67 replies to this topic

[Hayashi]

Can this variant even mount jump jets? I was under the impression it was a jetless chassis.

[Zylo]

theta123, on 20 November 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

I am heavy cataphract guy
And dis, is my weapon

She weights 70 tonnes and fires 200 Cbill custom tooled AC/2 shells at 400 rounds a minute
...it costs 400 000 Cbills to fire this weapon..for 12 minutes

Does it include the "Sandvich"?

Edited by Zylo, 20 November 2012 - 10:36 PM.

[Thomas Covenant]

Hayashi, on 20 November 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

Can this variant even mount jump jets? I was under the impression it was a jetless chassis.

Quote

Cataphract CTF-3D

* Tonnage: 70
* Top Speed: 64.8 kph
* Armor: 352 points
* Weapons: 4 Medium Lasers, 1 LB 10-X AC, 1 Ultra AC/5
* Hardpoints: 4 Energy, 2 Ballistic, 1 AMS
* Jump Jets: 4

Only the 3D

[ManDaisy]

Here is a suggestion:

Group 1 as: 2 ac 2's in chain fire.
Group 2 as: UAC5 and AC 5 as group fire.

Hold both buttons down.

Save about 6 tons.

[Yelruh]

Just ran my 4X with stock engine, AMS with 1 ton ammo, 6 ton AC2 ammo with case, and 4x AC2. Max armour, and as many heat sinks as I can fit. Endo steel to save some weight, can't afford DHS yet.

Had 2 games with it. Tore through 5 mechs, and won both games. It will take off one complete side of a hunchback and kill off the centre torso in about 20 seconds of sustained fire. retreat to allow cooling, and then go in for the next mech. Takes down the rear torso of an atlas in about 30 seconds as well. It is certainly the most fun to play of all my mechs.

My god does it lay down some high speed fire!! The best thing is you can adjust where you are firing by tracking where the shots are landing without worrying about long reloads or lack of ammo.

Edited by Yelruh, 20 November 2012 - 11:27 PM.

[Asmosis]

you could always add 2 machine guns (tracer rounds really) and put them in a seperate group, then put ac/20's or gauss in a second fire group for the real damage.

Some people will simply ignore you and focus on something else if they see you shooting machine gun rounds until its too late. I did this once with a cicada and got cored by the ac/20 it was hiding under all those rubber bullets.

I would probably take the 200 standard or 250 xl engine with this, 250 mainly to save space on DHS so you can fit endo on there as well. Flamers work well for really messing with someones view when your pounding them with AC rounds

*edit*

IS there a list of the hardpoint locations for the variants? need to work out which ones to grind and sell and which to keep.

Edited by Asmosis, 20 November 2012 - 11:45 PM.

[Ephrael]

Had 3 cataphract charge my whachapult in the kill box next to the tunnel entrance on the forrest map.

Bam head shot
Bam head shot

and the theird one got me. most likely because i already had an exposed core.

Anyways, OP might make it sound like its awsome, but given that it have 4 ballistic mount points and you can make alot of fun with it (I bought one my self). However the big bullseye which is the head makes it very easy to take down.

Its even easier to get a head shot on that the cat.

So sustained fire from AC2's or machineguns will make you have to focus on the target longe enough for him to hit you square in the face.

Regards Ephrael

Edited by Ephrael, 21 November 2012 - 12:02 AM.

[Jaded Jasper]

2xUAC5 + 2xAC2 is where it's at.

[Asmosis]

no issues with headshots so far here, got cored without taking any damage to head so the hotfix seems to have done what its supposed to. Now just need mechbays highlighted portion to show where the real head is like Atlas.

Using a quad ac/5 build and its hilariously fun. can chainfire and stay heat neutral just with the base 10 DHS, allowing plenty of ammo to be wasted trying to hit nearby light mechs. Groupfire for an AC/20 round every 1.7 seconds. Vulnerable to lrm indirect fire, but can afford to spray ac/5 rounds in the general direction of lrmboats to make em hide.

[The Captain]

Jaded Jasper, on 21 November 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

2xUAC5 + 2xAC2 is where it's at.

I concur. The UAC/5's give you a serious firepower upgrade over the quad AC/2's. I've tried quad AC/2, quad AC/5, 2x LB 10-X+2x AC/2 and 2xUAC/5+ 2x AC/2.

Here's my current build, reusing the XL255 I bought for my Cicada.


CTF-4X
70 Tons
XL255 (largest possible) 59 KPH
Endo Steel
DHS (12 heatsinks @ 16.8 effective, heat efficiency of 1.11)
Armor: 432

Center Torso:
Small Laser (for emergencies, and to use up the extra 1/2 ton)

Each Arm:
UAC/5
AC/2

Each Side Torso:
DHSx1
UAC/5 Ammo x3
AC/2 Ammo x1

Fire Groups:
1: UAC/5+AC/2 on left arm (LMB) Chain Fire
2: UAC/5+AC/2 on right arm (RMB) Chain Fire
3: Small Laser (MMB)
4: DAKKA (Both UAC/5 and both AC/2) (Group fire)

Total ammo: 75 rounds per gun (150 AC/2 and 150 UAC/5)


The idea with this build is to fire lazily with chain fire until you have the vulnerable bits of a tasty mech in your sights, then hammer your dakka fire group to finish the job. When you 'kickstart' the guns firing with your chain fire (hitting fire group 1 and 2 once), and then hit the dakka group, two of your guns will be on cooldown, and two will be ready to fire... so when you hold down the fire group you get a constant stream of 2 or 5 damage shells without having to let up. It hits you with a lot of heat, but with 12 DHS (10 in the engine, 1 in each torso), you have effective heatsinks of 16.8.... enough to core and kill an atlas from behind and take care of his friends.

