Exploration Frigate (Based off of No Mans Sky)

Introducing the largest 3D print I have ever done: the Explorer Type Frigate - based off of the ship seen in the video game No Man's Sky. This space craft is a support vessel that is used in-game to chart distant systems and gather scientific discoveries. It’s essentially the fleet’s scout, traveling far to uncover new information, resources, and opportunities. Featuring many unique details like a spinning ring, landing pads, a variety of fins and frames, I could not hold back from 3d modelling it.

This 3D print consists of a modular build of 161 pieces (including a pencil) since it is too large to fit on the bed of most printers (total length of ~17.25 inches) and requires less support. Please make sure you have room to place the model before spending the time, effort, and resources to build it. It also is a multi-color print with 6 colors, meaning it is a print matching the capabilities of the Bambu Vortek system, but can still be printed on a machine with 1 AMS unit (just with a lot more waste).

Glue is needed for part of the assembly (Hot glue worked well for me, but dedicated model glue might be better). The part that will require the glue (bare minimum) is the front section held together by a pencil. I recommend using an unsharpened, circular cross section one for this, but a hexagonal one should be fine. Aside from the section that needs gluing, square and circular pins hold most of the parts together. I would recommend printing a text pin of each type before printing all of them to make sure your printers tolerance matches mine. If it doesn't, try scaling the pins by .1mm in x and y.

Disclaimers:

I have made minor tweaks to colors and part geometry between the real-life pictures and print file/instructions. 

Some colors in the instructions may not match up exactly with those of the print, If you have questions about this, feel free to ask in the comments.

The original design credit of the ship goes to the creators of No Man's Sky: Hello Games. This is just a fan-based recreation.

Instructions are linked below.