Author Topic: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?  (Read 19953 times)

Offline ShadedExalt

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Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« on: December 20, 2014, 10:13:49 pm »
So I want to start branching into different ships, and the Mobula looks interesting.  I know it has the best verticality, but rather slow to turn, and that it has heavy front focused firepower.  Other than point front at enemy, use the y(or is it x?) axis, and take long/midrange weps, what should I do to effectively utilize it?

Offline Dutch Vanya

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2014, 10:16:41 pm »
it's a fat pyramidion.

Offline ShadedExalt

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2014, 10:22:26 pm »
it's a fat pyramidion.
1. Salute
2. Yeah, that's what I figured.  Anything beyond that?

Offline Queso

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2014, 10:31:54 pm »
Keep firing. You are going to outgun things. I really like mixed range builds. Usually something multi ranged middle gun (almost always a merc) and artemis or sometimes some banshee on the outer guns. Then I usually drop the side people to a gat mortar when we get near range and the enemy ships die before we have to stop repairing. Depends how you want to fly it though. The way I explained totally does not use vertical mobility at all. That's something amazing on the mobula too. It's a ship with a lot of things going for it, but also a lot of weaknesses to keep an eye out for. Flying it is an exercise in precision. Your crew has to listen for you the moment you tell them to be doing things differently.

Offline ShadedExalt

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2014, 10:34:57 pm »
Would Hades top sides, Merc middle, and Banshee/Artemis bottom sides work?  Maybe even sides all Hades, top Mercury?  It would let me use verticality a bit more.  Thanks for the Keep Firing tip, and the Mix n' Match too.  I just thought, 'Hey, Hades has decent arcs; Why not it?
« Last Edit: December 20, 2014, 10:37:28 pm by ShadedExalt »

Offline DaOrks

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2014, 11:12:26 pm »
Just put lots of dakka on it. The more da betta

Offline ShadedExalt

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #6 on: December 20, 2014, 11:17:42 pm »
Just put lots of dakka on it. The more da betta

Oi!  If you'z gonna Ork, ya'z gotta Ork roight, ya nob!

Offline Dementio

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #7 on: December 20, 2014, 11:32:42 pm »
Wall of text reporting in! With a short version without a detailed explanation at the very end.

As Queso said, with the 5 guns slots available you can easily outgun most things. If you are facing off against a Metamidion (Gat/Mortar front) you can just run double gat and a mortar. With the seconds Gatling the enemy armor gets destroyed much quicker and if things to go bad, you can always use a hydro or chute vent to escape. I like hydro more on the Mobula as most guns have better downwards arcs than upwards arcs, the same goes for the enemy guns.

Multirange is pretty mandatory on the Mobula. The thing with it's bad turn speed and below average horizontal speed is that it doesn not allow you to control the engagement very well nor does it allow for easy escaping. Turning around corner is a literal drag, as is turning around when an enemy, let's say Goldfish, just speeds past you, no way are close range guns going to catch that thing. Similar with long range only guns: You can't really bet on the enemy not getting close to you unless they are long range only themselves and if they get close, what do you do?

The most standard setup for the Mobula is what the Metajunker has or can never have. Hades on the very top, artemis on the top wings and gat/mortar on the bottom two guns. Switch that hades with a mercury and you are the only ship with a long range mercury trifecta and the superior gat/mortar combination. With the Mobula's vertical mobility bringing the Mercury in arc should't be too hard and if the enemy starts out-circling your mercury, then you should probably switch to close range guns.

