The Mamba is the only ship in ED I truly love.
It's fine once you learn to angle into blast damage from missiles etc. You can take all the damage on the 'clean' side of the ship and your weapons will be fine.
When my shields fail, it's time for a brave Sir Robin. Even against NPCs 1646 hull with resists between 24% and 29% drops fast. I'm typically down to ~75% hull by the time I boost out of range. My hardpoints are my least concern at that point. That said, I rarely ever lose shields.
I usually try to maneuver so splash damage causes as little harm as possible, but this is not always practical, and there are few ships with wholly clean sides (the bottom the Mamba has four utilities on it that may be important and the drives are relatively exposed so I want as little landing near the back of the ship as possible). Sometimes it's best to be able to continue to engage an opponent even while the seekers/hounds keep coming. In these cases the FDL has an advantage precisely because not all the hardpoints can be damaged from one attack angle.
Point is that there is no universally superior hardpoint placement, and having all one's eggs in one basket, while it may make it easier easier to shield them, also tends to make them all vulnerable when something does get through.
The Mamba is far from only a combat ship. If you fit a SRV (
) it can become an excellent ship for short range exploration. My next project in ED is realizing an old dream. Taking my beloved Mamba to Sag A*, which I still haven't seen. Yesterday I finished the final engineering, so now it's basically a question of waving goodbye to civilization and go find that neutron highway. C yall when I get back (unless I decide to cross the event horizon due to uncontrollable curiosity).
) it can become an excellent ship for short range exploration. My next project in ED is realizing an old dream. Taking my beloved Mamba to Sag A*, which I still haven't seen. Yesterday I finished the final engineering, so now it's basically a question of waving goodbye to civilization and go find that neutron highway. C yall when I get back (unless I decide to cross the event horizon due to uncontrollable curiosity).You can build and engineer any ship into any role you want, no question. I prefer tooling then into what suits them best, but I will never nor do I want to lecture anyone into doing the same.
Id kill for one of those 2 slots to be a 3 instead, LOVE the ship but man those internals irk the ever living hell out of me.
I'd like it if the landing gear worked when you're leaving the station.
On my way towards the center of the galaxy today I kept having one single question concerning the Mamba. How can anyone not like this? It's one of the easiest ships for scooping, and you have an excellent view in VR. Not a scratch so far. It's a good thing those AMU's are made out of a material with a density of zero. Otherwise they would have been jettisoned already 
I'd really like to see what happens when you cross the event horizon, but I find it harder and harder to accept a rebuy of this ship. It's a keeper, so I'll probably have to go back in a disposable Conda later.
I'd really like to see what happens when you cross the event horizon, but I find it harder and harder to accept a rebuy of this ship. It's a keeper, so I'll probably have to go back in a disposable Conda later.
That's the big thing for me. I love everything on the Mamba other than it's crappy maneuverability. Sure it's fast but it's not fast enough to warrant the hit to maneuverability and armor that it takes. I still use mine for combat every now and then but I'll pretty much just use my Chieftain or Vulture for fighting AI instead when I want to use a fast moving maneuverable ship.
If they did buff the Mamba, I hope they buff up it's maneuverability some more to be closer to that of the FDL's.
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Thrusters. I don't need any better pitch/roll/yaw with such outstanding vertical/lateral thrusters. I just strafe into the direction I want to go while keeping the guns locked on target 95% of the time.
Hail CMDR's
My experience with both the FDL and the Mamba has led me to the conclusion, that these two ships were never meant to be flown the same way. So comparing the FDL ability to fly in a tighter circle, to the Mamba ability to dart and dash, and laterally move near instantly, is not a good comparison at all. A good pilot will fly these two ships very differently, and strategies will vary as a by product of the two different flight models. Both of these ships are very good imho. The FDL is probably the most universally loved PvP ship on the game, and everyone had one before the Mamba was even in beta, So when the Mamba arrived on the scene with near identical internals/optionals, most everyones natural inclination was to assume its a cut and paste job from the FDL, and as soon as they got into the Mamba and swapped out all their modules from their FDLs, they quickly realized this ship did NOT handle like their trusty FDL, and most pilots quickly swapped everything back onto their FDLs and firmly declared the Mamba to be inferior in every aspect, with the exception of the cockpit center line view, minus an OCD inducing support strut. I personally LOVE the Mamba. Once I learned her nuances and started to fly her much differently, I quickly fell in love with what this ship can do. I still have my FDL and im not trying to say that one is better than the other. I am more trying to maybe convince some of the pilots that maybe shelved the Mamba rather early, to give her another chance. Spend a little more time trying this one out, because you might just end up liking it.
