The Puma

Switching from the assault class, doing a complete 180, I am going to talk about a light class mech. The Clan Puma. 35 Tons of Light Mech fun.
I am not much of a light mech fan, but there are some that I do like. Sorry to say this mech is not one of them.
The Puma, in my opinion disappoints in many ways. It has potential, but I feel it falls short of being a stand out in its class.
So lets take a closer look. The Puma is 35 tons. It has a very low profile, making it at best a hard target to hit at a distance. When fully armoured, it can hold a tad bit more than 7 tons of ferro armour. Keeping in the vain of the ‘good things’, it has the option to pack LAMs. I suggest if you pilot one of these and it is on missile friendly terrain, you pack LAMs. Although, not perfect, LAMs do provide an extra bit of protection, in my opinion, well worth the 1.50 ton cost for any mech.
I have always believed that LAMs should be scaled in tonnage, relative to that of the mech that will be packing them, in other words, the tonnage cost should be .5 for lights, .75 for mediums, 1.0 for heavies an 1.5 tons for the big boys of the battlefield. On the other hand, coming from an engineering manufacturing background, I can see where LAMs would be an option purchased as a package, a standard package with a specific function and design, therefore, it would be a standard ‘box’ of a given size and weight, so I guess the designers at MS, when they opted to do away with AMS and make LAMs the standard knew what they were doing.
Enough of the tangent, lets get back to the Puma. We were discussing the good points. This mech has some very interesting potential with its weapons slots. It can hold 2 CLBX20, 2 ERPPCs, and even 2 Clan Gauss rifles. The LBX and Gauss options will cost you as you must slow this thing down to a mere 65kph and strip almost all the armour, but it can pack those weapons. A more viable config is the 2 ERPPC or 2 CLBX10s. There are many other possibilities for this machine, like 8 ERMLs. A pilot could pack on ERLP or ERMPs as this mech does okay with heat, though I suggest the use of heat sinks. The arms are 3-slot omni, allowing you the choice of what to put in them. There are also 2 one-slot energy in each torso and a single 1 slot ballistic in the center torso.
The best use I found for this little powerhouse is a standoff platform, hidden from view, running passive, lying in wait for the enemy to be splooged from the 2 ERPPCs at 900+ meters. The short, low profile chassis will make return fire difficult at best and if running passive, it will be near impossible to find until the enemy closes within 600 or less meters.
Another good use for this mech, is to load the 2 CLBX10, or 1 CLBX20 with a HML, or some ERMLs, and hide around a corner in a city fight, again passive and near invisible to the unsuspecting enemy until they turn the corner and you unload on them.
The Puma is very adept to city fighting. It handles well in the streets and has enough speed to get around. The offensive firepower can be nasty in the city.
The name Puma, suggest to you the vision of a mountain lion, an animal that stalks it prey from above and attacks very quickly with a sudden ferocity that brings a sudden death to its unsuspecting victim. An animal full of patience. Patience is a requirement for a pilot in this mech if it is to be used in the long-range roll. Shoot, move to another position, hunker down and wait for the chance for another shot, all the while trying to remain as stealthy as possible.
The Puma is lacking a few things as I see it. The electronics package is poor, offering a would be pilot only LAMs. This little beast could benefit greatly from ECM or Enhanced Optics or both. The Puma has a mere 7 tons of armour with the arms holding a mere .60 tons each. The main armament is usually housed in these fragile arms and often is blown off after only a couple of direct hits. I found the Puma to be on the fragile side. As small as it is, it is difficult to run specialty armour and a decent weapons load out resulting in the main armour being ferro. The damage if not applied to the arms first, almost always goes to either torso, allowing the pilot to buy some time during a fight, but again, this battlemech does not stand up very long under intense fire or brawls. Hit and run seems to be a very good tactic to use, be even then the speed, or lack of it could hold you back on open maps. The dual ERPPC config I spoke of utilizes 3 heat sinks and a speed of 95kph. 95 SOUNDs like it is very fast, but for its class, this is a slow mech. In fact, 95kph is the TOP speed for this mech.
My thoughts are that the concept of the Puma was to be a street fighter, as it does seem to handle well in the city. With a low-end speed of 65kph, a pilot has a big range of speed to choose from at very low cost in engine upgrades.
The Puma is mounted on an Endo Steel chassis. This explains the quick damage transfer once a panel, or section is destroyed.
A good pilot can use the Puma with good effectiveness, be it on the mountain ranges as suggested by its name or in the city streets where it becomes a hungry alley cat. An average pilot will find himself soon climbing from the ejector pod and walking back to base or the drop ship coming up with an excuse to get another mech issued to him.
I hope I have given each of you enough information to at least want to try this mech. You may find it useful. You may decide that you don’t like it.
Vettie’s rating on the Puma? 2 ½ minutes. I struggle to rate it that well, but it can be a decent mech. A good pilot will know how to twist and turn and maneuver to keep spreading the damage in a fight. A good sniper can hide away on the side of some mountain and get a couple of headshots in with this thing. It won’t be the best of class, but it is fun to drive.

Puma – Mountain Lion to Alley Cat

I have looked at the changes brought to us by MP3 on the Puma. The slots are the same. The big change here is the speed boost and of course the Heat Scale that affects all mechs.

