ISD Aggressor (Star Destroyer MOC w interior and instructions)

[MrMarvin]

@masseffect66

https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-9018/raskolnikov/moderately-sized-star-destroyer-w-full-interior/#parts

Here you´ll find a list with all the parts for the Isd

[caperica]

This is my pre-prototype of my alternative exterior bridge. I haven't decided on how to make the sensor bar on top yet, or the rear of the bridge, but it is now the correct length and width. I am now wondering if you think the angle is too large. The bridge looks too high in the center to me. Thoughts? And yes, the top panels will fit on there! They will not be connected but slide into a hole because of the distance to the horizontal centerline and the size/shape of the bricks themselves. I do not know, however, how to put it where I want it without it connecting to anything in the studio software! So I had to leave it like this. Rest assured, it will look the same as the bottom panels when correctly positioned.

[ZTalpa]

Can anybody assist me in figuring out where the 2 x 0.5 piece of step 84 in chapter 1 goes? I've looked like crazy to the instruction but can't figure it out... 

Thanks!

[DarthPineapple]

It's located between the 1x9 technic beam and X's in the middle and holds the sub-assembly you made in step 82 in place.

[bricksmarlin]

1 hour ago, ZTalpa said:

Can anybody assist me in figuring out where the 2 x 0.5 piece of step 84 in chapter 1 goes? I've looked like crazy to the instruction but can't figure it out... 

Thanks!

 

[ZTalpa]

excellent  - thank you both!

[caperica]

To anyone interested in seeing the finished alternate exterior bridge  for the Aggressor, here is the link to my Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/145418778@N05/

Feel free to give me any feedback or tips-Including telling me if I have to start my own thread for it ;)!

[Jerac]

I *really* recommend using "fading" steps in such builds. Might not be as nice as classic instructions, but is much easier to see. Otherwise you'd need to do what LEGO does: random colors inside of the build, which altough nasty looking, make navigating through it during construction much easier.

[Midlife-crisis]

just bought the instructions, and did a fast scroll through them but could not find part: 50950 58pieces.

is it possible to use 24309 as substitute for a few of them?

 

[Raskolnikov]

@Midlife-crisisYes, actually, 24309 is preferable for 48 of them at least. All the ones on the engines could be replaced. I don't believe that part was out yet, or at least not widely available, during the original construction.

[Midlife-crisis]

Perfect, thank you!

[legolijntje]

10 hours ago, Jerac said:

I *really* recommend using "fading" steps in such builds. Might not be as nice as classic instructions, but is much easier to see. Otherwise you'd need to do what LEGO does: random colors inside of the build, which altough nasty looking, make navigating through it during construction much easier.

Certainly true. But at the time of making these building instructions the fade feature wasn't working very well yet in the software being used. Nowadays it works quite a bit better and it's used for example in the building instructions of this moc.

Regarding the random colors inside: that's definitely a thing that can be used in future models. In the past, it was often not used because random colors in the parts list were far from user-friendly. It made buying the parts so much more work. However, these days Bricklink's auto-buy feature can actually do that for you. If you use the auto-buy feature on a BL wanted list that contains parts with the color '(Not Applicable)', the software will search for the cheapest combination of those parts regardless of color. That, too, is used in the moc linked earlier.

I hope to be able to apply those things, where applicable, to any future projects 

[Jerac]

14 minutes ago, legolijntje said:

Certainly true. But at the time of making these building instructions the fade feature wasn't working very well yet in the software being used. Nowadays it works quite a bit better and it's used for example in the building instructions of this moc.

Regarding the random colors inside: that's definitely a thing that can be used in future models. In the past, it was often not used because random colors in the parts list were far from user-friendly. It made buying the parts so much more work. However, these days Bricklink's auto-buy feature can actually do that for you. If you use the auto-buy feature on a BL wanted list that contains parts with the color '(Not Applicable)', the software will search for the cheapest combination of those parts regardless of color. That, too, is used in the moc linked earlier.

I hope to be able to apply those things, where applicable, to any future projects 

Sadly auto-buy is getting ruined by greedy sellers who have realized the BL auto-buy algorithm is favoring stores which have huge stock of parts in a bid to reduce total amount of shops to buy from, even if final price is WAY higher than it should be. These sellers often even do not have the parts in stock and order parts for their orders from other stores once they get one.

For example one of my models costs over 300$ if you use auto-buy, but if you add few of the most expensive shops to blacklist, poof - with 2 stores instead of 1, you get 140$ total price... I think instructions should come with a shop blacklist to eliminate these high-stock-extreme-priecs ones.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Jerac

[Midlife-crisis]

Just now, Jerac said:

Sadly auto-buy is getting ruined by greedy sellers who have realized the BL auto-buy algorithm is favoring stores which have huge stock of parts in a bid to reduce total amount of shops to buy from, even if final price is WAY higher than it should be. These sellers often even do not have the parts in stock and order parts for their orders from other stores once they get one.

For example one of my models costs over 300$ if you use auto-buy, but if you add few of the most expensive shops to blacklist, poof - with 2 stores instead of 1, you get 140$ total price... I think instructions should come with a shop blacklist to eliminate these high-stock-extreme-priecs ones.

Agree, and auto-buy also ignores the "Max. Price" setting.

