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Aotrs Shipyards September 2023 Release and Update: M2A3/M3A3
In addition to this moderns release, I have a fairly substantial update.
I was hoping to do the update last week and then the release, but that hasn’t panned out. So bear with me.
TL;DR: M2A3, M3A3 and both with BUSK, likely no releases in October, Aotrs Shipyards coming to MyMiniFactory for .stls in the fairly near future; possible Aotrs Shipyards sale at Only-Games soon.
First off, then, the release: the M2A3 Bradley and the M”A3 with the Bradley Urban Survival Kit, plus the M3A3 (same).
M2A3
Direct price: £4.05
The Only-Games price: £4.43 Link
Shapeways price: £8.09 Link
M3A3
Direct price: £4.05
The Only-Games price: £4.60 Link
Shapeways price: £8.09 Link
M2A3 with BUSK
Direct price: £4.30
The Only-Games price: £4.74 Link
Shapeways price: £8.42 Link
M3A3 with BUSK
Direct price: £4.30
The Only-Games price: £4.67 Link
Shapeways price: £8.43 Link
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Photos of Prusa versions, as always.
Believe or not, there are STILL some Bradley variants left to go at some point down the line…
Right on to the update stuff.
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Last Wednesday I had meeting with both Only-Games and MyMiniFactory to discuss the hows and whys of using MyMiniFactory to start selling .stls through MyMiniFactory. (Note for clarity: this will of course be in addition to, not instead of, the physical prints from current sources.)
It was something of a good news/bad news situation. Only-Games is in the process of introducing a subscription for all creators, something I wasn’t aware of. This would have been catastrophic, except that since June, Shipyards sales have spiked high enough to actually cover that subscription fee.
(This represents such a dramatic relative spike from being a trickle (nothing some months as recently as April) which has taken me by complete surprise. I can’t quite work out what triggered it; June’s releases were merchants and the explosion markers and it was just after Partizan, none of which particularly is out of the ordinary.) It was so sudden I hadn’t really registered it yet until prompted to look, since at Only-Games I don’t get notified of individual sales and I have to remember to check.)
So, if that happy trend continues, it means that it will cover the subscription cost which might have otherwise have spelled serious problems.
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We had a long discussion on the .stl market, which obviously, MyMiniFactory ultimately knows better than me, since the Shipyards has hitherto been a physical-only producer. The long and the short of it is that 80% of people buying files are printing in resin, not FDM.
This creates something of an issue, since as perhaps notoriously at the point, the Shipyards doesn’t have a home resin printer – nor in the circumstances am I likely to get one in the near future. (Don’t even know where we’d put it in any case.) I thus can’t obviously test-print resin models to check supports. I have looked into what I could do, and talked to Atlas 3DSS (a company that does supports for you), which has at least given me a very basic understanding of what works. But, for obvious reasons, I can’t afford to have the supports done commercially for, like 600 models, and what I would hazard would be around $15-25 dollars per tank or something. At very best, I might be able to provide some pretty much “manual and my best guess” pre-supported models (as an addendum to the product) but I feel trying that without even a cursory test would be unhelpful.
(I thought my mate had a resin printer he’d gotten from his mate (who has a habit of buying printers and then getting rid of ’em), but turns out I was getting confused and my mate’s mate’s resin printer went to my other mate, who moved way. (Confused? Well, now you know why I was1) ,
So on balance, the assumption is going to have to that models come without supports.
In some ways, this doesn’t change anything, since for Wargames Vault, I was only able to supply images of recommended supports for FDM printers anyway.
What it does mean, though, is that I am undecided as to whether to bundle the FDM versions in on the models on MyMiniFactory. I COULD, since it looks like I could simply bundle them with a zip as part of the models and I *will* do so if anyone requests it, but I don’t know whether it’s worth doing. (I will, however, take the opportunity to bundle a flight stand file with the starships, as well as providing the same free bundle of stands as is currently on Wargames Vault.)
This has meant that I am largely letting the plans of releasing the files on Wargames Vault go fallow for the moment. If there is demand – especially for FDM files, I may take a look at it.
