Major Update — C&P 2.0

This is a big one — with the incredibly kind assistance of Briar on the PilotNET discord I've revised and polished all of the talents, mechs, and NPCs that come with Castor and Pollux. PI-OF also has a manufacturer icon now thanks to Crixler! Both Briar and Crixler can be found on PilotNET, and I highly recommend their services. Things should run smoother and be more fun now — please, let me know how the changes work out! This won't be a perfectly exhaustive changelog but I'll try to cover everything:

Talents:

• Bricklayer 3 got changed to a protocol that doesn't need repairs, but is 1/scene
• Cyborg got tuned back just a little at all levels so it doesn't make you quite as invincible (but still pretty tough)
• Sapper: Only change was the Remote option now adds difficulty to saves on remotely triggered mines to account for the extra action cost
• Wasteborn: 1 and 2 got tweaked up a bit, but 3 got completely revamped to not be so punishing/mandatory for Burn builds; now, it adds a degradation status to your target that turns them into a radioactive Hazardous Wreck if they're destroyed within the round

Couatl:

• Removed its blinding aura trait
• Changed the core active to be centered on the mech rather than making an external sunspot
• Changed Fascinate of Obsess(recurse) to be a mimic mesh variant rather than super heatgunning
• Demisolar Lens now costs 1 SP
• Renamed Paladin Defragmentation Protocol to Subroutine so its less confusing

Pharos:

• Heavily revamped the traits to emphasize its spotter role; it can now mark an ally as an Eye, allowing it and their team to use their position to draw line of sight for determining cover, and when it hits a character without cover it can apply lock-on to them. Core updated accordingly.
• Riptide and Bulkhead got some wording fixes to clarify their effects

Sicklewing:

• Faster and more evasive so it doesn't drop dead as easily
• STACK_OVERFLOW is now far less complex and instead does damage/forced movement if the target ends their turn surrounded by characters
• INSIGHT gained the AI tag, no longer Exposes you, and slightly changed its effects (and they got cool new names)
• Judas is no longer a full tech, instead it's a limited free action that lets you repeat successful  quick techs

Tametomo:

• Flare Bow got its Burn buffed slightly to account for the possibility of not getting an Overkill proc
• Ionizer charges got toned down
• Typhoon Channel got simplified and made more appealing to non-Tametomo frames
• Evaporative Cooling Plates got reworked totally — they still manage heat well but aren't completely passive

Core Bonuses:

• Curveball's range boost went from 5 to 3
• Exploration/Excavation changed from +2 Speed when you start your turn in hazardous terrain to a free 2 space protocol movement
• Impact Amps got reworked to be a free action when you hit with an attack to deal damage to nearby objects/terrain/drones so it's useful for people that aren't already packing Jackhammer

Basil:

• Divine Sensor Suite expanded to include invisibility too.
• Pioneer Beacon went from 20 HP to 10 + GRIT HP (same thing for the Lemongrass' Storm Pylon)
• Bramble Grenades got toned back to not auto-immobilize
• SNOWBLIND now costs 1 Heat to activate
• Dispersal Bow went from 1d6 damage to 1d3+2, and the repair-boosted mode shrank to blast 2
• Healing Hands now does 8 + GRIT Overshield instead of scaling with max HP because slapping 20 OS on a Drake or Balor is a little ridiculous
• The Dagger Auto-Missiles were removed and are now the Carbonized Auto-Saw; it's similarly a pocket superheavy for SP,  but charges much faster than the missiles and is much easier to keep track of.

Fennel:

• Dropped Strike damage from 2d6+2 to 1d6+4
• Swapped Shredded and Jammed on Maul so you only Jam while the CP is active
• Flintlock Pistol lost it's knockback
• Bola now is Slow + Prone instead of Immobilize + Prone
• The Apothecary Rifle is now 4 base damage, +1 for every condition on the target, and costs 1 SP

Lemongrass:

• Stats changed to be less Dusk Wing 2; gained HP and 1 armor in exchange for Speed and Evasion
• Ion Field got buffed — it now gains up to 4 charges, and when someone attacks you or an adjacent ally they first take damage equal to current charges and subtract that much from their role. This was to address that it happening only on a miss made it unlikely to ever trigger on your low Eva/E-Def friends, and made it actively worse at higher LLs. The Storm Pylon was changed to match this.
• Dazzler's just do 1 flat damage now.
• Carrier Clamps were cleaned up to use MULE Harness' restrictions which was always the intent but I never got around to it
• Cherenkov Manifold is now a pseudo-invisibility like Flicker Field that triggers off the first attack against you, and redirects on the coinflip
• Voltaic Swarm is now wayyyyyy better; went up to Burst 2, and instead of chaining through allies it gives them a protective nanite swarm that shocks the first enemy to attack them or walk near them
• Overload Grenades no longer Stun; instead allies in the area get to Boost for free and enemies get impaired
• Sparking Mine also changed; the triggering character becomes charged, and if they take a hostile action before the end of their next turn the charge detonates for damage + a stun

Peppercorn:

• Is now size 1 because jager kunst I existing was just a little too threatening with how fast it is already. RIP.
• Wheeled is now a quick action to stand from Prone rather than a full.
• The Grinders now have an annihilator-style pseudo-blast with their Reliable damage rather than the damage stacking up
• The Plasma Caster now does flat energy + Burn instead of the horrific heat scaling Overkill it had before, and like the Fusion Rifle the Burn scales to how far you are from the target to encourage good positioning.
• Plasmatic Treads got buffed to let you ignore dangerous terrain and mines while they're active, and the fire they leave does 2 Burn instead of 1.
• Grease Charges went down to Limited 3 because 5 was ridiculous, and the extra Burn they cause is flat now instead of scaling with the triggering weapon.
• To account for the changes in Treads and the CP since they were first written, Mercury got revamped. Now you mark a nearby character, and can move whenever they move for the next round.

