FASA TOS era Romulans: Star Trek starship parts kit expansion #7

Note: Because Thingiverse has had problems in the past, especially with including all files in a single zip, I’ve also posted these files to an alternative Google drive location. You can access that location here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JM2DOtHiTZ7oCXfj8pLv7C4HLuIHjD8R?usp=sharing

Update 2023-09-20: While not a full remastering, I've made updates to all the ships in this kit to fix some longstanding mesh quality issues in the final STLs. Should fix some of the weird triangulation issues on the wings and provide a smoother surface details to things like the nacelles.

This is the sixth expansion parts kit meant to complement my original Star Trek Constitution Class Parts Kit, providing parts and ship models to support the Romulan “Wing” series of cruisers from the old FASA Star Trek role playing game.

See my Thingiverse Profile for the full list of parts kits I’ve released so far. All parts are meant to be cross-compatible between kits.

This kit supports the following FASA Romulan ship classes:

• V-1 Starglider
• V-6 Gallant Wing
• V-8 Bird of Prey
• V-9 Night Flyer
• T-2 Death Talon

The FASA Star Trek RPG was very popular among us older Star Trek fans who came of age in the '80s and '90s. It lost its license to produce Star Trek in 1988, seemingly because Gene Rodenberry, hot off of the success of TNG season 1, wanted to de-emphasize the military aspect of Starfleet, despite the abundance of uniforms, ranks, and 50-megaton matter-antimatter warheads that all his shows were chocked full of.

FASA Trek provided a tremendous amount of background on a Trek universe that was, in many ways, more realistic and interesting than what Rodenberry and company wanted in TNG and later shows. Although much of this background has been supplanted by later official canon, the ships from this game remain popular among old-school fans.

Official Paramount/CBS has traditionally shorted the Romulans in terms of ship design. The FASA Romulan Ship Recognition Guide addressed this hole in the universe, and arguably had the best art and design work of any of the FASA ship books. In addition to several FASA designs from the TOS era, this kit provides a version of the screen-cannon Romulan Bird of Prey (the V-8 in FASA terminology) seen in the episode Balance of Terror.

Notes on scaling and working with Blender

My target scale for all source files and output STL files is 1:1000. Although these files have not been extensively tested through printing, they are intended to be resized to match common modelling and miniatures scales.

Target scale - Scale STL files to: - Notes
1/3900 - 0.25641026 (25.6%) - FASA miniature scale
1/3788 - 0.26399155 (26.4%) - ADB Starline 2400 scale
1/3125 - 0.32 (32%) - ADB Starline 2500 scale
1/2500 - 0.4 (40%) - The Trek modelers "Golden scale"
1/1600 - 0.625 (62.5%) - TOS 3-Ship Set scale
1/1400 - 0.714285714 (71%) - Common resin model scale
1/650 - 1.538461538 (153%) - Modelling scale
1/537 - 1.862197393 (186%) - Common scale for TMP models
1/350 - 2.857142857 (285%) - Large scale

Blender is free, which to be honest was the primary factor in my decision to learn it. There are many fine video and text tutorials available online if you're interested in learning more. For a basic tutorial on moving and joining objects in Blender(which should be the minimum you need to know when working with these parts), see this instructables tutorial. You can use File -> Import -> Stl (.stl) and File -> Export -> Stl (.stl) to load or save STL files in blender.

Note: These kits were built using Blender 2.8.

Post-processing STL output

Although all of the STL files included have been tested as valid watertight meshes, joining the parts together and exporting new STL files can introduce small errors that may cause issues with slicing programs. I recommend any STL files you create are checked using a program like Netfabb Basic free edition. Doing a simple "Close All Holes" repair has fixed most of the issues I've run into so far. If you do run into issues with mesh quality, please let me know.

Parts list

The following lists provide a summary of each of the included parts. For the majority of items, the mesh origin has been set so that when you import these objects into your 3d editor of choice, they are positioned as they would be on the sample ships provided.

When comparing parts, you’ll notice some ships and parts will have a “basic” and “detailed” version. The difference between these is that the basic versions do not include the minor hull details on the wing or other hull components. I know some experienced modelers prefer to add details like this manually or through painting / decals (to great result!), and these simplified parts are included to support this approach.

Parts

Part - Description
T2-cannon-mount.stl - Front hull cannons.
T2-nacelle-port.stl - Port warp nacelle.
T2-nacelle-starboard.stl - Starboard warp nacelle.
T2-primary-hull.stl - Core hull.
T2-wing-port.stl - Port wing.
T2-wing-starboard.stl - Starboard wing
V1-main-hull-detailed.stl - Main hull including minor details.
V1-nacelle-port.stl - Port warp nacelle.
V1-nacelle-starboard.stl - Starboard warp nacelle.
V1-wing-body-port-detailed.stl - Port wing with minor details.
V1-wing-body-starboard-detailed.stl - Starboard wing with minor details.
V6-main-hull-basic.stl - Main hull without minor details.
V6-main-hull-detailed.stl - Main hull including minor details.
V6-port-nacelle.stl - Port warp nacelle.
V6-port-wing-basic.stl - Port wing without minor details.
V6-port-wing-detailed.stl - Port wing with minor details.
V6-starboard-nacelle.stl - Starboard warp nacelle.
V6-starboard-wing-basic.stl - Starboard wing without minor details.
V6-starboard-wing-detailed.stl - Starboard wing with minor details.
v8-main-hull.stl - Core hull.
v8-nacelle-port.stl - Port warp nacelle.
v8-nacelle-starboard.stl - Starboard warp nacelle.
v8-plasma.stl - Front hull plasma cannons.
v8-tail.stl - Center hull tail.
v8-wing-port.stl - Port wing.
v8-wing-starboard.stl - Starboard wing
V9-main-hull-basic.stl - Main hull without minor details.
V9-main-hull-detailed.stl - Main hull including minor details.
V9-plasma-cannons.stl - Front hull plasma cannons.
V9-port-nacelle.stl - Port warp nacelle.
V9-port-wing-basic.stl - Port wing without minor details.
V9-port-wing-detailed.stl - Port wing with minor details.
V9-starboard-nacelle.stl - Starboard warp nacelle.
V9-starboard-wing-basic.stl - Starboard wing without minor details.
V9-starboard-wing-detailed.stl - Starboard wing with minor details.

Combined ship STLs

These files provide sample ships generated using the parts included in this kit. Note that for users who want to add more detail manually after printing, all ships have a base version that does not include the “feathers” on the wings, and a detailed version including them.

Part - Description
ship-T2.stl - Sample T-2 destroyer.
ship-V1-detailed.stl - Sample V-1 with minor hull details.
ship-V6-basic.stl - Sample V-6 without minor hull details.
ship-V6-detailed.stl - Sample V-6 with minor hull details.
ship-V8.stl - Sample V-8 cruiser.
ship-V9-basic.stl - Sample V-9 without minor hull details.
ship-V9-detailed.stl - Sample V-9 with minor hull details.

Blender files

Blender files are included in the zip file: RomulanTOSEraBlenderFiles.zip

This file contains two blender files for each design: a parts file, containing the STL parts arranged as used in the sample ship designs, and a parts source file, containing the raw blender objects used to create the parts.

License

I'm releasing this under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. You're free to distribute and modify these files (even for commercial use), provided you attribute the creator and distribute your contributions under the same license.

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