Out of touch explorer wondering about Anaconda range...

AgingGamer

AgingGamer
I'm back playing a bit of Elite Dangerous after a three year absence, and I have questions about re-fitting my Anaconda for a bit more range. I don't want to spend months grinding and then strip down my ship to an empty shell to min-max my way to some version of perfection, but my current config is apparently a long way from current 'best practice'

I have an engineered 6A Frame shift drive and a stock 5A power distributor. My maximum jump range is 42 ly. What cool new things are there since 2017 / 3303 that might increase my range without too much fuss?
 

baqar79

baqar79
They have changed the engineering system to be a lot more friendly, so that every roll gives you an upgrade as opposed to the older system (I remember rolling 200 G5 FSD upgrades and not getting an upgrade).

The reason I bring this up is that the G5 FSD upgrades using the new system are better than any other upgrade possible in the older system, so I would recommend upgrading your 6A FSD. Legacy G5 modules however when upgraded to the new systems format lose a level and start at the end of the last level (ie if your 6A FSD is G5, when you reroll it in the new system it first downgrades it to G4 and then rolls the upgrade).

Material traders have also made the grind a lot better since you can trade higher level materials for lower level materials. If you remember the difficulties in getting G3 Cracked Industrial Firmware, well you can now trade the G5 Modified Embedded Firmware for G3 Cracked Industrial Firmware with each G5 MEF giving 9 CIF's in exchange. Unfortunately trading G5 to G5 materials is pretty terrible, but overall the system is a big improvement over what was there before.

I don't feel like it was too much of a grind, but the Guardian FSD boosters are hugely beneficial to jump range as they add a flat bonus that is unaffected by weight. You need to grab the blueprints and then go to a Guardian Technology Trader to unlock them (they can be found spread around in the bubble, but I recommend LHS 20, Ohm City since it also provides a 15% discount on the modules as well as super cheap power plants). I found this guide on the forums (I think I used another one), but it seems fairly detailed at a glance: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/simple-guide-for-unlocking-all-of-the-guardian-tech.437846/

I think the easiest way to get more range is to lightweight engineer everything that can be lightweighted and focus on using power efficient modules and power priorities so that you can drop down the size of the powerplant.

My 73 LY build has reasonable shields and some offensive capability for the occasional bit of PvE combat. 0E shield boosters are incredibly efficient and lightweight, so I used them to boost my shields considerably without trading too much weight in exchange.
 
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Orvidius

Orvidius
Definitely get the Guardian FSD booster. Following one of the guides, you can do it in less than 2 hours. And once unlocked, you can buy it in any available size, from then on. The size-5 booster will add a flat 10.5 lightyears to your ship's range.

While you can min/mix an anaconda to 80+ lightyear jump range these days, that's not really a "fun" build in my opinion. You can make a reasonably robust exploration build with all of the toys and still get somewhere in the 70-75 range. I'd consider that to be the more reasonable target.
 

CptArcher

CptArcher
I built an Anaconda. Only took it to Colonia then to SagA* and back with a stop at Anders Strong G HD 148937 , but it handled the trip very well and I am happy with it's performance and landed on an ominous 9.77G world with ease. I didn't think I'd like the Anaconda as an explorer but I love it. It can do 75.60 LY filled up with fuel. 75.60 LY
 

AgingGamer

AgingGamer
Wow: 70 Ly jumps sound pretty amazing. Frankly, I'd be happy with anything over 50, but it sounds like the Guardian FSD is the thing I should figure out.

Thank you for all the good advice- I'll go check out that guide baqar79 mentions and see what kind of trouble I can get into ;)
 

baqar79

baqar79
I didn't read through that guide thoroughly myself (but I feel a bit more inspired so am heading their now myself to try unlocking the Guardian Power Distributor).

Just in case it isn't clear, the guide is for unlocking all blueprints, but you only need to unlock the FSD Booster (cropped from that same guide):
fsd booster.png

So once you have all of those materials and those 8 HN Shock Mount commodities, you visit the Guardian Technology broker to unlock that module (and it will unlock all sizes for that module). To access the new Guardian module, just check the normal shop itself (at any Guardian Technology broker) and it should be under FSD boosters (If I'm remembering this correctly!).

EDIT: That Guardian site in the guide is currently on the dark side of the planet. Another useful feature that FD has added is Night Vision mode which will help here. You can access the controls on the right hand panel when you're in the SRV, though you can assign a key to it as well.
SRV Night Vision.jpg
 
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baqar79

baqar79
alexzk said:
My 72+ ship
https://edsy.org/#/L=F65jTpJv0H4C0S...7N_W01LUA50nG450nF452jwG590_W0,Electra,KNTIKI
Can never return to humans for months or years. For 3G+ planets use fighters to look down.

