Archive through August 16, 2019
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Shapeways Project: Shapeways Store:
Request and Suggestions for Shapeways Shop:
Archive through August 16, 2019
Chris;
The two 360 and two on each side is the 2012 Tourney Tiger.
No problem. The Fed CC is 10 minutes of work. The Klingon, I'd have to go look and see if there is even anything that would show externally.
Following the Mongoose principle, add some meaningless external greeble and say it's the sun roof for the captain's sauna?
The other problem is tourney ships change from time to time.
Nick has an excellent point. Witness the two different Tourney Tigers mentioned above.
Tourney ships have not changed in many years.
For the Fed CC, and possibly the D7C, perhaps you could add some sort of indication of the Flag Bridge.
Garth L. Getgen
Quote:Following the Mongoose principle, add some meaningless external greeble and say it's the sun roof for the captain's sauna?
Please don't.
None of this greeble stuff, we're going straight to megaphaser wings.
Extra small deckhouses and widgets to differentiate the Fed CC and Klingon D7C weren't on the 2200/2300/2400 metal mini and have never been on any cover-art. There is fluff text that specifically says they're pretty much identical externally.
I know things were done with the 2500 lines for the Fed CC and CB (and was proposed for the D7C), but I argued against it at the time (for the reasons above and the fact that I think they're franchise-slosh from the Reliant). I'd only do them if the boss wanted me to.
Up to you, Will.
It's a hard one, this matter. 
Taking a Fed CC for example, externally, how different could it look. The Flag bridge is likely centre of the saucer, or even in the secondary/engineering hull, protected more than the main bridge, and separated from it by a bit.
You could argue that the Mongoose extra greebles (deckhouse?) were indications of extra Flag/Command facalities. My personal feeling on that is...
1) Why put it either side of the engineering facilities in the saucer?
2) Why indicate something extra is there at all if it's the important Flag facilities!
There are some ships that might have some obviously external differences, but I'd think they might be smaller ships, not neccesarily the CCs.
I would have loved to have seen Fed DDs or CA variants with lengthened B/C deck superstructures, but don't think the SFU will probably have them due to its' established history. (Plus. a lot of ships are already released.)
Perhaps extra but more subtle aztecing where the obvious greebles were on the Mongoose ships, for a subtle visual difference if it was decided to go down a differentiating route?
I don't remember if this was specifically stated or not, but I assume that Mongoose wanted the CC and D7C to be visually different from the standard cruisers for two very big reasons:
1) If they look the same, there is no reason to buy both.
2) People will still want separate models for the CC and the CA.
Putting those together means that there is reason to produce a CC model, but that it needs to be visually distinct from the CA model.
That people on this board will obsess about phaser bumps doesn't mean anyone else not that deeply invested in the game will care or even notice. Having the only difference between the CC and CA be the placement of two phaser bumps might thrill everyone in this discussion, but if the intention is to grow the pool and sell to anyone else, the visual distinction needs to be greater.
I have little hunt in this game, so please do what makes most sense. But adding the visual distinction *does* serve a purpose, even if many here appear to think it is stupid.
So far as I'm aware, the only non-fast "mission variant" of the Federation CA which is currently on Shapeways that has added bulk in the saucer is that for the Galactic Survey Cruiser, to account for the extra "stuff" which the GSC packs in for use on its long-range exploration efforts.
In retrospect, I'm not sure if either the CC or CB would warrant adding that kind of bulk, though at least the CB would use the same "warp pack" as that seen on the BC saucer.
Although, another way to distinguish certain Fed hulls could be to add panel lines to the secondary hull and/or to the warp nacelles, akin to one of the prototype models worked up during the Starline 2500 development project. Unless that concept would be better kept in reserve for Early Years (and/or National Guard) hulls, or for some of the older ships refitted and rebuilt to "modern" standards as outlined in John Sickels' hidden history article in Captain's Log #52?
Or, you could by the model for the CA, CC, CB, and paint a different colored ring around the bridge.
When Mongoose was doing the minis, they were trying to sell as many as they could, which should have made a decent amount of money for ADB and Mongoose. Shapeways is also in the business of selling minis, however, as I understand it, they keep the lion's share of the profits. For most people a hand full of ships works out just fine. Completists can get painting guides to show the differences in Command Grade ships.
Might be interesting to see if you could do.. ship tokens through shapeways. Kinda similar to the square tokens you sell made out of cardboard, but they could have bumps and/or indents to bring out details of ships or the letters/markings. Or plasma/drone/shuttle tokens that could be compatible with multiple game systems.
These were suggested at the beginning of the project.
When the cost for them was floated, people balked.
Yeah, I know they'd be more expensive, but could potentially have longer use-life than cardboard tokens? Could try and reduce cost with multi-sprue, who knows.
Will(or SVC), how close are we to getting X-ships on Shapeways? SFB has had them in the game forever and Federation Commander has been getting them for a few months now with more to come! I am confident that if you make them distinctive enough, that they would become best-sellers (at least with me!). So, do you think that they will come out this year? There are plenty of opportunities to play them in those two games already, in my opinion, but I am probably biased. -
While I know the kizinti carriers are very close to the base ships, what about the SSCS? I know it has at least extra "ears" but not sure if there's others off hand. If it's planned at the end of the rest of the gunboat tenders, that's fine.
Sort of related, while I know that they'd be expensive, are 285 scale gunboats possible in shapeways or are they too big? Wondering on theoretical at the moment.
X-ships are coming, but Will has to carefully define the unique X-ship features, and meanwhile he's working on 2500, 7000, ships for 1 Sept, ships for 1 Oct, and some special projects.
We can do anything. We cannot do everything in one day.
SSCS is on the list. The docked Needles are delicate structures, so I'm making sure the smaller tenders are printing correctly before we go all in with the SSCS.
The 1/285 gunboats would be almost 5 inches long. Printable, but bring the big checkbook.
*looks at his 3125 hydran BB* yeaaaaa figured that the gunboats would be expensive but was just wondering if possible at this point.
And thanks for the SSCS info, just wondering will all tenders have the gunboats printed on them? This might have been an early decision but I missed it.
As far as I know most of the tenders will come with printed gunboats. The issues have been modifying the gunboats to print properly at that scale, and finding space to attach them to the ships as some of the SSDs have the mechlinks in really inconvenient places.
Yup.
The Klingon D6P would have happened well over a year ago, but those darned boom tractor locations don't play nice with printable G-1 gunboat representations.
Things got so complicated (and opinions got so strong) that I tabled any PF tenders from the empires I handle until the end of the list. There were dozens of base-hulls that needed doing and I couldn't let one variant type keep me from getting progress made.