Mobula builds

[Thomas]

Artemis is generally considered longer range, mostly because it turns slow. It's still effective at close range for damage and such, just harder to track enemies.

A lot of mobulas go with a hybrid of close and long range, whatever your main range is (close or long) you should have those guns on the lower deck, allowing the engineers to be closer to hull and balloon. Some players just put the close range guns down there, so the engineers can be closer to those components while the enemy is close, and the ship is more likely to take damage. Suppose it really depends on the enemy (a long range enemy will damage your ship just as easily at range, and your crew is going to have to keep running up and down the ladder to try and deal damage and keep the ship repaired).

Personally I like the hades a lot more than the merc, so I'll generally go with hades top, then double artemis or artemis-flack on the bottom (Then the wings can have a flare or carronade-flamer). A nice brawling mobula is having gats on the lower deck, and a mortar up top. Flak is ok, but has that arming time that makes it difficult to use, artemis on the wings isn't bad.

My favorite mobulas are similar to what Hamster posted, with either a double merc or preferably a double hades on the left or right side. No other ship can get a double merc in arc with an artemis, and it can be pretty devastating. I still prefer hades over mercs, but you need to have the gunners for it. Dealing with close range is a bit harder of course. I'll usually have an engineer up top and the gunner and another engineer on the wing. When things get intense, the top engineer will hustle over to the non-manned side, and the gunner can get up top. It's not ideal of course.

[Kestril]

I build my mobula for long range harrasment with a merc top and twin artimises below deck.  Two flametrhowers are at either end topside.

I try to keep my distance, but when they get close the engineers can focus on repairs while the gunner hops off the merc and jumps on a flamethrower to flame an attacking ship away from us.  But, with careful piloting, I can get the balloon side flamer(or artimis), the hull side flamer, and the hull Artemis shooting when I maneuver into an advantageous position.

I also like Hades top, but it depends on the gunner and my teammates--whether we need more damage or long-range control. 

I also run a funny fire build with quad banshees and a Hades top. All the fire, all the time.

[Indreams]

Oh, don't forget, you will never really shoot more than three guns on your ship. And usually, only two guns will/can be manned.

You CAN do gun pairs. Port side bifocal, Starboard side bifecta, mid-port bi/trifecta, mid-starboard bi/trifecta. This isn't quite obvious at first sight. This is good to know when arranging gun positions on a mobula,

[Kamoba]

Still undecided what I prefer.. Merc or Hades...
I often use Hades more than merc, but I do want to try experimenting with mercs more...

One thing about the mob, you'll see so many different builds for so many different jobs! It truly is a versatile ship in terms of loadout.

[BlackenedPies]

Two Banshees below, manned by the Engies and two Artemis's up top for when the enemy starts getting close and we have to start precise shooting their weapons or engines.
[...]
With burst ammo on the Banshees enemy balloons get lit up like nobody's business.

I would say use your artemis for longer range and banshees for closer. Artemis have a longer range, and if they are close you don't want to be transitioning to the upper guns. It's a lot quicker to jump down than go up.

You might also try one artemis on top and one below. This will allow you to disable and use a banshee. I would caution having an engi on the wing when enemies are getting near.

Banshees don't really do that much balloon damage and I would mostly recommend aiming at hull and components. This will break armor faster and allow for a quicker kill.

[Kestril]

This makes me want to try two hull-side mercs with a top artmis.

Have the gunner rotate to the hull merc and the balloon engie rotate to the top art at long range, then the balloon engie rotates to the bottom balloon gun, and the gunner gets to the top balloon gun.

Would take some coordination, but might be able to work.

[BlackenedPies]

My two favorites:
First, I always bring kero hydro and drogue chute. Phoenix claw is unnecessary because mobulas have good turning speed and high turning momentum. They only lack turn acceleration. Burning out your balloon to rapidly drop and escape is also a potential tactic.

I also always bring a fire extinguisher to jump and extinguish the top gun if necessary.

Long range:
Top merc, left flak gat, right mine artemis.
Left engi brings long range flak ammo (lesmok/heavy) and uses gat for closer.
Right engi brings burst for artemis.
Gunner brings charged heatsink loch. Charged for merc, heatsink for light flak (in certain circumstances when engi is on gat), and all 3 for mine launcher. Charged mines are very effective and loch mines are very useful. Because mobulas have decent acceleration and good vertical, loch + kero + hydro can be an effective ram.

Anti charge:
Top mine, left artemis gat, right hades artemis
Left engi brings burst for artemis. Gat is for closer range.
Right engi brings burst for bottom artemis.
Gunner brings lesmok incendiary loch for mine/hades.
Hades double artemis for long range, mine gat art for close. Against a fleeing ship the gunner jumps to the top left artemis if they're moving out of mine range. If they're escaping gat range then we switch back to hades double art trifecta.

The other mobula I fly involves multiple hades.

[ShadedExalt]

I use either a Hades or Mercury on top, top left banshee, bottom left artemis, top right artemis, bottom right carronade.  I use Kero, Hydro, and Drogue, and usually have a lesmok/greased/heatsink gunner on top for Hades, lesmok/charged/heatsink gunner for Mercury.  Left Engi takes Greased, right Engi takes either Burst, or Heavy, depending on whether I judge we need the carro range, or the extra disable power.

I made a thread specifically asking for tips; Daniel showed up and dumped most of his knowledge on me.

[Crafeksterty]

Artemis-Gattling-Mortar-Gattling-Artemis

3 engineers

2 main, 1 buff.

Buff engineer runs around and observes surrouning on top for helping out other engineers and manning the mortar.
He will also have to buff the baloon.

