massey

Our group has some basic guidelines we try to follow.  This has proven helpful over the years.  We don't always stick to it though.  Note that these are 5th edition standards, but they should generally apply to 6th as well.
 
--Spend about 10% of your points on skills that can't be used in combat.  Not combat skill levels, not martial arts, not autofire skills, I'm talking about science skills, knowledge skills, mechanics, stuff like that.  Characters shouldn't be sitting around scratching their butts when not in combat.
--The slowest guy in the group should be no more than 3 Speed slower than the fastest guy in the group.  So if the slow guy is a  Speed, the fastest could be a 7.  But don't let some horse's ass of a player screw the rest of the group by not buying it up at all.
--A difference of 3 in OCV/DCV is significant.  If I've got a 10 OCV and the group average is a 7 DCV, then I'm going to hit on a 14-, which is like a 90% chance to hit.  Likewise if I have a 10 DCV and they only have a 7 OCV, they only have about a 20% chance to hit.  This site has probabilites listed:  http://www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/3_dice_rolls.htm#.Xbn_9VVKiUk .
--A normal character should have enough Defense and Stun so that they can stay conscious through about 3 average hits.
--A normal character should have enough Defense and Con so that they don't get Stunned (damage exceeds their Def+Con and they lose their next phase) by the average attack.
--For superheroic games, characters generally want to have at least one offensive power, at least one defensive power, and at least one movement power.
--For an average game of 350 points (400 in 6th ed), it's fairly normal for the damage limit to be 60 active points (12D6 normal, 4D6 killing).
 
So an anime swordsman character might look something like this:
 
Captain Ninja Sword (350 points, 5th edition)
 
Str 20 (very strong for a normal human)
Dex 26 (much faster than a normal human, not technically "superhuman" yet)
Con 23 (damn tough for a normal person)
Body 13 (you don't actually take much Body in a normal Champions game, so we've only bought it up a little)
Int 13 (he's smarter than average, kinda)
Ego 15 (decently strong-willed, but not a telepath or anything)
Pre 20 (an intimidating guy)
Com 10 (just average looking)
 
PD 15 (at the very limits of human toughness -- guy can smash face first into a tree and not lose any teeth)
ED 15 (same -- a hot frying pan to the face will leave a comedic red mark, but he's probably okay)
Speed 6 (he can fight multiple opponents at once, like Bruce Lee in the movies)
Rec 9 (starting value with his Str and Con)
End 46 (starting value based off his Con -- as a martial artist he won't need much more)
Stun 40 (bought it up a bit, to show resiliency)
 
General physical abilities
--9/9 Combat Luck  (shooting him with a gun will basically never really put him in danger -- note this gives him a total of 24/24 Defense)
--Rapid Healing (even if he takes Body, he'll walk it off in a few hours)
--12" of Running (twice as much as a normal man, without even accounting for his high Speed stat)
--20" of Leaping (120 foot jump)
 
Kickass ninja sword
--3D6-1 HKA (4D6 with Str), 0 Endurance, OAF
 
Martial arts package
+2 OCV with martial arts
Weapon element with sword (note: none of these maneuvers are going to add damage to the sword, only martial strike really makes sense as a sword maneuver anyway)
Martial Strike
Legsweep
Martial Grab
Martial Block
Martial Dodge
 
Acrobatics 14- (kinda combat related)
Breakfall 14- (kinda combat related)
Climbing 14-
Concealment
Conversation
Disguise
Instructor
Interrogation
Persuasion
Paramedics
Stealth
Streetwise
Survival
Tactics (kinda combat related)
Teamwork (kinda combat related)
 
 
Scholar
KS: Ninja stuff 12-
KS: Martial arts world 12-
KS: World history 12-
KS:  Ancient legends 12-
 
 
 
That's 308 points so far.  Your basics are covered.  You've got an 11 OCV with your sword (at 4D6 HKA it's at the top end of a normal starting game), so you'll hit all day long.  Your defense is still pretty good (an average 12D6 attack will do 42 Stun, which means you're taking 18 past defense, not enough to Stun you).  You've got enough skills that you're useful in the right non-combat situations.  You've got 42 points left to spend to give yourself stronger willpower, various ninja tricks like smoke bombs or invisibility, maybe make yourself smarter or branch out into another skill area, or to give your sword some cool magic tricks.  Maybe you can swing the sword and launch an energy beam or something (cutting at range), so you want to turn your sword into a multipower.  Those are all fine.  This should give you a basic idea on what a normal character looks like.

