UPF Battleship Model and Miniature

I thought I’d be done with this model and ready to post this last week, but the model ended up taking me about 50% longer than I had originally planned. And since I had guessed 10-12 hours, that was a significant time overrun. In the end, the model took about 17 hours to complete.

Click for full sized image

Let’s not bury the lede, here is the finished model, pictured to the right. With the engines, it stands 120.75mm (4.8″) tall (or long depending on how you look at it) and is a little less than an inch (23.7mm to be exact) in diameter at the widest point on the engines.

The extra time was spent in trying to get all the details just right. There are a lot of them on the battleship and it just took longer than I was expecting. However, I’m really happy with how it turned out. Let’s look a bit at the process.

Getting Started

This is a miniature that was part of the Federation Ships boxed produced by TSR. On the box, it said that there was “some assembly required” for the battleship miniature. This model comes in 10 different pieces. The eight engines are each separate and the main fuselage comes in two parts. Now, I picked up my miniature box(es, I have four now, only 2 of which didn’t have lead rot when I bought them) used on E-bay in the last few years. As such the previous owners had already glued the fuselage together in three of the boxes but hadn’t attached the engines. So this is what I had to start with.

One of the two originals I used to reference. The other had a paint primer coat applied. Click for full sized image.

Now, as I discovered while working on the Light Cruiser, those are the exact same engines on both miniatures, so I had already done the work to create them. I just had to make 8 copies for the battleship.

There were also a number of repeated elements on this ship, namely the three main levels of gun turrets, the structure around the waist of the ship, and the “grill” around the neck.

That’s what I tackled first. For the gun turrets, I created a model of each of the structures and then just placed four of each of them, ninety degrees apart, around the fuselage. For the structure around the waist, it was repeated six times, and the grill around the neck has thirteen bumps. That piece ended up being just a stretched and squished sphere rotated around the neck. Getting those pieces in place was the “easy” part and only took about five hours to do giving me a model that looked like this.

The gun turrets are the same as used in the Light Cruiser, but they are sitting on different base platforms. So while I could reuse the turret, I had to build the bases new for this miniature.

Adding the Trim

At that point I just started at the back of the ship and worked my way forward adding in all the little detail bits. When I got to the area between the gun emplacements, I would work one section at a time filling in the space between the turrets, rotating 90 degrees and repeating.

While there are some repeated elements across the ship and mostly on the bow or head of the vessel, almost all of the the little decorations on the surface are unique. So each one had to be measured with my calipers and reconstructed. In the end, that just wasn’t as fast (and there were a lot of details) as I had expected. When I hit the 12 hour mark, my original upper estimate, I was only up to the area between the upper guns and the model looked something like this. (I didn’t save an exact picture at the time.)

The details on the upper fuselage (right side in image) are only on the little bit you can see. Everything around the back side is still blank and the details between the gun turrets in the middle and bottom on this image are missing as well.

The one nice thing about filling in the details on the bow of the ship was that, unlike the light cruiser, which had irregular hexagons for the shape of the head, the battleship has a regular hexagon shape. That meant that the angles you had to tilt all the pieces were exactly the same on all the faces. That made lining things up much easier. Plus there are a number of repeated elements on the bow.

With that done, I added the cannon on the top and the model was finished. Here it is again in the same orientation as the previous two images.

Printing

As I learned from the light cruiser, these ships really need to be printed standing up. So that’s what I did. My biggest worry were the middle gun turrets. With the barrels facing down, each barrel was going to need it’s own support that would then need to be trimmed off. It turns out that those supports had to be added by hand as my printing software didn’t add them automatically.

click for full sized image

I had black resin in the printer at the time so that’s what I used to print this model. Unfortunately, the back resin doesn’t photograph as well as the green or grey. The image at the right shows the finished battleship model next to the Sathar Heavy Cruiser. Both still have their printing supports on. This was taken just after the battleship finished printing but I hadn’t cured it yet. The total print time was nearly 12 hours.

I also discovered after the fact that the vertical structures on back of the upper turrets that stick straight out need supports as well, which I didn’t add. They printed at an angle on the actual print. It looks fine, but isn’t what I had planned on.

I’m still amazed at the detail this printer can achieve. All of the details on the model show up in the print. Here the final printed miniature with all the supports removed.

click for full resolution

And here it is next to the original metal miniature (minus the engines).

You can probably spot a few differences and there are a few more visible if you’re holding them, but I’m really pleased with the way this turned out.

Getting the Model Files

I’ve already added the UPF Battleship to my Miniatures Price Table page here on the site if you’d like me to print you one or more of them.

Additionally, as I’ve been posting these models, people have asked me about getting the model files. To that end, over the last few week I’ve been publishing all the STL files for printing the models on DriveThruRPG. You can find them in the 3D Models section of my New Frontier Games storefront.

All of the models that are recreations of the original TSR miniatures are free, pay-what-you-want products. Any of the the models that are my original creations are listed with a small cost. I’ve posted all of the models I’ve created to date on the site with the exception of the UPF and sathar fighter models, and two models I’ve made based on deck plans created by Bill Logan. Those will be going up shortly, I just haven’t had a chance to get them posted. All future models will be posted there as well.

If you are one of my Patreon supporters at the Surveyor ($2/month) level or higher, I send you all the model files as I create them. Or you can support the creation of new models by becoming a patron or making a donation through the pay-what-you-want option on the models listed on DriveThru. And if you are a Patreon supporter at the Crafter Level ($30/month), I will send you a printed version of the miniature. Anyone who joins at that level this month will get the battleship mini.

What’s Next?

Now that the UPF Battleship is done, I’ve finished recreating all the UPF and sathar ships from the original boxed sets. I still need to do the pirate frigate, the freighter from the Federation Ships box, and the privateers to get all the original minis recreated.

I’ll tackle those, but first I want to fill in the order of battle for the two main sides in the Second Sathar War game so that people could potentially play out that game with a full compliment of miniatures. As such I still need to do the UPF Heavy Cruiser, the UPF Minelayer (if you don’t use the cutter miniature), the assault carriers for both sides. Of those the easiest will be the UPF Heavy Cruiser as it will draw heavily from the design of the light cruiser and battleship. I’ve already started working on that model. It might even be finished before the end of the month. It’s much easier to make my own designs than trying to recreate existing ones. Plus I have a lot of little details structures already designed from the other ships that I can reuse.

After the heavy cruiser, I’ll tackle the assault carriers and then the minelayer before going back to finish the recreations.

And that’s it for now. Let me know if you have any suggestions, questions, or comments in the comment section below. I hope you enjoy the miniatures as much as I enjoy making them.

A Module Based Campaign – final

I can’t believe it’s been three months since I last looked at this. I’ve really been distracted by the 3D modeling and miniature creation project. I’m not quite done with the battleship miniature so that will have to wait another week (or more, it’s taking longer than I expected). With this post we are going to cover all the remaining modules and wrap up the module based campaign.

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they had either just returned from Alcazzar or finished up some other mission for CDC and had arrived in the White Light system, probably on Clarion station. They have shiny new level 1 spaceship skills and are hopefully itching to start using them. It’s time to recruit them into the Clarion Royal Marines!

Warriors of White Light

The cover of this module was a map for the Second Sathar War game from the Campaign Book.

SFKH0: Warriors of White Light is the first of the Knight Hawks modules that incorporates both the Alpha Dawn and Knight Hawks skills and includes bits of the spaceship combat game as part of the play.

The module is designed to give the characters experience with various aspects of the Knight Hawks rules including ship combat, zero-g and space suit operations, and a chance to battle the sathar once again.

The module includes five mini adventures that are designed to be interspersed between descriptions of routine patrol and inspection duty. The first is just a routine inspections where they discover weapons to being smuggled to anti-crown forces on the surface of Clarion. The second presents a ship controlled by a mad cybot that hit hurling toward Clarion station. The third is a raid on a pirate base in the system. The fourth encounter has the PCs pitted against a sathar boarding force that is trying to capture their ship. The final encounter is a boardgame scenario where the milita battle a sathar raid.

I’d play this module as presented. As the Referee you have to add in a few more routine encounters that don’t really go anyway to help make the scenarios presented stand out but you don’t want to spend too much time on it, just enough to that the players appreciate the excitement.

By the end of the module, the PCs will have earned between 15-30 XP. I’ll be giving the sample characters 25. Unless the preform poorly, this is enough for all of them to have level 2 skills by the time they play the scenario with the sathar boarding force. By the end of the module, they should have all achieved level 2 in their spaceship skills and the gunners may even be at level 3.

The Question of What is Next

Until this morning, I would have said Dramune Run (SFKH1). It is the next module in the series and we’ve been playing them mostly in order so that makes logical sense. But as I was thinking about writing this post, I realized that that might not be the best order. So we’ll start by looking at what to do if you do want to run Dramune Run next and they I’ll discuss the alternate option that I’ll be using.

If you want to run Dramune Run as the next module, you’ll need to add in a few more adventures between the end of the Warriors of White Light (WoWL) module and Dramune Run. In that module, the PCs will be flying a hull size 6 ship, which requires at least a level 3 Pilot skill and our pilot PC is only level 2. They probably need about 15-30 more XP to get there (My sample PC, Dolnab, needs 20 more after WoWL).

