Galactic Yo-Yo
27 Dec 2018Scubadog
Here's your hat, what's your hurry. That's the old saying that comes to mind here. I feel like I hadn't been home very long at all after three months in the core systems. But when I saw the Mamba had been launched I tried to patiently wait to see if any shipyards around Colonia would carry them. No such luck.
So, I wasn't about to make another trip all the way back to the core and then pay for having a ship transferred to Colonia Dream. I'd just got done doing that very thing, along with a slew of expensive, engineered modules. Nope, I had a different plan this time. Maybe not a better plan, but different. I grabbed The Ceti Duck and crafted a suicide run. Now, those who have been following along may notice a "duck" is decidedly not a "fox", and my custom is to give all my ships a variation on "The Ceti Fox". Well, this particular Sidewinder is barely more than a hull with an engine and life support. No shields, no weapons, no fuel scoop. It's truly a "sitting duck" for anyone who wants target practice...hence "Ceti Duck". It's even got a shiny yellow paint job to match. Anyway, I put on my best Kevlar environmental suit, hopped in the Duck and sped over to a Hazardous Resource site. I found a suitable wanted Cobra and proceeded to poke the bear...meaning, I rammed it. With no weapons, it was really the only way to piss him off. You know it's surprisingly harder than it sounds. Finally, I nailed enough blows that he turned red on my scope and turned on me. With no shields, I figured this would be over quickly. Not so much. Ramming him without shields had only dropped me to 80% hull--I know, right? He kept sweeping by me, peppering me with pulse lasers. Finally, he switched to multi-cannons and slice the Duck in half. I started to lose consciousness as my command chair morphed into lifepod while glass and metal shards exploded around me.
When I finally came to I was in a med unit back in the core systems (having set my Automated Directive to have me delivered to an appropriate facility in the core). I guess I'd taken a bit more of a pounding before the lifepod wisked me away from the disaster, because I spent almost two full days in the med unit. When I was released I immediately hopped in a loner Sidewinder and popped over to Jameson Memorial and bought a shiny new Mamba.
Over the course of three days I upgraded the modules and engineered them (thankfully, my previous lengthy stay had resulted in all the engineers being unlocked and I had plenty of materials to craft some serious improvements). So, here I am, with a new Mamba heavily upgraded and engineered. And I've learned a few things.
1) This ship is fast. Especially with engineered thrusters. 528 clicks with four pips to engines and 630 boosted.
2) This ship is not all that agile. She's incredibly fast in a straight line, but not nearly as agile as my Chieftain.
3) I don't get the heat management on this design. I can fly very close and very fast to scoop fuel (which you NEED to since you can't fit a very big scoop on it and the puny fuel tank will force you to scoop often. You can scoop at full speed and not even break a sweat. BUT, I have this one fitted with dual Multi-cannons w/incendiary rounds and a single engineered Beam fitted for thermal venting. On any other ship, this combination lets me relentlessly hammer an enemy with ALL THREE weapons and the Beam's thermal venting leaves me with frostbite. On the Mamba, I start baking within a few seconds.
4) The beauty of the hull is also a liability in modules. You only get six Optional Modules and most of them are small. Even engineered, the FSD is lame, so a Guardian FSD Booster is a must...so there goes my 5 slot. My 4 slot is the Bi-weave shields. Next is a 3A Fuel Scoop. The 1 slot is, of course, the planetary landing equipment, which leaves hard choices for the remaining dual 2 slots. If you're fighting with this ship--the only thing it's really suited to do--then you'll probably opt for a Shield Cell Bank. Engineer it. You'll probably want a Hull or Module Reinforcement for the last slot. I'm opportunistic, so I have small cargo slot.
5) For a medium ship, I felt more like I was back in my Diamondback Explorer, for all the cockpit room there was. I love the Debbie and I really like this cockpit a lot. But beware the "pit" that sits between the command seat and co-pilot seat. Down in that pit are where some of your additional systems are, but there's only a door down there to gain you access to deck 2. The door behind the co-pilot seat gains you access to the dorsal weapon and to either main engine, plus a ladder down to deck 2. So, not a lot of room at all on the command deck. But it's beautiful.
The bottom line is that I really am not sure how I'm going to use this ship if I can't figure out a way to mitigate the heat problems and pitch/yaw maneuverability issues. I'll start tinkering with it once I get back home. As I record this, I'm knocking through some final optimization calculations to figure out what modules I'm going to store for transfer later so I can get better jump range out of it. I'm only getting 32ly at the moment, and that is too short. At first I was planning to not take an SRV along, but there are rumors of a couple of Guardian sites halfway to Colonia. It'd be a shame to get there and not be able to tour them.
So, I'm almost ready to make the trip back home...again. Hopefully The Ceti Kettu is up for the task.
