I now have six pages of notes on the Alien system and want to start writing up the first draft this week.
The biggest design consideration is Cinematic vs. Campaign.
Alien in campaign mode isn’t working for me. I cannot keep up the central theme of horror roleplaying in a game where you are just trying to make a buck to survive. Traveler was doing that back in the 1970s and many others have come along since. Alien without xenomorphs is lacking that certain something, and you cannot have xenomorphs hiding around every corner on every job.
Alien in cinematic mode is awesome, extremely dangerous, but awesome. What I would need to construct is a cinematic scenario builder. A tool where you do not know who or what is the major threat until it is revealed through play.
It is my intention to write for cinematic. I do not think this will break campaign play, you just would have to avoid dropping xenomorphs into every adventure.
I hope to have more to show later.