37 replies to this topic

[InnerSphereNews]

What a week we've had, eh? We posted out Ask The Devs 2 answers, then we released our first desktop wallpaper, followed by the fun and informative tweetchat with Russ and Bryan. Yesterday we released the quite popular Weekly Screenshot 3, featuring a rather handsome Dragon 'Mech. Debates raged across various topics, with one very positive note in the Region Selection being clarified for everyone. Shortly I will be closing the third Ask The Devs, so we can grab you some answers for Monday. We continued testing the Friends and Family Beta this week, the culmination of which is two very different 'Mechs. First up: My personal Catapult C1 (the 'Hole Punch'): Modified Catapult CPLT C1:

• Replace both LRM 15's with a total of four SRM 6's.
• Add 1 ton of SRM ammo
• Change the four Medium Lasers to Small Lasers
• Add Heat Sinks until you have 20 total
• Armour up your Torso and Arms; rear armour is not a priority.
• Keep two jump jets, remove the rest for space.

You really do need at least a 2 v 2 for this 'Mech to work, and the key to using this 'Mech should be pretty clear: Wait for someone to be distracted and jump jet down as close as possible, and use all your SRM's at once. You'll cause catastrophic damage to anything you hit; however, you run extremely hot, and have little armour to use in a stand up fight. Try your hardest to jump jet into a fight, use all your missiles, and then jump jet away while using your small lasers. The reason only a single ton of SRM ammo is used is that you'll either kill you enemy in a couple salvos, or they'll kill you - it is a very 'coin toss build' - just try to make sure that coin lands in your favour via positioning and jump jetting in and out of combat! It's an incredibly risky build, but oh so worth it when it works. Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

[CoffiNail]

That SRM CAT sounds horrible! For the opponent! shutupandtakemymoney.jpg!

[whiskey tango foxtrot]

Very nice build , little grasshopper

[Stormeris]

[Name140704]

Not bad Garth!

My Catapult:

4/6/4
18 SHS (+8 tons)
10.5 tons armor (168 pts)

3x ML - LT, RT, H
1x LL - CT
2x SRM6 + 2 ammo - LA, RA

[Slystone]

I look forward to more of these week in review! If you have been doing them I never noticed before.

[urdead2me]

sounds a fun build ill have to try it roll on next week for some beta info !!!

[wanderer]

InnerSphereNews, on 18 May 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

What a week we've had, eh? We posted out Ask The Devs 2 answers, then we released our first desktop wallpaper, followed by the fun and informative tweetchat with Russ and Bryan. Yesterday we released the quite popular Weekly Screenshot 3, featuring a rather handsome Dragon 'Mech. Debates raged across various topics, with one very positive note in the Region Selection being clarified for everyone.
Shortly I will be closing the third Ask The Devs, so we can grab you some answers for Monday.
We continued testing the Friends and Family Beta this week, the culmination of which is two very different 'Mechs. First up: My personal Catapult C1 (the 'Hole Punch'):
Modified Catapult CPLT C1:

• Replace both LRM 15's with a total of four SRM 6's.
  
• Add 1 ton of SRM ammo
  
• Change the four Medium Lasers to Small Lasers
  
• Add Heat Sinks until you have 20 total
  
• Armour up your Torso and Arms; rear armour is not a priority.
  
• Keep two jump jets, remove the rest for space.

You really do need at least a 2 v 2 for this 'Mech to work, and the key to using this 'Mech should be pretty clear: Wait for someone to be distracted and jump jet down as close as possible, and use all your SRM's at once. You'll cause catastrophic damage to anything you hit; however, you run extremely hot, and have little armour to use in a stand up fight. Try your hardest to jump jet into a fight, use all your missiles, and then jump jet away while using your small lasers.

The reason only a single ton of SRM ammo is used is that you'll either kill you enemy in a couple salvos, or they'll kill you - it is a very 'coin toss build' - just try to make sure that coin lands in your favour via positioning and jump jetting in and out of combat!
It's an incredibly risky build, but oh so worth it when it works. Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Not bad, though you can be brutal AND have some endurance just by swapping down from paired LRM-15's to a pair of SRM-6 racks (with two tons of ammo)...then using the remainder to up it's heat sinks to the aforementioned 20 (or even a few more) and tacking on some armor besides.