But this does open up the question of how engineering on the Mobula works.
Now, my Mobula used to be hades, double artemis with bottom carronade and flamer, with both engineers bringing fire extinguishers rather than chem spray. The idea was that consistent chem spray takes too much time in long range fights so the engineers should just concentrate on shooting and extinguishing later. Once the hades starts hiting consistently though you will feel the pain. Because of the hades destroying the armor and repeatedly setting the balloon on fire, this Mobula was losing both artemis engineers as they were busy fixing hull and balloon just after a few hits.
Since then I have an artemis on balloon bottom and the flamer on top balloon side so the engineer can chem spray the balloon, similar to a Pyramidion, while in close range, the gunner switches from hades to flamer. The hull engineer stays with the extinguisher as the armor dies anyway when hit consistently enough and in long range fire stacks on armor can be ignored a little since the fire stacks don't do that much damage to the hull as they do to the balloon.
With some tricky screwing around you can have a bottom deck artemis and keep the gat/mortar going still, but I find that rather unreliable.

You may have wondered why my Mobula has carronade/flamer and not gat/mortar and if not, I will answer that hypothetical question anyway:
The thing why gat/mortar works so well on a Pyramidion or Junker is that the gunner (or 3rd engineer) can always shoot the Gatling, because he has nothing else to repair, chem or buff than his own gun. On a Mobula, if gat/mortar are on bottom deck, both engineers will very likely be busy with either balloon or hull or both, and which one will be targeted is barely predictable and you can assume both are going to drop all the time during a game. The actual gunner though, will pretty much never shoot a Gatling or Mortar. This is also why a double gat/mortar Mobula is effective: At first it has 2 gatlings shooting and by the time somebody leaves it, if at all, it will have the hull damage advantage while there is still one gatling shooting, winning against any Metamidion.
While gat/mortar relies on constant gatling and an always ready mortar to kill them, the carronade and the flamer work very well independently and even better together. With my setup there is even the possibility of an extra artemis disabling enemy guns or destroying the hull, but I don't bet on it.

Another problem with a Mobula with a gat/mortar setup are gun arcs and this limits the ship more than it appears at first glance. A carronade on balloon bottom deck has as much arc to the left as the artemis on balloon top deck has to the left, and that's 15 degrees of difference. A mortar will never have arc to the front on that bottom deck and a gatling on top deck does restrict your movement as well.
You don't want to have to turn and fight the enemy diagonally as it makes it harder for you to move towards them and away from them, slowing you down or making you have to be completely static for you to be able to do something.
An example of this arc problem are Mobulas that do double Mercury on one wing and close range guns on the other wing. While the mercuries are pretty accurate in range, once the enemy gets close one wing is entirely useless in terms of damage output while the other wing needs to have both guns in arc, making enemies that circle you harder to fight. With guns that are able to shoot independently on both wings, you can shoot them possibly sooner and longer, when the enter your gun arcs and want to leave them by flying past you.
Another problem here is the issue with hull or balloon getting targeted. Long range wing on hull and you fight carronade, what's the hull engineer going to do? Long range on balloon side against a Metamidion, while the hull engineer is busy repairing the armor, the balloon engineer might not be able to do anything, literally (leaving the assigned side of the Mobula is never a good idea!).

Another thing, which I don't really recommend, is having the pilot use the top gun. This of course enables the famous Mobula quadfecta, which is supposed to be able to destroy everything, but with the horrible turning abilities and rather restrictive gun arcs on said ship, leaving the helm could leave you very vulnerable, especially in close range where you pretty much have to turn constantly in order to keep up with the enemy.



Well, I suppose this covers a little bit of the ship itself. So when you think about loadouts for the Mobula, just keep this healthy tips in mind:
Multirange setup, as Mobulas are not famous for being able to control the range that well.
Have guns able to be shot constantly. Hull and Balloon are very likely to get damaged, so guns that work independently from each other are a good idea. A bad example of that is the gat/mortar combination, but it is not close to impossible to execute that one.
Remember your gun arcs! If you have long range on one wing and close range on the other wing, your manouverbility gets reduced a great deal, so you want all of them to have forwards arc, if possible. As well as, not all close range guns on the top wing side will be usable, since they might never get enough arc.
Top middle gun is usuable by the pilot, but that leaves you without bringing your ship back in arc or being able to stop from raming something behind!

