32 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Even though I have levelled 140 or so Mechs, I held off buying the iconic Catapults until after the rescale.

So here we are, after the rescale, with Catapult K2s on offer in the Challenge, and now the rest of the non-Hero Catapults are on sale...

Woot and bless you, PGI!

I'd appreciate if experienced Catapult pilots could let me know which Pults, and with what loadouts, you recommend for PUG play?

[Queen of England]

6xASRM6 with a 300XL works pretty well on an A1.

[Rhent]

Queen of England, on 07 July 2016 - 02:10 PM, said:

6xASRM6 with a 300XL works pretty well on an A1.

I run the CPLT A1 6 SRM6 without Artemis w/ 15 DHS, its the bomb diggety for dps and killing.

[Funkin Disher]

Most of them work well with stock+ loadouts. I've been running my Founders C1 with ALRM15s and 4 medlas in an XL for a long time and it's been very reliable, though i've recently swapped to ALRM10s for ammo efficiency and room for MPLs

My Jester has a big XL engine, 4 Mlas and dual PPCs plus its JJs. Once you get a hang of the heat curve its just as nasty a support mech as the missile variants, though I've also had a lot of success with the biggest engine you can carry plus a boatload of pulse lasers, DHS and AMS, functioning as an excellent flanker and light hunter.

[JediPanther]

I started in closed beta as a Catapult lrm-er. The Cat has been a great mech ever since it was one of the only four mechs in the game. She can do great things for those truly willing to learn how to use the chassis and not depend on meta and quirks.

I find the K2 to be pretty great, Even before the re-scale the catapults are my most used chassis. The K2 can run almost any combination of ballistics,lasers, or mix of both you can think of. While you won't have a mega-destory-anything-instantly alpha you can still do forty or fifty alpha if you want to go full fire power. For engines you can easily swap between five of them and build to suit how you want to play: std 2oo,std 28o,xl 3oo,xl315 max or std 3oo.

Equip case whenever you run standard engines and you'll have matches where it'll seem you've tanked more damage than an atlas. Those big gun/lrm pods are forty ton side torso shields when you decide to focus on the st and ct weapon points. Twist those torsos like your mouse control has spazed out.

The A1 is not the best cat to start out with as it as no side torso or ct weapons. Save it for your second cat. The srm six build can be great if you can keep to cover and get to the 27o m and under optimal range. It doesn't do well vs lots of snipers. Using the A1 as the lrm 5 x 6 spammer is probily one of the funnest builds for it. Totally at the mercy of others to get locks in solo play and walking dead when any thing comes after you. Still it is most rewarding to suppress enemy's in cover focusing on the slow assaults.

For dedicated lrming with back up weapons C1 and C4 are your go-to cats. They both have energy slots in the ct. USE A SINGLE TAG LASER and you can get your own locks out to 75o m. I equip med lasers in the other energy slots. Equipping Beagle Active Probe is a MUST as you will find lots of fast moving ecms and hate the archtic cheetah the most out of all mechs while lrm-ing. BAP will counter one enemy ecm only so if they are close together or wolf pack-ing lights you're pretty much fubar.

The Jester hero is an alright mech. It is all laser based. Two ams and the funny camo paint. 3o percent c-bill bonus with it is nice. I like mixed builds so I found the joker cat to be pretty boring to my taste. The two ams are good for those days when it seems every match is lrm rain from the sky. Load up on ten tons of ams and be the anti missile support when your ecms are probably off doing whatever.

The Butter Bee hero I don't have. It seems to me to be a lot like the C4 with 3o percent c-bill bonus. I expect it to play a lot like the C4 with similar C4 builds.

Recommended Armor and Equipment: ALWAYS HAVE BEAGLE ACTIVE PROBE. ALWAYS. Front loaded armor with 24 points on all rear armor. Nearly max all armor with 4o-42 leg armor depending on build. Max arm,side and head. Two jump jets minimal for moving around maps. Helpful when on the bog or having to jump down/over to cover in frozen city or canyon network. Command Console optional as I rather have three tons more ammo or heat sinks.

Recommended Modules: Sensor range 25 percent range boost. Target Info, the sooner you know what mech and more importantly its weapon load out the sooner you can decide to either engage,disengage or do a tactical relocation and trust me you will. Knowing is half the battle. Yo Joe!

