Blast From the Past

Since people are starting to really want a Fleet Scale Game for Robotech. I thought it would be a good time to knock the dust off these models and take a quick picture of them. This is just a sample of a few of the ships I have on hand. I still have an SDF-1 I need to finish up and several Zentraedi ships that are too low poly for even my taste.

So I took the Izumo and scaled it out to 1:10,000 just to see how much Shapeways would price it out. Well it priced out at $70. Granted its  4.8 inches long , 2.4 inches wide and almost 2 inches high.
If you take into account that this model is not hollow but just a solid mass, the pricing isn't bad. After all this is a Flagship and also known as the SDF-4 for many. But with a little bit of work, I know I could easily shave off a good $10 in price. Now for me a $60 ship is still way to highly priced unless it has a ton of detail. Currently most of these ships are in low poly format. No detail built into them other than, their body shape. turrets and weapon systems.  It wouldn't take much to start adding in the details. The issue with most of these ships is going to be wall thickness issues due to the thruster fins and even the thrusters them selves. Many of these parts would need to be reworked so it could print.

Anyways, I think this is very do-able the biggest problem that needs to be faced is what Scale do you do it in? And each race would most likely need to be in different scales to be able to make this work.

Crawler: Day Six

I know it some times appears that I am not getting much progress with the Crawler. Most of the changes seem minor in comparison to my Day Five Picture. I ran into to some issues with the mesh when it came time to cut into the front nose of the Crawler. I had to take a step back and redesign this section so that I could cut those series of vertical lines just right of the two bumpers. I finished out the major details on this nose section tonight while I was focused on this section. I had to readjust the crawlers rear end because it had the wrong angles. I also cut into the mesh on all three sides for that gap between the upper and lower half of the crawler. This led to some issues with the mesh that needed to be fixed. In between the crawlers tracks, I also cut into the lower hull to give it more of its saddle bag look. Also started putting in the fins on the back of the crawler, which I think might be some sort of heat sinks?

Its getting closer, next step is the turret / mount base and getting in the side details in place. After that is done, it will be time to cut into the mesh for the control arm with bucket attached.

Cooperative Play Mode: Robotech RPG Tactics

This is something that I have been working on in the back ground for the past month. The idea is to turn your Robotech Tactics into a quick paced Co-op Style Game where it is the players vs the Zentraedi. This system uses the RPG System which can be found starting on page 92 in the main rule book.

The concept is very easy and straight forward. You design your character using the AP point system out line on pages 93-94. As you accumulate kills you will be rewarded experience based on the AP value of that item. As you gain more experience, you accumulate more AP that can be used towards better Mech's and or Skills.

This Advanced Point System (AP) was to be used to cross over existing Robotech RPG Characters into the Robotech Tactics Tabletop game. However you can still use this system to get your own personal character started.

How To Start:
Each Player will get 10AP to start with to design their own character. They can pick a choose the Mech they want to use and any possible other skills they can afford
If the player wants to be in charge of a group of 3 units, including him self. They will gain an additional 5AP and 10AP to be spent on each of the two other pilots.
All Pilots that are done with this character creation are considered level: 0 Pilots.

Experience Level Break Down
Level 01: 50
Level 02: 100
Level 03: 150
Level 04: 200
Level 05: 250
Level 06: 300
Level 07: 350
Level 08: 400
Level 09: 450
Level 10: 500
Level 11: 550
Level 12: 600
Level 13: 650
Level 14: 700
Level 15  750

The AP Values of the Zentraedi on page 93 are the experience point values for that Mech when it is destroyed. Example: Regult has 5 AP for its value. Destroying one will give you 5 experience points to the character that finished it off. So if you destroy 10 Regults in one game you will receive 50 experience points which will bring you to level 1.

By achieving level 1 you now have 15 AP points to spend on your character. If you some how got to level 2 during a game you would have 30 AP points to spend on your character.

Levels 01-05: Pilots gain 15AP as they advance to their next level.
Levels 06-10: Pilots gain 10AP as they advance to their next level.
Levels 10-15: Pilots gain 5AP as they advance to their next level.

Up-grading your Characters:
The rules covers this fairly well in the book with the exception to changing what you want to pilot. To make this as simple as possible. Just add the value of the Mech you where piloting back into your AP pool. So If you where flying a VF-1A 5AP and you now want to fly a VF-1S 15AP. (5AP-15AP = 10AP) It will cost you 10 AP to make this up-grade happen with the trade in.

