v2.26 — More attempts at balancing!

-Removed second sweetspot hitboxes on U-Air, N-Air and most of Up-B. One hitbox is enough!
-Up-B's tippers in general are way smaller, while sour spots are bigger. The largest hitbox now only lasts 3 frames instead of 4.
*There was a lot of code in Up-B that wasn't working as originally coded. I'm not sure what it means for her balance, but I've fixed it all up. Here's a small list:
++Fixed bug where Up-B would start travelling one frame too late and for shorter than the programmed distance.
++Patched up code for Up-B turnarounds during startup: you can now turnaround if you're holding down in addition to backward.
*Fixed several orb-related bugs.
-Down-B's orb now experiences more than just one frame of hitstop. It's now set to roughly the amount of hitstop a normal opponent would take.
-Down-B's hitboxes overall deal less hitpause, and the smack hitbox deals less hitstun. This should make her neutral less oppressive.
-Down-B 2 has way more endlag. It takes longer for you to be able to cancel it into specials than into normal attacks.
-The orb now dies if Mechlair is hit while in cooldown from Neutral-B due to a successful parry. Essentially, parry one of her non-Neutral-B/jab moves then hit her to kill her orb!
**The orb actually only dies when she leaves hitstun, so if you're so inclined, you can attempt to use it for an especially meaty punish.
=I'm taking alt requests! I've added one such requested alt; these are marked with their own little icons.

Minor changes:
-Prat fall accel multiplier reduced (0.85 > 0.8)
=Polished up hit effects all across the board. Previously, some effects were a bit random and didn't really match the hitbox. No more.
-Sourspot F-Strong angle nerfed (361 > 45).
-Jab startup increased by one frame.
-N-Air endlag increased by one frame.
-Turns out Neutral-B had plenty of use that I wasn't seeing: it's pretty darn powerful mid-combos. I've reverted the changes to its frame data (startup 7 > 8). Down-B is special cancellable one frame earlier than before to make sure Down-B > Neutral-B usage is intact.
-Removed Up-B's angle flipper 6. It was causing jank, and I think a smaller hitbox with turnaround is a better way to get reverse hits. It's how Wrastor does it!
=Alt 7 now has its own fire effects.

v2.25 — Hotfix! Sorry, hopefully last patch for a little while!

*I noticed a WEIRD bug where sometimes Neutral-B would have no endlag. I couldn't replicate it, but I took a stab at what I guessed was causing the problem. Let me know if it's still a thing!
+Neutral-B has a progressive cooldown system to prevent excessive chaingrabs. I didn't consider that it's okay to chaingrab the orb though!
=Neutral-B hitbox now displays with the correct colors.

v2.24 — Hotfix!

*A small a*b vs b*a mistake made the code print out scary errors sometimes. They didn't do anything, but now they're gone. This is the only change.

v2.23 — More fixes, more sauce + response to Test Track

Mechlair's actually been in a tournament today, Test Track, where characters are, well, tested, to see if they're viable for competitive play. ...She was very much broken. Embarrassing. Here are the changes I've made as a result of the findings in the tourney:
-Hitting the orb no longer cancels your attacks' whifflag. Side-B still gets to be cancellable off it though (for now?)
-If your orb smack or an attack that hit the orb are parried, you'll now be sent into 20 extra frames of parrystun. Extended parrystun was already a feature, but some interactions (namely orb getting parried as you were attacking) were especially hard to punish. No more.
+Down-B return hitbox damage increased (5 > 9)

There were many other changes I'd already been working on beforehand, however.
The biggest one is that I want the orb to be useful during both recovery and neutral — I'd reduced the attack's startup in previous patches, but I still wasn't satisfied.
+Grabbing the orb with Neutral-B restores your double jump just like grabbing a foe does. To make sure you don't miss it when you really can't afford to, the orb no longer ignores walls when it's rising during its startup and there's an extra gray hitbox that's intended to only interact with the orb.
+The orb is now 'set up' a little lower than before, at just the right angle for you to hit it at an opponent. The smack hitbox was made a little taller too, to make sure it doesn't miss against idling characters, who have a deceptively low hurtbox.
=I've redone the math for the angle the orb is sent at when you hit it. It no longer works in simple straight angles, but instead takes your attack's angle and tries to 'steer' it toward a straight angle according to what attack it was, reminiscent of how it worked pre-v2.0. This effect is lessened for non-Mechlair players, mimicking behaviors of similar articles. Let me know whether it feels nice!
**Also fixed a lot of bugs related to this. Additionally, the orb can now be bashed as well as killed by Clairen's plasma field — the good guys always win smh.

