In N3, the Phero-Booster applied the Targeted state whether or not you made the BTS save. In N4, it merely has the State: Targeted. Which, based on other weapons applying states (Monofilament, Jammer, Riotstopper, etc.), would mean you have to fail a save in order to be targeted. This would be the only case where a save can stop you from being targeted.
As written, yes. The other big changes coming from N3 is that it now doesn't affect units with STR (for some reason?) and doesn't get Fireteam bonuses, though it now ignores cover, oddly (despite requiring LoF to use). The whole weapon is just a mess.
Machines don't have pheromones for the weapon to make "louder" so other bio-engineered tech can find them better. Ignoring cover makes sense too, if you got hit by a skunk on the arm you're gonna smell just as rank as if it got you on the chest. It's not 100% internally consistent with FO, but FO and Spotlight are significantly different, and it's not the only weapon in the game that allows a save to resist the effect, applies a state, or ignores cover.
Weird weapon, I wouldn't be surprised if CB modifies It (in fact The whole phero-warfare) when they release the new fireteam rules.
But the weapon doesn't make the target's pheromones louder, you literally shoot the user's pheromones via railgun at the target. https://web.archive.org/web/20200107065717/http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Phero-Booster It was able to affect STR targets in N3 because it's shooting a bunch of particles at relativistic speed. The weapon worked perfectly fine in N3 and was consistent with it's lore. In N4 it's a garbled pile of rules that don't make any sense. Somehow your armor can stop the pheromones from sticking to you. Somehow if you can see someone's toe sticking out it's just as easy to hit them as someone standing in the open. Somehow a robot can't be touched but humans can have holes blasted through their chests. The N4 profile is completely inconsistent with how the weapon is described in the lore and an absolute mess to try and use on the tabletop. EDIT: Also forgot, it's a weapon that requires LoF, but you can't Dodge it; you have to use Reset instead. What. Just... what?
Ah yes, of course, because upgrading your router's firmware is a great way to make anyone trying to shoot you with a smelly paintball less accurate. God this weapon is such a mess.
The strangest thing for me is that only one unit in the entire game equipped with it. Swarm grenades and nullifiers were so much simpler...
I will never understand the decision to remove Nullifiers. They were THE way for Tohaa to protect their hackable assets. Tohaa doesn't play the hacking game, so they were a way for us to selectively protect HI and TAGs at the cost of A: not being able to freely move around, B: requiring the unit with the Nullifier to get to the place you want to put it, and C: being destroyable So they take away the only way for Tohaa to defend its hackable assets, and what do they replace it with? Firewalls? Fairy Dust? No, those would make too much sense! Instead we get the most half-assessed hacking network in the entire game. A bunch of units got deployable repeaters (often going up in price), which are completely worthless seeings as how Tohaa has a grand total of TWO whole hackers, one of whom is an overcosted WIP 14 character and the other of which is the Kamael, who no one ever takes. So we went from N3, where Tohaa would rarely field HI or TAGs, to N4, where Tohaa CAN'T take HI or TAGs, because the minute you do you just gave every hacker on the opposite team a target that they otherwise wouldn't have, with no way to defend it. The icing on the cake is that in N3, Tohaa had access to Fairy Dust (and all the rest of the relevant programs in the N4 EvoHD), but they took it all away in N4. Because Corvus Belli just can't stand the ARROGANCE of a Tohaa player daring to field an Ectros. Or something. Anyways I'm way off topic so I'll shut up but the decisions made in regards to Tohaa's hacking in N4 are utterly baffling. N4 might've been a huge buff to every other faction's HI, but for Tohaa? It made damn sure they never play theirs. /rant
I've run a damn sight more Tohaa HI in N4 than I ever did in N3 but, yes, not the forum for that discussion.