[MOC] KdaptPreacher's 1:1455 Fleet --- 207 ships and counting (New: MC30c Frigate)

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#171, the Vindicator-class heavy cruiser! Still substantially the same as the WIP render I posted, although with the dorsal hull armor reworked again. Here's the full write-up from Rebrickable:

In-universe, the Vindicator-class heavy cruiser is supposed to be a very common ship, the Imperial Navy's standard midsized cruiser design. However, out-of-universe and for reasons I'm not completely clear on, the ship has hardly appeared in any Star Wars media. As a result, it's mostly known only for being the original design that the much more famous Immobilizer 418 cruiser is based on. At 1:1455 scale, or approximately 11.64 meters per stud, this model will perfectly complement your Star Wars fleet! This is UCS scale, designed to match 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer and my other ship models (and any of the huge number of other peoples' MOCs that are also designed to fit with the official Ultimate Collector Series ISDs).

There are several fan-designed models of the Vindicator floating around, including one very good one by Fractalsponge, but this model is based on its one canonical appearance, which is in Battlefront: Elite Squadron. That proved to be a bit of a challenge, because unfortunately BF:ES is a singularly terrible source. Usually video games make for pretty good reference material, since there's an actual 3D model that can be extracted and measured (unlike a comic, for example, where the size and details of a ship may not be consistent frame to frame). However, first, the models in BF:ES are extremely low resolution, to the point of completely omitting major features; and second, the proportions of all the ships in the game are so far off as to make many of them almost unrecognizable--look up a picture of their depiction of the Nebulon-B to see what I mean. As a result, I had to do some guesswork here to reconstruct what the 'actual' Vindicator was intended to look like. The most obvious part there are the turrets; the game model doesn't have any, but I'm assuming that's because they didn't have the ability to render moving parts on the ships on the PSP rather than because they actually intended a front-line warship to not have any guns. Sources for how many turrets the ship should have vary somewhat, but it's usually described as having a lot of small guns rather than a few large ones, so I went with the distributed array of small turrets that you see here; but feel free to play with the armament as you see fit.

The engine array and the antennae at the bow are probably intended to be the same as the Immobilizer 418, but they've been depicted in multiple ways in different sources and what's show in BF:ES doesn't match the versions I went with for my Immobilizer model. This model follows BF:ES for both of those, but you could very easily make them the same as my Immobilizer if you're building both and want consistency.

Structurally this model is mostly the same as my Immobilizer and the same notes about stability apply. The thicker armor layer means the top hull panels are sturdier overall, but the narrowest part of the bow is still somewhat fragile. It's fine for a display model as it is, but if you want to shake it around a lot you could add some more tiles or ingots to the front to stiffen it further.

 

In totally unrelated news, I'm still waiting on Stud.io to add the new bricks before I can publish my Phantom-class instructions. They had been adding new pieces in pretty much every update, but now they haven't had any in a couple of months. Hopefully they'll get back on track with that soon; I don't know whether anybody's particularly waiting on that model, but I'd like to be able to post it.

[khatmorg]

8 hours ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

this model is based on its one canonical appearance, which is in Battlefront: Elite Squadron.

Fairly positive that game isn't canon. I really like the design though. At first glance I thought it was a harrower-class dreadnought, which is prob my favorite "star destroyer" design.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

1 hour ago, khatmorg said:

Fairly positive that game isn't canon. I really like the design though. At first glance I thought it was a harrower-class dreadnought, which is prob my favorite "star destroyer" design.

Bad phrasing on my part. The game is indeed Legends now, but what I meant was just that that’s it’s only appearance in official media as opposed to the fan designs (which are more popular and are mostly what come up when you search for images of it). The ship itself actually is canon, since it was mentioned in one of the reference books, but it doesn’t have any images at the moment. 

I like the Harrower quite a bit too. It is on my list to make, but my plan is to get the Endar Spire done before any of the less famous TOR-era capital ships. 

