Update 5 is out: life path crew generation, new standalone game

I'm extremely happy to announce update 5 is out for Sixty Years in Space, along with a new solo/coop standalone sequel A Lot of Zeroes about mapping a journey through the Milky Way with your immortal and unusual crew. It's inspired by the High Frontier Interstellar board game I helped develop but goes much, much further: to the galactic core and beyond! You may already own A Lot of Zeroes, which was previously released as a supplement for Sixty Years in Space, but you may feel like the beautiful new cover art by Federico Sohns is worth rebuying the game for.

But not only that. A Facility with Words now has a new campaign start! Play as exoarchitects, professionals or start at the bottom rung of society in the exoglobalization era. The fourth wave of humanity's expansion into space includes a revolutionary life path character generation system inspired by Traveller, but which plays out on the High Frontier map and continues throughout the game. Better yet, it's completely compatible with High Frontier 4All, to allow players from the latest edition of the board game to smoothly transition into a TTRPG.

Some rules have been removed from both a Facility with Words and A Lot of Zeroes: these will reappear in new supplements that didn't quite feel complete enough for me to release in the state they're in. I'll take the same approach here for one of these supplements where I'll initially release it as PWYW; there's only a couple of chapters of material going into the other so I'll release those chapters for free.

The full release notes follow:

Crewed Rules

Actions now always require an action resolution check.

Inactive crew must always make an action resolution roll every 2nd turn — resolve this as a Phone Home action if the crew member didn’t choose an action.

Removed risking it - this was too fiddly and didn’t have the desired outcome.

Changed some mission destinations so that all size 6+ sites are listed.

Clarified that Earthside mission payloads start in LEO: this was on the actions table but not the missions section.

Tidied up some issues with robot crew member rules.

Reworked skill types to provide more concrete advice about when to use a specific skill.

Removed skill limits. Removed mismatched philosophies. Renamed spare time skill points as down time points. Discounted conditioning only halves the cost, rounded up, instead of reducing it to 1.

Removed Infrastructure contacts from the core rules. Earthside contacts now give out Earthside missions. Adjusted favour costs and rewards for various contact types. Added in rules for organisation contacts. Reworked agents and removed agencies. Most of the removed contact rules will be added to This Space Intentionally in a future update.

Expanded on the bypass section to accommodate espionage against industrialized sites, using agents or hacking. Added an additional supervisor access level for uses who are permitted to search the system (not just use it). Added ownership as distinct from authorization. Starting access levels are no longer affected by alert levels 2-3.

Added COLD damage which is applied to unprotected crew at various site temperatures.

Changed the charging batteries table to calculate the mass of solar panels required to charge one battery tally in 10 minutes, 2 hours and 4 hours.

Slowed down the spread of fires but fixed it so that fire doesn’t need to sleep.

Reduced the code stack and data stack updates so they add 1 to usability or flexibility instead of doubling it.

Reworked the majority of species ratings to give them benefits that have more impact on the core game play.

You can now choose to fit side-loads when you reach Augmented species rating instead of requiring Converted. BSU genders are now optional and replaced by the Pherein species rating. Exocortexes now provide a global skill increase instead of stack bumps.

Prototype rigs and 12 kg military rigs are now hybrid space suits.

Powered exoskeletons double battery usage if they double mass. Each set of advanced composite inserts doubles battery size for TIP muscles. Renamed superheavy suits as exosuits and light exoskeletons as skin suits. Changed how effective mecha and exo suits are.

Reverted radiation sickness back to slow time intervals.

Unconsciousness results in a complication every minute.

Drowning complication now acts like drowning elsewhere in the rules.

Armour now provides protection against heroic injuries.

Crash complication now results in a crash or fall instead of accident.

Added continental (500 km/cm) and planetary (5000 km/cm) scales.

Sleeping or remaining prone for 2 hours or more during an EVA results in a complication. Living in an inflatable tent for a month also results in a complication.

The number of searches of a location is now represented by a white dice under a white counter. Successful searches now count as 2 additional searches instead of exhausting the search.

Data from searches in space can result in another faction claim being placed.

Security doors are now represented using a stack of two black counters instead of a single black counter.

(A)-Base (D)-Landing

Renamed factory buildings as manufacturing buildings to prevent them from being confused with factories. Renamed factory printers to factories to clarify that they can act as factories.

Added minimum scales that buildings must be at in order to qualify for increasing technology levels.

Body armour now requires Engineer to manifest; inks require Mining.

The spaceport launch capability is now safe; added a factory assist launch capability that is unsafe.

The logistics capability now includes multiple different types of freighter. The Improved thrust upgrade can also be applied to freighters.

A Facility with Words

Added rules to allow you to play as professionals and exoarchitects in the Exoglobalization era. Survive epic hazard operations, explore abandoned structures, exfiltrate updates out of major faction facilities, or bring your existing Sixty Years in Space crew into this era with advancements, improved rigs, body updates and promotions.

Added parahuman character generation which allow you to start in the Exoglobalization era as humans either from the bottom rung or high society and non-humans such as near humans, C-dead and droids. 

Added rules for mechanoid and husk playable robots.

Added a life path system for character creation and ongoing play.

