anothergol

I feel bad when Lego sends a padded letter accross europe when one part is missing from my order, though. When it happens and I wasn't waiting for the part I tell them I'm ok with points for the same value (like it's common practice on Bricklink), but they send the part anyway... (and it's not just for ecological reasons, at the end of the day *we* pay for those letters one way or another)

Sounds bad to me. I've avoided "best seller" because I always place orders especially for new parts. In the past I was refilling some older parts as well but now that it's in another category I just avoid it, so I was happy that not much stuff was labelled as best seller.

What do you mean? They had pretty good prices very recently. I got the AT-AT for 560, it has never reached this price anywhere else.

That methodology is a bit shady. Just look at the price of the Disney Castle, 100 in Canada vs 350 in the US, this is no way a realistic difference and simply indicates a big sale at the time the survey was done. But such a price difference seriously impacts the average that's only computed on 8 sets. When Jangbricks was still displaying prices, it was pretty clear that street prices were significantly lower in the US. But it's also clear that street price means nothing in Europe, that it only applies to toy stores and that -30% is standard on Europe's Amazon. It was also rather normal for prices to be lower in the US if you account for Europe's 20% VAT. But it would also sound normal for US prices to have increased along with the euro dropping by 20%, since Lego is european. It says Belgium is supposed to have the best prices, that's not the truth (I'm Belgian) since I buy a lot and I generally buy on the german Amazon where it's the cheapest (& it's cheap in germany because they have to compete with Playmobil). But I understand why it would appear the cheapest in Belgium at one specific time, because of one shop named Dreamland that sometimes has really serious sales, and probably had one at the time of the survey.

Meanwhile Ali is gonna get my money that Lego doesn't seem to want (well not really, I bought a lot of Lego on black friday, but I should start thinking about boycotting them entirely, it's insulting what they've been doing this year)

isn't that limited to just 1 5eur voucher?

I'm still hesitating. The service I use can print on 3x3 round tiles now, I already got the back vents printed, I could definitely print accurate detail at the front. But it'd still be flat inside.

So, 3 years later I started reworking the model and was ready for a version 1.5, which looked like this: Had reworked all the details, and was ready to build it, then I realized it would probably look much better/flatter (but less round) if I ditched all those tiny slices. Especially now that we can easily find loads of wedge tiles. So I reworked it again: Less slices, will expose much less studs, the center pods are now thicker as they should be, things look more correct. But now I'm realizing that the holes in the prongs, which are too big, could be made the proper size using that new part that shrinks a 4x4 to a 3x3. Problem is, I was proud of the details in those holes, and it would have to be completely ditched. And I would probably have to revert to printed 3x3 tiles inside for the detail. But is it worth it? Those holes are definitely too big but it's not shocking to me.

I doubt it, I don't see the possible structural problems with simple plates with studs on 2 sides. It doesn't even need to be full on both sides, the ones out there are normal plates with a hollow stud that protrudes underneath. Half-plate stud inverters are also pretty safe. Stud inversion -in itself- can cause structural problems, but so does all SNOT in general, and we still have brackets (and I'm not gonna rand about brackets again, but China does them better, to me Lego's are flawed). And Lego's own models are SNOTted everywhere and they do stud inversion as well.

Just reporting a little mistake in the new 65676 triangle sign: the clip has been placed way too high (should be at the same place as 30259, only longer)

It *has* to be a rule (or rather, a philosophy shared by a couple of people at the top - but get replaced and things evolve over time) against direct stud inversion, since the problem is very old. It obviously is not a "lack of focus" when Lego is releasing a new hairpiece each day. Personally I don't care as if I need those, China makes them. It's different for other parts, though. -plates+stud brackets: has to be a rule because they would be extremely useful. Either to sell more combinations of bracket bricks instead of letting you doing them yourself, or because they judge there are not enough attach points (I doubt it) -standalone studs (I love these): this one is easy, Lego will never make them because kids would lose them inside bricks and cry. They would have to revisit every part in order to add blockers to prevent that. Not gonna happen, these will always remain Chinese -stud-to-stud: we already have these when the gap is above 3 plates, or even 2 plates when you have the room. But what I REALLY hate Lego for is the lack of useful bar+clip stuff. We are stuck with parts that started as minifig utensils and thus have decorations that block everything. And when they finally release GOOD parts for that, they put them in a pack.. can't buy them seperately, no! A bar + a small clip, we don't even have anything like that. The robot arm bar+clip is so idiotic that it doesn't even plug on the new-and-already-replaced 25893 (and when you clip it onto its replacement 79194, you can't even rotate it). But hey, we get new hairpieces. I think competition will force them to. It has already happened for some parts. You could still argue that Lego "didn't copy, just lagged behind", but the fact is that we got new parts that other brands already had

