"Spherical starship miniatures... Where did I see 'em...?" Topic

Hi all,

Google-fu isn't — urm — fu-ing right now…

I could swear on a stack of Imperium counter sheets that I once stumbled on someone on the internet with a range of spherical starships. Think dropships from Battletech or the Tigress class BB from Traveller.

Aside from the Iron Wind BT line, does anyone else know of such a line? Was it a dream? My subconscious telling me to make such a line? Or is this the start of my memory's slow decay from a stable orbit…?? O_o

Perhaps on Shapeways? The Starfire Design Studio page sells Terran warships that are spherical: link

The The Terran battleships and superdreadnaughts also have spherical aspects.

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

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hi

this post reminds me of the classic H. Beam Piper Space viking ships.

I recall seeing some made from Ping-Pong balls, and posted here, or on-line.

Check out Google images for scratch-built Imperium ships.

The guy used some sort of thin, ribbed ring from a flashlight to go around the center, IIRC, and perhaps BB gun pellets for the thrusters.

The large "monitors" and other vessels were painted red, and all the vessels were designed to match the ship counters in shape, from the game, Imperium.

From "Tempests in a Teapot" blog:

link

Looks superb!

Spherical spaceships would be, I think, a good introduction to scratch building

Only sphere ships I know of are Ad Astra's realstic designs, which are more a sphere attached to a stick attached to a hedgehog: link

Thanks, all!

I hadn't seen the scratchbuilds from 'Tempests in a Teapot' before. Nice find!

But I think Scott's link to the Shapeways store is the winner here. The ships there ring some bells. I think I was browsing Shapeways once, whilst undergoing some particularly nasty medical treatment a few months back, which may explain my fuzzy recall.

I've always liked the design aesthetic of the ovoid dropships in Battletech; just seems to make sense to me that a 'real' starship would most likely solve a lot of design issues with a spherical hull, particularly those relating to maintaining pressure inside the volume.

And there's something rather scary about a great big ball of death heading your way. The very form of a sphere suggests impregnability, and the fact that its creators didn't make it for its looks. It's here to get serious.

Looking at the size of this dropship, I'd say that's getting up to battleship proportions. (Honestly, how does it take-off??)

Scratchbuilding some could certainly be fun, but I might use this as a chance to exercise some digital 3D printing skills…

Thanks again, everyone!

All from Iron Wind Metals. They are part of the Battletech line. There are a few more I did not list.

All ships were spherical throughout Terro Human history.

I'm feeling inspired…

Re: Battletech ships.

I loved the Battletech design ideas, but their rules system was always klunky.

The Dropships actually don't have FTL. They are carried on Jumpships, which are several hundred meters long.

The history of the battletech universe is that after centuries of the succession wars much of the ability to create the great warships of the Star League era had been lost. So there was a battlefield agreement not to target the FTL jumpships. The dropships often fought however, with most battles being planet based fighters trying to intercept and destroy invading groups of drop ships.

There's also some capable small ships that are dedicated combat platforms that a jumpship could carry, and several versions of dropships that acted as light carriers.

Eventually with a tech find and the invasion of the Clans Warship tech was rediscovered, and the huge kilometer long ships were beginning to be brought back to life.

Anyway, lots of fun stuff in the supplements and some good websites out there if you are interested.