I nearly missed this. Are you inferring that there's going to be an aspect where you create stuff; beings and devices? Dare I ask and fear that this is following a "Champions"/Hero Games architecture, verse something really cool and drafted from scratch?
No inference, it's there.
There
is a build system for weapons, calibrated to produce the CT weapons; a build system for armor, calibrated to work with weapons; a build system for vehicles, calibrated to produce the CT vehicles and smallcraft (and they work with personal combat). And they're all related, so if you learn how one system works you'll know how the rest work. Each is capable of producing a wide variety of items, with assumptions made to reduce complexity and standardize the process.
These systems are not uber-all powerful and generic, like I heard Hero is like. They are not 'scientific' and logarithmic/exponent-heavy like Striker and FFSx. They are not even generic in the sense of EABA's clever
Stuff! system. They do make use of multiplication and addition. Each builder is targeted to produce one type of thing: weapons, armor, vehicles.
The weapons you create can be used with CT out of the box. And with one recalibration, the weapons and armor you create can be used with MGT.
Then there's robots. One method of robot creation is dead-on easy: build a slaved or remotable vehicle that has some room left, and stick a computer brain into it. So orbital, automated shepherd smallcraft can gently tow your ship to the drydock. There are a couple other ways to create robots, too. The full implications of all this haven't hit yet. One implication has, however: computers in T5 are more realistic in size. Your starship will not need a machine room. In fact, the trader you're riding on may have a brain very similar to the one in your valet robot.
And of course there's a starship design system, which has a complexity around that of High-Guard-plus-all-the-nifty-features-of-MegaTraveller. Now I'm a Book 2 guy, and yet I understand this system better than I ever understood High Guard. That doesn't mean you'll like it better than system X; I'm speaking for myself. T5's ship design seems to hide the complexity better, or make it more concrete, or something. I'm also campaigning for adding in optional, simplifying steps for when certain elements aren't needed (e.g. standard sensor suites, simple armor, a few standard bridges, standard weapons). Something to speed up the process when I'm just designing a merchant. Please.
Yes, there is also a system that generates or defines the playable attributes of a sophont race, suitable for (1) running through chargen and (2) playable within the game mechanics without modification. Several of the OTU aliens have been ported into this system, and there are often decisions to be made in the process, but (in my opinion) no show-stoppers. Perhaps a little reorganization would help. The system is currently taking heat for implications from defining what a
characteristic really is, and what it really isn't.
