Some more progress

I knew right up front this was going to be an under taking. I just don't believe you truly understand until you completely commit to it. Even three years ago I thought this couldnt be to hard, like anyone could just do it. Lol. Truth be told its not hard, yes it can be difficult to wrap your head around how to do things. But once you commit to it, something inside your head flicks on. Ideas and thought processes just start to flow out and most likely will be sparked from the weirdest daily interactions.  Thankfully I try to keep a pen and paper around to jot down the basic idea. The Keep app on my phone has been a life saver in this processes.

So I knew right up front I was going to have to design a lot of cards to make this game work properly. I just didn't know how many this might be. Last time I posted I mentioned I had 88 cards writen out. Well that number has reached over 170 and I removed 30 some cards out of this part of the design phase. Which I could still integrate back in with out an issue.
Currently I have 70 Resource Cards and I set a tempory limit of 70 Event Cards. I reworked the 12 Colony Cards, Got some 20 plus Colonial Ship Cards and etc...

The Event Cards are currently limited to 70 for now. I could see this number reaching 100 if I didnt place a limit for now. 70 gives me a good sample to work with during play testing.
The Resource Cards are some thing new. I just didn't have a solid way for players to expand their fleet and or replenish their squadrons. So the Resource Cards came to me over Christmas while I was on Vacation in Jamaica.  Again thank god for the Keep app.
The idea behind the Resource Cards is as you do missions you will find stuff. Either from the Mission it self, enemy ships and etc... If your Fleet attempts to do a Mission at a higher difficulty level, the base number of these cards will increase. Some of these cards will help the Fleet with Supplies,  Food, Water, Tylium, Intel and Admiralty.

Intel and Admiralty are now two new game mechanics.
Intel is just that, advanced intelligence on what is going on and possibly the near future.  I needed away for the players to avoid a bad situation during the Event Phase. This gives players a chance to alter their fate and have some sort of control. Lets say your fleet gets an event card that could seriously endanger one or more of your ships. Once the Event Card is flipped over, your fleet will have two options. One to either resolve that event or secondly ignore that event completely by Expending 1Intel. Intel is not going to be easy to accumulate currently you have a 1in 7th chance of gaining +1 intel. Plus the fact you have 7 days in the Event Phase I would use your Intel wisely.

Admiralty reflects how the Colonial Admirals view your Fleets Performace. These points can ne spent to gain favors from the Admiralty. Like reinforcements, Foundry Plans so you can start building your own Mk II Viper Squadrons etc...Again you are going to want to spend these wisely.

Yesterday I designed and orders two Flight Stands for this game. One for my Galactica model and the other for my Osiris resin kit. Both stands incorporate magnets in them to keep the model pointed in the right direction with the ability to be stowed away in storage. One is an 80mm base the other is a 60mm. Both of these hit the 3D printer this afternoon.
I also ordered 30 Cylon Razor fighters which should be here in the next few days.  I am debating on doing flight stands of 3 to represent a squadron. Custom dice is also a must,  I know what I am doing for the Colonials. Still havent focused to much on the Cylon dice yet.

Oh yes, I will most likely create an Event board. To make the Event Phase run smoother. I already found a company that can do game boards. Why I bring this up. Most Missions normally take 3 days to reach on this board.  On day 4 the Fleet will have to expend one of ots resources to move into day 4. Plus resolve any Event Cards that maybe on that day as well. On day 7 the fleet will again have to pay to move forward. Showing the fact the Fleet isover extending it self for this Mission. Now you should start to understand how thr Event Phase helps tell the story of the Fleet between each Mission.

There is more I have yet to cover but that will come In later up dates. My next focus is going to ne the Cylon AI deck. I roughly know how the Command Cards will work and be worded. But aspects of that may change due to the Cylon AI deck. Again the Cylon AI cards will ne robust so each confrontation will/should play out differently.

Thats it for now. Oh one last thing,  I intend to have a playable version of this game before this time next year.

Developing Battlestar Galactica tabletop/board game.