4 ML's burn a nice hole in things, and the SRM's add a lovely amount of hole-exploiting afterwards.

[Garth Erlam]

wanderer, on 18 May 2012 - 10:00 AM, said:

Not bad, though you can be brutal AND have some endurance just by swapping down from paired LRM-15's to a pair of SRM-6 racks (with two tons of ammo)...then using the remainder to up it's heat sinks to the aforementioned 20 (or even a few more) and tacking on some armor besides.

4 ML's burn a nice hole in things, and the SRM's add a lovely amount of hole-exploiting afterwards.

The difference, for me, was the alpha.
Alpha with that build: 44 damage.
Alpha with my build: 60 damage (!!!)

[Watchit]

InnerSphereNews, on 18 May 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

We continued testing the Friends and Family Beta this week, the culmination of which is two very different 'Mechs.

But you only mentioned one mech :[

As for me, I'd modify the Catapult K-2 by striping all the weapons and add twin ER large lasers to make room for 2 AC/2's with a ton of ammo. A nice long range mech, and there may even be enough room for extra heatsinks/armor/or jump jets

[Aegis Kleais]

OK, this raises some questions.

Previously I had thought that the Catap's arms/ears only had 1 missile mount on the C1. Yet he equips 2 SRM6's in each. Anyone have ideas on a mechanics that might answer this? I had though that they said that a Mech's default loadout signified what kind of hardpoint mounts it had. If the CPLT-C1 has 2xLRM15, that would mean it would only have 1 mount per arm.

Secondly, it seems that Jumpjets are not a singular item, but instead you can add more (to a max) to improve jump distance/duration. If true, very nice; that's the way I'd prefer them.

[Pvt Dancer]

Are you down to a 4/6/2 with that build? One would think a jump that small would make it hard to get into combat effectivily, much less out.

What role modes where you using? I haven't seen Offence or Defence talked about much.

[Redshift2k5]

Garth Erlam, on 18 May 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

The difference, for me, was the alpha.
Alpha with that build: 44 damage.
Alpha with my build: 60 damage (!!!)

Were you able to many alpha strike kills? Any notable victories due to your holy-crap-that's-a-lot-of-SRMs build?

Aegis Kleais™, on 18 May 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

OK, this raises some questions.

Previously I had thought that the Catap's arms/ears only had 1 missile mount on the C1. Yet he equips 2 SRM6's in each. Anyone have ideas on a mechanics that might answer this? I had though that they said that a Mech's default loadout signified what kind of hardpoint mounts it had. If the CPLT-C1 has 2xLRM15, that would mean it would only have 1 mount per arm.

Secondly, it seems that Jumpjets are not a singular item, but instead you can add more (to a max) to improve jump distance/duration. If true, very nice; that's the way I'd prefer them.

They have already shown that mechs may have additional hardpoints that are not being occupied in the base loadout of that variant. Check out the weapon type hardpoints in this screencap showing the PPC-toting Catapult variant with two energy hardpoints, one of which is occupied by a PPC. The same mech has 2 energy and 2 ballistic in each side torso as well.
http://static.mwomer...D0F9D330372.jpg

Edited by Redshift2k5, 18 May 2012 - 11:14 AM.

[Mota Prefect]

You mentioned two very different mechs, whats the other one?

[walkingraven]

Not a design I would endorse myself, but if it works for you it's your mech after all. I would be more likely to place a pair of SRM 4s on the left, a PPC on the right, swap the small lasers for machine guns if I must get that close and use the remaining tonnage for armor and heatsinks.
It loses the 'Holy-good-God-man-LOOKOUT!!!' factor, but might be a bit less of a gamble when caught alone.

[Heron]

Quote

They have already shown that mechs may have additional hardpoints that are not being occupied in the base loadout of that variant. Check out the weapon type hardpoints in this screencap showing the PPC-toting Catapult variant with two energy hardpoints, one of which is occupied by a PPC. The same mech has 2 energy and 2 ballistic in each side torso as well.

http://static.mwomer...D0F9D330372.jpg

The real question there is "can you have 2 energy and 2 ballistic weapons in each side torso at the same time?"
It could be that you can fit 4 weapons in each torso or any combination of two weapons.

