Still missing the DM screen panels, so you cant even print your own to use with a customisable panel screen.

This review is based on the opinions of a long-time 2300AD fan (1st ed "Traveller 2300AD" and 2nd ed "2300AD"). For what its worth, I've also been a Traveller (little black books), MegaTraveller, TNE referre and player. I have not played the new edition of 2300AD (and spoiler, based on my initial impressions, I probably will never invest the time to do so). Whilst I bought this with the bundle that included Traveller core rules, I'm not reviewing the Traveller ruleset, only the 2300AD material. Though (again, spoiler) the lack of customised rules in the 2300AD will result in reflections on how the Traveller ruleset doesn't recreate 2300AD. Summary: This edition of 2300AD feels like a cosmetic skin for Traveller rather than an a new edition of 2300AD utilising an existing Traveller ruleset with extensions or overrides to make it more applicable to 2300AD. Production wise, the PDF release is fairly good. The PDF is searchable and has TOC - though it is limited in the number of subsections and lacking consistency across books - for example you will be able to click on subsections for personal weapons across 10 different classifications, but under Vehicle Options there's no TOC subsections for the distinct subsections on Weapon Traits, AntiMissile systems, Small Calibre Weapons, Laser Weapons, .Plasma Weapons, Missiles, Bombs. There's no internal hyperlinks that I could find to cross reference anything, so you are left with basic PDF layout. There's about 330 pages of content (including indexes and TOC etc), plus a star chart (which falls far short of the star chart data included with the original two 2300AD editions.) If you also go for the bundle with Traveller core rulebook (updated to 2022), you can add another 266 pages to that. Text is easy to read, and the artwork (whilst not always to my taste) is at good resolution on the screen. Tables are clearly laid out, though I would have preferred alternate row shading or colour banding to help with some of the full-width tables. There are some typos, for example spelling of Giscard and Guiscard. Much of the flavour of 2300AD has been lost in the Traveller ruleset, with very few rules to make 2300AD feel like a customisation that is leverage the Traveller ruleset but bringing the 2300AD game to life within it - as I say, it feels more like a cosmetic skin than a conversion. e.g. No consideration of Initiative penalties to armour, something which was a big issue in 2300AD, especially if it was worth losing fractions on the halved initiative to drop a to a later phase. Likewise, no concept of bulk to resolve ties at the same initiative. e.g. No consideration of armour and how it relates to blunt trauma - again this was an important consideration in armour selection in 2300AD. e.g. No consideration of hit location - a major feature of 2300ADs combat compared to many other systems at the time. This applies both to armour protection and wound seriousness. e.g. No consideration of thrown weapons and deviation. e.g. No consideration of explosives beyond vanilla Traveller - no tamping, no separation of concussion and fragmentation. e.g. No concept of signature relating to armour. There is mention of signature relating to thermal protection, but ignoring it for armour removes that 2300AD flavour. This may be cosmetic, but I'm sure I'm not alone in my opinion of some of the artwork. It stinks in many places. The Rorrtmann SK-19 was an iconic gun - clearly inspired by the even more iconic M41A pulse rifle from Aliens. Yet the new book manages to make it look like a child's super-soaker. Likewise, the menacing DumArmCo close assault shotgun is now extremely plain looking. To be fair, other parts of artwork are much better - and in many cases do a good job of representing the "retro futuristic" feel of 2300AD (rather like Alien movie for those who are not familiar with it). Heavy Weapons have been mostly stripped from the book - the Type 12 Autocannon is there. But the panzerfausts and Guiscards are all gone. Outside of some plasma guns, there's no man portable weaponry to really threaten an armoured vehicle, never mind aircraft. Sure I could use the generic rocket launchers from Traveller core rulebook (but why should I when I want to play 2300AD?), but: (a) Those peak at 2300AD TL at 5D+6 with no AP rating, meaning they cant penetrate the side, never mind frontal armour of the specced hovercraft APC. If you roll 5 x 6s on that 5D, you will just penetrate the frontal armour of a Kz-7 combat walker. Just. (b) There's no automatic guidance on them Wrapping Up Whilst I've not gone through the entirety of the 3 books in detail, initial impressions are that, if the rule isn't in the Traveller book, its almost certainly not in 2300AD. Whilst that may allow for TL10-TL12 resources from Traveller to be dropped into 2300AD, it doesn't make them 2300AD. And if I just wanted a TL10-TL12 Traveller campaign, I could do that myself. Sadly, this 2300AD edition just isn't 2300AD for me at all. Its Traveller (not a bad thing in and of itself, but the issue is, I didn't want to play Traveller, I wanted 2300AD!). Sure there are some items introduced - e.g. D66 for stun, and weapon traits for vehicle mounted weaponry (but nothing for personal equipment). But this just isn't what I thought I was buying, and as such, is a major disappointment.

