- Alien's zonal combat and movement doesn't fit most online TTRPG game playing systems. Having rules that let you play a full game of Alien on something like Foundry with no rule changes helps a lot. I use zonal combat anyway, I just abstract a lot of movement.
- Stress dice stack too quickly and produce too many binary outcomes. The result is most DMs playing either homebrew a modification or limit the number of panics. I've already discussed my own homebrew in another thread
- A few talents are outrageously broken (looking at you, Overkill)
- Ammo uses a movie style "shoot until you're done" system, which works okay in Cinematic. However, it ironically doesn't fit with the setting. A large part of the tension in Alien and Aliens was, "we've got two mags and a couple hundred rounds in the sentry guns". In my simplified system, rifles can work on Single Shot, where you don't use ammo, but give up your bonus and can't move. Or you can go Full Auto and burn your ammo to get a big bonus on one shot, or split it between targets. Pistols, SMGs, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles don't have this ability. Machine Guns (of which there are a couple) I added "Spray n' Pray" which lets you trade additional stress dice for additional skill dice for that role only.
- Armour is fine for people, broken for vehicles. I use an armour degradation system for both (absorbed armour damage reduces armour) but assumed only high calibre weaponry can damage an armoured vehicle (APC, tank, aircraft) so their armour rating acts as a gate to anything smaller
- Supply rating feels completely disconnected from the rest of the game. I understand this is imported from the other Year Zero games, but it doesn't really fit. I have no solution to this. I barely use it
- I homebrew almost all panics outside of combat. Guidelines for how to handle panic roles where there's no imminent threat, seperate tables or otherwise, will help
- Not enough bioscience! This one's a bit weird, but I feel like the part of the Alien experience we never get to see anywhere else is, how in the hell did Weyland Yutani get good at cloning/developing bioweapons anyway? They can't just be continually screwing up all the time.
- Itemization is a bit flabby. When I homebrewed this one I took inspiration from games with 'weird stats' that add on to items, which I called "Speculative Engineering". A system that makes people want to keep their stuff and feel funny about losing it, and makes stuff interesting (like Flamethrowers ductaped onto a Pulse Rifle and how to handle that in rules) would add a lot of flavour
In any case, those are the bits I'd like Evolved Edition to adjust. There's other minor stuff like Stealth, but I also think giving newbie DMs a guideline on "How to come up with rules for yourself" will help make Alien RPG, which is very player friendly, a bit more DM friendly
