QOL fix for Bounty Hunters

So I think we all know that BHers can be pretty strong in the right scenarios but there’s something that always bothered me a lot. When you ambush with blades, you get to do the ambush damage, but you still have to approach to get a round in. Whereas, if you’re a combat main that gets ambush and is using pistols or a repeater (generally the training wheels races but I’m sure there are a few others), you get the ambush damage followed up by a round of damage where you can immediately flurry. I don’t think I have to explain why this is much, much stronger than ambushing with blades. Since sneak has been moved up, a majority of BH races don’t get it, therefore making it quite obvious when they intend to attack you by approaching. This means, to get a successful ambush with blades comparable to repeaters or pistols, you need to make it blatantly obvious what you’re doing right before you do it. That’s not an ambush in any sense of the word.

What I propose is pretty simple: Make it so you’re automatically approached after you ambush, regardless of what weapons you’re using. That way, if a dood with blasters ambushes a hunter, if the hunter has config +autodraw (most people do, I think) and is using blades, he gets a round of damage himself and can start circling. Subsequently, this would also mean that if a hunter ambushes someone else, he automatically gets a free round much like someone using blasters would and can proceed to begin circling or whatever he wants to do.

Thoughts?

Hide conceals approach, which you should have unless you made a really bad mistake or are really unlucky.

Yeah, we should totally leave BHers in a crappy state because of a smuggling skill!

Hide conceals approach? I had thought that only sneak did so. Regardless, I still think that ambush leaving you approached would be a good change.

It is sneak but that part means very little, what matters is that the smuggling skill clearly fixes the otherwise broken BHing class, so we should ignore all its problems.

If you ambush with a melee weapon, you should be approached. If you ambush with a ranged weapon you should not.

Doesn’t lunge approach you? I seem to remember that it should. I know an era ago when I last played a serious BH, the usual tactic was repeater ambush followed by melee lunge.

Thinking about it, what Ilyena said makes the most sense.