14 replies to this topic

[Bubblewhip]

I'm having a lot of trouble with my newly bought Katapult K2. I've mastered the Raven and Centurion mechs and wanted a heavy mech which the K2 was on sale from the FRR earlier.

I love the idea of having two massive PPC's on a support mech but I found I cant hit jack with them. I thought the high arms would make it really easy to hit stuff over cover but in fact I have found it to be a massive hinderance when firing from horizontal cover (buildings and rocks) vs vertical cover (hills).

What would happen is that I would move from cover from left to right, and fire my PPC only to find that the left most PPC hit the piece of cover rather than hitting the mech.

It was horrible, at most I could be lucky and top out 100 dmg before getting killed every round.

I switched to dual gauss which if i wanted to do that i would have bought the Jagermech instead, and found it MUCH easier, easily topping out 300-500 dmg with a few kills here and there.

Why is the PPC so much more difficult than the functonally similar gauss rifle? Am I doing something wrong? or do PPC's just suck?

[Viken]

Basically, it's projectile speed. You need to lead your PPC shots a little bit. Gauss are faster.

[SnagaDance]

What Viken said. Also, those ballistic slots you put those Gauss in are only torso-wide instead of 'mickey mouse ears'-wide.

And yes, using those Gauss in a Jager would probably see you doing even better, at least that's my personal experience.

[DEMAX51]

If you're having issues with your arm-mounted PPCs hitting terrain, try putting the PPCs into two different weapon groups (i.e. mouse button one for the Left Arm PPC, and mouse button 2 for the Right arm PPC) so that you can fire them independently of each other. That way, when you're just barely peeking around a corner, you can fire just the one arm that's got clear line-of-sight.

The reason you most likely have more success (or less of this problem) with the Gauss build, is that the Gauss are mounted on the Side Torsos, and aren't as far apart or out quite so wide from where your cockpit is.

[Darwins Dog]

I think you can solve some of your problems by putting the arm weapons on separate fire groups. Left click for left arm, and right for right. That will also make heat management a little easier. Then it's a matter of finding the best firing positions for your mech. You want to look for ridge lines and hills (like you mentioned).

I run my K2 with 2xPPCs and 2xAC/5s. The quirks give them almost the same projectile speed. I use this in three weapon groups. You need to expose a lot of your mech to get the full damage potential, but you still have options for nice hit and fade attacks with the PPCs.

EDIT: What DEMAX51 said.

Edited by Darwins Dog, 21 January 2015 - 11:28 AM.

[Inveramsay]

The Cat is a lot bigger and wider than what you are used to and because it packs more armour it can withstand a little more abuse. This may mean you have to get more out of cover than what you are used to. To get around the shooting into walls two solutions spring to mind. 1) Bind left PPC to left mouse key and right PPC to right mouse key. I've got several mechs that have weapons far out set up like that. 2) Ditch the PPCs altogether. I've had good success with both AC10x2, 4xMlas and XL280 as well as 2xLLas, 2xUAC5, 2xSLas XL280 builds. Not sure what you have in terms of engines kicking about but a 280xl is a good sized engine for that mech.

[Rogue Jedi]

as Viken [edit: and SnagaDance] said projectile speed, just to elaborate the Gauss projectile travels more than 3 times as fast as the PPC blast, think it was something like 3000 meters per second for the Gauss, meaning that for a target 600m away it would take about 1/5 of a second for the Gauss round to hit, the PPC is something like 850 m/s so firing at something 600m away it would take about 3/4 of a second for the PPC round to reach an enemy. a Mech can move a lot further in 3/4 of a second than 1/5 of a second.

the AC10 and AC20 have about the same projectile velocity as the PPC and I have trouble hitting anything further away than 200m with ether of those

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 21 January 2015 - 11:46 AM.

[Bubblewhip]

Inveramsay, on 21 January 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

The Cat is a lot bigger and wider than what you are used to and because it packs more armour it can withstand a little more abuse. This may mean you have to get more out of cover than what you are used to. To get around the shooting into walls two solutions spring to mind. 1) Bind left PPC to left mouse key and right PPC to right mouse key. I've got several mechs that have weapons far out set up like that. 2) Ditch the PPCs altogether. I've had good success with both AC10x2, 4xMlas and XL280 as well as 2xLLas, 2xUAC5, 2xSLas XL280 builds. Not sure what you have in terms of engines kicking about but a 280xl is a good sized engine for that mech.

