Like the title says. I'm assuming catpacks are the same thing as stimpacks from starcraft, but NS is a considerably different game and I was wondering in what situations would catpacks be most useful. Anyone?

When a fade comes, drop catpacks for your shotgunners. GG fade before you have the time to blink (yes i know, lame joke )

if you insist on using them, you could try giving one to a marine knifing a res node....he might be able to kill the rt before he gets mauled by 3 skulks.

Yes catpacks are good, but usually not much of an option because res is too tight. Cat packs are great for marines shooting down ocs with LMGs, and likewise for LMG marines against fades. Plus they are good for a welder guy fixing structures, but mostly if you have somebody repairing an electrified RT. Fixes em quick. I used to not think catpacks increased welding but learned it does from playing combat and welding the CC.

Even more effective phase rushing on a hive. 4 shotgunners + cat packs = hive gone in 5 seconds

Played a game today, very intense. Was aliens, had two hives with DC and MC. I was onos, keeping the marines out of powersilo on Nothing, around the foreboding antechamber. I'm at the top of the quad lift, smacking around a few marines and stomping a bit, sitting nicely in my umbra when I heard something. It's the sound of something being dropped and the sound of a catpack being activated, on marines in HA with HMGs. I immediatly make a beeline down the quadlift hide behind the RT and wait the storm out. Simpley put, if nothing else, those catpacks will make most higher lifeforms think twice about attacking a group of marines. I later died in the antechamber taking out two heavies and dieing to one behind me. I shoulda just devoured the heavy, killed the other and jumped off the side so I could kill the one I just ate without being killed and him coming out.

Hiverushes... definately.

Catpacks are ownage but you have to know how to use them. Spamming them till you run flat out of res is NOT the way to go. Getting a pg,a few shotguners in a hive and dropping a few cats though IS.

If you have super hax and mt then dropping them on shotgunners just before a fade comes charging round the corner also makes things much easier but their use is very much limited because half the time you just spam res away like crazy and the marines pick up the cats AFTER the fade has ran. |:

Drop catalyst packs on people with a full clip of HMG or shotgun right before they need to kill something, and it's going to be dead doublequick. Catpacks won't matter if they don't get dropped right on top of the marine, and since they don't speed up reload time, your guys have to get them the moment they start firing. Catpacks aren't great if all your marines have are LMGs, and they don't work well on grenade launchers either. Most people I see don't get catpacks unless it's part of the strategy, such as handing out mass shotguns and catpacking your marines to the hive. The reason is because it makes your arms lab unable to research upgrades while it's researching catpacks, and catpacks aren't that useful for their cost once you have them.

They're a cool toy, but until they get a bit cheaper and effect reload speed, they won't be used very often.

They make HMGs and shotties fierce, until they run out of ammo and need to reload. That's really their purpose. You give them to your guys right before they see action, so that they can run empty in five seconds, and whatever they were aiming at is annihilated faster than it can run away. Killing onos, fades, and shotgun hive rushes are especially good uses for catpacks, but to get any use out of them, you really have to be good at dropping things right on people's heads, and knowing who you're dropping them on, and what weapon they have, and ideally how much ammo they have left. Catpacks let you run faster too, but usually it's not fast enough to escape, reload, and resume firing. Catpacks don't last that long anyway.

If your team is rich, dropping catpacks on top of people assaulting a hive or fighting off multiple high level aliens is great. Anything that boosts your guys' ability to stay alive and kill the enemy is a good thing, but you have to weigh out the cost of catpacks.

To sum up Swift Idiot's post, catalyst packs are simply toys for when you are dominating the game.

I like to use them to chase down onos who feels that he can just run in and eat that heavy and expect to get out alive. A catpack'd marine can keep pace with cele onos.

catpacks are incredibly hard to use effectivly, but i have seen a fade die within, literally, 1/3'rd of a second to a lmg and cat'd shotty.

Basicly, lure that fade into at least one shotty, and cat the shotty the second the fade comes into view, BUT NOT BEFORE THE ATTACK BLINK and you have a dead fade.

edit: supposedly they help you build faster, not sure about that, but that could sure help with PG rushes.

Catpacks can turn the tide of a battle if they're dropped on the threshold of a hive room. Defending aliens stand little chance when you've got marines running around like a pack of ferrets on a sugar high surrounded by christmas lights.

