Essential books?
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Really, only the main rulebook is essential. It has rules for aliens, animals, creating subsectors and worlds, some spaceship designs (and a system for making new ships).
The other books let you dig deeper into different campaign styles and character generation for those topics. High Guard (ships) and Mercenary are more "crunchy", while Scoundrel (folks who aim to misbehave) and Dilettante (everything from Star Wars style "important people trying to save the realm" to "travelling rock stars and their adventures") are more free-wheeling.
The alien modules are for either running a non-human campaign or giving the Referee a deeper understanding of an alien culture they may want to draw antagonists (or even allies) from.
The supplements generally give you catalogs of ships, vehicles, weapons, critters, etc. It's mostly stuff you could generate on your own, and in some cases some new or expanded rules.
The setting books (sector books) give you a "map" to play on if you don't want to generate your own. Generating a subsector is fun, but detailing the subsector takes a while. Though in fairness, the sector books generally only really detail a few worlds per subsector. The alien modules also include sectors or subsectors (depending on the size of the various aliens' domains) which are useful in the same way.
[It's worth mentioning that between travellermap.com and the traveller wikia site, you can get quite a lot of standard Traveller information. I'd look into Reaver's Deep in addition to the classic Spinward Marches. There's even a web-zine https://sites.google.com/site/reaversdeep/ which is writing up Reaver's Deep in detail.]
The other books let you dig deeper into different campaign styles and character generation for those topics. High Guard (ships) and Mercenary are more "crunchy", while Scoundrel (folks who aim to misbehave) and Dilettante (everything from Star Wars style "important people trying to save the realm" to "travelling rock stars and their adventures") are more free-wheeling.
The alien modules are for either running a non-human campaign or giving the Referee a deeper understanding of an alien culture they may want to draw antagonists (or even allies) from.
The supplements generally give you catalogs of ships, vehicles, weapons, critters, etc. It's mostly stuff you could generate on your own, and in some cases some new or expanded rules.
The setting books (sector books) give you a "map" to play on if you don't want to generate your own. Generating a subsector is fun, but detailing the subsector takes a while. Though in fairness, the sector books generally only really detail a few worlds per subsector. The alien modules also include sectors or subsectors (depending on the size of the various aliens' domains) which are useful in the same way.
[It's worth mentioning that between travellermap.com and the traveller wikia site, you can get quite a lot of standard Traveller information. I'd look into Reaver's Deep in addition to the classic Spinward Marches. There's even a web-zine https://sites.google.com/site/reaversdeep/ which is writing up Reaver's Deep in detail.]
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The main book has most things you need... any other books would depend on whether you're planning on focusing on particular areas. I would stay away from getting all the career books and glomming them together. They tend to water down the effectiveness of a generalist playing group. For example, a High Guard character is awesome in a Navy game but too specialized in a "classic Free Trader" game. The main book characters are much more useful in the traditional scenario.
If you want to play in the Third Imperium, I do recommend Spinward Marches if only for the general information on the Imperium. If you're interested in somewhere else in the Imperium, I am a huge fan of the Gateway Sector (see QLI links on this website for the book). It's the best 3I sourcebook I've come across.
As mentioned, there is TONS of information online. That new Reaver's Deep site looks good but there's also the original located here...
http://www.downport.com/
If you want to play in the Third Imperium, I do recommend Spinward Marches if only for the general information on the Imperium. If you're interested in somewhere else in the Imperium, I am a huge fan of the Gateway Sector (see QLI links on this website for the book). It's the best 3I sourcebook I've come across.
As mentioned, there is TONS of information online. That new Reaver's Deep site looks good but there's also the original located here...
http://www.downport.com/
The reason I say HG is essential is that it finishes the ship rules. There are some notable gaps, and HG closes most of them*. Even if YTU never exceeds 2000Td, the options in HG allow for a wider and more varied universe.
I forgot to mention two other "Very Useful for Non-3I" books: Spica's Career books 1 & 2. More CGen types, better event tables, and also inexpensive in PDF.
* the ones it doesn't close were intentionally put there by the designers. The power rules, mostly... as in, ripped out between final public playtest draft and publication)
I forgot to mention two other "Very Useful for Non-3I" books: Spica's Career books 1 & 2. More CGen types, better event tables, and also inexpensive in PDF.
* the ones it doesn't close were intentionally put there by the designers. The power rules, mostly... as in, ripped out between final public playtest draft and publication)
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