Fly Safe CMDRs
My experience with both the FDL and the Mamba has led me to the conclusion, that these two ships were never meant to be flown the same way. So comparing the FDL ability to fly in a tighter circle, to the Mamba ability to dart and dash, and laterally move near instantly, is not a good comparison at all. A good pilot will fly these two ships very differently, and strategies will vary as a by product of the two different flight models. Both of these ships are very good imho. The FDL is probably the most universally loved PvP ship on the game, and everyone had one before the Mamba was even in beta, So when the Mamba arrived on the scene with near identical internals/optionals, most everyones natural inclination was to assume its a cut and paste job from the FDL, and as soon as they got into the Mamba and swapped out all their modules from their FDLs, they quickly realized this ship did NOT handle like their trusty FDL, and most pilots quickly swapped everything back onto their FDLs and firmly declared the Mamba to be inferior in every aspect, with the exception of the cockpit center line view, minus an OCD inducing support strut. I personally LOVE the Mamba. Once I learned her nuances and started to fly her much differently, I quickly fell in love with what this ship can do. I still have my FDL and im not trying to say that one is better than the other. I am more trying to maybe convince some of the pilots that maybe shelved the Mamba rather early, to give her another chance. Spend a little more time trying this one out, because you might just end up liking it.
Fly Safe CMDRs
HOLY FRAK THEY MIGHT HAVE FINALLY FIXED THE LANDING GEAR!
By the time I arrived on the scene, both the FdL and Mamba were around. I bought both at the same time, hated the FdL, loved the Mamba.
I'm currently giving the FdL a second chance, but I REALLY love the Mamba!
The FdL needs getting used to for sure. I bought my first one way back in August 2015. Didn't get along with it and sold it again in October 2015. Only to rebuy it 10 days later, due to lack of alternatives. It took a lot of loadout changes throughout it's lifetime to keep it working for me as the game evolved. I still hate how easy it stalls, I still fight with the hardpoints. Four mediums easily run into trouble vs big ship hardness, unless it's something with exceptional piercing. My current build (PvE only) is 4 efficient beams with a huge overcharged corrosive multicannon, that works well enough. The previous setup with huge beam and quad medium multicannons had reached it's limit. Just couldn't crack duracell shield cell banking Pythons fast enough anymore, and the multicannons ran out of ammo way too soon.
The Mamba was love at first sight. Those hardpoints are so much better, the speed rocks, and stalling is a thing of the past. Strafing faster than any NPC Viper can fly makes it my go to combat zone ship. My first loadout attempt with dual large beams, small cascade rails and huge multicannon was a bit lackluster against hull. When I switched to huge beam and dual large multicannons, it clicked. Just 25 overall DPS behind my Corvette it's a beautiful killer. The cascade rails mean that duracell ships are no problem at all, and the multicannons just shred hull almost as fast as quad medium multicannons at close range, with even better module sniping capability.
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![[VR] DDM_Reaper20](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/44/44021.jpg?1588332101){kind=avatar}
The FDL can carry four Class 2 railguns -- engineer 'em, slap feedback cascade and super penetrator on pairs, and enjoy the fireworks. SCBs will be much, much less effective, and hull hardness slinks into a corner, clutching its swollen testicles . . .
My FDL carries not only those (high capacity, I like having extra ammo), but also a fixed huge beam (efficient G5 w. thermal vent). The feedback cascade guns are in the same firing group as the beam laser; firing those keeps heat in check. I release the trigger and fire the second set of railguns. Keeps heat nice and down, and is terrifyingly effective against internals. Module sniping becomes a very valid strategy.
My Mama is equipped differently. Two Class 1 railguns (both feedback cascade), two Class 3 frag cannon (gimballed, high-capacity, one drag drive, one corrosive), and a huge fixed beam (G5 efficient with thermal vent). Beam and rails on the same trigger. It's very good once an enemy's shields are down, but shield-stripping takes longer than with the Furry Lance, 'cause I don't use the frag cannon on shielded targets...
I have a Mamba. I didn't like using a big beam because the ship heats up so fast.
Firegroups:
A1- 2 class 1 laser turrets and right side large PAC. Sometimes I pop off a superfluous PAC shot, but it's no big deal. I try to open with a PAC shot.
A2- Huge gimbal MC. large gimbal MC on the left Just Wrecks. I love how the huge MC doesn't even need to spin. I can see why y'all like them on 'vettes now.
Firegroups:
A1- 2 class 1 laser turrets and right side large PAC. Sometimes I pop off a superfluous PAC shot, but it's no big deal. I try to open with a PAC shot.
A2- Huge gimbal MC. large gimbal MC on the left Just Wrecks. I love how the huge MC doesn't even need to spin. I can see why y'all like them on 'vettes now.
Doublecheck your engineering. My Mamba has the huge beam (efficient) and runs way cooler than my FdL. Scooping at max rate with comfortable 61% heat, no troubles in combat whatsoever. Two large beams were no problem either, but two large multis work better than a single huge did.