Cheapo drop pods

[Mark Plant]

I've been buying up Star Wars droids, which I will repaint and use as some sort of droid/alien army to invade earth.

I want to use the simplest droids as "one use" weapons thrown around to impede the enemy's rear. I can then play games with droids wandering more or less at random in my city terrain while the police sweep them clear. That makes for easy solo gaming, in particular.

I envisage the delivery system being drop pods. Very simple ones, given that the droids are throw-away items. Even just a box with a door. The droids fold up, so they only have to be 2-3 cm or so cubes or cylinders. Problem is I want 20+ pods, so I don't really want to get into too much detail, lots of modelling, or buying them commercially (I'm way over budget as it is).

So what do people suggest?

What is out there that I can quickly whip up to be a drop pod for 5 or 6 Star Wars droids?

[Gluteus Maximus]

You could get some old cheapo "magic marker" pens and cut them down to 20-30mm lengths. Glue a disc of plastic card on each end and add whatever extra adornments you want and they might work. You should get three pods out of each pen. They might be a bit crude, but should do for the use your needs.

Alternatively try looking in your local equivalent of a pound/dollar store and see what comes up htere.

A bit of lateral thinking and you'll be surprised what you can find with gaming potential 

[Mark Plant]

Nice suggestion. All the better since I have no need to buy cheapo pens. I'm a maths teacher - I have a basically endless supply of used whiteboard pens! 

Are you suggesting that the droids exit from the ends, or should I put a "hatch" on. Easy enough to do a closed one, but open ones a bit more work. I want them to look "popped".

[TheMightyFlip]

Kinder surprise plastic cases (the inside bit that holds the crappy plastic toy). Think War of the Worlds cyclinders, they hit the ground, the end screws/pops off and the droids crawl out.

[tjantzen]

Sounds like a pretty open-ended assignment 
Almost any kind of non-perishable trash could be used for pods….
The metal part of a light bulb for example could look like the top part of something that came from space…

The question is if you have access to 20+ used light bulbs 

regards
Thomas

[gamer Mac]

Do you mean for 28 mm.
How about plastic conduit, 20 mm or 25 mm diameter, from a DIY store? A couple of pounds for a 2 m length. It could be cut to suitable lengths and closed of at each end with plastic card or plastic slota bases.

[dijit]

Alternatively use coke bottle caps, glue two of them together. There was a thread a few weeks ago using this idea, they looked pretty great too.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Nice suggestion. All the better since I have no need to buy cheapo pens. I'm a maths teacher - I have a basically endless supply of used whiteboard pens! 

Are you suggesting that the droids exit from the ends, or should I put a "hatch" on. Easy enough to do a closed one, but open ones a bit more work. I want them to look "popped".

Hmm, that could mean a lot more work, especially if the interiors are in view. I hadn't given much thought to having them opened-up. That would probably tax my minimal modelling skills too much. I'd personally go for the open ended suggestion, but with the "hatches" split in half and hinged - like tank commanders' hatches.

Sorry I can't be of more help 

[HerbyF]

One another thread here some one made Sci-Fi shipping containers from pop bottle caps. Just glued 2 together & painted. I think he was using the new Coca-Cola plastic bottle caps. I think these would make great drop pods.

[fastolfrus]

Kinder egg inners can be quite useful, but don't hold paint easily.
Although if you based the two halves on something so that they were touching at a slight angle it would look like a cannister that had landed and opened in the middle, and then partially closed - possibly swinging back in on an unseen hinge ?
If they are only partially open that gives you three options - a defective pod that has crashed and the droid hasn't got out (but the wreckage would be valuable research material for defense forces), a pod that has just landed but hasn't fully opened yet - so a droid will appear at random (event card or dice roll perhaps?) from the pod, or a pod that has landed, is now empty, but has partially closed up again.
Partially closed also means no need to detail the inside.

A few years ago there were some other chocolate things that came with large round "pods", can't remember what they were but we bought loads to use the hemispheres as "blips" for long range scans in Full Thrust games.

Of course, you have to eat the chocolate.
But if you are a school teacher you might have a ready source of eaten Kinder Egg pods - ask in class and say it's for a science/recycling project.
They come in different colours too.

[Gluteus Maximus]

One another thread here some one made Sci-Fi shipping containers from pop bottle caps. Just glued 2 together & painted. I think he was using the new Coca-Cola plastic bottle caps. I think these would make great drop pods.

Here:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=11423.0

thread started by Ironworker.

Good idea to use them for drop pods 

[dijit]

Yeah, that was the thread I was thinking of too. It's a great idea.

[Mark Plant]

Thanks guys. Lots of good ideas.

The Coke bottle tops is certainly cool, but it would take me 20 years of normal consumption to get 2 pods.  

Kinder surprise are quite expensive in NZ, and are a bit bigger than I want anyway. I already use them as fuel tanks etc.

Is there some sort of conduit that comes in half-round? That would be perfect, but I don't think I have ever seen any.

[gamer Mac]

Plastic Conduit is very easy to cut. You could made half round stuff yourself.