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No 3Dprinted ships, the company closed, sorry!

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  • phenomenaut01phenomenaut01 Member Posts: 714 Arc User
    Aww..dang it. I was looking forward to picking up a 3D printed version of my main ship (if the price was right), but I can understand how it would be hard to make a sustainable profit on something that is still an emerging technology. Sad to see the company fold, and I hope all of the employees can find new jobs.

    Hopefully Cryptic can partner with another company to make it work.
  • captainbmoneycaptainbmoney Member Posts: 1,323 Arc User
    I got an idea. Maybe Cryptic can work with Wizkidz and get 3D printed ships... Wizkidz already screwed up with the Vizer. Maybe they can print more than 100.000 of them for a lot of players and get something started where they do ships with all the customization options and details.

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  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,983 Arc User
    I got an idea. Maybe Cryptic can work with Wizkidz and get 3D printed ships... Wizkidz already screwed up with the Vizer. Maybe they can print more than 100.000 of them for a lot of players and get something started where they do ships with all the customization options and details.

    3D printing may result in plastic starships but most plastic starships are not 3D printed.
    Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
    Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
    Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
  • officerbatman81officerbatman81 Member Posts: 2,761 Arc User
    That's epic bullspit, offering something to us then taking it away.

    It doesnt matter if their 3d printed or not, i don't care how it comes out of the oven. 'Sides, those things they showed us looked awfully rough, almost lego looking pos.
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,983 Arc User
    edited December 2016
    That's epic bullspit, offering something to us then taking it away.

    Cryptic didn't take anything away, Eucl3d went bust. TRIBBLE happens. It's sad and unfortunate, but natural to the risks and nature of business.
    Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
    Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
    Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
  • chewmagnachewmagna Member Posts: 49 Arc User
    Not too surprising. Consumer level 3d printing is still a very new and volatile area of business. Most companies that start up, whether they be printer manufacturers or companies offering printing services, just don't last because they always seem to underestimate the cost involved and get in way over their heads. I know this intimately, I was brought into a small 3d printing company as a co-owner, manager, and lead designer, and we fought with this for a year before finally folding.

    I said it in the other thread: Printing for profit is hard. Very hard. The time involved in printing, and having to pay employees for that time, sucks up almost any profit that can be had with the business. Trying to mass produce items for profit just doesn't work when it comes to printing. Injection molding or other types of molding are simply far cheaper, faster, and they have less work involved when it comes to trying to produce more than a couple hundred items.
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    Aww, that's unfortunate. I was looking forward to this.
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,983 Arc User
    edited December 2016
    chewmagna wrote: »
    Trying to mass produce items for profit just doesn't work when it comes to printing. Injection molding or other types of molding are simply far cheaper, faster, and they have less work involved when it comes to trying to produce more than a couple hundred items.

    Provided you're looking at a 1:1 analog. 3D printing has promising applications in that there are things you simply can't do with injection molding. But design first needs to be at a stage where it can take advantage of the relative lack of constraints (it seems we're still just at the concept stage), and the application has to offer sufficient a cost-benefit versus old techniques (ie. the 3D printed alternative has to do its job N times better than the N times cheaper original.)

    It's hard to imagine that 3D printing won't have some applications, but simple retail plastics probably isn't going to be a big one long term.
    Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
    Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
    Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
  • vampeiyrevampeiyre Member Posts: 633 Arc User
    That's epic bullspit, offering something to us then taking it away.

    It doesnt matter if their 3d printed or not, i don't care how it comes out of the oven. 'Sides, those things they showed us looked awfully rough, almost lego looking pos.

    The company went bankrupt, jackass. What are you, five years old?
    "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
  • officerbatman81officerbatman81 Member Posts: 2,761 Arc User
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.
    So considering that we've now had this information on the forum for 6 hours, what exactly is your issue?
    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
  • snoggymack22snoggymack22 Member Posts: 7,084 Arc User
    That's epic bullspit, offering something to us then taking it away.

    It doesnt matter if their 3d printed or not, i don't care how it comes out of the oven. 'Sides, those things they showed us looked awfully rough, almost lego looking pos.

    This is an odd post. You're upset that they're no longer available but you thought they looked terrible?

    Company closed, end of story.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.


    Don't be an *sshat now. Cryptic voiced a cool idea. The company that was supposed to make it a reality for them went bust. Cryptic humbly came to the forum to bring the bad news. Then you went on a bizarre entitlement binch. Did I miss something?!
    3lsZz0w.jpg
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  • theotherscotty#9105 theotherscotty Member Posts: 385 Arc User
    Ah, well... Guess I'll just have to build a scratch model (i.e. built from scratch). Or a regular plastic model kit, if it's a canon ship.
  • sorceror01sorceror01 Member Posts: 1,042 Arc User
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.

    Cryptic can share literally no responsibility, as they were also "left hanging" just as much as we were.

