Idea: Real Ship models

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Seeing as we can modify ship designs to a unique ship that aren't in shows and the lack of ships model kits. Would STO be willing to make models of players ship at cost of course. There have been other games that have made models of in-game items for people to buy, the most notable is WOW and their character models.

Is there any future in this that maybe STO would be interested in doing something like this? There is a severe lack of models for star trek, I personally would love a nice Sao Paulo model or Prometheus ship.

It's just a skeleton idea not sure how it would be carried out so don't think this is a full blown idea.

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Cryptic do not own the IP they have a license to use it, whether that covers out of game items is a different matter. Therefore it would be upto whoever owns the IP.

Whereas WoW as you used as an example is the pure IP of Blizzard-Activision and so they can do what they want with it and do license out the moddeling of characters and items and make their own too. The one I remember most was the company that would make a model of your actual character in game with whatever it as weairing and weilding.

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We looked into it for Champs. But if I remember right, it was just too expensive to set up. (both money, and time to set up all the models properly)

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Yes, this was brought up about a year or so ago (by Geko I think)

They said they'd looked into the possibility and it was just too expensive. I think he said they had even looked at the 3D printing as an option to deliver it too.

It would be cool to have my Venture/Galaxy hybrid as a 1/1400 model (all I need is the neck). So for now, I think we will have to scratch build the components, or wait and hope. :)

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We looked into it for Champs. But if I remember right, it was just too expensive to set up. (both money, and time to set up all the models properly)

It could be considered an investment, certainly for Star Trek Online with its Star Trek fans,a lot of whom love collecting ship models, certainly if they were custom and our in game ship :) I know I'd buy a miniature of my Defiant class USS Indomitable to have my on desk :o

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Instead of doing it for all possible variants, why not do it for the Cryptic skins? I'd love a Venture-X on my desk even though I fly the Excelsior.

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I always imagined some sort of set up where an interface was added to the ship customisation UI that allowed you to set up a purchase and then the 3D model was sent over to a company that had 3D printers that would print, then paint the model.

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I think it was on STOked that this was mentioned in an interview, and cost wasn't the only barrier - the 3D printers have a difficult time handling things shaped like most starships, with open spaces, broken cross sections, and no flat base. There's much less intricate models you can buy online that need to be hand assembled after being created in sections for this reason.

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I think it was on STOked that this was mentioned in an interview, and cost wasn't the only barrier - the 3D printers have a difficult time handling things shaped like most starships, with open spaces, broken cross sections, and no flat base. There's much less intricate models you can buy online that need to be hand assembled after being created in sections for this reason.

Yeah it's not that easy.
On the old B5Wars forums there's a guy who's very proficient with this due to his RL job and he creates ships with professional CAD software.
Even with models that are around 10-15 centimeters he has to break them down into several pieces for this to work and then the models are not very detailed as they're "only" for a tabletop.
If we were to imagine such a process for STO ships (that are not actually designed to be physically assembled unlike such models that are designed with such limitations in mind) we're talking very tough materials to prevent the model from falling apart, dozens of parts and probably a whole lot more money than a C-Store Galaxy Dreadnought.

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We looked into it for Champs. But if I remember right, it was just too expensive to set up. (both money, and time to set up all the models properly)

3d printing is your friend. There's was a good article in USA Today yesterday that demonstrated how 3d printing cuts the cost of modeling significantly.

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I think it would be kinda cool to work out a deal with Diamond or Hasbro (who do Trek toys) to have prefab toys based on STO if the demand is there.

For example, maybe a B01 Male and B01 Female action figure that come with multiple heads that snap on and off.

I could see this really flying if they made it, say, a Countdown Data action figure but you could swap out the heads and hands for all kinds of custom variants. Maybe have a repaint in science colors that comes with different heads and hands. In terms of the toys, they could all be billed as post-Nemesis versions of the TNG characters (Hasbro and Diamond have those likenesses) but come with spare heads and hands representing STO species.

Do the same with Klingons, who come with their own species heads. And TOS crewmen.

And the same with ships, which would have snap on interchangable parts.

These would not be 3D printer models like Figureprints but would be sculpted toys made by CBS licensees in cooperation with Cryptic, maybe with promotional game codes attached.

