44 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Way back in Closed Beta, the Catapult was the cause of many tears. Seems almost laughable now.

Probably the first truly cried about build, was the dual Gauss toting KG "Gauss-A-Pult". Seems rather quaint now, actually. But back before 140%Heat Sinks, well, the no heat Gauss was a pretty big deal (also pre charge). And so the people cried.

Then there was the dreaded 6 SSRM rack CPLT-A1 "Streak-A-Pult". (See a trend yet? Almost as imaginative as ending every scandal with "gate"). All those lovely streaks hit CT, everytime, and weighed nothing. Used ammo like a miser.

"NERF!!!!" they cried.

Then some truly intrepid lad loaded 6 SRM6 racks onto the A1, and the much more imaginatively named "Splat-Cat" was born. And to "make a point" the "pro-gamers" ran the Meta "to show how broken it was" (odd since they then would use those same broken meta results to stroke their epeens. but I digress).

Anyhow, as a result of all this, the poor Catapult received a major agility nerf, in it's twist radius.

And of course, many of the designs from CB, like the Catapult and Hunchback, were punished for their OP nature, by having less Module Slots than the rest of the little mech children.

But here is the thing. Are any of those builds terribly OP in the current Meta? No. But Catapults ARE still the most easily headshot mech in the game, and their pretty center torsos are ooooooh so squishy. Like the inside of a blow-pop.

So is it time to restore the agility back to the poor little Catapult-That-Could yet? And to give the Catapult K2 it's extra module slot?

What say you, good people? Is it time to stop the discrimination, and welcome the Catapult back as a desired member of Mechwarrior society?

[FupDup]

For starters, the K2 needs it module slot back. It has worse hardpoints than the Firebrand and sacrifices JJs, so removing a module from it seems a tad overkill.

And since the K2 sacrifices JJs compared to the other Cat variants, I'd suggest giving it 2 extra hardpoints to compensate. Less maneuverability, more firepower. It would probably be 1 extra energy per arm, although 1 extra ballistic per side torso might be kind of fun with 4 MGs.


For Cats in general, part of the problem is that missiles aren't always the most reliable weapons out there (direct fire works all day, erryday). So, buff dem missiles (I won't get into the how-to for that because that's beyond the scope of this thread). Furthermore, carrying more than 1 missile per ear should not duct-tape giant boxes to the side of their already big ears. That looks ugly and is just plain stupid (not to mention, increases vulnerability). Side torso hitboxes should be slightly enlarged in size so that you don't have to turn all the way around to make a shot not hit your CT, but we might still leave the CT slightly large for XL friendliness. The head needs an obvious size reduction. The A1 could probably use some kind of quirk to compensate for being such an easily countered 1-trick-pony, such as a bonus module slot or something (or maybe even 2 bonus hardpoints?).

I wouldn't mind the agility returned to Cats, but the hitbox and hardpoint arrangement makes the Cat better at range than up close, and at range that extra agility doesn't make much of a difference. In a brawl, Cats will get eaten alive by Cataphracts, Victors, etc. no matter how far you can twist your torso around.



That's all I can think of for now.

Edited by FupDup, 20 January 2014 - 01:42 PM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I support this thread. I say, give the A1, C1, and C4 2 more missile hard points on the arms (one for each arm), and give the K2 2 extra energy hard points (again, one on each arm). Restore their twist range. Give the K2 its extra module slot.

[Dymlos2003]

I have the strangest feeling that I've seen this thread before...

[Wintersdark]

Absolutely.

Back when they were nerfing the Catapult, I argued against it. Splatcat days? Fix splash damage, I said, don't nerf the kitty. The whole reason the splatcat was so lethal is that the splash damage bug acted like a force multiplier.

Streakcats? Newtered by ECM and also only so frightening because of the splash bug.

Gausscat? It was never a real problem. Vulnerable head/center torso, and twisting to protect its CT just exposed the sides, which housed its explosive gauss rifles+xl engines.

AC40cat? *snorts* so slow, you had to make serious mistakes to worry about them.

And now, each of those "overpowered builds" have been severely nerfed by game system changes (gauss charge, ghost heat, splash damage fix, etc)...

Worse, there's new mechs which are simply better at every one of those things, better than the cat would be with its nerfs undone even. Yet thebpoor catapult labours still under the yolk of whining and foolishly reactionary nerds.

[990Dreams]

I don't care how they fix it but I want a buff on it. To easy to head shot.

It is high time people stop crying about nerf/buff this or that. Buff your tactical skills.

The one exception is when something is really freaking broken. The 6 PPC Stalker is an example (Ghost heat is my preferred solution).

Edited by DavidHurricane, 20 January 2014 - 05:03 PM.

[FupDup]

DavidHurricane, on 20 January 2014 - 05:02 PM, said:

I don't care how they fix it but I want a buff on it. To easy to head shot.

It is high time people stop crying about nerf/buff this or that. Buff your tactical skills.

The one exception is when something is really freaking broken. The 6 PPC Stalker is an example (Ghost heat is my preferred solution).

Speaking of tactical skillz, the 6 PPC Stalker was a horrible loadout. The 4 PPC variant was effective, ridiculously effective, but 6 PPCs was never good. Ever.

