Serious proposals on how to reconcile the Anaconda WITHOUT DIRECTLY NERFING IT. (+Jump range)

[ilo]

you know guys you can x2 your FSD jump range using synthesis on your corvettes, right?

 

[zombieapocalypse]

Get rid of all ships except the Cobra MKIII. Then everyone can fly around in the same ship and be happy, just like the original Elite.

 

[Surprised Brony]

you know guys you can x2 your FSD jump range using synthesis on your corvettes, right?

Yeah, we want to farm our behinds off to do that...

My $0.02 FWIW, doing my best to stick with the OP’s instructions...

The Corvette is intended to be the most powerful warship in the game. It weighs 900T and has a base armour of 666. The Anaconda is a multipurpose ship based on a design that is hundreds of years old. It weighs 400T and has a base armour of 945. This is clearly horribly unbalanced. If nerfing the Anaconda is forbidden, I would buff the Corvette’s base armour to around 1100-1200 and knock maybe 150T off its base mass (numbers off the top of my head). This would put the hull/armour ratios somewhere sensible (without making the Corvette itself OP), give the Corvette more of a speed/agility advantage over the Anaconda (it does have this, but not as much as it should) and also help it jump a little further.


Respectfully I agree with Stealthie - it sounds too hand-wavy and arbitrary to introduce a new engineering mod for all ships...except the Anaconda. It rather draws attention to the fact that it is so broken, instead of fixing it. If the hundreds-of-years-old-Anaconda is made from some material that makes it super tough and lightweight...why didn’t everyone else use that in the first place? There is perhaps the argument of cost, but that can’t really apply to the Corvette as it’s more expensive already, not to mention the huge rank wall.

This 100%
The Corvette has a joke of a hull mass/armor ratio.

 

[ilo]

Yeah, we want to farm our behinds off to do that...

Nah, lets get easy mode for the corvettes, they are complex ships to fly after all, clearly seen in the forums by the lots of people complaining about every single bit of them needing a buff

Sorry GraXXor, I'll stop here.

 

[Arkadi]

I'll just like to add, if all this rebalancing should be done around the OPConda, so most ships will get even better and considering new engineers will also give most cmdrs the possiblity to get much better ships, that it should not be forgotten to also buff the NPCs. Else the power-creep will make PvE a total joke.

 

[Numenor1379]

I'll just like to add, if all this rebalancing should be done around the OPConda, so most ships will get even better and considering new engineers will also give most cmdrs the possiblity to get much better ships, that it should not be forgotten to also buff the NPCs. Else the power-creep will make PvE a total joke.

Idealy any buff to the base ship would pass on to the NPCs flying them as well.

 

[ilo]

Idealy any buff to the base ship would pass on to the NPCs flying them as well.

FSD jump has been cheated on NPCs since day 1, hence any NPC ship can follow you no matter your/their jump range.

 

[Flyinspaghetti]

Here is my serious proposal,

Anaconda is op and everybody knows it. That is why condabois are so fiercely defending against nerfs.

I am a balancetard. Either pull the other big ships in line with the conda or make the condas hull mass something that makes sense.

The reason why they shouldn't nerf any ship is not everyone is in the comfort of the bubble, a downward change could mean some people become literally stranded in particular spots with millions in exploration data.

What needs to happen is the other large ships need to be made more appealing:

The Corvette (in fact every Fed ship) should get a buff to jump range. Not too much of a buff but if somehow around 40 ly at the top end was possible.

T9 needs a buff to it's cargo capacity so it edges out a Cutter but it would also need it's optimal mass tweaked so it also edges the cutter out in terms of laden jump range.

The beluga doesn't need much of a buff to jump range (a couple of light years wouldn't hurt) but it does need an extra class 5 optional slot at least to make it more versatile.

The Cutter as mentioned already has major benefits not in jump range but in carry capacity, and it's jump range isn't too bad. Any jump range buffs they need to be careful they balance dedicated trading ships appropriately also.

What else we need is new non-combat large ship that's an Anaconda beater, an exploration ship that has plenty of room for a fighter bay/SRV/AMFU's etc so you can do all the things the Conda is good for while also having a larger jump range but being much weaker at combat & not really being a trader/passenger ship either. I would of said just buff the Beluga and give it a 65 ly+ jump range however we really need a more dedicated exploration vessel as a step up for the Asp's and Diamondbacks.

I'm really hoping that's something that's on course for the future updates, it would be a shame for Frontier not to address the issues or give us another bunch of inferior ships to everyone's favorite.