Offline GeoRmr

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #8 on: December 20, 2014, 11:45:05 pm »
@Daniel

You forgot to tell them about the phoenix claw

tell them

go on ~

Offline ShadedExalt

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2014, 12:20:31 am »
So what I got from Daniel/Dementio's spiel is always always always have multi-range, and Artemis on top sides, and blender on bottom, with Hades or Merc on front..  Would carro/'shee or double 'shee work on bottom?  I love carroflamer, don't get me wrong, but midrange support for the arty can't be bad.


I just came up with a name for my x2 Merc Pyra after adding a y to merc: HMCS Mercy.

Anyway, huge thanks to Dementio/Daniel for his laborous post.  Salute, and salute: o7

Offline Dementio

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #10 on: December 21, 2014, 12:26:08 am »
Wall of text's brother: Wall of Text also reporing in! With another version without another detailed explanation at the very end. Focusing this time on manouvering it as well as pilto tools.
...I try my best ok?

First things first about the superior vertical Mobility: Vertical escaping of a Mobula is actually closer to tanking than escaping, since you are not really getting away from the enemy, but rather waiting for the enemy to catch up while you fix your ship a little bit to survive a little longer or to even kill the enemy in the end. You rarely manage to leave an engagement with it, without anybody on your tail. On paritan it does sometimes work to dodge over a building, or over some pipe on dawn.
Also, with a vertical pilot tool like hydrogen or chute vent, you can dodge pretty much every Pyramidion and Goldfish ram in the game, even Blenderfishes.

I personally find Mobula the best ship to actively fight a Blenderfish with, since when the fish destroys your balloon, what will happen? You drop down to the ground at max speed, which translates to: You drop below the carronade arcs or even below the entire ship at top speed with nobody being able to catch up that quickly. This adds a few seconds of not only rebuilding the balloon, but also makes the hull easier to be repaired since the dps of the carronade cannot break through the hull as easy as it could against any other ship, since every other ship will always remain in the arc of that carronade, with no escape.
Now, that superior vertical acceleration also means something very wonderful: Once your balloon gets poped, just use hydrogen the second it gets rebuild and boom, you are above the carronade arc. However this does set you up for being rammed as you ballloon will probably die instantly again and with the enemy being below you already, you can't really go below them.
Furthermore to add on that vertical dodge is that you can literally wait for the last second to use it against most ships. Draw it out until your armor is down and escape to the skies in a blink of an eye and with minimal to no perma hull damage.
Also, never forget that if your balloon is low on health, you could destroy it easily with hydrogen or chute vent to drop below everything and survive another minute.

Besides that, going past the enemy without them being able to catch you vertically is going to be one of your primary evasion manouvers: Go up above the enemy and move forwards behind them or go down below the enemy and move forwards behind them. These moves are rather easy to execute since not only is the vertical acceleration pretty good, but the horizontal forward/backward acceleration is as well. You can easily backpedal a little bit and start randomly start moving forward at full speed and boom, you are behind them.
Now this does show the greated weakness the Mobula has to offer: Turning acceleration. Pretty much every enemy ship is going to turn around faster than you, since they have phoenix claw. Now this entire topic about phoenix claw is really just wether you prefer it or not. I think it's only really useful when you have to turn around for 180 or more degrees, since only then will you have reached top turning speed and only then phoenix claw will be effective since it does not add turning acceleration, only top speed. Instead of phoenix claw I bring hydro, kerosene and drouge chute to catch myself whenever I destroy my own balloon, which happens more often than turning for 180 or more degree or at the same time and I just prefer to have my altitude control.