Zentraedi
Since this about immersing the players in a pitched battle against the Zentraedi War Machine.
All of the current rules for the Zentraedi are completely ignored. One more time, All of the Rules for the Zentraedi are ignored! This means we will not be using command points, we will not be taking count on missiles used, no faction ability to bring in more mechs. Which I know makes the Recovery Pod worth less but it is all about speeding up the game.

So with all of these changes how do the Zentraedi work?
They function with a very simplistic rule set.
Rule 1: They always advance towards their nearest target. If two targets are similarly in distance roll to see who they go after or the players may agree to who they should heading to.
Rule 2: They always attack the nearest target.
Rule 3: They always use the most damaging weapon system to hit their target with.
Rule 4: If the closest target is behind destructible cover. The Zentraedi will target the cover in an attempt to destroy it, unless the Mission Specifies the Zentraedi can not do this.
Rule 5: Recovery Pods: Any unit with the Life is Cheap ability if destroyed with in 8 inches of the Recovery Pod will come back into the game as possible Reinforcements on the next Zentraedi Spawn on a 4+ on a D6 roll. Place these units in a designated Reinforcement area for the Zentraedi Spawning.
Rule 6: Recon Pods: Follow a Special Rule set that will be describe in the Zentraedi Spawning section. If they are Jamming on a game turn, any Zentraedi with in 12 inches of a Recon Pod now has a -1 to be hit. Note: If in hand to hand combat there is no negative to hit.
Rule 7: Zentraedi Mechs avoid hand to hand combat unless they are Power Armor and or Infantry
Rule 8: Firing Missiles: All Volley X ability now only fires 1 single missile. All other Volley's are worked out as normal. Missiles are not used as apart of Anti-Missile defense. As a reminder Missiles are not tracked any more.
Rule 9: Squadrons are based upon what was rolled for the Zentraedi Spawn dice. If you only get 2 Battle Pod's then those 2 Pods are considered 1 squadron.
Rule 10: Zentraedi always use Anti Missile Defense, unless this ability is tied to Missile Weapon system.

Zentraedi Spawning

After you have your Mission picked out and your table set up it is time to place where the Zentraedi's are going to be spawning in on the game. These can be Mission Specific for a certain scenarios but the general rule is 1 Spawning in Point Per Player.

At the Start of the Game Turn a player rolls 6 Zentraedi Spawning Dice to determine what Zentraedi's show up at this location.

As you can see these dice use icons to determine what spawns in. Each dice has 3 blank sides and 3 Zentraedi Icons them. There is also a Zentraedi Symbols which will have to change to something else because of Trade Marks. These Symbols represent special Tactics the Zentraedi are going to use this turn. If you run out of Zentraedi's to place at the spawn points, use any that maybe in the Reinforcement area. Once you run out, you run out.

Zentraedi Tactics
1 Zentraedi Symbol:  Reinforcements!
Any units saved by the Recovery Pod comes in with this newly spawned group.
2 Zentraedi Symbols: Jamming!
All Recon Pod's are Jamming: All Zentraedi with in 12 inches of the Recon Pod now has a -1 to be hit. Note: If in hand to hand combat there is no negative to hit.
3 Zentraedi Symbols:  Flanked!
This group of Zentraedi has cut threw your defenses and is deployed on your table edge closest to your deployment zone.

If at one spawn point a player rolls and gets 2 Zentraedi Symbols this means all Recon Pods on the table get this ability for this turn. If at the second spawn point , you again roll 2 Zentraedi symbols this does not mean this event happens again so this does not mean it is now -2 to hit. Once an Zentraedi tactic has been rolled it can not be used again even if you roll it again on the same game turn. You can not also opt to take a tactic lower than the one rolled either. What you roll is the tactics you get for  this game turn.
Note: If you do not get the Reinforcements! Tactic on a game turn those units that are awaiting to be brought in as Reinforcements are now considered lost and not available for the next Zentraedi Spawning Phase.  If you want to make the game HARDER, ignore this rule and have fun with it!

Player Death: Very Optional!
In the Robotech Universe even Main Characters die. You don't have to follow this train of thought and opt for another way to handle Character Deaths. You always have the option to make a break for it and leave the table if a combat zone is getting to hot. But maybe you didn't want to leave a friend behind or just maybe you got hit with an incredibly lucky shot!

