine.


http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=706,7...0_g0_g,2-CgB69Y8SCgD88I,7Vs7jw7jw7jw7iM7iM7iM

The SCB change has barely changed the PVE meta for large ships at all. The only difference being that you'll need to pop your SCBs a tad earlier than normal, and you'll only want one on at a time. Just cycle the empty ones off to turn on the new ones. You won't even need to stop firing when you pop it, despite what people say. The worst that happens is you get a couple % module damage, which is absolutely nothing to worry about.

The easiest, fastest-kill-per-hour-no-nonsense only-derp-skill-required pve build will be gimballed pulses and the C4 cannon (which is what I posted). For internals, fill everything Class 5 and up with SCBs, and everything lower with hull reinforcements (or nothing. Your shields should never go down anyway). Utils are all Shield Boosters. D-class sensors and life support, everything else A.

There's certainly more fun builds out there, but this one is for pure efficiency. Another efficient but more fun variant would be to replace the 7A Shield Gen with a 7C Bi-weave and use a 4A Plasma accelerator in lieu of the Cannon; the power usage is virtually identical, though the capacitor drain suffers.
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I've been trying to get the hang of the C4 PA. It's fun, but tough to use -- I can imagine it being pretty useful against larger ships, but capacitor drain is a bit of an issue. I took out another Anaconda just now and sniped his power plant, so it's definitely great in at least some circumstances.
 

crushdepth

C
New things for anaconda builds:


Try a biweave shield + some shield boosters. This will give you the equivalent of A class shield or better that also regenerates 50 % faster. This makes waiting for shield to regenerate much less painful if you are shooting things up at a RES etc.


If you run SCBs now, you need a heat sink launcher to cool the ship immediately after discharging a cell, or you'll probably overheat.


Weapons...well anything will work really. But two builds I like are:


1. Gimballed pulse lasers on the top / side mounts (2 x large, 2 medium) and fixed pulse lasers on the underslung mounts (2 x large, 2 x small), in separate fire groups. You can dogfight indefinitely with the gimbals or pound long range targets with the fixed. And if a ship gets into your sights you can light them up with both batteries.


2. Gimballed pulse lasers on top and side mounts / turrets underneath. If a target out turns or overshoots you in a head to head, you just roll the ship to bring your turrets to bear and they keep getting hit.
 

CMDR Noodles

C
PA's are all right for PVE provided you can make cap room for them, but honestly I haven't found an Anaconda build that works well with it while giving you a long time in a CZ without needing ammo.

The only reliable way I've found to have enough cap for a lot of PA action is to use multis when possible, but then you're needing to re-arm every 20 minutes.

Oh, and you need no ammo other than something for your point defenses.
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Why on earth would anyone need point defenses for PvE?
 
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Soothsayer

Soothsayer
CMDR Rasputin said:
Turrets are terrible when you have an agile ship that can keep fixed and gimballed guns on target 100% of the time. Then you give up a good chunk of DPS.

Turrets are by no means terrible when installed on an Annie. You aren't flying a fighter, so you shouldn't let the small fry dictate your movements by making you chase them around with your nose. Turrets cover nearly all blind spots and ensure that something is always shooting at your opponent no matter where he is relative to you. And pulse lasers' low energy requirements offset the fact that turrets have no trigger discipline.
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Honestly, after using the Anaconda for an hour or so, I can say I'm really not having any real issues keeping my targets facing me most of the time. I'm using a combination of gimballed pulse and burst lasers, along with a gimballed C4 cannon. Seems to be working pretty well. The Anaconda is actually surprisingly nimble -- I thought it'd be significantly more cumbersome than it turned out to be.
 

CMDR Noodles

C
Soothsayer said:
Honestly, after using the Anaconda for an hour or so, I can say I'm really not having any real issues keeping my targets facing me most of the time. I'm using a combination of gimballed pulse and burst lasers, along with a gimballed C4 cannon. Seems to be working pretty well. The Anaconda is actually surprisingly nimble -- I thought it'd be significantly more cumbersome than it turned out to be.
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I wouldn't bother with turrets unless you plan to spend a lot of time AFK in a lo-res. Otherwise just maneuvering well and using boost appropriately will be plenty, as you've discovered.
 

