"Aotrs Shipyards June/July Release: New Deltas" Topic

Aotrs Shipyards is a webstore on Shapeways.com, a 3D print house which had production and shipping facilities located in the USA and the the Netherlands.

Bit of a very late June/ slightly early July release, depending on how you look at it (between holidays and other work)!

This time, we have two new delta vessels: the Delta Supercruiser and the Delta Superdreadnought Upgrade! In addition, we have Beta Screen Drones for both starship and the Heorsine's 144th (10 or 12mm) ground forces.

(All photoes are of the Replicator 2 prototypes.)

Delta Supercruiser

This was a sufficiently large monster (16cm – a full mile 1.6km in nominal ship scale) that I had to print this in four parts, otherwise it distorted off my build plate! (This is why you can see the lines – one of the advantages of WSF is, of course, that the production models won't suffer from that!)

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Delta Superdreadnought Upgrade

This is essentially the older SDN model with new (and denser) surface detail (something I did on commission).

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Beta Screen Drones

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Beta Screen Drone (144th)

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Next month – all being well -we should FINALLY see the first arrivals of the elenthar race (a group of aliens as factionalised, divided and distributed as humans) in the form of the Xyriat Hegemony'a Hegemonic Navy!

Really nice!

Who does your printing?

I, for one, would like to see the large ones next to some Galactic Knights' Terrans. I'd think they'd slot in in rather well.

Doug

@ Mad Mecha Guy

I have a Replicator 2 at home, where I do the majority of my own printing, as both a prototyping process[1] and for my own models. The Shipyards store itself uses Shapeways.

Rep 2 quality is medianly about the same as Shapeways soimetimes (e.g. the 144th Beta Screendrone) – though for models like the Delta supercruiser and the fleet-size Betas, due to the size and amount of detail, Shapeways will come out better; in the former not leats because it can be printed in one piece, not four that I have to stick together and despite my best efforts, not make as good a job as I might have liked. (But given it takes about 5-6 hours to print one, it'll do…!)

[1]Basically to keep my own overheads/expendatures down and expediently get things past the basic "did I frack summat up" tests.

@TheBeast

I don't have any personally, but most of the more recent deltas (these two included) were done on commission, and the gentleman in question I believe does play Galactic Knights, so I believe the larger deltas are on the same sort of model size.

(Scale is a more nominal issue! I personally work on the nominal assumption of 1:10000th (1mm to 10m) with fighters being roughly 1:1500 and smaller ships (like the Beta screen drones, in reality only about 5m long) would be about 1:750 and larger smallcraft up to 1:4000th (basically, sized big enough to be visible as models, but not much bigger than actual capital starships.)

Of course, the thing about starship models is in general, it largely doesn't *matter* what scale I nominally choose (it's not like the difference between even 144 at 100th (10/12mm and 15mm)), as the end user can fit'em to whatever ame/scale etc they are playing…!)

Scale/size were not in my observation; purely stylistically, I think they'd be smashing. ;->=

Doug

@TheBeast

As it so happens, the gentleman in question reads these very forums, and has very kindly *tips hat* sent me some photos of the comparison!

He says from left to right on the shots with four ships are the GK Super Galactic Dreadnought, Delta supercruiser, GK Galactic Dreadnought and Delta Superdreadnought Upgrade.

…and has very kindly *tips hat* sent me some photos of the comparison!

Pass on my thanks, as well, though I must say, he should be one VERY happy camper, and the piccies appear to be proof of same.

Except for the part where the supercruiser is larger than the superdreadnought… ;->=

Doug

Well, if I may address that last part:

"Supercruiser" is an (internal) terminology (which actually predates my starting Full Thrust and such and thus goes back… probably nearly a quarter century); a largely-catch-all classification, designating vessels of exceptional size (the sort of 1 mile plus range).

Whereas "superdreadnought" is really a Full Thrust hold-over meaning "a bigger dreadnought" – which really speaks to its role as much as its size (as opposed to he similar sized "heavy carrier") – "supercruiser" is more of a purely size-based identifier. (Many, if not most supercruisers tend to also function as carriers – the obvious example being the Imperial Star Destroyer*.)

It's not-quite-but-nearly a full category in the line of "smallcraft," "capital ship" to "supercruiser."

(And really, once you have passed "dreadnought" there isn't anywhere to go but to start recycling.)

That said, what one race/nation calls one thing and what another calls it varies; vessel classifications tend only to be consistent within each fleet (and sometimes not even then). The Ziragthargum "medium cruiser" and the Stone Portal "light cruiser" are the size of many other race's standard "heavy cruisers; the Saiyvalyss Alliance (whose starfleet which may *very strongly* resemble GZG's "new" FSE…) dont' have "battlecruisers" in their terminology but instead have "cruiser destroyer" (i.e. a vessel which destroys cruisers – coming from the same logic than gave us "destroyers" – which were originally "friagte destroyers").

And aside from that what YOU choose to call it is entirely up to your keeping. The fluff that comes with my vessels releases does so because I feel that it ought to, to give the vessel some personality. But at the same time, it is *entirely* fluff to be used and/or ignored as one sees fit. (And even then, mostly designed to be "plugged in" to your existing universes.)

(Though one day, when I possibly evenrtually get around to release Acceleate & Attack, my rules (hey, it's only been, what, thirteen years…) there will be some mechanics as well.)

*Which, pertinently, is a "destroyer" significantly larger than a "dreadnought…!"