Less huge changes:
+Opponents no longer lose their burning effect if they hit Mechlair. This is mostly due to trades.
+D-Strong had a little bit of a reputation of being lightning fast. For 2.0, I'd nerfed its speed and made it stronger. That took away a bit of its identity. Startup reduced (7 > 6) and its extra strength was moved over to F-Strong instead.
+U-Tilt 1st hilter hitbox and F-Strong 2nd hilter hitbox both made bigger. This is to reduce cases where those moves look like they should've tippered but didn't.
++F-Strong's actually had all of its hitboxes redrawn. They're a bit closer to how Clairen's work now.
-F-Air had the opposite problem where it'd tipper when it didn't look like it should. I've made it harder to hit both the sweetspot and the middle hitbox, and made the weakest hitbox at the tip bigger instead. There's no extra range.
+Roughly swapped stats for hits 1 and 2 of N-Air. It used to be an unorthodox move for little to no reason, and this should make it both more intuitive and more useful.
+F-Air and N-Air hit 2's hitstun multipliers removed (0.9x > 1x). This was intended to make them worse at comboing into themselves, but with how they're her fastest aerials, that change just incentivized using precisely those ones (the slower ones are too slow to hit)
=A previous patch brought changes to the extra hitpause formula, and that had several effects all throughout her moveset. Some of them were good, some of them not so much.
--F-Air and N-Air's two sweetspot hits both have got their extra hitpause reduced by one. This brings them back to pre-patch behavior. F-Air is a very strong tool and N-Air started being able to easily 'lock' the opponent into place and guarantee the 2nd hit without giving them a chance to attempt to escape or anything.
==D-Strong and Up-B sweetspots' extra hitpause reduced by one. This isn't intended as a balance change, just gamefeel.
++B-Air sweetspots extra hitpause increased by one. N-Air's sour spots were given some extra hitpause as well.
=Fire and plasma effects now show up even on your first sweetspot hit. Though I wanted them to signal 'your tippers are doing extra damage', I think the way I went about it was simply confusing, and I feel that the increasing hitpause might be information enough. The fire effects are more frequent the more hits you land though.
=Polished up both the plasma and fire visual effects. Thanks to Maraslumunus and Bar-kun!!

v2.22 — Power redistribution

Despite my attempts to nerf Up-B during the time between 1.11 and 2.0, it's come to my attention that I didn't go far enough. With her ladder combos, late sweetspot Up-B is actually still very powerful. So I'm toning that and other egregious moves down a notch and making some of her worse moves better.

-Up-B sweetspot stats changed (9+0.75 early, 9+0.75 late > 9+0.77 early, 7+0.75 late)
+D-Strong hitboxes all made stronger, angle changed (hit 1 50/hit 2 47 > 45/45)
+U-Strong last hit hitboxes both made stronger
+F-Strong sourspot and B-Air sweetspot made slightly stronger
-F-Air now has one more frame of startup (5 > 6)
=D-Air is now active for two more frames, matching Clairen's.
**Though this might look like a buff, this is also a way of making it more punishable as she's stuck in it for longer.
-D-Air landlag increased by one frame.
+U-Air sweetspot made considerably stronger
+Down-B orb initial velocity reduced a little; this lets you use it on neutral to attack opponents in front of you!
**For short foes, you can fullhop Neutral-B down to put the orb at ground height!
+Down-B startup reduced by two more frames (orb spawn frame 23 > 21)
-Orb smack hitbox had a problem where it'd inconsistently kill. That wasn't really supposed to happen, it's a combo tool! I've nerfed its knockback a smidge.
+The nerfed knockback from the orb smack hitbox went to the orb return hitbox! It should be a more reliable KO tool now.
=Restored plasma effects to Down-B orb on hit; I'd accidentally removed them last patch.

v2.21 — In response to online play

Playing Mechlair against a couple friends, I noticed that some of her tools didn't seem to be as useful as intended, so this patch aims to remedy that. Granted, I suck at RoA so it might be just skill issues™️, but I'll let y'all tell me that!