 

[StiTch]

Grow a pair and fix the Anaconda's weight.
Anything else will be stealth power creep by another name.

It's this habit of playing around with the symptoms instead of addressing the root causes that creates these messes in the first place.

Mass has surprisingly little to do with this.

I mean let's be honest here bro, who in the seven circles of hell gives a flying crap whether the 'conda jumps well, and when unladen only? Because that's the whole point of its low mass. Low mass+low FSD class=good jump range which drops off heavily when you start applying mass. A combat 'conda jumps no further than a combat cutter.

The only people that can't seem to deal with the low mass are the ones whose minds bend at the thought a game might feature unrealistic physics/figures. It's a game, go figure.

How about we address the fact it has a C8 distributor on top of an excellent hardpoint array? If people are losing their mind over the fact the 'vette is supposed to be the premier combat ship, but being real they are never gonna get the point n' win ship they are deluded into thinking they're entitled to, why are we not looking at a multirole (that should jump well) that has the firepower of a dedicated combat equivalent?

 

[GraXXoR]

I really dont think the conda should get a nerf, people are out there now and part of their enjoyment comes from the jump range and how fast they can travel.

One thing I dont get is why those same people dont want other ships (like the vette) to have a slight increase in jump range (to about 25ly combat fit). We have people flying condas to stations and then paying to drag their vettes there as it is so tedious, is that the elite universe people really want? From my own point of view I love a good combat CG and with my current range I can fly there in one play session, then I usually get to play it for one or two more play sessions and then its another play session just to fly back. That isnt balancing combat ships, that is just making players spend half of their playtime travelling while another ship gets there on day one and can enjoy it immediately.

I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would be against a minor increase for the slower ships

Frontier will never** add another ship as broken as Anaconda. Best we can do, is try and have everything else at least in the same ballpark. I find it remarkable, that people endlessly complain newbies make a beeline for Anaconda, but don't seem to think it's broken? Clearly not. I mean, hundreds (thousands?) of players all charging headlong for the exact same ship just has to be a coincidence, right? Sure.

There are a few ways Frontier can do this; but if they aren't going to nudge Anaconda, and this is pretty evidently the case, then everything else needs to be consistent with that decision. Otherwise everything ever added will never reach the same potential.

There is an outlier and just leaving it that way, isn't constructive. But nudging the entirety of the rest of the fleet, to better align with that, as much as it's power creep, is probably the way to go. It provides more options, reduces the undue influence and settles the game into a bit more of a contextually better experience.

Ultimately, they did that with engineering. I think they probably just need to revise all the ships, to have them contextually relevant to the outlier; because then it ceases to be one.

--

** except that one time they gave type-7 a class 6 everything and broke the entire everything. And even that still couldn't compete with Anaconda for range (it got close, though!). lol

Please explain for the benefit of someone who has been playing since only last June: What did they nerf the Python down from? Because as grossly over-capable as I personally believe the Python to be, I'm genuinely interested to know what it used to be like.

The Anaconda is made out of Hutton Mugs which is why it is so light. That's what the representative told me at Hutton Orbital when I picked up my free Anaconda.

Grow a pair and fix the Anaconda's weight.
Anything else will be stealth power creep by another name.

It's this habit of playing around with the symptoms instead of addressing the root causes that creates these messes in the first place.

I don't think that other ships need the ability to remove 33% of their hull mass. Some of them would just become ridiculous.

As for the proposed solution, what drawback did the Anaconda suffer for It's hypothetical engineering work? Something needs to be directly nerfed for this solution unless the Anaconda has a crippling weakness I'm unaware of.

A stock Federal Dropship is 180 tonnes HEAVIER compared to a stock Anaconda...

I will let that sink in for a second.

So you take an anaconda and duct tape a t-6 on it ( which is a medium ship btw too lol ) and you are still 25 tonnes short of a federal dropship.

Does not compute.

That's a very one-sided view. The conda steers like a pig (which is why a lot of explorers hate it) and nowhere near as well as a corvette, which is better able to bring its twin huge top mounted hard points to bear. The corvette has substantially larger internal space that supports a gargantuan quantity of SCBs and hull reinforcements (and makes it a better short haul trader), a larger shield that is practically impenetrable if set up properly plus an extra military slot. If there's an OP ship in this game the corvette is it.

The one thing the conda does better than anything else is jump range. You can't kill anything with jump range AFAIK, calling it "op" is rather a stretch. You've got to look at the entire package, not just cherry pick a stat you don't like.

