Black Jack

Black Jack
Base Stats
Classification	Ryder
Pilot / CO	Asaga Oakrun
Affiliation	Freelance
HP	600
Energy	100
Armor	10
Evasion	25
Move cost	20
Flak strength / range	35 / 1
Missiles	1

The Black Jack is a ryder piloted by Asaga Oakrun, built specifically for her by Chigara. It's very maneuverable, tough and packs a punch with a wide variety of weapons making her a true generalist offensive unit, although she's far better equipped dealing with enemy ryders than shielded warships.

Weapons

The Black Jack has 5 standard weapons including the ability to attack enemy ryders in close combat.

Melee

The Black Jack has sufficient armor (at full health) to withstand most damage from a counter attack, so moving close for close combat is a viable destructive option. It is one of the only two Ryders available that can launch a close-range attack.

• damage: 400 x 1
• energy cost: 50 EN
• base accuracy: 120

Laser

Just as powerful (but not as accurate) as the Sunrider's main laser banks, the Black Jack sports very impressive laser emitters for a unit her size. Countered by shielding. Good for frigates and Heavy Ryders.

• damage: 200 x 1
• energy cost: 70 EN
• base accuracy: 110

Missiles

Missile banks are a fearsome long range weapon useful in doing good reliable damage even against distant enemy units. Stocks are very limited however, so it's best to keep them for when they'll be most useful. Beware enemy Flak!

• damage: 40 x 10
• energy cost: 20 EN
• base accuracy: 70 (degrades only 5% every cell)

Pulse

Pulse cannons do reliable energy damage with decent accuracy and is an effective option against lightly armored units. Compared to the assault gun, the pulse weapon's higher per-shot energy damage type makes it more effective against certain lightly armored units such as bomber ryders and frigates - unless they are also protected by energy shielding. It also has longer effective range.

• damage: 30 x 8
• energy cost: 50 EN
• base accuracy: 80

Assault

The Black Jack's machine guns are particularly devastating against poorly armored enemy ryders. Its high shot count makes it a very reliable damage dealer even against highly evasive targets. Any armor though is likely to negate most damage.

• damage: 14 x 20
• energy cost: 30 EN
• base accuracy: 65

Awaken

A special ability only unlocked during Mask of Arcadius' final mission and starting the second mission of Liberation Day, Asaga enables the powers of her Ryuvian royal bloodline to grant a massive increase to the Black Jack's combat abilities, buffing its evasion, armor and attack damage.

Unlike other special abilities, Asaga's Awaken is a toggled ability that remains active until it is manually turned off, and each turn that it is active further improves its buffs, making the Black Jack more powerful the longer the fight drags on; turning off the ability resets the cumulative buffs. However, this power comes at the cost of the Black Jack taking damage per turn. The Liberty's Repair ability can be used to prolong Awaken's active duration by ensuring that the Black Jack has enough health to spend, allowing it to accumulate its buffs to a ridiculously high level. In Sunrider: Liberation Day, the buff expires and leaves Black Jack with 1 HP if the HP loss would otherwise kill it. In Mask of Arcadius, it does not expire but instead doubles the hate value on Black Jack.

• buff: +100% to armor, evasion and attack damage on the first turn, and additional +50% to aforementioned stats per turn that ability is active afterwards.
• HP loss per turn:
  • MoA: 100 + 40 * (turns active - 1)
  • LD: 100 + 50 * (turns active)
• cost: 100 EN, 100 HP

Upgrade Tips

General tips around modifying the Black Jack.

Basic

Hull Plating: Increasing HP.
Energy Reactor: Increasing energy of the ship. This may let you move or shoot more often.
Evasion: Reduce enemy accuracy(hitchance) by 5 by increasing Evasion by 5. Useful against kinetics/laser fire and partly against missiles.

Kinetics

Kinetic Damage: Assault benefit from this, as more armor is needed to stop it.
Kinetic Accuracy: The forth upgrade let you shoot one grid further. The ninth upgrade a second one.
Kinetic Energy Cost: Reduce the energy cost to shoot the assualt weapon.

Laser

Energy Damage: Increase damage to have an easier time killing enemies. Especially Pulse benefit from this, as against Spaceships' armor it can be difficult to deal any damage. Read below in bold at which upgrade you OS, and in italics with a chance, which enemy with Lasers.
Energy Accuracy: Every two upgrades let you shoot one grid further.
Energy Cost: Reduce the energy cost to shoot energy weapons. Read below at which point you shoot how often cost-efficient.

Number of Shots:
2 Shots:
Upgrading Energy to 110($480) and reducing Energy cost to 54/77.5%($604) for a total cost of $1084.
3 Shots:
Upgrading Energy to 115($872) and reducing Energy cost to 38/55%($4124) for a total cost of $4996.
4 Shots:
Upgrading Energy to 135($4762) and reducing Energy cost to 33/47.5%($7522) for a total cost of $12284.
5 Shots:
Upgrading Energy to 140($6864) and reducing Energy cost to 28/40%($13638) for a total cost of $20502.

Missiles

Missile Damage:
Missile Flak Resistance:
Missile Energy Cost:
Missile Storage:

Melee

Melee Damage:
Melee Accuracy:
Melee Energy Cost:

Defenses

Flak: Upgrading it twice is cheap, but further upgrades are to expensive and it's wiser to spread the flak upgrades accross all units to increase the effectiveness, as the costs double with only half the effect, and the possibility of being stripped off of it by PACT Supports.
Armor:

Quotes

Selected:

• "I hear ya, loud and clear."
• "Ready to roll."
• "Let's go get 'em!"
• "What can I do for you, mah captain?"
• "I'm here, captain."
• "Black Jack good to go!"

Move forward:

• "Forward and onward."
• "Go, go, go!"
• "Putting the pedal to the metal!"

Move backwards:

• "Backing up! Beep... beep..."

Fire lasers:

• "I'mma firing mah lazers!"
• "Pew! Pew! Pew!"
• "Devastation at the speed of light!"

Fire assault:

• "Time to do this the old-fashioned way!"
• "Let's give 'em hell, captain!"
• "Clearing the road!"

Launch missiles:

• "Fly, my children!"
• "It's time to break out the circus!"
• "Massacre, I tell ya! Absolute massacre!"
• "Try dodging this!"

Melee attack:

• "Showtime! Let's go!"
• "Time to reduce you to size!"

Hit enemy:

• "Ah hah! I did it!"
• "Justice served!"
• "Score one for the good guys!"
• "All for one and one for all!"
• "More where that came from!"

Missed enemy:

• "Aww, I missed!"
• "H-Hey! That's not fair!"
• "Uggh, so frustrating..."
• "Stop moving around so much!"

Enemy evaded:

• "Can't catch me!"
• "Good thing the enemy's nearsighted, huh, captain?"
• "Too slow!"
• "Where're you're aiming at? I'm here!"

Hits taken:

• "Don't worry, I'm still A-OK."
• "Black Jack still holding strong!"
• "I... I can do this!"
• "Uh oh... a lot of red lights are flashing on the monitor!"
• "Ah... don't worry... I'm still..."

Debuffed:

• "Ahh, help! I got a blue screen!"
• "Uncaught exception? What the hell is this!?"

Retreat:

• "Even heroes have bad days, huh..."