MambaAX Combat

Point the fastest medium in the game at the Thargoids and you get a skirmisher, not a warship. The Mamba's defining trait — 380 m/s boost stock, pushing ~490 engineered — lets it dictate range against an Interceptor, run down Scouts and Thargons, and pull clear of a caustic cloud before it eats the hull. Its two small hardpoints carry Gauss cannons (the meta heart-stripper, a small-class fixed weapon), while the huge and two large mounts take AX multi-cannons or Guardian shard cannons for swarm and structure work.

The reasons it sits at 70 — the lowest of the rated AX hulls — are structural and honest. The Mamba has no military slots, so the Guardian Module Reinforcement that lets dedicated AX ships shrug off Thargoid lightning has to come out of its already-cramped optional internals (5·4·3·2·2·1). Those same small internals limit the shield, hull and decontamination kit you can carry. And its poor turn rate — the price of all that straight-line speed — fights you every time you try to keep fixed Gauss on a heart that is drifting. It survives by speed, not by standing in the fire.

Three things keep the Mamba in the AX fight — and one keeps it out of the top tier:

• Highest medium speed. 380 m/s boost stock, ~490 engineered — it controls range, runs down Scouts and Thargons, and pulls clear of caustic clouds and swarms at will.
• Two small Gauss mounts. Gauss is a small-class fixed weapon, so the Mamba's two smalls run the meta heart-stripper; the huge and large mounts add AX multi-cannons or Guardian shards.
• Six utilities. Enough for a Xeno scanner, caustic sink, heat sinks and shield boosters — a complete defensive kit despite the small frame.
• No military slot, cramped internals. The one that hurts: Guardian Module Reinforcement must eat optional slots, the tank is shallow, and the low turn rate makes holding fixed Gauss hard.

Highest-medium speed makes it a strong Gauss-pass skirmisher, but no military slot, a 5·4·3·2·2·1 internal set and 230 armour cap it at the bottom of the rated AX field.

The 70/100 headline is a verdict against the anti-Xeno role's priority-ordered factors. Each factor carries a weight (its share of 100); this hull earns part of each based on how it performs against the whole field. The points sum to the rating.

Both tables rate ships for anti-Xeno combat specifically. The role column is the hardpoint loadout — the basis for an AX weapon suite. Evasion, hardening and heat management matter as much as raw mounts.

Same class — medium-pad AX ships

Among the AX mediums the Mamba is the outlier: every hull above it either hardens its modules with military slots (Challenger, Crusader, the Federal brawlers) or carries deeper internals and more Gauss mounts. The Mamba trades all of that for speed no other medium can touch — valuable for kiting and disengaging, but not enough to lift it past hulls that simply survive the lightning better.

Other classes — the AX battleships

The large AX battleships out-gun, out-tank and out-harden the Mamba completely — they win by standing in the fire. What the Mamba offers that none of them can is pace: it picks its range, runs down Scouts, and leaves a fight whenever it likes. That is a real edge for skirmishing and cloud-dodging, but in AX, survivability decides the ladder, and the battleships simply do not die.

At ~55M Cr the Mamba is a premium medium with no rank or permit gate. Its small internals keep the module bill modest, so a full AX fit — Gauss, AX multi-cannons, a bi-weave shield and what hardening the optionals allow — lands around ~75M Cr A-rated, rising past ~95M Cr engineered, with a low ~5M rebuy. The real cost is the Guardian and AX weapon-tech grind, which is the same for every AX hull.

That accessibility is the Mamba's strongest AX argument: it needs only credits and the weapon unlocks, and it fits a medium pad. But spend the same money on a Krait Mk II or an Alliance Challenger and you get a more survivable, more forgiving AX platform. The Mamba is a sidegrade for pilots who already own and love its speed — not the medium to buy for AX.