There are plenty of options here. You could run more adventures like those presented in the WoWL module. The main thing here would be to come up with some new scenarios and not just reuse the same ideas. White Light and Clarion have been favorite topics of the authors in the Frontier Explorer fanzine and we’ve even been running a “Warriors of White Light 2.0” series in the magazine (starting in issue 22). You could mine these for ideas of adventures on Clarion station (issue 23), in the White Light system (issue 23), and even one that involves the freighter from the first encounter that takes them across the Frontier to Cassidine and back (issue 24). We took a bit of hiatus from the series in issues 25 & 26 but there are still some articles in the queue so you can expect more to come. These adventures and ideas should get the PCs up to a level 3 pilot skill and then they are ready to tackle the Dramune Run.

However, as I was thinking about this, I felt that there was a better way to run the modules. In addition to requiring a few more adventures to get the PCs ready for the Dramune Run module, the module ends with them owning a ship. At that point, it’s pretty hard to get the PCs to not just want to go off adventuring in their ship and the remaining modules are not really conductive to that. Instead, let’s save the Dramune Run for the climax of the campaign and start by going a different direction.

Beyond the Frontier

The last three Star Frontiers modules published by TSR comprise the Beyond the Frontier series. The modules are:

  • SFKH2: Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes
  • SFKH3: Face of the Enemy
  • SFKH4: The War Machine

Much like the Volturnus series of Alpha Dawn adventures, these modules take the characters to new worlds to meet new races and confront the sathar, just on a larger scale.

The advantage of going with these modules before Dramune Run is that they make a nice progression from a power level perspective and the PCs can actually be assigned to the mission as part of their commission in the Clarion Royal Marines. It can just be their next assignment.

From a power perspective, the PCs only need a level 2 piloting skill to be the backup pilot on the UPFS Eleanor Moraes, a HS 3 exploration vessel. If anything, the PCs are going to be better skilled than the pre-gens provided with the module. They can start right away without any intermediate adventures needed. And participation in these adventures will give them more than enough experience to be at the correct level for the Dramune Run.

The PCs will be part of the Frontier Expeditionary Force (I should make a patch for that organization) which is composed of civilians and Spacefleet members. It’s completely reasonable that the government of Clarion, which has a high standing in the Council of Worlds, would volunteer some of its decorated Royal Marines to be part of the endeavor. Pushing the boundaries of the Frontier helps to ensure the security of their world. The PCs are a natural choice given their recent experiences in the WoWL module’s scenarios.

Again, these modules can be run as presented. I’m going just discuss them briefly to summarize what happens and the XP gained.

SFKH2: Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes

This module starts of the series with the PCs out exploring the world of Mahg Mar in the Waller Nexus system when the First Officer, Bill Terry, mutinies, takes control of the ship, and destroys their exploration airship. It is up to the PCs to traverse the wilderness between them and recapture the Eleanor Moraes before Terry destroys it and kills the remaining crew.

This adventure requires a wide mix of skills and will give the PCs a chance to use some of the environmentalist skills developed back on Volturnus (and hopefully improved upon on some of the intervening adventures). It also requires use of their technological skill and weapons skills and, due to the rough trip back to the ship, gives the medic a chance to shine as well.

Hopefully the PCs recapture the ship intact but regardless, when the call goes out about the events on the planet, they learn that their old ship, the CMS Osprey, is being dispatched to assist and will arrive in a few weeks with supplies and repair materials. They just have to hold out until then.

This modules gives out 6-18 XP depending on how the PCs perform in their trek back to the ship and in the capture of the ship itself. I’ll be awarding our sample characters 15 XP.

SFKH3: The Face of the Enemy

This module also takes place on Mahg Mar, after the Osprey arrives but before the repairs to the Eleanor Moraes are complete. In this adventure the PCs once again make contact with a native intelligent race on the planet, something they have had a lot of practice with throughout the campaign (Volturnus, Starmist, and Alcazzar). Along the way they discover evidence of sathar presence on the planet and capture a small, hull size 2 sathar scout ship. The climax of the adventure is a Void jump to a new system (FS30) and a raid on a modified sathar assault carrier and the chance to capture sathar prisoners and the assault carrier itself.

The module awards 5-17 XP depending on how the PCs do. I’ll be awarding our team 14 points for this adventure. They’ve now earned enough XP to increase their Knight Hawks skills even more as well as possibly increase some of their other skills. With the sathar ship captured, they are ready to take on the final part of the series.

SFKH4: The War Machine

In the War Machine, the PCs are going to make contact with the technological race native to the FS30 system and hopefully drive the sathar from the system, capturing or destroying the sathar starship construction center based in the system.

This module involves both character and ship action as well as diplomacy and problem solving. After fighting off a small squadron of sathar fighters, the PCs are contacted by the native race in the system to arrange a meeting. While the team has had several first contact scenarios, this one is unique in that the species being contacted has active interplanetary spaceflight capabilities. After making contact they proceed to the planet’s surface and attack a sathar processing plant. After that they mount an attack on the sathar ships and shipyard. If successful, the Mhemne (the native race) are liberated and the sathar facilities are destroyed along with several sathar ships, reducing their combat capacity in the upcoming (or possibly on-going) Second Sathar War. The system is renamed the Liberty system (the module doesn’t say what the Mhemne’s name for it was) and the PCs are hailed as liberators and heros.

This module awards from 9 to 26 XP based on performance but if the PC’s are performing down near the 9 XP level, they may not succeed as they are making a lot of mistakes and losing valuable resources. We’ll give then 22 XP for this module.

Back to the Frontier

That end the Beyond the Frontier series of adventures. By the time it’s all over, the PCs have been gone for several months. Upon their return to Clarion, they can collect their back pay which should be a considerable amount of cash. It’s now time for the final adventure in the module campaign,

The Dramune Run

At this point the PCs have level 3 spaceship skills and reputations as heroes and outstanding members of the Clarion Royal Marines in addition to their other exploits across the Frontier. Just the type of people Garlus Tylappar needs to help him.

The initial encounter of this adventure can occur at any point after the PCs are back on Clarion station. They’ll probably be given a few days to a few weeks of leave after returning from the Liberty system. Garlus should approach them during this down time to make his pitch. He should lean on their reputations and show a knowledge of their exploits in making his case (but nothing that would not be known through public media).

This module also just plays out as written. The PCs will help get the Gullwind repaired and into space. They will fight off pirates on the way to Dramune and then be captured and escape from Darkworld station rescuing the Chukkahs and exposing the Malthar’s plans.

The XP awards for this module range from 20 to 43 with a possible 5 XP for the astrogator and up to 120 XP divided by the number of PCs for rescuing Chukkahs. I’ll be awarding our team a total of 48 XP each.

The End

And that wraps up the module campaign. The PCs now have a ship, and after the Beyond the Frontier series, a reasonably large chunk of cash to get them started. If they want to continuing adventuring or take up the life of merchants you can extend the campaign for as long as you want.

The Final Characters

These are the final skill levels of the characters at the end of Dramune Run.

Name: Yanni

Race: Yazirian, F

STR/STA: 40/40

DEX/RS: 55/55

INT/LOG: 55/55

PER/LDR: 45/45

Racial Abilities: Battle Rage 5%

XP: 288/299

PSA – Technological

Skills: Technician 6, Robotics 5, Computer 3, Beam 3, Melee 3, Engineer 3

Notes:

Born on Hentz, Araks. Yanni likes to tinker with gadgets and vehicles.  She’d love to be able to tinker on starships as well.

Name: Mekar

Race: Yazirian, M

STR/STA: 45/45

DEX/RS: 70/70

INT/LOG: 55/55

PER/LDR: 55/55

Racial Abilities: Battle Rage 5%

XP: 282/299

PSA – Bio-social

Skills: Medic 5, Environmental 4, Projectile 5, Psycho-social 3, Melee 2, Gyrojet 2, Beam 2, Rocket Weapons 3

Notes:

Born on Pale, Truane’s Star.  As Mekar will tell anyone who asks, his job is to understand the local critters and keep everyone else in one piece.

Name: Dolnab

Race: Dralasite

STR/STA: 55/55

DEX/RS: 65/65

INT/LOG: 70/70

PER/LDR: 50/50

Racial Abilities: Lie Detection 5%

XP: 264/299

PSA – Techological

Skills: Technician 6, Computer 3, Robotics 3, Projectile 3, Melee 3, Demolitions 1, Beam 1, Pilot 3

Notes:

Born on Inner Reach, Dramune.  Dolnab loves to tinker with computers and also play flight simulator games. 

Name:  Michaella

Race: Human, F

STR/STA: 55/55

DEX/RS: 64/61

INT/LOG: 50/50

PER/LDR: 40/40

XP: 294/299

PSA – Military

Skills: Beam 6, Melee 6, Environmental 2, Thrown 4, Martial Arts 4, Medic 2, Projectile 3, Energy Weapons 3

Notes:

Born on Minotaur, Theseus. Michaella grew up as the youngest of seven with six older brothers.  She learned to shoot and hold her own with her brothers’ rough-housing at a young age.

Name: K’sta’n

Race: Vrusk, F

STR/STA: 50/50

DEX/RS: 75/75

INT/LOG: 50/50

PER/LDR: 35/35

Racial Abilities: Comprehension 15%

XP: 284/299

PSA – Military

Skills: Gyrojet 6, Martial Arts 4, Projectile 4, Technician 2, Melee 6, Thrown 3, Beam 2, Rocket Weapons 3

Notes:

Born on Terldrom, Fromeltar.  K’sta’n has always had an interest in weapons, but also in the forms of the various martial arts.

