So I flew a Mamba last night.....

This may not sound like a big deal to most of you, but here is a bit of the back story:

I started playing this game when Steam released it. I fell in love with it, I had been waiting ten years plus since Freespace 2 for a good outer-space flight-sim game. I saw that it was free, and that the developers got their money for this small start-up game through He3 purchases. I did some reading on their team, and felt comfortable investing $50 to buy He3.
I had flown the Mamba twice before my purchase. As soon as I got the He3, I upgraded to a v66 Viper and an fh-250 Swordfish; two very good ships.
More recently I have been saving up for an X99 Merlin. As of last night I had 600k to put towards it. I decided that I would fully upgrade my f3 Mamba and give it a whirl. I still have 500 He3 left over, so I can buy a 4x boost package for a day if I really want the Merlin.

While flying last night, I found that although the ship had fine killing-power, the main weakness was getting out of trouble. With my Viper and Swordfish, whenever the opponent had an advantage that I couldn't over-come, I could run away most of the time. Not so much with the Mamba. For example, last night on Broadsides in my Viper, I flew well above the rock field and sat in the open. At one time, 3 Mambas another light fighter and a Nighthawk came after me. I danced circles around them, and popped the 3 Mambas with only minimal damage to myself. Then some teammates came and joined the fun, and before we knew it we had a 10 ship furball 3km above the map. The Viper has the advantage to survive out of cover, the Mamba, not so much. (For those interested, I survived the furball and racked up 2 or 3 more kills.)

But I digress. With the Mamba, I really had to plan my moves. I had to make sure my initial volley finished the enemy, as I wouldn't be able to chase them down, or out maneuver them. I had to make sure i used my boost only when needed, as with the Mamba's poor acceleration, any hard turn would leave you floating harmlessly in space.

Something that I was pleasently surpised about was the rocket. I have always liked the rocket, but now I've falled in love with it. The tracking missile is great, but the rocket is wonderous at close range. I didn't have to wait to lock-on to a target, or keep my nose pointed on them. If I was facing them, I could just let the rocket fly, and if I was even close, then I could detonate it off their bow with surprising damage.

I had to be very selective of my targets. I had to find a ship I could take down quickly and get back in to cover before the back-up arrived. A few times I didn't take my target down fast enough, and 2 or 3 enemies would arrive and swarm me. This is where that Viper-like speed would have come in handy.

I still managed to rank in the top 3 for kills on the rounds I played. I didn't get to my average with the Viper or Swordfish, (usually 12 - 19 kills). I was usually around ten, so not bad; but I hope to increased that number with better awareness of the ship.

The low accelleration may get you in to trouble, but it can make for some interesting and fun maneuvers. For example; I could 'rake' an opponent. I could fly past them sideways so that my guns were on them the whole time and they only got a narrow window. But this maneuver required a lot of timing and boost, I hope to practice it more. At one point, I had an enemy on my six, I created some distance with the booster, flipped around, cut the engines and was drifting backwards whilst shooting at him. I tried that a couple times, and seemed to be able to do it with consistency; not always a smart move, but it has its uses.

The shielding didn't bother me too much, as the way I figure, if you get hit in a light fighter, then you've already done something wrong. Firepower is not lacking, you just need to surprise your opponent, and make your shots count. The engines are where the disadvantage are. I think with a strong boost tank, this ship would be formidable.

I plan on flying it more, especially when I see half the enemy team is flying them. It really helps your situational awareness. If anyone wants to join me, then give me a shout.

You've got it more or less right. The Mamba's low acceleration does mean you have to be more careful and plan where you want to go. It makes reacting to threats a little more difficult.
I find that to keep alive with the Mamba, you have to be very careful with your afterburner. The Mamba already drifts like crazy, so you don't need afterburner to start a drift. You DO need it to pull out of a drift quickly, so use it to get moving again after you make sharp turns.
To shrug off the extra inertia that it's easy to attract in the Mamba, rolling INTO a turn initially can keep you in control by dumping unwanted inertia & speed. This applies to other ships to some extent.

Loki wrote: You DO need it to pull out of a drift quickly, so use it to get moving again after you make sharp turns.
To shrug off the extra inertia that it's easy to attract in the Mamba, rolling INTO a turn initially can keep you in control by dumping unwanted inertia & speed. This applies to other ships to some extent.

Dually noted, thanks for the tip! I'll try and apply that next time I get in my Mamba.

Drifting is what makes the Mamba great. You can fire continiously from one direction and make the enemy think you're still incoming from that direction when you're already at the other side still firing at him.
A mamba's boost should not be used for escaping (unless CTF) but rather for confusing the enemy.
Another good thing to do with a mamba is drift around in spirals on the enemy. especially bombers who fly on straight lines.
that way you'll be hard to shoot down and still be shooting at the main target.

There have been plenty of times that I've over shot the target area behind a heavy craft and I ended up doing a spin-y corkscrew motion around the guy I'm shooting. very effective, unless someone else is gunning for me.

Nostromo_Crew wrote:...unless someone else is gunning for me.

Thats what usually does me in when I fly my Mamba

FoxHound wrote:

Nostromo_Crew wrote:...unless someone else is gunning for me.

Thats what usually does me in when I fly my Mamba

^ That right there is the most likely cause of ship escalation.

