Why not switch the class 6 FSD of the Conda to a class 7 while increasing its hull weight to leave its jump range the same while making its hull mass more consistant?
Why not switch the class 6 FSD of the Conda to a class 7 while increasing its hull weight to leave its jump range the same while making its hull mass more consistant?
Not if FD are nice and automatically retcon all current Anacondas to give them the new max FSD. If anything, a lot of players would be happy to see their assets suddenly increase, although be equally upset when they see their rebuy costs also increase.
FDL and Vette far out number those listed by you in PvP.
In fact I've seen ONE other player in the last two weeks bring the Anaconda out for PvP and a Python over a month ago. The multipurpose ships in terms of straight combat do not excel at it.
Because of this I think a non-FSD nerf to the Anaconda should be in order. I'm tired of seeing no real benefits of stepping up to the Corvette or Cutter.
You know it's quite alright to like the conda and not feeling like moving out. It's also, as I said before, quite alright to get a cutter and a corvette too, and so get a better trader, and a better brawler. And have even more gameplay choice overall.
You know it's quite alright to like the conda and not feeling like moving out. It's also, as I said before, quite alright to get a cutter and a corvette too, and so get a better trader, and a better brawler. And have even more gameplay choice overall.
Background for those who haven't read that thread:
That thread has somewhat moved away from the OP question and become a rather heated and unfocussed discussion about the game's state...
Among the "gems" on that thread: anaconda is bug****d, FDEV's integrity as a game developer is dirt, the game is s**t, the readers of this forum lack integrity and are dishonourable...
the list goes on, just as Ziggy Stardust predicted on page one.
In this thread I want proposed solutions ONLY on HOW TO RECONCILE the ANACONDA without any direct nerfs...
It has already been stated that FDEV know that the Annie is OP and that it's too late to nerf it without a spit storm.....
So please, DO NOT discuss the rights and wrongs of current game balance in this thread.
ONLY Solutions to improve balance of other types of ships without unbalancing the game unduly...
Note, please DO NOT include ship specific improvements like:
The Corvette needs an bigger FSD.
The FDL needs to jump further.
The T7 needs to land on a medium pad.
And definitely no
The Anaconda needs a nerf.
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Here are some proposed solutions:
One elegant solution by NW3 made on page 10 of that thread here states
On improving jump ranges, one approach would be to have an engineer who can lighten your hull; that would help a lot. It could also explain the Anaconda: Its magical-lightweight hull has already been engineered to the max and cannot be lightened any further, but other ships can be buffed to a similar extent. As for materials, I'd suggest gathering pieces of anacondite from USSes, where an Anaconda was reduced to scrap.
A later post suggests that the "ORIGINAL" weight of the Anaconda was 600T, engineered fully down to 400T without compromising its strength. Thus other ships should be able to remove 33% from their own weight.
NW3 also adds a few salient changes, some of which have made it into the game.
Multi-role ships should be mediocre-to-good at most tasks, but not excel at any. That means that (because of the Anaconda) all of the other ships need some tweaks, so that the best ones are better than an Anaconda in 1 or 2 metrics.
Explorer ships should have very-good jump ranges and have dedicated slots for exploration tools like scanners and scoops, with enough free slots for SRV hangers, AFMUs, hull repair limpets, etc.
Combat ships should have decent jump ranges, but a fully-armored and weapon-fitted ship should not be able to jump as far as a multi-role ship, because it's HEAVY. It should have a jump range similar to a laden trade ship. Perhaps engineers could offer light-weight mods for armor, shields, and weapons, so you could jump further, but with some sort of a tradeoff.
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Another solution for ship balance would be to offer optional modules that augment specific core functions. One being a Hyperspace Jump Augmenter... It's size could be any class up to the class of the FSD with diminishing returns. Thus the most powerful module would be a grade A module of a class equal to that of the FSD, adding some nominal boost to the optimal mass (33%?) or increasing the maximum fuel allowed per jump.
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Another solution has been supplied by Mengy... It requires no extra game mechanics and achieves pretty much the same as the above Engineer method, but without any effort on part of the players to bring their ships up to Anaconda spec (i.e. engineer their hull to G5).
Frontier will never nerf the Anaconda now, it’s far too popular and is the most flown ship in the game. Probably due to it’s brokenness no doubt. So with that option off the table there is only one other way left to address the imbalance: boost the rest of the fleet up to meet it.
If I were Frontier right now, here is how I would fix the ship design imbalance:
Adjust the hull mass numbers of the fleet downwards to be more in line with the Anaconda’s design, resulting in slight buffs for every other ship. Also where applicable boost some armor values for a few combat ships too.
