More FASA Federation ships: Star Trek starship parts kit expansion #13 by CaptainMojo

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

[ If you have any trouble accessing the kit on Thingiverse, I've also published it to a Google Drive location: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QJNRGi7wzXbtNkZn5axp83GMVs7ednjm?usp=sharing ]
This is the thirteenth expansion parts kit meant to complement my original Star Trek Constitution Class Parts Kit. This is the second kit covering ships from the FASA Federation Ship Recognition Manual for the old FASA Star Trek tactical combat board game. The first FASA Federation kit can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3704638
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 for your kitbashing enjoyment.

Update 2021-04-08: In keeping with the recent updates I’ve made to My Constitution, Miranda, and first FASA Federation kits, I’ve given this kit a major overhaul. This includes fewer mesh quality improvements than those previous kits, as I original released this kit fairly recently. However, I have included many detail level improvements and added a number of additional ship variants based on previous requests. If you'd like to access the previous version of this kit, its archived at this Google Drive location: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ctFthJAc8QcZRsY4-UaMaLbAIi7g6Uz5?usp=sharing.
This kit supports the following FASA ship classes:
Anton class cruiser
The FASA version of a TOS Miranda. Kit supports several variants.
The Pre-TOS era version as might have been seen during the Four Year’s way:

The TOS version:

A later version incorporating several motion picture era parts.:

Brenton class cruiser
A cheaper cruiser designed to supplement the refit constitutions, this is one of the most controversial of the FASA designs, due to it’s inexplicable “stretched” saucer seeming pasted on top of a larger hull section.

Durrett class cruiser
A light cruiser with a single nacelle, a goofy long neck and a truncated Miranda body.

Kiev class frigate
Another shortened Miranda-ish hull with a weapons pod.

Lenthal class destroyer
In FASA Trek, Andorians had a thing for protected center mounted nacelles, and ships they had a hand in designing showed this. The Lenthal features a strange teardrop shaped extended hull.

Nelson class scout
FASA’s version of Franz Joseph’s single nacelle Saladin class scout. The only difference being the Nelson has two necks connecting the saucer and nacelle instead of the single one. This kit supports several variants.
The Pre-TOS era version as might have been seen during the Four Year’s way:

The TOS version:

A later version incorporating several motion picture era parts.:

Ranger class scout
One of my favorite FASA designs, the Ranger is a small scout with a simple and unique saucer not used in other designs.

Remora class escort / Charger class destroyer
The Remora class features large pontoons that are not given a reason for in the game. This ship was the cover girl of the FASA Ship Recognition Manual.

The Charger is an uprated destroyer that uses the same hull as the Remora.

Thufir class destroyer
Another Andorian design, the Thufir features two outboard pontoons protecting
the nacelles.

Also included is a variant that uses a more traditional TMP era saucer.

Wilkerson class destroyer
A fairly basic two-nacelle variant with no secondary hull.