A fast Gauss skirmisher: two Guardian Gauss cannons on the small mounts for heart damage, AX multi-cannons in the huge and large mounts (no huge AX gun exists) and a Guardian Shard for swarm work, with module hardening squeezed from the optionals since there is no military slot. Initial is buy-only (cores only — every AX/Guardian gun needs an unlock); A-Rated adds the unlocked kit; Engineered leans into speed, shields and heat, because AX/Guardian weapons and Guardian reinforcement carry no blueprints at all.

Buy-only, the Mamba fits nothing but its stock hull and cores: the factory Lightweight Alloy bulkhead, an E-rated Power Plant (6E), Thrusters (5E), Frame Shift Drive (4E), Life Support (4E), Power Distributor (6E) and Sensors (4E), plus the stock 3C Fuel Tank.

Every hardpoint stays empty (—): the two Gauss cannons, both Enhanced AX multi-cannons and the Guardian Shard all need site unlocks and cannot be bought off the shelf, so none go on at this stage.

The six utilities, the class-5 bi-weave, the decon limpet controller and all the Guardian hull/module reinforcement are left empty too — the Xeno scanner, caustic and heat sinks, shield boosters, shield and hardening all arrive in the A-rated pass. Initial is purely the hull and its base cores: a chassis to fly to the unlock sites, not yet a fightable AX build.

AX-fitting priority for a fast skirmisher:

• 1Thrusters → A — Speed is the Mamba's only real defence; A-rate and engineer thrusters before anything else. ~5M Cr
• 2AX / Guardian weapons — Gauss on the smalls, AX multi-cannons in the big mounts, a Guardian shard for swarm work. material unlocks
• 3Power Distributor & Plant → A — Gauss and the bi-weave are power- and capacitor-hungry on a 250t hull. ~13M Cr
• 4Bi-weave shield & boosters — Thermal-resistant padding for a frame that can't out-turn return fire. ~6M Cr
• 5Bulkheads → Military Grade Composite — Swap the Lightweight Alloy for Military Grade plate; even a kiting hull wants real armour under the lightning, and it's the foundation the Guardian HRP build on. ~6M Cr
• 6Guardian reinforcement — Three Guardian HRP (sizes 4 / 3 / 2) for armour and caustic resistance, plus one Guardian MRP for module hardening; a size-1 decon limpet controller scrubs caustic stacks. material unlocks

AX engineering hardens shields, hull, heat and mobility; AX/Guardian weapons carry no blueprint at all. Pin blueprints for remote G1→G5 application; visit in person for experimentals.

Recommended order

• 1Thrusters to G5 first — the Mamba's whole AX game is speed and disengagement.
• 2Distributor and plant to G5 to sustain Gauss and the bi-weave on a small hull.
• 3Thermal-resistant bi-weave (G5) and shield boosters to blunt Thargoid thermal fire on a shallow tank.
• 4Note: AX/Guardian weapons and all Guardian reinforcement come from unlocks, not blueprints.

Approximate progression across the three states (figures are representative, not exact rolls):

Engineered, the Mamba boosts toward 490 m/s — untouchable among mediums — with shields into the high hundreds and a Military Grade hull plus three Guardian HRP lifting effective armour past fourteen hundred. But module hardening stays thin (one Guardian MRP from the optionals, no military slot) and the turn rate stays low. It is a fast, lightly-hardened AX skirmisher: it wins by controlling range and leaving, not by tanking the lightning.

• No military slot — module hardening has to come from the optionals, so fit one or two Guardian MRP and accept the trade against shields and hull.
• Gauss is a small-class weapon, so the Mamba's two smalls run the meta heart-stripper; the huge and large mounts take AX multi-cannons or Guardian shards.
• You can't tank the lightning like a battleship — lean on speed to control range and leave when the swarm piles on.
• The low turn rate makes fixed Gauss on a drifting heart hard; commit to passes and resets rather than circling.
• Manage heat hard with Gauss and carry two heat sinks; budget a caustic sink and decon limpet for cloud and corrosion damage.