Fantastic PDF release of the ASL rules. It took a LONG time for this to happen, but the release is everything that one could have wished for in the core rules. All chapter additions for all theaters and nationalities are included.

The latest update includes revised sections from the release of Hollow Legions.

Lots of detailed TOC and hyperlinks for rapid navigation.

The only complaint I would have - and its not to detract from the 5 star review (but I would want to give it 6 starts if they added it!!!) are the Solitaire ASL rules - especially given its my understanding that MMP have said they have no intention of reprinting this.

There's never been a better time to get into ASL.

I was very excited about this - especially the hit location system for a D20 derived ruleset. I really like D20 as a system, but always thought it lacked the crunch of personal favourites like Twilight 2000 and 2300AD. Both of these had good hit location systems, so I was really looking forward to seeing what this would bring to D20.

Unfortunately, even an initial read of the hit location rules has revealed major ambiguities and/or errors with these rules. Layout is very poor in places with circular references leading nowhere. They are simply not useable for me in their current form, and I consider a poor investment of cash.

Example:

Firearms Skill This has a perk "Called Shot" that suggests that you can negate the penalty for targeting a specific area of the target's body, and refers to the Hit Location section for more details.

Yet the Hit Location section contains no details on how to target a specific location, only that the natural D20 value on the attack role is the actual location that is hit.

The Hit Location table does include an Attack Modifier, but there is no reference to this anywhere in the document - the phrase "attack modifier" is present exactly once - on that table.

And the values on the Hit Location table don't make sense: with -18 to hit someone in the head (almost as bad a penalty as your nth attack).

Its as hard to hit someone in the center-mass chest location as it is their calf (each at -12 modifier), and if you leave it to chance, its harder to hit the chest (10%) than the calf (15%). Meanwhile the damage done by shooting them in the calf is the same as shooting them in the chest. Yet a groin shot results in 50% more damage than the chest. 

How anyone is meant to get an Injury (an attack role 5+ greater than the required to hit DC) with a -18 attack modifier for a headshot is beyond me. There's no driver to attempt to do so when the probability of hitting the in head or neck for the x2 damage (10%) is far better than taking the -18 to hit (especially when your other successful shots will do something, rather than miss due to -18 attack).

Again, consider the inconsistency: attacking a prone target, where the head and arms are the most visible target and the rest of the body is concealed, is a +4 modifier to the attack. Yet -18 for a called shot to the head.

So not only are the signs of the modifiers inconsistent (+4 penalty to attack a prone, -18 penalty to attach the head), but the absolute value of the modifiers are way out of scale from each other.

As a bonus example of the poor quality control, the section of text refering to the hit location table being below, is itself actually below the table rather than above it.

The Grappling rules section mentions random or selection of hit location, but again has no details on the selection process.

The Unarmed skill allows for a Joint Lock perk to grapple attack against a specific hit location, but doesn't refer to any penalty for doing so (which is inconsistent with the Firearms skill Called Shot perk). Yet another perk of Unarmed skill (Precision Strike) does mention negating the penalty for targeting a specific area of the target's body - but there's nothing to cover whether or not this is mutually exclusive with Joint Lock (i.e. does a full round Joint Lock attack benefit from Precision Strike, or is every Joint Lock attack free from the penalities?)

Summary: What could have been a great alternative to modern D20 rules instead feels a let down with inconsistent and ambiguous rules and layout.