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Our upcoming officially licensed Traveller campaign is now open for sign-ups. Be reminded when we go live, and don’t forget to register for our newsletter to get a free Imperial Marine STL file (or a physical version if you later back the campaign).
The Fifth Frontier War is based on the official Mongoose Publishing Traveller campaign of the same name and marks our first licensed product under the Mongoose Traveller banner. We are presenting the Imperial Marines, Zhodani forces, and of course, some Travellers caught in the crossfire!
The campaign goes live on September 18th at 8 pm CET (2 pm Eastern USA), and introduces a plethora of officially licensed 28mm figures and vehicles from the Mongoose Traveller universe! In all, we have plans for a collection of 80 figures in a limited print run, or available in STL format for those with a 3D printer.
This month we went all our with Tribes. We’ve released our largest vessel to date in a single month, the Ox Starlifter, a space barge that uses brute force to get its cargo in the air and into orbit. It has a detachable cab, and once fully printed in 28 mm, it is over 14 inches long (35 cm)!
Additionally, the ship features:
But that’s not all! We’re very excited about the upcoming Alien Romulus film, and thought, why not more Sole Survivor! We have three previously unreleased models by Kyoushuneko of our Sole Survivor, Maddy Walker. Also, and a brand new standing cryotube to fit on your Erebus shuttle!
To justify such a large release, these items will be joining our Welcome Pack for new tribers next month. We hope you enjoy the super-sized release!
After two weeks of anticipation, the Erebus shuttle is now widely available to our Kickstarter backers and the general public if you missed the Kickstarter! Late pledges are open to all, and prices remain close to Kickstarter levels. This will change in the near future, so for the best deal, get your Erebus today!
As always, our pledge manager is also on our distributor, myminifactory.com. This means that the instant you back or redeem your pledge, most files are downloadable. We will release outstanding items in the coming weeks, although the Typhon is expected to take several months.
Sole Survivor Kickstarter Campaign Now Launches on May 6th. Although we had initially set the campaign to premiere on Alien Day, on April 26th. However, we have taken the tough decision to delay launch by a few weeks. We feel the extra time will help us to provide a much better product for you!
Starship VI: Sole Survivor is the first of a two-part series this year. This time we delve into the design language of the Alien universe, paying tribute to the amazing work of the late, great, Ron Cobb. The campaign features a brand new 13″ shuttle, the Erebus. And, if you like big ships, we also are making the Typhon, a supersized version of Erebus. Finally, we present a new miniature series based on a new character, Maggie. There will be a multitude of action poses which have been sculpted by Kyoushuneko Miniatures.
Additionally, we are adding new cryotubes, machinery, tools, vehicles and power loaders will be included in the campaign. The new additions are designed in a dark retro-futuristic design style that fit easily into tabletop games such as Alien, Star Wars, Traveller, Starfinder, Stargrave or any other sci-fi RPG campaign.
On the whole, with the added time, we can complete painting, prepare stretch goals and ensure that the new ship and miniatures are presented in an attractive way. We appreciate. To find out more, see our Sole Survivor page here.
Sole Survivor Kickstarter Campaign Now Launches on May 6th.
In just four weeks we are launching our brand new Kickstarter Campaign – Starship VI: Sole Survivor. We return with an original offering using the design language of our all-time favourite film and starship artist.
Sole Survivor is the first of a two-parter. Now, we bring you the shuttle/lifeboat of a much larger ship to premiere towards the end of the year.
Sign up here to be reminded when we go live!
We are in our final days of sign-up for our upcoming Transport Delta 2400-Series FronTier, launching on Tuesday, the 6th of February, 2024. If you sign up to be reminded when the campaign goes live, you’ll get immediate access to a free Delta Shuttle Pod!
The Shuttle Pod prints entirely support free on an FDM printer. It features our new cockpit design based on the old Transport Delta 1700-Series. It can either replace the forward airlock on the upcoming Delta 2400-series or be used in lieu of the 1700 cockpit.
Speaking of which, if you haven’t picked up the 1700-series, it will be offered in this upcoming campaign. The Shuttle Pod design was fun to work on and prints in a matter of hours. It looks good painted or unpainted, ready to use in your game. The cockpit lid is easily removed to access the detailed interior during play. Of course, the design is in our standard 28mm scale (~1:60).
Don’t miss out on a free item! Get notified by February 5th at the latest to take advantage of this offer, with no commitment required. Follow the link on the image below to get yours today!
The very end of the year sees the much needed update of our classic space opera design, the Transport Delta. This ship, originally conceived in 2019 for our Starship III Kickstarter. Using the design language of a galaxy far, far away, is very popular with our customers.
Despite this popularity, the Delta is a design that I (Ben) have been a bit embarrassed about. As far as construction goes, to me, the Delta always felt a little rushed. In addtion, the design certainly was not up to our modern standards of quality, detail and printability.
Enter the Delta 1700-Series:
The 1700-Series represents a modernisation of the Transport Delta to our 2023 standards. This all started when we partnered with Kathy Millatt Modelling during her Corrix Lava Moon Kickstarter. As a part of the campaign, Kathy produced a 35mm upscaled Transport Delta. We offered the Delta as an optional add-on.
I made some quality of life changes to the Delta to fix the worst issues as she printed the ship, primarily focusing on reducing reliance on supports and addressing the engine issues. In addtiion, whilst revisiting this old design, I felt there were additional areas that I could improve upon. I told Kathy that I would be adding a few refinements for her customers and a free update for mine.
