JUMPCADAAAAAS
Anyways.
With some creative armor shaving that mostly consists of stripping the armflaps bare, you can get two large/two medium on the thing,
like so. Traditional CDA-3M hunter-killer armament, though substituting PILES OF JUMP JETS for the ECM and extra sinks of the original
Alternatively, quad-MPL super-jumping scout-duelist,
like so. I don't know how this one will do - back in the day it would have been a righteous handful with intense mobility and enough lasers to make people sit up and take notice, but 'enough lasers to make people sit up and take notice' is a different number of lasers these days. Admittedly with EIGHT CLASS IV jump jets and 133kph top speed, you can evade&avoid like a right proper champion, so it could be an entertaining harasser and pursuit 'Mech.
Or the Super Stock* Edition, trading down engine size to get extra armor, sinkage, and that third medium laser,
like so. Fair sniper, though in this role it has competition from the CDA-3M. Do you prefer mega jumping on your sniper, or do you prefer ECM camouflage? You could likely shave and de-rate your engine down to a dual PPC poptart...but frankly if you're doing that, the Sparky's a much better bet anyways, and/or the SHD-2K or some of the other 55-ers that don't have to give up literally everything else to cram two PPCs and a mutton-ton of jets onto the chassis.
Frankly, I wonder if
something like this guy here isn't the way to go instead. You get more reach and firepower both than the quad-MPL hunter, though no active probe. Significantly better heat efficiency than the ERPPC version and the DuaLarge HK, with the reach disadvantage somewhat offset by the Cicada's speed - 220m optimal on the iMPL is harsh, but ~300 optimal might be easier to deal with. Pretty reasonable infighter with the short beam durations on iLasers, but still not the ferocious 40+ alphas most people associate with Good these days. Will have to hit more than once, even against assplating. Does, however, have the speed and aerial agility to
get to assplating, so we'll see.
Either way, will be good to see the inside of a new Cicada again!
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