5.000 c means you need 438 hrs to travel 250 Ly 
She's a beauty! (New ship revealed--Mandalay)
- Thread starter Shurimal
- Start date
You know players would do it if they could5.000 c means you need 438 hrs to travel 250 Ly
Definitely! I can be the support with fuel limpets on the road!
If you’re not on the edge, you can’t see the view
Whilst the Mandalay does look like a great ship, it doesn’t actually out-jump the Anaconda in any meaningful way. I hope one day we get an exploration-focused ship that does.
Whilst the Mandalay does look like a great ship, it doesn’t actually out-jump the Anaconda in any meaningful way. I hope one day we get an exploration-focused ship that does.
People take the Anaconda because it's got a bugged hull mass that they can't fix because people get upset when jump range gets nerfed. Your only hope is if someone makes another typing error, once that's in it can't be reversed.
Highest place I've been. Unreachable even in jumpaconda.
Yes
Indeed - sometimes it’s about being first to the top of the mountain, others it’s discovering new facts about the hibernating bears on the way!
Reminds me...
One of the things I always used to moan about was that we should have the ability to enable/disable fuel tanks, just like other modules, to create a "reserve tank".
That way, you could fit an extra tank in an internal slot, fill it with fuel and then you could go to your right-HUD, disable the extra tank and the fuel in it would never get used.
You could fly around, using the fuel in your main tank and, if you ever ran out of fuel, you could go back to your right-HUD enable the extra tank and you'd have whatever amount of fuel was in it to get you to a fuel-star so you could refill both tanks again.
Seems like that would be such an easy change to make and it'd be a huge benefit to explorers or other people who do stuff (such as extended use of SCO) where they risk running out of fuel.
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People take the Anaconda because it's got a bugged hull mass that they can't fix because people get upset when jump range gets nerfed. Your only hope is if someone makes another typing error, once that's in it can't be reversed.
IIRC, back when FDev monkeyed around with exploration, and made one of the scanners into an integral part of the ship, people suggested that they take the opportunity to also adjust the Annie's hull mass at the same time.
FDev (Sandro, IIRC) said they couldn't do that because it could lead to explorers on the fringes of the galaxy getting stranded in Annie's that suddenly weighed 100t more than they did the previous day.
Always seemed like a bit of a cop-out to me.
I mean, how many players would that be likely to affect?
Surely it'd be possible for FDev to manually move the handful of affected players' ships?
They could even have sent an in-game message to everybody, warning us that an update to the software of our nav' computers fixed an "error" that allowed the Anaconda to make unusually long jumps and anybody who'd been affected could contact Universal Cartographics (FDev) for assistance.
For reference, I use a tricked out Krait Phantom with reduced fuel tank size so I can navigate between distant stars (which I can then pull the carrier in to, if desired). It's not really even an exploration ship. It just has good internals and excellent range. Ironically, the thing exploration can benefit from - even if that range isn't always needed. Yes I could use Anaconda, but it's not optimised for exploration, drives like a barge and more or less forces buggy use for exobio.
My point has never been "Anaconda is bad", either -- (it is just blessed with very low hull mass; Frontier know it was not a good design decision, but it's one we all have to live with, even Frontier) -- it's that a dedicated exploration ship, designed for that purpose and intent, shouldn't really play second fiddle to a large generalist ship (the Anaconda).
It's likely designing a fridge that is just about good as a cardboard box with some ice, or a car that is just about as fuel efficient as a bus. It doesn't seem that important, until you think about the context (when it starts to make less sense) but it can and does matter. I could go on, but I'll desist.
To me, it's always a better option to have the potential, even if it's not used. You cannot use potential that doesn't exist.
The Mandy will be an excellent Exploration ship, and I reckon it'll also be great for a 'daily driver' in the bubble as it'll get people where they want to go, quickly and enjoyably. Frontier has been really good with recent ship designs, making them far less compromised, which makes them better value and more useful.
I enjoy seeing other points of view (and at times that'll cause me to rethink my own position, as it sometimes should). I just hate seeing wasted potential. Really that's all my point of view boils down to.
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I see no value in using the Anaconda for exploration, other than the slightly larger jump range compared to the other three (or four) top contenders.
You don't really need all that many modules or cargo space for exploration. In fact, the more useless modules you add "just in case", the more you'll hurt the jump range. Using the Anaconda as an exploration vessel will just mean that the majority of the module capacity will be unused and wasted. Heck, even my exploration Phantom has most of its module space unused and thus wasted. How much moreso for the Anaconda!
Even then, one could ask, why not use the Anaconda, even if it would have lots of unused wasted module space? Who cares? The largest jump range is what matters, not how much unused module space there is.