Bacalao

Bacalao
This is my current build, it's really been working for me lately. The SCBs are totally optional but let me take on heavy wings without sweating it at all. I find the heat sink launchers to be extremely useful for managing my heat when I want to keep shooting my PAC and fire off the two powered SCBs. The damage from heat may seem negligible but after a couple banks worth you're going to have a lot of malfunctions, so having the heat sinks to minimize it really helps.
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PAC for big ships, multis for small ships. The pulse/burst combo suits my capacitor/heat management very well and gives me a little more punch than just the pulse lasers.
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You just need to experiment, figure out what works for you but never stop changing things up entirely, stagnation is booooring.
 

ocflyer

ocflyer
CMDR Rasputin said:
Turrets are terrible when you have an agile ship that can keep fixed and gimballed guns on target 100% of the time. Then you give up a good chunk of DPS.

Turrets are by no means terrible when installed on an Annie. You aren't flying a fighter, so you shouldn't let the small fry dictate your movements by making you chase them around with your nose. Turrets cover nearly all blind spots and ensure that something is always shooting at your opponent no matter where he is relative to you. And pulse lasers' low energy requirements offset the fact that turrets have no trigger discipline.

You'll want one fixed or gimballed laser though, I recommend the one below the tip of the nose. Turrets won't shoot until the enemy turns hostile, so you can use a gimballed laser as a sort of a target designator.

Cannon and PA... are fun in theory but you spend too much time lining up shots. And if you miss, there goes DPS time, and a chunk of your capacitor. You can just as well snipe power plants with pulse lasers (they are great vs. modules; just make sure you're positioned appropriately to actually HIT the power plant). It really doesn't matter that you break the hull slower. Without a PP, even the meanest ship will hang there waiting for you to deal with it at your leisure.

The "Star Destroyer" build (all pulse turrets + 1 gimbal for target designation) lets you have three pips in weapons, 1.5 pips in systems and .5 pips in engines, and you can literally shoot forever while maintaining some sort of recharge to shields. It melts the annoying small fry as soon as you look in its general direction (small fry being anything from Clipper on down), and surgically excises modules from Pythons and Anacondas. Naturally, you can't be stupid and have a face-to-face duel with an enemy Conda or something else carrying powerful forward-facing weapons because you'll never hit the power plant from the front, and the NPC will wreck your hull. But so long as you can position yourself above or below them, they'll go dark in no time.

SCBs are fine too, even if you take a little heat damage... you can always carry an AFMU and fix it up on the fly after you are done with a fight.

Oh, and you need no ammo other than something for your point defenses. Have a couple of those, because missiles are annoying. You are basically constrained by how long your hull would last and your own patience.
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There is no star destroyer build possible because star destroyers used manned turrets.
 

Soothsayer

Soothsayer
Kind of decided to go back to my C4 PA after trying a C4 gimballed cannon. The damage cannons deal appears to be very... inconsistent. I'll deal respectable damage at times, but they seem to be notorious for inflicting only ~1 - 2% hull damage, even with perpendicular shots. I tested it out on a Python whose power plant I blew out, and it really underwhelmed me. Maybe they'd be better if their velocity and tracking weren't horrific.
 
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GilliganTX

GilliganTX
Soothsayer said:
Kind of decided to go back to my C4 PA after trying a C4 gimballed cannon. The damage cannons deal appears to be very... inconsistent. I'll deal respectable damage at times, but they seem to be notorious for inflicting only ~1 - 2% hull damage, even with perpendicular shots. I tested it out on a Python whose power plant I blew out, and it really underwhelmed me. Maybe they'd be better if their velocity and tracking weren't horrific.
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Cannons took an indirect nerf in 1.5/2.0, due to the direct buff of bulkheads and HRP's. They still do great module damage, but hull damage is pretty weak now.
 

d8veh

d8veh
My advice would be that you shouldn't take turrets anywhere near a bounty hunting site or else it'll be you that gets bounty hunted as soon as a NPC flies in their path, which doesn't take long.
 
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