[990Dreams]

FupDup, on 20 January 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

Speaking of tactical skillz, the 6 PPC Stalker was a horrible loadout. The 4 PPC variant was effective, ridiculously effective, but 6 PPCs was never good. Ever.

Never saw or ran one but they sound stupid, even without the PPC Nerf/Ghost Heat.

[PenitentTangent]

two more ballistics hard points to the K2 and module slot back should help a lot. I think the A1 could use 2 more missile hard points, but its not necessary

They all need their agility returned to normal, though. This, I feel, is a must.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 20 January 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

Speaking of tactical skillz, the 6 PPC Stalker was a horrible loadout. The 4 PPC variant was effective, ridiculously effective, but 6 PPCs was never good. Ever.

Don't entirely agree. The 6 ppcs were not something to be used constantly, but I must say that the times the shot lined up right, the 6 ppc insta-coring was quite spectacular. 4 ppcs didn't quite cut it for that, though for "everyday" use, you obviously one could scarcely continuously try to use all 6. But the tonnage was there to make it work. 4 PPC was better, but the 6 could, and at least by my clan was, used quite well. (Nothing quite like an atlas cresting a ridge to be greeted by 24 PPCs. Now THAT was glorious fun.)

[Bhael Fire]

Haven't played with my Cats in a long time...

Sure would be nice if they could get some love.

[Prezimonto]

I really like the Tag head laser idea. You need a one with any LRM loadout if you pub, and as it stands you have to give up a medium laser for one right now. OR if you're the A1 you have to find room for NARC... which isn't quite as bad as I remember (after trying it recently) but it's certainly not good.

[Firewuff]

I really think they are fine, been running my K2 to great effect, dual UAC5 + 2 LLAs is very effective. not quit the unstoppable killer it once was but no slouch by any means

[Zerberus]

TBH, Even though I love my catapults, I couldn`t care less until someone finally either takes the ******* DVD recorder, Satellite receiver, Radar detector and Cassete Deck of my ******* ears, or they get shrunk down to an appropriate 5 missile size. They are mothballed amd waiting for the rust to set in.

As Big as my ears are now, I should be toting at least 40 lrms in each arm, and not 15... Or at least let me launch actual Locust battlemechs out of them if they`re already twice the size of one but easier to hit and with less armor.

Edited by Zerberus, 20 January 2014 - 09:41 PM.

[SuperBroHeroFella]

I agree on the ears, those extra launchers feel strange and dont speak of design. Looks like some crazy engineer taped them there.

[GalaxyBluestar]

kong should be proud. they were the ones who killed it in the name of ballance {pgi are doing simillar things to the clans} when really it was supposed to be a complaint about too great an alpha strike ability, GH would've killed it easily. but no the cat got nerfed to obscurity. and srm's being screwed, missiles in general didn't help the predominantly missile boat class mech.

yes bring back it's torso twist, or buff srms to see if life can be restored.

i ran a poll trying to figure out what was the community's stance on the problem then and i put everything to bishop {an rgument and a half! all's forgiven nows } back then and conceded that to nerf was wrong and the polls spoke volumes.

testing "evils"

and again

however they became nerfed and obscurity settled in. it's this scenario amongest others that i'm firmly against nerfing things these days. i know the outcomes mean more losers than winners.

[PhoenixFire55]

They will never un-nerf Catapults because then nobody will buy Jester.

[MeiSooHaityu]

At the least, I wouldn't mind a hitbox adjustment to the head and CT. The head is liveable as is, but the CT is way to squishy. I know that people are going to say that a design like that will have a larger CT, but I still feel the sides should cover a bit more.

The weapon loadouts work as they are for me (especially don't think they will because of the Jester), but the an agility increase sounds nice. If the Cat isn't going to put down the most damage of the Heavy Mechs, it wouldn't hurt for it to be the most nimble of them.

[Bishop Steiner]

GalaxyBluestar, on 21 January 2014 - 01:06 AM, said:

kong should be proud. they were the ones who killed it in the name of ballance {pgi are doing simillar things to the clans} when really it was supposed to be a complaint about too great an alpha strike ability, GH would've killed it easily. but no the cat got nerfed to obscurity. and srm's being screwed, missiles in general didn't help the predominantly missile boat class mech.

yes bring back it's torso twist, or buff srms to see if life can be restored.

i ran a poll trying to figure out what was the community's stance on the problem then and i put everything to bishop {an rgument and a half! all's forgiven nows } back then and conceded that to nerf was wrong and the polls spoke volumes.

testing "evils"

and again

however they became nerfed and obscurity settled in. it's this scenario amongest others that i'm firmly against nerfing things these days. i know the outcomes mean more losers than winners.

*tips hat*

[Bhael Fire]

Zerberus, on 20 January 2014 - 09:39 PM, said:

I couldn`t care less until someone finally either takes the ******* DVD recorder, Satellite receiver, Radar detector and Cassete Deck of my ******* ears, or they get shrunk down to an appropriate 5 missile size. They are mothballed amd waiting for the rust to set in.

Yeah, I have to agree, the tacked on missile racks look silly.