27 replies to this topic

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I'd like to see this one in MWO. And Clans do need more mechs of different weights available.

I'm sure it'll look great, with the only questions being it's potential scale and how it's hitboxes stack up.

[Andi Nagasia]

personally i want my Shadow Cat, PLEASE PGI GODS PLEASE!,
btw, is 8.5 tons really enough to mount all you need on the Viper?

[Navid A1]

Andi Nagasia, on 04 January 2015 - 08:26 PM, said:

personally i want my Shadow Cat, PLEASE PGI GODS PLEASE!,
btw, is 8.5 tons really enough to mount all you need on the Viper?

Oh man one of my favourites... add ebon jaguar (cauldron born) , Fire moth and Executioner/Kingfisher/supernova to the mix and i'll buy it.

[1453 R]

Andi Nagasia, on 04 January 2015 - 08:26 PM, said:

personally i want my Shadow Cat, PLEASE PGI GODS PLEASE!,
btw, is 8.5 tons really enough to mount all you need on the Viper?

Yes, easily. As I illustrated, the Viper's 8.5t pod space is plenty sufficient to its needs, if we get either the Alpha or Charlie fits. Preferably we'd get both, of course, but I know PGI better than that. The only real reason the Summoner and the Ferret have the problems they do is that they're tonnage-starved and hardpoint-starved. If either of them had a 6E pod configuration, or access to 4E/4B, they'd be fine. The Viper is tonnage-starved but in A and C fits it's nowhere near hardpoint-starved, and can thus boat tiny guns as effectively, or more so, than any IS light.

As for the Shadow Cat: while I'd certainly have no issues seeing it make an appearance, it would have to wait on MASC implementation. How MASC could even remotely possibly still be giving them programming problems at this point I honestly do not know. I get that the MASC'd Fire Moth might well be too fast for HSR to keep track of, or for the servers to properly render across multiple clients, but that's a problem with the Fire Moth, not MASC. That said...while the Shadow Cat is excellent in TT, and was one of my favorites in MW4 as well, it would suffer from hardpoint deficiency in MWO, even more so than the Ferret and the Summoner. All three timeline-canonical variants are extremely limited - the Prime comes with 2E/1B, the Alpha is a 2E/1M, and the Bravo's a 2E/2M.

Given the Shadow Cat's compact model (DO YOU HEAR ME, ALEX/MODELING TEAM?! O_O), jump capability, and ECM capability, these fits could be worked with...but the Shadow Cat is no faster than the Stormcrow is, barring MASC, and at 45 tons with fixed jump jets, it wouldn't have a tremendous amount of pod space. A quick mock-up in Smurfy shows 17.5 tons of pod space with maxed armor. 16.5t space after accounting for the inevitable ECM. Sufficient unto the job given to the Shadow Cat, but 16.5t pod space still isn't huge. You could shave some armor somewhere and do a Shadow Wang, LBX/20 w/3t ammo and a couple of C-ERML for hit-and-hide striking, or just use the Prime configuration effectively stock save for armor redistribution, but it would never really compete with the Stormcrow face-to-face. Not much in the medium bracket does, of course, and frankly I'd love to see the Shadow Cat turn up as it's a better fit for my more guerrilla warfare/totez dezgrah combat style, but the Viper would edge it out if I had to pick right now which would be the next Clan medium. Simply because, while the Shadow Cat might end up landing in Tier 2 as a solid pocket sniper, and would be a fantastic addition to Clan CW drop deck tables (have ten extra tons for something fat!), the Viper would very potentially be a Tier 1 facewrecker, and would be even better at giving Clan CW drop decks some extra room to give (have fifteen extra tons for something fat!).

We can only hope Piranha resolves MASC soon, I suppose. Either choice would be a great addition to the game. I'm just enough of a Cicada pilot to want a proper Clan speed demon.

Edited by 1453 R, 04 January 2015 - 09:12 PM.

[Widowmaker1981]

i really hope you are wrong about the Cheetah.

ECM isnt the bogey man it once was, basically because most have accepted LRMs to be trash anyway (and the ones that havent praise ECM as their saviour and wont mind more), its not the fastest thing in the game either - imo with IS quirks now its totally fine to implement it - IS diehards that secretly/openly want all clan mechs removed from the game will cry oceans of tears its true, but as usual they will be wrong and should just be ignored - it also doesnt have to have the super skinny hitboxes of the spider, they could make it a bit chunkier.. the artwork is a fairly solid looking mech

Clans really, really need some mechs lighter than 55 tons that arent total garbage if we are ever going to see any variety in CW drop decks... the list of possible options:

Cheetah (30t)
Shadowcat (45t)
Huntsman (50t)
Viper (40t)

Shadowcat is imo least likely due to MASC, any/all of the other 3 would make me happy, in the order that i put them (the viper will have great paper attributes, but the artwork implies horrible geometry)

By the way piranha, im fairly sure no one will complain if you simply release the Shadowcat and Executioner without MASC, and if anyone does they will be shouted down hard by the legions of shadowcat fans. just use the tonnage on heatsinks or ammo for the stock variants, or even leave it empty. Hell it even gives you an excuse to dodge the Arctic Cheetah bullet for another pack, since the light could be the Firefly. You do understand the forum rage a clan pack with NO light mech in it will generate?

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 06 January 2015 - 03:11 PM.

[Brody319]

Piranha! 12 machine guns, 151 kph, no masc, 2 medium lasers, 1 small laser. 20 tons. That makes 2 direwolves possible, and its got a DPS of 0.96 even without the lasers!

[Metus regem]

Coyotl please?



40t just needs 1 more variant to be in time-line... she's quick too 119km/h

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Coyotl

[J0anna]

Well written post OP, and I couldn't agree more, the Ice Feces is a horrible mech that I will never use in any situation where I hope to win. Getting them to elite was anguish and more often than not I felt like I was trolling my team by dropping in them. I couldn't believe they could make a mech that much worse than the Adder, but the Feces is stunningly bad. I don't think they can be quirked enough to actually make them useful (besides seeing clan quirks so far, I suspect they will get gauss/UAC 20 quirks).....