I think they'd really sell if the toy licensees could headline each one with a TNG or TOS character, some in STO uniforms, that has interchangable parts that allow for, say, putting Deferi parts on your Data figure you make it a different character. Diamond in particular used to do this with its Buffy figures quite a bit.

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the cheaper and easier alternative is to go for the paper craft alternative, most 3d models can already be converted to paper craft (look it up there are some really impressive models)

and all it takes is some really good paper and a decent colour printer. and as most startrek hull types are white (with only a few dark hulls) then you could easily print these off.

admitingly i did attempt to build a paper craft miranda and it went slightly wrong all i can say is use good glue :)

and cryptic can supply them as pdf everyone wins :)

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We looked into it for Champs. But if I remember right, it was just too expensive to set up. (both money, and time to set up all the models properly)

Oh hey, it's this topic again.


Folks, unless something's changed (ie: Cryptic getting into contact with Polar Lights/ERTL who have the Trek model license from CBS), then there's not going to be any Trek models from the show.


And the reason for that is...

Because the Pewter die-casts they've used for other games (I think Champs was mentioned) won't work for Trek Ships because the various fiddly bits (like nacelle pylons) are too thin to support the weight of the larger bits (like nacelles) at the grade of pewter that Cryptic could afford to use.


While using a higher grade pewter might work, it would be prohibitively expensive to do so.



I have yet to determine if they've actually talked to CBS and Polar Lights/ERTL/AMT, the latter of which holds the Trek model license currently and releases canon Trek models (1:250 scale, IIRC).


Getting Polar Lights to produce the models would, I think, really just be a licensing issue if making money isn't a concern- but I definitely think it's worth talking to Polar Lights and seeing what can be done with resin/plastic kit models (not die-cast pewter stuff).

As a scifi modeler I'd love to add the STO models to my collection. But getting that done will require Cryptic to talk to Polar Lights/CBS, and stop using the 'we can't do die-cast pewter models' thing, since we know that die-cast pewter models are unworkable, but plastic/resin models are totally workable and even cost effective, since Polar Lights is a real business that makes money off of them and all *cough*

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For the record. I would shell out $20+ for a two pack of Micro Machines (http://i.imgur.com/w4zPg.jpg)-sized STO ship models, specifically of the Odyssey and bortaS.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know a ballpark figure of what something of that scale would cost to produce? I know it's a longshot question, but this is the internet, for all I know one of you is in the business of small plastic models... I ask because it seems to me something smaller like this might be much more viable to produce, especially if they played the exclusivity card and made them a bit on the expensive side

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I still have a Galaxy Class model from when I was a kid. Its pretty big, well done and even has sound effects. Like Red Alert and locking phasers. unfortunately I lost the stand in a move. :(

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If models are prohibitively expensive, then what about custom shirts or mouse pads? You could take all of the base (i.e. non-kitbashed) ship models, give players the ability to add a custom name and registry, and then print that on a shirt or some other piece of swag. I, for one, would love to be able to wear a shirt with my Luna class USS Rheticus.

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Instead of doing it for all possible variants, why not do it for the Cryptic skins? I'd love a Venture-X on my desk even though I fly the Excelsior.

this is probably the best idea, cryptic will have money coming in, we will have realistic looking ships. Defiantly support this. As long the price is not to high.

Star trek is also about the ships looking good and we need/want this. :D

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If models are prohibitively expensive, then what about custom shirts or mouse pads? You could take all of the base (i.e. non-kitbashed) ship models, give players the ability to add a custom name and registry, and then print that on a shirt or some other piece of swag. I, for one, would love to be able to wear a shirt with my Luna class USS Rheticus.

Well, there's a company that already does this with other Star Trek stuff.
I hope this is not considered advertising but thse guys

http://shop.cafepress.de/startrektv

seem to have wide variety of products in this category (including SFB stuff).
So perhaps they could be of some help in that regard.

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If you want models there are Star Trek models that are make by Round Two. They have alot of different ships and are available at all Hobby shops.
If you can't find them there you can find them on Ebay. You may also want to look at a site called Starship Modeler (http://www.starshipmodeler.biz/) they have a whole bunch of different Star trek models and a forum to discuss making and building all different models.

If this violates anything please just remove it but I just wanted to let everyone know that there are options for getting models of the ships out there ...

Thanks!