itch.io

I think you might be misinterpreting/overcomplicating my initial point. What I'm proposing is basically a section near the placement (or maybe not, depends) of the sheet its reference. This section has the little "title       three to four sentences" layout found in table result explanations throughout the rulebooks, with the title being the section of the sheet, and the explanation telling you its importance/where to look for it. for example(s):

(Mission Record Sheet)
Faction Events       Events- triggered in the Mission Plan chapter of This Space Intentionally or through Trouble- that relate to changes in the factions of 60 Years In Space.

(Faction Record Sheet)
Doctrines       Major and minor ideological concepts that make up the ideology of a colonist faction, found in the Primary Colonist chapter of the Crewed Rules.

It wouldn't be as much of a digital player aid as it would be part of the book itself. They really only need to be a sentence long. I'd do them all myself if I could, but this whole thing is being brought up cause there's some stuff on the record sheets that I have no idea what they are used for even after countless searches and over a year of learning this game.

Tbh, I feel stuff like this is the biggest thing holding the game back right now. Its such a massive plethora of rules, that it has to be written in a way where you can navigate the rules instead of learning them. But it currently doesn't have all the infrastructure it needs to do that. There are things are referenced, shown, etc etc, with no 'address' (though obviously this is not the case for everything, I'd say around 35% of the rules/mechanics have this problem, so not a ton, but enough to impact the quality of the game) and the reader is then left wandering around hoping to come across the answer, which could be in another book entirely!

I was creating an earthside colonist faction earlier for my latest game (since I've been bored out of my mind and want to try out the new exoglobalization stuff- though still starting in upported) and when I got to the part of generating the name for the colony (the independent guys, forget their 'full' name), it talked about how you roll on the table on the next page. But then it started talking about generating nationalities, and religions, etc etc. And i was like 'huh, where do I put all this stuff on the faction record sheet? its in the same paragraph as the name, so surely it goes on the same sheet' and it took me a long while to realize that it doesnt go on any sheet and is really only brought up if another mechanic asks for those pieces of data.  I had quickly ctrl+f'd through all six books to see if i recorded them anywhere else and found nothing. which was fine, took me maybe a minute. but if someone was using these books physically, or didnt have access to something like ctrl+f, thats now 2,000 pages that they have to look through manually. now of course there is the appendix but ive found thats not always super helpful either.

another example, is that me and my tiny niche group of like two friends that also like this game, are constantly bickering over what qualifies as Chrome, because the rulebook constantly switches between rules and fluff, and its hard to tell which is which. so when the rulebook says that equipment you own is chrome, my brain sees the crunchy-ness of the rulebook and thinks 'oh there must be some list of equipment and how its used so that chrome-usage is balanced. but nah, you just gotta logic your way through if you should have chrome or not half the time. which id imagine can be pretty unhelpful when the person trying to decide is someone who is not well versed in what the action they are doing actually is. like sure i know that i get chrome on my raygun prospect op because im using analytical data from the sat to determine potential useful chemicals and minerals in the regolith. cause im literally majoring in that! but if thats stated anywhere in the rulebook, its buried in fluff and not clear, and anyone who isnt me (and doesnt have a general knowledge of how space industrialization works) is not gonna know whats going on. 

so to an extent, i feel like reference aids like pitched above go beyond simply just making the game 'easier' to learn, and are more of a crucial aspect of the rulebook that is (partially, 35%) missing. though of course im aware that this is just you doing all this, 2000 pages is absolutely mindboggling to do alone, so im not trying to say its your fault or that you are being lazy or something, cause its apparent by how quick (relative to the content itself) you put out massive updates that you are indeed the least laziest ttrpg designer lol. instead, i say this all because i desperately want this game to grow and succeed, and as your target audience, this is what i think needs to happen to open up the system to more people.