[quote="GMJoe"]
Allow me to introduce my friend, Traveller.
[/quote]
I've played Traveller a couple times and enjoyed it, but that was mostly due to a great GM rather than any appeal of the game. I prefer more class-based niche-protection for my characters. Somehow I randomly own a GURPS Traveller book, Interstellar Wars, and it's probably my favorite sci-fi game setting: a still-Balkanized Earth taking its first steps into the cosmos and running up against a decadent empire that's woefully unprepared for how insidious humans can be.
[quote="Alex"] The market for Aliens-style space horror/exploration of space hulks/etc probably remains open, since Bughunters is out of print and Hulks & Horrors is too. ACKS could do this really well. However, military science-fiction of the Starship Troopers, Hammer's Slammers, or Shiva Option seems to be the most wide open and would probably be a place where ACKS-type rules would shine. [/quote]
That’s surprising to hear. ACKS is one of the best retro-clones of D&D in a very crowded market of retro clones, so the idea of having to find an open niche is an odd pitch. Meanwhile, the big appeal of ACKS is how much agency it gives the PCs to rule kingdoms, corner trade markets, and even build and stock your own dungeons for other adventurers to die in. A sci-fi ACKS that has the PCs as soldiers under someone else’s command (and that option only) is a bit off base. I mean, as long as we're talking "sister-game" and not just, "look, Autarch made another game."