For the past three years I have been writing down notes and ideas to develop a table top minatures game. I would spend a good few months writing down my ideas and game mechanics. I would pack up the project for a few months and once again approach the project with a fresh set of eyes. In most cases it would totally mean scrapping out sections to improve the game flow while not making it overly complicated. Part of the problem I was facing was picking a theme. I have enough notes and ideas to do one hell of an Robotech Space Combat tabletop game. It is painfully hard NOT to do one when I have the ability to 3D print all my REF ship models. I have even gone as far as asking my contact in Harmony Gold if I could create it for them. Which was a no.

So I am switching my Theme to Battlestar Galactica.
Yes, I know I dont have the licensing rights to do so. I am creating this game for myself 1st and for most. Plus prove to myself and others that it can be done. It is a huge undertaking, designing the mechanics, keeping the theme throughout it all, while making it a co-op and not making it complicated.  Then there is all of the graphics work that will need to be done.

So this past week I started to design out my cards for this game, just the mehanics and wording for them. I quickly hit 88 cards written out and this doesn't even scratch the surface of the game.

Let me explain, the over all idea of the game. You and your friends will be captains in the colonial fleet at the start of the Cylon's war. The first mission will get the story going and take you threw all of the phases and steps. This will function as a story and teaching the players the rules. You will have choices and actions that will have effects on your fleet that might not seem obvious at the time. Once you get past a few of the basic missions, you willjabe even more choices in mission selection. Each play session represents 1 week in the fleet in which you try to complete the mission. From here we zoom into what happened during the week of this mission.  There will be 7 squares for each day of that week. A mission objective will be placed on one of these days. Each day may have an Event Card or possibly left blank to represent a very quite day in the fleet. The Mission objective as an example could be on Day 4 and a Cylon Basestar could be on Day 7. As the fleet attempts to each their objective they must reveal the Event Card for that day and resolve it. As an example you might reveal  a Delay card, which advances your mission objective 1 day further down the week. So it is now on Day 5. You might reveal a card that moves the Basestar 1 Day closer to your fleet and your objective.  There is both good and bad results in these themed Event Cards. Do not get to attached to certain ships in your fleet. Just like the show there are times you may have a 20% chance of loosing one. Which will affect the out come of your fleet. Once you or the Cylon reaches the Mission Objective is when the Battle phase starts. This is where the tabletop side of the game comes out. Cylons will function off an AI card deck. The deck will be robust with the ability to bring out aggressive and defensive behavior.  There will be enough variations to ensure that it will not react the same way each time. Just attacking may cause a reaction.

Its been a fun process so far, there have been several times this week where a new Event Card idea has made me laugh out loud at work. Thank fully I keep scrap papper to write on so I dont loose the thought or idea completely.

80mm Colonial Base 8mm off Center

Mining Ship: WIP

Started work on this earlier this week. I am going to set its scale to match 1:4105 which at the time. I thought this ship was much smaller, thinking at best 4 inches. Well as it turns out, it is closer to 7.6 inches. This ship is huge so, with that notable size increase I am going to have to redo some parts to bring more detail out.  

Medusa Class Battle Cruiser

BSG: Teaser

Here is what is going public on the ship I am working on today.

Still here

hey guys, I know I have not posted in a while. It does not mean I have not been working on a new model. Since I have been asked to keep its progress hidden all I can say is the following.

Sofar the model is 300,000 polys. It is a new ship concept for Battlestar Galactica and it will eventually be casted out in resin to match the 1:4105 scale that has been used by Moebuis.
60 hours into the model and it is coming along nicely.

Podcast: IFF XXII

New Podcast finally up loaded.

Intensify Forward Firepower XXII

Request: Bulk APC Package

I had a customer request for a 12 pack of APC's in order to help bring the cost down. So a laid out 12 APC's and connected them with a sprue. Only to find out it was still over $27. So I went back to hollowed out the under side of the APC's by 3mm's and it brought the price down to $26

I do get a certain question on pricing, if it is possible to reduce the price any more. Due to the costly nature of printing on Shapeways everything is going to be naturally more expensive. Just to show everyone out there how much I make on average on these items. I thought I would take a screen shot of it. It is not much but it is a $1 I didn't have to begin with. The Key Point I want to make clear I keep my margins on these items extremely low close to 10% on average. So I can pass the savings onto my followers and their tight gaming budgets.

