General Minis from 2nd Dynasty?

[Spinward Scout]

Has anyone tried the 28mm Traveller Character Miniatures from 2nd Dynasty?

They look great!

The VACC Suits ones are on my list. I'm going to try to paint one eventually.

 

[infojunky]

Has anyone tried the 28mm Traveller Character Miniatures from 2nd Dynasty?

They look great!

The VACC Suits ones are on my list. I'm going to try to paint one eventually.

Nope. I might consider them is someone was casting them.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

I have printed several 28mm minis and one of the starships which I sold. IMO they are worth the investment. I just want them to put the STL files together for the broadsword so play Adventure 7 out on tabletop. Miniature Wargaming is my thing. Now that I think about it a Traveller Dice tower would be cool.

 

[TamsinP]

Ben has said many times that 200-ish dTon ships are the largest that they will be able to realistically design for 3D printing as 28mm with playable interiors.
If you consider the Beowulf they did, that took about 9 months of design work and printing at 28mm uses about 5.5 kg of filament; you can estimate from that how long it it would take to design the 800 dTon Broadsword, how much filament would be needed for printing and from that how many people would be likely to back that campaign. As most of the design work would need to be completed before a campaign launches, they would need to have enough money in the bank to cover their costs while doing that.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

“Ben has said many times that 200-ish dTon ships are the largest that they will be able to realistically design for 3D printing as 28mm with playable interiors.
If you consider the Beowulf they did, that took about 9 months of design work and printing at 28mm uses about 5.5 kg of filament; you can estimate from that how long it it would take to design the 800 dTon Broadsword, how much filament would be needed for printing and from that how many people would be likely to back that campaign. As most of the design work would need to be completed before a campaign launches, they would need to have enough money in the bank to cover their costs while doing that.”

I have the dough and several printers…there is noting wrong with asking…
It would be a thought to ask for the 400,600,800dt ships at 15/18mm scale

 

[TamsinP]

Indeed, nothing wrong with asking.

However, I would note that whilst you might have the dough and the printers, many people don't. The minimum pledge for the Beowulf was 75 Euros (for ship and stretch goals only); for the Broadsword you'd probably be looking at a minimum pledge of 300 Euros which I doubt would attract many backers. The funding goal for the project was 25,000 Euros (which was probably well below their sunk costs to get the design to the stage where the campaign could be launched); that would need to go up to about 100,000 Euros for the broadsword, which could further discourage potential backers. Not to mention the time to get the design to campaign launch-ready - based on previous ships, I'd be guessing 2-3 years of design work (longer if they run other campaigns in the meantime to keep the brand going and funds coming in). With the small potential market from the minimum pledge level and the likelihood of failing to achieve the minimum funding goal needed to cover sunk costs.

Whilst you might think that designing it for 15/18mm scale would take much less time and allow for a cheaper pledge level, it wouldn't take much less time and the sunk costs they'd need to recover wouldn't be much less.

If you want to get an idea of why the design process would take so long, I'd recommend watching some of the weekly live-streams on their YouTube channel.

A more reasonable request (although not to 2nd Dynasty) would be for high quality deckplans.

 

[kilemall]

Or adventure modules for buildings, stations and facilities.

Imagine starship geomorphs brought to minis.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

Indeed, nothing wrong with asking.

However, I would note that whilst you might have the dough and the printers, many people don't. The minimum pledge for the Beowulf was 75 Euros (for ship and stretch goals only); for the Broadsword you'd probably be looking at a minimum pledge of 300 Euros which I doubt would attract many backers. The funding goal for the project was 25,000 Euros (which was probably well below their sunk costs to get the design to the stage where the campaign could be launched); that would need to go up to about 100,000 Euros for the broadsword, which could further discourage potential backers. Not to mention the time to get the design to campaign launch-ready - based on previous ships, I'd be guessing 2-3 years of design work (longer if they run other campaigns in the meantime to keep the brand going and funds coming in). With the small potential market from the minimum pledge level and the likelihood of failing to achieve the minimum funding goal needed to cover sunk costs.

Whilst you might think that designing it for 15/18mm scale would take much less time and allow for a cheaper pledge level, it wouldn't take much less time and the sunk costs they'd need to recover wouldn't be much less.

If you want to get an idea of why the design process would take so long, I'd recommend watching some of the weekly live-streams on their YouTube channel.

A more reasonable request (although not to 2nd Dynasty) would be for high quality deckplans.

I am more than skeptical about the labor vs sunk costs you have mentioned. For 25K euros broken down by unit cost of production and the valuation per hour of labor… sounds more like a lazy and very inefficient company. Given what I have seen and purchased on the STL market for printing, your estimates are really inflated. An exemplar is cited just on size and volume alone (with out taking into account of the intricacies of the interior of the Broadsword). The costs versus fundraising on decent size 3d Printable gaming table cost $7200, amount raised $332K is an example of the crazy disposable income being thrown about in the 3d Printing market. I think and believe your have created a straw tiger in head with regards to what real value and costs are. As far as your comment about many people don’t well then the evidence on Kickstarter really disproves that theory.