WEM, the sculptor did the ZY, can do those others if he wants to.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Sunday, November 08, 2020 - 09:00 pm: Edit

CNN reports that scientists have 3D-printed a miniature of the USS Voyager which measures 15 micrometers (0.015 millimeters). I want to know when ADB plans on offering miniatures on this scale.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 08, 2020 - 10:04 pm: Edit

Next year, or maybe later.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Sunday, November 08, 2020 - 11:07 pm: Edit

I look forward to using the miniatures on the 2mm wide hex map I mounted on the head of a pin.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, November 09, 2020 - 12:11 am: Edit

Those would be for use on the mega-hex maps, because they'd be at the proper scale.


Garth L. Getgen

By Aaron Staley (Awwwdrat) on Monday, November 09, 2020 - 07:37 am: Edit

I like using microscopes on my megamat.

By Aaron Staley (Awwwdrat) on Thursday, December 17, 2020 - 07:47 am: Edit

Federation NHS (New Heavy Scout Cruser) would be a welcome addition.

By Aaron Staley (Awwwdrat) on Friday, December 18, 2020 - 06:10 pm: Edit

Just got my new feds and klink d6dk. Cute!!!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 12:26 pm: Edit

Shapeways are advertising a new High Definition Full Colour material, which in effect "pre-paints" a given miniature to the required colour pattern.

Might this be an option for ADB to consider, or would it not work quite as well for miniature starships as it would for other items which Shapeways enables?

(At the very least, it seems like something useful for the 1:2500 scale of miniatures, to help promote them as display pieces.)

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 12:38 pm: Edit

The first issue is figuring out how to reliably colorize an STL file, and for Shapeways to replicate that color scheme accurately enough to make it worthwhile.

The second issue will be convincing Jean to reupload 2600 ships. (Do they even make a frying pan that size?)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 01:43 pm: Edit

Perhaps this prospect, were it to actually be something that could be considered for the ADB Shapeways project, might be best kept to one of two options. The first being for 1:2500 "Prestige" scale minis, as noted above; the second for those 1:7000 sprues of tournament cruisers, for players seeking to run SFB tournament events at game conventions, once post-pandemic circumstances permit such things to happen once again.

Those might appear to be the most likely cases in which a miniature collector would not prefer to paint their minis themselves. (Not that I have any proper data to back up such rampant speculation...)

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Actually, I wonder if there were some means for custom paint schemes to be ordered with this new system in a reasonably viable manner, without obliging the miniature designer to be the one to have to do this each time.

Say, if someone wanted to custom-order a certain ship name and NCC registry for a Prestige scale Federation CA. Or, perhaps, to work up their own "feather" pattern on a would-be 1:2500 scale Paravian CA, were such a miniature to ever be offered.

Of course, if sticking with a single colour pattern (and starship registry) per miniature was the only viable option, well and good.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 03:11 pm: Edit

The technology does not support "custom paint schemes". To do such a thing on Shapeways, the modeler would have to prepare a new file (or set of files) that includes the custom color-location data and ADB would have to do administrative management of it.

Other sites that do such things rely on different, server-based real-time modeling tools. So far, all of the Shapeways files are static and loaded into their system up-front.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 03:12 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Of course, if sticking with a single colour pattern (and starship registry) per miniature was the only viable option, well and good.

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By David Bostwick (Zarquon) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 05:31 pm: Edit

Is there any cost data for the new material?

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - 10:31 pm: Edit

Are there any plans for a Paravian RMS?

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 11:57 am: Edit

The Paravian heavies are being worked on. Might get one in for review for this next batch.

By Steve Stewart (Stevestewart) on Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 11:34 am: Edit

A while ago I suggested that a "Federation Legacy" sprue for the 7000 series would be a good addition. I suggested 1xOCA, 2xOCL, 2xDD and 1xVT or POL (SVC thought the VT was better) as the ships to be included. I now can't remember where I posted that suggestion (sorry!) but was wondering if SVC's initial thoughts of "looks like a good mix bit but as it involve FJ ships might be a little tricky" had made any progress?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 12:39 am: Edit

RE: F&E Fleet Markers

So, I’m looking for ways to improve the visual look of the F&E board, in particular the flat cardboard fleet and reserve counters. I’d like to see if there is a way to replace them with little 3D models of the iconic racial ships (Klingon D7, Fed CA, Rom WE, etc), and use them instead of the fleet counters. So the map would have little 3D D7 fleet models marching across the map as the superior Klingon fleets pillaged and subjugated the lesser races (as it should be).