Focused modules to make your builds that much more effective:

Fear of the lrm: Target Decay for 3 percent extra lock on time. Seismic sensor. I see you there light mech, no rear torso for you! UAV consumable to cancel out a light ecm wolf pack and makes a handy HELP ME! signal. LRM Cool Down Level Five mod for ten percent faster fire rate. Yes it stacks with quirks and basic and elite cool down skills. OH I just got 3o percent faster lrms woo hoo!

Say hello to my little friend aka Ballistic mods: Cool down and Range modules level five. Adv Zoom module because a sniper shooting and missing targets is not a sniper. It is a waste of ammo. Cool Shots, you want them for the times your heat from shooting stuff gets too hot to handle and shut down your mech. A shut down mech is very soon scrap metal. Don't be an easy kill.

For the lols are my K2 and C1 stats:

CATAPULT CPLT-C1 528 254 263 0.97 385 331 1.16 153,565 457,328

CATAPULT CPLT-K2 367 179 184 0.97 310 264 1.17 91,823 273,013

[Squirg]

CATAPULT CPLT-K2

Matches: 1,234

Win Ratio: 1.12

K-D Ratio: 1.82

Damage Done: 437,114

Trust me, I've tried pretty much every K2 build under the sun. 2PPC 2AC5, 2ERPPC, 2UAC5, 2PPC+AC20, 2AC20, 3LPL, 2Gauss, etc. imo the best builds for the K2 are:

Classic 2xAC10 Tanky, high sustained damage, if not a tad slow.

2xAC10 XL Faster, cooler, with more ammo.

Although for most of my K2 matches (probably 1,000 of them) I used an XL dual gauss build which imo isn't viable anymore as gauss rifles just don't have good enough damage potential after the CD nerf. At least, not for the risk of running them with an IS XL.

Example video:

Edited by Squirg, 07 July 2016 - 06:03 PM.

[Danghen Woolf]

For the Catapult I really have a hard time straying from the CPLT-C1 with 4 Medium Lasers and 2 LRM-15. A pretty solid hit when the LRMs run out and it can defend itself if someone decides to get close.

[Moldur]

Yeah, I run the XL double AC-10 K2 as well. Does pretty well.

Put an XL 300 and artemis in the A1. I switch between 6xALRM-5s and 6xASRM-6s. Say what you want about Lrms, it nets a lot of damage and is pretty precise in the A1. Splat cat is splat cat. Not sure what more to say. You are the bane of brawling mediums and still seriously disfigure everything else.

The third variant, well. Unless you're buying a hero, it'll probably be the C1. I'm still not really sure what to do with it. Doesn't have the hardpoints to lrm, and the Catapult hitbox doesn't lend itself to up close prolonged engagements. I've been running it with 3xLL and 2xASRM-4, iirc. I don't remember which engine I have in it, XL300, XL310, or XL315. Not sure...

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I'd also suggest the XL 300 2 AC10 + 4 ML loadout. It works very well, consistent damage, PPFLD when you need 20 points of pain to hit something fast, small, and Locust looking. Its reliable also and if used right will get you all you need in your matches.

[El Bandito]

I haven't been using it for some time, but the A1 will always have a place in my heart. Had fun lurming with it, had fun splatting with it, and had fun streaking with it.

[Kubernetes]

Quote

Recommended Armor and Equipment: ALWAYS HAVE BEAGLE ACTIVE PROBE. ALWAYS. Front loaded armor with 24 points on all rear armor.

wut

[Darian DelFord]

Appogee, on 07 July 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

Even though I have levelled 140 or so Mechs, I held off buying the iconic Catapults until after the rescale.

So here we are, after the rescale, with Catapult K2s on offer in the Challenge, and now the rest of the non-Hero Catapults are on sale...

Woot and bless you, PGI!

I'd appreciate if experienced Catapult pilots could let me know which Pults, and with what loadouts, you recommend for PUG play?

C1 3 LPL

Have fun :>

[Bohxim]

First and most played mech I have. Love the cats.
Anyways some builds I've run in that have had decent success.