+Neutral-B has one less frame of startup.
I barely found use for it during matches. This should alleviate that a little.

+Side-B now deals more extra hitpause.
Now it should be able to combo into something other than Up-B.

+Hilter hits' extra hitpause increased (min 3, max 10 > min 4, max 13)
This should encourage longer combos (as well as make them more doable)

+Down-B 1 startup sped up (ball spawn frame 30 > frame 23).
It was intended to be usable during your recovery, so you could get a boost from it and not die from Up-B-goes-nowhere-itis, but it was just too slow for that. I'm gonna buff it a little more still; looking in-game, I thought I'd done more, but 7 frames just really isn't much.
I've also spiced Down-B up a little further:
-Down-B 1's funny hitbox was a bit too useful. It now only lasts one frame, down from two.
+The orb's speed-up mechanic after you hit it has been buffed to also reduce your aerials' landlag. Also, smacking it sends it slightly farther than before.

Other changes:
+Dash attack's hitboxes slightly redrawn to improve its range.
+F-Tilt tippers made way bigger and moved forwards to prevent odd back hits.
+B-Air would sometimes reverse hit when it didn't look like it should, so I changed the way it's handled.
*F-Air's sour spots now have some slight extra hitpause to them (0 middle, 0 tip > 1 middle, -1 tip). This should make it easier to combo F-Air into a different move if you're close to the opponent, and harder to combo it into another F-Air if you're far away.
=Tweaked U-Tilt hitboxes, mostly so the hit effects on sour spot hits don't sometimes look like they should've tippered.
=Down-B orb's hurtbox shrunk to prevent accidental hits on it; it's also visible in practice mode now.
=Polished up Down-B's sfx, added a sound when you select her in the CSS, and hilter hits now have some extra sfx during hitpause like Clairen's.
=Fixed up U-Strong's hitpause, for real.
=Some moves had inconsistent mechanics where they wouldn't count towards sweetspot hits on burning opponents. I've done away with that.

v2.2 — Hotfix! I swear, pushing updates is the fastest way to notice bugs that'd gone under the radar for years.

*Side-B's effect in the Hyrule alt now experiences hitstop if you hit someone just like the standard effect
*The "G7" in Genesis alt's orb can no longer look mirrored
+Up-B hitboxes during its very first active frame are now bigger. This is to make sure the proper hit connects when it looks like it should.
+Tweaked F-Smash's hitbox during its first active sprite to prevent the sour spot from hitting in cases where you'd hit the sweetspot the next frame.
=U-Strong's hitpause normalized so that A) it doesn't last for ages at low percents, and B) hilter hits at high percents have more oomph to them.
**I want to tweak this a little more still.
*Reduced file size. With this, v2.2 Mechlair is roughly ~0.4MB 'smaller' than v1.11 Mechlair. It's not much, but it's honest work!

v2.1

*All this patch does is change the preview image.

v2.0 — Mechlair, revived: SHE LIVES.

I am back and so is Mechlair! This is a HUGE patch that changes pretty much everything. Seriously, try her out; if I were to write an exhaustive changelog, we'd be here for at least a few hours...

BIGGEST CHANGES:
*New jab, new N-Air, new F-Air
*B-Air turns you around
*Frame data sped up all over
*Jank is gone!
*Nerfs to Side-B and Up-B which were seriously busted previously
*Buffs to Neutral-B and Down-B to make sure they're fun
*Many, many, many, many, many visual improvements!
*New alts!
*...and more!

Thanks so much for reading, and I'm really sorry it took so long to finally get her updated. Here's to a balanced and above all fun Mechlair!

v1.11

-Side-B's little vertical boost on walls can now only occur if you're airborne.