0.11 Released!

Version 0.11 had some big changes! Let's talk about them. The biggest changes were to the Submarine and Drone Protocols.

Structure!

We want the new actions to be used more, so we moved them earlier in the book. We also introduced pre-mission scouting in the player section, and moved Corporate requests to be later.

Submarine

This is the biggest change, by far. Now the Operatives can CHOOSE to take the Submarine on any mission, and if they do, they are all greatly rewarded! Every mission after the first gives each Operative and additional 1d6 extra scrip. But they don't heal or restore Biotech until they surface. 

I wasn't happy with the way the submarine was working before, and this kind of push-your-luck mechanic is exactly what I was looking for. Shoutout to my pal Chris for suggesting it.

Rooms

The Machine Shop now costs 3 (was 2), but good a bit of a boost, in that it now lets Operatives buy gear on Submarine missions without surfacing. The cost to repair a room also increased, so it's still beneficial to surface.

Items, Tags, and Upgrades

• Riposte, Silenced, Stationary now have costs. Thought I'd caught all of these!
• A pressurized ability changed from adding Shrapnel to Sticky. Shrapnel is a bad tag, and even though it fits thematically, it's not rewarding, and no one was taking it.
• The Harpoon now immobilizes

Drones

• Drones are no longer "sacrificed" but "deactivated".
• Colored Lenses went from cost 1, All Operatives ignore the Glowing keyword this round to cost 2 Choose a keyword like Glowing, shocked, or Bleed. All operatives ignore that keyword this round. This was a really niche ability and I wanted to make it more useful. 
• Disrupt was a 3-cost passive: enemies have 1 less shard. Now it's a 2-cost active: Remove all Shard from all creatures within Far range of the drone. This was a boring abiliy, and one that few people would notice. We could have buffed the passive further (ignore all enemy shard, for example), but giving it a tradeoff and making it active played better.
• Efficient Allocation: +1 cost, +1 Biotech. We want our passives to feel good, and this wasn't quite cutting it.
• Embezzling: Previously all Operative powers cost 1 less, all enemies deal True Harm. Now the first power each Opeartive uses on each of their turns is free, all enemies deal True Harm. This was a balance change. Making all powers permanently cost 1 less resulted in some exploitable infinite loops. This change keeps things limited, while maintaining the feel and intent.
• Intervene: CUT. After an operative is attacked, the drone takes the attack instead.  Merged with Noble Sacrifice.
• Noble Sacrifice. Cost +1,  Previously this reduced harm by half. Now the drone takes the attack instead. This is merged with Intervene, but it had the better name.
• Painted Target. CUT. Apply painted 3 times to one target? Just wasn't getting used.
• Sentry CUT. This overlapped with the Sentry action from the Observatory, and was worse in almost every way. 
• Windshield Wipers CUT. This was another niche ability, and will be rolled into the domain of Colored Lenses

We wanted to drop to a more reasonable number of protocols. Expect minor tweaking to continue here.

Powers

Seamen

• Movers and Shakers: Clarified that the movement has to come from a power. No, "moving" your knife to stab someone doesn't count.
• Reel it In: Cost increased to 2.
• Telescope: Renamed to Spyglass
• Burgle: Renamed to Yo Ho Ho!

Engineer

Minor text clarifications.

Leviathan

• Jagged Flesh now recovers 2 bleed.
• Circle the Prey grants 3 barrier, clarified.

Rooms

• Several rooms received clarified text.
• The Pilot School now costs 3 (was 4).
• Observatory has been reworked, since the Sentry protocol was cut.
• Sentinel System Costs 4 (was 5)
• The Research Cells got a bit of a makeover this time around. Now it can only be built once, but it can hold two enemies at a time.
  • Additionally, it now only takes a 2-clock to research an enemy. The campaign is too short for a 3-clock to pay off.

Downtime Actions

• New action: Gambling. 
• Clarified only 1 action per person (not operative)
• Clarified that sparring only helps the "active" Operative.
• Relationships cannot be used to affect failable actions
• Added new consequences: Another Distraction, High Stakes, Visibly Weakened.

Relationships

• Ending a relationship (other than Jeopardized) now results in grief OR It's Weird Now. The rules around ending relationships were a bit nebulous. This cleared it up.

Corporate Requests

• Alphabetized, added a couple new ones.
  • It's really hard to know which ones are new here because they ALL moved. Forgive me.
• Added new consequences
  • See above re: alphebitization
• Added new Corporate Missions
  • Audit the company  turned into "Audit the company supply closet" and "Visit 'uncle roy' and make sure the company passes its next audit. Audit the company felt too much like actual work.
  • There's more, I won't list them.

Misc

• Text was clarified
• New flavor added
• Other small changes you probably won't notice. Things like "It doesn't count as moving if someone throws you", changing "written backwards" to "stamped backwards" on the mecha fists, that kind of thing.
• Changed HP to Harm Throughout
• Clarified that Quiet Rounds come first
• Added clarifications section
• Updated things you can spend scrip on

Next Time:

Where is our attention turning next?

Look for changes to some of the lieutenants, especially The Three, and keep an eye on the melee weapons. The spear is not long for this world. Some protocols may continue to be tweaked.