I suspect those not already familiar with FASA Trek may get their mellow a little harshed by some of these designs. To be honest, I’m not really 100% with some of them, but I did want to try and reproduce them relatively faithfully to the original designs. That said, most of these models heavily rely on Brad Torgerson’s redraws which fix many of the major issues with the oft-questionable original FASA source art. You can find these redraws, as well as additional information about the FASA game, at his site: the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator On-Line Database & Archive.
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.
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
FASA miniature scale
1/3788
0.26399155
ADB Starline 2400 scale
1/3125
0.32
ADB Starline 2500 scale
1/2500
0.4
The Trek modelers "Golden scale"
1/1600
0.625
TOS 3-Ship Set scale
1/1400
0.714285714
Common resin model scale
1/650
1.538461538
Modelling scale
1/537
1.862197393
Common scale for TMP models
1/350
2.857142857
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. See the Blender fundamentals tutorials playlist to get started. 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 the included parts form all the zip files. 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.
Note to save Thingiverse processing time on useless preview images, I'm only including ship STLs separately. The parts STL files are all compiled into a single ZIP file: FASAFed2V2-parts-stls.zip.
Parts
Part
Description
anton-main-hull.stl
Combined saucer and secondary hull.
anton-nacelle-port.stl
Port warp nacelle.
anton-nacelle-pylon-port.stl
Port pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
anton-nacelle-pylon-starboard.stl
Starboard pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
anton-nacelle-starboard.stl
Port warp nacelle.
brenton-main-hull.stl
Combined saucer and secondary hull.
brenton-nacelle-port.stl
Port warp nacelle.
brenton-nacelle-pylon-port.stl
Port pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
brenton-nacelle-pylon-starboard.stl
Starboard pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
brenton-nacelle-starboard.stl
Port warp nacelle.
durette-main-hull.stl
Combined saucer and secondary hull.
durette-nacelle-pylon.stl
Center warp nacelle.
durette-nacelle.stl
Pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
durette-weapons-pod.stl
Weapons pod mounted on pylon.
kiev-main-hull.stl
Combined saucer and secondary hull.
kiev-nacelle-port.stl
Port warp nacelle.
kiev-nacelle-pylon-port.stl
Port pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
kiev-nacelle-pylon-starboard.stl
Starboard pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
kiev-nacelle-starboard.stl
Starboard warp nacelle.
kiev-weapons-module-neck.stl
Neck connecting weapons pod to hull.
kiev-weapons-module.stl
Weapons pod.
lenthal-nacelle-port.stl
Port warp nacelle.
lenthal-nacelle-starboard.stl
Starboard warp nacelle.
lenthal-saucer.stl
Saucer.
lenthal-secondary-hull.stl
Secondary hull.
nelson-nacelle-pylon.stl
Combined port and starboard pylons connecting nacelle and saucer.
nelson-nacelle.stl
Warp nacelle.
nelson-saucer.stl
Saucer.
ranger-nacelle-port.stl
Port warp nacelle.
ranger-nacelle-pylon-port.stl
Port pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
ranger-nacelle-pylon-starboard.stl
Starboard pylon connecting hull and nacelle.
ranger-nacelle-starboard.stl
Starboard warp nacelle.
ranger-saucer.stl
Saucer.
remora-nacelle-pylon.stl
Pylon connecting center nacelle to the main hull.
remora-nacelle.stl
Warp nacelle.
remora-pontoon-port.stl
Port “pontoon”.
remora-pontoon-starboard.stl
Starboard “pontoon”.
remora-saucer.stl
Saucer.
remora-secondary-hull.stl
Secondary hull to which all other components attach.
thufir-main-hull.stl
Combined saucer and secondary hull.
thufir-nacelle-port.stl
Port warp nacelle.
thufir-nacelle-starboard.stl
Starboard warp nacelle.
thufir-pontoon-port.stl
Port “pontoon”.
thufir-pontoon-starboard.stl
Starboard “pontoon”.
wilkerson-main-hull.stl
Saucer.
wilkerson-nacelle-dorsal.stl
Top nacelle.
wilkerson-nacelle-pylon-dorsal.stl
Pylons connecting top nacelle and the saucer.
wilkerson-nacelle-pylon-ventral.stl
Pylons connecting bottom nacelle and the saucer.
wilkerson-nacelle-ventral.stl
Bottom nacelle.
Combined ship STLs
These files provide sample ships generated using the parts included in this kit.
Part
Description
ship-anton.stl
Anton class cruiser
ship-brenton.stl
Brenton class cruiser
ship-durette.stl
Durrett class cruiser
ship-kiev.stl
Kiev class frigate
ship-lenthal.stl
Lenthal class destroyer
ship-nelson.stl
Nelson class scout
ship-ranger.stl
Ranger class scout
ship-remora.stl
Remora class escort / Charger class destroyer
ship-thufir.stl
Thufir class destroyer
ship-wilkerson.stl
Wilkerson class destroyer
Blender files
Blender source files are also included in the file FASAFed2V2-blender-files.zip. This ZIP 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.