Hero scales up better than GURPS does.  GURPS probably handles the lower end of the scale a bit better.
 
 
It's been a long time since I looked at Western Hero, but generally any time you're looking at specific weapons and trying to make them accurately, you're gonna get some glitches between reality and the game system.  For instance, every "damage class" in Hero is generally considered to be twice as powerful as the previous one.  For normal (non-killing) attacks, that means a 6D6 punch is (theoretically) twice as powerful as a 5D6 punch.  In killing damage (which guns use), the steps are 1 point, 1/2 D6, 1D6, 1D6+1, 1 1/2 D6, 2D6, 2D6+1, etc.  So a 2 1/2 D6 killing attack is "twice as powerful" as a 2D6+1 killing attack.  Now, with a lot of guns, that's going to mean they are virtually identical.  A .45 ACP isn't actually twice as damaging as a 9mm (we aren't talking about muzzle velocity or grain, or even joules of energy, it's nebulous "power" and "damage").  There isn't really that much difference between most calibers, not enough to move it more than a single level of damage.  As a result, everything ends up looking the same.
 
The Hero System uses points to try to balance powers, and makes some determinations on what should be effective in an average combat.  But the Charges limitation doesn't really take into account the fact that one gun might be easier to reload than another.  Is a rifle that holds 17 rounds in a tube magazine really that much better than one that holds 16?  Normally that's a larger advantage (16 rounds is a +0 Advantage, 17-32 is a +1/4).  Since in a heroic game, nobody is paying points for these weapons (you just buy them at the general store like everything else), they didn't try to make the weapons follow the Powers rules exactly -- they just defined how they function.

Not compared to the differences between a guy who shoots lightning bolts and one who has napalm breath.  When you compare those two guys, the two bullet calibers look identical.

For the most part, in Hero, we don't really care whether our target dies, as much as we care whether our target is "out".  Whether that's dead, unconscious in GM-discretionland, unconscious by 1 and staying down, whatever.  For genres where the primary attack type is Killing, we can pretty much get all of that from Hit Locations plus sectional defenses.  It's not laid out for you right in front, and it's not a Champions-style or even D&D-style slugfest.  You have to take advantage of cover, you have to Brace & Set when you can, you have to use CSLs, and most importantly you have to have a team.  
 
I'm aware of how... vociferously... IRL gun enthusiasts discuss the... vast differences between, let's say, a 10mm round and a .40 S&W... and, I mean, is there really?  

You should probably regard Independent as similar to real world equipment.  Even if somebody makes a bunch of free equipment for Slashy Steve, it's still not something he gets to keep forever.  He just gets to keep it until it breaks, or he loses it, or somebody takes it from him.  It's just like a D&D character when your +2 longsword fails its save against acid and it melts away.  You should be careful about letting a player collect so many of these items that he's unstoppable, but one tipped over canoe later and Steve is swimming in the river and his swords are washing downstream.  It ain't that hard to take away magic items, particularly ones that aren't identifiably part of the hero's character.

Eh, never worry about wasting time. If you have questions, ask.

Regarding the "focus doesn't really have the power".  That's a personal focus.  The easiest example is Dumbo's feather.  Dumbo needs the feather to fly, because he thinks he needs it.  But if you or I grab that feather, it doesn't do anything for us.  You can keep Dumbo from flying by taking away the feather, but you don't gain anything by keeping it.
 
Regarding someone taking your focus and running away with it, that's fine.  It doesn't matter.  It's on your character sheet, you don't lose it.  Your character's point total isn't like a bank account where someone can steal from it.  Your point total is a measure of your character's power.  Steve just yoinked that dude's rocket pack?  Why can't he keep it?  Because Steve is a 350 point character, and if he had a rocket pack too, he'd be 375 points.  But this isn't a 375 game yet.  It's the same way that a guy with 15 points of wealth can't buy a bunch of cool vehicles and weapons automatically.  There's nothing really preventing him from purchasing them, but once he does that his character is a lot more powerful, and this story is about people who are less powerful than that.
 