Main engineers are on the gattling guns and near their components that they chemspray before gattling fire.
Jump on artemis for long range assistance.



Artemis-Gattling-Merc-Mortar-Artemis.

A long range build built to give you the ability to approach and then finish with close range weapons.

[HamsterIV]

Oh, don't forget, you will never really shoot more than three guns on your ship. And usually, only two guns will/can be manned.

Lies!!!
Quodfecta (4 guns shooting) is a thing, I have seen it with my own eyes. Mobula is the easiest ship to do a quodfecta with since it has a gun slot close to the helm. Bring wide arc guns if you plan on using the Quodfecta because of the angle offset and the fact that with no pilot your ship will drift a bit.

[Dementio]

Bring wide arc guns if you plan on using the Quodfecta because of the angle offset and the fact that with no pilot your ship will drift a bit.

This is exactly why your ship shouldn't be able to do a Quadfecta, the enemy is supposed to make you move, by either killing you and force you to dodge, by ramming you or by just moving past your ship.

However, getting on the top gun is much harder than it was a few patches ago, because they changed component hitboxes a few times.

[RoastinGhost]

So, I played in the beta and recently returned to the game (I was SMD Ace, back in the day) with most of my old crew. We're loving the Mobula, which is still brand new to us. We're still trying to figure out a good medium-range build for it (we figure people usually build for long or short, giving us a kind of advantage, maybe?).

So far we have left-top artemis, left-bottom carronade, middle hades, right-bottom gatling, right-top mortar.

We ran the same weapons (except the carronade) with the Pyramidion and liked them, but the ship wasn't really working out for us. The gunner has lesmok, greased, and burst, so he can run the 3 top guns well. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[BlackenedPies]

Welcome back Roastinghost!

So the standard medium range loadout is the hades top with artemis on each wing. The reason is because artemis have good range and good arc. The goal is to have one engi on each side shooting the artemis. Other wing gun options include the light flak and banshee. For closer range the engineers jump down to the bottom guns.

With a mobula you want as many guns shooting as often as possible, so that means 3 medium/long range guns and a close range option. A common close range option is carronade flame, but gat mortar can work. Keep in mind that the mortar has a limited arc. You'll notice that the only gun that points forwards is the top gun, all other guns face outwards. Having the mortar on the top wing means it will be unable to shoot directly forwards.

Another important consideration is which pilot tools to bring. The mobula's greatest asset is its balloon, so hydrogen can be useful for dodging or getting into position, remember that artemis can aim down but not well up. Kerosene is great for a boost of speed (don't be afraid to use it). You will notice that the mobula has slow turning acceleration, which prompts some to bring Phoenix claw. Despite taking a while to turn, the mobula has good top turning speed and very high turning momentum which renders Phoenix claw unnecessary in most circumstances. Finally, when the mobulas balloon is popped, it falls very rapidly. Drogue chute will help you fall slower.

[RoastinGhost]

Thank you! Those suggestions make a lot of sense, and they'll give us a great framework to use. I'll post back in a while once we figure out the specifics we like.

Funny- I was actually using hydrogen, kerosene, and the claw. I suppose that was a leftover from Pyramidion thinking. I'll give drogue chute a shot!

[BlackenedPies]

Here's some more to think about

I wouldn't recommend gat mortar bottom guns because without lesmok mortar you will need to be quite close, and if they are point blank you won't be able to shoot both the gat and mortar. Gat flak allows you to engage at longer ranges, but is far less effective at closer range. Keep in mind that your engineers may need to transition to the bottom earlier than close range to do repairs. Having medium range guns there (like gat) means that they won't need to take the time to move back up to the top guns (which takes significantly longer than jumping to the bottom).

An alternative and slightly more advanced loadout which I prefer is having the right side artemis on the bottom slot. The artemis is very powerful with burst ammo in the hands of a good gunner at all ranges, but its upward arc is its biggest limiting factor in this case. Having the artemis on the bottom frees up the top slot for a close range gun for the gunner to jump to. A flamethrower would be an excellent choice here because it uses the same ammo as the hades and has excellent arcs.

Speaking of hades ammo, the standard loadout is lesmok heatsink and greased. Regular ammo will provide the highest medium range dps. Burst is a good choice if you plan on the gunner transitioning to an artemis for close range.
Another consideration is if you have a gat + explosive combo, which weapon on which side? Generally you will want the kill gun (explosive) on the balloon side because repairing hull damage is more common and important than balloon damage.

Having a light flak + artemis top is a good alternative to double artemis due to the added kill power. Having it on the same side as the gat allows the gunner to jump to it while the gat is shooting and use heatsink ammo, which is the best medium/close light flak ammo. Double artemis is still an excellent choice due to the high disable power, but it's kinda cheesy.

If I was bringing a hades mob I'd bring left flak gat (with lesmok), top hades, bottom right artemis and a mine launcher on top right (in place of a flamethrower). The gunner bringing lesmok heatsink and lochnagar. I take the same loadout with a mercury field gun on top except the gunner brings charged heatsink loch.

A final note is the pilot loadout. At the helm position you can easily jump up and touch the top gun. This allows you to repair and use the top gun, but if you use it while the ship is moving, the ship will fly off to one side. I'm a big fan of bringing a fire extinguisher as a pilot to quickly put out fires on the top gun.

Getting the hang of turning on a mobula takes practice but is important to avoid over turning. Sometimes the best tactic is to neglect repairs and keep shooting, and never be afraid to use tools. With practice you'll find the mobula to be one, if not the most powerful ship for range.