John McClintock, on 03 July 2019 - 03:04 PM, said:
thanks for reminding me to put the C-AP in there. Almost Forgot. I dropped a ton of MG ammo just for the C-AP. Although I might drop a half ton of s-srm to add a half ton of MG. Anyways, here is what I ended up with. Haven't played it yet, but it looks like it could do pretty good.
keep the lower arm actuators, never know when you might need them to help hit a fast mover.
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Although I will not tell you what specifically to use with your build, I do believe that SSRMs are not only less tonnage efficient (considering the additional AP tat is needed), but also not of much assistance when considering the nature of the build's intent.
The problem with SSRMs is that they spread their damage all over a mech. MGs want to get to juicy tender bits without armor. For this build, you are taking missiles and other weapons to help punch through armor so the MGs can do their nasty work. As SSRMs spread damage so much, it will be harder to stripe through armor on anything tougher than a light mech for those MGs. This leaves you with a bit of a conflict in roles and not generally helpful to such a specialized builds as the Shadowcat would require.
The other problem with SSRMs on the build is the lack of amount of them. Two missile slots is not enough to overcome the typical weaknesses of SSRMs (spread damage), which means you are even less threatening to even light mechs. If you really want to use SSRMs, Arcticwolves, Stormcrows or even a Huntsmen (etc) would be far better in that light killer dedicated role. They can all place 4+ missiles on, which becomes a threat to lights and even some mediums.
As for that lower arm actuator (once more with a note of "I'm not saying you can't do it) is that you will spread your damage even more. Though the SSRMs wont care, and the ML is on the arm so it wouldn't care, your MGs would be split up between your arm and torso, meaning your MGs, which need to remain on target as long as possible, will become split up as you attempt to track a target. The Shadowcat should also be nimble enough to keep a target tracked with it's torso.
Now, say you had taken only three MGs on that arm and had the ECM torso or even a different torso with additional missile hardpoints (more SSRMs) or even no weapons, having that lower arm actuator would become more helpful. This is, of course, with exception to if you toggle your arm lock on/off as the situation requires. Still, 3 MGs on a light target might not be effective due to how little duration you'd keep on target... then again sometimes every bit of damage can count.
I'll repeat, just because I can, I do not wish to say what you can or can't bring nor due. That's for you to decide. I'm just saying why another way may be easier or something to consider.