I’ve played with the math of mass vs jump range and it wouldn’t require huge reductions, in most cases rather minor ones actually. Frontier has actually been doing this gradually, they reduced the DBX hull a while ago (not enough though), they reduced the Beluga hull (again not enough), and just this week they reduced the T7 hull too. They need to go farther to make up for the gross imbalance of the Anaconda.
For example, if the Asp Explorer’s hull was lowered from 280T to 250T (just a 30T reduction, or 11%) it would today jump almost exactly like the Anaconda, no other change needed at all. Similarly if the DBX hull was lowered from 260T to 245T (15T or 6%) it too would jump as far as the Anaconda does. Now drop both exploration ships an extra 5T and suddenly the ships with the word “Explorer” in them have the best jump ranges in the game, not much more than the Anaconda currently but a bit more. And all it took was a small reduction in hull mass, that’s it.
Likewise you could drop the hull mass of the rest of the fleet too, boosting the jump ranges of combat ships and traders alike. They would never jump as far as the Anaconda but they could be much more comparable. The three passenger ships should all jump closer to the Anaconda, still less than it but not by as much as they do now. If I were doing it I’d make the Dolphin jump a bit more than the Orca with the Beluga being a bit behind the Orca. These mass reductions would result in the following rebalancing of the fleet:
The two Explorer ships now jump a tad farther than the Anaconda.
Combat ships all jump more, which is sorely needed.
Trading ships can jump much more when empty and slightly more when loaded.
Passenger ships jump a bit behind the Anaconda but not a lot (Dolphin best, Orca next, then Beluga).
The Anaconda stays right where it’s at, still an OP multirole but much less so when compared to the rest of the fleet.
That’s how I’d address it. Just lower hull mass and boost some combat ship armor values and leave everything else alone, then reassess after that.
Sure, my exploration Anaconda gets 64ly (pre 3.0), but that is with class 3 shield and smallest power plant and distributer possible, and no hardpoints or cargo, and with light weight mod on internal scanners. My combat Anaconda only gets 21ly range, and that's with the same FSD.
The whole premise is that combat ships shouldn't have a huge jump range, and when fitted for combat, the Anaconda does not have a jump range that significantly differs from other combat capable ships.
Anaconda does not need a nerf for this reason. Besides, I though everyone hated the "oil tanker" handling and speed anyway?
When I get back to the bubble next month, I'm going to buy two more. Gold ones.
Sure, my exploration Anaconda gets 64ly (pre 3.0), but that is with class 3 shield and smallest power plant and distributer possible, and no hardpoints or cargo, and with light weight mod on internal scanners. My combat Anaconda only gets 21ly range, and that's with the same FSD.
The whole premise is that combat ships shouldn't have a huge jump range, and when fitted for combat, the Anaconda does not have a jump range that significantly differs from other combat capable ships.
Anaconda does not need a nerf for this reason. Besides, I though everyone hated the "oil tanker" handling and speed anyway?
When I get back to the bubble next month, I'm going to buy two more. Gold ones.
Until someone turns up some lore detailing what materials are used to construct these ships, there is no reason to believe that some hulls are made from materials that are stronger and lighter than others.
This may not be the case, but the Anaconda's mass and integrity alone are not proof of a problem.
A good start would have been keeping the T7 buff that never was, a T7 with a 60 ly range would have put an end to exploration condors, but within 2 posts of 'oh my god, my asp won't be the best anymore,' FD rolled back the buff and dropped its weight instead.
A good start would have been keeping the T7 buff that never was, a T7 with a 60 ly range would have put an end to exploration condors, but within 2 posts of 'oh my god, my asp won't be the best anymore,' FD rolled back the buff and dropped its weight instead.
Been trying to figure out a way of
1) Giving the Anaconda a hull mass that makes sense when compared to other ship
2) Maintaining a similar jump range
By changing FSD size, & adjusting the linear constants and power constants in the Frameshift Drive range formula, without creating results that throw other ships out of whack but no luck, maybe someone better at maths will see a solution
Been trying to figure out a way of
1) Giving the Anaconda a hull mass that makes sense when compared to other ship
2) Maintaining a similar jump range
By changing FSD size, & adjusting the linear constants and power constants in the Frameshift Drive range formula, without creating results that throw other ships out of whack but no luck, maybe someone better at maths will see a solution
Until someone turns up some lore detailing what materials are used to construct these ships, there is no reason to believe that some hulls are made from materials that are stronger and lighter than others.This may not be the case, but the Anaconda's mass and integrity alone are not proof of a problem.