--Scythe--

I think the Catpack research could be a little bit cheaper....
Its so expensive :/

Catpacks should only be researched when you have hmgs available. In pub play you should only drop them on ppl with hmgs. Secondly, they should only be used when said hmg player is going against a fade. Another use is that if you have skilled jetpackers on your team give catalysts to your jetpackers and they'll have jetpacks reminscent of 1.04 days for 10 seconds. Remember ns_ninjafall. never remade in 2.0 because jetpacks couldnt jetpack high enough ne more. With catalysts, jetpacks today can rocket up a ninjafallesque distance easily

I personally never use catpacks, though if they were tied to the armoury I might research them. I'm still going up the weapons and armour tree as I take down the last hive in the majority of pub games I comm. I'd say they are probably worth the res, but they aren't worth the delay in upgrading weapons/armour.

The only consistent use of CPs I've seen is the bad ol' 2 hives vs hightech showdown - where both sides are throwing a vast amount of ressource heavy units at eachother. Catpacks vastly increase the odds of killing Kharaa investments, which in turn don't get the chance to wittle down your boys.

I don't mind researching them, as its 60/20 only, but their price makes actually using them a bit annoying.

I find them to be way too expensive as I usually run a tight res budget.

And the fade issue has become a bit harder after the new collision thingie.

-Evig

Making cats cheaper is all I ask before I start using them. Either no research cost and maybe 3 res, or 20 to research and 2 to drop.

cat packs costing 0 res to research but must research at arms lab and take 1min.

one trick ive seen comms do i just tech pg + cats. sneak someone into hive. make pg. then drop cats to the marines. ussualy at that time aliens only have 1, with maybe a 2nd one building.

ive never tried the strat myself, so i dont know how hard it is to do

Hmm cat+pg+lmg on a hive...unless you're shooting it from a distance, shotguns should be a better bet.

If say you have 4 marines, CATing all of them will give you the equivalent of 5 marines shooting at the hive. If the CAT lasts enough for 2 reloads, that's about 5500 damage to the hive. Factoring in 880 worth of pistol damage for 4 marines, that's about 6380 damage, still not enough to kill the hive, and this would have taken around 15 seconds.

This is considering L1 weapons. Cat cost at this point would be 20+4x4=36 res.

3 shotguns and 1 LMG would deal 4774 damage on the first shotgun clip, and another 10 shotgun catridges and 1 LMG clip would then finish the hive off. This would take around 15 seconds as well.

The shotguns can then be used for other purposes. Even from an economic viewpoint, cats are still to expensive to be worth it. Even if their effects were better, the cost is still prohibitive. And I've had some good marines complain cats were screwing up their aim as they were moving faster than expected and expanding ammo faster than expected.

Making cats cheaper would go a long way to improving them.

Ok imagine 5 shotties gotta get a hive down really fast…cat packs 5 shotgunners going into a hive its lose or win, cat packs will save you, reload faster shoot a lot faster get the hive down twice if not 3 times as fast.

It's a matter of res. If you can actually get shotguns AND catpacks, you're quite rich already. Unless you've been saving for that last ditch attempt to PG-shottie the 3rd hive that is. But in any other case, you've already won.

Agreed, Swift Idiot. Catpacks seriously need to speed up reload. This stuff is supposed to enhance reflexes, but all it does is make you move faster and somehow holding your REFLEX-ENHANCED FINGER on the ORDINARY GUN makes it fire faster. 3 res is very expensive for their limited use, and many marines are terrible and picking up things that are dropped if there is a fight going on.

"WTH COMM WHY DIDNT YOU DROP MEDPACKS"
"Look at your corpse."
"*8 medpacks line the floor in every place the marine didn't step.* U SUX *F4*"

they are called catylists this should happen to all aliens

shotgun + catpack = ultimate skulk killer.

at least for me. works gd againts all aliens acctully, except onos.

Realism isn't always balance. If they made the marines reload faster, i'd be dropping catpacks a hell of a lot more.

Catpacks are more like luxuries. I usually think 'Oh yeah, i didn't get catpacks yet' late in the game when we're owning them anyways; and at 4 res a drop, they're not exactly economically great to be using on a regular basis.