Keep in mind Shapeways also gets a very small cut in your Mark up / Margin.

Shield Dial

Here is a set of 4 Shield Dials as Replacement Parts. All four of these are connected with two small sprues that is 1mm thick. The Colored Options will give you some splash of color but the details of the numbers are going to be slightly muted during the polishing. All the numbers are raised so they can be painted white to stand out.

These are priced just under $6 for the set.

Shield Dial

Turn Organizer: Deluxe

This is something that has been bothering me for awhile. I have seen games where a dice is just used to keep track of what turn it was. Some times the Squadron Activation Marker was used. Some times it was off in the corner of the board and forgotten about for a few turns. The Objective card was often just sort of placed where ever it seemed to fit at the time.

So this is an attempt to help Organize the game better. By placing all three in one focused area with easy visibility on the game table. This organizer has a built in Turn Counter, a slot for your Squadron Activation Maker and a slot for your Objective Card in the back. The display face has been tiled by 25 Degree's to help make it more visible on the table.

Keeping track of the turns is very straight forward. Once all Squadron's have activated, you can flip the Squadron Activation Marker to its other Color. Then Advance the Turn Dial by One and start planning you ship commands.

I would recommend that numbers be painted for better visibility. These numbers have been raised to help make doing this a bit easier.

I also have a Basic Turn Organizer available that is not tilted but lays flat available also.

Link


 

IFF Podcast: XXI

The latest Pod cast with the new Wave announcement for Star Wars Armada.

Episode-xxi-hold-the-door

Victory Star Destroyer: Replacement Parts

Since I know sooner or later my Antenna's and Probes will break off. I thought I would create a few replacements pieces for when the time comes that they do break. I included three plugs for horizontal probe if you don't want to deal with them breaking off any more. The Probes and the plugs should be a tight fit and may not need glue to keep it in place.

The Antenna's will require gluing. I attempted to remove mine to see how the part fitting into the ship. Needless to say, I quit messing with it because it didn't want to budge and I was damaging the top portion of the antenna.

Since I have seen ship lists with 3 Victory Star Destroyers I thought it would be best to offer a set of 3 replacement parts on one sprue.

Good News! Card Protectors & Standard Ship Control Panels

So this afternoon I drove out to Fantasy's Flights Game Center and picked up all the FFG's Card Protectors for the game.
I can now report that the Standard Ship Control Panel Can Handle FFG's Card Protectors. The Alternative Art Ship Panel should be able to do it as well. Since I used the same card surface area when I designed it.

The Fighter Control Panels on other hand are to small to currently handle them with the protectors.

So my future plans in the next few days is to make adjustments to all of these control panels to be able to accept card protectors. I am also going to bump up the thickness of these panels by another .5 mm - 1mm to strengthen them and allow the card to seat into this space better. Due to the added thickness of the card protector.

I may also cut out a small hole in this area to allow a person to tap/push a card out of this space for easier removal. Plus this will help cut the printing cost down.

Few more Pictures of the Space Station

 

 

Space Station: WIP

Added in more detail tonight. This model is currently sitting around 33,000 polys. Here is a quick picture of what is in place so far. I will take close up shots tomorrow so you can see what features it has.

Ship Control Panel: Pictures

More pictures of the two actual designs.

Ship Control Panels Arrived!

 

Here is a quick snap shot of both the Control Panels, printed in Purple. 

 

Over all I am extremely happy I got my measurements correctly and didn't loose them in the up-loading process. The Fighter Control panel is bang on. There is NO room available to possibly use a card protector with that control panel. The Defense Tokens fit just fine, they are secure and not so tight it causes issues with flipping them around. The finger opening is just the right size to make doing so easy. The Storm Trooper helmet stands out and adds a nice touch.

 

The Ship Control Panel is bang on as well. The Speed Dial region is deep enough and the right size so the dial rests easily in this spot. The Command Dials fit in the groove securely but not so tight to become a problem. Defense Tokens and Ship ID number are the same way as well. The Ship Card area, I built in an extra 1mm on all edges so the card does shift around a bit. However; I did this hoping it would be enough to allow the use of card protectors. I have yet to test that out yet!

