"15mm starships with playable interiors" Topic

Serious question:

How much would you be willing to pay for a starship, let's say a single deck small trader/courier maybe 18"-24" long with a lift-off top and playable interior?

What about a small single deck military ship like a corvette about 36" long?

could be used as a table objective, piece of terrain, RPG battle/encounter map, etc…

I assume you are talking 15mm in a lovely, Traveler kinda way?

I'm intrigued: for roleplaying it sounds fab, especially i I could lift the lids on the rooms one at a time (would make it easier to cast as well, I suspect).

Three feet long? Gee, that had better just sit on the table as floorplan, I suspect.

How much would I pay? One million pounds sterling, sir, seeing as the quality of the stuff you make is so nice…

Oh, you wanted a senssible answer?

Ummm. Not sure… £150.00 GBP – £200.00 GBP if it was really nice?

John T

I suspect that the price point would put it well beyond the point where I would just scratch build one myself. I imagine that if it was MDF with a good amount of 3D detail, including add on pieces you glue over the wall rather than detail etched into the MDF sheet itself I would be willing to pay about $100. USD anything more than that, or simple one piece etched MDF walls, and I would just spend the time making my own from foamcore. I would guess that making if you made it out of resin the shipping would easily be so much that I wouldn't buy it. Now if you vacuum formed it like Combat Wombat just showed us he's doing with his not-deathstar terrain I would think that you could make a great balance between detail, shipping costs and production time.

I figure "find the price point, then figure out the construction". My initial idea is some MDF structure, floor and interior walls with some resin details, and vacu-formed hull. Then there could be additional detail parts if you wanted, like engines, landing gear bay, etc.

There was a guy at Origins two years ago selling floor plans for the same. I bought about 6 of them. I think they were $50. USD So I guess if I would pay $50 USD for 6 printed out versions I'd be willing to pay $150 USD or so for an actual ship that I could use. Especially if I could put it on the table as a piece of terrain that figures could go in.

Now those were in 28mm, so maybe $100 USD for 15mm.

with a lift-off top and playable interior?

Nice idea but I've tried this in the past and the relatively small size of the rooms just make the whole thing too fiddly. Simple floor plans work just as well with a bit of imagination.

OTOH perhaps you could try and do something with the Terra Blocks system by Sally 4th?
link

Nice idea but I've tried this in the past and the relatively small size of the rooms just make the whole thing too fiddly.

Depends on how many rooms and height of the walls.

The 'lift-off top' thing would be too fiddly for my liking. However, if someone were to make a set of die-cut 15mm SF tiles on decent heavy card stock, like the tiles in Space Hulk but with a 20mm grid, I'd be all over that like a tramp on chips.

(Yes, I know Litko make a laser-cut MDF corridor system, but it's bare wood. I'd like something pre-printed and ready to use out of the box.)

not very much. I'm cheap.

For me, the big question would be, "How often is the going to get used?" If I'm running Traveller, how often would the PC's ship be the target of a boarding action?

I feel as though I'd want to have a lot of other ship types available, which would push the cost through the roof.

If this is going to be used for running tactical combats, along the lines of Snapshot, is the layout interesting enough to want to play in this again and again?

I think that the answer is that it just wouldn't be worth it at any reasonable price.

Sorry about being a downer, but I'm trying to give an honest response and spell out some of the problems that I see. I suspect that you've already thought of these and are looking for price-point information from the folks who would want one.

I think DSG should give a little more detail as to how you play with these. The reason they have a exterior .if was just interior you could just purchase walls and interior detail parts to play. :)

Sounds neat, especially for the scenic models.

Less so, I suspect for the interior and/or deckplans, since to me, the really small Traveller-like vessels were about as interesting and dynamic as fighting in a hallway. Unless of course, you decide to breach through cabin walls, etc.

Personally, I think that unless there are two or more corridors, or decks, you might as well just set your figs up on a piece of paper, or in some sort of channel/hallway, since there's no tactical nuance option available, other than the straight-on frontal attack.

So, hopefully you've got excellent body armor, smoke/gas/knock-out grenades, or something else in your bag of tricks to be able to survive the assault.

More for a clever set of Tiles/Space Dungeon than for a actual model.

Get some paper and layout the actual sizes of say, a Freetrader from Traveller in 1/100th scale. Heck even Traveller's smallcraft are Huge…..