Another pilot tool is moonshine. Compared to kerosene it does add a lot of horizontal speed, which kerosene lacks, but I myself have rarely found myself wishing I hade moonshine when I used kerosene. It could help on Mobulas that are designed for only one range and want to keep that range no matter what, but in close range it will really show a huge disadvantage: You have a total of 3 crew members repairing 1 engine each. Sometimes the main engine can't be repaired, because the damage output is simply too important, while repairing turning engines are a risk in and of themselves for both bottom deck engineers. These engines are literally on the other side of the ship in relation to the gun positions, so leaving the gun to repair engines is going to leave you crippled for a short duration and that counts twice, since you have 2 turning engines, the main enginer can usually be ignored unless you have to chase them at any cost.
So kerosene does keep your speed up, while moonshine just wrecks your engines and ability to fight in close range.

Chute vent and Hydrogen I have mentioned before already:
I like hydro more on the Mobula as most guns have better downwards arcs than upwards arcs, the same goes for the enemy guns.
So it will take longer to leave enemy gun arcs with chute vent especially since you don't have any balloon on top to block shots, like say on a Goldfish, but on the other hand, rarely do you see a pilot using chute vent themselves so catching up to you for them might actually take longer.

Don't even think about impact bumpers.

And then there is Tar. With the horrible turning acceleration and the above mentioned scenario about you ending up behind them with your own back turned towards them, this might just be a life saving tool. It might also work against enemies that circle you and end up behind you.
I never actually tested how effective it really is, since I like my drouge chute more and tar also adds another burden to the engines, which I myself like to avoid.

Last but not least, map specific piloting is a thing for the Mobula. You will be surprised at how much Muse unintentionally hates this ship with their winds. Now, that Mobulas get pushed around in Sandstorms of Dunes and Scrap is no mystery, but what is rarely every mentioned are the subtle pushes on your ship on certain maps.
On Paritan and Water Hazard (2v2 and 3v3) the Mobula gets pushed towards the East, because the Wind goes there. Similar to the tar clouds. These tar clouds also get pushed to the East on Red Spulcher, and thus assuming on it's crazy king counterpart Flayed Hills too, but I haven't played much on these maps with a Mobula to see if it affects the ship too.
And then there is Duel at Dawn. This one map is an entire mess when it comes to winds:
In the center, the clear area, of the map the Mobula gets pushed downwards, now this also makes it harder to follow enemy above the height ceiling since the other ships are not as affected, if at all and they just casually esceed the height ceiling while your Mobula has an extra force to fight against. Considering that the vertical top speed (not acceleration) is pretty much the same on all ships in the game so one hydrogen and the enemy ship might just go above your Mobula without you being able to follow.
Continuing that, on the North/East corner of the map the Mobula gets pushed upwards, while more south of that area, which is just east, on a spawn point even, there seems to be no wind affecting the Mobula.
There might be more secrete winds of Dawn that I don't know about, but it really is just horrible


So the same basics in the shortened version:
Vertical escaping is rarely an escape, but more of a tanking manouver.
Once balloon is destroyed, either from enemy carronade or because of purposeful useage of hydrogen/chute vent, dodging downwards happens with full vertical acceleration (which is not speed).
Flying above/below enemy and behind them is an easy way to counteract a charge/ram.
Waiting to dodge until just before armor drop is a legitemate strategy, since explosive guns are not supposed to be able to catch you in time.
Phoenix claw, I personally say, is only then useful when turning for 180 or more degree. I need drouge chute more since balloon destructions are a regular thing.
Tar could be useful, since horrible turning acceleration.
Kerosene > Moonshine, since less pressure on engines. Although Moonshine could help staying in the desired range for longer, but that is debatable.
Paritan, Water Hazard and possibly Red Spulcher/King of the Flayed Hills push the Mobula towards the East. Dawn is a mess of winds does whatever it wants.

Offline Dementio

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #11 on: December 21, 2014, 12:37:21 am »
So what I got from Daniel/Dementio's spiel is always always always have multi-range, and Artemis on top sides, and blender on bottom, with Hades or Merc on front..  Would carro/'shee or double 'shee work on bottom?  I love carroflamer, don't get me wrong, but midrange support for the arty can't be bad.

