The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Many Babylon 5 fans (like myself) were somewhat disappointed by the apparent incompleteness of Chameleon Eclectic's Babylon Project RPG, when it first came out. Details for gaming in the B5 universe were limited to the period before the Shadow War, so playing Rangers or encountering Shadow agents and ships were out of the question. The lack of even an abstract ship combat system hurt, and a lot of the artwork (there were virtually no still photos, apart from the computer-generated space scenes) was just plain bad, especially some of the pictures of the alien races. Mind you, it was a good reference for the history and backgrounds of the major political powers of the B5 universe, but there was a lot lacking.

The gorgeously packaged Earthforce Sourcebook redeems Chameleon Eclectic for some of those sins, but a few problems marr the whole - we'll get to those in a sec. All in all, the level of quality in here is what the main rulebook should have had.

In terms of presentation, the Earthforce Sourcebook is a step up from the main Babylon Project rulebook. It has far more computer-generated artwork, with a dozen or so color illustrations of far superior quality compared to the spotty art of the main rulebook.

A lot of useful information about Earthforce's Ground and Fleet branches, from logistics to command, allow Human players to flesh out military characters much better than the main rulebook ever did, and we finally find out what gear the average Earthforce GROPOS or fighter jocks start out with, and rough guidelines on pay grades. There's even an admirable attempt to explain B5's mixed-up rank system. New rules for zero-gravity combat and military skills are also included.

Unfortunately, there is a serious omission in the equipment section. After reading all sorts of glorious details about Environmental Armor, grenade launchers, ballistic assault rifles (for planetary assault), heavy PPGs and other weapons, all of which have listed prices, I noticed that there were NO COMBAT STATS for any of these items! What's the point, then?

On the other hand, the ship combat system, based on Jon Tuffley's excellent Full Thrust system, looks really good, with canonical stats on Earthforce ships straight from the series and upcoming TV movies, and stats of the most common alien ships, as well. Movement is, for Earth and Narn ships, based on Newtonian physics, which means you don't slow down if you cut thrust, and manuvering is a whole new ball game. Luckily, unlike the Babylon 5 Wars system, this system doesn't use hexes, so calculating movement vectors looks relatively simple. There's a bunch of ship control sheets to photocopy, and two identical sheets of cardboard counters to cut out. It looks like I might have a little trouble getting them out without damaging them, unless I use a real sharp knife.

A couple of ship control sheets, again, have errors (the Hyperion and the Sheperd) that make the ships unplayable (lack of fire control systems). I checked the Chameleon Eclectic website, and there were downloads of the corrected sheets, but no mention that these _were_ corrections...

For all those people complaining about the lack of stats for characters from the TV series, the sourcebook also has 19 bios of high-ranking personnel, including General Hague, General Lefcourt, General Franklin, Captain Sheridan and Commander Sinclair. All of them have small color profiles, although Sheridan's illustration doesn't look anything like Bruce Boxleitner. Alas, Chameleon Eclectic seems to have trouble obtaining the rights to photo stills from the show... Not all the NPCs are from the series, and some of the original NPCs, especially the station commanders and the Three Suns Fleet characters, have lots of potential as adventure seeds, which are otherwise lacking in this book.

In conclusion, the Earthforce Sourcebook is a slick, beautiful full-color book with a lot of data about Earth's military forces, including a few details from the B5 TV movies which haven't even aired yet (the Minbari War, for instance, is covered in a little more detail here). Unfortunately, a few of the details, like the weapons stats omissions, keep me from giving this game an unabashedly good review.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Babylon Project Earthforce Sourcebook
Author: Joseph Cochran, Jon Tuffley and others Category: game Company/Publisher: Chameleon Eclectic Cost: $18.00 Page count: 144 Capsule Review by Tun Kai Poh on 12/09/97. Genre tags: none	Many Babylon 5 fans (like myself) were somewhat disappointed by the apparent incompleteness of Chameleon Eclectic's Babylon Project RPG, when it first came out. Details for gaming in the B5 universe were limited to the period before the Shadow War, so playing Rangers or encountering Shadow agents and ships were out of the question. The lack of even an abstract ship combat system hurt, and a lot of the artwork (there were virtually no still photos, apart from the computer-generated space scenes) was just plain bad, especially some of the pictures of the alien races. Mind you, it was a good reference for the history and backgrounds of the major political powers of the B5 universe, but there was a lot lacking. The gorgeously packaged Earthforce Sourcebook redeems Chameleon Eclectic for some of those sins, but a few problems marr the whole - we'll get to those in a sec. All in all, the level of quality in here is what the main rulebook should have had. In terms of presentation, the Earthforce Sourcebook is a step up from the main Babylon Project rulebook. It has far more computer-generated artwork, with a dozen or so color illustrations of far superior quality compared to the spotty art of the main rulebook. A lot of useful information about Earthforce's Ground and Fleet branches, from logistics to command, allow Human players to flesh out military characters much better than the main rulebook ever did, and we finally find out what gear the average Earthforce GROPOS or fighter jocks start out with, and rough guidelines on pay grades. There's even an admirable attempt to explain B5's mixed-up rank system. New rules for zero-gravity combat and military skills are also included. Unfortunately, there is a serious omission in the equipment section. After reading all sorts of glorious details about Environmental Armor, grenade launchers, ballistic assault rifles (for planetary assault), heavy PPGs and other weapons, all of which have listed prices, I noticed that there were NO COMBAT STATS for any of these items! What's the point, then? On the other hand, the ship combat system, based on Jon Tuffley's excellent Full Thrust system, looks really good, with canonical stats on Earthforce ships straight from the series and upcoming TV movies, and stats of the most common alien ships, as well. Movement is, for Earth and Narn ships, based on Newtonian physics, which means you don't slow down if you cut thrust, and manuvering is a whole new ball game. Luckily, unlike the Babylon 5 Wars system, this system doesn't use hexes, so calculating movement vectors looks relatively simple. There's a bunch of ship control sheets to photocopy, and two identical sheets of cardboard counters to cut out. It looks like I might have a little trouble getting them out without damaging them, unless I use a real sharp knife. A couple of ship control sheets, again, have errors (the Hyperion and the Sheperd) that make the ships unplayable (lack of fire control systems). I checked the Chameleon Eclectic website, and there were downloads of the corrected sheets, but no mention that these _were_ corrections... For all those people complaining about the lack of stats for characters from the TV series, the sourcebook also has 19 bios of high-ranking personnel, including General Hague, General Lefcourt, General Franklin, Captain Sheridan and Commander Sinclair. All of them have small color profiles, although Sheridan's illustration doesn't look anything like Bruce Boxleitner. Alas, Chameleon Eclectic seems to have trouble obtaining the rights to photo stills from the show... Not all the NPCs are from the series, and some of the original NPCs, especially the station commanders and the Three Suns Fleet characters, have lots of potential as adventure seeds, which are otherwise lacking in this book. In conclusion, the Earthforce Sourcebook is a slick, beautiful full-color book with a lot of data about Earth's military forces, including a few details from the B5 TV movies which haven't even aired yet (the Minbari War, for instance, is covered in a little more detail here). Unfortunately, a few of the details, like the weapons stats omissions, keep me from giving this game an unabashedly good review. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 3 (Average)

Babylon Project Earthforce Sourcebook