Anyway the guy who loses his focus will get it back, or will get something equivalent back.  Captain America paid points for his shield.  It's his shield.  His character costs however many points because he's got that shield.  He can lose it temporarily during an adventure (some jerk with a robot arm grabbed it), but he'll get it back by the end of the scene because that's how it works.  Iron Man has replacement suits waiting for him, Hawkeye can always get another bow, Spider-Man knows how to make another set of webshooters, and Thor can hold out his hand and his hammer comes back.  Cap always gets his shield back because that's how the story works.  If somebody were to steal it, he'll be able to find it again, by the next adventure at the latest.  Either that, or he gets another shield (or some other weapon) to bring him back up to full points.  Remember those triangular looking forearm shields from Infinity War?
 
Sometimes a character goes through a story arc where they don't have their focus.  Thor's bitchy sister shows up and shatters his hammer.  He's down a bunch of points at the beginning of the adventure until he discovers his Super Thunder God Powers.  You see, Thor's player was getting kind of bored and he wanted to change something about the character.  "Okay," says the GM, "we'll swap out the hammer for some souped up lightning bolt powers.  Cool?"  Thor thinks cool.  By the end of the adventure, Thor has shuffled around his points and spent some saved XP.  Now he's got super lightning.  Of course by the next adventure, Thor's decided he wants this big axe thing, so the GM lets him change his points around yet again.
 
 
 

Regarding the "focus doesn't really have the power".  That's a personal focus.  The easiest example is Dumbo's feather.  Dumbo needs the feather to fly, because he thinks he needs it.  But if you or I grab that feather, it doesn't do anything for us.  You can keep Dumbo from flying by taking away the feather, but you don't gain anything by keeping it.
 
Regarding someone taking your focus and running away with it, that's fine.  It doesn't matter.  It's on your character sheet, you don't lose it.  Your character's point total isn't like a bank account where someone can steal from it.  Your point total is a measure of your character's power.  Steve just yoinked that dude's rocket pack?  Why can't he keep it?  Because Steve is a 350 point character, and if he had a rocket pack too, he'd be 375 points.  But this isn't a 375 game yet.  It's the same way that a guy with 15 points of wealth can't buy a bunch of cool vehicles and weapons automatically.  There's nothing really preventing him from purchasing them, but once he does that his character is a lot more powerful, and this story is about people who are less powerful than that.
 
Anyway the guy who loses his focus will get it back, or will get something equivalent back.  Captain America paid points for his shield.  It's his shield.  His character costs however many points because he's got that shield.  He can lose it temporarily during an adventure (some jerk with a robot arm grabbed it), but he'll get it back by the end of the scene because that's how it works.  Iron Man has replacement suits waiting for him, Hawkeye can always get another bow, Spider-Man knows how to make another set of webshooters, and Thor can hold out his hand and his hammer comes back.  Cap always gets his shield back because that's how the story works.  If somebody were to steal it, he'll be able to find it again, by the next adventure at the latest.  Either that, or he gets another shield (or some other weapon) to bring him back up to full points.  Remember those triangular looking forearm shields from Infinity War?
 
Sometimes a character goes through a story arc where they don't have their focus.  Thor's bitchy sister shows up and shatters his hammer.  He's down a bunch of points at the beginning of the adventure until he discovers his Super Thunder God Powers.  You see, Thor's player was getting kind of bored and he wanted to change something about the character.  "Okay," says the GM, "we'll swap out the hammer for some souped up lightning bolt powers.  Cool?"  Thor thinks cool.  By the end of the adventure, Thor has shuffled around his points and spent some saved XP.  Now he's got super lightning.  Of course by the next adventure, Thor's decided he wants this big axe thing, so the GM lets him change his points around yet again.
 
