Been working on the ships some more. The escort with the removed big guns will be some sort of fast ship. Very lightly armed, but able to move really fast (maybe even with some sort of stealth thing). Mainly used for invasions and boarding actions, it is capable of transporting elite units fast and quietly.

The one with the missing bridge part (basically the other ship) is a heavier escort. A relatively slower ship, but able to give quite the punch due to its torpedos and plasma cannons (lances?).



I've also been busy updating the light cruiser. Some of the small gun turrets have been removed, it felt a bit too much. However, I did add something else to compensate that...

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Revisited my transport ship. Altered the design of the "ship" component a bit (including adding a few tiny turrest), as well as created a variant cargo component. Idea is that the ship is a two part kit, allowing you to add different kinds of cargo to it.


Also continued working on the escort craft, I've started detailing the wings:

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Another update on the escorts:





I've been tweaking the bridge components of the two ships, as well as some minor things here and there.

Shapeways just came out with some good news, seems we can now print out stuff in wax which, if I understand it correctly, will be pretty amazing. None of those nasty printlines, just a clean, smooth model that's ready to be cast! However, I've tried doing a test print, but for some reason Shapeways keeps telling me the model isn't suitable for printing in that material, which is odd since it follows all the parameters. Guess I'll have to contact Shapeways about it.

Luckily for me though, Shapeways is still testing the material, so it might improve in the coming months, enabling me to finish up the designs!

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Awesome job!!!

Is there more than one piece in the model? My test model was rejected for that reason.

The models are supposed to be single pieced. However, they consist of multiple components, it might be that Shapeways thinks the file consists of multiple parts because it has more than 1 component. Kinda annoying...oh well, I'll try to fix it!

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And yes, I fixed it! Single piece it is. Which is kinda frustrating if you have multi part models, meaning you'd need to print each part as a separate file, which would become rather expensive if you have a lot of them. Oh well...at least it's still half price or some of the other high end services I've encountered.

In the meantime though...

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OOOOOh that's nice work!

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What are the dimensions on these pieces?

Around 40mm long. I'll give you some more exact dimensions when I post the next update.

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Little update, now with dimensions!

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The big guns on the escorts have been bugging me for a while now, so I decided to make some variants!



The ship on the top/left (depending on which pic you're looking at) is a carrier craft, launching waves of fighters to intercept incoming ordnance, but are also capable of launching their own bomber waves to deal with larger targets. Its torpedo tubes are replaced for plasma batteries.

The other two ships are basically the same model, but with different weapons. Instead of launch bays, it is armed with additional turrets. Whilst not that effective against more armored targets, mass waves of fighters, bombers and torpedoes don't stand a chance against this configuration. Its prow weapon can either be the traditional torpedo tubes or plasma batteries.

All in all the models should be relatively easy to cast, the only potential challenge might be the launch bays and the plasma batteries, so I need to see whether this could be done as a single piece model, or if I might have to cut it up.

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Whilst the escorts are as good as done (besides the potential challenges regarding their casting), I've been paying some attention to the light cruiser again:

Still haven't started on the back of the ship yet, but I did work on a variant carrying plasma batteries...

In the meantime I've also delved into something different...


It's still a very early WIP. A lot of the structure still needs to be thought out, the plasma batteries will need some serious tweaking. One thing I'd like is that the domes are meant to be see through, the four outer structures would contain vast forests in their domes, but I doubt that would be a real possibility, kinda tricky to do perhaps? I guess it will take some experimentation.

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Paint my friend will be what is used to show what is in each dome. I'm assuming these will be separate pieces, you could make a dome with a big crack in it like it shattered and vented into space.

Very nice!

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