Not to bash Darkest Star who asked an honest question, but this is a problem best solved by reconfigurable paper terrain. World Works Games or Dave Graffam Models would do the trick, though there's always room for new styles and ideas in that market :)

Nice idea but I've tried this in the past and the relatively small size of the rooms just make the whole thing too fiddly.

Depends on how many rooms and height of the walls.

Not so much the number of rooms (that just determines how big the whole thing is) but the height of the walls definitely causes problems. If you try and build a 15mm model of a Traveller scout ship with walls the correct height you literally cannot get your fingers in to some of the spaces!

We have used items for shuttles and drop ships like the large thunderbirds

One gamer showed us the fantastic mega blocks halo dropships

Anything larger we tend to use tiles from games like space hulk or the printable gun crawl ones from ebbles?.
The big spaceship poster maps look very nice and we would most probable use those instead of an actual model to be honest.

The ratio of "How Often would I use it" versus "What would it cost" would negate any fantasy ideas of buying one I fear.

Thanks for the input guys, I do appreciate it. Been doing a lot of thinking and experimenting. I don't know if I want to divulge too much as the risk of getting "claim jumped" is too high, but in the end the models I am developing are for personal use and I was just exploring to see if the development costs could be offset by finding public interest.

So ya, there is the paper route, which I've used in the past. Used World Works quite a bit, and printed deck plans for Traveller, and they work great for that sort of thing. The ships I am working on aren't intended for any current game or RPG, but something much more over the top. They'd probably be too small for "true sized" Traveller ships, or any hard SF game, but in the RPG worlds might be appropriate for something like the old West End Games Star Wars RPG, where you don't have to account for too much reality in ship design.

Anyways, it's all a ways off. With DSG and the writing for THW that I have penciled in and some work on another HUGE and crazy fun convention game it'll be at least a year before any fruits are born. But I will keep y'all updated!

If you wish to make something bigger you may try to use modular system we released last month:

link

link

Especially combination of mid-tech and hi-tech elements. Maybe it's not the cheapest solution, but very sturdy and universal.

Regards,
Marcin

I was looking at the details be etched in the rooms on a set I was doing.

Figured that would allow figs to move through.

Drop in another floor for changing the room.

Made the walls about 10mm high so that it was easy to see reach it all.

A modular system with rooms, hall ways and crawl tubes.

Maybe this year I can get if finished up.

I remember Mr. Harold working on something a while back:

TMP link
TMP link

Dan

Been toying with this idea for a while. Want to have a 15mm Space Hulk style ship, lots of rooms, corriders and stuff.

I've got a pair of mock-ups done already. Had to increase size of spaces on the second to get fingers into it, even with half walls. BTW, Doing a full ship MODEL to Traveller spec won't allow it to be playable…

Heck I coulda told ya that…..

Yea, those corridors in little ships are pretty narrow.

Need to make them at least Star Wars-esque widths to work, which will look rather strange on smaller vessels.

Large, plastic tweezers, or some sort of push-stick (like they used in those WWII movies for moving aircraft units on the tabletop during the Battle of Britain) would work for the movement of the minis in narrow spaces.

I suspect low walls, and medium width corridors are probably the answer, if you/we just don't fall back on the plain old deck plans without walls.

Hate to say it, but if you want raised detail on corridor walls, you have to use a 1 inch base grid to be playable.

Ya, it's a battle between my architect's brain that screams "make it a realistic model!" and my gamer's brain that screams "make it fun to play!" The later is winning by significant margins, though making some concessions. This sort of battle happens with most models I deal with, and is why I have a hard time buying vehicle models that have ton of greeblies just for the sake of having them (yes, they tend to paint up well and dry brush easily, but I've moved away from speed painting having become reacquainted with my airbrush) and there being no identifiable function. I'm seeing a professional now for help, but I fear it may be a long road…

But back to ships! I have no problem now with 1" wide corridors for gamey ships. Mount the figs on pennies, all good. OR, mount them on magnets and have a this metal floor with card on top for grids, painting, and decoration… working on that next, as it also allows placing metal sheets on the hull for external battles as part of boarding actions, of just slapping on radars, turrets, and shield generators….

I'm seeing a professional now for help, but I fear it may be a long road…

If it works out, your professional will be set for life: TMP alone could generate him(or her) a queue a mile long!

'Coz we're all normal here!

John T