K2
Twin gauss with 8 tonnes ammo. This severely lacks in up down twist ranges.. so not entirely that worth bringing anymore especially with gauss nerf..
Gauss with 2 ppc. Great support fire mech
Twin ac10 4ML. First mech to ever net me 1k dmg. Really funny when lights run up to you before scanning and hug your face

A1
6 standard lrm 5 with 4k missiles for cw defence . Lock down or cripple any slow mech trying to attack. Lrm 5 works decent without artemis
6 ASRM6 with 550 missiles and a couple jump jets. Kills any IS xl mech easily
6 standard srm6 with 700 missiles and more jump jets and sinks for just brawling thru anything

Jester
2lpl 4 ml with a huge xl engine
4 erll cw sniper

Butterbee
Have not bought this but 4 asrm6 with 4 spl is a nasty bite
Or 4 mpl with 4 asrm4

[JediPanther]

Kubernetes, on 07 July 2016 - 06:56 PM, said:

wut

You must like it when ecm jams your missiles. I'm sure you have back up lasers or bals in the k2 and a uav to counter. 24 rear armor means when a light does get behind and alpha you you won't die to its first hit and be able to retaliate.

[Y E O N N E]

CPLT-J

I haven't settled on something I like for the K2. You can do 2xPPC+AC/10 on a STD 280 pretty well, and you can even do 2xPPC+Goose on a STD 270, but the lack of torso pitch really hurts it. There's always the reliable 2xAC/10+4xML or even AC/20+4xML, but that's something better executed on a Jagermech or Rifleman, I think.

[GreyNovember]

JediPanther, on 07 July 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

24 rear armor means when a light does get behind and alpha you you won't die to its first hit and be able to retaliate.

Friend?

We don't go for Cat backs. Too squirelly to hit.

We go for those delicious ammo laden legs.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

JediPanther, on 07 July 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

You must like it when ecm jams your missiles. I'm sure you have back up lasers or bals in the k2 and a uav to counter. 24 rear armor means when a light does get behind and alpha you you won't die to its first hit and be able to retaliate.

Its just that 24 rear armor is crazy, especially on a 65 tonner.

Also someone can easily swap over to ASRM6s and some lasers with the other variants of Catapult to avoid the jamming. That usually ends up with some pretty good damage output, good frontal armor, and it vaporizes lights up close,especially with the good torso yaw of Catapults.

[Y E O N N E]

GreyNovember, on 07 July 2016 - 07:52 PM, said:

Friend?

We don't go for Cat backs. Too squirelly to hit.

We go for those delicious ammo laden legs.

Side torsos. If it's XL, dead. If it's not, we now have this hand-dandy blind-spot to hide in while we nip the CT to death.

[Kubernetes]

JediPanther, on 07 July 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

You must like it when ecm jams your missiles. I'm sure you have back up lasers or bals in the k2 and a uav to counter. 24 rear armor means when a light does get behind and alpha you you won't die to its first hit and be able to retaliate.

If I'm carrying LRMs or Streaks, sure I carry BAP. But I'm not carrying 1.5 tons of worthless equipment in my K2 or a Splatcat.

Also, I'm running about 2-3 rear armor, and I've not died to light mech backstab in... geez, I don't even know how long. Carry seismic and stay aware. I know people who run zero rear armor. Maybe it's crazy, but if you always run with a group you can probably swing it.

Edited by Kubernetes, 07 July 2016 - 10:05 PM.

[627]

A1 - there are two nice loadouts, one would be splatcat and the other 6xLRM5, fired as left right combo. Just keep in mind to be mobile and use it within 400-500m max. Sitting down and chainfiring doesn't really work with it.

C4 - Well, lurmy would be possible but in the end you'll have a splatcat with 4xASRM6 and 2 MPL. Flamers would work, too then you have a heavier and slower Griffin.

C1 - I run this a little different than most, 2xPPCs and 2 ML with 2 ASRM6. You could swap the PPCs against LPL and gain 2 crit slots if you can make use of it (otherwise this build is "full" and no free slots left with 16DHS and JJs).

However, whatever you take, you have now the most beautiful mech in the game so show it! Fancy camo is more important than the loadout

Edited by 627, 07 July 2016 - 10:17 PM.