All of these questions and answers were posted on the Assistance Forum of this website and are archived here for easy reference. If you do not find an answer to your questions here, please post it in the Forum.

Q: Why are there critical failures, but no critical successes?

Mostly because I have a personal bias against them =) Actually there are some other reasons - it seems harder to define a really good success (especially in light of quality tests) and most of our development group has played too many games where the entire focus of the players is on rolling critical successes (instead of role-playing or planning). I think the retail book is going to have both critical successes and critical failures listed as optional rules.

Q: What kinds of attacks is marksmanship applicable to? (melee, single shot, bursts, sprays, bursts w/laser weapons, sprays w/ laser weapons).

Marksmanship would only apply to ranged attacks using projectile weapons - so self-guided missiles and hand attacks are definitely out. Indirect attacks are a little questionable too.
Actually, we had a suggestion from a player that the use of Marksmanship be tied to weapons the shooter has a WP in. I actually like that idea, since it seems to make sense that the two would be related.
What's in the book doesn't restrict Marksmanship from being used with burst-fire weapons, though a good case could be made that it should exclude them. However, because the rules say that the hit location of each shot in a burst should be determined separately, I think Marksmanship is still fine applied to rapid fire weapons.
A Marksmanship-like skill for hand to hand combat might be called for. The reason there isn't one comes from my perception of hand-to-hand combat, where combatants are essentially striking the opponent where there is an opportunity (i.e. when the opponent has opened up a hole in his defense and the attacker can strike without exposing himself). Whereas a shooter has a little more control over where he hits (so long as the target isn't using cover).

Q: The -20 penalty imposed to piloting checks for not having the right Maneuvers skill appears to only be listed under those skills. It should probably be mentioned in chapter7.

Yes, we should have made mention of the –20 elsewhere. The Piloting test entry in Chapter 4 is also an important place it should be found.

Q: What is the scope of the create drug skill?

Well, the subject summarizes my answer - the scope of the skill is pretty broad. In general, I would say that a chemist with the right lab equipment and the right instructions could make nearly anything unless it required special equipment he didn't have. In general, what he can do is up to the GM.
The first thing he would need is a recipe, and this might be the hardest step. Pharmaceutical companies hang on tightly to their patents and methods, so trying to create a commercial-quality drug could involve a lot of research, bribes and corporate espionage.
The second barrier would be in terms of ingredients and equipment. Most ingredients would be easy to get, but some might derive from specialized plants or animals (and the specific species might be a trade secret). Equipment is usually fairly straightforward, but some industrial processes require high temperatures and pressures that couldn't be sustained in a normal lab kit.
So, in making something like meth or ecstasy, the chemist would have an easy time of it – most ingredients are commercially available and very little equipment is necessary. Making cocaine or crack is simple - provided you have access to coca leaves. Same goes with morphine and other opium derivatives.
Making antibiotics or medications would be just like an illegal drug - you'd just need the raw ingredients. Most antibiotics are derived from bacterial sources, so they might be a task also requiring some microbiology (which isn't a skill in the base book, so either Science-Biology or Science-Epidemiology should substitute), and then a chemist to purify the compounds.
Ultimately, what a chemist can do is up to the GM, but I believe in being somewhat free with it because the science-related skills ought to be as useful as the combat-related skills.

Q: I decided to have my pharmacist roll quality tests when making drugs - should this be for drug quality, or quantity?

Obviously, the test as described by the book is not normally a quality test.
Quantity in chemistry is more a factor of what you put in. So I'd say that if you want it to be a quality test, you'd be dealing with some of sort of drug quality (which could relate to strength, purity or both). Still, I don't really see any call for it being a quality test - chemistry is mostly as complicated as cooking pasta once you figure how much of what ingredients you need (I know from experience).

Q: How does an AI make skill tests?

The paragraph directly under the heading "AI Ratings" on page 209 says "All AIs have two ratings that combine to correspond to the attribute rating of a sentient being. The sum of the two ratings is what the AI makes skill tests against." It then goes on to specify what the two ratings are: the CR (Cartridge Rating) and KR (Knowledge Rating).

In an example, it works something like this: A character might have an RA of 45. When he attempts to shoot a target, he makes a skill test against the RA (plus or minus any modifiers). If he rolls under that, then he hits. An AI doesn't have an attribute per se, but it might have a CR of 25 and a KR of 20. If it were a targeting AI (meaning it had the skills to shoot), then it would use 20+25= 45 (plus or minus any modifiers) for the skill test, exactly like the character would.

Q: For quality tests, the page number is mislabeled in the index. It should be page 83, not 87.

That’s right... the index is wrong, which is odd, since it is generated by the computer, not by hand. I'll have to see where that error occurred.

Q: On page 219, you said there's a PR modifier of -5 per PR. Clarification please.

-5 per PR means a cumulative penalty of an extra -5 at each level of PR. In other words, a PR 1 program is -5, PR 2 is -10 and PR 3 is -15 (and so on). This reflects the fact that programs of higher qualities are harder to program.

Q: The chart on p. 163 implies that aiming works exactly like extended time for skills, while the text on p. 164 states that there are significant differences.

This was something we struggled with during playtesting and went back and forth on the relative merits of aiming times. On the one hand, if aiming is short (the p 164 version), then vehicle combats happen quite quickly at long ranges and dogfights almost never happen. On the other hand, if aiming is long (as on p 163), then snipers won't do a whole lot of aiming during combat.

The end decision was to go with the description in the chart on page 163, but that decision was made quite late into our editing process and I missed the longer explanation. Our reasons for choosing as we did were mainly to preserve continuity in the system and because it seemed to work better in actual play that way.

Q: I can't seem to find Teaching in Chapter 4. Am I blind?

Well, not quite blind. It is located in the EXP section, since that is the only context under which Teaching is used. See page 113.