Regardless of how the mamba preforms I feel a warm fuzzy feeling whenever I manage to shoot down one of those Luxury fighters in a straight up dogfight. And I'm always proud when I look at my kills in a SnD game and I end up keeping up, or close to, pilots like Agent and Jack, my most common competition in many games.

Yeah last night there was a Mamba-love fest in SE Asia. Was a lot of fun.

It was a great lesson because a noob like I got to see what you can do in said Mamba.

I've been relying on teamwork. Stick close to you're team, and you've got people to pick off fighters going after you, and enemies making runs at your friends are easy targets. It's also good fun when a couple of mambas gang up on a high level ship using wide angles.

op-cow

Yeah... the Mamba is a fun ship.
That raking maneuver has helped me immensely with taking out a bomber in CA. He'd be in the side trench, and I'd pop over the side and start raking him. When he tries to escape, I latch onto his tail, get within 100m, and just pound him to kingdom come. The only way for him to avoid getting killed is for another enemy to start attacking me. My response is to dodge and do my best to kill my attacker. If I'm successful, I'll turn right around and resume my attack on the bomber.
My theory on the ships is as follows: If you wanna die, get in a bomber. If you wanna be the person to make others die, get in a Mamba.
Thus endeth the gospel according to an insane nerd.

After catching my 10 year old nephew saying goofy things in the lobby, and nuke spamming in S&D, I made him start his own account. I've been helping him buid credit while he's at school. All he has right now is the Mamba and Rhino. I hadn't flown a Mamba in months. I know I'm going to get all kinds of flack over this, but I hate the Mamba. Yes it is fast and it has quick regen shields but, holy cow, is it seriously under gunned. It's machineguns overheat way to fast and it's rocket takes way to long to reload. If either one of these problems was corrected it would be a cool little fighter. Right now it has the lowest offensive power of any fighter. I'll keep helping my little buddy out, but I can't wait till he has enough creds to buy something else.

mamba's strength isn't its firepower - it is its survivability. laughing? think about this, in 15 seconds a mamba regenerates ALL of its shields. all. running and hiding with the mamba while bushwacking all in your path makes it quite a nuisance, but a successful nuisance.

re firepower, it has the same guns as a sidewinder and hell will freeze over before i call it underpowered... mambas should be able to take out swordfishies if they get the jump on them - they have enough burst dps to do it and no excuses with a rocket that can eat away almost half shields in one go...

otherwise good to hear and fair enough

Nyxy wrote:I didn't get to my average with the Viper or Swordfish, (usually 12 - 19 kills).

Dude... You only get 12-19 kills in a Mamba?
When I fly, I can get 30-40, easy. Of course it helps when there are a LOT of people playing (As in 20-30 per side...)
Even so, I can get an average of 10-15 kills over a 15-minute 5v5 S&D match...

It comes down to what ships match your style, given a bit of practice. A good F3 is one of my M10's worst enemies.

DrunkenMonkey wrote:It comes down to what ships match your style, given a bit of practice. A good F3 is one of my M10's worst enemies.

a good beam ship has nothing to fear from lights except missing the first shot. mambas with their acceleration are (for their size and speed) the easiest to hit with a beam... could just be me though lol...

An FM 25 can one-shot a Mamba with beams. For an M10, the Mamba wins in Time to Kill. Dual rocket hits can one-shot too, but that's rare for a maneuvering small target.

I find that Mambas are the easiest to hit until you get into the slow heavies & bombers. It's just the way the players move (or don't). It's likely that the skill level of the players who frequently (always) use the Mamba is typically much lower than those found in other ships.

Absolutely. Most Mambas end up making good beam targets; by the time they have the skill and experience not to, they end up flying something else.

On another note, I've noticed some of my M10 tactics make me vulnerable to another M10. I just rarely have to worry about that matchup.

DrunkenMonkey wrote:On another note, I've noticed some of my M10 tactics make me vulnerable to another M10. I just rarely have to worry about that matchup.

Watch out for MJ Merchant (Death Merchant), Marv Swarve, and myself then lol

Back on topic, I flew a Mamba most of my matches early this morning and was surprised at how little the carrier actually hit me when I was attacking turrets or stealing flags. Moving much slower than the Sidewinder/Krait I normally fly for those tasks, I very rarely got hit, making 3 flag runs before a turret landed a shot on me.
I suppose the "out of control feeling" is exactly the kind of thing that helps avoid turret fire...

Flew the Mamba because it was more fair to the rookies, though it really isn't...so I spammed advice to compensate.

Mamba Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp-7FxbcfCs&feature=plcp

Loki wrote:Back on topic, I flew a Mamba most of my matches early this morning and was surprised at how little the carrier actually hit me when I was attacking turrets or stealing flags. Moving much slower than the Sidewinder/Krait I normally fly for those tasks, I very rarely got hit, making 3 flag runs before a turret landed a shot on me.
I suppose the "out of control feeling" is exactly the kind of thing that helps avoid turret fire...

Its because of how the turrets aim at things - they use linear prediction to tell where you will be and fire there.
when you sharply change direction and hold the new direction, your path is parabolic (well, a 2nd order bezier curve anyway) until youre flying in a straight line again (or change direction some more). linear prediction cannot possibly hit a non-linear flight path

DrunkenMonkey wrote:...A good F3 is one of my M10's worst enemies.

Wanna hop in an M10 and dogfight my Mamba?