 
 

There's a character who fairly regularly hands out huge power enhancements to people.  He's called Galactus.  He's got a big huge amount of Usable By Other powers that he can grant to his "heralds".  They keep those powers until Galactus decides he doesn't like them anymore, then he takes them away.  He's had a lot of heralds over the years, many of them quite temporary (often only showing up once).  But occasionally, a herald uses that as his excuse for an origin story.  Silver Surfer kept his powers permanently because somebody decided to build their Galactic Champions character on that concept.
 
Groundstuck Man can certainly decide to keep your flying belt, but that makes him a more expensive character.  If he's just some dude, well now he's had his origin story.  You just gave him his character concept (see the awesome DC character Booster Gold for an example of a hero who got his powers by stealing a bunch of gear from a superhero museum in the future).  But your character is now out a flying belt, so you'll have to get another one.  Perhaps the flying belt radiation caused you to mutate, and now you can fly naturally.  Or maybe you find another one.  Or perhaps you have to train extra hard to make up for the lack of flying belt, and during your offscreen time you become proficient in super-parkour, with like 15" of Running, Leaping, and Swinging in a Multipower to represent you bouncing off of walls and doing backflips in the air from building to building.  Regardless, you're very quickly back at full points.

Regarding the "focus doesn't really have the power".  That's a personal focus.  The easiest example is Dumbo's feather.  Dumbo needs the feather to fly, because he thinks he needs it.  But if you or I grab that feather, it doesn't do anything for us.  You can keep Dumbo from flying by taking away the feather, but you don't gain anything by keeping it.
 
Regarding someone taking your focus and running away with it, that's fine.  It doesn't matter.  It's on your character sheet, you don't lose it.  Your character's point total isn't like a bank account where someone can steal from it.  Your point total is a measure of your character's power.  Steve just yoinked that dude's rocket pack?  Why can't he keep it?  Because Steve is a 350 point character, and if he had a rocket pack too, he'd be 375 points.  But this isn't a 375 game yet.  It's the same way that a guy with 15 points of wealth can't buy a bunch of cool vehicles and weapons automatically.  There's nothing really preventing him from purchasing them, but once he does that his character is a lot more powerful, and this story is about people who are less powerful than that.
 
Anyway the guy who loses his focus will get it back, or will get something equivalent back.  Captain America paid points for his shield.  It's his shield.  His character costs however many points because he's got that shield.  He can lose it temporarily during an adventure (some jerk with a robot arm grabbed it), but he'll get it back by the end of the scene because that's how it works.  Iron Man has replacement suits waiting for him, Hawkeye can always get another bow, Spider-Man knows how to make another set of webshooters, and Thor can hold out his hand and his hammer comes back.  Cap always gets his shield back because that's how the story works.  If somebody were to steal it, he'll be able to find it again, by the next adventure at the latest.  Either that, or he gets another shield (or some other weapon) to bring him back up to full points.  Remember those triangular looking forearm shields from Infinity War?
 
Sometimes a character goes through a story arc where they don't have their focus.  Thor's bitchy sister shows up and shatters his hammer.  He's down a bunch of points at the beginning of the adventure until he discovers his Super Thunder God Powers.  You see, Thor's player was getting kind of bored and he wanted to change something about the character.  "Okay," says the GM, "we'll swap out the hammer for some souped up lightning bolt powers.  Cool?"  Thor thinks cool.  By the end of the adventure, Thor has shuffled around his points and spent some saved XP.  Now he's got super lightning.  Of course by the next adventure, Thor's decided he wants this big axe thing, so the GM lets him change his points around yet again.
 
 
 

There's a character who fairly regularly hands out huge power enhancements to people.  He's called Galactus.  He's got a big huge amount of Usable By Other powers that he can grant to his "heralds".  They keep those powers until Galactus decides he doesn't like them anymore, then he takes them away.  He's had a lot of heralds over the years, many of them quite temporary (often only showing up once).  But occasionally, a herald uses that as his excuse for an origin story.  Silver Surfer kept his powers permanently because somebody decided to build their Galactic Champions character on that concept.
 