I got into the habit of going to specific parts when I need fillers, and I'm sometimes wondering if I'm not doing things wrong, either because there's better optimization, or because I got the info wrong. There are 2 reasons to pick a filler, price or weight. Not gonna debate about price since it's totally random out there, sometimes parts on BrickLink & B&P are on opposite sides. Also some fillers can be way cheaper on BL because no one goes for them when MOCing and there's less demand. So, weight, it's often an issue and over hundreds of parts, the difference can play. But I'm relying on BrickLink as for part weight here. The question is, is BL generally reliable for this (yes I could weigh them myself)? And also, is a part's weight even stable over time (material changes)? Anyway, generally I go for: Lightest 1x1 plate: I generally go for 85861 (round with hole) but BL says that 24866 (new flower) is lighter. But it could be an error? They're both cheap. I generally recycle filled studs though. 1x2 plate: 2xflowers but 35480 more practical 1x2 tile: 1748 is now beating the good old 2412 grille, but I suspect BL is wrong because 2x25269 is also beating 1748, doesn't look normal 2x2 plate: can't beat good old 4032? apparently 4xflowers would beat it 1x2/3: 33286 too hard to find, 2xflowers stack seems best (is the flower the ultimate Lego or is the reported weight just wrong?) 1x1 brick: 59900 technically, but 3062 is more stable 1x2 brick: used to be 2877 I think but now it is 68013 1x3 brick: can't find better than basic brick 1x4 brick: 2653. 32802 also good but only 2 studs 1x2x2 brick: I used to go for 87552 but 60032 is much lighter and 60592 is also lighter and stronger 1x4x2 brick: 15332 is a bit lighter than 14718 (will continue later if anyone's interested, as BL just went under maintenance)

Perhaps it has already been fixed since the last batch? If you axle-link it to a brick-with-technic-hole you'll see the little shift (just like when you attach a brick with 2 studs)

Just reporting a not-so-minor (not cosmetic) tiny misalignment in part 73230. The cross seems to have been aligned to bracket bricks studs instead of technic brick holes, so it's kinda "out of system" and will misalign builds, or refuse connections. For those who want a quick fix, just change this in 73230.xml, and delete the colision block (as it's only gonna change the connectivity, not the visual): <Axel type="4" length="0.8" grabbing="0" startCapped="0" endCapped="0" angle="120" ax="-0.57735" ay="0.57735" az="-0.57735" tx="0" ty="0.58" tz="0.4"/>

I know, I used to be a purist too. But now it has become a game, hunting for special parts, just as I was hunting for rare/not in set Lego parts/recolors.

they've lost it with these prices. This should be a massable utility part..

Another year another version, with a little more non-Lego parts (like those very handy 1x1 bracket plates that I wish Lego had made). Since I'm now using wedge tiles, I decided to add that extra plate thickness in the back, it looked too thick when I was using wedge plates, but with tiles it's ok. Same thing with the chin's lip. I decided to put it in the pose I had used for a 3D render last yearn, but obviously it wouldn't have standed by itself on just one leg, so I added the rocky base, onto which it's pinned. (also changed the interior a lot again, but didn't take pictures)

It was a nice surprise to see the new 2x3 slopes in unprinted version (even though they're too expensive), as this is the only way to get them

already gone :(

Yeah, who'd think that being more precise about what you're searching pushes the only matching part to page 4.. Even "tile" alone ALWAYS results in the inverted slope brick as #1, purely because it has "roof tile" in its name. Everyone knows what a "Lego tile" is, and no one is searching for that brick using "tile" as a name. This thing was clearly not designed to be used (but again, it doesn't matter). For it to be usable, parts would have had to have a second, meaningful name, or be assigned keywords. Searching by their official Lego name is pointless.

