I've always been a fan of mobility over armor and firepower in Battletech and Mechwarrior. The upcoming Grasshopper mech looks like it will be a nice addition in the same vein as the Quickdraw. The torso looks fairly compact from the art, and the specs have some hardpoints in the center and side torsos, so I think it will be a fairly good mobile zombie brawler (which is albeit, a quite niche role in MWO). I am especially excited about the 5J, which has 2 more JJ slots (total of 6) and a higher max engine rating than the Cataphract D. What do y'all think about this adorable new mech?
The 5J could be a good poptarter, depending on where the CT energy spots are. It has no RT/LT energy slots, so if the CT slots are low, that means you'll have to poke out much further to get a good poptart shot in, which is naturally less than ideal. It does, however, have 6 energy points and a head missile, so you could make a decent zombie out of it...right until it loses all the ammo. I much prefer head lasers for that reason, but what can you do? 5H looks better, it has a total of 4 energy slots between the RT/LT, which is great...again, depending on how high they're mounted. The 5N looks the most limited; it only has 3 side torso energy points, but can mount a total of 8 energy weapons. It cannot, however, load any missiles like the other two variants, which may or may not be a bad thing. It DOES get a head laser though, which is more ideal for zombiemeching it up. Which one is best will depend on what quirks they get...I expect we'll see at least one with a ERLLas/LLas quirk setup, one with a PPC setup, and I'd bet a MLas/MPL quirk for the last.
The series have JJ, which is always a good thing. 5J is the 2x AMS version, probably good for bigger things like LL/ERLL. As for PPC sniper, arms maybe low. 5H seem the most balanced I guess. Depending on the side torso hardpoint positions, this might be the PPC jumpy sniper. 5N is the prefered one really, a heavy jumpy energy boat. I think the Torso+head energy hardpoints are good enough. Oh it can zombie better due to energy in the head. The 3 torso is good enough, if you take into account the one in the head also. You won't mount more than 4 LL or above anyways so some of the energy hardpoints are for ML/MPL in the end. The single head missile is not too useful as one might expect, so don't dwell on it too much. Yes it is an SRM4, but since there are not other missiles to sync with it, it is less useful unless firing head on. IT does help if you are running a ML/MPL build and the whole mech is heating up. (Hint: Pilot in override mode, better take damage than a total shutdown in front of enemy) Don't tell me you are that idiot that packs a single LRM5.
Unless for some reason due to that head missile slot the hoppera get 2 criticals in the head.... that would open up a whole new range of possible builds for this thing.
Not what I remember from TT though, it is a single critical slot in the head, so it is either SRM2 or SRM4. LRM5 is stupidity as said, and SSRM2 iseven worse, without BAP it sucks and a single streak is not worth BAP. That said, I guess you can do with having 2-3 ton as a backup weapon if you want, I rather put that 3 tons somewhere else.
@enileph, I have found that for leveling up the mech chassis, a single LRM 5 is really awesome for getting easycakes assists. Being able to ping something with indirect fire for free XP is always nice. That being said, I would probably put an SRM 4 in that slot for opening up the backs of assaults, tonnage permitting. As for the number of critical slots in the head, I'm pretty sure you only get one unless it has a small cockpit which is not available in-game yet (and would have some sort of negative attached to it, as in the tabletop). I was fiddling around with the Cataphract D on Smurfy, since it is the closest thing to the Grasshopper currently released. You have to use the imagination a bit b/c hardpoints, but I think something like: STD 300 Endo 6x JJ 14x DHS 2x ER LL (in arms) 4x ML (2 in CT, 2 in arms) 1x SRM4 w/1 ton ammo 2x AMS w/2 ton ammo will be my preferred Grasshopper build. Obviously this doesn't take quirks into account, but it's pretty flexible with decent heat management, Alternatively, you could do max size XL engine and run around at 90+ kph in a 70 ton mech with about the same build. Since it is so slim, an XL sniping build might not be too bad.
Well, Yes if you are talking about leveling or point harvesting. If so then you might want some TAG also when you go for xp. But for practical use rather than point harvesting I would say a single LRM5 is of really limited use.
