1 Topic by Admiral Pertwee

(4 replies, posted in Starmada)

This is an additional advanced rule I've been looking at for making fuel a limiting factor. It's intended for more realistic hard science fiction universes where ships require lots of reaction mass and have a limited supply of fuel for manoeuvring. It is intended to be used with the vector movement system but could probably also work with the normal movement rules.

If this rule is used it must apply to all ships as it must be a part of ship construction. In addition a battle between ships requiring fuel and those that don't would be massively un-balanced. Those that used no fuel would both out gun and out manoeuvre those that did with ease.

Advanced rule - Limited Fuel Supply

When designed each ship must have the Fuel trait, devoting a number of SU to this determined by the designer. This is a munitions trait that generates a number of fuel points equal to SU x 10/Ship size. Fuel points are spent for the ship to manoeuvre. Each time the ship uses thrust to speed up, slow down or change course this costs one point of fuel per point of thrust used. Ships that run out of fuel may no longer manoeuvre but may still fight.

This option may be incompatible with fighters and drones as written given their speed and unlimited fuel. I'm also not sure how this should affect calculating the ships combat rating. For the moment until I get feedback or can test this I'm assuming that fuel has no cost. The SU it uses reduces the ships other systems combat capacity so a ship with more would have less combat power. I'd be interested if anyone could suggest an alternative for this or a more

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2 Reply by Admiral Pertwee

(21 replies, posted in Miniatures)

by starbreaker on Thu Jan 07, 2010 2:07 pm

There's no need to convert the entire mini to printed plastic, and in fact there are probably advantages to not doing so since Shapeways costs rise very rapidly as volume increases. Using Brigade pewter for the relatively bulky hulls while remaking the towers and sails with better detail and mounting points would be the best of both worlds, although it's unclear what it will do to price points - ought to save on shipping weight, though. The "spindly bits" are extremely low-volume, which is what you want in 3D printing.

I was actually thinking almost the opposite, since getting the hull shapes both correct and to scale looks like it would be the hardest part of making an Iron Star miniatures master. The hulls on larger models would not need to be solid, depending on how strong the material used is they could be as hollow as plastic aircraft kits are. 

Costs for smaller ships could be further reduced by making them available in squadron packs or even fleet packs as well as individual models so that the $1.50 base cost is paid once rather than for each model.

by starbreaker on Thu Jan 07, 2010 5:32 pm

Trust me, it's physically impossible to cast truly thin sails or open-lattice towers in pewter. Brigade did about the best you can do with the current versions. They might (and probably should) cast the hulls (remastered or no) in pewter, but you're going to need the add-ons in plastic for the full effect.

This would be the detail that would need to be cleared from the 3D model that I noted earlier. The existing models would definitely need some modification before they could be used, including thickening or replacing details, hollowing out and breaking up into suitable pieces. Scalling different ships against each other might also be tricky.  That being the case it might be worth seeing how much work this would be per model, possibly doing a test run for a single model to find out.

EDIT: Theres also the option of producing different models of the same ship both with and without the solid "sails". If I remember there were people on the forum who wanted to remove and replace these with wire mesh.

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3 Topic by Admiral Pertwee

(21 replies, posted in Miniatures)

I recently stumbled across this On Demand 3D Printing company called Shapeways.
http://www.shapeways.com/

What caught my attention is the fact that Charles Onies, a 3D sculptor who did a lot of the miniatures for Ad Astra games is using it to produce his own line of starship miniatures which I have to say look amazing.
http://www.shapeways.com/shops/irrationaldesigns

It got me thinking if it would be possible to use this service to produce miniatures for Starmada and Iron Stars, either directly by setting up a shop on their website or by making masters for moulds that Brigade Models could use. The service seems competitive as cost is based solely on the type and amount of material used and there are tips for reducing this given on their website. The prices range from about $4 for the smallest ships to about $25 - 30 for the largest ones using plastic. Steel is also available and could be used for mould masters if the plastic isn't suitable.

From the images used in the Starmada and Iron Star books it looks like you already have the 3D models so how much work would it take to turn them into something that could be printed out using this service.? This would probably mean cleaning some of the finer details away and breaking the model down into separate components in the same pattern as the recent Gamma Class Destroyer i.e. separate sails with a part of the hull attached and separate turrets.

I've ordered some of the Charles Onies miniatures and will report back on what they are like when they arrive. The prices listed excluded VAT but did include postage and packing to the EU.

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4 Topic by Admiral Pertwee

(3 replies, posted in Iron Stars)

Just to be clear, I love the Iron Stars Miniatures by Brigade, my only complaint is that they haven't brought the range of what's available up to the same level as, for example Aeronef.

Recently though Ad Astra games announced that they had an agreement with Sci-Fi SkunkWerks to produce a series of large scale 1/1500th scale miniatures (double the size of the existing Ad astra minis) for Attack Vector: Tactical. The miniatures are being prepared from existing CGI ship images, like (I assume) the ones in the Iron Stars books, using some form of CAD to create the resin hull components and a number of photo etched and clear acrylic pieces.

So what are the chances that something like this could happen for Iron Stars?  The game line and universe is great and highly detailed large scale minis of the ships shown in the game books would be deeply, deeply cool.  It might also allow for other modelling techniques to be used to build the minis such as using a wire mesh to build the ships heat exchangers* rather than leaving them as solid. You might even be able to add screw propellers to the ships as depicted in the ship illustrations.

The only problem I can see would be finding some one interested enough and talented enough to do the job, since Sci-Fi SkunkWerks' looks like it will be booked up for the foreseeable future making the AVT ships.

*I think that's what the “sails” are, I can't remember seeing anything stating their exact function and if the ships ether screws are driven by steam turbines then its going to need a massive heat exchanger system to condense steam from the boilers back to water for reuse.

Links
http://www.adastragames.com/new.html (Check in the Miniatures catagory).
http://www.scifiskunkwerks.com/ten-worlds.html
http://scifiskunkwerks.blogspot.com/

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