[Joshua BishopRoby]

More answers to questions!

Thematic Batteries have a couple of mechanical tie-ins throughout the game, but the most prominent is as a trait on your character sheet. You can give yourself a bonus to any roll when the battery comes into play by discharging the battery -- so if you have "Grizzled Veteran" you can give yourself a boost in a firefight in the tunnels under the Moon. The only catch is that you can only discharge the battery after you've charged it. You charge a battery by giving yourself a disadvantage in a roll -- so your "Grizzled Veteran" is maybe less than polite to the young whippersnapper of a port official that you have to deal with. Players always have complete control over when they charge and discharge their thematic batteries, and they also decide how much of a charge is used. In rough terms, this puts advantages and disadvantages in the hands of the players, rather than as something the GM has to remember to put into the game.

Alien Critters are presented, although not in stat blocks and the like. The game does explain how to use any of the critters mentioned as either NPCs or parts of Sets (which are statted). Off the top of my head, there are Venerian Blood Wasps, Martian Sandbeasts, Mercurial Horrors, plus lots of flora presented in the Horticulture section. And the door is always open for players -- both GM and 'regular' players -- to create new critters as they like.

The Commanding Officer is created collaboratively by everybody at the table, and most often portrayed by the GM, although players might pick up the Captain or whatever if their regular PC isn't in the scene.

Acumen is staying aware of one's surroundings; it's used for Perception check sorts of things but also by Gunnery officers trying to shoot down a dozen targets.

Steam is a mechanical skill used for repairing, operating, building, scrutinizing, buying, and selling steam engines -- basically anything that has to do with steam power falls under this skill.

PDF-only is not available at this time, but very well may be later in the year.

Ship-to-Ship Combat is performed just like any other cooperative endeavor in the game: you select a leader and everybody does different things supporting the leader, who makes a capstone roll with bonuses from everybody else. Which means that if you have a Chief Engineer he does a roll for damage control, if you have a Hot Shot Pilot he does crazy shiphandling rolls, if you have a marine he does rolls for boarding actions, and so on. Everybody contributes in their own fashion, and it moves quick.

Venerians are the white man's burden alien race, the savages that proper gentlemen have civilized and brought all the benefits of culture to -- oh, and they're used as indentured servants.

Martians, by contrast, are the noble savages of the game, the folks with inscrutible mystic connections to the world who deliver dire portents and disdain the rattling, clanking world of modern man.

Did I miss anything?