If your Characters Mech gets destroyed in-game Roll 1D6 for the result with these modifiers. Remember if you roll an 1 it is always an automatic fail, meaning death of your character.

+1 If One Friendly unit was within 6 inches of you.
+1 If you where behind cover, even partial cover.
+1 If you are Level 1-5
+2 If you are level 6 or Higher.


6: Alive!
5: Alive but Hurt! Next game suffer -1 to PIL
4: Severally Hurt! Next game suffer -1 to GUN
3: Hospitalized! Loose half of your earned AP for that game.
2: Dead
1: Dead

Later on I will work with developing Mission Scenarios to be used with this system or you can use the ones found in the book and adjust them accordingly.

Crawler: At Day Five

This will most likely be my last up-date for a few days. I spent the better half of my morning and afternoon working on the Crawler. I got the suspension for the tracks in place. Add more hatches to the top side of the hull. Got some of the recessed areas in place on the sides and still plenty of work that needs to be done to the crawler.

I will need to add in some of the other smaller details to the main hull before I start working on the launcher arm. By getting the basic shape of the arm and its turret in place, it will help me better understand where I should cut into the hull for the arm with the bucket.

Other than this, I had a slight glitch with my 3D Rendering program today. Since I normally Render these Meshes in 3D Max a good chuck of the new tracks & suspension where not showing up. I Rendered it in .Obj format and they were there but I had faces in the Mesh missing. So I went back tot he original model. and regrouped a bunch of the items into different subsections. Exported to 3D Max and what do you know, the tracks reappeared again. I think I am going to be running into more issues like this soon. Currently this 3D Mesh is sitting at 155,836 Polys and is roughly 4.3 Megs in size. Thankfully Shapeways can handle 64 Meg Files and 1,000,000 Polygon Meshes.  Now the big question is how much can my Laptop Handle.

Booster: Day Four

Well I never thought the crew compartment area would take this long. Sort of a tricky shape to keep those rounded features. I thinned down the side railings, which may bite me in the but when it comes to wall thickness checks in Shapeways. I left the ladder close to 1mm thick so it shouldn't break right off in printing. Added the front bumpers, I think I am going to add in more undercarriage detail to how these connect to the crawlers main body later. Got a good number of the front detailing in place. I am hoping that it is relatively flush enough with the hull that it will avoid wall thickness errors. I know the gaps between walls are not bigger than .03mm. 

 

Over all it is coming along nicely. I know when it comes time for the crane arm, that this one item alone will burn up a lot of time .So I am planning on doing two arms for it.  I am going to cut into the mesh so an arm can lay in place and if you want a fully extended arm you could just remove it and place the extended in its spot. When it gets closer to doing the Launching Arm, I want to design it so the Booster can securing mate to it. Allowing anyone to remove the Booster from the Crawler. I will also look into a flight stand for the Booster as well.

 

It is never as simple as all I need to do is build a Crawler and Booster. Nope, I start thinking of things I would want to do to it. Might as well design those features into the Mesh instead of an after thought. If its not do able its not do able, but I will give it a good effort before giving up on the idea.

 

I should focus on the suspension and gearing for the tracks tomorrow if I can find the time.

Booster: Day 3

I was able to make a little leeway on the Atmospheric Booster this afternoon. The Main Booster is not finished yet, the lower section needs to be adjusted so you can mate a Robotech Tactics VF to it. Since that process is going to be the most time consuming  I am going to leave it till last. Now with that in mind, I also need to make sure I have the Launch Arm done as well. Because this also connects to the underside of the Booster. There is no point in adjusting this lower Booster section once, then have to go back and readjust all that work for the Launching Arm.

So I am going to divert my focus on the Crawler. I got the basic shape meshed out this afternoon and part of its track section done. I'll tackle the suspension / drive train later on. The next major area I need to tackle is the crew compartment. By getting this in place it will give me something to recheck my over all dimensions of the crawler. Every major new piece that gets added onto this mesh, helps me to readjust the mesh. When your working with 3/4 view drawings it can be difficult locked down the right proportions. What I found that works well is to mesh it out and then render the mesh out in the same 3/4 view. The over all lines and proportions should match up when you do this.

Mech Bay: Work in Progress

What we have here is a single Mech Bay great for any Destroid with exception to the MAC 2.
The doors are 55mm High and 42mm Wide, the doors are large enough to fit any 40mm based UEF unit into it. When this Model becomes available the doors will not be printed in place. You will have to insert them into the door way tracks. Then slide the door back before inserting the next the door. The doors are .15mm thinner than the door way track so it is going to be a snug fit.