Groundstuck Man can certainly decide to keep your flying belt, but that makes him a more expensive character.  If he's just some dude, well now he's had his origin story.  You just gave him his character concept (see the awesome DC character Booster Gold for an example of a hero who got his powers by stealing a bunch of gear from a superhero museum in the future).  But your character is now out a flying belt, so you'll have to get another one.  Perhaps the flying belt radiation caused you to mutate, and now you can fly naturally.  Or maybe you find another one.  Or perhaps you have to train extra hard to make up for the lack of flying belt, and during your offscreen time you become proficient in super-parkour, with like 15" of Running, Leaping, and Swinging in a Multipower to represent you bouncing off of walls and doing backflips in the air from building to building.  Regardless, you're very quickly back at full points.

The steel mill paid for the i-beam. Or the people that bought the i-beam to have the building constructed paid for it.

A universal focus is self-contained.  Think of it like a gun.  Its disconnected from you, they can run off to the moon with it, and it still works, because the power is entirely in the focus.

By the same token, you can normally shut off a UBO power - say, if Shirley ShapeShifter was impersonating your teammate.  But Shirley flies away with your ring...

Correct. 
 
The exact line where "Here, use my ring!" goes from "minor perk of Focus" to "Needs UBO" is vague and in GMrulingland.  I've heard rulings ranging from "Once is fine, twice is UBO" to "Once every couple sessions is fine, more than that is UBO".  It won't really hurt balance either way, but if you think it might be important, sit down with your group and talk it out. 

Great insights, and very true.  Over time, experience teaches you what will and won't work and what goes smoothly.  Sometimes a long fight is interesting, sometimes quick surprising fights are better.  I particularly liked the trick of starting up something that felt really familiar and kind of old hat, then introducing something unusual or interesting in the middle: the ground collapses, a Hunted shows up, the fuel tank explodes, the enemy suddenly surrenders -- what is their scheme???  And so on.
 
But keeping the battles so they feel like the source material is a very important thing to maintaining a sense of the genre.  If it feels wrong, people will sense it even if they aren't sure why, and that leads to dissatisfaction and frustration.

Ah, then that's easy.
 
First, make sure your PCs have their total bonuses calculated and easy to see on the character sheet.  Let's say Bob the Fighter has a base OCV of 5.  He has 1 level with longsword, and he knows 3 martial maneuvers (defensive strike, fast strike, martial block).  Just go ahead and write his Defensive Strike OCV as 7 (base 5 + 1 with longsword + 1 maneuver bonus), and his Fast Strike OCV as 8.  While the players are still learning, it's fine to tell the player what number he needs to hit.  "The orc has a DCV of 4.  You'll need a 14 or less to hit him, 15 or less if you use your fast strike."  As they figure it out, they'll get faster and you'll be able to surprise them with enemies that are unexpectedly tough.  A martial arts villain can often move around his combat levels and be much more effective with clever use of maneuvers.  Don't do that when the players are still new -- it's a cheap shot on new players and they won't know how to handle it when they're still figuring out what "OCV" means.
 
Second, learn the hit location chart yourself.  There's no need for every player to look at the chart every time they hit somebody.  Instead, they can just say "I hit location 14" and you know that's the thigh.  So you say "you got him in the thigh, that's x2 Stun.  How much Body did you roll?  7?  Okay so he takes 14 Stun, minus his Defense of 8.  He loses 6 Stun."  Just kinda narrate it as you go.  Do that for a few sessions and they'll understand much better.  Give them a copy of the hit location chart, so they can follow along, but make sure you know it (Note:  I don't know it, I had to look it up for this example.  But we don't play heroic level games or use the chart).
 
Third, if you're using partial coverage armor for your villains, have a big note on their sheet about it.  "Doesn't have armor on locations 6 -- Hands, 7-8 -- Arms, or 14-18 -- Thighs, Legs, and Feet".  That way when the players hit your mook, you'll be like "oh yeah, that's the unarmored part".  I'd write both the number and the body part description to jog your memory in the midst of combat.  That can speed things up because it increases the amount of damage the bad guys are taking through their defenses.  Also, as people start taking Body, they may want to run away.  I don't care if he's still got 8 Body left, that bandit just got stabbed in the arm.  He may not want to stick around.