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Looking around at how other manufacturers sell their models on MyMiniFactory, I saw a lot of starships in packs, rather than as individuals. I am leaning away from that, and intending to keep having individual models (or smaller packs, like maybe one pack for fighters). For one thing, I do occasionally go back to older ranges and add stuff to them (the Herosines/General Hull Designs notably) and of course for the moderns ranges, those will never be “complete” until I run out of real armour to model (don’t see that happening)! Thus, while I may look into doing fleet/army packs, they will be in addition to, rather than instead of, the individual models.
______________________________________________________________So, taking into consideration all of the above and having a look around at what other places are doing, I have decided on my pricing plan, which is TOTALLY different to what I thought.
Remember back in the 80s and 90s, when you could a lot of stuff for your pennies? That’s where I’m planning to go. The not-quite-Poundshop route. I am figuring that my pricing system will be based around double the mark-up I get on the physical models. Thus, tanks will come out at around £1 to £1.50, superdreadnoughts at around £3 and up to about heavy cruisers at 50p. (I think a floor of 50p is not unreasonable.)
I am all for having low-cost entry points (so Little Timmy (sic) can get a nice little fleet for his hard-earned pocket money…) and also allowing people to pick and choose my models across all the ranges.
This policy means, as of last Thursday (06/09/2023), the price of the Small Starbase and 300th !O-2300 Spacetruck on Wargames Vault have been dropped permanently to £3 and £1.50. (I’ve not sold any of either at time of change, so that’s good, because I don’t feel guilty about calibrating it totally wrong to start with. Live and learn, right?)
One advantage of selling the models individually means that, if something sells well, maybe I can look into doing supports for it, either myself or professionally.
This also means that this gives me a much lower turn-around time. It means that, aside from splitting the hollow versions off their sprues, there’s not too much work to do per model to get them up. So I can hopefully get stuff up on there, and up to date, in a fairly reasonable time-frame that is not 2-3 years. (Like it took to get the FDM/Only-Games stuff ready in case of Shapeways Emergency the last time around.)
That is now The Plan, anyway. Obviously, if there are more unforeseen issues cropping up, I might have to alter them, but hopefully this will be the way forward.
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On top of this, there is the issue that I have to do all the preparatory, like Art Stuff. (My Shipyards renders look a bit… Understated to most on MMMF.) While there’s no an approach I can take OTHER than the renders (since I can’t use photos of the FDM for resin prints, and TurboCAD is crap at renders), even something as simple as adding a title or logo to my existing renders will be a job and a half. (Terrible questions like “what font do I use, since I can’t easily use the one for all the book titles, since I basically have manually tweak it in PaintShopPro8?”)
As such, as MyMiniFactory is ALSO a subscription system, I can’t afford (literally) to not sign-up at least three-quarters prepared. So I will need to be doing some of that groundwork.
(At time of posting, I have gotten as far as the SSA ships and up to “m” in the moderns in unspruing (but the majority of that still needs mesh-checking/fixing). So it’s going to be a long job.)
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With that all to do, I have decided that there is very likely to NOT be a moderns release (and possibly no sci-fi release) in at least October and there may not be a scifi release next week. This will be the first time since I took the Shipyards full-time (eight years ago) there won’t be a monthly moderns release. I could, of course, dip into the backlog, but at this uncertain point, I’d just rather not having it hanging over my head until I can get myself on firmer ground.
(For the same reason, I am further breaking a habit of a lifetime and planning to do a continuation of the Hereward scenario at Other Partizan, instead of sci-fi MG – featuring the Royal Elven Army), like I had intended.)
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Only-Games very generously also offered me to have 25% sale on the Shipyards ranges. This would be specifically for the Shipyards (as opposed to the sitewide summer sale). I am still waiting on the confirmation – at last count, it was going to be up until end of October to catch Other Partizan on the 8th, but they have not got back to me at time of posting; I’ll do another post when that’s ready.
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I have also – after a GREAT deal of delay – updated Bleakbane’s Galaxy Guide at it exists currently on Spacebattles.
This covers the forthcoming Royal Elven Army (which has been semi-ready for release since before lockdown), and two new designs that were going to be New On Table for Other Partizan before the plans changed.
It took a HUGE amount of work to clean up the line renders (because of course TurboCAD facets the surfaces, which then need cleaning up), so please, go and take a look!
Something I have resisted having before, but that the Universal Credit people didn’t really give me much option on but to take the option:
If you feel exceptionally generous and would to like support these lore efforts (at least before I can put out copy of the Galaxy Guide!) I have set up a ko-fi here.
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