Overall a nice product, even with the patchy, mixed graphics. One of the things that distinguished the original versions of these products is the clean lines and simple graphics. In this volume the graphics are good, but it looks like they had to mix half-dozen artists, and even use these weird computer-drawn ships which are... not great.

If you're needing to roll up alien characters then the book is probably worth the price (I needed a group of Vargr as a pivotal plot device for my players), but if you're after the fluff then you might want to consider some of the many iterations of this environmental information on this very website.

Setting aside the cost (let's face it, Mongoose is here to make money, not friends), this is a playable version of Classic Traveller. I'm refereeing a crew who are happily pootling around a solar system doing stuff, and the rules are accessible for both the newbies and the 80s OG. The rule book is relatively simply laid out, with a minimal number of "hidden" rules that pop up in inaccessible parts.

Thus far my only criticism is the low-skill character-generation mechanism and the relatively high-stakes difficulty dynamic that forms the fundamentals of the game. Because characters never seem to muster out with greater than +2 on any skill, most realistic difficulty checks run at real-time (you can make tasks easier by slowing down an action) are 40-60 split on fail/pass...