The way I see it, the Corvette is supposed to be the premier combat ship, the Cutter a premier multirole...of the three ranks of the pilot's federation, there's no premiere exploration ship. And no fathomable reason why the warship (Corvettte) should have less armor (666) than a multirole like the Anaconda (a whopping 945.) I'd say swap these numbers (maybe rounding up to 700 for the Anaconda and 950-1000 for the Corvette) and leave the rest alone, including the Anaconda's jump range.

Should arbitrary hull hardness values be dispensed with, while we're at it? Or is that a fudge factor you're ok with?

Because it was truely amazing. It was the medium equivalent of the Anaconda; every bit as broken.

But it was too much of a good thing, it really was. And frontier clobbered it. Probably a bit hard? But rightly so. And just quietly? Frontier know they should have addressed Anaconda then too, but didn't. And it's damed everything else as a consequence. They made a choice. It hasn't aged well.

Frontier fundimentally has two ways to solve an outlier; nerf it (which they are not going to do, they just aren't) or change the median, so it's no-longer the outlier. The latter, which would see across the board changes to virtually every ship, is probably long overdue, and neatly reduces the distortion of the one, and improves the value of the many.

Possibly not the worst thing Frontier could do, by a long shot.

Searching in vain for an ON TOPIC POST.
fails miserably.

You guys suck. Lol.

Seriously though. Can we stick to the topic.

 

[GraXXoR]

Nah hull hardness is a completely arbitrary fudge factor with the Fer-de-lance a clear outlier. Its sole purpose is as a tool for FD to balance the combat effectiveness of individual ships.

Does a 500 year old design have to remain exactly the same? Or is it likely that perhaps a modern anaconda will have been refined with thousands of advances in materials, construction and components? Modern passenger aircraft are a real life example of how technical advances have improved the range of a base design, over time.

And yet all the modern ships FAIL to do this?

Sigh again. Why do people keep making the same point again and again.

 

[StiTch]

Searching in vain for an ON TOPIC POST.
fails miserably.

You guys suck. Lol.

Seriously though. Can we stick to the topic.

I would be inclined to agree with you, but saying "let's find a way forward without discussing existing balance" is difficult when the problem is the existing balance.

'conda is not a combat vessel. However it has the distributor and hardpoints of a combat equivalent vessel. As one of FD's favoured children, that is unlikely to change.

One can try to build something fancy on the top of it, but that is one hell of a fundamental imbalance to address without nerfing or buffing one or the other. The one thing I agree with is that buffing the 'vette is not the answer.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Mass has surprisingly little to do with this.

I mean let's be honest here bro, who in the seven circles of hell gives a flying crap whether the 'conda jumps well when unladen only? Because that's the whole point of its low mass. Low mass+low FSD class=good jump range which drops off heavily when you start applying mass. A combat 'conda jumps no further than a combat cutter.

How about we address the fact it has a C8 distributor on top of an excellent hardpoint array? If people are losing their mind over the fact the 'vette is supposed to be the premier combat ship, but being real they are never gonna get the point n' win ship they are deluded into thinking they're entitled to, why are we not looking at a multirole (that should jump well) that has the firepower of a dedicated combat equivalent?

People lose their minds over all sorts of things and coming up with weird and wonderful fixes that may or may not address the issue and may or may not introduce another outlier somewhere else isn't as sound as fixing the core problem.
The trouble here is that the original design flaws around these hidden stats have been amplified by subsequent development and any attempt to fix them will result in Sodium Gomorrah if FD attempt to touch anyone's favourite ship.

My preference would be for FD to review ships as a whole; hidden stats, module types, slot layouts, etc., and be very transparent about the principles behind them and what changes they would like to make.
If the principles are sound, then any nerfs or buffs that result from them are justified and I'd back them.

Any inconsistencies in the principles would be very quickly jumped on and highlighted.

 

[JonathanBurnage]

Mass has surprisingly little to do with this.

I mean let's be honest here bro, who in the seven circles of hell gives a flying crap whether the 'conda jumps well when unladen only? Because that's the whole point of its low mass. Low mass+low FSD class=good jump range which drops off heavily when you start applying mass. A combat 'conda jumps no further than a combat cutter.

How about we address the fact it has a C8 distributor on top of an excellent hardpoint array? If people are losing their mind over the fact the 'vette is supposed to be the premier combat ship, but being real they are never gonna get the point n' win ship they are deluded into thinking they're entitled to, why are we not looking at a multirole (that should jump well) that has the firepower of a dedicated combat equivalent?