Name: T’vor

Race: Vrusk, M

STR/STA: 40/40

DEX/RS: 55/55

INT/LOG: 65/65

PER/LDR: 40/40

Racial Abilities: Comprehension 15%

XP: 280/299

PSA – Technological

Skills: Computer 6, Robotics 5, Beam 3, Melee 2, Technician 2, Astrogation 3

Notes:

Born on Gran Quivera, Prenglar.  T’vor used to hang aout at the University of Prenglar as a kid and chat up the tech professors.  He loves to hack computers and robots and can usually get anything working, eventually.  He also has a deep interest in astronomy.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really have much to add. What are your thoughts and ideas on the way the campaign was laid out? Feel free to comment below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.268 to FY60.298

Here’s the next installment of the timeline. This month sees the Sathar consolidating some of their forces, the Discovery Squadron bypassing the sathar starship construction center to press on to their target system, and the Saurians continue their exodus from their home system. We also see the incidents that will kick off the events of a couple of the game modules (SFAD5 – Bugs in the System and SFKH0 – Warriors of White Light).

Date (FY)Event
60.268 An order is placed for a second assault scout for the K’aken Kar system at the Fromeltar starship construction center.
60.269 Crown Princess Leotia Valentine of Clarion (White Light) celebrates her 33rd birthday.
60.270 Discovery Squadron arrives at Stenmar Station where most of the crew takes a week of shore leave.
60.271 The sathar starship construction center in the Liberty system completes a destroyer and 6 fighters.
60.272 Errors in the astrogation calculations cause the HSS History’s Hope to misjump and not return to the OFS224 system.  Luckily, they end up in the Araks system.  While not disastrous, the misjump emphasizes for the crew the risk involved in their endeavor.
60.273 Deciding not to risk trouble with the Family of One authorities on Hentz (Araks). the HSS History’s Hope decides to not stop at the station and head straight back to Histran (Scree Fron)
60.274 Businesses on both Inner and Outer Reach (Dramune) lodge formal complaints against the new inspection of cargo arriving at Inner Reach from Outer Reach claiming it is hurting trade and damaging business. The government refuses to make any changes to the process.
60.275 Strike Force Nova arrives at Hentz (Araks).  It will spend just 4 days here before heading on to the Athor system.
60.276 A new assault carrier is completed in the sathar starship construction center near Fromeltar.
60.277 After 20 days backtracking though their original path, the Spire Dragons reach their coastal camp.  All told it took just over half a year (202 days) to make the full trek and cost the lives of fifteen of the team’s members.
60.278 – Newest saurian Ark ship completes its checkout and passengers begin shuttling to the ship.

– In order to avoid OFS019 and the sathar forces there, the Discovery Squadron decides to try skirting the edge of the nebula near Kazak and jump to the double star system OFS017.
60.279 Strike Force Nova departs Hentz (Araks) for the Athor system
60.280 After four weeks of the increased inspections of ships arriving at Inner Reach (Dramune) from Outer Reach (Dramune), authorities have seized millions of credits worth of the drug Ixiol and reported cases of the drugs use on the planet has dropped significantly.
60.281 As news of Inner Reach’s (Dramune) success on limited the import of Ixiol spreads around the Frontier, other systems consider similar sanctions. However, many of the systems lack the militia enforcement necessary to make it successful.
60.282 – A heavy cruiser is completed in the sathar starship construction center near Zebulon (OFS19).

– The frigate, light cruiser, assault carrier, and fighters arrive in OFS19 from OFS111. The forces in the system are now on par with, if not exceeding, the strength of any of the UPF Task Forces.

– Mistakes in the astrogation calculations, possibly due to the presence of the nebula, send the Discovery Squadron off course and they end up in a single star system instead of the binary system they were shooting for.
60.283 The HSS History’s Hope arrives safely at Histran Station (Scree Fron) where it will resupply before reattempting to complete charting the jump route between OFS224 and OFS221.
60.284 Construction on the second K’aken-Kar militia assault scout begins.
60.285 – After three days of observations, the astrogators of Discovery Squadron determine that they are in OFS025 instead of OFS017, having jumped further than intended.  No sathar signals have been detected.

– After much discussion, the decision is made for Discovery Squadron to press on.  They prepare to jump to OFS026 which would have been the next system after OFS017.
60.286 The HSS History’s Hope departs Histran Station (Scree Fron) headed to OFS224 to resume its attempt to chart a course to the suspected Yazirian home system.
60.287 PGC shipyards around Gran Quivera attacked by militants claiming to be Streel supporters, using access derived from the Nesmith Enterprises breach earlier in the year.  Production capacity reduced by 38%. Several hulls destroyed but the Spacefleet battleship escaped unscathed.
60.288 Strike Force Nova arrives in the Athor system.  Originally scheduled to spend seven days in the system, the news from the Discovery Squadron cut that short to only 2 days.
60.289 Strike Force Nova detects extremely faint signals from OFS200 in the Athor system.  The detection confirms that the signals have been being broadcast for years undetected.
60.290 Strike Force Nova departs the Athor system to return to Prenglar.
60.291 Construction of two TransTravel assault scouts completed at the CDC starship construction center orbiting Triad (Cassidine) and begin traveling to Terldrom (Fromeltar).
60.292 PGC and Star Law release a joint statement that autopsies of several of the saboteurs killed at the PGC shipyard contained the same sathar parasite as the sathar agents that attacked the armed station orbiting Triad (Cassidine).
60.293 Loading complete, the third saurian Ark ships departs the Sauria system for destinations unknown.
60.294 – The Discovery Squadron successfully arrives in the binary star system OFS026.  No sathar signals have been detected while decelerating into the system.

– The Discovery Squadron begins plotting a jump to the OFS30 system, another binary star system 9 light years away.  This will be the longest uncharted jump of their journey.
60.295 – Sathar SCC#3 completes a heavy cruiser

– HSS History’s Hope arrives in OFS224 and immediately begins trip to OFS221
60.296 Unbeknownst to the crew, the Matrix virus infects the Jetsom’s electronic systems in the Belenafaer system. (SFAD5[1])
60.297 Boarding party of the CMS Osprey killed by smugglers during a routine cargo inspection.  The freighter is destroyed as it tries to flee toward a Void jump.  The Clarion Royal Marines post a job opening for new staff. (SFKH0)
60.298 Calculations complete and verified, the Discovery Squadron begins accelerating toward OFS030.

[1] SFAD5 – Bugs in the System module

Here’s the full timeline document:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload

State of the Frontier – Oct 2019

This is going to be a fairly short post as there really isn’t much to say. This month’s posts had a fairly focused theme: miniatures.

Looking Back

October was the month of miniatures. We had the Detailed Frontier Timeline post to start off the month and then it was miniatures, miniatures, miniatures with posts on the Armed Station, the UPF Light Cruiser, and the UPF Destroyer. I ended the month with a post providing the spectral types of all the stars on the Extended Frontier Map.

There were some things going on behind the scenes as well. Most notably we were hard at work on Issue 26 of the Frontier Explorer, which was just released late last night. It took longer than I planned. I’m still struggling with the distributed workload. It just takes longer than when I was doing it all myself and I keep forgetting to account for that. Hopefully I’ll get that figured out for the January issue.

I also worked a bit more on my Star Frontiers novel. This was mostly at the beginning of the month before work on the Frontier Explorer and my current miniatures obsession took over. But I still managed to get ~5000 words added. Not as many as I wanted but creating the miniature models ate into the time I had planned to spend on writing.

Looking Forward

I’ll have to admit, I’m having a blast creating the miniatures and I don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon. Although the rate will definitely slow down. I’m nearly halfway done with the UPF Battleship and will finish that here in the coming month so you can expect a post about that.

As I’ve mentioned in the posts this month, I’m working on filling in the gaps so that there are miniatures for all the ships in the Second Sathar War game. After the battleship, I’ll have recreated all the original UPF and sathar miniatures. With the destroyers and fighters done, the only ships left are the UPF Heavy Cruiser and the UPF and sathar assault carriers. Those builds will be completely from scratch and may take some time. I expect that those will be coming at the rate of one a month for the next little while. They may come faster if I really get bitten by the modeling bug but one a month is the plan.

I want to finish up the module campaign project so I’m going to force myself to write another post in that series this month and then finish it off in December. We’ll also have the regular Detailed Frontier Timeline post. As to the fourth post this month, I’m going to leave that open and not make any predictions or promises. We’ll have to see what project grabs me this time around.

Your Thoughts

What did you think about the overabundance of miniatures this month? Do you want to see more of those? Is there something you’re missing or you’d like to see more of? Is there a project or topic you’d like to see me tackle (or finish)? Let me know in the comments below. And Happy Halloween!

Extended Frontier Map Star Systems

This posts provides a table of all the systems on the Extended Frontier Map and provides the spectral types of the stars that were used to generate the images on the map. The named systems are listed first, in alphabetical order, followed by the FS designated systems and finally the OFS designated systems. The two latter sets are ordered by number

For the Frontier Sector systems (UPF & Rim), the spectral types were take from the following sources listed in decreasing order of importance. If a source higher up on the list conflicted with a source lower down, the higher sources was used.

  • Star Frontiers Expanded Rules book – this didn’t give exact spectral types but they could be inferred from the colors given.
  • Published modules – for most of the systems that were detailed in the modules, a spectral type was given although some just provided colors like the Expanded Rules book
  • Zebulon’s Guide to the Frontier: Volume 1 – This source provided spectral types for all the systems although some conflicted with the information from above.

With the exception of the neutron stars, all other spectral types were randomly generated and drawn from a realistic distribution of spectral types. The neutron stars were placed either where they appeared in the Expanded Rules or Zeb’s Guide maps or were specifically placed by me.