[legolijntje]

1 hour ago, Jerac said:

Sadly auto-buy is getting ruined by greedy sellers who have realized the BL auto-buy algorithm is favoring stores which have huge stock of parts in a bid to reduce total amount of shops to buy from, even if final price is WAY higher than it should be. These sellers often even do not have the parts in stock and order parts for their orders from other stores once they get one.

For example one of my models costs over 300$ if you use auto-buy, but if you add few of the most expensive shops to blacklist, poof - with 2 stores instead of 1, you get 140$ total price... I think instructions should come with a shop blacklist to eliminate these high-stock-extreme-priecs ones.

When the auto-buy feature was new, I remember there being a setting to let it favor either as few stores as possible or as low cost as possible. I can't find that setting anymore, which is a shame 

Yeah, it's true that there are a bunch of sellers with (relatively) really high prices but also a huge stock. If you look on Rebrickable sets/mocs on the Buy Parts tab, it always lists stores with the highest percentage of parts in stock and it's almost ALWAYS the same few shops which have the highest percentage. But their prices are really high too. For example, they might have 95% for €200 while number 3 might have %90 for €50.

But I don't think I would necessarily call them greedy and I don't think they're taking advantage of the system either (at least not on purpose) as most of my blacklisted stores were already expensive before the auto-buy feature. I guess it's, in a way, paying for the convenience of not having to shop around multiple stores. If you don't want to pay for that, just blacklist 'm (I have indeed blacklisted a few expensive stores too) and fiddle a few minutes with the easy-buy.

1 hour ago, Midlife-crisis said:

Agree, and auto-buy also ignores the "Max. Price" setting.

What about this setting (never used it myself)?

[Midlife-crisis]

On 11/29/2018 at 12:52 PM, legolijntje said:

...

What about this setting (never used it myself)?

It just changes the ranking for the "Buy All" option, but there is no impact on the "Easy Buy" option unfortunately.

After 4days, i finally made it through my stockpile. I dissembled the UCS Venator and got ~3500pieces.

6144 Parts missing, i don´t build the droids and the tie fighters (yet).

Started ordering today. 2823 parts to go, mostly parts which are in general cheaper at "bricks n pieces" than on BL, like tiles and small plates.

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2018 by Midlife-crisis

[Schneeds]

Whatever the cause, you definitely can no longer simply use the easy buy function without drastically over paying. 

Back when I built the Aggressor, the easy buy function came up with a nearly identical price that I was able to achieve manually.  More recently with Onecase's Executor, it was nearly $700 more.  The method I used was to start at the top selecting the stores with the greatest  number of lots and just compare the totals.  It's not a perfect method since the lots types differ, from store to store but at least you can a relative cost per brick number. 

[Kristof]

^Thats quite surprising for me. I am regularly doing research on available prices for my Venator so I can keep potential buyers updated and it seems to be giving me consistently good results. I rarely obtain price which I would think is considerably higher than what one could achieve manually. I know its not apples to apples, much smaller model with somewhat optimized design (extensive amount of lots and rare parts avoidance), but $700 difference is still insane 

[Midlife-crisis]

For the best result you need to check lot by lot. Often very common parts are overpriced at BL. But i made the same observation as @Kristof, if you have a "smaller" model (~800parts) easy-buy may give also good results.

I have dual screen system at home - as soon as i open the wanted list the other screen is at bricks n pieces to compare the prices. If a shop asks consistenly for the double of the "bricks n pieces" price per part i tag it as least favorite.

 

[Kristof]

^ I guess it strongly depends on region and typical prices for shipping, but for me S&H can really magnify the total cost by a lot. Hence the number of stores is really a STRONG optimization criterion for me. And frankly so far I have not found a good manual search based method on how to keep it low. Often I find good prices on some lots in particular stores but in the end I find myself having 15 different orders as opposed to say 3 or 4 which easy buy can find for me. Again, I can imagine that with increasing total cost of the parts for a MOC you are building the price for shipping becomes more and more marginal, and maybe in some countries shipping tend to be overall cheaper, but really for keeping the number of orders low I can not beat Easy Buy by a long stretch :D

[Midlife-crisis]

Hello,

i started building around 20th of december after ages of sorting the parts. ATM i´m working on book 6.

Design and functions are great. Some clever mounting ideas C O N G R A T S!

Instructions are also very good and 99% of the parts are clearly visible.

The stability of the model ist also great especially the mounting of the panels is top notch! I moved the ISD alot after mounting the bottom panels while building Book 4 and 5. After a few movings the area directly above the rear stand seemed to be unstable. The LBG 1x3 plate wedge and the DBG 1x8 plate wedge tends to get losen.

My solution for this wasn´t very clever but the area was stable after it. I added a few 2654 plates, there was enough space between panel and frame. I have marked the positions on the picture.

 

 

 

 

[caperica]

Does anyone have any ideas for a good scale diorama for those? I have been slightly bored recently and started thinking about building a display around it!

[OlHiHi]

Awesome... Just awesome...

[merman]

Is there a way you can replace the following rare parts:

- black hinge plates with fingers (by newer versions)

- dark grey frame 6x8 by black or light grey?

- black 3L pins by blue?

- dark grey axles 3.2 with stop by dark tan?

[bricksmarlin]

Aggressor with Micro Fleet!
Thanks to @Evergreen!
I've made some small changes to the Nebulon!

Edited March 14, 2019 by bricksmarlin