Tuesday 16 December 2014

Starships Collection updates and Titan progress

A few updates from The Official Starships Collection, starting with news from StarTrek.com of new ships set to join The Collection in 2015. Several ships which have been previously confirmed were mentioned: The original USS Enterprise, Centaur class, and Steamrunner class. Those will all be out by September next year (in the UK at least), which is where the running order as so far announced runs out, at issue fifty-five. But StarTrek.com also mentioned a couple more ships for 2015: Zefram Cochrane’s warp ship, the Phoenix, and a TOS Klingon battlecruiser. To accompany this news they also released a new group image showing most (but not all) of the series so far.


Meanwhile Eaglemoss have now made available a new binder to hold magazines from The Collection. A few months ago they distributed a survey to gage interest in alternate binder designs, and it appears Federation ships got the best feedback, as it's a gaggle of them which can been seen on the new binder design (not in fact one of the designs in the survey, but a new arrangement). The new binder is only available via Eaglemoss' online shop.

Continue after the jump for the latest previews of forthcoming issues of The Collection, and news of a major milestone for the USS Titan petition.

Due out in March next year, issue forty-one of the series will be the 22nd century Klingon Raptor. Thanks to Forbidden Planet, we can now have a really good look at the model with a higher resolution version of the previously released image:


Meanwhile the most recent issue in the UK is another 22nd century Klingon ship, the Bird of Prey. To mark the release of issue thirty-five, The Collection's Facebook page released the finalised cover and model image:


And finally for this update, the latest news from the USS Titan petition. For those that have missed previous details of this: A little while ago I did an interview with The Collection's manager, Ben Robinson, who mentioned that if sufficient demand could be shown for any given ship (particularly in reference to requests for popular non-canon ships), then a special issue could be commissioned, and that ship will earn its place in The Collection.

For that to happen Ben needs five-thousand people who would be willing to pre-order said special issue, and to that end I set up a petition to collect the names and emails of five-thousand people who would like to see the USS Titan made into a model. And the good news is, as of a couple of days ago we are now half way towards that goal! Over two-and-a-half thousand Titan fans have now pledged to pre-order a special USS Titan issue. Which means we just have to find that many people again and we'll get the Luna class in our hands! If each person who has already signed up can find just one other Titan fan, we're done! So please, help spread the word, pester your trekkie friends, find those Titan fans, and the model will soon be with us! Sign the petition!

For a listing of all the ships in the Starships Collection, including links to all my previous previews and reviews, see my index page.

Find Star Trek starships on TFAW.com!

19 comments:

tgiokdi said...

Any word on if they're going to have a JJ Enterprise that's to scale with the rest of the collection? I think it looks more ridiculous than it should being 3 x the size of every other ship in the collection.

also, it's nearly impossible to make a comment on this site, I've tried about 10 times and keep getting "unknown error"

8of5 said...

Hmm, strange, you're the first person that's informed me of any commenting problem.

I wouldn't hold your breath for smaller scale nuTrek ships, why would they release them twice?

More to the point, the scale in the series is all over the place anyway, with massive ships like the Bajoran solar sailor and Xindi Insectioid, next to tiny Surak and Excelsior classes.

ety3rd said...

I like the collection, but I really want to see more TOS ships. Glad they're coming out with a Klingon ship, but where's Botany Bay, a Romulan Bird of Prey, a Romulan D-7, a Galileo shuttlecraft, ...

And if we're going extra-canonical, how about a Daedalus-class? (There were models in TNG and DS9.)

Unknown said...

They've got a projected 70+ issue run with the blurb stating they want to make every ship that's appeared on screen (barring identical ships with different names, but if the series runs and runs, I would seriously love a whole feet of TOS era Constitutions), so chances are we'll see the Botany Bay, Romulan BoP and Galileo very soon. There is the Olympic Class coming, although it's not strictly Daedalus, it's something to look forward to.

8of5 said...

Even though I know the rationale - that the TOS designs have less detailing and are therefore a bit dull for some casual buyers - I remain surprised by the lack of TOS ships. Given how TOS dominates all other Trek products it seems very odd. And it's not like they even have the problem of not having an existing CGI model to build from, thanks to the TOS remastering.

I'm sure they'll come eventually. And if the series does go on and on I hope they mine TAS as well.

I'd not be so keen on different ships of the same class, at least not as anything more than an optional extra - One wonders if doing a renamed ship would require the 5000 name commitment, or if by using the existing tooling they could do a smaller run for those that want them.

Unknown said...

8of5, in the last week I've been hitting as hard as I could on pretty much every outlet I could find regarding the Star Trek Online community, in regards to your other petition with the Enterprise-F.

However, all that's amounted to so far is about 100 voices. Thing is, most people look like they don't even know it exists. It could use some more visibility (or coverage of the Enterprise-F so more people would know what it even is).

This said, I like the Luna-class very much too (it's been my prefered science ship in STO since over 4 years) so I'm glad to see its progress. Thanks for championing this. :)

Bernd Perplies said...

It's so strange, they produce ugly designs like the Oberth-Class or the Solar Sailor, but are so reluctant bringing a Titan oder an Enterprise-F. Both are beautiful ships. The should just do it in the normal production run and the ships would sell as good as any other ship too. I'm sure of it.

nwg said...