In addition to the spectral types, the table gives some notes and references for the various systems indicating features of the system and/or the source where the name/spectral type came from.

I realized after the fact that I never went through the Dragon and other “offical” magazine articles to find any systems listed there. I knew there was an Ebony Eyes system with a pair of binary black holes but I never put it on the map. Looking at that article, the FS38 system is almost in the position listed for Ebony Eyes so I put a note about that in the table below.

A quick perusal of all the other articles didn’t reveal any other star systems not already included so it turns out it wasn’t too much of an oversight. So with that, there’s the full table. At the end of the page is a link to a PDF of the table as well that you can download.

System Name Spectral Types Notes

Named Systems

Araks  G4  
Athor  K2  
Belnafar  A0 SFAD5: Bugs in the System
Capella  G6  
Cassidine  G8  
Cryxia  K5  
Dayzer  G4 FE004 – The Saurian Sector
Devco  F9  
Dixon’s Star  G0  
Dramune  K1  
Fochrik  F9  
Fromeltar  G5  
Gamma Hydrus  K6 FE016 – Phri’sk Anyone? Detailing the S’sessu Homeworlds
Gruna Garu  G8  
Imdali  G7 FE016 – Phri’sk Anyone? Detailing the S’sessu Homeworlds
K’aken-Kar  K8  
Kashra’sk  G4 FE016 – Phri’sk Anyone? Detailing the S’sessu Homeworlds
Kazak  G1  
Kizk-Kar  G2  
Klaeok  G8  
K’tsa-Kar  K0  
Liberty  G1 FS30, Sathar Starship Construction Center #2 – SFKH4: The War Machine
Lynchpin  NS  
Madderly’s Star  G3  
Mechan  K7  
Minan  K1 FE016 – Phri’sk Anyone? Detailing the S’sessu Homeworlds
New Streel  G2  
Osak  G4  
Padda  BD, M1 SFKH2: Mutiny on the Elanor Moraes
PanGal  G8  
Precipice  K4 FE004 – The Saurian Sector
Prenglar  F9  
Rhianna  G6 SF4: Mission to Alcazzar
Sauria  G8 Saurian home system – FE004 – The Saurian Sector
Scree Fron  K7  
Sessar  F1 FE004 – The Saurian Sector
Solar Major  F3  
Solar Minor  F8  
S’seuden  F9 S’sessu home system – FE016 – Phri’sk Anyone? Detailing the S’sessu Homeworlds
Sundown  K9 SF3: Sundown on Starmist
Theseus  G1  
Timeon  G5  
Tischen  G6 FE004 – The Saurian Sector
Tristkar  K0 SFAD6: Dark Side of the Moon
Truane’s Star  G7  
Waller Nexus  G0 SFKH2: Mutiny on the Elanor Moraes
White Light  K1  
Zebulon  G2  

Frontier Sector Systems

FS08  M6  
FS13  BD  
FS15  BD  
FS16  M2, M4  
FS18  A4, M0III  
FS19  G8, M1  
FS21  M1, M2  
FS22  BD  
FS26  K4, M9  
FS28  M7  
FS29  NS  
FS35  M2  
FS37  M3, K1  
FS38  M0, M3 This is in the approximate location given for the Ebony Eyes system (it should be down one and right two squares) so you could replace the two stars with black holes.
FS41  M2, M4  
FS42  M8  
FS43  BD  
FS44  K2, M3  
FS50  BD, M7  
FS53  NS  
FS56  M9, M4  
FS57  M3  

Outer Frontier Sector Systems

OFS001  M9, BD  
OFS002  M3, M3  
OFS003  M6, M0  
OFS004  M8  
OFS006  M9  
OFS007  M6  
OFS008  M4  
OFS009  M4  
OFS010  M9, M7  
OFS011  BD, M2, M9  
OFS012  M5  
OFS013  BD, BD  
OFS014  A6, G1  
OFS015  M4, M7  
OFS016  M3  
OFS017  BD, BD  
OFS018  M7  
OFS019  M1 Sathar Starship Construction Center #5
OFS020  F0, M4  
OFS021  M0  
OFS022  M1, M4  
OFS023  M9, M9  
OFS024  M4  
OFS025  M7  
OFS026  M4, M3  
OFS027  M6, K7, M2  
OFS028  M1  
OFS029  M4  
OFS030  M4, K3, BD  
OFS031  M6  
OFS032  M5, K6  
OFS033  K8, M7, M5  
OFS034  K2, M5, WD  
OFS035  M3  
OFS036  M2, M3, M1  
OFS037  M7  
OFS038  BD  
OFS039  WD  
OFS040  M3  
OFS041  M4, M8  
OFS042  M8  
OFS043  M0, M9  
OFS044  G8  
OFS045  M4, K4  
OFS046  M4, G2  
OFS047  M7, M7  
OFS048  M3  
OFS049  WD  
OFS050  BD, BD  
OFS051  F1  
OFS052  M6, M2  
OFS053  BD  
OFS054  M7  
OFS055  K9  
OFS056  BD  
OFS057  M1, BD  
OFS058  M8, M2  
OFS059  WD  
OFS060  M6  
OFS061  M7  
OFS062  M8  
OFS063  M4  
OFS064  M2 Sathar Starship Construction Center #9
OFS065  M6, M8  
OFS066  M1  
OFS067  K3, M7, M2  
OFS068  M0, M5, M0, BD, M7  
OFS069  K6, M8  
OFS070  M3 Tetrarch Complex (similar to one on Laco, Dixon’s Star)
OFS071  M3  
OFS072  M1  
OFS073  M4, K8  
OFS074  WD, M1, M4, M4  
OFS075  M8  
OFS076  M1, M9  
OFS077  M6, M4  
OFS078  M4  
OFS079  BD, M9  
OFS080  WD, M0  
OFS081  M9  
OFS082  M6, M4  
OFS083  K5  
OFS084  BD  
OFS085  M6, M8  
OFS086  M9, M7  
OFS087  M7, M6  
OFS088  K3, M8  
OFS089  M7, M3  
OFS090  M0  
OFS091  BD  
OFS092  K5  
OFS093  BD  
OFS094  BD  
OFS095  M8  
OFS096  M8, M3  
OFS097  M6 Sathar Starship Construction Center #8
OFS098  M2  
OFS099  M8  
OFS100  M8, M5, M7  
OFS101  F2 Sathar Starship Construction Center #7
OFS102  M5, K8  
OFS103  BD  
OFS104  M9  
OFS105  M4, M4  
OFS106  M2  
OFS107  M0  
OFS108  M1  
OFS109  K6  
OFS110  M4, M8, BD  
OFS111  BD Sathar Starship Construction Center #4
OFS112  M6, BD  
OFS113  M4, M0  
OFS114  M3  
OFS115  M7, M5  
OFS116  WD  
OFS117  K4 Sathar Homeworld, Sathar Starship Construction Center #6
OFS118  M8  
OFS119  M2, M4, M3  
OFS120  M7, M4  
OFS121  BD  
OFS122  M7, M5, BD  
OFS123  K6  
OFS124  M6, M5  
OFS125  M3, M7  
OFS126  M8, K5, M5  
OFS127  M5, M5  
OFS128  M6, M0  
OFS129  K9, M4  
OFS130  M5  
OFS131  M2  
OFS132  M2  
OFS133  M1, WD  
OFS134  BD, M7, M3  
OFS135  M4  
OFS136  F3  
OFS137  M2  
OFS138  M0 Sathar Starship Construction Center #3
OFS139  M4, M7  
OFS140  WD, M5  
OFS141  WD  
OFS142  M9, K8  
OFS143  M1  
OFS144  M5, M4  
OFS145  M6  
OFS146  BD  
OFS147  M1, M1  
OFS148  M9  
OFS149  M6, M8  
OFS150  G0  
OFS151  M2  
OFS152  K1, M0  
OFS153  G1  
OFS154  K6, M4  
OFS155  M8  
OFS156  M8  
OFS157  M0  
OFS158  M0  
OFS159  M9  
OFS160  F0  
OFS161  M1  
OFS162  G5, G1, M3  
OFS163  K5  
OFS164  M3, M8  
OFS165  M5, M6, M1  
OFS166  NS  
OFS167  G7  
OFS168  M7  
OFS169  BD  
OFS170  BD  
OFS171  M4, K5  
OFS172  M5  
OFS173  K9  
OFS174  M9, WD  
OFS175  M7  
OFS176  M8, K2  
OFS177  M9  
OFS179  M0  
OFS182  M1, K9, M4  
OFS183  M3, M5  
OFS184  BD  
OFS185  K4  
OFS186  M7  
OFS188  M2, M8  
OFS190  M8  
OFS191  F8, BD  
OFS192  NS  
OFS193  M1, M6, M2  
OFS194  BD, M8  
OFS195  M4  
OFS196  M2  
OFS198  WD  
OFS199  M1, M8, M7  
OFS201  M3  
OFS203  BD, M6, M3III, K3 Sathar Starship Construction Center #1
OFS203  NS  
OFS205  WD  
OFS206  M6  
OFS207  M7  
OFS210  M6, BD  
OFS211  M5  
OFS212  G0, M8  
OFS213  M9, BD  
OFS214  NS  
OFS215  K1, K6  
OFS216  M9  
OFS217  M1  
OFS218  M9, M9  
OFS219  M8  
OFS220  M2  
OFS221  NS  
OFS222  B8  
OFS223  M6  
OFS224  M6  
OFS225  WD, M7  
OFS226  BD  
OFS227  M2, M9  
OFS228  M9 Sathar Starship Construction Center #10

Here’s the PDF file to download:

ExtendedFrontierMapDataDownload

UPF Destroyer Model and Ship Stands

This post is a couple of days late as I was traveling and completely forgot to get a post queued up for Tuesday.  And this is not what I had planned to post at all.  I had not planned to do another model post this month.  I was planning on putting together a table of all the star systems on the Extended Frontier Map to provide the spectral types of all the stars and notes about they systems. However, on my flight I had some time to kill and wasn’t completely decided on what I wanted to include in the table so I decided to do a bit of modeling.  I’ll probably finish up that table for next week.

