Keeping on course with the weekly update schedule I’ve been attempting, Street Rats Alpha 2.0 has been released. If you’ve been playing Street Rats already, you might wind up having (or wanting) to remake your character, as there have been significant changes to the character creation process and some of the Duties have been tweaked and rebalanced. More after the break.
Street Rats Alpha 2.0 comes after a playtest session that revealed a few telling issues with the game. There was a very clear best strategy (in part due to the fact that character creation placed no limits on availability or legality) in combat. The Duty system was somewhat sabotaged by the lack of role it played in low-level characters, so as a result it was reworked so that characters get two Duty abilities at the very start of play.
Character advancement is finally in the game, though there’s no real system for it, the framework for Lifestyles is in the game, though it’s not yet complete. There are still needs for EMP and less-lethal weapons, as well as expansions to both small arms and heavy weapons.
I also made up a character sheet for Kyrne, the example character in the main rulebook. You can find it here: Kyrne character sheet on DriveThruRPG.
I’m not sure if Street Rats will be out of Alpha by the end of January, but progress is good.
Here’s the general Alpha 2.0 changelog:
Core Rulebook:
Fixed some balance issues with duties (or at least ameliorated some), which means some characters might be broken.
Added Driver to backgrounds.
Crashing and ramming now do transferring damage, as they should.
Generally increased firearm damage, except for large guns, which see a damage decrease. Armor piercing somewhat reduced for weapons with high armor piercing.
Some armor got improved.
Hephaestus got more armor, to make up for inability to wear armor.
Changed main paragraph font to Exo 2.0. I liked Armata, and there was nothing to indicate it shouldn’t work, but it doesn’t support all the characters used in the game (welcome back, ö) when exported from LibreOffice, for some reason.
Character creation is more or less as changed as it is similar. In addition to balance changes, there is no longer a distinction between Duty starter bonuses and rank bonuses, and characters get two when they are created. AAU is used to purchase gear and abilities, as well as augmentations, and nothing is free any more. Bioborgs got changed to be competitive with the new system.
Left and right pages implemented, as is the title page and a page for printing (cover-interior cover-first page of Table of Contents, on to actual book contents).
Added logos for a couple corporations. Placeholders for the most part, rather than finished images; intended to test text flow and images in a more organic context than we have so far.
Added Legality and Availability for ammunition, and the concept of purchasing certain items in lots, as an assist for the Availability test.
Drone hit locations.
Lifestyle ratings (still incomplete).
Cyborg form and drone purchase AAU costs for character creation.
Now 177 pages.
Character Sheet:
Changed font to Exo 2.0.