Kernel: The Long-Haul is an update to the Kernel: A Tiny Mech Story ruleset that is meant to refocus the game’s mechanics and identity around long periods of difficult transportation and resource management while still being largely compatible with old rigs and characters.

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Changes

The following section describes changes that will be most noticeable for returning players, however it will not cover every mechanical change and will not get into the rules for new players. This section is intended to give players an idea of what’s changed overall.

Long-Hauls

To really put your Rigs to the test, players can now go on Long-Hauls, a longer journey made of many connected expeditions with camping, convoy management, and even the option to hire help. This will allow you to go out of your way to gather way more resources than normal, and often from more lucrative, far off locations. 

To accommodate this, many features that previously only occurred upon returning to a settlement, will now occur when you rest anywhere.

Changes to Pilot Play

The old system of Quirks and a Keepsake has been removed, now Pilots have four Traits that can evolve as you play. Pilot checks have also been removed, they now simply ask if you have a trait that would allow you to do the thing you want to do. The trade-off, however, is now you can only use a Trait so many times before you need to give it a rest.

Using your Traits is still for your benefit however, as it’s how your Pilot develops new skills to use in the future. 

Changes to Spending Dice and Actions

In Kernel 2e, the language around spending dice for actions and spending dice for managing your rig in encounters has been differentiated. Actions like Working and Attacking where you must spend dice are now Drive Actions. Spending a Die to block a breach or Reposition are referred to as Drags. 

Drags also have a unique property in that they will not always consume the die used, primarily they will reduce the value of the die by the relevant value. This means you can now use a die of 5 to block multiple attacks from Tier 1 enemies, because the die will go down by 1 instead of being completely consumed. In addition blocking breaches has gained more specific language, it is now referred to in the rules consistently as Defending. 

Repositioning is no longer an Action, it is now a modifier for your turn’s movement, and much like Defending it may not consume the die entirely if you use a high die for a Reposition to a lower tier. 

Downplaying the Importance of Positioning

Kernel 2e intends to heighten the importance of resource management and narrative over tactical play. Rules that felt like they required specific positioning have been softened to focus on two major variables: Are they in the same scene? What tier of terrain are they on?

Repositioning also gains a new trick to make up for interesting tactical moves with a narrative choice. You can increase the Tier of your Reposition by 1 to gain an additional effect, these are things like cutting off an opponent from escaping, catching up with a fast target, or evading a pursuer. 

The goal of these changes is to make Kernel a game that is less reliant on a grid or detailed mapping. The drive for encounters should be “do I want to spend the resources to do this” and not “where should I stand for the greatest effect?” 

Encounter Changes

Opportunity is no longer a resource each individual Threat has to manage, now there is a single pool of Opportunity all Threat’s have to work with. This makes it easier for the Game Director to manage, utilize, and generate more Opportunity.The players ignore something dangerous? Get plus 1 Opportunity, simple. 

To differentiate from anything else that could be called moves, Threat Moves have now been renamed to Exploits.

The section for Encounter Clocks has been moved up in the reading material to highlight their importance.

More Stuff

Each Rig has been given a new Option during character creation, and some old options have seen revisions and updates. 

Some rules that appeared in Kernel: Skies of Dust now appear in this material as core rules, such as Scalding and Freezing environments. 

Friction has been completely changed. Instead of rolling dice to remove Statuses, you’ll now need time as Manual Override begins a process that advances with each turn of the round.