The UPF Destroyer

Since I didn’t have my battleship mini or calipers with me, I couldn’t continue working on the battleship model. Instead, I thought I’d take a look at the UPF destroyer and start working on that.  Since there is no existing model for this ship, this would be a scratch build.  There are two references for this ship.  One in the Knight Hawks Campaign book on page 7 in the image showing the silhouettes of the various ships and the small game counters.

The silhouette images for both the frigate and destroyer are shown in the image to the right.  As you can see, the ships are fairly similar.  The destroyer is shown with a shorter engine block area, a longer neck, and an obvious gun on the bow.  The counters for the two ships are shown below.

These images also show a slightly smaller engine area and noticeable gun on the bow, but here the neck area is about the same and the main fuselage is longer.  Also, the width of the fuselage is a bit larger on the destroyer.  Since there is some detail on the body of the ships in the counters, you can notice that the main body of the destroyer is very similar to the body of the frigate, mainly that it has that same cross structure.

Since it’s always been in the back of my mind to make a set of models that match the silhouettes in the book in the future, I chose to take the counter as my guide for this project.  Especially since that meant that I could use a lot of the work done for  the frigate on the destroyer.

Building the Model

The frigate is a HS 5 ship while the destroyer is a HS 6 ship so we expect in the end the destroyer will be a little larger.  I started by pulling up the model for the frigate.  Since I’m using the original mini model as the basis, this model, like my recreation models, are not designed at an exact model scale but at their actual physical size.

Main Fuselage

I’m doing this design work in OpenSCAD which looks and acts very much like a programming language.  I give it positions, sizes, and rotations of various primitive shapes and it places them on the model.  I then “compile” it to get a render.  For example, this is the code that draws the main body of the frigate with its crossed block structure:

cylinder(r=3,h=15);

for(i=[0,90]){ rotate([0,0,i]){

  translate([0,0,2]) cube([11,2.9,4],center=true);

  translate([0,0,7.75]) cube([11,2.9,6.5],center=true);

  translate([0,0,4]) cube([10.5,2.5,1],center=true);

  translate([0,0,11]) scale([1,1,1.4]) rotate([0,45,0]) cube([7.77,2.9,7.77],center=true);

  translate([5.5,0,8]) sphere(r=1);

  translate([-5.5,0,8]) sphere(r=1);

}

Since I wanted that same block structure for the destroyer, just bigger, I just needed to increase the length and width of the blocks and shift the positions of some of them to make the body longer.  Basically, I just change a few numbers and re-render.  If I wanted to just make it bigger everywhere, I could wrap all of that in a scale() command and not change anything.  However, I wanted to keep the core diameter (that first cylinder) the same size so I modified each of the items.  Overall, I increased the length of this part of the ship by 2.6 mm and its width by 3 mm.

I kept the neck length nearly the same but stretched out the spherical section of the upper body by 0.3 mm (10%).

I also lengthened slightly the area behind the crossed block structure.  In the counter image, this is larger on the destroyer than the frigate and has a grilled structure, so I added in a hull section to match that image.  This also helped to lengthen the entire body of the ship.

The Bow

For the “head” or bow of the ship, I decided to just reuse wholesale the head of the frigate model.  I figure that since the ships are nearly the same size, the designers would just reuse an existing design to save on design and fabrication costs.  However, I did make one change.  On the frigate, the main gun extends out from the center of the head which means that the long lasing cavity of the laser cannon runs through the center of the bow taking up space inside the ship. 

In both destroyer images from the game, this laser cannon is very obviously mounted outside the ship and visible on the exterior.  So I added an externally mounted cannon on the model. This gives a bit more room inside the ship’s bow and helps to match the profile on the counter better.

Engines

According to the rules, both the frigate and the destroyer are supposed to have three Class B engines.  The original frigate mini just had a single engine mounted directly aft of the ship.  Since I’m building this model from scratch, I decided to give it the three engines it is supposed to have.

I started by shortening up the cylinder on the model that was the actual engine on the frigate model.  I effectively just chopped off the nozzle portion and added a small taper to the end.  On the destroyer, this is now part of the interior hull space instead of the engine itself.

Next, I created an engine model.  It’s roughly the same size as the engine from the frigate but I gave it my own set of surface details.  I added an engine strut and then put three of them on the model distributed symmetrically around the tail section of the ship.

Finishing Touches

Finally, I went back and added a bit of surface detail to the ship.  Some of the bits were also used on the frigate and some I added in just for the destroyer.  That gave me the finished model. 

The image on the left shows the destroyer model alongside the frigate model for a size and feature comparison.  The image on the right is the other side of the destroyer model so you can see the externally mounted laser cannon a little bit better. You can click on either image for a larger version.

All told, the destroyer is about 58mm long while the frigate is about 52mm.  I realized after the fact that since the silhouettes on the counters are constrained in size, the actual physical size of the destroyer might be a bit bigger than I made it but it’s distinctive enough that I’m not going to worry about it.  Also, I feel better about the engine area being bigger, not smaller, than on the frigate.  When I do my complete custom builds, they’ll all be to the same scale.

Printing

I got home from my trip yesterday and fired up my printer to try printing the model.  It worked out just fine with no issues.  The image below shows the printed destroyer alongside a printed frigate.

I decided to print the destroyer with the white resin which unfortunately doesn’t photograph well, so it’s kind of hard to see the details on it.  However, they are all there. 

Ship Stands

In discussions about the models on the Star Frontiers Facebook group, Jess Carver asked me about stands for the ships.  I hadn’t really thought about that yet but figured I’ve give it a go and see what I came up with.  I actually did this build a couple weeks ago before my trip.

Looking at the stands that came with the original minis, they were just X shaped and designed to fit in a 1” square.  And they came with a small, 2” long, 1/32” diameter steel rod to mount the mini on. 

If you’re playing on a 1” hex grid, that original model stand is going to be a bit big and extend out of the hex the ship is in.  This could be a problem if you have a bunch of ships close together.  If you’re playing off a grid, that’s not so much of a problem but you then need a protractor to measure turns and such.  I wanted to make a stand that solved both of those problems if possible.

I started by making the stand circular instead of square and 1” in diameter.  I asked around a bit about what size hexes people were using as I have actually never played with minis, just the original counters from the game.  The answers I got back were 1” and 1.5” so I went with the 1” option.  It’s easy enough to scale the model up to 1.5 inches if someone wants that sized base and a 1” base fits in a 1.5” hex but not the other way around.

The outer edge of the stand is slanted back toward the center and I put tick marks all around it at 15-degree intervals.  It took a couple of tries to get the sizing right on these so that they showed up well on the print.  The first tries were a little to small.  You could see them, but you had to get close and that defeated the purpose.  I made the 60-degree tick marks larger to help find them better and added a unique tick mark at one position to represent the “front” of the ship or the direction of travel.  Here’s an image of the model.

You’ll notice that it is just the base.  I made the decision to use a steel rod as the vertical piece instead of printing a vertical bar.  Printing it would require it to be a lot thicker and I didn’t want that.  Another thing that I discovered in printing the bases is that the hole in the middle that the rod is going to go into just doesn’t print well.  It keeps filling up with resin that would harden while printing.  I made the hole twice as large as the rod and it still didn’t work.  In the end I had to just drill out the hole for the rod.  Since I had to drill the models anyway, this wasn’t a big deal and probably better as the hole would be exactly the right size.  I did have to go buy a 1/32” drill bit since the smallest one I had at the time was 1/16”.

I was a little concerned about stability, at least when holding up the larger minis.  One inch is not that big when you compare it to a four- to six-inch miniature. So I gave it a stress test.  I grabbed one of my sathar heavy cruiser model, the largest one I’ve created at 5.5 inches, and mounted it on the stand.  I used one of the steel rods from my miniature boxed sets as I didn’t have any others.

It was surprisingly stable.  I gave it a tap and hit it harder than I intended.  The mini tilted by 10-15 degrees and then settled right back down on the base.  I deliberately tilted it in some different directions and it remained upright.  Obviously, you can tip it far enough that it falls over, but it seems to survive accidental bumping.  The plastic minis are much lighter than the metal ones so I’m sure that helps.  And if you want, you can always use two stands just like you had to do with the metal minis.

The only other issue was to find a source of steel rods.  I have the ones that came with my sathar and Federation ships boxed sets, but I am going to need more.  So I started looking around on-line.  I found some on Amazon that were 1.1mm in diameter (the ones from the boxed sets are 0.8mm) and 10cm long.  I wasn’t worried about length as I can cut them down to the 50mm size needed with my Dremel.  They were reasonably priced (20 for $8) but were shipping from Asia and would take a couple of weeks to arrive.  I kept looking.