I'm running a 300xl engine with 2 gauss rifles and 4 tonnes of ammo, 2 medium lasers, and little to no armor at the arms.

I've got an 275xl from the ravens, and a 210 xl.

[Jody Von Jedi]

I bought a K2 during that FRR sale too. Same issues you were having.

I kept the PPC, but I moved them from the ears to the torso. They're better protected, easier to aim from cover, and have better convergence.

I don't really care much for it. I like my C1 and A1 better.

[TheCaptainJZ]

What Jody said but you do lose some vertical movement from the arms. The k2 is capable of running a few solid builds. You can go with big ballistics or big energy. It's pretty flexible. The symmetry is great but you could make a mini misery stalker out of it if you wanted.

[Koniving]

Bubblewhip, on 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM, said:

I love the idea of having two massive PPC's on a support mech.

I know this isn't helpful, but I can't resist.
Current and past versions of massive.

Spoiler

"Massive; currently."


Massive, back when it meant something.

(Kon)

Massive, closed beta.

[Koniving]

Bubblewhip, on 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM, said:

Why is the PPC so much more difficult than the functonally similar gauss rifle? Am I doing something wrong? or do PPC's just suck?

Location.

Compare the above pictures and where the PPCs are placed.

Now compare this image.


If you were to take MWO's sports car, raise it up to in front of the Cockpit and then start placing additional cars door to door (not even counting mirrors...because MWO's cars don't have any), with a car in the center... it is 2 additional cars away to the Gauss rifle (the ballistic mount) on a K2... and almost 5 car-widths apart from the cockpit to the PPC in the K2's arm!!

What you might consider is replacing the energy weapons in the STs instead with PPCs. Like this C1 of mine.


ST mounted PPCs for 'horizontal cover' and arm mounted PPCs for vertical cover.
Just swap them with a plan for using said style of cover.

(You will have this problem regardless of PPCs or other energy weapons; this is just a fact of life associated with wide arms).

For a quick size comparison thingy...

(Kon is the Locust taking this shot).


(Kon is the Commando in this shot; most shots shown taken by Lordred).

Edited by Koniving, 21 January 2015 - 02:39 PM.

[MarkFBD]

Bubblewhip, on 21 January 2015 - 09:10 AM, said:

I'm having a lot of trouble with my newly bought Katapult K2. I've mastered the Raven and Centurion mechs and wanted a heavy mech which the K2 was on sale from the FRR earlier.

I love the idea of having two massive PPC's on a support mech but I found I cant hit jack with them. I thought the high arms would make it really easy to hit stuff over cover but in fact I have found it to be a massive hinderance when firing from horizontal cover (buildings and rocks) vs vertical cover (hills).

What would happen is that I would move from cover from left to right, and fire my PPC only to find that the left most PPC hit the piece of cover rather than hitting the mech.

It was horrible, at most I could be lucky and top out 100 dmg before getting killed every round.

I switched to dual gauss which if i wanted to do that i would have bought the Jagermech instead, and found it MUCH easier, easily topping out 300-500 dmg with a few kills here and there.

Why is the PPC so much more difficult than the functonally similar gauss rifle? Am I doing something wrong? or do PPC's just suck?

I had trouble using PPCs (thought they were worthless) until i mounted them on my BJ3. 2 PPC 2 ML. HOWEVER, I only use them on this bc the quirks all but require their use. I also added the cooldown. I RARELY connect with anything smaller than another BlackJack. I do about 300 dmg per match , but I'm not a Gun Slinger by any measure.

[Aiden Skye]

If you are used to shooting from arm mounted weapons as well, shooting from the high mounted arms on the k2 is going to feel a bit different. I use ER-PPC's a lot on my Timberwolf. It often takes a couple matches for me to get my aim right when the PPC's are firing from above the cockpit as in the case of the K2.

[oldradagast]

PPC's are such an odd weapon in some ways. They seem to have a larger hitbox - the energy ball they fire, that is - than it would appear. This can result in hitting terrain vs. hitting your target in the distance.