The amount of screenshake this gives opponents is insane, as they're being hit with something like 4 rounds per second. The heat buildup is high, but anything you're facing basically melts when you hit them with this much firepower, which gives you time to cool down. The nice thing about combining the UAC/5 and AC/2 is that on chain fire, they have about the same ROF, so you can lay down a constant stream of fire from one arm, both arms, or all guns at the same time. Firing all guns on the group fire firegroup gives you about double the fire rate that firing both groups on chain fire does.... So you can basically fire at 1x (one arm chain), 2x (two arms chain), or 4x (all guns) intensity without really having to think about it, which helps with heat management.

The cat has enough armor to sit in engagements for a decent length of time before exploding. The XL engine makes it more likely you'll die on a side torso hit, but all your weapons are in the arms anyway... if you're losing side torsos, you're losing your arms, which means you're basically dead anyway. With quad AC/2's I have trouble coring a cat from the rear... with this build I can strip their rear armor in a few seconds. The AC/2's are also your jam protection, as you can just keep firing them on chain or group fire while you wait for the UAC/5 to unjam itself.

It has ammo and heat issues... but it's a lot of fun. I used to average about 200 damage per game... now I'm regularly hitting 500-600.

I wish I was happier with my dual LBX-10 build... I'll try to make that one work next.

Edited by The Captain, 21 November 2012 - 02:22 AM.

[Dan Grommel]

XL 245, Quad AC/5. Nuff said.

[Radiohazard]

That twin uac5/ac2 build looks amazing.

I take it that you need the endo and xl to make it work?

[Aesaar]

Had a game where 3/4 of the team must have been running quad AC/2 Cataphracts. We just moved forward laying down an incredible hail of shells. It was hilarious and terrifying.

Edited by Aesaar, 21 November 2012 - 05:54 AM.

[Wrenchfarm]

ManDaisy, on 20 November 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

Here is a suggestion:

Group 1 as: 2 ac 2's in chain fire.
Group 2 as: UAC5 and AC 5 as group fire.

Hold both buttons down.

Save about 6 tons.

BRB, going to the mechlab.

[Squarefox]

On my Catafragged 4X I use quad AC/5 with chain fire on group 1 and group fire on group 2. 8 tons of ammunition and a small laser for backup. An 255 XL engine, double heat sinks, endo steel and maximum armor (2 points stripped from the legs). Heavy dakka the whole day long!

[Hellkyte]

Cycle fire on 3+ AC2s is a massive waste since the cycle time is longer than the cool down. The guns fire so fast anyways that your only really firing like 1.5 AC2s.

[Pierce Rossignol]

BOOMLegShot, on 20 November 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

I wonder why I just don't go back to my dual AC/20 or guass Catapult with the weapons tucked safely into the torso.

Because with Gausses in the arms and more armor than the Cat, the 4X isn't totally helpless in a brawl.

[wanderer]

Dirus Nigh, on 20 November 2012 - 09:52 PM, said:

I tried a very similar load out earlier today. 4 ac2s 2 med lasers. I learned I am not very good at leading ballistic weapons mounted in arm. Its been awhile sense I've done that.

I noticed a bug with the this cataphract. The mechlab tells me it is short a half ton. Any one ells notice this.

It's because there's a twitch of armor above and beyond half a ton on the 'Mech. Pull two points off and it'll weight-balance properly.

Also, UAC/5's are no longer "sub-par" with the fixed jamming mechanic, and pair them with two AC/2's. I tried that, and it really does lob a lot of metal downrange- I just prefer the insane ROF quad AC/2s give, but the above configuration neatly staggers targets and it's rare to see both UAC's jam at once now.

Radiohazard, on 21 November 2012 - 02:15 AM, said:

That twin uac5/ac2 build looks amazing.

I take it that you need the endo and xl to make it work?

I've done a slower version with endo + DHS and a 200-rated engine, so no. I admit though, I'm tempted to go XL on these.

[Athurio]

I'm loving the 4XAC/2 loadout. Me and my Dakkaphract are getting along nicely.

[wanderer]

Krellmane, on 21 November 2012 - 08:37 AM, said:

I'm loving the 4XAC/2 loadout. Me and my Dakkaphract are getting along nicely.

Amusingly enough, it's also incredibly cheap to repair and rearm, since AC/2 ammo costs are so low and it really doesn't use much in the way of expensive parts. Even the low-rating engine is a bargain compared to bigger (and/or XL) engines.

I'll regularly see 14-15K repair bills- for a trashed -4X.