The Puma now has a low-end speed of 75 with a top speed of 105. This should help this little cat out in the open terrain maps, although in the city the 105 is not going to help very much unless you are in a hurry to get to a 30 second brawl.

If any of the Hit Boxes were tightened, or anything similar to that, I can’t tell. The biggest improvement in this mech was the addition of the ability to take Advanced Gyro. That is a good add for the Puma, but, with very little free tonnage, it is a difficult option to take. I do recommend that it be used on this mech. It doesn’t really mater if you are going into the streets or up in the mountains, the gyro option will keep you upright under all but the heaviest fire or from almost any hail of missile rain.

I built a couple of Puma models and took them to the streets of Rubble. I pitted the Puma against a Wolfhound Level 9 Bot (I hate the MP3 bots, they are really stupid). The Wolfie was full reflective, minus a tick or so from each arm. It had 100kph speed with ECM and IFF loaded with 2 large lasers.

The 1st Puma I built had 2 Heavy Large Lasers and 10 heat sinks all on a full armoured ferro chassis. Let me say that Rubble is a hot map even though it is rated at 100%. Let me also say that 10 heatsinks on a Puma is not really enough to keep this cat cool on Rubble. After about 5 rounds of the bot kicking my sorry butt around, I decided to try a different config.

I went back to the lab, removed the Heavy Large Lasers and heatsinks and replaced them with dual Clan LBX10s. The LBX 10 is a smooth weapon with lots of punch and a decent recycle. Back to the bot attack.

This time was a bit better. The LBXs did what you would expect when shotgun fire meets laser protective armour, it ripped holes through the Wolfie and made it leak like a sieve. The Wolfie managed to get a couple of kills by staying just beyond the reach of the cannon fire, but overall the Puma came out on top of this round.

I decided to go back to the lab and try one more config. I loaded the Puma with a Clan LBX20 and a Heavy Large Laser. Again, full ferro armour and advanced gyro were used and back to the rubbled city streets I went. The Wolfie was quite surprised when I slapped him with a shotgun blast from a LBX20 cannon, a weapon that I believe to be one of the most devastating weapons in the game.

After about 6 rounds, the Wolfie proved no match for the mixture I was giving it. LBX fire followed by Heavy Large Laser burns followed by a small flush of coolant, and the Wolfie would be in trouble. Six times the Puma would kill the Wolfie or blow out all its weapons. Not a bad showing.

Even after all that, the speed upgrades, the addition of advanced gyro and beating a Wolfhound in street combat repeatedly, I still stand by my original rating on the Puma. It CAN pack a punch. It CAN be a threat in a street fight or at a distance. The problem is what it has always been; the mech is weak and doesn’t hold up long under fire. A dual large laser Wolfhound ripped it to shreds at 500 meters in a city. You have to stay out of sight, in cover and get beside or behind your prey to be effective. At Range, it’s the shoot and move rule. Find a new sniping position, don’t sit still.
The Puma is better than it was, but not much.

Cage that Cat

The Puma is a battlemech that doesn’t see much action in Sunder at least because it is small and it dies quickly in a battle of assaults. The best use for this (in Sunder) would be on maps like Ruined City, Resistance Clash or even Avalon Pro on TEAM Only or NO Radar Maps. Even at that, it would be risky. Once spotted, you would become and instant target and with the firepower capability of most assaults, one or two shots will put this little mountain lion in for hibernation.

For Team Battles or even restricted weight battles, the Puma can be a deadly foe. The ability to house and use effectively twin erPPCs and hide away somewhere can really do some damage (even to assaults). The mech climbs well, but the torso twist is a bit slow in my opinion for such a small beast.

When The Blood Pearls were active in NBT (prior to HC), we played Clan Ghost Bear on Alpine (I think) or Snow Bound. It was a team only radar map at night with snow. Ghost Bear took a Puma and set him on a ridge line behind their troops (mechs). This guys job was to snipe at any Blood Pearl in range while the other Ghost Bears engaged and draw attention away from the Puma. This guy (don’t remember the pilot name) did a very good job. Towards the end of the battle, he was the only one left for CGB and myself (in a Victor, shocker huh?), CowCrusher9 in a Thor and Prime in an Ares began the chase. This guy evaded us for about 3 or 4 minutes popping off erPPCs rounds every now and then to keep us honest. We eventually killed him rather easily ONCE we found him and got in range, The point is, this was the best ‘field’ use of the Puma I have ever witnessed.

I have seen guys use them in city fights with some effectiveness, Our own Hugh Manatee likes to take a stripped model armed with two LBX20s and go blow up mechs on Rubble. I like SOME armour, but he manages to do okay it that little pest.

Personally, I would like to see more TEAM BATTLE maps with TEAM restricted weight played in the opens, but what happens here is that 2 or 3 guys eat up the tonnage on a team and everyone else on that team is forced to take Commandos or Wasps… IF you restrict it by pilot, then you know the biggest thing you will face will be whatever the weight restriction is set to. I believe if we played more team battle, or weight restricted maps (or a combo of both) that we would see mechs like the Puma that we don’t see very often now. I also believe that by NOT playing team battle we are missing out on some truly FUN maps that many peoples have never even seen…

Oh well, the rating for the Puma stands. Its fun, but too small and to fragile for Sunder.