First, I definitely agree with Bolo on having maneuvers (especially the most commonly used ones) on the character sheet.
 
Goons/mooks do not need a lot of options.  More  important enemies can have more - there won't be three of them making decisions for each PC making a decision.
 
Combat can be sped up a bit by using multiple colours of dice.  Roll one colour for damage and a second for hit location, and both can be rolled in one roll.  Add in a third colour and you can roll to hit at the same time, but I find most prefer separating to-hit from damage.
 
Flipping this around, "faster" for its own sake is not the goal.  We could start the session with each player rolling an Adventuring Skill roll.  A good roll means they found the adventuring hook, located and defeated the bad guys and found the treasure, with some wounds and lost resources along the way.  A bad roll means things went poorly.  An 18 is a total party kill.  Very fast, but not very fun.
 
Describe the results.  Not "8 to hit with a defensive strike; 7 BOD to location 5 - 35 stun!", but:
 
"The swashbuckler crouches defensively to reduce his target area, and slashes out with his rapier.  What was meant as a light, defense-testing blow surprises his brutish Orc opponent, thrusting into his face for 7 BOD and 35 STUN."
 
No faster, but more interesting/fun will feel faster.
 
Some of the slowness may just be learning the ropes of the new system, of course.  That will come with time.
 
Another character build issue - how is the Damage to Defense Ratio?  If the characters are using 6 DC attacks, and have defenses of 18, 8 resistant, BOD will rarely be done (average KA is 7) and a typical attack will manage 3 STUN past defenses.  Combat will take forever.  Move the dial to 9 DCs and defenses of 12, 6 resistant, and combat will be much more swift - and considerably more brutal - with a typical KA passing 4 or 5 BOD and 18-21 STUN past defenses.  I'd consider somewhere between the two to be the sweet spot.
 
Let's say the PCs are running very defensive characters with 6 DC attacks and defenses of 18, 8 resistant, BOD.  Give the enemies 9 DC attacks and 8/4 defenses.  Now the opponents are passing 3 BOD and 12-15 STUN past PC defenses, and PCs are getting 3 BOD and 13 STUN past defenses.  They're still very comparable in damage, but combat will end much faster.
 
In-game, watch what commonly gets looked up in the rules.  Have those rules handy - e.g. the maneuvers and hit location chart on the character sheets (or the latter on index cards or other small, easy to see summaries).
 
Identify the specific slowdowns and you can find more targeted workarounds.  I recall one player who built a grid so he knew what DCV any roll would hit using a range of OCV values.  I would just adjust my OCV by the difference of the roll from 11.  A 15 means you can hit a DCV 4 lower than your OCV, and a 9 means you can hit your OCV + 2.  That works for me because I have a head for numbers, but he didn't and the grid worked for him.

I heartily second (or third, or whatever) this.  Most of my NPCs' defenses, REC, and STUN scores are divisible by 10 if I can work it that way; if not, then divisible by 5.
 
If a character is best designed with a Variable Power Pool or a Multipower with variable slots, I typically have a list of frequently-used powers on various logical break points that are easy to mix-and-match.  For instance, a 75 point pool will have sample powers at 25 points, 50 points, and 75 points.  A 60-point pool has them at 20, 40, and 60 points.  It makes picking powers much faster and easier. 
 
In my current Champions game, one of the PCs has a VPP gadget pool she can change in a half-Phase action -- and the player is not at all conversant with the Hero system.  So I typed up a sheet of sample gadgets - all with real points divisible by 5.  So for her 40 points in the pool, she can select a 20-point gadget and two 10-point gadgets, or a 30-pointer and a 10-pointer, etc. 
 
(Of course, it would be faster and easier to not have a VPP or variable-slot Multipower at all, but sometimes a character needs that versatility.)

