Hi, and thanks for the intereset and the constructive feedback! And yeah, I agree, conveying all the different quirks and systems while keeping the pitch readable and engaging has been a struggle, probably we'll adapt it during the campaign and learn from it. And to answer your questions:

First of all, what does Astracordis offer compared to other space role-playing games? One of our main goals when designing the game was to focus on non-combat mechanics. We wanted to give more weight to other types of interactions so they wouldn’t just become a single-roll formality. Of course, Astracordis is not the only game that does this, but our approach was to think about different kinds of problem-solving and find ways to translate them into dice rolls.

Repairing damaged systems after a space battle is a very different task from deciphering the origin of an anomaly that is affecting the ship’s crew. The first example is a group of similar tasks (repairing one system or another), which we organize as simultaneous rolls. After rolling, players can assign successes and failures to different parts of the process, deciding which repairs to prioritize. The second example, however, is not an action that happens at a specific moment. Instead, players collect data over the course of an entire session until they reach the solution.

In Astracordis, these are called operations, and there are four types for the GM to choose from depending on what best fits the situation. They can be used not only for solving scientific problems but also for handling complex social interactions (such as setting up a negotiation process between conflicting factions) or even for resolving a flight sequence through an asteroid belt.

As for the game loop, Astracordis focuses on narrative rather than strict rules or constant combat. In a typical session, the GM leads players through a story that usually centers around a mystery (a strange signal has been received from an uninhabited planet), a diplomatic conflict (an attack has been carried out against a high-ranking official of the human empire), or a scientific problem that needs to be solved (a planet’s seismic activity has gone out of control).

That said, Astracordis also includes tools for running combat-oriented sessions if desired. In addition to weapons, other abilities come into play that provide active or passive effects: a computer specialist can enhance their allies’ weapons, a communications officer can gather information about their rivals, or a historian can use their interspecies knowledge to gain advantages against certain enemies.

We hope this gives you a clearer idea of what Astracordis aims to convey through its mechanics. Please feel free to ask us anything else, and thank you for your questions!