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#172, the Trident-class assault ship! Just a little one here, but I'm quite pleased with it. That new 1x1 plate with handles on both sides is very convenient here.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

I have finally truly made it as a MOC designer: somebody in China is selling illegal knockoff kits of one of my models. I'm not going to link to it, because Eurobricks obviously doesn't support imitator brands (especially illegal ones), but I'm genuinely thrilled about this development. Since I'm distributing the instructions for free anyway it's no skin off my nose if somebody else wants to sell them as sets, so more power to them as far as I'm concerned, especially since they did actually credit me as the designer (although obviously it would have been courteous of them to notify me!). Fun times!

Edited May 9, 2022 by Kdapt-Preacher

[Kage Goomba]

1 hour ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

I have finally truly made it as a MOC designer: somebody in China is selling illegal knockoff kits of one of my models. I'm not going to link to it, because Eurobricks obviously doesn't support imitator brands (especially illegal ones), but I'm genuinely thrilled about this development. Since I'm distributing the instructions for free anyway it's no skin off my nose if somebody else wants to sell them as sets, so more power to them as far as I'm concerned, especially since they did actually credit me as the designer (although obviously it would have been courteous of them to notify me!). Fun times!

Id find a way to link your stuff nudge people to true lego's tho - some how - some way lol.

Sad and funny all at once for sure.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

19 minutes ago, Kage Goomba said:

Id find a way to link your stuff nudge people to true lego's tho - some how - some way lol.

Sad and funny all at once for sure.

I don't think I have any way to do that other than by purchasing it myself and leaving a review on AliExpress or something, which I'm definitely not going to do. Obviously I expect people will have a better time building the model with actual LEGOs than they would with whatever you get from this random Chinese company, but as long as they know what they're getting into...   I do oppose these companies generally, of course, both because they dilute the LEGO brand and also because they routinely do steal MOCs from people who're actually selling them and directly funnel money away from independent creators. But in this specific case I don't mind it.

[Kage Goomba]

5 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

I don't think I have any way to do that other than by purchasing it myself and leaving a review on AliExpress or something, which I'm definitely not going to do. Obviously I expect people will have a better time building the model with actual LEGOs than they would with whatever you get from this random Chinese company, but as long as they know what they're getting into...   I do oppose these companies generally, of course, both because they dilute the LEGO brand and also because they routinely do steal MOCs from people who're actually selling them and directly funnel money away from independent creators. But in this specific case I don't mind it.

True enough - still very sad.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#173-176, Sheathipede-class transport shuttles! Is this a clever design for a ship that's scraping the lower limit of what can be depicted at this scale, or a pathetic attempt to inflate my model count with something that can barely be considered a MOC? You decide! The Sheathipede-class transport shuttle, also known as the Neimoidian escort shuttle, Separatist shuttle, and so forth, was a small personnel transport used by the Trade Federation and CIS. This pack includes both the Trade Federation tan and CIS blue and grey color schemes, plus the enlarged Type B variant used during the Clone Wars and the Phantom II, which was a modified version used by the Spectres during the opening stages of the Galactic Civil War.

Today I also posted structural updates to both the Vindicator-class and the Immobilizer 418, based on suggestions from Vincent Marin. The changes aren't visible from the outside, but the upper hull panels are now less fragile, which should make them easier to build.

[Kage Goomba]

40 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

#173-176, Sheathipede-class transport shuttles! Is this a clever design for a ship that's scraping the lower limit of what can be depicted at this scale, or a pathetic attempt to inflate my model count with something that can barely be considered a MOC? You decide! The Sheathipede-class transport shuttle, also known as the Neimoidian escort shuttle, Separatist shuttle, and so forth, was a small personnel transport used by the Trade Federation and CIS. This pack includes both the Trade Federation tan and CIS blue and grey color schemes, plus the enlarged Type B variant used during the Clone Wars and the Phantom II, which was a modified version used by the Spectres during the opening stages of the Galactic Civil War.

Today I also posted structural updates to both the Vindicator-class and the Immobilizer 418, based on suggestions from Vincent Marin. The changes aren't visible from the outside, but the upper hull panels are now less fragile, which should make them easier to build.

Hmm would it be wrong to use #x3 wide plates with center studs to give it a more - wider look? or even 1x2 type plates with center stud.

