Fallen Cradle

I promised to leave some thoughts on the game once I'd read through it:

In general, I love the concept! The art is great, but the layout could do with some work to really make it shine.

I'm usually more of a crunchy RPG player, so I'll approach it maybe from a more mechanical point of view. I'll go in order of what I had questions/ideas about:

• Frontline ability - it's written a bit strange, in one place it claims it's a +3 bonus and in the next sentence it says you roll for the bonus?
• Hacker ability - the sentence cuts off in the PDF. It's still understandable, but might be worth fixing
• Strategist upgrade seems a bit too powerful - with how low the armour values and durability of most enemies is, a Strategist with upgraded class ability and a Sniper with bog standard Sniper Rifle can pretty much one-shot half of the bestiary if my math is correct. If that's the intention, sure, but right now it seems like a clear winning combination
• Point division in character creation - is there any minimum and maximum values? Or could I just build a glass cannon with 9 Booster and 9 Targeting System as a Sniper for example?
• DV - I don't really understand from the way that it's written, what it actually does. Let's use the Sniper Rifle as an example - it deals 3D6+3DV of damage. Does that mean that I roll 3D6 and just add a flat +3? If I now upgrade that Sniper once does that mean it now deals 4D6+9 damage? If so, then the damage scaling is absolutely huge - if I'm reading it correctly, the DV bonus I add with each upgrade is double the original? So it scales 3 -> 9 -> 15 -> 18 -> 24 -> 30? This works out to 8D6 + 30 at the final level for an average roll of 54 damage. Add the Sniper ability to deal double damage and it's an average of 108 - only Kraeo, the God of the Sun would survive that for more than one round.
• AV is very low for most enemies (and players), it also ablates as damage is dealt - I'm afraid this will result in a death spiral since dodging is also tied to your AV (+Booster). Also it's a bit unclear what Dodge actually does - is the AV+Booster now the new value that the enemy attack roll has to overcome?
• Range - I might be blind, but I didn't see any movement rates for enemies? Valkyries can move 500m per turn but enemies? Most of their attacks are very low range, so for now it reads like the most reasonable thing is to equip everyone with a Sniper and just keep backing away and taking pot shots.
• Evade/Block - I don't really understand what it does. Do I just say I evade and now I take no damage? Or is it like I theorized under the Dodge point that I just add my Booster value and hope they roll under it? Maybe the combat example could be expanded into more of a "play-by-play" of a few rounds of combat to demonstrate how these systems work?
• The Citadel - it's a really cool concept and I like how you mention the possibility of it being direcyly a part of combat. I think it would make for some interesting encounters.

I'm sorry if my questions/critisism sounds too harsh. You have a really cool system here in the making! It just feels like the math needs some tweaking and mechanics need clarification and expanding on.