To which I would add, if the Anaconda's mass were increased, the subsequent reduction in its jump range would render many visited systems unreachable. Like it or not, people have been to systems only the Anaconda can reach and set records that could only be achieved with an Anaconda. The genie is out of the bottle - we can't put it back.

 

[GraXXoR]

I really dont think the conda should get a nerf, people are out there now and part of their enjoyment comes from the jump range and how fast they can travel.

One thing I dont get is why those same people dont want other ships (like the vette) to have a slight increase in jump range (to about 25ly combat fit). We have people flying condas to stations and then paying to drag their vettes there as it is so tedious, is that the elite universe people really want? From my own point of view I love a good combat CG and with my current range I can fly there in one play session, then I usually get to play it for one or two more play sessions and then its another play session just to fly back. That isnt balancing combat ships, that is just making players spend half of their playtime travelling while another ship gets there on day one and can enjoy it immediately.

I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would be against a minor increase for the slower ships

Frontier will never** add another ship as broken as Anaconda. Best we can do, is try and have everything else at least in the same ballpark. I find it remarkable, that people endlessly complain newbies make a beeline for Anaconda, but don't seem to think it's broken? Clearly not. I mean, hundreds (thousands?) of players all charging headlong for the exact same ship just has to be a coincidence, right? Sure.

There are a few ways Frontier can do this; but if they aren't going to nudge Anaconda, and this is pretty evidently the case, then everything else needs to be consistent with that decision. Otherwise everything ever added will never reach the same potential.

There is an outlier and just leaving it that way, isn't constructive. But nudging the entirety of the rest of the fleet, to better align with that, as much as it's power creep, is probably the way to go. It provides more options, reduces the undue influence and settles the game into a bit more of a contextually better experience.

Ultimately, they did that with engineering. I think they probably just need to revise all the ships, to have them contextually relevant to the outlier; because then it ceases to be one.

--

** except that one time they gave type-7 a class 6 everything and broke the entire everything. And even that still couldn't compete with Anaconda for range (it got close, though!). lol

Please explain for the benefit of someone who has been playing since only last June: What did they nerf the Python down from? Because as grossly over-capable as I personally believe the Python to be, I'm genuinely interested to know what it used to be like.

The Anaconda is made out of Hutton Mugs which is why it is so light. That's what the representative told me at Hutton Orbital when I picked up my free Anaconda.

Grow a pair and fix the Anaconda's weight.
Anything else will be stealth power creep by another name.

It's this habit of playing around with the symptoms instead of addressing the root causes that creates these messes in the first place.

I don't think that other ships need the ability to remove 33% of their hull mass. Some of them would just become ridiculous.

As for the proposed solution, what drawback did the Anaconda suffer for It's hypothetical engineering work? Something needs to be directly nerfed for this solution unless the Anaconda has a crippling weakness I'm unaware of.

A stock Federal Dropship is 180 tonnes HEAVIER compared to a stock Anaconda...

I will let that sink in for a second.

So you take an anaconda and duct tape a t-6 on it ( which is a medium ship btw too lol ) and you are still 25 tonnes short of a federal dropship.

Does not compute.

That's a very one-sided view. The conda steers like a pig (which is why a lot of explorers hate it) and nowhere near as well as a corvette, which is better able to bring its twin huge top mounted hard points to bear. The corvette has substantially larger internal space that supports a gargantuan quantity of SCBs and hull reinforcements (and makes it a better short haul trader), a larger shield that is practically impenetrable if set up properly plus an extra military slot. If there's an OP ship in this game the corvette is it.

The one thing the conda does better than anything else is jump range. You can't kill anything with jump range AFAIK, calling it "op" is rather a stretch. You've got to look at the entire package, not just cherry pick a stat you don't like.

The way I see it, the Corvette is supposed to be the premier combat ship, the Cutter a premier multirole...of the three ranks of the pilot's federation, there's no premiere exploration ship. And no fathomable reason why the warship (Corvettte) should have less armor (666) than a multirole like the Anaconda (a whopping 945.) I'd say swap these numbers (maybe rounding up to 700 for the Anaconda and 950-1000 for the Corvette) and leave the rest alone, including the Anaconda's jump range.

Should arbitrary hull hardness values be dispensed with, while we're at it? Or is that a fudge factor you're ok with?

Because it was truely amazing. It was the medium equivalent of the Anaconda; every bit as broken.

