Mysteriously Cataphract and Storage

[Stone066]

I play since about 80h and have seen thousands of Quickdraws,hundreds of Orion,Thunderbolts and 40-50 Grasshoppers. I have never seen only 1 Cataphract ingame. Is this Mech a holy mistery or a reward? How can i find one if possible?
The other thing that realy makes me sad is the long time the program needs after i pressed the proceed button in Mechbay. Ok our Tech has only one original arm but what the hack needs so much time? And there is another thing that could be done. Please make it possible that i can take a Mech from storage with the standart setup ready. I can view a sheet with the setup and push done but the whole crap needs to be put in by hand.And after that there is the looooong time waiting for the Techs ok after proceed.
At last i have to say that i began playing BT since 1985-86 with tabletop and later on the computerversions. I have seen a lot of crap in this time but i love the game you made.
All in all i just can say you did a realy good job.

[gazomierz]

Enemy composition in battles is random. Hunting for specific mechs can be grindy.

I'm currently 850 days in. Rocking lance of 2 highlanders, atlas and kc. With battlemasters, victors and such in reserves. And I just got my first cataphract two contracts ago. Yeah, thanks for that. I'm sure I'll get plenty of use out of it. For entire game I've seen one catapult. Plenty of katapults but not the regular lrm ones except that one. It comes down to luck.

[Psygnal]

I was lucky. I've only seen a couple of cataphracts, but I managed to score one on the first mission I encountered it. Nice mechs, all told.

[Pyro]

I ran into one in one of the final story missions, and another one randomly. Between the two encounters, I had enough parts to make a whole one.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

One thing to note with the Cataphract so you don't get your hopes up too high - the only variant of it that existed in 3025 was the CTF-1X, the original variant that was basically a hodge-podge of whatever 'Mech parts the Capellan Confederation still knew how to manufacture. There's bits of Marauder, Shadow Hawk, and Phoenix Hawk in there among others. The CTF-1X had a PPC, an AC/10 with one ton of ammo, and a quartet of Medium Lasers. I haven't seen any more specific details on it, but I'm honestly skeptical of this early design's performance.

[starkmaddness]

The Cataphract is... okay. I have one, never bothered using it.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/one-chart-to-rule-them-all-comparing-all-mechs-hardpoints-speed-usable-tonnage-melee-etc.1088884/