I figured a hobby/craft store might have something I could use, especially if they sell model train supplies.  Sure enough, looking at Hobby Lobby’s on-line store they sold six 12” brass rods at 1/32” diameter for $4.  That was an even better price even including local sales tax. And I could just drive down and get them (about a 20-minute drive as the Hobby Lobby is a couple towns away up the freeway).  It took me a couple days to get over there but when I did, I found that not only did they have the brass rods I was expecting, they sold a four-pack of 12” steel rods for just $2.  An even better price.  So I bought a pack, went home, chopped up one with my Dremel, printed up a bunch of stands, and mounted up examples of some of my models.

I’m starting to get the itch to print out enough of these and run a big battle on my kitchen table.

Final Thoughts

The build of the destroyer went really fast, at least partially because I was reusing the basic design of the frigate.  I completed it in just about four hours.  For comparison, the light cruiser model took something between 8-12 hours (I wasn’t really tracking it at the time) and I’ve spent 6 hours on the battleship and probably have another 6-10 to go.  Similarly, the stand build was really quick, maybe a half hour as it was a really simple construction and had minimal details.

The recreation models take a long time as I’m constantly measuring, placing, remeasuring, and tweaking the features of the model to try to match the original as closely as possible.  With a custom build, I don’t have that constraint and can just build the model as I wish so it can go faster.

This was a fun build and fills in a gap in the order of battle for the UPF.  Once I finish the battleship, the only remaining models will be the UPF heavy cruiser and assault carriers for both the UPF and sathar.  Since the miniature labeled as the sathar cutter on the blister packs matches the silhouette of the UPF minelayer on the counter, and I’ve already done that model, that ship can be used as the UPF minelayer if desired.  However, that ship definitely looks more like a sathar vessel so I’ll design a new minelayer for the UPF as well.

I’ve added the destroyer model and the stands to my price list on the Order Miniatures page.  Anyone that joins my Patreon as a supporter at the Crafter level will get all the models I’ve done this month (space station, light cruiser, destroyer, and a set of stands) mailed out to them in November.

Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

UPF Light Cruiser Model and Miniature

I didn’t think I would have this done by today but in a burst of fevered work, I finished up the light cruiser model so that’s what I’m writing about today. The image to the right shows the final model (click for the full-sized image). Let’s talk a bit about the ship.

First off, I’ve been calling this the light cruiser but on the Federation Ships boxed set of miniatures that the original came in, it is labeled as a Destroyer. However, it’s much too big to be a destroyer so I’ve always considered it a light cruiser, although it could arguably be a heavy cruiser also.

The frigate model is 2.25 inches long. Based on the size given for the frigate in the rules, this makes the model 1/2500th scale. The destroyer is only 30% longer and so at that scale should be about 2.9 inches long. This model is 3.75″ long. As a light cruiser it is a 1/3800th scale model which makes a little more sense to me. The battleship model is at 1/5900th scale so that would put it in between the scales of the frigate and the battleship and similar to the sathar light cruiser model which is at 1/3500th scale.

Here’s a picture of the two original miniatures side by side. They are roughly the same size (when I’m comparing them and quoting scales, I’m looking only at the fuselages and not counting the engines) and have basically the same volumes. So you’d expect the ships to be of similar sizes as well. So that’s why I’ve been calling this the light cruiser and not the destroyer despite what the box says.

With that out of the way, let’s look at creating the model.

The Fuselage

The first step was to build the basic fuselage that all the other bits would be attached to. This was fairly straight forward as it was mostly just some cylinders and cones hooked together. The calipers provided the lengths and diameters and that got us from the stern up to the neck just before the bow.

This is where I made my first deviation from the original miniature. On the mini, the bow is a hexagon from back to front so it extends out beyond the neck portion of the ship just a little on the sides. I decided to make if flush there and so used the software to smoothly transition from the circular neck to the hexagon, just like I had done on the frigate model.

At this point, I also added all the ridged trim to the edges of the model. I ended up making my trim a little more finely grooved than in the original miniatures. With that done, I had the basic fuselage and could start adding details.

The Engines

As you can see from the photo above, the engine structure on the UPF ship is much more complicated than the sathar one. That was part of the reason I started with the sathar ships several years ago when I first started making the reproduction models – it was simpler. However, I knew I was going to have to tackle this.

Then I got looking at the engines for the battleship model as well (they are not attached to the model like they are for the light cruiser). On closer inspection, I realized that they were exactly the same! Which meant that once I created a model of the engine, I could use it for the battleship as well.

So I busted out my calipers and started measuring. I quickly realized that that wasn’t going to work too well as there were little bits and pieces that I couldn’t reach with my calipers to make measurements. So I also took a series of images of the engines from each side that I could pull up in a graphics program and measure the number of pixels across a given feature was and convert that to millimeters to use in making the model. The result was the model to the right.

If you look closely, it’s a little bit cleaner than that one on the model. That’s because I’ll be 3D printing these and don’t have to pour molten lead into a mold. That allows me to leave of features that on the miniature look like they are there just to get the lead to flow into all the right parts. So it’s not an exact replica, but rather a close match.

The Guns

The next bit was to do the gun turrets. They are all the same and not quite equally spaced around the body. This was another instance of being able to make a single model and reuse it. It was also at this point that I discovered that there are two slightly different versions of the light cruiser miniatures.

Over the years I have acquired four different Federation Ships boxed sets, primarily in an attempt to get one that didn’t suffer from lead rot. It seems that these ships were particularly succeptable to that, primarily the battleship model. I finally ended up with two good sets, one of which had a coat of primer applied. In looking at the light cruiser models from these two sets, I noticed that the gun turrets were different between the two. On of the minis (the painted one) had more details on the turret than the other. I pulled out my other two cruiser minis to check and there was one of each in that pair as well. The difference is minor but I chose to model the more detailed version.

Again, like the engine, there were some features, mainly material supporting the gun turrets, that were there to help the lead flow into the mold that I left off in my model.

Details, Details, Details

With the easy and repeatable parts out of the way, it was time to start adding in the individual details all along the surface of the ship. I simply started at the stern of the ship and worked my way forward using calipers, rulers, and my good, old-fashioned Mark I eyeball (assisted by a magnifying glass) to determine the size and position of each of the features on the model.

The boxes, cylinders, and spheres were easy enough to add in as those are native shapes the modeling software I use produces. The really tricky part was all the piping along the body of the ship. Getting those shapes created and positions was a bit trick but by the time I got to the bow of the ship I was getting pretty good at the process and had built up some tools that simplified it that will help me in models going forward.

And then it was done. I wasn’t keeping exact track of the time but I think I spent something on the order of 10-20 hours producing the model. Now it was time to print.

Printing

If you remember from my review of the AnyCubic Photon printer, the print time is directly related to the height of the object printed. Since this model was small enough that it could lay flat on my print bed, I had two choices, flat or vertical. I was going to print this with the grey, opaque resin because I wanted to get more familiar with that resin and because it makes the details a little easier to see. The opaque resin takes longer to print and cure as you have to spend a little more time on each layer when printing (16 instead of 10 seconds). So printing flat meant a 3 and a quarter hour print while a vertical print meant a 12 hour print. In the interest of testing, I went with the shorter print (I really wanted to see a print that day and not wait all night).

Once the print was done and cured, I started looking it over to see how it compared to the original miniature. The “down” side looked fine, there were some variations but overall it looked fine. Then I turned it over. The “up” side did not look nearly as good and felt almost melted to me. I realized that this was from resin pooling on the upper surfaces and not draining off and then slowly curing during the printing process. I also noticed some warping due to not having enough supports in certain places. It looked like a flat print was not going to work. So I set one up to print overnight in the vertical orientation.

click for full resolution image

This first image shows the three minis side by side. The original metal miniature is in the middle (this is the primed one). On the left is the vertically printed mini and on the right is the horizontally printed one. This is the “down” side of the horizontally printed mini. Comparing the two printed minis, they look about the same on this side. Although I think the vertically printed one is just a little crisper.

Comparing the plastic and metal minis, I realized that despite always reducing the size of the features as I measured them off the unpainted mini, a lot of the features came out slightly larger. Also, the metal miniature still wins on the details in some places. I think I could fix that but I’m happy with the way it looks.

Turning the model over we get this view.

click for full resolution image

Here you can immediately see the issue with the printing on the horizontally printed model (on the right). The features are just not as crisp and clean. As I said before, to me it looked a bit melted. You can’t really see it in these images but the bow and ends of the engines are pinched and skinnier than the other model and the original. This is due to flexure in the printing process that could probably be fixed with more supports (I don’t think there were supports on the very tips because they were higher up and therefore didn’t technically need them). However, the issues with the remainder of the surface make this not really worth pursuing. This model will need to be printed vertically for best results.

Here’s another picture of the first side with the models in a slightly different orientation that includes a ruler for scale.

In this view, you can actually see a bit of the curvature I was talking about in the bow and engines of the model on the right.

Wondering if the opaque resin was part of the problem of the parts looking bigger or less distinct (due to the longer curing time while printing) I printed another vertically-oriented one win the translucent green resin that I did a lot of the other ships in. I don’t have a picture but I decided that there really wasn’t any difference between the two other than it was harder to see the details on the green one.

Final Thoughts

This model is good to go. I could tweak it in the future to make it look a little bit more like the original miniature but I’m happy with it the way it is so if I do tweak it, it will be some time in the future when I’ve got the rest of the line of ships complete.

I’ll be sending the model file out to my Patreon supporters later today. I’ve added this model to the price list on the Order Miniatures page for those that want to order minis for their collection. It’s priced just like the Sathar light cruiser at $2.75.

Some time in the next month (probably after we get issue 26 of the Frontier Explorer out the door), I’m going to start posting the model files up on DriveThruRPG for download as well. The models that are reproductions will be offered as pay-what-you-want while the ones that are original to me will have a small cost.

