The book is meant to show Federation ships and shuttles contemporary to the Enterprise-A. A broad selection of torpedoes and probes, shuttles and cargo pods are presented in addition to 25 ship classes.
The technical drawings are extremely well executed and are very clean and crisp, with plenty of detail. All ships are presented in the same scale (1:1800) and there are size comparison charts for the torpedoes/probes and shuttles.
The Franz Joseph Technical Manual and subsequent FASA Trek books were an obvious inspiration, as there is a wealth of technical information about each class, including representational warp field profiles. While no game material is presented, the stats are exhaustive enough to facilitate conversion into any tactical system with a design engine.
Now for some caveats: This is not your standard Federation. Several ships are armed with Mega Phasers. Fighters are standard complements on pretty much every ship, and considering this is the Federation, that means we're very much looking at an alt-universe.
Also, the vast majority of the fluff in the ship descriptions was obviously recycled between the entries with very little variation, which was quite disappointing for me. However, that is offset by having full class ship lists with hull numbers for each class presented.
Overall, I was pleased with the book and satisfied that it was $24.95 plus $5 shipping well spent. Eric Kristiansen is obviously a big Trek fan and this book shows his dedication. Even if his take on the Trek-verse is different than yours, it is consistently and thoroughly presented, and could make for a quite a surprise for your opponents if some Jackill-inspired Fed ships showed up on the table one day.
Rating: ****/5
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