Obscure Blade

I don't recall what they were, but at least some missions did send you to the RCS. I know because right after the RCS became the RWZ, there was a bug for a time where people would still get missions set in the nonexistent RCS, and they complained about it.

As far as lowbies getting onto the ship; besides the real-money jetpack, these days you can go to the Shard or Grandville at level 1 and get a jetpack if you have the Inf. Plus, they could be a Kheldian.

And to be fair, there ARE fairly low level characters who can contribute. A Traps character with the Force Field generator to provide mez protection, for example. It seems to me the problem would be largely solved if team leaders kicked the leeches.

One thing I like about Ninja Run; it has just the right jump height and length to make all those three-D landscape features useable. You can jump around on various catwalks and buildings and so forth, using them to get around and over obstacles and enemies. Without just leaping over them like SJ, or having to treat them as barriers like Combat Jumping.

Personally I'd probably come closest to Neutral Good. I have no problems with the idea of laws and authority, but also no problems with ignoring or overthrowing them if I think them unjust. As for my characters, a sample:

Lawful Good: Paragon Enforcer, cop gone hero.

Neutral Good: Steelstorm; concerned with doing good and personal redemption.

Chaotic Good: Kitten Crusade is a sentient psychic cat ( shoulder kitten ) out to destroy villains and save kittens everywhere. Thermodynamia is an adventurer, out for fun and fame but preferring to get them by doing good. Judy Julienne is this when she remembers to take her meds.

Lawful Neutral: Personal Combat Unit is just following its programming and the last command of its creator; "Get the villains!". Divine Wrath is the agent of vengeance for supernatural powers, and cares nothing about human notions of morality.

Neutral: Howling Dog. Woof.

Chaotic Neutral: Judy Julienne, when she forgets to take her meds. And Smashy the Clown all the time ( he was apprehended while pounding clowns flat, in order to increase stacking efficiency and fit the maximum possible number inside a car ). Daughter of Chaos is a member of a chaos worshipping cult.

Lawful Evil: Apostle of Agony, who wishes to impose the order of his Church of Pain upon the world. Queen of Corpses and Dread Necrosis both want to establish empires of the undead. Mother of Machines wants to create a perfect, orderly society of robots once those messy humans are gotten rid of.

Neutral Evil: Mister Fist; ruthless, merciless; obeys laws or breaks them as seems profitable.

Chaotic Evil: Electric Ripper, serial killer given super powers. Lady of Wrath is the spirit of an ancient goddess of rage.

Also new is the enhanced difficulty setting, and super sidekicking; no more getting out of range of your mentor or needing more than one high level guy for a group. Also, most of the level limits on zones are gone ( among other things, this means a lowbie can enter the Shadow Shard and buy a Raptor Pack ), and when exempted down you keep the next 5 levels worth of powers ( so you can do Positron with Stamina, say ).

There was also another round of power proliferation ( I was just playing my Archery/Storm corruptor, in fact ). And yes, Walk was added; sexy on the ladies. Another Booster Pack was released. And pets zone with their owners now, although it's still a little buggy. And quite a bit was released about Going Rogue at Hero Con.

Another trick: You can give Inspirations to your henchbots. Either drag and drop the Inspirations directly on the bot, or drag them to the Bot's name in your pet window. Note though that each pet is only part of your damage output; so red Inspirations are much less effective for MMs than other ATs.

Plant/Fire is definitely a good combo. Throw out Seeds, start throwing out AoEs and you can really beat down spawns. Another good one is Plant/Thorns; effective and thematic.

New power set idea? I've thought for some time that insect themed powers would be cool. A few power ideas for an insect buff/debuff set:

Blood Feed : Healing and damage from symbiotic insects. A swarm flies out from you, attacks the enemy and returns to you giving health. Sort of like Life Drain, but doing Lethal/Toxic.

Locusts: A targeted AoE that creates a swarm that distracts and confuses the enemy. I'm thinking like a targeted AoE version of Arctic Air; a mix of confusion, slow and fear.

Consume Armor: A -def and/or -res attack; insects "swarm the enemy, consuming their armor"

Concealing Swarm: Stealth power; a Steamy Mist clone made of bug swarms.

Killer Bees : A large swarm of killer bees appears and moves about attacking; causing lethal/toxic damage and fear; sort of Tornadolike with fear instead of kb.

Army Ants: A high DoT damage attack, probably a Tier 9. A dense swarm of insects appears on the ground and slowly moves away from the user, doing damage as it goes.

Just a small idea. Give the stylistically appropriate NPC groups Ninja Run, just for the look of it. The next time a Tsoo or Knives of Artemis ambush shows up, it would be cool for some or all of them to be somersaulting over obstacles, carrying weapons NR style and so forth. It would fit with the way they've been given faction specific emotes too.

A very powerful combo. The cons are that Bots are a little low on damage until 26 and especially 32; and Scrapyarders 20-24. But all MMs have troubles with those guys. Take everything but Black Hole from /Dark; skip the personal attacks and Repair from Bots/. The weaknesses of the AT in general would be AoE attacks and Confusion ( since having your pets decide you are the enemy is kind of awkward ).

Also; if you are new to the AT you need to know about Bodyguard if you don't already. If a pet is in Defensive/Follow, it is in Bodyguard mode. If you are hit, any damage is split between you and whichever pets are in Bodyguard, which makes you hard to kill. The downside is that you can't order a pet to attack ( although they'll return fire ) without the leaving Bodyguard. I normally leave some on Bodyguard at all times, and direct the fire of others.

The first thing I do when making a new MM is right click and edit the control buttons, turning them to Defensive instead of Aggressive and Passive. You can also direct your bots from the pet window, and drag the resulting button to your power tray ( although you should check if the command is the right one just in case, and edit if it isn't ). There's also a whole complicated system of binds you can set up, which I never got into.

As said, it's hard to come up with much with so little information. I do have a concept and name in mind for Demons/Traps; a mad scientist who has used technological methods to pull demons into our world and control them.

Hmmm. Probably Miss Skinless, my Dark/Regen. She was formerly a lab technician, who was thrown into a vat of mutagenic, corrosive chemicals. The mutagenic effects granted her superhuman healing even as the corrosives burnt off her skin. Worse, her powers always "heal" her to the state she was in when she gained her powers; with her skin burned away, her eyes and lips and tongue burnt off. Surgeons were able to implant cybernetic eyes and an artificial voicebox, but nothing more. In constant agony, more than half insane she roams the city hunting down and destroying villains like those who mutilated her.

Her various costumes always have exposed parts of the "bio-organic" skin texture, colored red. She has mechanical eye and mouth parts. She has a "wrapped in white bandages and barbed wire" costume, and a white trenchcoat outfit. With Issue 16, most of her powers were colored red, Dark Palette for a nice bloody looking effect.

Her battlecry : "Share my painpainPAIN!!"

Shields were released less than a year ago. and while they technically aren't costume pieces, their customizability makes them such for most practical purposes.