Spacemaster Vehicle Manual makes a solid effort to combine the various vehicle boxed sets for the old edition and wrap it into one book. For people who play Spacemaster (either edition) this is a solid supplement for vehicle combat, construction and technology. For other people the complexity and layout might be off-putting.

The vehicles presented in Vehicle Manual are generic and do not really differentiate themselves. If anything there could be more vehicles and variants in this section to better flesh out the Spacemaster Privateers setting. Much of the text is very interesting and well done; in particular the resale of old military ships to the private sector is a nice touch.

Vehicle construction rules in the supplement are a bit of an eye chart, but do work once you attune to the book. The rules could have been a little less complex and much less intimidating if the layout had been better applied. Any sort of vehicle can be constructed with a veritable cornucopia of options and equipment. One option I like very much is that the technology in the ship has different weights and metrics based upon what tech level it is. Thus a ship with tech level of 29 will have smaller, better and cheaper systems then a ship made by a tech level 23 culture. Thus a factor for role playing is always improving a ship or having to downgrade systems because there is not other choice. The vehicle design is plugged into the Spacemaster rules, so once built the vehicle should be ready to go. For other games some tweaking will be required. It could be an option for those who have a proclivity against GURPS and its well known vehicle construction supplement.

The combat and game mechanics section of Vehicle Manual is a tough read, fairly complex and not laid out very well. There are some bad rule ideas interspersed, though most work adequately to integrate vehicles into Spacemaster. My least favorite is the vehicle breakdown rules, which are wildly out of whack, even by today’s standards (especially for more mundane vehicles). Basically there is a % chance that a vehicle will break down during the course of its travel, which is true. The part that seems very out of whack is the % chance itself. For a ground vehicle it is a 1% chance that it will suffer a malfunction every 50 km. Thus by the rules during 5000 km trip the vehicle will suffer a malfunction, roll randomly to determining where along that way this happens. Not only is the malfunction % far too great it is also lousy math. Statistically it is likely the ground vehicle will break down, it is no guarantee either. Personally I would have liked to see an additional layer here tying malfunction to the maintenance of the vehicle. I think the rules are written this way to add extra drama to the game, but it really comes off as a little much.

In addition to the above there are the usual critical and attack charts that are the corner stone of combat and amusement within the Spacemaster system. Some of the charts are decidedly non-ICE is style and require a d10 roll to determine outcomes on a chart, which as a long time player of ICE products was simply incongruous.

Aside from vehicles, construction and combat sections Vehicle Manual has a great section on technology and charts for various aspects of technological advancement (travel, computers, society, etc). This section could be applied to any science fiction game easily. I especially liked the comparative chart between the tech level of an item versus what tech level the user is. The nifty mechanic is if a user is not advanced enough or too far advanced there is a penalty to use/fix the item. A fine example of this would be a modern age person, such as me, who knows how to use a firearm. Now go back 200 years and make me use a black powder weapon I would face some difficulty. One item I really disagreed with was the sociology technological chart, it is apparently written without any reference to history or reality (even though it is just a game, I know). Basically it states that if a society has reached the Dark Ages that sexism and racism are eliminated. While it is a nice thought, those are still issues that linger today many tech steps above the middle ages.

For science fiction games that do not use Spacemaster as the engine Vehicle Manual can be of use. It depends on how willing you are to covert the Spacemaster mechanics into another game. For a d20 game, virtually every value a player would roll with or against would divide that number by 5. Thus if your ship had a laser canon that fired at 10 in Spacemaster terms, in a d20 game it would fire at 2. Some gamers like converting and tweaking rules, some don’t. The appeal of Vehicle Manual is that it is simple enough to do if that is your thing.

The nuts and bolts of Spacemaster Vehicle Manual; It is a perfect bound 142 page book. The cover has a neat fighter craft of sorts with an underlay of a Matrix-like schematic. The interior art is adequate, but no very noticeable as it is definitely a text heavy supplement. The layout and design is very akin to every other ICE product ever made, but could have used some work in the construction and rules areas in regards to look and flow.

Spacemaster: Vehicle Manual has been a long time coming and is a good sourcebook for the Spacemaster system and might be of use for other game systems as well.