MambaCombat

The Mamba shares the Fer-de-Lance's bones but flies nothing like it. Where the FDL turns to hold a target, the Mamba runs it down: it has the highest top speed of any medium ship, and a fixed-weapon loadout built for high-speed firing passes rather than circling dogfights. A huge hardpoint plus two large and two small mounts deliver a brutal alpha as you scream past.

The cost is agility. The Mamba turns poorly for its speed — it's a straight-line attacker, not a turn-fighter. Pilots who try to dogfight it find themselves overshooting and exposed; pilots who learn to joust it, lining up rail guns or plasma accelerators on each pass, find one of the deadliest alpha platforms in the game. It rewards a specific, disciplined style.

Four things define the Mamba as a combat ship:

• Top speed of any medium. 387 m/s boost stock, ~490 engineered — it dictates engagement range, runs down slow targets and disengages at will.
• A huge hardpoint plus two large. Elite alpha — a huge plasma accelerator or rail-gun battery can gut a target in one well-aimed pass.
• Oversized distributor. The class-6 distributor sustains heavy fixed weapons and boost on a 250t hull — rails and plasma love it.
• Six utility mounts. A heavy shield-booster suite gives it more defensive padding than its agility-light frame would otherwise allow.

Elite firing-pass alpha from a huge-plus-two-large battery on the fastest medium hull, held just under the FDL/Krait by a poor turn rate and shallow six-slot internals.

The 89/100 headline is a verdict against the combat 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 the combat role specifically. The role column is the hardpoint loadout — the raw weapon mounts behind the damage.

Same class — medium-pad combat ships

The Mamba and Fer-de-Lance are siblings with opposite philosophies: the FDL turns, the Mamba runs. For firing-pass alpha and dictating range the Mamba leads; for sustained turn-fighting the FDL and the tankier Krait/Python Mk II are better. Choose the Mamba if you fly disciplined high-speed passes.

Other classes — the larger leagues

Larger ships out-gun and out-tank the Mamba but can't match its speed; the Cutter is the closest large ship for pace. The Mamba's niche — the fastest medium, built for alpha passes — isn't really replicated elsewhere, which is its appeal to pilots who like to dictate the fight's tempo.

At ~55M Cr the Mamba is a premium medium, with no rank or permit gate. Like the FDL its small internals keep the module bill modest; the cost is dominated by the hull, the heavy weapons and the engineering to push its speed and alpha to their ceilings.

Rail guns and plasma accelerators are the natural fit — weapons that reward the Mamba's distributor and firing-pass style — so budget for those and the experimental effects that make them sing.

A firing-pass alpha fit. Initial is buy-only; A-rated is the combat-ready baseline; Engineered leans into speed and fixed-weapon alpha. The pattern swaps the learner gimbals for fixed plasma, beams and rails and tightens convergence around the Mamba's straight-line speed.

Buy the hull and fit the largest shield the class-5 bay allows — a 5E Shield Generator. The hull ships with stock Lightweight Alloy bulkheads; leave them on at this stage, and leave the hull-reinforcement, module-reinforcement and cell-bank optional slots empty for now.

Start with gimballed weapons — 4A and 3C Multi-Cannons, a 3E Pulse Laser and paired 1G Multi-Cannons — to learn the firing-pass timing before committing to fixed rails/plasma.

Fit a single 0A Shield Booster in the first utility; the other five utility mounts stay empty until the A-rated pass pads the frame out.

A-rating priority for a speed-and-alpha platform:

• 1Thrusters → A — Speed is the Mamba's defining weapon; A-rate thrusters first. ~5M Cr
• 2Power Distributor → A — Rails and plasma are distributor-hungry; feed them. ~6M Cr
• 3Power Plant → A — Headroom for heavy fixed weapons, shields and boost. ~7M Cr
• 4Bulkheads → Military Grade Composite — A buy-once jump from ~414 to ~805 armour. The Mamba's shields are thin; the hull is the real buffer. ~6M Cr
• 5Shield Generator → 5C bi-weave — Padding for a hull that can't out-turn return fire; back it with a 4A cell bank and 3D/2D hull reinforcement. ~4M Cr
• 6FSD → A — Mitigate the short jump range. ~3M Cr

The house combat pattern tuned for speed and fixed-weapon alpha. Pin blueprints for remote G1→G5 application; visit in person for experimentals.

Recommended order

• 1Thrusters to G5 first — the Mamba's whole game is speed.
• 2Distributor and plant to G5 to sustain heavy fixed weapons.
• 3Weapons: Efficient plasma for the huge mount, Long-Range rails on the smalls for shield-stripping at range.
• 4Reinforced bi-weave and Heavy-Duty boosters to pad the agility-light frame.

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

Initial armour rides on stock Lightweight Alloy (~414); the A-rated pass swaps in Military Grade Composite (~805), then Heavy Duty G5 + Deep Plating plus the 3D/2D hull reinforcements push raw armour past ~2,500. Engineering pushes boost toward 490 m/s — untouchable among mediums — while shields climb past 1,000 MJ behind a 4A cell bank. Agility stays deliberately low; the Mamba is the fastest medium alpha platform, and engineering sharpens that identity rather than rounding it off.

• Joust, don't dogfight — the Mamba overshoots in a turning fight; line up passes and use speed to reset.
• Fixed weapons reward its convergence and speed; gimbals waste its alpha potential once you've learned to aim.
• Shield-tank with the six utilities; you can't out-turn return fire, so absorb it.
• Manage heat carefully with rails and plasma — carry two heat sinks and use them on passes.
• Accept the short range and low agility as the cost of the highest speed and biggest alpha in the class.