There won't be a JJ Enterprise at the smaller scale as Hot Wheels have the contract at that size.

nwg said...
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Unknown said...

"I'd not be so keen on different ships of the same class, at least not as anything more than an optional extra - One wonders if doing a renamed ship would require the 5000 name commitment, or if by using the existing tooling they could do a smaller run for those that want them."

Well one idea would be to release a blank-named variant and let the buyer stick whatever name he chooses on there. That way you could buy as many as you want and customise to your heart's desire :D

mcarp555 said...

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I have zero interest in non-canon ships (as in 'not seen in movies or any of the television series'). I enjoy the ships in the collection so far, even if some of them strain my memory of having seen them before on-screen. But I've never read any ST novels, and would prefer not to fork over the dough with my direct debit to Eaglemoss every month for ships that I don't know. Now if EM gets enough sigs to produce models that the more rabid fans can purchase outside of the actual collection, then fine, knock yerselves out. But I'd prefer my monthly shipments to stick to vessels from TOS to NuTrek, period.

8of5 said...

I don't think you're in the minority at all mcarp555, I'm pretty sure the parameters for your interest is exactly what is true of most of Ealemoss' customers. Canon has some mystical power over a lot of trekkies.

Obviously not me, who set up this very site primarily to chronicle developments in non-canon Trek!

Which Bernard, is why we have this situation where cool non-canon ships have less of a market than average canon ships. Consider this: Most die hard trekkies will have seen most episodes of Star Trek, and therefore even the most obscure ship has had some exposure to pretty much every trekkie. But only a fraction of trekkies read the books, or comics, or play the games. So only that fraction of the market has any interest in non-canon ships. It's just a matter of exposure. To those of use who read the books, the Titan is a big deal, but we are a minority.

nwg, don't think your licensing argument stacks up, Eaglemoss have already made most of the same ships Hot Wheels did, at the same size.

zoberraz, I've plugged the Enterprise-F petition a couple of times, and link to it on the Titan petition. But I strongly feel it's better to focus on one ship at a time, to ensure a focused campaign, rather than dozen petitions being equally ignored.

nwg said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
nwg said...

nwg, don't think your licensing argument stacks up, Eaglemoss have already made most of the same ships Hot Wheels did, at the same size.

Not the JJ Enterprise or the other JJ ships. They are all bigger specials.

I would like to see a Titan and Aventine but only because they are Riker's and Dax's ships.

mcarp555 said...

8 (Can I call you 8?), I think you've hit the nail on the head. I'm an 'average' Trekker, not a rabid one. Also, I'm concerned that with dozens of ST books (maybe hundreds?), if each one had some kind of cool ship used by a Federation power or enemy, you could have a potential pool of hundreds of ships most Trekkers have never heard of. I'm not prepared to pay for a model of the Fandango warship mentioned in chapter XXXIV of "Wesley Crusher: The Retirement Years, Vol 47".

And I think similar thinking is at work with most special issues being NuTrek ships - since that's the 'current' incarnation of Trek at the moment (regardless of your feelings about it), that's the ones that will pull in the more fringe Trek fans; people who never saw Wrath of Khan will the ones to drool over a large-scale Enterprise.

Bernd Perplies said...

I understand your point of view, mcarp555, but I can only repeat, that personally I'd rather see a cool (and prominently featured) ST ship from a novel or videogame standing in my shelf than a dull design seen perhaps a few times on TV. So I would favor the Titan every day over a Oberth-class (for example - there are some more designs in the EM collection I don't really like). Even if the Titan is "just" the main ship of a novel series about Rikers adventures as a starship captain. In the end I am paying for owning cool ST space ships. Canon is not so important for me. :) But perhaps I am indeed in the minority with this opinion. (However a lucky minority, because some of the novels are really great! :) )

Bernd Perplies said...

That said I don't think there are more than just a few non-canon designs even enthusiastic fans would like to see. The Titan, the Aventine, perhaps the Enterprise-F, perhaps the refitted Voyager and the refitted Enterprise NX-01. I guess that's it. So it wouldn't be such a great investment. But of course we can talk all day. EM has to decide. :)

mcarp555 said...

And likewise, I don't begrudge anyone who reads the books and would like a model, based on the description and cover art (although I imagine nailing the details down without a physical model or CGI rendering will always ensure healthy debate). I just don't want to pay for one. If EM were to roll out some sort of 'opt-in/opt-out' program for non-canon ships, I'd be happy to sign the petitions to help out those who want those models.

8of5 said...

mcarp555, as Bernd noted, there really aren't that many ships with enough prominence to gain the necessary support. The Titan, Aventine, and the Enterprise-F are the obvious ones, then maybe the USS Sagittarius and Vanguard. Beyond that, other ships, no matter how cool, just haven't had enough exposure to get the support. Titan has its own book series, and has appeared at the center of several crossovers, is a canon ship, and the command of one of the main characters of one of the more popular series, and even with all that it's a job to find the support! So wouldn't worry to much about being flooded with non-canon ships.

And the petition IS an opt in. What Eaglemoss want are 5000 people who will 100% pre-order a model if given the option. Because they know the people that want non-canon ships are the minority, so they need that definite support to be sure they aren't wasting their money developing the product. The petition isn't just about numbers of names, it's basically a pre-pre-order.

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