Lego Road Plates in Sets

[Tacker]

I wish we had more road Base plates. Like car park. Bus stop, driveways ect. Would any one else like to see more

[mrklaw]

Lego should make double sided printed road plates. Straight on one side, junction/corner on the other. That way they could sell double packs and if you choose you could have two straight pieces.

[The Blue Brick]

Lego should make double sided printed road plates. Straight on one side, junction/corner on the other. That way they could sell double packs and if you choose you could have two straight pieces.

That would not work because then you would need studs on both sides of the plate.

[Lego Otaku]

That would not work because then you would need studs on both sides of the plate.

This, and as I understand the base plates are not molded but rather a sheet of plastic that is formed on top of mold. This is why the back side looks 'incomplete' with no marking, no anti-studs, etc. It's also why the base plates are thinner than standard plates.

[Commander Adama]

I wish we could have more, but Lego know when to bring them out, when the sets NEED them, not put them in willy nilly, although I would love to see a few road plates, hopefulyl Lego will listen to us

[Vindicare]

I wish we had more road Base plates. Like car park. Bus stop, driveways ect. Would any one else like to see more

I'd definitely like the bus stop and driveway ideas. I know they used to have driveways with City and Paradisa sets. I know they wouldn't work with Creator sets quite as well than City because it would somewhat limit the building possibilities because of the stud less part. I'd like to see Creator quality houses coming out of the City line with a driveway. And of course we could benefit from a bus stop plate. 7641 and 8404 both have bus stops in them(while the latter is more of a station than a stop).

[mrklaw]

can't you make a simple bus stop by just building out the pavement and then having wedge plates make a cut-in for the bus stop?

[Faefrost]

While we are talking about baseplates, is there any way to suggest to TLG that they start offering the most basic, fully studded plates in a few more colors besides green and blue ( and the big gray ones). It would be nice to be able to sit a finished model or set on something that seems reasonably color appropriate, without having to wipe out most of the plate stock of my collection. I'm not even asking for the fancy printed ones. Just some standard 32 x 32 ones in gray, brown, tan and white? Something to better simulate city / industrial / space hangers, earth / field / dirt, dessert and snow settings. I'm willing to but these separately, don't need them added to the sets.

[Vindicare]

While we are talking about baseplates, is there any way to suggest to TLG that they start offering the most basic, fully studded plates in a few more colors besides green and blue ( and the big gray ones). It would be nice to be able to sit a finished model or set on something that seems reasonably color appropriate, without having to wipe out most of the plate stock of my collection. I'm not even asking for the fancy printed ones. Just some standard 32 x 32 ones in gray, brown, tan and white? Something to better simulate city / industrial / space hangers, earth / field / dirt, dessert and snow settings. I'm willing to but these separately, don't need them added to the sets.

I'd say you just did. Im pretty sure the TLG reps either read these threads(in this section especially) or they get word of it from someone else. You could always stick 2 8x16s next to each other, but that doesn't always work when you move them. That's not a bad idea though. A little more variety in colors would be nice.

[purpleparadox]

While we are talking about baseplates, is there any way to suggest to TLG that they start offering the most basic, fully studded plates in a few more colors besides green and blue ( and the big gray ones). It would be nice to be able to sit a finished model or set on something that seems reasonably color appropriate, without having to wipe out most of the plate stock of my collection. I'm not even asking for the fancy printed ones. Just some standard 32 x 32 ones in gray, brown, tan and white? Something to better simulate city / industrial / space hangers, earth / field / dirt, dessert and snow settings. I'm willing to but these separately, don't need them added to the sets.

I would DEFINITELY buy black, tan, and brown baseplates.

[LEGO Historian]

The way TLG keeps changing road plates, maybe we should be grateful that they don't provide them anymore... 9 stud gray, 8 stud gray, 7 stud gray, dark gray, black... they kept changing the road plates so that it would frustrate the large town builders. I had over 100 of the very first 9 stud gray roadplates without sidewalks. I love them.

But TLG keeps coming out with different ones... so that it gets frustrating... and you can only find replacements and additions on the secondary market...

As for water feature plates.... the best ones that TLG produced were not water themed at all... they were the 24x24 and 24x32 blue Homemaker plates...with a double row of studs along 3 of the 4 sides. And they had the best looking water surface of any LEGO water related project ever!!!