I am thinking about adding in some internal details so when the doors are open that is not just a blank wall. This should go nicely with the Barracks once it is done.

Booster: Work in Progress

Well we reached Day Two on the Booster. Ignore the bright  white VF that is used as a placement model to make sure my parts are all lining up correctly. This shot is a test fit of the upper Rocket Booster's. Those two upper portions still need to be hit with some smoothing. I will wait on doing that until I know all the parts are fitting correctly. The hard part is going to get Tactics Model portion of the VF to fit correctly in this Mesh. From the looks of it, since the VF's legs slump down a bit, like they do with the Super VF's Fast Packs. I might have to Mesh in those legs up to the air intakes to make this a smooth fit.

Next phase will be the low Rocket Boosters. The back half should be fairly painless, it is the front that is going to suck up a lot of time. If it gets to frustrating I will switch my efforts into Meshing out the Crawler for this Atmospheric Booster.

Arament: Defender Print Failure Up-date

I just received a notification that this model pack failed to print this morning. From what they are showing me the inner Vulcan Cannon barrels are .91mm thick. So they are off by .09mm since Shapeways requires a wall thickness of 1mm. Shapeways has a built in wall thickness scanner that checks your work every time you up-load a mesh. Some how this model passed with out issue but when it came time to print the Error was caught. I am not certain if this was before or after it was printed out.

Thankfully, this all happened on my day off when I was sitting in front of my computer working on another mesh. I quickly went in and thickened all of the inner barrels and realigned them again to keep their original look. I also added a center barrel to this Vulcan Cannon so that the six barrels have more inner structural support. Two of the round disks that hold these barrels in place looked a little shy of 1mm thickness. I went back and also increased these to meet the requirements. Hopefully this corrects the issue and also prevents any future ones on this model design.

Sorry for the delay and inconvenience.

Hopefully this fixes everything.


PS: This up-dated mesh passed the Shapeways wall thickness scanner with out issues. Granted so did the last mesh, for the time being I have placed this model in Beta until I know it prints correctly.

Work in Progress: Teaser

I had a little time to squeeze in my latest request. It is a long way from being done. You start out with the basic shape and start tweaking it about to get the look that you are aiming for. Once you believe you have the desired shape, then you start adding in more details and smoothing it all out. I am going to try to give this as much detail as possible that Shapeways will still allow to print. Once I know the mesh is good, I will go back and add in more details.

Hospital: Modular

Finally!! I built this Mesh a few weeks ago. 1st one had an RDF logo in the circular area of this model. I was nicely reminded to remove that (tm) logo out of the mesh. Then once I up loaded it to shapeways I was hit with sticker shock $250 plus dollars for this one model. Ummmm, no!
The only way I thought I could get around the high cost was to break this model up into three sections and make it modular. Sounds easy right? lol. Yeah, not so much the case. This is why it is important to design the mesh according to your needs. It took some time to cut this model up, fix all the edges and line the modular parts up so they fit right. Then on top of all that, Shapeways wall thickness errors. Yeah, I have spent over seven hours fixing wall thickness errors. Now remember I must have a wall thickness of .7mm or it generates these Errors. I am trying to shave off as much as I can to keep the build cost down. So I am extremely happy to report, that I was NOT shot down while riding a magic bicycle and the Mesh passed its quality checks.

So by making this Hospital Modular it gives you more building options. You have more choices to design the Hospital that you want. Like pictured above in the left corner, is just the Left and Center section. Pictured on the right is all three of the Hospital pieces. Each part is available on its own and then there is the option to have the whole building set printed out. Now in making it modular it actually cut some of the cost down but all increased it a bit because of new wall sections that were needed. I also have this aavailable in Sandstone. Not sure how much abuse it can take but by far it is more reasonably priced. This will give it a sandy texture thou,

I am just happy to get this Mesh out of the way. I have another project that I have been requested to do. the VF Space Booster and Launch Pad Vehicle. So count on seeing teasers of that project soon.

A Big Thank You For All the Support!

Today marks the most traffic this blog has seen in a day, 34 visits, in a little over a year since its inception. This is a big mild stone for me, considering 34 visits can be a weeks worth of traffic.