Edit:
The Prime and Variants of a mech should have the same maximum number of occupied hardpoints with the differing factor being the type of hardpoints: energy, ballistic, missile.

The C1 has 8 hardpoints: 4 missile (2 in RA/LA) and 4 energy (2 in RT/LT)
The K2 has 12 hardpoints: 8 energy (2 in RA/LA, 2 in RT/LT) and 4 ballistic (2 in RT/LT)

The Chassis needs to be balanced across all variations to keep one mech from being inherently better than the others outside of weapon preference.

Edited by Heron, 18 May 2012 - 12:33 PM.

[Aegis Kleais]

Redshift2k5, on 18 May 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

Were you able to many alpha strike kills? Any notable victories due to your holy-crap-that's-a-lot-of-SRMs build?



They have already shown that mechs may have additional hardpoints that are not being occupied in the base loadout of that variant. Check out the weapon type hardpoints in this screencap showing the PPC-toting Catapult variant with two energy hardpoints, one of which is occupied by a PPC. The same mech has 2 energy and 2 ballistic in each side torso as well.
http://static.mwomer...D0F9D330372.jpg

Good catch; I missed that information. This is good info to know.

[Victor Morson]

I'm pretty sure the jets would be a good thing to dump in favor of engine speed or retaining the medium lasers on something like this, but we'll have to see. I really do like brawlerpults.

Aegis Kleais™, on 18 May 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Good catch; I missed that information. This is good info to know.

Yeah, it's a huge deal; it's also the source of a lot of the Mechlab announcement confusion. I'm really glad they're allowing multiple hardpoints, because otherwise the game would be forced into an "all big gun" fest that would render small guns pointless.

Edited by Victor Morson, 18 May 2012 - 12:32 PM.

[Armored Yokai]

InnerSphereNews, on 18 May 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

What a week we've had, eh? We posted out Ask The Devs 2 answers, then we released our first desktop wallpaper, followed by the fun and informative tweetchat with Russ and Bryan. Yesterday we released the quite popular Weekly Screenshot 3, featuring a rather handsome Dragon 'Mech. Debates raged across various topics, with one very positive note in the Region Selection being clarified for everyone.
Shortly I will be closing the third Ask The Devs, so we can grab you some answers for Monday.
We continued testing the Friends and Family Beta this week, the culmination of which is two very different 'Mechs. First up: My personal Catapult C1 (the 'Hole Punch'):
Modified Catapult CPLT C1:

• Replace both LRM 15's with a total of four SRM 6's.
  
• Add 1 ton of SRM ammo
  
• Change the four Medium Lasers to Small Lasers
  
• Add Heat Sinks until you have 20 total
  
• Armour up your Torso and Arms; rear armour is not a priority.
  
• Keep two jump jets, remove the rest for space.

You really do need at least a 2 v 2 for this 'Mech to work, and the key to using this 'Mech should be pretty clear: Wait for someone to be distracted and jump jet down as close as possible, and use all your SRM's at once. You'll cause catastrophic damage to anything you hit; however, you run extremely hot, and have little armour to use in a stand up fight. Try your hardest to jump jet into a fight, use all your missiles, and then jump jet away while using your small lasers.

The reason only a single ton of SRM ammo is used is that you'll either kill you enemy in a couple salvos, or they'll kill you - it is a very 'coin toss build' - just try to make sure that coin lands in your favour via positioning and jump jetting in and out of combat!
It's an incredibly risky build, but oh so worth it when it works. Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

so you said rear armor is not a priority
ill just rear ya while you run in panic

[Redshift2k5]

walkingraven, on 18 May 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

Not a design I would endorse myself, but if it works for you it's your mech after all. I would be more likely to place a pair of SRM 4s on the left, a PPC on the right, swap the small lasers for machine guns if I must get that close and use the remaining tonnage for armor and heatsinks.
It loses the 'Holy-good-God-man-LOOKOUT!!!' factor, but might be a bit less of a gamble when caught alone.

I don't think you will have the option of a PPC on one arm mount and SRMs on the other- The base Catapult has two missile-hardpoint arms and the K2 has 2 energy in each arm. Catapults seem to always be symmetrical. Maybe you could squeeze a PPC into one of the side torsos, but you'll be missing out on the extra motility of an arm-mounted weapon.