If the map is dawn, paritan or canyon ambush you could get away with close range Mobula. Thralls did it, a few times without artemis, sometimes with top wing side artemis and often enough without any hades or mercury. Keep in mind they had two gatlings and you can actually use lemsok on these to make up for a hades, not quite the same dps, but it is an option unless you want to be ultra sneaky, then you won't need lesmok on them.

I have the carronade/flamer because it adds pressure to the enemy. They can't just sit back and shoot me, but still have to keep their own engineering up and if they fail, the carro/flamer wins. Having a gatling/carro or something like that and a banshee can't be too bad either, it is just no my preference for various reasons.
Although I am doubtful about double banshee. I know that since after the patch these two could possibly breach through armor/balloon on their own if the enemy gets softened up a bit, but I wouldn't bet on it. Also banshee can be used at long range with heavy clip so they could replace the artemis on the top decks or something, but with good gunnery at least 1 artemis for disable is going to do a number on the enemy.


I actually have a Mobula setup that is lesmok gat on hull bottom, hades on balloon bottom and mercury on the very top. On the top balloon is either banshee or artemis for the gunner to switch to from the Mercury and top hull side is a flare. This way we have superior armor damage support and can keep it up consistently as well as have the main engineer be able to repair constantly without worrying about not being able to shoot while doing so.
This one does have little close range controle, but if the positioning is done correctly, that piercing damage will put the enemy on their knees. Although it does not work against every ship, of course.
If you visualize the hades arcs on bottom deck of a Mobula you will see that it's arc to the left does not reach the center of the ship, but it can still shoot directly forward, which makes moving that Mobula a little bit easier since I don't have to fly in an arc.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2014, 12:39:48 am by Dementio »

Offline ShadedExalt

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #12 on: December 21, 2014, 12:28:58 pm »
OK, so up and down jinking is what you want to do, along with firing as many weapons as possible.  Bring kero, hydro, and drogue, have a multi-role up Tippy top, artemii on the top wings, and either kill or blend on bottom, with carro/flamer being the best, but gat/'shee, Carro/'shee and flamer/'shee being good too.

Leapfrog your target as much as possible, ambush people, and always have a plan.  Do I have everything?

Offline Replaceable

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #13 on: December 21, 2014, 12:45:28 pm »
Sounds like you're good to go. If you're still struggling refer back to the past or ask more questions :D

But also tell each crew member their exact job in chat and even in pubs I have had a fabulous time with the mobula. Best of luck and see you in the skies :D

Offline Dementio

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Re: Flying the Mobula: Wat Do?
« Reply #14 on: December 21, 2014, 04:47:16 pm »
Bring kero, hydro, and drogue, have a multi-role up Tippy top, artemii on the top wings, and either kill or blend on bottom, with carro/flamer being the best, but gat/'shee, Carro/'shee and flamer/'shee being good too.

That is how I do it, but when you think about it the Metamidion and Blenderfish work rather well and they are restricted to one range too. So the artemis and carronade/flamer are only how I do it since these guns have the most viability and rather good arcs, which makes piloting that thing a little bit easier. As well as these pilot tools, although I do believe that kerosene and either hydrogen or chute vent are mandatory.


Also, since the Mobula can out-dps many ships, you can sometimes ignore repairing the own armor or balloon, probably not the balloon though since you would lose gun arcs in most cases, unless you use more carronades then the enemy and have drouge chute to stay in air longer.
An example is that close range Mobula that the Thralls used to have, which had double Gatling and a Mortar, with sometimes a banshee for the pilot to use to get the kill even quicker. On this Mobula they often outright ignored the armor and just shot everything they had into the enemy, which was very effective against Metamidions at least.
But doing this is rather risky and probably hard to execute in pub matches, or even easier since your engineers might ignore armor and balloon anyway, but yeah.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2014, 04:48:52 pm by Dementio »