Ideally, the fleet marker models would be on little stands (or incorporate little stands), with perhaps the fleet name somehow written each one? Or perhaps a small holder for the actual fleet counter held at a 45 degree-ish angle so one could easily read which fleet a particular model corresponds to? Or perhaps different colored materials could be used to differentiate between different fleets, or between fleet markers and reserve markers? Or perhaps different colored materials could differentiate between the races, along the lines of the counters? So the Klingon models would be black, the Fed blue, the Rom red, etc.

Now I know there is a whole current Shapeways infrastructure with many different ships available at different sizes, etc. That is, however, not something I know much about as I haven’t gotten into Shapeways and in decades gone by my gaming group didn’t really get into the old SFB metal model thing. So there is a bit of a gap in my knowledge here. So, my questions:

1. Has this been done before and/or does this already exist?

2. Does this sound like an interesting idea to anyone else?

3. Are there any small, pre-existing Shapeways models that could be repurposed for this?

3. If there isn’t anything really suitable, would it be possible to repurpose/rescale some of the existing Shapeways computer models and create such fleet markers?

4. Is this a viable/realistic idea?

Thanks.

--Mike

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 01:13 am: Edit

Mike,

The 7000-scale miniatures (https://www.shapeways.com/shops/amarillo-design-bureau-inc?section=7000+Scale+%28Elite%29&s=0) fit standard hexes, so that covers your question 3. You could paint them or add ID's on the bases yourself. I don't know if adding them to the bases of the models and creating Fleet marker sets would be viable, that's SVC territory. But I think it sounds like a FANTASTIC idea.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 09:02 am: Edit

Perhaps this could be another use for the High Definition Full Colour material linked to in a previous post.

As in, should ADB find this new material to be worth considering, one could potentially offer a set of "pre-painted" fleet markers for the various empires currently supported in Federation & Empire (Federation, Klingon, ISC, etc).

Maybe also alternate paint schemes for would-be Romulan, Kzinti, and Lyran fleet marker sets, based on their "rebel" counters from F&E Civil Wars? (Or even an alternate set of Fed fleet markers, based on some of the material in SFB Module R4J...)

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 12:32 pm: Edit

That’s...kind of getting way ahead of things, especially as I can’t find any examples of actual models on Shapeways in the HDFC to even try to do a rough benchmark on pricing - let alone considerations of how much designer time would be involved in creating files with the necessary color information etc.

I think looking at something like https://www.shapeways.com/product/BKSQW7MCF/7000-scale-klingon-fleet-core-collection-wem but with the fleet marker names added to the bases (abbreviated to like Home, North, North RSV, TBS, etc as needed) would be a much more reasonable starting point.

There’s still the questions of: use all the same ship model or keep it a mix? Can 8 ships fit in the build area for printing or would there need to be two 4-ship items (Klingon F&E Fleet Markers A & B)? Is even this over thinking it and the handful of people that insistent on such an accessory for their games can just get some existing 1/7000 scale ships and do it themselves?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 01:00 pm: Edit

It might actually be better to have the 7000 minis with a little slot in the base where you could insert the counter for the fleet.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 03:14 pm: Edit

I can definitely see that being a bit easier - and friendly to people making their own fleet markers, the extra ones in expansions, etc. In fact, do a slot front and back and then we have a use for duplicate fleet markers!

Personally, I'd like a mix of hulls for such use - more visual variety and aid in remembering, say, the Gorn DN is the Home Fleet marker while the BDD is the Mobile Fleet at a glance.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 05:18 pm: Edit

The 7000s look interesting. For the Roms the Snipe looks about the right size. For the Klingons the F5 looks pretty close, but somewhat bigger than the Snipe. For the Feds the FF looks pretty close to the size I envisioned.

I'm concerned that if the ship model is too large one might have trouble maneuvering around it when things get crowded. The D7 and CA, for example, look pretty big. But perhaps in practice they play smaller than they look?

Aside: The 7000 C8, in particular, is probably way too big, although I'd still want one for the fleet making the final assault on the Federation capital. Victory cigar.

Would it be possible to shrink down the D7 to Snipe size? I'm more interested in the shape and fitting on the board than the right scale compared to other ships.

Rather than slots for the fleet markers, how about notches to allow the fleet marker to lean against the shaft of the stand, so it might be easier to read them (at an angle) and have more clearance room between the base of the stand and the bottom of the ship?

I was also thinking two notches for fleet markers, one on each side of the model. So, if the fleet is going E-W or W-E players on either side of the gaming table could see the counter text. Or if there is space, possibly up to 4 notches/slots, one for each direction? Then players could choose which orientation(s) and how many counters are right for them.

And yes, here is a use for those multiple fleet counters.

This seems more possible than I thought possible initially. Fingers crossed!

--Mike

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 24, 2021 - 10:11 pm: Edit

SCULPTORS, would any of you care to give this idea a whirl? Just a sample set to see if the whole idea is crazy?