Well, there are drawbacks compared to smaller ships: It turns like a whale, and as a large ship it's much harder to land on rough terrain. Landing on rough terrain is par for the course for most explorers, and small nimble ship is much more suitable for that purpose.
Of course there's still that annoying gap in jump range between the Anaconda and the actual exploration ships. And that's a gap that the Mandalay is now closing: Now we are getting an actual medium-sized nimble exploration ship with a smallish footprint that doesn't need to be ashamed of its jump range.
And that is why the Mandalay is better as an exploration ship than the Anaconda.
See, the Anaconda is the perfect exploration ship for me. All those "just in case" modules and other "unused and thus wasted" slots allow me to be self-sufficient and take all the things with me that I like to have for various activities with no need to switch out ships or modules; I have my fighter for fun flying on new planets and SRV for exploring planets as well. AFMUs, limpet controller, and storage for limpets. Fully loaded weapons/mining laser and utility stuff heatsinks, point defense, scanners.
I'm probably going to send some into an apoplectic seizure with these: I run a prismatic shield and I also don't downgrade a single core component, engineer them all at their highest size. I do this because I'm lazy and like to have lots of cushion. I'm also bad at Elite Dangerous and like to have lots of cushion. I don't want to micromanage power and heat levels or shutdown and turnoff systems during combat, tapping away at the keyboard like a mad pianist. Part of that is because I get overwhelmed and start getting anxious then mistakes spiral into worse mistakes and it's just not fun.
The Anaconda does all that for me and I still get around a 63ly jump range (that's just bonus I'd still use it with a 40ly range.) And that is why the Anaconda is better as an exploration ship than the Mandalay. (For Me)
I'm probably going to send some into an apoplectic seizure with these: I run a prismatic shield and I also don't downgrade a single core component, engineer them all at their highest size. I do this because I'm lazy and like to have lots of cushion. I'm also bad at Elite Dangerous and like to have lots of cushion. I don't want to micromanage power and heat levels or shutdown and turnoff systems during combat, tapping away at the keyboard like a mad pianist. Part of that is because I get overwhelmed and start getting anxious then mistakes spiral into worse mistakes and it's just not fun.
The Anaconda does all that for me and I still get around a 63ly jump range (that's just bonus I'd still use it with a 40ly range.) And that is why the Anaconda is better as an exploration ship than the Mandalay. (For Me
)Folks use Anaconda because it can provide comfy ship spec and still post exceptional range. It only works because of the range potential due to hull mass and FSD. I'd have liked Mandalay to have had slightly more jump range, so it too can have a comfy spec and still post great range. Isn't that the point? Give people as much choice to outfit and use as they like.
That might be as a swanky decked out cruiser, or a stripped down deranged sprinter. To each their own.
If Frontier introduce a brand new exploration ship, but people still use Anaconda more broadly, because it has more potential, then imho that brand new ship hasn't met the design brief. What is the point of something new being eclipsed by what already exists.
At least it's only a bit over a week away now, assuming Frontier's new date holds. Soon.
That might be as a swanky decked out cruiser, or a stripped down deranged sprinter. To each their own.
If Frontier introduce a brand new exploration ship, but people still use Anaconda more broadly, because it has more potential, then imho that brand new ship hasn't met the design brief. What is the point of something new being eclipsed by what already exists.
At least it's only a bit over a week away now, assuming Frontier's new date holds. Soon.
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Well, that's not really an exploration ship then. It's a multipurpose ship that you are using for exploration. Not really the same thing.
I can't think of any reason why you would do mining while exploring. It only fills up your cargo hold with stuff you can't use during exploration (thus reducing your jump range even further). And it's not even that valuable either. (If you want real profits from exploration you would do exobiology.)
The only use for a mining ship in exploration would be to refuel your fleet carrier, but that's better done with a dedicated mining ship anyway (because it makes it enormously faster to do the mining.)
The problem with the Anaconda is that it's an exception; one we all know shouldn't exist, but we're stuck with it. If they balanced everything around that one erroneous data point it simply compounds that issue. I think any ship that can get close to the same jump range with similar utility, module based or otherwise, is pushing the envelope of what should be reasonably possible.
In the Mandalay, it seems we're getting a very capable ship that can carry the exploration nice-to-haves, get a very good jump range alongside it, with a better view, handling, and landing profile than the Annie. I think any better and it'd be arguably just as broken as the Anaconda already is. We don't need more erroneous data points, do we?
In the Mandalay, it seems we're getting a very capable ship that can carry the exploration nice-to-haves, get a very good jump range alongside it, with a better view, handling, and landing profile than the Annie. I think any better and it'd be arguably just as broken as the Anaconda already is. We don't need more erroneous data points, do we?