Not sure how that would would work - nor not sure if I'm making sense.

Been staring at my TIE Defender a little too long today. (working on cockpit reinforcement)

Edited May 10, 2022 by Kage Goomba

[Kdapt-Preacher]

8 minutes ago, Kage Goomba said:

Hmm would it be wrong to use #x3 wide plates with center studs to give it a more - wider look? or even 1x2 type plates with center stud.

Not sure how that would would work - nor not sure if I'm making sense.

Been staring at my TIE Defender a little too long today. (working on cockpit reinforcement)

This is one where the proportions don't line up terribly well with studs. They ought to be about 1.5 studs wide, but I don't know of any sensible way to make that happen given the size constraints here. I could use jumper plates to make them 2 studs wide, but then they'd be literally square, which looks wronger than this, IMO. I dunno--I don't have any particularly strong investment in these models; they exist more because somebody on Discord asked for them than because of any real use for them, honestly. I went back and forth on whether they were worth actually posting, and obviously ultimately I did it, but I would call them a borderline case, LMAO.

 

In unrelated news, I'm not saying it would be a good idea to brutally cannibalize my Vindicator model to turn it into a Gladiator-class, but were somebody to do something like that, a WIP image of it would look approximately like this...

Edited May 10, 2022 by Kdapt-Preacher

[Kage Goomba]

33 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

This is one where the proportions don't line up terribly well with studs. They ought to be about 1.5 studs wide, but I don't know of any sensible way to make that happen given the size constraints here. I could use jumper plates to make them 2 studs wide, but then they'd be literally square, which looks wronger than this, IMO. I dunno--I don't have any particularly strong investment in these models; they exist more because somebody on Discord asked for them than because of any real use for them, honestly. I went back and forth on whether they were worth actually posting, and obviously ultimately I did it, but I would call them a borderline case, LMAO.

 

In unrelated news, I'm not saying it would be a good idea to brutally cannibalize my Vindicator model to turn it into a Gladiator-class, but were somebody to do something like that, a WIP image of it would look approximately like this...

When you gonna toss me your discord ID? :P Been asking for ages lol.

 

Also - nice design/start of one anyway on the Gladiator - Also waiting for your to take on the Executor

[Kdapt-Preacher]

4 minutes ago, Kage Goomba said:

When you gonna toss me your discord ID? :P Been asking for ages lol.

Also - nice design/start of one anyway on the Gladiator - Also waiting for your to take on the Executor

It's just Kdapt-Preacher (#8345). I don't use Discord routinely, though, so I don't know how useful that is to you. If somebody sends me a PM here I'll usually see it the same day, but I might go months without opening Discord.

Don't hold your breath for Executor. I'm working on it, but I'm still in the phase where I'm mostly doing math rather than actually building anything.

 

[Kage Goomba]

10 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

It's just Kdapt-Preacher (#8345). I don't use Discord routinely, though, so I don't know how useful that is to you. If somebody sends me a PM here I'll usually see it the same day, but I might go months without opening Discord.

Don't hold your breath for Executor. I'm working on it, but I'm still in the phase where I'm mostly doing math rather than actually building anything.

 

I want to see your work/progress - its one of my favorite subjects hehehe.

But in any case DM'ed you mine - looking forward to hitting you up from time to time.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

1 hour ago, Kage Goomba said:

I want to see your work/progress - its one of my favorite subjects hehehe.

So this is the exact shape of Executor's upper hull, with coordinates given in meters (scaled to the 19,000m length). These values are pulled from SW:BFII, so this is a 100% guaranteed-accurate canonical source, although I can't say whether it's absolutely consistent with the RotJ studio model. Any robots in the audience will immediately notice that those points are not, in fact, coplanar! I.e., the hull panels aren't flat. That would, after all, make things too easy... they're close to flat, close enough that I don't think anybody would ever be able to tell the difference if I made them actually flat, but "close" in the context of a ship this big still means we're talking about them being off by a hundred meters or so, which is a hell of a rounding error. So what I've been thinking about for the last couple of days is exactly what I want to do about that, and whether it makes sense to try to replicate this exactly (mors ante compromissum...) and how much complexity that's going to add to the build (probably a lot).

