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This reference extends GMs and players a lot of options in incorporating starships into their games. If you want to play Star Wars using this reference, you can easily do it. You can also pull of Battlestar Galactica, Firefly or the Black Hole.
Chapter 1 covers starships generalities; starships are delineated from spaceships by their ability to travel from star to star using jump drives. We get a general idea of what life aboard a starship would look, sound and smell like (right down to toilets called freshers and how to handle artificial gravity). Overall, the first chapter provides a good overview of the topic before diving into each specific area of ship design and construction.
Chapter 2 covers starship construction rules. Everything from weapons to cargo bays to passenger accommodations is covered in this section. Chapter 2 brings up a lot of good points about starship construction that many GMs might not think about on their own. How many medics do you need for a cruiser? What if you want to hide your interstellar cutter beneath the surface of an ocean?
Hulls is the title of Chapter 3. A lot of variety is available for GMs designing ships. There are traditional plate metal hulls including those streamlined for atmospheric use (and those that don't need to be). A really neat idea is the use of asteroids and other interstellar material as the hull for a ship with compartments attached or 'dug out' of the rock as necessary.
Chapter 4 covers fuel, power and propulsion. Jump drives, solar sails and fuel tanks are covered at length. The info in this chapter allows a GM a good deal of flexibility in tailoring ships to a particular campaign. You can have your interstellar crew run into a race just beginning its reach for the stars and use STARSHIPS as a sturdy reference in designing drives for both tech levels.
Chapter 5 explores all the electronics aboard ship. From the mundane wiring required to connect the bridge to engineering to advanced electronic warfare, you're covered. There is also information on jammer systems and appropriate computers to match the tech level you want to play.
Chapters 6 and 7 focus on weaponry. Missiles and energy weapons, energy screens/shields and force fields are all included for the GM's use. Bombs and other launched ordnance are also covered in good detail. For fans of Starship Troopers (book more specifically), there is an excellent section on jump troops: How to outfit and drop them to convince the natives you mean business. I also particularly liked the section on probes and drones. Who hasn't seen Empire Strikes Back and thought about how much info you could get in exchange for a few cheap robot snoopers?
Chapter 8 covers crew and passenger accommodations in more detail. You can replicate the Enterprise's holo-deck (GURPS calls them holoventures) or install shooting ranges to keep your Marines entertained. Theaters, galleys and sports facilities (like the Null-G Handball courts) are also handy assets if your ship is big enough to support them.
Chapter 9 is the hodge-podge section. Smuggler players will want to read about secret holds. Far traders will need to know about cargo-handling gear (think Ripley in Aliens in that cool exoskeleton suit) that is available. You also can keep Dr. McCoy types occupied in sick-bay, prisoners locked up in the brig section or drop a couple of droids on a desert world using the escape capsules described in this chapter.
Chapter 10 provides good generic starship designs to use as templates/springboards for designing your own ships. Deck plans are provided for several ships including a fighter craft, a patrol cruiser, a yacht, a lab ship and a big momma dreadnought in case you want to throw something back at Saberhagen's Berserkers or maybe the Death Star:)
Chapter 11 discusses operations. Remember that hyperspace travel ain't like dusting crops? Well they cover that sort of thing right here. GM's who love to keep their player's counting up their credits (and usually coming up short) will love this section. "Oh, I'm sorry you forgot to get that compression coil fixed during your last maintenance cycle". Too bad your far trader is stuck out at the corner of 'No' and 'Where' when that coil went bad. Hopefully, that last salvage job netted you a useable replacement part:)
Seriously, everything from maintenance and rations replenishment to refueling on a gas giant is covered. Very thorough treatment of things you might otherwise overlook.
The final chapter of STARSHIPS examines typical shipboard life. What exactly are the sensor officer's responsibilities? How would PCs find a job working for a freighter? Where exactly do you plan to berth that methane breathing passenger now that you've accepted his credits and used them to pay for the fuel? Again, the authors have considered a lot of things that could be considered minutiae and put them into a context that a GM could easily play up as a story angle.
The final section of the book, some 20+ pages, is dedicated to charts and tables. This section is a very good compilation of useful info in a quick and easy to find format. Need to know the details on all the drives available or what type of power plant would work best on your battle cruiser? Check this section out. Top that off with an apparently working index and you've got a pretty useful reference in STARSHIPS.
Overall, STARSHIPS does a very thorough treatment of the topic of starships. A lot of thought has gone into its writing and compilation of details. If you are playing GURPS Traveller, I would say you are cheating yourself by playing without it IF you want spaceships/starships to play any appreciable role in your games. If you are playing other sci-fi games and want to have a solid reference for new ideas in one collection, I would also strongly recommend checking out this book.