TLG should make 32x32 Homemaker style blue plates with studs on only 2 sides... and that way you don't have to stay on the 90 degree grid for building bridges, et al.

[CopMike]

Not really the same but about plain baseplates, from Jan Beyer, TLG:

I spoke to our design team and there are currently no plans to take the base plates out of the assortment/production. As it looks the designers like for the moment the 16x16 plates a lot.

I´ll ask about the road plates also.

[Phoxtane]

IMHO, the large light grey baseplates that you can pick up at any Lego shop are already the best solution. They allow the most flexibility in what you can build on top of them, since they're a fairly neutral concrete color already. I may be thinking in large-scale terms however, since I realize not everybody can sink $500 into earth tones for that one scene.

[Chri5kng]

The problems is you guy are only seeing this problem from an AFOL perspective. Most kids don't have those city plates that you folks have had since a kid. They need to make bigger road plates that allow for a wide space for building as well. I think they use redo base plate and sell one giant one for $50 that can fit several large building, etc....

[TWP]

I don't know if it is already mentioned, but I think baseplates are too big to put in those little boxes.

[Galaxy Explorer]

I am a huge Town/CITY collector and have been using 32x32 roadplates since the beginning. Most of the buildings produced back in the 80's and 90's fit nicely on a 32x32, and placing these roadplates side by side still gave you enough studs on both sides to place a building right in between the roads. Today's plates are too wide with not nearly enough space to build on. Plus, larger buildings such as fire and police stations are much longer than 32 studs, so you need two straight plates to fill up the gap. This gets incredibly expensive when you are spending $15 for one usable plate. I have a surplus of curved and cross plates that makes me sick- I have spent $300 alone on roadplates. This would be cut in half if the plates were packed two alike. Since the scale of CITY is so much bigger than early Town sets, I think the best thing to do would be to re-design the roadplate onto a 48x48 plate. I don't believe the cost would go down any, but you would have much more building surface, and official buildings would fit much better, IMO.

And yes, I too would love to see some new colors for the 32x32- Brown would really help me out!

[Bricknblue]

Road plates are a ripoff, but why would Lego need to include them, City sets don't even have buildings in the summer release!

[Galaxy Explorer]

There are a few buildings out this summer- A bike shop, pizza place and a gas station, which looks like it's placed on a 32x32 baseplate. But yes, I agree, they are a ripoff.

[kinggregus]

On one hand, one of my best memory as a kid was playing with the lego city airport 10159 (this set had 3 32x32 base plates and two smaller ones). On the other hand, I do not really see the need of base plates today. This is mostly due to their high price and that I tend to prefer having a high piece count for that matter.

That being said, I could see their added value for some as they add a lot of playability.

[LiamM32]

I can sort of understand why some people prefer baseplates to smaller regular plates (I prefer regular plates myself for most applications). However, in many ways I think road plates are an outdated relic that in many ways we're well rid of. People complain about many modern parts being large and overspecialized (hey look! There's now a filter on that word for oversized, overspecialized parts! Well done, EB staff!), but road plates are some of the largest parts around and they are usually designed to serve exactly one purpose: acting as a road. For TLG, there's always been the option of printing them differently for use as rivers, unpaved roads, etc, but the end user does not have those same options. They are forced to create grid streets with few options regarding the size of a city block, and beyond that, even many classic Town sets were not designed to function well in layouts based on these road plates (it is difficult to connect most "driveway plates" to a road plate without having to drive over a studded curb).

Buildings on individual plates or baseplates can be arranged in any layout, and a more versatile road can be custom-made using newsprint or cardboard and paint. Many AFOLs build their own custom roads using SNOT techniques. I personally believe a road design using parts like these printed with patterns like road stripes and crosswalks would be ideal, as one could create modular 2-lane roadways that are much more customizable than the grid streets with fixed-size blocks that builders are forced to use with traditional baseplates. I even have some sketches on LDD demonstrating a simple design that would allow these smaller "road tiles" to be used with sets from the modular buildings series without having to transplant those sets from their original baseplates.

