82 replies to this topic

[Ezekeel666]

Ezekeel666, on 29 May 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

Dunno about the missile variants, but for every halfway decent ballistic/energy setup the JM6-DD and JM6-S are vastly superior to the CPLT-K2. These JM variants have a 25% increased vertical torso twist, the ballistics in flexible and high shoulder mounts which for most setups are the highest dps weapons and are not heat-capped, a much smaller cockpit which cannot be shot at from the side and rarely gets hit and better torso hit zones for distributing incoming damage. The K2 looks better and that is pretty much it.

The cockpit hit zone has to be reduced to the lower central window section and the side torso zones need to be extended to the front of the head like they do on the similar stalker model. This would make the K2 a real choice compared to the JMs for weapon setups with a pair of strong energy weapons like PPC or LL. Still hoping for a Catapult Hero Mech with a pair of shoulder ballistic mounts - the UAC5 weapon models would look totally awesome on a K2.

And I forgot that the JM variants also have one more module slot than the K2.

Kitane, on 30 May 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

Twice headshoted during last hour, one was while torso twisting in the middle of the jump...he was going for the cockpit, because he fired twice and hit twice.

Seriously now...next time I see a PGI staff claiming Catapult's cockpit is fine, I am going to do something...

...something like crying in the corner, I guess...

Yeah that also puzzled me quite a bit when one of the devs stated that the catapult cockpit hitbox was about the same size as for the other mechs. Don't they know their own game? Someone should tell them in the next Ask the devs that this statement was clearly false.

[Arctu]

I currently own 11 mechs, most of them are already at master lever. Since heavy mechs are my favorite
weight class, I've played all versions except the dragons. Three of my mechs are Catapults, so I think I am in a position to judge the Catapults capabilities in comparision to other mechs - especially to the Jagermech.

My conclusion is that the Catapults are weaker than the other heavy mechs because of the large cockpit hitbox. WhenI play my Cats, I do get killed by a destroyed cockpit very often. This has nothing to do with my movement - I know to rely on speed and turning my torso after my shots to protect my center. It's just a matter of a huge hitbox in the center of my torso, where anybody aims anyway. You can even hit the cockpit when aiming from the side. Besides turning my back on the enemies (which doesn't really help my team), there is nothing one can do. For most other mechs you have to make a concious decision about hitting the head (with a high risk of missing the mech completely) or the torso. When shooting at a Catapult, you just aim for the cockpit and when you miss you at least hit the center torso.

On top of that, the Cats have very small side torsos which are very hard to hit. Many people consider this an advantage, but actually it's a big disadvantage since all the damage that should go to the side torso is concentrated on the center - making it very easy to core a Cat. And then there are also these big launchers on the A and C variants, making it very easy to disarm a Catapult.

So to summarize what's bad about the Catapults hitboxes:

- really large cockpit hitbox
- cockpit hitbox in the center torso
- side torsos dont protect the center torso
- large launchers make it easy to disarm a cat

To the people stating that the Catapult is a support mech and should die easily: What does make a mech a support mech? Is it that it simply sucks at brawling? There is nothing a Catapult does better than other mechs at long range, so why should it be worse at close range?

The Jagermechs are very closly related to the catapults. They have the same weight and the JM6-A and JM6-S are a lot like the Catapults in terms of weapon hardpoints. So I'll use them as a copmarision.

JM6-S has the same number of energy hardpoints as the CPLT-K2 and then 2 additional ballistic slots. It also has none of the disadvantages I listed in this post. Both mechs do not have jump-jets, so the Jagermech is clearly supperior to the Catapult. When fitted equally with 4 large lasers (my current CPLT-K2 setup), the Jagermech performs a lot better because of the more favorable hitboxes. Both mechs do not have jump jets.

JM6-A has 4 missile slots, 2 energy and 2 ballistic. There are enough missile slot to make it a direct competition to CPLT-C1 and CPLT-C4. In this case, the only advantage a Catapult has over the jagermech are the jump-jets, but this comes at the hefty price of survivability due to the hitboxes and (in my opinion) a worse weapon hardpoint layout.

The Catapult A1 has been a lot of fun to play using SRMs and was one of my favorite mechs. Playing it close range could counter the cockpit problem a little bit since you could jumpjet around the enemies (which does not work longrange) and force them to shoot my torso from below. However, SRMs are currently in a bad state and you don't deal enough damage to make it worth the risk of being in the center of the enemies attention.

So, please developers, improve the hitboxes of the Catapult to make it on par to the other heavy mechs again.

Edited by Arctu, 01 June 2013 - 03:58 PM.

[NachoFoot]

First 2 games tonight: 2 headshot instant-deaths.

Sigh...can't wait to get out of this PGI failure.