Plus on top of all that, there is my Shapeways store. I know I have been adding items like crazy the past few days and making corrections as quickly as possible. I still find it hard to believe that people are purchasing these items, who would have thought right? Every time I see a picture of one of my buildings or miniatures sitting on some ones table top , it catches me off guard. To see that people are enjoying them truly amazes me and leaves me kind of speechless.

So thank you guys / gals for all the support, it does not go unnoticed around here.

If you are wondering about the picture above. I originally did this for the Robotech MMO Project some 10 odd years ago. Enjoy the pic and Once again. Thank You!

Recon: Version 2 Packs Now Available & Hopsital: Modular

For the past few hours I have made it my mission to get some of these wall thickness errors fixed. So I can do more packs of Vehicles. I also included a Heavy Lifter & Recon Pack for those that want a mixture of vehicles.

I revisited the Hospital I designed over a week ago. This time I tore it apart and made it modular to you have options on how big you want your Hospital. It is currently broken into three sections. Center, Right Wing and Left Wing. All three of these parts can be buildings on their own if you desire it. Just be aware one face on the Wing Sections is blank because it is meant to mesh up with the Center Section. I will post pictures when I work out the rest of its Wall Thickness Errors.

Armament: Defender

This Kit will up-grade One Defenders Armament. Included are 2 Spot Lights, 2 Vulcan Cannons and 4 Micro Missile Launchers. I did shave down the Micro Missile Launcher's pylons by 1.5mm so they will have a snug fit, like seen in the picture. The Vulcan Cannons are a good 5mm longer than its standard armament.

Here is a picture of how assembly of the kit should look.

Armaments: Defender

This up-graded Defender is very impressive. There has been a lot of demand in the Robotech Tactics Community to get a kit done for it. My next project will be a full complete kit to help turn One Defender into this Armament Configuration.

Bases: 40mm Jolly Rogers

Who needs some custom 40mm Bases, I know I do! So what we have here is the famous Jolly Rogers Squadron Logo. VF-84 used this logo for its fighter squadron of F-14's. Towards the end of the F-14's career it transitioned to the VF-103 squadron. The use of this logo was also heavily used by Robotech & Macross as Skull Squadron.

I designed these bases to mimic Robotech Tactics 40mm Bases. Each Base has slight rounded edges and firing arch markers. I removed the name plaque and placed custom numbering down on this set.
I will also make a 3 pack of these so anyone can do a complete squadron with these bases. I will also do another set with out the numbering so people can customize them further.

I will also offer these up in Black Plastic so it might be easier to paint out the Skull & Bones detail on the base.

Armaments: VF Reaction Missiles 2 Pack

This Armament set will equip One VF in both Fighter & Guardian Modes. Reaction Missiles were developed to be Anti-Warship Weapon System. Quickly turning most Warships into debris. This Weapon system is on the fast track to be fully deployed for long range Fleet Defense.

I also have a 6 Pack of Reaction Missiles available. There is also just a set of 4 of these Reaction Missiles if you want to play around with other Armament Configurations. This set of 4 will only arm up either a fighter or guardian but not both.

Shapeways was having fits with the Missile Pylons due to wall thickness errors. I had to increase there thickness in order for them to turn out.

Armaments: VF Micro Missiles 2 Pack

 

 

Still very Experimental, the Micro Missile Launcher system is paving the way for some interesting developments. This 2 pack will be able to equip One VF Fighter & Guardian with this load out.

 

A Micro Missile Launcher 6 pack will also be available to equip out an squadron of Three VF's in Fighter & Guardian configuration.

 

If you haven't guest my Digital Micrometer arrived yesterday in the mail. (Evil Chuckle)

 





Recon: Version 2

A few days ago I was asked if I could put in more detail into the Recon Vehicle. My detailed version of this has all the details meshed into it. Most of these details I had to remove because it was causing Shapeways errors. This current version has passed the quality checks by Shapeways until I place another model in with it. Then it throws a few wall thickness errors. I would love to offer these as packs of two or more and or have a Heavy Lifter with one. But it immediately causes Wall thickness errors. So this mesh will only be offered as a single unit.

All the armored "X"'s where meshed into the vehicle but again it caused wall thickness errors. So I deleted them out and placed them on top of the mesh so they are bumped out.

I will keep tinkering with the wall thickness errors with multiple meshes and try to get it to work. Three hours of work of tinkering with this issue with no fix so far.