Added mission destinations for the remaining site hexes on the High Frontier map. These “dust sides” are where exoarchitects start.

Advancements allow you to upgrade your crew and your rigs in a much more granular way.

You can now get updates from colony labs at Advanced technology levels. To get to Promoted technology levels, you must update your labs to be Improved labs.

Improved the rules for crew promotions.

Removed cyber and social space maps: these took up too much table space and failed to provide enough value for the added complexity. Meat space maps are now just maps and contain enough complexity to incorporate hacking and social manipulation on them.

Switching on can only occur in industrial locations, not commercial.

Far UV lasers halve range modifiers; visible light lasers double range in vacuum instead of atmosphere.

Smart matter only generates heat if it is promoted or higher tech. Added updates that can be applied to smart matter.

A Lot of Zeroes

A Lot of Zeroes is now an “expand alone” game: it can either be played as a stand alone game or as a sequel to a Sixty Years in Space game.

Moved the Professions and Breakthroughs section from the Lifestyles chapter and the majority of Decaoperations chapter to Absent Without along with the rules for high toposophic levels for robots and starship fuel and movement rules from the Interstellar missions chapter. Decaoperations used for exploring Megastructures are now in the Departures chapter.

Reorganised the crew actions into Arrivals and Departures chapters to better guide players through the game. Moved Answers and Badges to the Arrivals chapter.

Added fusion candles as a starting spacecraft. These now require the Fusion candle badge and megaoperation to depart a solar system. Reduced braking difficulty for wisps and beam-riders without fuel.

Added rules for calculating distances required to change a zone while the Galactic politics is concentric zones. Civilization types are now determined by galactic zones.

Each lifestyle now has a unique method for generating its ability scores, based on whether the lifestyle is mortal or immortal. Lifestyles no longer have skills.

Added the Redeemed servitor, Revenger and Sentient ecology lifestyles.

Lifestyles never fail decaoperations: instead they form connections if they would have failed. Those connections have to be broken to leave a solar system.

Candleers must travel on fusion candles and only astrochickens can travel as astrochickens and wispers on star wisps. Other lifestyle restrictions removed.

Crew capital abilities are reset every time they travel to a new solar system to a value based on the type of star ship used to get to the solar system. The Capital ability represents the amount of infrastructure that the crew has in the solar system.

Establishing claims in the solar system now adds decapoints directly to Capital ability which improves the ability to allow adding further claims.

Interstellar spacecraft now have a range and a number of breakthrough cubes they can carry. Rather than tracking fuel, the number of breakthrough cubes carried is used to approximate how many refuel decaoperations are required for a starship or beam-rider.

Added rules for distributing decapopulation throughout a system.

Green civilisations create a much larger range of possible sector and system infrastructure.

Orange and White civilisations are now extinct most of the time which means that any remaining system population which also means they have a much more limited range of sector infrastructure.

Starship crews are now found in local wave systems; hi-tech systems have mass beam relays instead of interior infrastructure and artificial worlds as hidden infrastructure.

Megaoperations are no longer extra hard; instead they require you use your ability to complete instead of a skill, and you only get chrome when the matching badge is active. The ability required for the mega operation is determined by the complication that would result if you failed the roll.

Fixed the Change badge megaoperation so it correctly allows the social badge to be changed.

Added the Fusion candle, Megagame, Puff world and Paraterraforming megaoperations.

Removed the Traveller mega operation and added a Travel mega operation which forms the basis of interstellar movement. The Travel mega operation is easy (roll one less dice) in a bubble.

Simplified the Highlights megaoperation so that it takes a fixed length of time.

Renamed the Launch beam megaoperation to Landing beam — it is only required for stopping in a system which does not have a mass beam relay.

The biography decaoperation only works on worlds where indigenous life evolved and results in 1 disk; the biography megaoperation now only gives 1 biographic disk for every point of megapopulation (13 decapopulation).

The living megastructure megaoperation no longer requires mass.

Simplified the synthesise answer megaoperation so that it requires far fewer data disks.

Added the new mega operations to the complications table. The complication you roll now determines which ability you use for a megaoperation.

Fractions shift now adds a second complication. Techome shifts now set the system politics to match the galactic politics.

Added method to general mineral colours on silicon (H) class core worlds.

Simplified calculations for the chance of a megastructure containing an answer in era 5.

All Errors are My Own

Changed Hyperectomorph, -mesomorph and -endomorph abilities to match the improved morphology body update in A Facility with Words.

This Space Intentionally

Untreated Alzhiemer's now has a chance to directly decrease your Mental ability.

Modifiers for the claim level don’t apply in the Future and Directions era and are halved in the Exoglobalization era.

Added a covert operation which allows you to perform covert operations at sites you have loyal agents at. This includes a more complex espionage system for developing assets, moles, traitors, redoubled and triple agents to allow you to engineer terrorist attacks, declarations of independence, regime changes, 

Removed the Exfiltration and Infiltration operations. These will be back in a later update.

Promote operations for technology, Bernals and GW thrusters now use the Engineer skill.

Free market complications can result in homesteading (colonies forming at factories) instead of building a freighter fleet (which made getting one too easy).