6 replies to this topic

[MechaBattler]

Or does it really matter given how little quirks they have? I got to try some during the PTS. But they seemed squishie in the CT. So what's a good build for it? I'd like to give it another shot.

Edited by MechaBattler, 08 September 2018 - 04:50 PM.

[MechaBattler]

I ended up going with the NCT-C. I only removed one large pulse laser and replaced it with an ER Medium. Used the rest of the weight to stack dubs and skimmed leg armor to add yet another. It died miserably in it's first outing. So I dumped about 24 skill points from GXP and banked skill points into the mobility tree. Dropped on River City and just poked as often as was safe. Found a nice spot where I could hit and fade back into cover that also protected me from LRMs. About 460 damage. So its usable. But the CT is a super bullet magnet. So probably no stand up brawling or direct trading.

Edited by MechaBattler, 13 September 2018 - 11:57 AM.

[panzer1b]

Its pretty much the definition of glass cannon, ANYTHING so much as looks at you while you are exposed and you can expect to eat a good 75% of their alfa strike exactly where they aim at (pretty much every torso hitbox is insanely easy to isolate). Another big problem is that if your build uses both sides, you have to fully expose since the weapons are both sorta lowish and very very wide mounts limiting your ability to use many otherwise good weapon combos.

All in all, you can make it work, and it can carry some insane loadouts (LRM-90 with ammo and DHS to fire non-stop, dakka, pulse vomit), but it pays for all of that with the price of terrible hitboxes and not the best agility. Its to the point that id rather be in a night-pig (gyr) since its stupidly tall but can actually spread some damage while the novapig just cannot do that since its super wide.

[Pariah Devalis]

If you want to use a Nova Cat, stick to either lasers, or LRM/ATM. It is too slow and wide for brawling, so SRM/SSRM are out of the picture, and, if you want to do ballistics in a pocket-assault heavy mech, you're better off in the Night Gyr. Having said that, I absolutely love running this:

https://mech.nav-alp...fb7fd_NCT-PRIME

The mech has its flaws - primarily the arms being a bit too low and easy to isolate, considering virtually all its firepower is there. However it does have pretty sweet heat efficiency for a mech packing that many lasers in its weight class. I mean, it gets results.

Spoiler

And this is not even the most damage I've done with the mech in a given game.

Alternatively, you can go LRM/ATM with the -B config, which has ideal omnipods out of the gate. So, at least with missiles, you can preserve the set of 8 bonus. Something like this can fill the sky with an obscene number of missiles - and you could even push that number higher by switching out four LRM15 for LRM20:

https://mech.nav-alp...#b35de8a2_NCT-B

However, since generally you want to maximize its offensive potential to minimize its exposure, don't worry yourself about the set of 8 quirks. You're better off just going with what is more directly lethal. Due to that, any variant is equal.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 07 October 2018 - 09:10 PM.

[IronWatch]

I ended up choosing the NCT-D, but no matter which variant you have I would highly highly recommend switching out at least one of your torsos for the B variant omnipod. Having high mounted shoulder energy hardpoints is a real advantage over piling all of your firepower in your arms. It is a difficult mech to take too much punishment with, but it does have fairly thick armor for a clan heavy.

My current Loadout is an ER PPC in either shoulder, 2x ER Medium Lasers in the Right Arm and an LBX-AC20 in the Left Arm. Once I had the shoulder hardpoints I found a lot of the negative press concerning the Nova Cat to be less relevant.

[Yumoshiri]

The best defense in Nova Cat is offense.

6x MPL + 2x LPL (torso mounts), and melt away their faces. This has been my ace-winner, over and over.
Another fun one is Light's bane: 4x JJ, 3x SSRM 6, ATM 9, 2x ATM6
That's roughly 100 damage in the proper range, an instant kill to many light. It's a difficult mech to pilot though, as you are vulnerable to anything else.

[Nightbird]

6LRM one is great for LRMs, for direct fire other chassis are much much better.