Major Update: 0.9.2

Massive Content Update

In this update:

• New Tricks
• Grenades
• Balance Changes

Not in this update (sorry):

• Prices are not yet fixed
• Skill training mechanics
• Gambling games and drugs

Misc Changes

"Weapon Proficiencies" have simply become "Proficiencies." This bonus is now used for flat buffs in various tricks in order to standardize their power. The Proficiency bonus will no longer be useful only during combat.

Combat Reactions can now also have proficiencies. Each Archetype starts with one.

A "lifestyle tax" has been added. This is an optional mechanic where a single tax is leveed by the GM whenever the party departs a hub.

Double Speak and Com Calls have been removed from the language list. These are codes/ciphers rather than full languages, and can now be taken as Tricks in the Subterfuge and Piloting trees.

Skill System

Skills have been adjusted, recombined and filled out with many, many tricks. Here is the final list of skills for the game:

Acrobatics - Movement and athletic abilities

Crafting - Making stuff

Deft Fingers - Manual dexterity

Endurance - Ability to tank damage, withstand extremes

Intimidation - Using your body to intimidate another

Subterfuge - Sneaky stealthy cloak and dagger stuff

Aplomb - Raw confidence

Erudition - Higher education and science

Medicine - Medicine

Naturalism - Renamed from "Gardening"

Piloting - Piloting

Programming - Software skills

Repair - Physical hardware skills, fixing stuff

Superstition - Your knowledge of the Nether

Barter - Trading, buying and selling

Captivation - A combination of Performance, Charm, and Deception

Etiquette - Social cues

Insight - Reading body language, getting in someone's mind

Leadership - Bossing people around

Zoolatry - Renamed from "animal empathy"

Skills granted by Citizenship and enhanced by Archetype have been updated to reflect these changes.

Dozens and dozens of Tricks have been added. Unfortunately, this update could not deliver a completely finished list of Tricks, but several skills are finished, and many more are close. A finished Trick set is expected in the next update.

A lot of Tricks have been re-arranged or re-named. This was done so that nearly every skill in the game could be associated with a particular combat function or style. Some Tricks are available under multiple skills, such as Double Attack.

Cartography has been completely removed for the time being. This may come back in future add-ons.

Secondary Skills

Secondary skills are now available. These skills are capped at +5, and characters cannot learn tricks in them. However, secondary skills can be picked up and learned throughout the game.

This is essential groundwork for the Skill Training section that is coming in the next update.

Tricks that require two skills to unlock have changed how this works. They are no longer available in both skill trees. Instead they are available in the skill tree most relevant to the trick. The second skill no longer requires any specific level of knowledge, only that you have it as a Core or Secondary Skill.

Archetypes

All Archetypes are now "feature complete," meaning they have all their archetypal abilities and all their tricks.

Tricks for archetypes have been standardized, so that each skill an archetype recommends has 4 exclusive Tricks, 1 with no prerequisites, 1 that requires +2 to the skill, one at +5, and one at +8.

Courtier Changes

Courtier had the most dramatic change of any of the archetypes in this update. The old Reputation Bonus table was created before skills could scale up and improve, and therefore allowed bonus values beyond anything else in the game. This has been significantly nerfed to work with the fact that skill bonuses now increase with time.

Because this scale has been dramatically shortened, the die rolled when increasing or decreasing Reputation has been changed to 1d4. There is a trick to move it back to 1d6.

Engineer Changes

Drone values have been adjusted. Drone Resilience is numerically smaller now than it used to be, but this is not actually a nerf. This change reflects the adjustments to armor and weapon values that came with this update.

Drone range has been nerfed down to 50 meters, and has now been made upgradable.

Drones now can have a limited number of upgrades installed depending on their size class. This change brings it into line with how ship upgrades work (to be published with the Atlas.)

Bioscientist Changes

Bioscientist Gene Theft ability has been nerfed from 8 hours to 1 hour. Further value adjustments for both this, and the duration of Gene Packages in general, may be coming.

Astromancer Changes

Astromancers got away mostly unscathed. Some minor tweaks to wording for some of the Disturbances have been made, for clarity.

Cardsharp Changes

Cardsharp hasn't had any major changes to its core functioning as an Archetype, but now has a full compliment of tricks that really expands on what they are able to do. Cardsharp received the largest content update of all the Archetypes.

Combat Changes

Armor and Damage values have been completely reworked in order to properly balance them.

Explosives, including Grenades, have now been added. There are multiple types of grenades with various effects.

More Conditions have been added.

Dual Wielding has been removed. The dedicated mechanic was clunky and somewhat redundant. Now, Dual Wielding is an optional use for the Double Attack Trick.

Resilience has been completely reworked. The Resilience system has been adjusted to be a little easier to handle and more streamlined. It now functions as an Armor Class system. Damage that exceeds the Resilience is still subtracted from the total Resilience score, but it means players no longer need to do subtraction twice.

Ship to Ship combat has been explained more thoroughly, and tweaks have been made to make it feel just as fluid as ground combat.

Updating Your Characters

If you are mid-game, here is how I suggest you adjust to these changes:

1. Double check all your skills and tricks for name changes.

2. If you had a skill which has been eliminated, swap it out for another skill. You can replace it directly and keep your skill bonus the same, as long as the new skill is in the same Attribute category.

3. Tricks have changed "levels" and requirements for mastering them. You can continue using tricks you have already mastered even if they are now technically beyond your current ability. When you reach the level where you would master them, you can take a trick from earlier in the skill tree instead.