The Ships of the Human Sphere is a 190+ page book and shipyard of military and civilian ships of the Infinity Universe. The format runs through the different size classes of vessel from the huge Class 5 behemoths to light auxiliaries and fighters. (There’s a Class 9 in there, but I’m not telling you what it is…). Each ship has some descriptive flavour text and a stat block, with adventure seeds laced throughout in sidebars. You don’t get any floorplans, or an image of every ship, but lots of ready to use information to plug into your game.
The Human Sphere also delivers us the alien ships of the Combined Army, ready cut for some terrifying deep space engagements. On which topic, the book is much more than a catalogue, providing rich chapters to take combat to a fleet level, with ‘Conquering the Stars’ and ‘Interstellar Engagements’. Some material is a repeat from faction and Gamesmater Guide books, so a little redundancy if you have a wide range of the material already. I’m OK with this, as we get a lot of what we need under the cover of this book, useful anyway, but also not presupposing ownership of other titles.
The Factions get some individual space to note their approach to ships and how they are operated, with the Nomads given some more room as is right. Some of this may be copied from the Faction books as above, but I like that this is in here.
There’s a touch of the gearhead in the ‘Options and Upgrades’ chapter as you get out your hyper spanner and start bolting on optional components onto the standard designs, changing their capabilities and potential on the way. (This is a copy of the Gamesmaster Guide). Build your Q Ship now!
We also drop to the character level with ‘Extraplanetary Gear’, a catalogue of spacefarer equipment kitting out your vac Suit with mods, helpful rescue drones, drugs, armour, shielding, corsair favoured heavy pistols, smart lungs and goodness knows what else.
This book has come a little later in the Infinity production cycle, which probably tells you something about how essential it is. Although you probably already have what you need to represent the system capable and wormhole travelling ships of the infinity game, the information within is really useful, coalescing into a handy title, lots of new sections, and a shipyard of designs to throw out there, all of which you can quickly mod to make your own.
I’m glad I have this book, which is what i think of all the titles from the Infniity line. It’s easy for me though, as I am a 2015 ‘give me all books’ backer, so they just flow to me in a grand procession, every bit as impressive as the giant Circulars that carry so many ships through the Worm Holes. For the Infinity completist, but well worth it, especially if you are spending some Momentum out in the cold of space.