One thing you might do, if villains are slowing the fight down too much (particularly agents) is to have people who are unengaged run away.  10 goons versus 4 PCs?  If the heroes are slowly slogging through the bad guys, and it's clear that they'll win even if it will take a while, some of those villains may decide to hightail it.  Bad Guy Agent #6 is behind everybody, and no one is actively looking at him?  Well he just saw Captain Fireball blast one of his buddies.  Maybe it's time for him to run out that door that you "forgot" to draw on the map right next to him.  Just quietly pull the figure and don't say anything.  10 goons can rapidly become 4 or 5 once the bad guys decide it's time to run.  I've had a GM pull that on me before.  I'm looking down at my dice, counting up numbers, and when I look up, half the board is clear.  The PCs were too busy fighting whoever they were facing to notice that his friends have split.

You can make the game move faster during character creation.  That solves a lot of problems before they ever crop up.
 
--Certain types of powers, advantages, and limitations can slow down combat.  Summon brings more people into the fight.  Activation Rolls mean that you've got to roll extra dice before you see if an ability worked, and often there are consequences if it fails.  Drain and other adjustment powers reduce your enemy's powers temporarily, but they can return during the fight.  Avoid using certain character builds that make the game take longer.  Extra steps and extra record keeping are bad.
--The fewer things you have to keep track of, the better.  If Radioactive Rick is robbing a railroad, and your heroes are just supposed to show up and kick his butt, it's not important to give him a lot of special abilities that eat up your time.  He's a throwaway villain, allow him to behave as such.  Give him enough Endurance to last the fight.  Don't make his powers too complex, such as having a Force Field that he can alternate between PD and ED or something that requires you to think about it.  Don't give him a power that randomly activates on certain phases, or defenses that might turn off if he fails a roll.  All that stuff requires more time from you.
--Monitor your players' character builds.  If your player isn't all that familiar with the system, don't let him build a character he doesn't know how to play.  Variable Power Pools can paralyze a new player with too many options. Sometimes when you can do everything, you end up doing nothing.  Martial arts often modify combat values, and if a player isn't that familiar with them it can slow down the already slow process of figuring out what you need to hit.  A lot of complex character designs can leave a new player scratching their heads.  Make sure everybody has enough Endurance to run their character for at least a turn before they begin play.
 

Yeah I've done that before too, people just bail in a fight (or sometimes more show up), depending on the challenge, how long its taking, and what I wanted to do with the scene.  Ninjas rapel down the wall and crash through the window.  A guy shows up through the door.  A van drives up and throws the side door open, its got a minigun in it!  Or guys just "fail their presence roll" and run away.

You can make the game move faster during character creation.  That solves a lot of problems before they ever crop up.
 
--Certain types of powers, advantages, and limitations can slow down combat.  Summon brings more people into the fight.  Activation Rolls mean that you've got to roll extra dice before you see if an ability worked, and often there are consequences if it fails.  Drain and other adjustment powers reduce your enemy's powers temporarily, but they can return during the fight.  Avoid using certain character builds that make the game take longer.  Extra steps and extra record keeping are bad.
--The fewer things you have to keep track of, the better.  If Radioactive Rick is robbing a railroad, and your heroes are just supposed to show up and kick his butt, it's not important to give him a lot of special abilities that eat up your time.  He's a throwaway villain, allow him to behave as such.  Give him enough Endurance to last the fight.  Don't make his powers too complex, such as having a Force Field that he can alternate between PD and ED or something that requires you to think about it.  Don't give him a power that randomly activates on certain phases, or defenses that might turn off if he fails a roll.  All that stuff requires more time from you.
--Monitor your players' character builds.  If your player isn't all that familiar with the system, don't let him build a character he doesn't know how to play.  Variable Power Pools can paralyze a new player with too many options. Sometimes when you can do everything, you end up doing nothing.  Martial arts often modify combat values, and if a player isn't that familiar with them it can slow down the already slow process of figuring out what you need to hit.  A lot of complex character designs can leave a new player scratching their heads.  Make sure everybody has enough Endurance to run their character for at least a turn before they begin play.
 

Yeah I just never bother with END on NPCs, they don't last long enough for it to be an issue in most fights anyway.

The best way to help determine how much something should cost is to ask how much you would think it should cost if it was used against you.  You're playing a superhero, fighting bad guys, and one of them pulls out an ability that literally negates 8 phases of your actions.  That's more than one turn.  
 
How much do you think that should cost them to use against you?