This is from a Facebook comment I made. Though to share it:
Acceleration-based artificial gravity makes Star Frontiers a rarity among sci-fi settings; this dictates not only the design of ships and stations, but also how people interact with them.
The FTL methodology of the setting also dictates how ships move from system to system; in the RaW, going from one system to another is not a trivial task; you need to make the course calculations, get the correct heading, spend several days accelerating to the jump and decelerating after it... spending a pretty big chunk of cash in fuel costs (10,000 cr per engine per jump). Then, after the jump, (assuming a ship with size A engines) a sizeable chunk of time overhauling the engines.
Clearly, Star Frontiers is not like Star Wars or Star Trek, where you can just pop on board and travel halfway around the galaxy at the speed of plot.
Star Frontiers, with the Rules as Written, is more like The Expanse, or 2001; a fairly hard sci-fi setting with a few higher-tech items.
The idea of horizontally-mounted artificial gravity is so prevalent that even some artists assumed it was the norm in SF and put, for example, an Assault Scout landed on its belly on a planetary surface.
For the record, that image of the AS was taken from KH0, but in KH0, it is assumed that the Osprey is in the central hub of Clarion Station, in a microgravity environment, not in a 1g location.
Of course, what is fun for your group is fine; I have played Star Wars, Star Trek, and other sci-fi games using Star Frontiers rules, but with other FTL rules.
Think about it this way:
In many ways, the Frontier developed along different technological lines than us; they did not have a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs to develop their computer technology, so it developed along vastly different lines. The interaction of different races creates advancements based solely on the “I never looked at it that way” principle.
The way I see it, the humans of the Frontier Sector made first contact with the Vrusk when their level of technology was similar to ours in the 1950s; contact with the Vrusk advanced the technology of both races (and of the dralasites), for many years before practical FTL technology was developed by both sides. Before that, the Vrusk were the only ones with primitive tech (they made contact with Dralasites, and the Dralasites have only one world in the Frontier where they are the dominant civilization: I interpret this as the Vrusk discovered them before the Dralasites developed their own space-going technology. This is also implied through that Holloway pic with the sign: “no dogs or dralasites allowed”.
In my headcanon, the Dralasites developed sonic weapon technology and the hush field (it fits, based on their physical characteristics). From the hush field, the albedo and inertia screens were developed, as alternate techologies of other races were integrated.
The lasers (along with active-matrix power supplies like power belt and back packs) were developed by the Vrusk (who also pioneered the use of storage-class capsule technology), while Gyrojets, needlers, and slug-throwing weapons was left mainly to humans (slug-throwers = auto pistol & rifle... the development of which was left in the dust by the more powerful tech of other weapon types, leaving pipsqueak calibers and basic bullet types that are nowhere as technologically advanced as our modern firearms technology - why do you think a level 1 projectile weapons specialist NPC is paid the same as an unskilled NPC?).
The development of capacitor-based powerclips freed energy weapons from their clumsy and very heavy power-packs... but the parabatteries are still extremely heavy; a level-1 computer weighs in at just 3kg, but its parabattery weighs 25 kg! That is not a laptop!
Robots? Compare a level 1 maintenance bot with a roomba and you can see the technological gap; a roomba is more advanced, cheaper, and lighter, than a level 1 maintenance bot. Some roombas even link to computers and perform multiple tasks, which is the definition of a level two robot. Our technology is practically on the verge of level three capability, so we can easily assume that the divergence in tech makes their computer tech better suited for robotics than our computer tech base.
Fusion? Primitive; most atomic power in SF is fission-based, including atomic drives for spaceships.
It goes on and on; every “advanced” tech (RaW) in Star Frontiers is either already here, nearly here, or we can understand the technological foundation (we have primitive hush fields today). Honestly, the only tech in Alpha Dawn which it truly the realm of sci-fi fantasy is the holo screen... and that could be explained as being discovered alien technology; they could reproduce it, but simply do not understand how it works.
Raffleurs, mini-clips, masers, and bolt weapons are A) Rim (not Frontier) technology/developments, and B) Zebulon Guide fare. Remember that Zeb seems to ignore previously established canon; elements can be added to AD/KH, but as a whole, it must be taken with a grain of salt. The group I play with likes Star Frontiers hard, and we play close to RaW when it comes to the tech.
That is us. YMMV