As soon as a civilisation ventures forth from its original planet, it's going to start building space stations - even we here on Earth have, despite not having developed interplanetary travel yet! In the starfaring community of the far future envisioned by Traveller, it's likely that most inhabited systems will have space stations as well as settlements planetside. Indeed, they may be the main habitations in some systems, for example when the main world is resource-rich but not suitable for major long-term colonisation. They are also good places on which to have adventures!

The first chapter, Space Station Design, dives straight in to present a system for creating space stations with the customary wealth of tables and options to enable you to custom-design the space station that you want. Most are built in the orbit that they will occupy once completed, with components being delivered and bolted together in space. There's a checklist to work through, beginning with the essential decision of whether you wish to have artificial gravity or to spin your station to generate gravity within it. Then you need to decide on a configuration and size, and it goes on from there. An important consideration is the orbit in which it will be situated, which will depend on the use to which it will be put - and also determine what facilities need to be provided. It may also be necessary (or at least prudent) to arm the station.

Once these basics have been determined the next chapter, Station Equipment, comes into play. This looks at the various uses to which the station may be put and the equipment that will have to be installed. Perhaps mining operations are conducted from the station, or - especially if the station is located in an asteroid belt - ore is brought there to be refined. There are likely to be facilities such as shops and entertainment for visitors and residents, docking facilities for visiting ships and maybe even a dockyard for ship repair or construction. Communications and sensor gear will be required and so on.

Now that the station has been constructed and equipped, turn to the Combat and Operations chapter to find out how to run (and defend) your brand-new station. This provides the details you need if there's a combat involving the station itself - generally defensive actions as they are fairly easy to hit but unlikely to mount attacks. In terms of more peaceful operations, space stations work pretty much like starports and you may wish to refer to Supplement 13: Starport Encounters as well as the material here. Due to size limitations, ships wishing to dock may be limited as to how long they can stay or may even have to hang around waiting for a berth to become available.

The next chapter, Space Station Generation, provides tables to aid in determining what stations are present in a given system and what they are doing there. Amred with that information you can then loop back to the first chapter and design those for which you need that level of detail - after all, if your party is not interested in asteroid mining, just knowing that there is a refinery station in the asteroid belt is sufficient, but if their business (or your plot) takes them there, you will need a lot more information about it. This chapter also provides plenty of inspiration about what sort of space stations there may be in a system - from naval bases to commercial operations, Imperial consultates, scout bases, pirate havens and much, much more. I once played in a campaign where an entire sub-sector was embroiled in a war and the party - rather than working for one side or the other as the Referee had intended - set up a 'neutral zone' entertainment facility space station where members of either faction were welcome as long as they left their dispute outside!

Next up, for the budding traders, there's a chapter Maintaining Trade, which actually goes well beyond actual trading to look at the economics of running a space station. It's quite fascinating, and easy to imagine a campaign based around keeping a station operational - cutting deals, dealing with problems and so on. This is followed by a chapter called Docks and Yards which goes into detail about the operation and economics of docking and shipyard facilities. If you run a construction yard, there are two options: build ships to contract or build speculatively and hope someone will purchase them. There's plenty of detail here to facilitate either kind of shipbuilding.

This is followed by Agave, a chapter detailing a complete system in which planets are at best harsh and mostly incapable of supporting life, so most inhabitants live on space stations instead. There's a history and description of the system, notes on military and other significant groups, places of interest to visit - and several Patron Encounters that could lead to a series of adventures here. This chapter ends with notes on several other possibilities if you want a station-rich system... these are just ideas and you'll have to flesh them out for yourself.

Finally, Space Stations is a chapter of ready-made stations that you can drop into your game wherever the need arises. There are descriptions, plans, illustrations and full statistics for an antique station, a research station, a manufacturing station, a trading station, a mining station, a construction station, a fleet station, a defence station, an interdiction station, and an X-boat hub station. The plans are somewhat uninformative and sketchy and the illustrations also leave something to be desired - with each station getting two or three virtually identical ones supposedly showing it from different angles.

The usefulness of this will depend on what's important in your game. In many games, even if you visit a space station there is no need for this level of detail, the Referee can just describe the areas as needed. If you want to base your game on a station though, this material will come in very handy! And, like every system in Traveller, there's the potential for using the design system on its own as a form of 'gearheading'.