Well there is an existing "hull hardness" system, and there are differences between ships.We don't need an explanation for little details like this, it is a science fiction game.
Yes. Jump Ranges need to be looked at, especially for Combat Ships. And I point to the Corvette as the prime example why.
The thing many Nay-sayers forget is that Combat ships are outrageously heavy. Trade builds are only heavy while carrying cargo but then after their load is lightened they go much faster. Explorer builds are intentionally light because that's how you get jump ranges.
Combat ships on the other hand are weighed down by the number of weapons and internals they need to carry for survival.
The other thing you need to look at is the average distance between systems. The average LY distance between systems is 12 LY. Anything incapable of making 12 LY has been known to get stuck in smallish mini-bubbles and is incapable of navigating the galaxy. There have been instances where Corvettes have wound up essentially stationary gun platforms stuck in a single system because they haven't been able to break 12 LY as a full combat build.
Vipers themselves are considered short range interceptors and maxing out at 14-15LY is fine. Anything else should easily break 16 LY at a C rating even fully loaded down. This is currently not the case as far as vanilla ships go.
Engineers should allow combat vessels to actually keep up with their Trader and Exploration buddies especially if they are providing escort. Lagging behind because they were too slow to keep up is one of the other reasons winging up is somewhat unpopular.
While Ship transfer has alleviated some of the problems of combat ships getting stuck, it is by no means a perfect solution. In fact Colonia itself when it started out were having problems with lockdowns and various other negative states early on because no one in their right mind would take a combat ship out there and many pleas were made hoping someone would be crazy enough to do it.
Again, ship transfer solved some of those issues and now Colonia has it's own Milita, it could have been avoided if jump ranges were more in line with the average distance between star systems rather then trying to balance ships against each other.
So yes. Jump ranges need to be looked at for the sake of Combat Escort and rebalanced against the average distance of 12 LY as well as what role the ship was designed for.
Explorers and Traders are mostly fine but the majority of Combat vessels fall woefully short of this prior to Engineers with many being out performed by the Viper which is intentionally designed as a short range interceptor. That should not be the case with other vessels which were meant to operate further out. Engineered ships should be the exception, not the the norm, to average jump ranges at C rating or higher.
Rebalancing against the average distance will not hurt the scope of the game. Given they want to increase it and encourage people to go beyond the boarders of known space, the average combat craft hitting 20LY or so would allow them to skip the odd system here due to the distances between two systems. A fully maxed out Combat Craft with Engineers hitting 25-30LY is also not a big deal.
Doing so would allow them to match trading vessels which would out pace them when they're carrying lighter cargo loads or none at all. And still good luck trying to catch an explorer at 40LY and greater.
So agree with the OP. Jump ranges should be looked at and in many cases, needs to be increased. The average distance between systems should be the balancing factor. And right now majority of the ships aren't cutting it.
In short. I have already fixed the problem years ago while staying within Frontier's obsession of classifying ships into three main categories. Trade, Exploration, and Combat.
It's a simple matter of further breaking them down into three more categories. Long, Average, and Short range.
The Viper 3 is classified as a Short Range combat interceptor. That is it's flavor text in the shipyard. That is what I would expect in it's performance if I have never flown one before. If you cannot outjump a fully loaded optimized Viper 3. You have failed.
Both as a developer in ship design and as a player in outfitting your ship.
So yes. I am advocating for a COMPLETE TOTAL ADJUSTMENT TO THE ENTIRE LIST OF AVAILABLE SHIPS.
Even if this results in a simultaneous nerf for the conda and buff for the entire roster. It's the best outcome.
Many of these ships do not fall in line with their flavor text and all ships should be able to cross the average distance between systems. Otherwise they're just stationary gun platforms assigned to a system.
The Viper 3 should be the absolute lowest benchmark. If a ship cannot outjump the known Short Range Interceptor. It is not fit to fly in Elite Dangerous. Everything should go up from there.
Personally I'd say the Conda should fit somewhere in the upper Trade Mid/Long range. If outfitted with exploration it gets boosted back up to the higher ranges. When loaded down it falls to Mid Range Combat. This should be the case for most if not all multi-role ships making them truly multirole while specialized ships should be firmly locked to their classification and ability.
But all these adjustments need to go in to the flat LY range each ship is capable of. No adjustments to anything else. Each hull has a base jump range and these values need a full readjustment.
TOUCH. NOTHING. ELSE.
Balance against the distance a ship should be capable of traveling before you even think about balancing the ships against each other.