    Sorry bud, but as everyone else is pointing out already, you're being kind of a ding-dong over this.
    ".... you're gonna have a bad time."
  • chewmagnachewmagna Member Posts: 49 Arc User
    chewmagna wrote: »
    Trying to mass produce items for profit just doesn't work when it comes to printing. Injection molding or other types of molding are simply far cheaper, faster, and they have less work involved when it comes to trying to produce more than a couple hundred items.

    Provided you're looking at a 1:1 analog. 3D printing has promising applications in that there are things you simply can't do with injection molding. But design first needs to be at a stage where it can take advantage of the relative lack of constraints (it seems we're still just at the concept stage), and the application has to offer sufficient a cost-benefit versus old techniques (ie. the 3D printed alternative has to do its job N times better than the N times cheaper original.)

    It's hard to imagine that 3D printing won't have some applications, but simple retail plastics probably isn't going to be a big one long term.

    That is true, printing does have it's uses, and some things it does very well. But when you're talking about mass producing something, it simply doesn't work.

    Take a model of the Enterprise. In order to get a good print, you're gonna want to cut the object up into at least 4 pieces (because orientation matters, overhangs and such can't be printed without supports, and printing supports and the post processing involved in cleaning up those areas is very time consuming). Now say you want good high quality pieces. Each piece is going to take an hour to a few hours to print, depending on the scale of the item and the quality. Let's go with 0.1mm layer height, which is fairly fine and will leave the least amount of additional post processing at the end (sanding, filling, smoothing). So let's say we have approximately 4 hours print time per model, and that's being very generous. It'll be more like 8 hours. So 8 hours just for the printing. Let's add another 2 hours for sanding, filling, and sanding some more. Then you have to assemble the pieces, glue, clamps, more sanding and filling after that to hide the seams. Then you have to paint it. I don't know jack about painting models, but let's say another couple hours for a professional to do a good job. We're up to 12 hours, per model to be complete. Think if you get an order of just 100 models, then think about how much you're paying employees per hour to do all this. This is why printing simply doesn't work (right now) for this kind of business. You're looking at well over $100 just in labor, per employee, per model, before taking into account printers, supplies, and all the other costs that a business has. The final retail price of the product would have to be astronomical just to break even.

    Oh and let's not forget licensing. You can't print something and sell it without first having permission, or owning the design of the product.

    Now compare all that to something like injection molding. Sure it looks expensive up front, around here it costs something like $50k per item to have a mold created. But compare that to the cost of initially setting up a printing business (commercial grade printers can be well over $10k each, and to print with any kind of scale in mind you'd need many), and the cost of running it, and that 50k becomes pocket change. And with the molding you can create potentially dozens of items at once in minutes, with little to no post work on the parts. Just paint it.

    But, having said all that, if your aim is small scale production, say a dozen boutique items a week, then printing may be the better route.

    Printing does have it's uses, and things that it does very well. Prototyping is one, and that's what 3d printing was initially developed for (it's been used a very long time for this). Custom jobs (one-offs) is something else it's good for, stuff that you aren't worried about making many copies of. In this regard it's more of an artisan thing. The last thing it's really good for is just as a hobby. People who like playing with tech, people who like 3d modelling, people who just like to tinker with and create stuff. It's still very, very far off from being a platform that can be used to mass produce anything. If it ever gets there at all.
  • thlaylierahthlaylierah Member Posts: 2,991 Arc User
    edited December 2016
    They should Outsource to China Like Eaglemoss does their Star Trek line is very appealing.

    And since PWE is in China, it should be easy.
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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.


    Don't be an *sshat now. Cryptic voiced a cool idea. The company that was supposed to make it a reality for them went bust. Cryptic humbly came to the forum to bring the bad news. Then you went on a bizarre entitlement binch. Did I miss something?!

    WHAT????????? No one from Cryptic has came forward on the forums or anywhere to comment about this at all. Yes you did miss something.


    Yeah, I'm the one who's blind. /sarcasm
    I would like to address some rumors that have been floating around about the status of Eucl3d, our ship printing partner, and 3D printed ships for Star Trek Online. We were very sad to learn that Eucl3d will be shutting their doors at the end of 2016. Since we won’t have a physical manufacturer for our ships, this means that Star Trek Online will be unable to continue with its 3D ship printing initiative at this time. I apologize for announcing such an exciting new program for Star Trek Online, only to have it pulled away 3 short months later. The entire development team has been looking forward to getting their ships printed just as much as many of you in the community, and having this program end before it was able to truly spin up is very unfortunate. 3D ship printing has been a feature we’ve wanted to get into the game for years, and we will continue to keep an eye out for opportunities to bring it to the game in the future.

