MS and Boson Jump.

[CowboyJohnny]

Let me start off by saying that I read the ability the same as Yan, and agree that (beyond just slowing the charge time) some way to make it relatively more useful in team fights and less useful in 1v1s seems like a good idea.
Maybe charge 1 unit if you're not attacked in a turn, otherwise X units where X is the number of attack phases directed at you... I don't know right now. (Obviously the number of units required for to regain a use would be increased.)

Seth: I don't know how people would take MS countershoot - obviously one of the big reasons to oppose it, namely that (PX) spam was one of the effective ways to beat bunshin, would no longer apply. Personally I think it's reasonable, but maybe only with an IFS.

Reason #1 to change IFS is to improve CC. I was considering a size-based effect here (most effective in S units, good in M, not so great otherwise) but noticed that some people are already using the optional size-based CC penalty - see my other thread - which complicates things a bit.

Reason #2 is because the base DC of MS will go down, and while IFS-modified DC of 5 might be suitable depending on the strength of other stuff, that's just not really where I see it ending up.

Reason #3 is maybe a personal thing - because of arbitrariness in a few things, any pilot-ability-based DC I propose will be stated as "DC is X."

Yan: Like I said, I agree with you about the ability in general, but I want to note that an MS with an IFS should definitely be better than an NS with the item slot free - it's an item slot, after all. (And the native-IFS units are not exactly overwhelming; Tobikage or Zerokage, which NS gets bonuses for, are a lot nicer...)

[Arad Baranga]

Yeah, I meant it the way Yan intended. The idea I had when thinking of it was "Charged Uber-Flash."

[CowboyJohnny]

Another draft. This is still brainstorming.

Martian Successor

DC is 14, min DC 5
Countercut 2/5

Boson Jump: Dodge all attacks from one attack phase. Charge 1 unit after each enemy attack phase directed wholly or partly at you; charge 1 unit after a turn in which you are not attacked by an enemy.
Lieutenant: Start with 3 uses, max 3 uses. Charge 5 units to regain one use.


Nanomachine Implant
Lieutenant: DC is 7, CC is 1/4, Countershoot. In S or SS units, countercut as if you were one size larger.
(By series canon, IFS control is at its best in small units. This is one possibility for reflecting the size dependence a little. Other suggestions welcomed.)
In motherships, ignore the above CC and DC but instead lower DC by 5 and re-lock at the lower value.

A-Class Jumper: Ignore terrain DC penalties. Lieutenant Martian Successors only.
(This is neat even though it won't really have much effect on battles.)

[Seth Valentine]

Isn't three uses a little too little for a Liutennant rank? Because there should be at least 5 units, so that A) the entry in the BEL doesn't look untidy, and B) The Liutennant entry can actually be much better than the Private one.

Although I still don't quite understand. This is what I'm getting:

The enemy attacks in the first turn, I use boson jump to evade all attacks. My rank is Liutennant, so I've just come down to two. I wait 5 attack phases without using a boson jump, and I gain one jump, therefore increasing my capacity to 3 again. But I can use the ability more than 3 times a fight.

Two enemies attack me. I regain two charge points. I still regain charge points even if I use a jump in that turn.

Am I right?

Well, anyway, here's my suggestion:

Boson Jump: Negate all attacks directed at you from each enemy attack phase. Charge 1 unit after each enemy attack phase directed wholly or partly at you; charge 1 unit after a turn in which you are not attacked by an enemy.
Private: Start with 2 uses, may charge up to 2 uses. Recharge 6 units to regain 1 use.
Corporal: Start with 3 uses, may charge up to 3 uses. Recharge 5 units to regain 1 use.
Sergeant: Start with 4 uses, may charge up to 4 uses. Recharge 4 units to regain 1 use.
Ensign: Start with 5 uses, may charge up to 5 uses. Recharge 3 units to regain 1 use.
Liutennant: Start with 6 uses, may charge up to 6 uses. Recharge 2 unit to regain 1 use.

Although with the above, the private rank is extremely unfair to use, as you have to wait too long to use another one. But then this encourages Martian Successor newbies to buy a unit with IFS, so that they may dodge the attacks while waiting to recharge. I originally tried putting 5 charges for one use on private, but then that meant 1 charge for 1 use for Liutennants, which basically meant infinite boson jumping.

[CowboyJohnny]

That's way too strong, Seth. If you work it out, assuming a player boson jumps as much as he can, with your numbers in a 1v1 the player can jump every turn for the first 10 turns or so, and every second turn thereafter.

How good the rank-up chart looks in the BEL is not a concern.

[Seth Valentine]

Hm... yeah, you're right. But it still needs something for every rank. Maybe like this:

Boson Jump: Negate all attacks directed at you from each enemy attack phase. Charge 1 unit after each enemy attack phase directed wholly or partly at you; charge 1 unit after a turn in which you are not attacked by an enemy.
Private: Start with 1 uses, may charge up to 1 uses. Recharge 6 units to regain 1 use.
Corporal: Start with 1 uses, may charge up to 1 uses. Recharge 5 units to regain 1 use.
Sergeant: Start with 2 uses, may charge up to 2 uses. Recharge 4 units to regain 1 use.
Ensign: Start with 2 uses, may charge up to 2 uses. Recharge 3 units to regain 1 use.
Liutennant: Start with 3 uses, may charge up to 3 uses. Recharge 3 unit to regain 1 use.

Is that better?

[CowboyJohnny]

Paraphrased from chat for convenience:

That's still (very roughly) as good as stealth(2), in a 1v1 at least. The point of introducing "units" was to slow it down in 1v1 while keeping it reasonably good in bigger fights.
If you think that's what's needed to make it equal with other classes, please make that argument - it just seems right now that maybe you weren't thinking about how good it'd be.

And I wouldn't bother with working out the lower ranks until we get Lieutenant set.