To celebrate the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story today, I decided to build a 786-piece model of the ARC-170 Starfighter. While it does not actually appear in the movie, it was the Republic's precursor to the iconic X-Wing Starfighter that the Rebel Alliance used in their fleet. It includes three clone pilots and an R4-D5 astromech droid. I used 8088 as a skeleton, but did some major modifications as I will detail throughout the post. 

Here you can see the model as a whole. At first glance you may not see that much different from 8088 (apart from the engines), but I altered many minor aesthetic and functional components of the ship to make it more accurate and give better play features. The original model had 396 pieces. I almost doubled the part count of the original.

 

Here's a front view. One of my main priorities with this model was to bring the s-foils in closer to the main wing. In the movie, they're flush against it when closed, but 8088 had an unsightly gap between everything. This was as close as I was able to get the s-foils to the main wings.

 

In this side view you can see some of the tapering I attempted to do near the nose. I wanted the dark red to flush better with the stripe that goes back towards the cockpit. You can also see my addition of spring-loaded missiles to the main guns, of which there are also faux blaster tips to try to mask some of the spring missiles' prominence. I also tried to extend part of the underbelly to better connect with the nose as seen on the movie model.

 

Nothing too much back here. Just a knob that when turned opens and closes the s-foils, similar to 8088, however pulling and pushing it operates a different function...

In 8088, pushing the knob activated a series of flick-fire missiles. Here, pulling it releases a latch that drops down this gun caddy which is currently holding the pilots's personal weapons. This is securely held in the ship so it doesn't fall out while swooshing. 

 

Top-down view. I changed the shaping of the wing-tips  to make them more symmetrical as they should be.

 

Here's my personal favorite enhancement. I modified the engines based on thire5's UCS ARC-170 model, but scaled down appropriately. It was a nightmare getting each tile to line up properly and not give me a collision error.  I spent a good few hours or so on this part alone. They're slightly larger than the turbines on 8088, but I don't think they're oversized.

 

The internal skeleton of the turbines for those wondering how I did it.

 

If you have any comments or suggestions for how my model could be improved, please share! I'm always looking for constructive criticism!  May the Force be with you!

Very nice engines.

Thanks!

Very nice build. I like the engines too. 

Really nice build!

This looks great - I especially like the engine nozzles - any chance of you sharing a little more detail on how that works please? its hard to make out with the black pieces but I'd love to make a shorter copy of that for the rear engine nozzle on my MOC UCS Clone Wars Y-wing...

Wow.. thats wicked.

I'm still trying to figure out how you did the turbines.

Did you use a tube of some sort with #60476 and then connect it to the white dish?

 

 

This ship is actually one of my favorites across all the movies. I have thought for a long time about making a fleet of them! You did a fantastic job on the turbines; well worth the hours of time that you put into them! 

Here's how I constructed the turbines for those interested.

I used a 72MM cable to connect the whole turbine together, as using a traditional Technic axle would not allow for using the same angles as this piece allows for. I used a parabolic ring to and clipped each module on as you can see here. However, using just one of these would not have worked, as there would be many gaps in between each red 1x2 bow. 

 

 

Obviously the solution was to make a coherent circle with the 1x2 red bows, so I figured I needed to make a second parabolic ring similar to the first. This is the part that took me a while to get right. This ring is rotated at a 22.5 degree angle so that when connected, the bows all sort of 'interlock' and form a complete circle.

And here's what that all looks like with both modules together. The gap in the top right is so that these connect to the rest of the engines without colliding with the rest of the ship's body. It's a consequence of the turbines being slightly larger than 8088. When these are on the model, however, that gap is almost unnoticeable. 

 

A 2x2 round plate and a 6x6 dish cap it off and hide the ugly mess inside. The 2x2 is meant to keep the dish in place as it cannot normally connect to the cable.

 

I have no clue how stable this construction method would be in real life.

That is so neat  and clever! - thanks for the extra details - I have a couple of rings but will order the other parts and give it a bash in real bricks

Tell me how that goes. I'd like to see if it holds up.

Will do - two BL order's placed and being processed....

Very cool a good looking ship!!

The intake techniqe looks very nice and works fine for LDD but I think it's to flimsy for holding nice shape in real. There is not one fixed connections. The individual stripes of the barel can pivot on those octagonal frames, whole frames can wobble around the center bar plus eight of these segments only hold on single 1x1 brick which connects them to the 1x1 plate with clip. Thats simply to many places where things can move and missalign. Hopefully someone can prove me wrong though :)

Looks good so far - I'm using mine to be the exit engine nozzle on my CW Y-wing so have swapped the colour scheme.  I have added some 92947 cylinders to help with the internal stability, and need to think about the jazzing up visually and then done!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 20168 yr by Hold0511

Wow, that looks really good in real bricks! Might have to BL the pieces myself.

It looks really good and thats in the DBG - bet it would be even better in the red/white for the ARC! - I'm waiting for the bits for the middle and then I'll tidy the alignment a little.

Wow, this is awesome! You are talented @ChristopherLee!

Those engine turbines are really awesome, and I like how you can use the knob for two different functions