Next up is the UPF battleship. I already have the gun turrets (but not the bases, those are different) and the engines ready to go. There are a lot of repeated features on that model so it might go faster but it will definitely be November before it’s done. After that, I plan on filling in the gaps in the ship lines by designing a UPF destroyer, minelayer, and heavy cruiser, and then the assault carriers for the UPF and sathar. That will give all the ships necessary for full fleet engagements. After that I’m going to go back and tackle the pirate frigate, freighter, and privateer minis from the original sets to complete all the reproductions. There might be some new ships thrown in along the way as well.

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments below.

Armed Station Model and Miniature

I teased this model in the last State of the Frontier post where I showed a picture of the printed miniature. In this post, I’ll talk about the creation of the Armed Station model and miniature that I created as part of my current interest in doing more 3D modelling.

Scale and Sizes

The basic outline of this model is based on the space station counter that came with the Knight Hawks boxed set, pictured to the right. For scale, I assumed this to be a HS 6 station making the diameter of the station 1200 meters, just short of a mile. In the end, the model was a bit bigger than that as I set the diameter of the center of the ring to be 1200 meters but that’s a minor quibble that can be fixed if really wanted by scaling the final model.

When I do my modeling, I typically work at 1/1000 scale in the model files so 1 meter on the actual vessel is represented as 1 mm in the model. However, for the space station, that was just a little bit too bit so instead I worked at 1/10,000th scale or 1mm = 10 meters. In the end, at that scale, the model came out at 137.4mm across, or 5.4″.

With the outer ring having a diameter of 1200 meters, that gives us some dimensions of other parts of the structure using the counter image as a silhouette.

The Main Ring

First is the cross sectional size of the ring itself. I chose to model the ring, at least for this version of the model with a circular cross section. I may do a future one with a square or rectangular cross section. Regardless, at this scale, that give the ring a height of 100 meters in the radial direction. So for the model, it has a diameter of 100 meters

That means, assuming you have 5m per deck, you could put 20 separate decks in the ring of the station, with the widest deck at the center being about 100m wide and the decks getting narrower as you move up or down from the center. The upper (and lower) two or three decks would be fairly narrow and probably used for machinery and other non-public areas.

The Spokes

On this station, the spokes connecting the hub to the ring are 60 meters across. Again, I chose to use a circular cross section so they are 60 meters in diameter.

In addition to the spokes of the station, the counter shows a thicker “sheath” around the ring where the spokes meet it. This sheath is 164 meters in diameter compared to the 100 meters of the ring. That means that there can be an additional 12 decks in this section of the station.

The Hub

Let’s start with what we can see from the picture on the counter. Measuring this out, the hub is 400 meters in diameter. That is the same size as the outer diameter on a hull size 2 station! But that’s fine. This is a big station and is supposed to be able to dock a lot of ships of all sizes.

That brings us to the first constraint. According the Star Frontiers rules, a hull size 6 station can dock any sized ship, including the HS 20 ships. Those ships are 100m in diameter. So the bay opening into the hub has to be at least that big. As drawn, in the counter, it’s only 85 meters wide so we’ll have to make it a little wider but that’s not that big of an issue. I ended up modeling it 110 meters wide. A HS 20 ship will fit, but it will be tight.

The harder part is the length of the hub. Those same HS 20 ships are 600 meters long. Or equal in length to the radius of the entire station. For our hub to be able to house those ships inside as the game implies, means that the hub has to be really long, at least 650 meters (to handle variations in width/length both the door and length should probably be larger but that’s what we’re going with here.) This results in a station that looks like this.

I tossed in some HS 18 Sathar heavy cruisers for scale. There’s also a HS 6 freigher (the CDCSS Nightwind) there to the right of the hub.

The same is true for the smaller stations. This image is one I made a long time ago of a HS 1 station which is just 200m in diameter and supposed to be able to house up the HS 6 ship. This shows a cut away of the hub with the CDCSS Nightwind inside along with a couple of assault scouts. I didn’t put bay doors on this one, as it was just for scale comparisons.

Personally, I don’t like the hub that big and in my game, the bigger ships don’t dock inside the hub. Rather they just enter a nearby parking orbit and material and people are moved across by shuttles, which can dock in the hub. So for the final version of this model, I made the hub just 200m tall instead of 650m. That’s still big enough to dock up to a HS 8 ship inside. In a future version, I might make it a little bigger, at 250-260m allowing a HS 10 ship to dock inside. But anything else starts to look a bit to big.

Finishing up the Model

Once I’d decided on the size of the hub, the basic shape of the station was done, but it was pretty boring looking. So I decided to add a bit of surface detail to the model to make it a little more visually appealing.

First I created bay doors that I could position either open or closed. In the end I decided to print the model with them closed but I created models with them both open and closed.

Then I added some surface detail all around the ring, spokes, and hub to give it a little character. In the end, the final model looked like this.

The asymmetry in the number of pips to the left and right of the doors was accidental. But I decided to leave them. The V-shape and half moon shape above and below the bay doors where intentional as navigational markers. The side with the ‘V’ that touches the bay entry is the “up” direction to orient ships aligning with the bay for entry. the opposite side of the hub is identical.

Printing the Model

As I said earlier, the completed model, at 1/10,000th scale is 137.4 mm. The problem is my high resolution printer has a maximum width of 120 mm. So this is just a bit too big. It’s not too tall, the limit there is 155 mm. And it’s not too thick as it can be 68 mm wide and this model is only 22mm wide (that would have been a bigger issue if I’d gone with the fat hub). I could easily print it on my big printer; in fact, I could print it at 1/5000th scale if I wanted to) but that wasn’t the plan. I wanted to print it on the SLA printer. If I rotate it just right, the software says it is possible to print the station at 1/10,000 scale in the build volume I have. And I might try that one day

However, from the beginning I had planned to print it at 1/20,000th scale which makes the largest dimension just 68.7 mm or 2.7″. So that’s what I did. You can see the result in this image.

The station was printed with black resin, the assault scout is 1″ tall and printed in the green resin that came with the printer.

The only detail that doesn’t show up is the “X” on the bay door. They are there, but very, very faint. I might go back and thicken them up in the future so they show up better on the print.

Final Thoughts

Given the size of the station, if it is spinning such that the deck at the center of the ring has a gravity of 1.0g, then for every 60m you move toward or away from the center of the station, you gravity will change by 0.1g. This means that the upper deck, 45m above that position will have a gravity of 0.925g while the outer deck will have a gravity of 1.075g. In the part of the station where the spokes connect, assuming there are decks all the way out to the edge, you get a range from .87g to 1.13g. And the hub with a radius of 200m, has a gravity of 0.33g, roughly the equivalent of the surface of Mars.

That raises an interesting point. The docking area in the hub is supposed to be fairly low gravity. I wouldn’t consider 0.33g to be that low so the hub is probably a bit too large in diameter. But it looks cool so it’s fine for the model.

The model has already gone out to my Patreon supporters at the Surveyor ($2/month) or higher. If you join at that level you’ll get access to it as well. Anyone that joins at the Crafter level ($30/month) in the month of October will get a printed version of the model as well as 8 UPF and 8 Sathar fighters. I’m also planning on posting the UPF Light Cruiser this month (the model is almost done) so a printed mini of that model will go out to backers at that level as well. Those will all be printed and shipped out in early November.

If you don’t want to back the Patreon, but still would like to get a print of any of the miniature models I’ve created, you can jump over to the “Order Miniatures” page to see the costs for the minis and place an order.

Let me know your thoughts and comments on the Armed Station model and miniature in the comment section below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.238 to FY60.267

Here’s the next installment of the timeline. This month sees the Frontier races start to explore a bit outward. Unfortunately for them, they stumble upon a heavily defended sathar starship construction center almost immediately.

I’m also trying out a new layout/design for the table let me know if you like this one or the old one better.

Date (FY)Event
60.238 Discovery Squadron arrives at Stenmar (Kazak). This is their last stop in known space and the squadron will spend a week here making sure the ships are fully repaired and stocked for their journey. 
60.239 Work begins by the Discovery Squadron astrogators to plot the first new jump route of their trip. Their destination is the star system OFS19, five light years away just above the jump route to the Cryxia system.
60.240 Resupplied, the HSS History’s Hope leaves Histran Station (Scree Fron) to return to the OFS224 system and then begin charting the next new jump in its journey.
60.241 Sathar starship construction center in the Liberty system completes another destroyer.
60.242 The assault scout for the K’aken-Kar system is completed at the Fromeltar starship construction center.  It begins its travel to its home system.
60.243 After six days of waiting, the storm on Mt. Spire clears and the members of the Spire Dragons team begin their descent from the mountain.
60.244 Having made no detections of signals from OFS200, Strike Force Nova departs Hentz (Araks) for the Scree Fron system.
60.245 After over thirty days in the Kizk-Kar system with no further sign of sathar ships, the assault scouts from Kaken-Kar and Fromeltar begin their return trips to their respective systems.
60.246 Discovery squadron begins accelerating toward Void speed on its first jump out the Frontier and Rim region of space.
60.247 Investigations into the source of Ixiol have definitively linked it to Malco Enterprises on Outer Reach (Dramune). Unfortunately, the UPF charter prevents any direct action against the operation without express consent of the planetary government which denies the allegations.
60.248 Based on the findings regarding Ixiol production on Outer Reach (Dramune), Inner Reach (Dramune) implements a strong inspection policy against any ship coming from Outer Reach to search and inspect all cargo from that planet before it can be delivered on Inner Reach.
60.249 HSS History’s Hope arrives safely in the OFS224 system.  Work begins to chart a jump to the neutron star in the OFS221 system, a jump of 7 light years.
60.250 Streel starship construction center (Pale, Truane’s Star) reaches 90% original capacity as repairs continue.
60.251 Discovery Squadron successfully jumps to the OFS19 system, a small M1 red dwarf star.
60.252 – After a day of deceleration into the OFS19 system, the Discovery Squadron detect radio signals from the direction of one of the inner planets.  They appear to be sathar in origin. Subspace radio messages are dispatched back to the Frontier and Rim.

