Oolite Bulletins

That's too bad. What was their reasoning?

El Viejo wrote:

This article may be of interest, as regards 3D printers.

Thanks for sharing, El Viejo. I even saw most of them at the 3D Print Show in London last year.

maik wrote:

That's too bad. What was their reasoning?

Not that I know, but I imagine making miniature models is something that Frontier foresee themselves doing in the future. So, given that the terms of the £4500 writers pack transfer the rights of the work to the author/creator, allowing models to be created would be potentially competing with themselves. They could of course allow a limited production run, but I can see that getting very complicated.

Gimi wrote:

maik wrote:

That's too bad. What was their reasoning?

Not that I know, but I imagine making miniature models is something that Frontier foresee themselves doing in the future. So, given that the terms of the £4500 writers pack transfer the rights of the work to the author/creator, allowing models to be created would be potentially competing with themselves. They could of course allow a limited production run, but I can see that getting very complicated.

I thought that the model data of the core ships was put into the public domain by Bell. At least they are downloadable from his site. Then again, IANAL.

The original ships are available for free use, but there would no doubt be some sort of kick-off if someone (i.e. me) starting selling models of the ships for profit.

The 3D models for the new ships aren't finalised yet and thus FD are reluctant to release the concept models.

The main sticking point is that the writer's pack is a license for a book - a license to design and sell miniatures of the ships is a totally different thing. Michael has hinted that a separate discussion may be considered about ongoing miniature production later in the Elite: Dangerous production.

A grey area in my head is that the card miniatures might suffer from the same issues. I need to clarify that, really.

I just found out yesterday that because I have access to the writer's forum (as GalCop Background Guy) I also have access to the DDF. I think Michael is OK with this because the theory is that WHEN my KS succeeds I'll get access to both anyway. SO WOOOOO.

Miniatures aside (and - while a love a mini starship as much as anyone - a nice big flat cardboard counter along the lines of the old FASA Star Trek board game would do me, at a pinch), are you planning on having deck plans for ships and stations? And starports too?

Selezen wrote:

A grey area in my head is that the card miniatures might suffer from the same issues. I need to clarify that, really.

That will be interesting to find out!

Disembodied wrote:

Miniatures aside (and - while a love a mini starship as much as anyone - a nice big flat cardboard counter along the lines of the old FASA Star Trek board game would do me, at a pinch), are you planning on having deck plans for ships and stations? And starports too?

2D Hex counters will indeed be included. They were always part of the plan, included as part of the counter so that the option would be there to either build the full 3D miniature as well as the 2D one.

I see that Monopoly is getting a refresh, the 'Iron' player counter is being replaced by a 'Cat' one. Wonder is something more abstract would work for yourselves?

NigelJK wrote:

I see that Monopoly is getting a refresh, the 'Iron' player counter is being replaced by a 'Cat' one. Wonder is something more abstract would work for yourselves?

Probably not - the miniatures are being designed to represent something specific.

I have to wonder about those miniatures, given all the choices you see at Shapeways:

http://www.shapeways.com/search?q=cobra+mk+III

These cufflinks make me want to dress up...

Nice dice in your latest update, Dave! Where/how are they being made? CNC milling for the logo? Cdr. Cody etching it with his military laser?

LOL. No, not etched my military laser. Not yet. Need bigger dice for that.

I got a quote for the design from a "local" dice manufacturer (local meaning IN THE UK). Took longer than I thought to get the design into a printable fashion because, as I lament quite often, the ELITE logo is quite intricate. Then there was a mix up on size, then quantity, then size and quantity together, then... Oh, the pain. But at least I've managed to get a ballpark figure for the costs now...

The miniatures are card ones. Not full 3D, or at least that's not the plan at the moment. I'm being conservative because Frontier haven't finalised the designs for the ships so I don't know what I will have to draw and how complex it will be to construct a miniature at that sort of scale. For original Elite ships it was easy because they were all solid blocks and they're easy to build at any size. For a 25mm scale ship model you're looking at 2.5cm in length and making something out of card at that scale is a nightmare. The costs for 3D printing are HUGE and I'm not allowed to produce the models outside of the Kickstarter as things currently stand, so outlay for any kind of fancy printing set-up would be ill-advised. I even looked at buying a 3D printer using the funds and producing the 3D models under license, but FD aren't keen on that idea.

The miniatures are proving to be a problem at the moment, to be honest. I may have to compromise on the original design idea and fall back on a concept I developed with the MadCap designs. I'm not going to say anything more on that just now, as it would be more suited to a KS update. It's a bit frustrating, to be honest.

Selezen wrote:

The costs for 3D printing are HUGE

If it is not confidential, may I ask how huge, and for what quantities, sizes, and materials?