So, catalyst now lasts for 8 seconds and costs 3 res, and the research costs around 20 if my memory is correct. Basicly its useless. My suggestion is: increase the time duriation for 13-15 seconds, and increase the research cost to 30. Hm?

Make catalyst like grenades, researching catpacks lets you spawn with one; make an impulse or command that activates the catalyst, like +movement.

"Ahh...that's the stuff"

Its fine how it is, imo. Sure its expensive, but its an amazing ability for the comm to give to marines, as it simply wins battles.

For 3 res a marine gets a bonus damage 2.5, and a crazy speed boost. Sure it only lasts 8 seconds or whatever, but a marine can tear it up during that time.

I use em all the time, when i have good res flow or even sometimes simply rushing them at start and using when the opportunity arises. You might think its a waste, but hey, a cat marine can knife down an early rt REALLY fast, and that can often mean the difference between killing that node and not. If that one or two cats actually mean killing even just one extra node (or winning a few extra battles), they're more than worth the res.

Leave em be.

If they sped up reload as well they'd be so amazing I'd get them instead of w1, should I command.

unmissable in an ultrafast shotgun rush.
too bad its end game technology (usually when you got enough res to spam it properly)

It depends on the skill of the players.

You have simple average players, don't bother. You have those amazing elite aimers, it's gold.

as soon as i get a catpack i drop all my weapons and start bhopping, gooo catpacks!

but really, catpack ambushes are the anti-onos. you'll need smart marines, but when the onos loses the last 60% of his health twice as fast as the first 40% you'll thank the 20+3*4 res. or cat to chase down the onos, etc.

but other than that they arent worth much (ie by the time you get them they're just icing on the cake). I like underwhelmed's idea, although the cost/time might need to go up. or put them on the armory instead of arms lab.

How about having a smart comm?

Try mixing MT with Cats. Give a cat to a player who you see if about to enter a fight. He will win (unless the obvious)

what if Cat packs could make aliens slighty intoxicated for a moment, then it'd be fun to try and drop them on it...it'd only work on gorges tho since we know what a sweet tooth they have for catalists.

what if Cat packs could make aliens slighty intoxicated for a moment, then it'd be fun to try and drop them on it...it'd only work on gorges tho since we know what a sweet tooth they have for catalists.

what if you actually got good at trolling

Uhhhh .... no, they're still bad. And horribly expensive.

Cats suck charlie, fix them up a bit yeah? imo decrease research cost to 15, move it to the armory, and reduce the drop cost to 2.

They do.

No, they don't. Try it.

cats being +movement for marines would be extremely interesting.

drop the cost to 2 res and let cats increase reload and +use speed. if that's too much of a buff then go back to how it used to be where it gives you health degen.

i can't see them being changed from a com drop as the weap limit has been reached so they cant be added to to weap selection; and the devs dont like adding extra commands so no new binds.

i -think-

Imagine, instead of a health degen, the cat-pack uses the marine's armor to work.
The startarmor has to decrease that fast that the cat-packs works as long as it does now,
but additional armor upgrades increase the duration of the effect a little bit.
This could make au2-au3 more popular and marines have to fall back to weld between the fast, catpacked pushes.

Smood is absolutely right here. If you disagree, then you have never played against a decent comm+marine combo using cats. And i mean single marine. If the comm is on the ball (or has MT so he can REALLY be on the ball) and a good-to-pro marine gets cats before every battle, or even during them, he'll go from a 5:1 ratio to a 20:1 ratio, all the while eliminating all the threats on the map that are now letting the other marines cap everything and securing the win with ease.

I keep saying I adore the little happypacks cause they do so much damage. They have so much use.

* speeds up your damage
* speeds up your marines
* speeds up rines actions.

as in 3 times yay. Also if a onos does not have celerity or charge this might be the thing which will save your rine from death, either by shooting the damned thing or being able to run from it.

Worthless because of 2 things:

1) Doesn't make you relaod faster
2) Is not usable by the marine clicking a button.

Fix those, and comms will start researching Catpacks. I have not seen comms use them at ALL in like the past 2 months.

I support that. I've tried it once as comm and 1 guy with a shotgun single handely killed a fade and a lerk with 1 cat pack, even when we were about to lose our last pg and lose the game. My whole team was amazed at that, and I had to change my underwear after that (just kidding ).

Edit: Add a skulk to the list of killed things the catpack guy did.

I've been using them all the time now.

I use a lot of strats, but my mainstay or MT rush, but i do often do A1, or AA, or PG right away, usually with HGs immediately too.

But lately, ive been doing more of Cats early. Either right away (of res is going well) or right after A1. They're a pretty fast upgrade for the Arms at only 40 seconds. With doing A1 first, you have time to get an Obs up going, and then save enough to have no issue getting cats immediately.

When you have the cat ability, i find i use them in the early game mostly on RT killing. Marines simply take out more RTs. Each one matters, and a lot. Chances are, each rt you kill means at least one less lerk on their team, if not one less fade or more (15 res to rebuild, and often takes more than a minute before the rt is replaced, hence costing them another 15).

That really plays out in the longer game. And if you're catting marines as they chase gorgies, their chances of killing a cel gorge go up like tenfold. They are just so useful in so many different situations, situations where their application far exceeds the 3 res cost, and chips away at that 20 res tech cost very quickly.

you can use them on public, but they loose sense on pcw s, coz its expensive and it incirease the time for a1 upgrade, so it should be in the armory

That would be awesome. You should have a 'cat pack indicator', and you can only carry a limited number with you, which would be refillable at the armoury.

Well.. the past few days some ppl could experience me when I got it like the 2nd or 3rd upgrade ingame. Catpacks make you LMG that fade or hive no prob. I really like em even more then I already did.

It's still lame in CO, since you've already spent (most of) your clip unless youve got a hmg and killed a skulk.

tbh i dont really care about "combat balance"

It's not so much unbalanced as poorly implemented. Maybe if it triggered when a teammate is killed nearby, or when a higher lifeform is in the area, or when you take damage like resupply.

You have to perform a dragonpunch like movement to trigger the cat pack (down, right, downright, attack)

SHO-RYU-KEN

you are correct mr ben

I have often thought about picking up a catpack gives you a credit, and you can use the catredit by using movement.

In Co, since you get cats from kills, you can get credits and stack them, etc

+movement is the same key as reload...

So remove the reload function. I always thought that was annoying anyway, since I sometimes slip and hit the RMB while I'm shooting, and well... bind RMB +movement

catalyst is the first abililty i get after weapon3

cat packs are golden.