– The squadron immediately changes vector to not be decelerating directly toward the inner system and the astrogators begin working on calculations for a return jump to Kazak.
60.253 After a day of collecting signals in the OFS19 system, at least 10 different sathar ships have been detected by Discovery squadron.  Composition is unknown.
60.254 – Strike Force Nova arrives at Histran (Screen Fron).  It will spend 11 days in system exercising around both Histran and Hasokar before departing back to the Araks system

– Eight sathar ships begin accelerating out toward Discovery squadron.  Two new ships have been identified but four have gone silent.
60.255 – The militia assault scouts that had been deployed to the Kaken-Kar system arrive back at their home systems.  The crews are given some needed shore leave.

– Calculations complete for the return jump to Kazak, and apparently detected by the sathar vessels, Discovery Squadron begins a hard acceleration to stop and reverse direction for a jump out of the system.
60.256 Discovery Squadron completes the stopping maneuver and begins acceleration out of the system. The sathar vessels are nearly half-way to their position and have a sizable speed advantage. It is questionable if the squadron can reach jump speed before the sathar ships catch them.
60.257 With a known path, the Spire Dragons team make it back to their camp at the base of the mountain after only fourteen days of hiking.  All that is left to complete their expedition is to make it back to the coast.
60.258 – After two days of grueling high-g acceleration, Discovery Squadron manages to enter the Void for the jump back to Kazak just hours before the sathar vessels overtake them. Unfortunately, due to the haste of their departure, the Discovery Squadron, misjumps into a binary star system rather than Kazak.

– Prior to their jump, the Discovery Squadron identify the sathar vessels as 1 heavy cruiser, 1 assault carrier, 1 light cruiser, 2 destroyers, 1 frigate, and 2 ships of a new design approximately the size of the Streel corvettes.
60.259 The HSS History’s Hope jumps into the OFS221 system.  While they arrive much further out in the system than planned, the jump is considered a success.  They will spend a week in the system studying the neutron star before returning to OFS224.
60.260 After two days of rest from the grueling jump and observations by the astrogators, the Discovery Squadron determines that it is in FS50 system between Kazak and Osak, having overshot their target.  Work begins on calculating a jump back to the Kazak system just 4 light years away.
60.261 With preliminary jump calculations done and the crew mostly recovered from their days of high-g acceleration, Discovery Squadron begins accelerating toward jump speed for their return to Kazak.
60.262 – While they don’t know if the UPF ships detected the starship construction center in OFS19, the sathar high command decide to shift some of the assets there to increase the defenses.

– Four destroyers from the Liberty system are dispatched to OFS19.  Even with a high-speed traversal of the jump routes, this will take approximately 80 days.

– A frigate, light cruiser, assault carrier, and eight fighters are dispatched from the sathar SCC#4 (OFS111) to reinforce OFS19 as well. Much closer, it is only a 20-day trip.
60.263 The new assault scout arrives in the K’aken Kar system.  After a brief checkout, it takes up regular patrol duties.
60.264 The third saurian Ark ship is completed and begins its shakedown cruise.
60.265 – Strike Force Nova departs Hasokar (Screen Fron) to return to Araks.  No signals from OFS200 were detected while in the system.

– Discovery Squadron successfully jumps back to the Kazak system.  They immediately begin broadcasting the details of their findings in the OFS19 system to both Rim and UPF contacts.
60.266 With receipt of the information about the sathar forces in OFS19, both Spacefleet and the Flight begin discussions on how best to deal with the sathar presence.  While discussions are occurring, the Flight dispatches several ships to both Cryxia and Kazak.
60.267 HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating to return to OFS224 and chart the return leg of the jump connection the OFS221 and OFS224 systems.

And here’s the full timeline file:

DetailedFrontierTimeline-1Download

State of the Frontier – Sept 2019

As I was getting ready to write this, I noticed that it was post 100 on the blog. That definitely marks this as the most successful single blogging endeavor I’ve ever undertaken. Back when I was blogging regularly on the Arcane Game Lore blog, I had a total of 91 posts. I’ve considered pulling those posts over to this blog to consolidate but have not done so yet. My old Programming Space blog only had 16 posts before I stopped posting there and my really old Star Frontiers Lives On blog only had 25 posts before it died. (Another set of posts I’ve considered importing here.) To be fair the cause of death of that one was the Frontier Explorer magazine, it started eating up all my time. I’ve also tried off and on to run a personal blog but the most recent incarnation (there have been others that have been lost to time) only had 6 posts and one of those was a test post. So this has definitely been my most successful endeavor so far and will so exceed all the others combined.

Looking Back

I started out with the now regular timeline post which was followed by the map for a small space station location, the space dock crew lounge. This was part of an adventure I’ve been meaning to write up for a while now so I officially launched it as a new project, Asset Recovery.

And then this month took a right turn and went off in a completely different direction that I hadn’t planned on. About two weeks ago I really got bitten by the bug to do some more 3D modeling. This really shouldn’t have come as a surprise given that I just got my new 3D printer and enjoy modeling, but still. It started with me setting up a page on the site where people can order custom printed miniatures using my new 3D printer. I can print any miniature they want or they can choose from the selection of models I’ve created.

When I posted about this new page on the Star Frontiers Facebook group, someone (Andy) suggestions that I make “scenario packs” with the minis needed for the various modules and battle scenarios in the books. I had been thinking along this line already and I guess Andy’s comment was the push I needed to move more in that direction. To do that, however, I needed the rest of the models. That’s when everything went off the rails. I started by sitting down and whipping up models for the UPF and sathar fighters, miniatures that are lacking in the originally released sets. And then I launched into some more miniature models that I’ll get to in a moment.

Behind the scenes, there have been two major projects going on. The first is issue 26 of the Frontier Explorer. I’ve been working on editing the articles for that issue which comes out next month.

The other is I’ve been working on writing my novel set in the Star Frontiers universe. I’ve added over 7500 words (which is half again as much as I added in the two previous months combined) to the manuscript bringing it up to ~52,500 words total. That is now longer than my entire previous novella, Discovery, which clocked in at just over 48,000 words. And I’m only about 1/4 of the way through the story.

The other thing that happened is I got the first round of Extended Frontier Maps shipped out to those that ordered them. There was a bit of a hiccup with the printer but we got that sorted out and the maps shipped. As as far as I know, with the exception of the one going to Germany, they have all arrived. The upside to the hiccup was that I discovered that it’s actually easier to me to order these print-on-demand style rather than having to order them in batches. So I’ve turned the ordering page back on and will leave it open. If you still want a copy, you can order one anytime.

Looking Forward

This month is probably mostly going to be about miniatures. We’ll start off tomorrow with what has become the regular first post of the month, the Detailed Frontier Timeline post. And if you don’t want to wait until the beginning of each month for the timeline events, I still post them daily on Twitter from the @StarFrontiers account.

The post the following week will be a post on the space station mini I made. The picture at the right is a bit of a teaser for that. Continuing on the miniature theme, I’m currently working on reproducing the UPF light cruiser miniature. You can expect to see a post on that before the end of the month, probably on the 22nd. I don’t think it will quite be done by the 15th as I’ll be focusing a lot on the Frontier Explorer between now and then. As these new models become available, I’ll be adding them to the Order Miniatures page so that you can order them if you want. I plan on putting all my miniature files up on DriveThruRPG for people to purchase if they like although all the ones I’ve developed recently and going forward are sent to my Patreon supporters at the Surveyor ($2/month) level or higher as I finish them. I’ve already sent my supporters the fighter and space station models. They’ll be getting the light cruiser when it’s done. Anyone at the Crafter level of support ($30/month) will be receiving a printed space station and light cruiser miniature in November as those models will be released this month. In addition, anyone that joins that support level in October will receive a set of 8 UPF and 8 sathar fighters as well.

October is a five post month so I expect that the other two posts will be one on the module campaign and another related to the Asset Recovery project. Since the next miniature after the light cruiser will be the battleship, I don’t think that will get finished this month. Those will be my regular Tuesday posts.

As I mentioned, this month sees the release of issue 26 of the Frontier Explorer and a lot of behind the scenes work will be going into that. You can expect to see an out of band post announcing its release towards the end of the month. I’ll also continue to work on my book.

You may also see more shorter posts coming in the future. I often post small snippets of things I’m working on on Facebook or Twitter. Since my posts here are posted there as well, I’m toying with the idea of posting those small bits here as short posts instead. We’ll see how that pans out. Let me know what you think of the idea.

One other idea I’m toying with is expanding the scope of this post each month. While I call it “The State of the Frontier,” to date I’ve really only used it to talk about things I’ve been doing. I think I would like to also include other things going on related to Star Frontiers and FrontierSpace that others are doing as well. We’ll see if that come to fruition but if you have news and want me to help disseminate it, let me know.

Your Thoughts

Thanks as always for reading my blog and especially to those that support me on Patreon. Let me know if you have any thought or suggestions on current or future projects.