Rosemary:

• Mountain Breaker got buffed so it can trigger as many times you like in a turn, but costs heat for every use after the first.
• The base damage and knockback of the Furnace Hammer went down a bit
• The Piton Driver now has an actual purpose when used on terrain because it destroys that piece and everything else around it
• Geoform got spiced up to now make a Cone on-hit that applies knockback/prone/terrain destruction within it
• Tremor Grenade no longer Shreds because the Rosemary doesn't really need it to at all.

Spearmint:

• Permafrost got reworked; it now gets its Armor and Guardian stuff innately, and its easier for it to get the Overshield at the end of its turn.
• Glacier Grenades do less damage and Slow instead of Immobilizing
• The Alpine Spring Carbine lost Ordnance
• Avalanche Rush got reworked to immobilize you when active + grant Overshield, won't break when someone looks at you now, and just generally works better.
• The Glacier Lake Coolant Hose lost some damage and Knockback

Star Anise:

• Star Anise! My sweet child, my beloved, apple of my eye and heart of my heart
• Her traits got updated — Subaltern Delivery now works anywhere within Range 3 of you or an allied mech in Sensors because friendship and teamwork are good
• She got a new trait, Perseverance, that lets her repair weapons and systems in combat
• In doing this I was informed that I accidentally recreated Suldan's HA Agrippa, because it turns out that the idea of 'Combat Engineer' lends itself to a very specific design space. Whoops! Anyway read Suldan, Kai is cool and its existence is what inspired me to make C&P!
• Amphora Drones no longer create difficult terrain, and the OS they provide is flat for every character instead of scaling with the characters in the burst.
• Supply Mines still scale with additional repairs, but they get extra healing effects now instead of a larger Burst.
• Earthenware Overcoat got an addendum that you can still involuntarily move yourself so it doesn't break Blackbeards
• Star Anise :)

NPCs:

• Architect's Rift got abstracted so it no longer actually destroys the map; the GUNGNIR is less clunky to use now; Trench Warrior is a little easier for PCs to counter
• Grenadier's Taiko-GL now has omnidirectional knockback so you can do sweet Destiny Crucible trickshots; Conc grenades got a small buff, Sweeper Armor no longer blocks the Ghast Nexus, and Short Fuses is now flat damage for each trigger instead of scaling multiplicatively and shredding every hand cannon Raleigh; Home Cooking is optional to trigger
• Interceptors had their mark and reaction fire changed a bit to be less oppressive; Itchy Trigger got a buff; Supersonic can now only trigger 1/turn if multiple characters have it so you can't drop the entire OpFor in at once
• Packmaster got better scaling on the drone, and now has a way to revive/repair it with OVERCHARGE LINK after some playtesting saw it obliterated by a very zealous Toku on turn 1. The Tracer Rifle also got a small buff, dealing 1 Heat and the accuracy it applies able to be used by anyone; Snare drone got buffed to Immobilize + Prone; Drone Augment: Scavenger was replaced with Biotic Components which lets the Behemoth Drone turn invisible like that one movie with the alien guy and the vikings
• Vector had its stats tuned down a little bit, and no longer drops multiple lances per turn. Lances instead scale damage per tier, and also hit everything vertically above or below them so they're less of a pain to track flight with. They also gained a new Optional, Colossus Quiver, that lets them recreate the lance spam bullet hell to an even greater degree than before.
• Virtue lost a bit of OS cap and now only regenerates 1/2 its OS on its turn rather than all of it; it also gained two new base traits, Rarified Components that stops you from making Virtue Grunts, and the BLESS quick tech that lets it damage itself to give an ally a support option; Excommunicate now scales better too
• The Pyre's Cauterize is now 1d6 Heat for 1d6 extra movement when they Boost, the condition clear was both too strong and kind of unreliable for heat generation because it relied on external forces; Degradation Field also got reworked to slap a status on the target 1/round that prevents healing/OS gain, and encourages the target to close the distance.

That's just about everything; there are some small stat changes here and there and little wording tweaks, but if you're using C/C that's already going to track it for you. To everyone who's downloaded Castor & Pollux, thank you, from the bottom of my heart — it's been such an incredible honor to see people use my work, and I hope you've all had a lot of fun with it! This update has a lot going on it so I hope you can bear with me, but hopefully it will be the last and only of this scale.  As always, I'm @hellaspooks#2744 on the PilotNET discord, so if you questions or concerns, please reach out to me!