With all those long jumpers - there is 1 trick - you will have not enough power for all modules. So you need to setup properly. For example, when you do repairs you dont need FSD/booster. When you're in space you don't need SRV etc.
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Your underselling your ship (well I'm overselling my own!) it looks like it can nearly hit 75 Light years. If you can get Lori jameson, or one of the Colonia engineers to give you G4 or G5 Lightweight life support you can get the extra Light Seconds you need to claim you have a 75 LY ship. ;)
 

alexzk

A
baqar79 said:
Your underselling your ship (well I'm overselling my own!) it looks like it can nearly hit 75 Light years. If you can get Lori jameson, or one of the Colonia engineers to give you G4 or G5 Lightweight life support you can get the extra Light Seconds you need to claim you have a 75 LY ship. ;)
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Really ? :D I just don't have all them unlocked ... maybe I should do.
Actually fighter bay takes there some like 2-3ly. So you can just get 1 more AMFU, I had that when build was less then 72 with figher. 72 feels like magic number for me :D Can't use less.
 

baqar79

baqar79
osser said:
Is there any way to do the guardian boost from colonia?
Click to expand...
Someone else may know better, but it doesn't look like there is:

Guardian Structures - Colonia - Elite Dangerous Utilities

Elite Dangerous Utilities - Location of all the known Guardian Structures, taken from the Canonn website. Guardian structures provides a means to retrieve Guardian Blueprints for various engine parts.
elitedangerous.hozbase.co.uk elitedangerous.hozbase.co.uk
From what I could find there are Guardian ruins half-way between Sol and Colonia, but the right sort of ruin for module blueprints ("Turtle" map from what I can see) have only been found around near Sol.
 

Dr. Nagi

Dr. Nagi
AgingGamer said:
Wow: 70 Ly jumps sound pretty amazing. Frankly, I'd be happy with anything over 50, but it sounds like the Guardian FSD is the thing I should figure out.

Thank you for all the good advice- I'll go check out that guide baqar79 mentions and see what kind of trouble I can get into ;)
Click to expand...
Over 50 is something you can reach with most ships today. If you're happy with that I'd reccommend getting an Orca ;)
 

MattG

MattG
Orvidius said:
While you can min/mix an anaconda to 80+ lightyear jump range these days, that's not really a "fun" build in my opinion.
Click to expand...

You've not lived if you haven't tried landing a PaperConda on, well, anything that has gravity. 5D thrusters, no boost from the 1D distributor and shields so weak you can knock them out with a sneeze. Definitely "fun". Or traumatic. Definitely one of these. :)

(I do have an 80-something paperconda but I don't use it as an explorer - makes a great taxi from A to B though)
 

Valije

Valije
There are 3 big things to increase the range of your conda:
- Engineering the FSD with G5 increased range + Mass manager experimental.
- Guardian FSD booster.
- Lightweight sensors. Sensors in the anaconda are huge. If you engineer them to shed weight you can gain 6+ ly of range with this module alone.
 

Deleted member 240115

D
One more Anaconda build to look over:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
coriolis.io coriolis.io

As other have said, if you are "happy" with anything over 50 ly, there's plenty of ship choices.

Krait Phantom and the Orca are pretty popular alternatives to the Anaconda, and make pretty nice exploration ships with G5 FSD's and Guardian FSD Boosters.

My suggestion always has been to avoid "paper" builds. Overall the extra 1-2 ly just isn't worth it.
 

AgingGamer

AgingGamer
It has been a while but, at the risk of ‘re-awaking’ a silent thread, I want to thank everyone who posted above. It was all hugely helpful!

To clarify for folks: I’ve had the anaconda for several years, along with a small fleet including a Type 9 and an Orca. I played ’back in the day’ (2016/2017) and am coming back after a lengthy absence, so I’m a weird kind of ‘noob’.

I’ve completed the steps to get my Guardian FSD booster, and my anaconda can now jump slightly over 50 ly: that’s a boost of 10 ly from a few hours of work. Of course now I’m looking at getting closer to 60 ly: it looks like engineering my sensors for weight (which requires unlocking an engineer I’ve never visited) is in my future ;)

It actually took me a lot longer than a few hours to complete, though, as I spent several times that gathering materials with my SRV. This turned out not to be necessary: I only used a handful of refuels to get the one FSD blueprint. But now I’m stocked up to re-fuel, restock, and repair in the future. I also got sidetracked by completing my Elite Trader rank as well as buying a kitting out a ‘medium’ ship (Python) because I wanted something new, but that’s another story.

The guide up above in baqar79’s post was the key info. I only needed one more piece: another map to help me find the all the pillars. For some reason the map referenced was confusing me: the map at this link did the trick for me=>
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/8a8xmo
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/8a8xmo/map_for_guardian_module_blueprint_run_at_synuefe/
 
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alexzk

A
Fleet Carrier is a thing now :D Just visited 2 distant stars ...2000+ below bubble.
However, it is soo slow and hard to jump further, I'm not sure if I will ever go for too long from bubble on it.
I think something above 15000ly in 1 way is no return, unless u will want to mine for a month there.
 

baqar79

baqar79
@AgingGamer
I used that guide myself to get the Power Distributor upgrade at about the same time as posting here, though I have to admit despite the nice map I still had trouble finding my bearings :D

I think you have probably used inara before with engineers since they're been around a long time, but if not they can be useful for figuring out what engineers to unlock:
Lightweight sensors
 
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