    Steve Ricossa
    Executive Producer
    Star Trek Online

    He is, as he says himself (but you probably missed that too), the Producer of Star Trek Online at Cryptic Studios.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    So, if I read this right... Cryptic killed Eucl3d? GJ, Cryptic! ;)
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  • sorceror01sorceror01 Member Posts: 1,042 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.


    Don't be an *sshat now. Cryptic voiced a cool idea. The company that was supposed to make it a reality for them went bust. Cryptic humbly came to the forum to bring the bad news. Then you went on a bizarre entitlement binch. Did I miss something?!

    WHAT????????? No one from Cryptic has came forward on the forums or anywhere to comment about this at all. Yes you did miss something.


    Yeah, I'm the one who's blind. /sarcasm
    I would like to address some rumors that have been floating around about the status of Eucl3d, our ship printing partner, and 3D printed ships for Star Trek Online. We were very sad to learn that Eucl3d will be shutting their doors at the end of 2016. Since we won’t have a physical manufacturer for our ships, this means that Star Trek Online will be unable to continue with its 3D ship printing initiative at this time. I apologize for announcing such an exciting new program for Star Trek Online, only to have it pulled away 3 short months later. The entire development team has been looking forward to getting their ships printed just as much as many of you in the community, and having this program end before it was able to truly spin up is very unfortunate. 3D ship printing has been a feature we’ve wanted to get into the game for years, and we will continue to keep an eye out for opportunities to bring it to the game in the future.

    Steve Ricossa
    Executive Producer
    Star Trek Online

    He is, as he says himself (but you probably missed that too), the Producer of Star Trek Online at Cryptic Studios.

    That wasn't in this thread and he wasn't the one to break the news to everyone. Maybe you should site your cite your sources first forum noob.

    Uh, so what if it wasn't in this thread specifically?
    The dude being quoted is actually, literally, the Executive Producer of Star Trek Online. And as far as anyone knows, that specific post, in this specific thread, was one of the first times anyone on the dev team officially commented on it.
    Like..... what are you even saying.
    ".... you're gonna have a bad time."
  • foxman00foxman00 Member Posts: 1,540 Arc User
    reyan01 wrote: »
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    ^Lol'ed hard at this.

    If a company has an offering to the public, then later a contractor fails/pulls out/bankrupts whatever, the customer is left hanging on that offering, the company shares responsibility.
    True. My age is irrelevant.


    Don't be an *sshat now. Cryptic voiced a cool idea. The company that was supposed to make it a reality for them went bust. Cryptic humbly came to the forum to bring the bad news. Then you went on a bizarre entitlement binch. Did I miss something?!

    WHAT????????? No one from Cryptic has came forward on the forums or anywhere to comment about this at all. Yes you did miss something.


    Yeah, I'm the one who's blind. /sarcasm
    I would like to address some rumors that have been floating around about the status of Eucl3d, our ship printing partner, and 3D printed ships for Star Trek Online. We were very sad to learn that Eucl3d will be shutting their doors at the end of 2016. Since we won’t have a physical manufacturer for our ships, this means that Star Trek Online will be unable to continue with its 3D ship printing initiative at this time. I apologize for announcing such an exciting new program for Star Trek Online, only to have it pulled away 3 short months later. The entire development team has been looking forward to getting their ships printed just as much as many of you in the community, and having this program end before it was able to truly spin up is very unfortunate. 3D ship printing has been a feature we’ve wanted to get into the game for years, and we will continue to keep an eye out for opportunities to bring it to the game in the future.

    Steve Ricossa
    Executive Producer
    Star Trek Online

    He is, as he says himself (but you probably missed that too), the Producer of Star Trek Online at Cryptic Studios.

    That wasn't in this thread and he wasn't the one to break the news to everyone. Maybe you should site your cite your sources first forum noob.

    @meimeitoo a "forum noob"? Oh my god you really ARE clueless!

    Trust me Reyan01, look into "bubbas" post history, and you will just see how clueless he really is :)
    pjxgwS8.jpg
  • bawdytieflingbawdytiefling Member Posts: 58 Arc User
    Cryptic didn't do enough research into the company's long-term financial health and viability before partnering with them, and now they have egg on their faces. Given how inconsistent they are with their product quality (great ship visuals and design vs broken tailor options and bugs that have been in the game for years), it's not at all surprising this happened. Their staff seem to be made up of more dreamers than planners/project managers, which has its merits, but also leads to these sort of partnership mistakes.
  • fruitvendor12fruitvendor12 Member Posts: 615 Arc User
    Imagine if Cryptic rejuvenated Gateway and allowed us to export popular mesh protocols for ships for us to print on our own... and I'd pay for that feature.​​
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  • saurializardsaurializard Member Posts: 4,409 Arc User
    In any case, I guess it's back to buying Eaglemoss and QMx models from the UK and forgetting about a Baltim one for me.
    #TASforSTO
    Iconian_Trio_sign.jpg?raw=1
This discussion has been closed.