Mmmh but what were you placing large orders for so far then? To me, MOCing, especially small or medium-sized models, means having to very frequently place small (<20 bucks) orders. There's always 3 little parts that you need & require 3 orders in 3 different shops, and while you're waiting for them you improve your MOC and already have to place new small orders. (well that's when you do it digitally I guess, otherwise you just "do with what you have") Since covid, Bricklink isn't ideal for small orders anymore, as shipping prices have skyrocketted. Now B&P isn't ideal anymore either (but orders were taking 3 months to arrive anyway). It sucks that the best (& fastest) way today is to get things shipped from 8000km away. Yeah, I get it that it's "much better", but all it means is "it sucks less". It's not good, there's no point in using it, doesn't matter if it sucks a bit less now. When you don't know the ID of the part, if search "half circle tile" in B&P you find nothing related. It appears on page 4. Who reads page 4 on Google? No one. Meanwhile "half circle tile" in Bricklink gives you the part immediately. But generally you do know the ID, when you're a MOCer and you're using the part digitally. Except, as I said, it's most likely be an older ID that won't be found in B&P. I don't see the point of praising the search because it sucks less, it still sucks, and no one even asked for an improvement here. God knows why Lego didn't ditch this thing completely and opened their own official Bricklink store. What was the point of buying Bricklink? [yeah we all know why, they wanted to make sure Bricklink would always be limited to official Lego, which they immediately proved] I'm sure that "multi-element search" is useful to some, personally I'm never gonna use that. But hey, here's an improvement: it seems to bug a lot less. You don't browse for parts in fear of going back in your browser and completely losing your cart anymore. But they had fixed the old P&B anyway, so that's not even "new".

mmh no, you'll get a fee if you fail to buy for 24eur in the very best case. But that's really in the very best case, because most likely you'll have for like 30eur of parts and still a fee because you only ordered 2 "best seller" parts. I used to place an order each month for the new parts, for around 20-30 bucks. Most likely this would now add one (if not two) fee, AND I'll get my order mailed in 2 parts. It's more costly and less green (not even counting the letters they will mail again for the missing parts, because they have no system to postpone unimportant missing parts to future orders), I fail to see what's better here. It's only better for Lego. You still need Bricklink/Brickset or other sources anyway. Please don't pretend you don't. Let's say I need part 24246, that's a pretty common 1x1 "half circle" tile. Searching for that in B&P will display nothing (in the old B&P it would have, but only some colors). Can I search "1x1 tile", or "half circle"? No, B&P won't display anything related. Say that by luck it's its new ID 35399 that I know, I'm still screwed because I need it in trans blue and that's yet another ID. Really, B&P isn't designed to search for parts, and that's fine, because we have better tools for that. oh I do. I already did, for the many recolors that Lego doesn't have. Only since the new B&P debacle I'm now also getting colors that Lego does have, in China. And they're not even cheaper, quite often they're more expensive. But I get what I ask (with mistakes, as much as with Lego, BL or any other source), no stupid fees, and it doesn't take 3 months (how amazing is it that it takes less time to come from China). They also won't change the pricing behind my back, and in the case of missing parts I can still get a refund or the parts sent in my next order. Talking about the half circle tile again, Lego just has produced them in dark bluish grey, in the large castle set. It's safe to say that we won't be able to buy them directly from Lego for the next several months (except some BL sellers apparently found a way to, as they're listing thousands). Well that doesn't matter, I already had them, bought them years ago as "recolors that Lego doesn't have". And now that I need more, if Lego doesn't wanna sell me legit ones, I know where to find ones that will do.

Really? What about the 9 eur handling fees, that are hard to avoid because you can't fully use B&P now, you are forced to use PAB in disguise ("best sellers")? You cannot order all of your parts from one single place anymore, that "best sellers" thing is just stupid. PAB should have merged with B&P, and they did the total opposite of that. They're now more separated than ever, only they're now using the same GUI and Lego pretended they've been merged. As for searching, B&P used to suck, it still does, but it doesn't matter, we've never asked for/expected B&P to be good at that. Bricklink, Brickset, Bricker and New Elementery were and will always be the perfect companions to B&P. B&P is full of unlisted parts & parts only listed under one of the various design IDs. B&P isn't designed to be used alone, that hasn't changed and that has never really been a problem. that's pretty much the only thing that has improved meanwhile when you buy in China, everyone has the same choice

Belgium I now see parts like 6390673, 6387430.. from March

New parts!!! (pretty much the stuff from March [and not even everything]. Nothing above sadly. For me not enough for an order)