 

 

The only down side is the fact these are thin. Max thickness in certain parts is only 3mm, like around the Defense Tokens, Ship ID, Command and Speed Dial's. The card area the lip around it is 2mm with about 1.5mm thickness. Over all these are very bendy because of it. They do hold their shape and lay flat but like everything else done in plastic if you bend them to much they will most certainly break. If you want to know how bendy they are put 4 ship cards on top of each other, now flex them a little.

 

The quickest fix is to increase the thickness by another 1mm which will bump up the price of these by close to $2 plus dollars, if not more. Or glue a card board like backing to them, something like card stock may work. Its not the actual card stock that will give it the rigidity but the glues used to do it will. 

Space Station: WIP

I asked for feed back from the FFG Star Wars Community for input on what changes they would like to see on this new model. The feed back has been wonderful and I have already started to make more changes and increase the level of detail. Still have more I want to do. Once you start putting in more detail you quickly realize how much of a difference it makes.

Melminiatures even shared his input which truly surprised me. I've seen his work on Shapeways before and he does solid work. Was very nice of him to share his experiences as well. Please check out his work on Shapeways!

space station objective

It is beyond late for me, I will post a render of this space station tomorrow.

Link: http://shpws.me/MaVt

This space station is meant to replace the card board objective that comes with the game. The base of this station should mirror the dimensions of its card board counter part ×/- 1mm.

I may offer this in PLA since it appears to be more cost effective. I am not sure if some of the details will stand out as well in this material.

Damage Deck Card Holder: Battle of Endor

 

Never get a wookie angry. Rebel version of the Damage Deck Card Holder up-loaded.

 

Link:http://shpws.me/MaMi

Damage Deck Card Holder: Battle of Endor

Just got the Damage Deck card holder up-loaded this evening. This one is Imperial with a Battle of Endor theme to it.
I also designed a lid that also functions as a base for the holder when in use. This card holder is designed with card protectors in mind. It is also capable of holding the cards with out them to. I may look at doing a Rebel version tomorrow before some wookie comes along and rips my arms off.

The real thing looks much better than this grey render.
Link: http://shpws.me/MaDW

Order placed.

Placed my order for a Ship Control Panel and an Imperial Fighter Control panel.
Now it is just the waiting game to see how functional they are when they arrive.
count on seeing more pictures of the actual printed product after it arrives.

May the 4th be with you.

If you haven't noticed by now. I have been working on some stuff for Star Wars Armada. Most of the items are just accessory peices for the game. I have been kicking around these Control Panels for awhile now. I asked a few of my gaming friends what they thought of the concept back in February and they seemed to like idea of it. They have yet to see the new design of it, since it no longer looks like its original concept.

Everything posted today is currently in Alpha testing at Shapeways. I took measurements of all the tokens, dials, and cards. So everything should fit correctly. All of these are available to purchase but I have them all currently listed in Alpha testing. Once I print out a few and play a few games with them, then I will take them out of Alpha.

I have a few more ideas I need to concept out that could be useful for Armada players.

Until then, I need to place an order and bring them at to the Fantasy Flight Game Center and get a few games in. See what the player base thinks of them and what things they would change.

Imperial Alternative Art: Ship Control Panel

Here is the Rendered shot of how the Imperial Alternative Art Control Panel will look like. This still holds the same features as the Standard Card Ship Control Panel. However; this one does feature a small tray under the Ship ID # and just to the right of the Speed Dial. This can be used for your Command Tokens if you do not want to place them in those vertical slots.
*Note: This control panel was not designed with card protectors in mind*

Again due to the size of this Control Panel, I can only over this in Black or White.

In the near Future I will do one with an Rebel icon and one with out.