I'd definitely appreciate it if TLG would actually go to the effort to release a replacement for the old, outdated road plate concept for use with their existing sets. But even then, I think including this replacement in a lot of sets would be a waste-- a supplementary pack would be sufficient, IMO. It's easy enough for kids to imagine a road (they do it with most vehicle sets that don't include buildings anyway), and road plates (being large, printed parts) are without a doubt fairly expensive compared to the smaller, more versatile plates used as bases in many of today's sets. LEGO sets are already extremely expensive, and of all the things to drop from the sets to bring the prices down to more reasonable levels, I think road plates are one of the most expendable.

I agree with just about everything that you said on this post. I think that road plates are too specialized. All the suggestions here for more types of roadplate prints. Howabout a 16x16x24 building piece with printed windows and bricks, a space shuttle with cannons piece. This is Lego for crying out loud; build it yourself people (not directing that sentence to Aanchir). I think that Lego should start to make brick-built road sets made of large plates with tiles on top. They could then be rebuilt into straights, T-junctions, and X-Junctions.

Even though baseplates have for long been a big part of Lego, I am (surprisingly) supportive of reducing their uses and partially replacing them with large plates. For all of my life, my mother has told me that I am afraid of change, so this is somewhat of surprise for myself. I still think that they should keep baseplates as an uncommon piece for people that want them, including the large green baseplate set. I have actually wanted large plates long before they existed, myself thinking of the advantages over baseplates. You can place a model on a hill, use it as an upper floor of a house.

I just wish that the 16x16 plate was introduced a bit earlier. I would have liked it if it was part of modular buildings since Cafe Corner (the first), a year before large plates were introduced. They would help modular buildings because it would make them easier to place them next to a brick-built road (as mentioned two paragraphs ago). It could be argued that it would be two late to change this in Modular Buildings. But I think that they should make a transition set that includes both. After that, it would be all large plates. They would then have large baseplates and large plates available as supplementary sets, so you can either replace the baseplates on the old modulars or replace the plates on the new ones.

[paul_delahaye]

My objection to road plates is the increase in price. Maybe 10 years ago, They used to be £4.99 for 2, now they are £10.50 for 2.

I find it hard to believe in this day that the cost of manufacturing has doubled. If anything, the COGS on the product has likely halved for Lego. They must be one of the most cost effective items for Lego to ship around the world as they are flat and they can get loads in a box.

The same for the single green and blue baseplates, price used to be £3.99 a plate, now these are £6.99

It's almost like they are being priced out of production.

It's not like the thicker 16x16 plates are reasonably priced instead, at £2.55 a plate, this actually makes the base plates reasonable value at £6.99. Maybe I have just not got a used to the cost of inflation and the value of the Pound :-)

I'd love to see the unusual road plates back, As I grew up with the road plates in the sets, I'm sure this has a reason behind why I'd like to see them back. A child of 2013 would not know any different.

Edited July 9, 2013 by paul_delahaye

[Aanchir]

My objection to road plates is the increase in price. Maybe 10 years ago, They used to be £4.99 for 2, now they are £10.50 for 2.

I find it hard to believe in this day that the cost of manufacturing has doubled. If anything, the COGS on the product has likely halved for Lego. They must be one of the most cost effective items for Lego to ship around the world as they are flat and they can get loads in a box.

The same for the single green and blue baseplates, price used to be £3.99 a plate, now these are £6.99

It's almost like they are being priced out of production.

It's not like the thicker 16x16 plates are reasonably priced instead, at £2.55 a plate, this actually makes the base plates reasonable value at £6.99. Maybe I have just not got a used to the cost of inflation and the value of the Pound :-)

I'd love to see the unusual road plates back, As I grew up with the road plates in the sets, I'm sure this has a reason behind why I'd like to see them back. A child of 2013 would not know any different.

It's quite possible the cost of manufacturing HAS increased. I believe the LEGO Group used to outsource road plate production (and baseplate production in general) to another company, Greiner Packaging. This press release seems to suggest that at any rate. One possible reason that they might have been outsourced is that baseplates traditionally have been produced not through injection molding like the majority of LEGO parts but rather through vacuum forming.

I do not know if baseplates are still produced via vacuum forming. I do know some more recent baseplates have what look like molding marks on the back, which could suggest that they are now made through injection molding. And in that case, that might lead to increased costs. So might producing them in-house, if that's what TLG does these days.