Mech Spotlight: Catapult

[RasaNova]

Missile boat? Long range sniper? Medium range AC20 faceblaster? Between the C1 and K2 varients, there are hardpoints for a very specialized mech or a balanced striker, with good armor potential and jump jets are icing on the cake.

I finally got my 3rd CPLT-K2 piece after a lot of searching, so am trying for a dual AC20 setup. Haven't tried it yet, as of writing this... Had to strip a lot of armor to fit the ammo but I've got a feeling that a master gunner with multi & breaching shot will be able to work wonders with this, if she can stay alive! (Yes Glitch, I'm talking about you...)

How are people loading theirs? Please share your loadouts, strategies, screenshots and so on!

All Mech Spotlights:

Centurion
BlackJack
Thunderbolt
Quickdraw
Shadow Hawk
JagerMech
Highlander
Grasshopper
Vindicator
Wolverine
Locust
Catapult
Orion

[Sader]

why would you do dual ac20?

If you don't overheat and die, you'll just get killed by a stiff breeze because of all the armor you stripped. If you manage to stay alive you'lll just run out of ammo anyway.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by Sader:

why would you do dual ac20?

If you don't overheat and die, you'll just get killed by a stiff breeze because of all the armor you stripped. If you manage to stay alive you'lll just run out of ammo anyway.

Maybe. Hopefully not... Yeah I know an assault mech would be better for this but I don't have one yet with the right hardpoints, and I want to try 2 AC20 on a mech. So how would you load out a ballistic catapult? I'm all ears, and maybe after burying my test pilot I'll try your version! That's what this topic is all about

[virtualperson]

I'm a purist, so wouldn't opt for a balistic Catapault. I'd go LRM. love the Catapault, like a slow dumpy Mad Cat with no arms.. That said, I miss the Archer.

[wesnef]

I had my Glitch in a K2 for awhile. I use her as a mobile jumping skirmisher. She'd been in a Griffon w/ 5ML & an SRM.

The K2 I gave 1 PPC, 3 ML, and 4 SL. It worked pretty well, but tended to get shot up, since it was always bouncing around near the baddies.

(She's since moved up to a Grasshopper, 7 ML/6 MG.. :D )



...you know, I don't think I've even *seen* a missile Catapult. Plenty of K2's ._.

[RasaNova]

So far done a 3 and a 3.5 skull mission with the dual AC20 Cat. Got 3 kills each mission using hit & run tactics (pretty much anything she shot at ended up crippled or dead) and spent a combined total of 1 day for repairs. I paired it up with a stalker carrying 60 LRMs, and had a Highlander & Orion flanking the enemy and keeping them busy.

The enemy mechs went out of their way to go for both the Cat & Stalker, which actually made it easy to take them out before they got a 2nd shot, if they even got a 1st. I did have to do a few hasty retreats, but then next turn she'd turn around and core another mech.

So, a CPLT-K2 with 2x AC20s and 3 crates of ammo (enough to kill at least 4 or 5 mechs) is probably not the smartest build, but it can be effective and a lot of fun!

[wesnef]

Originally posted by wesnef:

...you know, I don't think I've even *seen* a missile Catapult. Plenty of K2's ._.

And then two of them showed up together, and attempted to LRM my Atlas into submission. Whee!

[Rob'sEvilTwin]

Originally posted by wesnef:

Originally posted by wesnef:

...you know, I don't think I've even *seen* a missile Catapult. Plenty of K2's ._.

And then two of them showed up together, and attempted to LRM my Atlas into submission. Whee!

Two at once would be painful :P I do like a Cat with 2 x LRM15s myself. I have never been in to paper thin Glass Cannon builds.

[Pherdnut]

Missile catapults are about the overlapping role of indirect fire but still being capable of shooting bits off to a limited degree with direct fire. I'd rather have an Orion-V specializing indirect fire while 3 other mechs do their thing. If K2s are great in a specific window of experience in the game for having double ranged energy weapons,, it's a very small window.

[ImHelping]

Plain old "Only 2 hardpoints" Missile Catapult is king of the Skirmisher LRM heavies without reducing another mech into a gimmick because you are desperate for a couple more tons.

The Alpha/stability isn't as big as a 50-70 LRM monster. But you can be sure it will be firing forever every single turn while on a moon, and able to makie a hail mary DFA to save a plot dropship full of civilians with it's leg armor intact.

I gotta babysit a glass boat Jager A, because even keeping it out of LoS they have paper armor and non evasives to soak enemy sensor locks (If you're in range to indirect fire the enemy, you're in range for the enemy to do the same).