Standard Card Ship Control Panel

Here is a Rendered shot of my standard card ship control panel. This panel will hold your Speed Dial, Command Dials, Standard Ship Card, Ship ID #, 4 Defense Tokens and 3 Command Tokens in the vertical slots between the defense tokens. This panel is available in many colors on Shapeways.
*Note: This control panel was not designed with card protectors in mind*

My 1st attempt at creating this sort of panel was simply just to big which meant a big price tag to print. It had a lot of the same features found in this one with exception to the ability to nest up to 4 up-grade cars into the base to help keep them from moving around to much. But it was an $35 plus print so I dropped the design for this more compact lay out.

The 4 Defense Token spots have an opening on the left side to help flip those tokens when used. These tokens will ultimately rest on top of your standard ship card. There is also a small amount of over lap, roughly 1mm, to help keep your card in place.

The Ship ID # Token also features an finger groove at the top to help remove those ID numbers. If this spot is not in use, it should be big enough to hold 1 command token.

Important: For those players that have Alternative art Ship Cards. You still can use this control panel with these cards. Because they are displayed landscape style you will of coarse have to turn this on its side to use. In doing so, the Ship ID # area is going to seem out of place because it would be on its side. If you can't live with this option, I do have an Alternative Card Ship Control Panel already designed. The down side is the Alternative Control Panel is to big to offer it in all the colors so your options are either Black or White.

Imperial Fighter: Control Panel

This is a Mock up of what the Imperial Fighter Control Panel will look like for Star Wars Armada. I have it available in multiple colors on Shapeways. This panel features a place for your Ship card and 2 Defense Tokens.
*Note: This control panel was not designed with card protectors in mind*

Imperial Fighter: Control Panel

This is a rendered shot of how the Imperial Fighter Control Panels will look. This panel features a place for 2 Ship Cards and has an trooper helmet sandwiched between the two panels. This panel is available in several colors on Shapeways.

*Note: This control panel was not designed with card protectors in mind*

Rebel Fighter: Control Panel

 

Here is another rendered shot of how the Rebel Fighter Control Panel will look. This panel features a place for your Ship Card and 2 Defense Tokens. This panel is available in several colors but I must say the red really seems to pop out at you.

*Note: This control panel was not designed with card protectors in mind*

Bounty Hunter: Control Panel

Here is a Mock up of what the Bounty Hunter Ship Control Panel will look like for Star Wars Armada. I have it available in multiple colors on Shapeways. This panel features a place for your Ship card and 2 Defense Tokens.
*Note: This control panel was not designed with card protectors in mind*

Star Wars Armada: Hero Control Fighter Panels

Just a few idea's on how to better organize my fighters for armada. I thought I would jazz these two up a bit with some personalized icons. I still have a few more ideas to do a few more.

Star Wars Armada: Ship Control Panel

In an effort to cut down some of the printing cost. I redesigned the Control Panel to make it more compact and more cost effective. This control panel will help organize 4 Defense Tokens, 1 Ship ID #, 3 Command Tokens, Command Dials and a Speed Dial.

TPP & Closing Shop

As you be aware I have not posted anything in a long time. Rumors of new copy write agreements with the new TPP had me second guessing if I should continue to creating 3d models for Robotech. At first this was just a rumor but now shapeways has confirmed it.
Under the new copywrite enforcements any reproduction of a copy written material can be fined up to 6 digits no mater the level of occurrence.  In other words you sell one item, even if you make .01 and or nothing on it. You will be hit with a 6 figure fine. This includes digital work as well.

So.... since I cant afford a lawyer let alone even conceive how to pay off a $100,000 dollar fine. I will be pulling down the majority of the models in the Shapeways store.  Anything that is even questionable will be removed. Better safe than sorry at this point.

if there is anything you want I would get it sooner than later. I am not sure how much of a grace period I will have since the TPP deal was just signed. I know by the end of this monthI will need to close shop. I may have to do it sooner.

With all the copy write and trademark battles that have faced anything Robotech related. I can't take a chance being caught in the middle of this mess.

Shortly afterwards I may erase this blog as well.


Honestly guys there was talk of me working with Harmony Gold to help produce more Robotech stuff. That all ended when GHQ got into the picture and in haven't heard a word since. All I can say is, I am still flabbergasted by your support. I just wished I could have done more.