What followed was a feature creep that Chris Roberts would be proud of. In the end, I spent around a month updating the design, and not just for printability.
Changes include:
Despite the amount of work I spent updating the Delta, the update is completely free. This applies to all past customers who backed or purchased a Delta. The update can be found in your existing downloads for the ship.
In the future, to help offset the costs of the update, which includes over 95% new or updated pieces, we are launching the 2400-series in February, on My Mini Factory Frontiers. This will include a brand new interior layout and additional updates of our classic design.
Stay tuned for more information on that, and in the meantime, enjoy our brand new Delta update wherever you got your Delta from.
We made a G-Carrier! Free with this month’s tribe, or an All-In Pledge or above on our latest Kickstarter for Official Traveller Small Craft. This is based on an old Megatraveller design that we interpreted from a side illustration.
The vehicle has room for two crew and 12 marines. It prints easily and features:
This was a fun project to design, and took about five days to get on the printer from concept to delivery. It was a team effort, with Ben leading the design and John refining for printing.
Get your G-Carrier today by either joining our Kickstarter, making a Late Pledge, or subscribing to Tribes in October 2023.
While we have spent the last three years bringing the Type S Scout/Courier, Type J Seeker, and the mighty Type A(L) Free Trader Beowulf into 28mm and a plethora of vessels as Starship Miniatures, we have thus far neglected the true backbone of the Third Imperium – Small Craft.
While the larger hero ships of the Traveller RPG universe most often steal the show, it is the craft under 100 tons that are the most ubiquitous vessels and keep the Empire running locally. Whether transporting passengers, crew, cargo or fuel, or acting as custom vessels or life boats, small craft service much larger vessels that cannot enter an atmosphere and for the smallest commercial endeavours.
For our 2023 Traveller campaign, we are tackling 3D printable small craft. The Kickstarter will go live in late September or early October (sign up here to be notified), and for the first time will feature a limited print run of our Launch.
Whenever we make a new Traveller product, there are a multitude of things to consider. In fact, being somewhat faithful to the original designs is something we try to aspire towards and is incredibly time-consuming, often adding months to the design process.
However, with the Small Craft, we had to make some creative choices that long time Traveller fans will appreciate. We had to take into consideration the following factors:
Every edition of Traveller has its own look and feel, and chief of all, its own deck plans and layouts. We learned early on, designing the Type S, that there are incredible challenges converting 2D deck plans into a 3D model that looks the part. Compromises always need to be made, so we started with those from the beginning.
Initially, we only conceived of creating the modular cutter. It has dozens of variants, is small enough to avoid the months-long print times for the 100 ton plus ships, and seemed useful enough for fans to print and use on the tabletop. However, after consulting with our Traveller gurus, it was pointed out that the small craft all had a similar shape.
Early Traveller has most small craft with a 4.5 metre interior diameter, with the exception of the Cutter with a 6 metre interior diameter, plus or minus a little, as of all craft in all editions of Traveller, this one is shown with the most inconsistency from edition to edition.
There are arguments of the exact volume of a dTon is equivalent to anywhere between 12.5 and 14.5 cubic metres, but the rules state that two squares are equivalent to one dTon. Looking at the deck plans above, it is immediately obvious that the deck plans are often off by a lot as far as tonnage was concerned. Which is a very frustrating issue for a designer like me who likes to be as accurate as possible. But what do you do when nothing matches up?
The Modular Cutter was always designed to fit into the Mercenary Cruiser, and this creates problems – namely that because of the thin walls of Traveller Deck Plans, there is no reasonable way a cutter could actually be 6 metres in diameter on the inside and fit inside a housing with the same width.
This is even more problematic in 3D where parts need to be designed to a certain minimum thickness – we already had to invent a brand new clip to make the walls thinner. Add the deck plans vs. tonnage inconsistencies in and you have a serious headache, even with the relatively simple cylindrical form.
We tested a variety of options regarding hull diameter; what size did it have to be to fit standard cargo (ignoring the wasted space), exactly how much volume would a section have, and where should the floors be? Floors are a massive incongruency in all editions of Traveller, but especially GURPS Traveller, where there is simply not enough room for the interiors designed in the deck plans. Fortunately, we are only dealing with a single level with small craft, and older editions, so after some initial exploration of larger widths, we settled on 4.5 metre interior radius for both our modular cutter and our small craft:
By keeping each design to a standard diameter, we can make ship parts relatively interchangeable. We imagine Cutters to be the equivalent of space big rigs, and other ships to be more like commercial airliners. You could swap out cab/cockpit designs, going for the semi-spherical Cutter cab, or the more stretched look of the Launch and Pinnace. We can even introduce more original designs, providing variety with engine sections and other content.
We are in full production at the moment, but the Launch is fully prototyped. Stay tuned for more updates as we progress and implement our new designs.
In September (tentatively) we are offering our next official Traveller licensed Kickstarter, the Small Craft campaign. We are introducing some of the smaller, more practical craft from the Traveller universe at 28mm scale.
For the very first time, we are working with options to provide the 20 ton Launch, the smallest of the small craft, as a physical print for Traveller fans without a 3D printer. While this will still be an FDM print, with FDM print quality, we believe we can offer a decent price.
At the moment, we have a sign up page open to collect backer interest in the campaign. We’d love it if you save the date.