Edited May 10, 2022 by Kdapt-Preacher

[Kage Goomba]

1 minute ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

So this is the exact shape of Executor's upper hull, with coordinates given in meters (scaled to the 19,000m length). These values are pulled from SW:BFII, so this is a 100% guaranteed-accurate canonical source, although I can't say whether it's absolutely consistent with the RotJ studio model. Any robots in the audience will immediately notice that those points are not, in fact, coplanar! I.e., the hull panels aren't flat. That would, after all, make things too easy... they're close to flat, close enough that I don't think anybody would ever be able to tell the difference if I made them actually flat, but "close" in the context of a ship this big still means we're talking about them being off by a hundred meters or so, which is a hell of a rounding error. So what I've been thinking about for the last couple of days is exactly what I want to do about that, and whether it makes sense to try to replicate this exactly (mors ante compromissum...) and how much complexity that's going to add to the build (probably a lot).

Honestly I'd not replicate with religious zeal due to the sheer mass/size overall - bottom line - give yourself a bit of creative license - you'll save on the aspirin lol.

But its great your thinking of all the angels to be sure - literally.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

I am also plotting various other things. The biggest challenge with the Venator is obviously the hangar. I'm not interested in anything less than a full interior for it, with at least the dorsal doors opening (and probably the side doors as well, since those should be easier). In this case the problem is less that there isn't really lack of space so much as that the whole section has to taper from about 6 studs down to about 4 over the length of the front of the ship, which is hard to do cleanly. We'll see what happens.

[Kage Goomba]

4 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

I am also plotting various other things. The biggest challenge with the Venator is obviously the hangar. I'm not interested in anything less than a full interior for it, with at least the dorsal doors opening (and probably the side doors as well, since those should be easier). In this case the problem is less that there isn't really lack of space so much as that the whole section has to taper from about 6 studs down to about 4 over the length of the front of the ship, which is hard to do cleanly. We'll see what happens.

I nearly forgot you where threatening to do that - or at least you made mention at some point - I look forward to it. :)

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#177, Wild Karrde! This is a ship that I've wanted to make for quite a while, but wasn't able to due to lack of brown wedge pieces. Now that those 1x2 wedge plates have been introduced I can get a model I'm satisfied with.

[Kage Goomba]

28 minutes ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

#177, Wild Karrde! This is a ship that I've wanted to make for quite a while, but wasn't able to due to lack of brown wedge pieces. Now that those 1x2 wedge plates have been introduced I can get a model I'm satisfied with.

love it

[Geihlen]

That's a great looking model of the Karrde! Not that I'd really expect anything less at this point.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

Following up on the Wild Karrde, here're #178-181, more ships from the Smugglers' Alliance! Including Uwana Buyer, Distant Rainbow, Goshyn Queen, and Dawn Beat / Amanda Fallow. Colors are somewhat speculative since the official images of these ships are all in black and white, but that's at least enough to tell that none of them have any particularly interesting color schemes except for the dark patches on Uwana Buyer.

[MAVERICK26]

Wonderful job on these.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

I just posted another structural update to the Immobilizer and Vindicator, this time based on a suggestion from DaringSteel over on Rebrickable. This corrects a minor collision issue with the upper hull panel and should make things hang together a bit more closely.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

I've been out of town for several weeks and haven't had access to a computer to do anything, but great work has been done in my absence! First, Stud.io has updated to include the new part 80796, so I can finally publish #182, the X70-B Phantom-class prototype that I showed off here months ago. That means that my TOR player ship collection is finally complete!

Second, someone has finally responded to the note that I put in the instructions of my Quasar Fire model more than a year ago soliciting suggestions for a better attachment mechanism for the engines. User vquillate over on Rebrickable came up with a perfect solution to to the problem, so I've just updated the QF to include that improvement as well. And it uses a piece that didn't exist when I originally designed the model, so I don't even feel bad about not having thought of it myself at the time. Thanks, Vquill!