A catapult I can pull up from indirect fire coddling as an emergency buffer for a turn or two before jumping it back to the baby zone. Or to help capture salvage with it's token lasers

Missile spam isn't so hot at carefully carving away a side torso instead of an exposed CT. And enough missiles to max out a stability bar in one go is also enough missiles to indiscriminatly obliterate a mech before a high guts AI pilot dies from knockdowns.

This isn't to say massed LRM boats are not ****ing amazine. Skirmish boats are just intended for different lance comps and goals.

Also the RNG hates me so I've seen spiders survive 60 LRM salvos from my mega boat, leaving my "only two launchers" bot to roll it's eyes and DFA the little bastard, then backstab another "Why does a light mech have bulwark?" to death with LRMs the next turn phase.

[HunterZ]

Just got a K2 and I'm not sure what to do with it, as I already have a mess of Orions/Thunderbolts and a Grasshopper that all outclass it.

I'm kind of over PPCs at this point too, as they just don't seem worth the tonnage+heat.

AC10 x2 + MLaser x2 gives more range and heat efficiency without losing firepower, so I'll probably start there and keep it as a bench-warmer.

Edit: If I had acquired this much earlier, I probably would have loaded it with MLaser x4 + SLaser or MG x4 to carve up light/medium mechs, but my Grasshopper fills that roll now.

[Strayed]

My first love.. you're every breath, that I take..

This is one of my top five favourite mechs (the others being Raven, Bushwacker, Centurion and Battlemaster (with the God-Emperor's "BFG" PPC rifle)

Unfortunately the C1 and K2 is all we've got at the moment. Would be nice to have the C4 at the very least to simulate a true IDFS mech.

C1 with a bit of modification can make a decent close to medium range brawler with SRm6's and MLAS. It can also make quite a persistent IDFS threat with 2x LRM20s and quite a bit of ammo - of course this comes at the cost of personal protection weapons. The LRM20 variant (as you will see in my video below) needs to keep moving if its being hunted and also needs to stay out of LOS; to which this serves two purposes, 1) its safe from DF fire and 2) if the enemy wants to remove this critical mech as a primary target, they will need to keep moving (see sprinting) to get to it which means thats one less enemy mech shooting at your mechs

Whilst proper boom kitty can't be made in Battletech, we can make a decent AC5 DF shooter out of the K2 but of course this build needs a number 2 to be a bit more of a threat to heavy and Assaults. The traditional PPC build is still quite lethal to face down with its ability to mess up to hit rolls, especially if the K2 sits in the crystal pile (+4 difficulty to hit) terrain

I'll make some more videos of the Catapult and post for perusal and giggles

This video is a mobility support lance up against a Steiner Light Recon Lance that was hot dropped from low earth orbit on a rear echelon support base

https://youtu.be/-ZANx1Fyyq0

[Dio]

20+++ All LRM
20+++
15+++
10+++

I like missiles.

[Nine-ball]

Ach, another one I missed! Man, I'm bad about that.

Everyone's favorite missile boat, the Catapult is a classic. It looks cool, and it mounts respectable firepower, coupled with priceless mobility and decent armor, while not being terribly prone to overheating in the C1 configuration. The Catapult has the ideal trifecta of warfare.

Well, most of the time. These things got kind of a bad rap in the mechwarrior games, due to the unfortunate placement of the head hitbox. The easiest shot, center mass, would often decpaitate a Catapult, causing it to be maligned as the Cat that didn't even have one life.

Unfortunate design choices aside, the stock Catapult is a solid mech in stock configuration, serving primarily with houses Liao and Kurita. Escept in this game, where the damn things are almost impossible to find. Even though Yang famously remaks that the K2 PPC version is extremely rare outside of Combine space, those stupid things pop up everywhere.

K2s are just a bit too light to be PPC platforms, though they can make pretty nice energy strikers with other weapons. Ironically, K2s and other direct fire variants were favored in Mechwarrior games for their ability to go hull-down, only exposing the arms. Yang should be right about them, though. K2 Catapults are only produced by Yori Mechworks in DC space, and the only reason they have PPCs is because Yori couldn't get a license for LRM racks from other manufacturers.

Despite the fact that only Kurita and Liao maintain the facilities to produse these mechs in any decent numbers, Catapults are quite common in lore, no matter what this game insists, having been fielded since the days of the Terran Hegemony. Interestingly enough, the Cat features a unique ejection system that shoots the pilot out the side of the cockpit and not upwards and to the rear like other mechs.

This is not reflected in any PC game, but presumably, it was to deal with how much difficulty the Catapult had standing up after a fall. Boxes aren't great limbs for mobility.

But boxes notwithstanding, the Catapult remains a solid heavy choice, even if the stock configuartions could use a little optimization.

[Galactic Origins]

K2 I go dual PPC
C1 I have LRM

however, none of my mechs use JJ

[Strayed]

Shameless bump

https://youtu.be/N3R0OTisaYM