But it was too much of a good thing, it really was. And frontier clobbered it. Probably a bit hard? But rightly so. And just quietly? Frontier know they should have addressed Anaconda then too, but didn't. And it's damed everything else as a consequence. They made a choice. It hasn't aged well.

Frontier fundimentally has two ways to solve an outlier; nerf it (which they are not going to do, they just aren't) or change the median, so it's no-longer the outlier. The latter, which would see across the board changes to virtually every ship, is probably long overdue, and neatly reduces the distortion of the one, and improves the value of the many.

Possibly not the worst thing Frontier could do, by a long shot.

My $0.02 FWIW, doing my best to stick with the OP’s instructions...

The Corvette is intended to be the most powerful warship in the game. It weighs 900T and has a base armour of 666. The Anaconda is a multipurpose ship based on a design that is hundreds of years old. It weighs 400T and has a base armour of 945. This is clearly horribly unbalanced. If nerfing the Anaconda is forbidden, I would buff the Corvette’s base armour to around 1100-1200 and knock maybe 150T off its base mass (numbers off the top of my head). This would put the hull/armour ratios somewhere sensible (without making the Corvette itself OP), give the Corvette more of a speed/agility advantage over the Anaconda (it does have this, but not as much as it should) and also help it jump a little further.


Respectfully I agree with Stealthie - it sounds too hand-wavy and arbitrary to introduce a new engineering mod for all ships...except the Anaconda. It rather draws attention to the fact that it is so broken, instead of fixing it. If the hundreds-of-years-old-Anaconda is made from some material that makes it super tough and lightweight...why didn’t everyone else use that in the first place? There is perhaps the argument of cost, but that can’t really apply to the Corvette as it’s more expensive already, not to mention the huge rank wall.

Thank you. First poster in twenty posts to actually stick to the topic. It’s like a bloody secondary school mess hall in here.

That’s the point the anaconda and other outliers already could have some of the mods applied from the factory to account for the discrepancies. The Anaconda is free to remove the mod to get some hardness back (at the expense of some weight or it could apply a different mod, way high density hull or some such instead.


Multi quote is broken. Sorry.

 

[ErichZann]

Shouldn't the easiest fix, that also leaves all parties kind of satisfied, be to simply reduce the armor value of the Anaconda by a reasonable amount, let's say 30% or so (even 40 would be ok)? That wouldn't be too harsh of a nerf, but would make it a bit more realistic.

 

[GraXXoR]

Can't happen. This thread comes from another one where the exact reason to discuss the conda's weight was to justify a buff in the corvette FSD, and slowly keeps drifting towards the same point again.

Thank you, Lord for bringing someone who actually read the OP and stuck to the topic!
+Rep.

 

[Numenor1379]

People lose their minds over all sorts of things and coming up with weird and wonderful fixes that may or may not address the issue and may or may not introduce another outlier somewhere else isn't as sound as fixing the core problem.
The trouble here is that the original design flaws around these hidden stats have been amplified by subsequent development and any attempt to fix them will result in Sodium Gomorrah if FD attempt to touch anyone's favourite ship.

My preference would be for FD to review ships as a whole; hidden stats, module types, slot layouts, etc., and be very transparent about the principles behind them and what changes they would like to make.
If the principles are sound, then any nerfs or buffs that result from them are justified and I'd back them.

Any inconsistencies in the principles would be very quickly jumped on and highlighted.

The only way to do this would require a game wide mass rebalance. Then the Anaconda would need it's FSD size increased such that it's jump range would be equal to what we have now, but with it's new increased mass. I don't know if a 7A would get a 600-700T ship to +65ly range, it might need an 8A.

 

[GraXXoR]

Shouldn't the easiest fix, that also leaves all parties kind of satisfied, be to simply reduce the armor value of the Anaconda by a reasonable amount, let's say 30% or so (even 40 would be ok)? That wouldn't be too harsh of a nerf, but would make it a bit more realistic.

FDEV are pretty adamant that they will not nerf the Annie, not will the buff the corvette. Sandro has said those two ships are where they are and they’re going to stay that way.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

I think a simple way out would be a Conda 2.
The Mk2 could be the same but 600t instead of 400t. (as it presumably should have been)

All future sales of Condas would be the new improved (lol) MK 2 and all replacements would also be the MK 2, those that have and wish to keep their OP ships better stay outta trouble as the rebuy screen will only offer the replacement MK2.

Can you buy a new MK1 Escort from Ford?