Bartybum

Yeah I’m surprised we haven’t gotten a Lexion yet :S Would’ve been nice.

Merc seems to care more about functional models than VAG haha vag does, so I'd be happy to see more Merc stuff in Technic.

Gonna say it again, I want to see mini pneumatics in small sets

I don't have either of them, but I can definitely tell you that they do. The same thing happened with my 42009 outrigger gearbox.

@JGW3000 Just wait a couple months. That drivetrain will start singing because of all the slack, dirt and dust buildup from sitting on a shelf for so long

Personally I do not, since I enjoy leaks

I wouldn't mind seeing some examples

That’s the thing though. Unless you’re spending big money on lots of complicated solutions then they aren’t.

They’re a bit boring though aren’t they?

I disagree that kinetic sculptures need to be licensed. Just look at JK Brickworks on YouTube

Personally I think they fell flat on their faces with Forma. Did they even consider that you need people to know your product exists to begin with? They didn't really market it beyond the audience that are already into Lego and crowdfunding, so I'm hardly surprised it flopped.

I don't think marble runs would be too successful, given that they'd lose out to cheaper, non-Lego alternatives. GBC I'm not sure about either, because you need a fairly large piece count to get people interested, which could be a significant blocker for a product that only does one thing. Rube Goldberg contraptions are (imo) a bit boring compared to the other two. On the topic of unexplored markets though, Forma was something that I'd have liked to see do more kinetic sculptures. They're sorely needed in Lego's repertoire. That being said, there might be something to be said about not wanting to over saturate customers with choice. If a new theme is launched, it could take sales away from other themes, depending on what it is. If you do that without increasing the size of your manufacturing power then you reduce the benefits that would otherwise come with mass production. I'm absolutely positive that they've at least considered all of the above at some point. Marketability will make or break a potential product.

Ah yes, hail corporate

Same here. Basically a smart replacement for the IR receiver from PF. I’m not sure that’s likely to happen unfortunately, since it would probably require a smaller simple hub, otherwise we’d just be using the smart one.

@kbalage Hmm, I might concede in that case; cable routing with a 5-stud wide block does seem to be a major issue here. The optimal solution would be to have a 2x2 array of cables pointing upwards at one end of the battery box, but that would lengthen it by two studs. Having cables sticking out the sides makes them awkward to deal with in tight spaces, so you need a 1 stud gap on either side anyway. I see I hadn't considered that at all. I can't say that I agree with Lego's philosophy that everything needed to be lumped into one big block, rather than separate components that can be scattered throughout more efficiently like with PF. However, after looking at photos of the smart hub internals, I'm happy to accept that what we got is probably the most optimal solution for that philosophy.

6 AA batteries last quite a long time though don't they? Does anyone here have kids that have drained a full 6-set of AA batteries? If so, how long did it take?

It might not be significantly bigger, but it is bigger. That's the issue I have - the PF battery box was already big enough as it was. I can't tell you the amount of times I wanted to build a MOC on Rebrickable, only to discover that it needed the AAA PF battery box. People used the AAA hub because it was compact and therefore more useful. Mounting points are totally irrelevant. They could've given Technic its own AAA hub design with plenty of mounting points. But I don't want to use the system-based smart hub. I want my own Technic smart hub. I might have to shift the question again, because it probably wasn't clear enough. What I'm really asking is this: Why was the Technic theme not provided with its own AAA smart hub (with four ports, good mounting points, etc)? Why, instead, were we handed a large hub that uses AA batteries? Because now, we're stuck with this enormous iceberg battery box for the next ten years.

I can respect wanting to maintain consistency within a theme, but then all that does is shift the question to this: Why on earth was the smart hub designed for AA and not AAA? MOCcers have repetitively shown to make perfectly good use out of AAA batteries.

That's not an excuse though. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason the smart hub couldn't have been designed to house AAA batteries to begin with. The AA smart hub singularly kills compact MOCing. By shoving everything together into one package along with six AA batteries, you have this giant block whose volume can't be distributed over an entire set like it could with PF. For a company that pushes creativity and building so hard, it was a frankly moronic decision to move to a hub design that's even bigger than its predecessor.

We're the only ones who know. Compared to the overall target market, there's very few of us who know

Who said anything about AA batteries? The train PF battery box used AAAs

God the C+ hubs infuriate me to no end. There’s no reason they should be so huge, ESPECIALLY the simple hub.

Wow, I always thought the Charger was a fastback

I mean, I think it’s a pretty safe bet, given that a) we just got an olive green Defender so it’s in their interest to reuse the colour for economic reasons, b) the reverse colour image led to what was pretty much the exact same olive green, and c) the Sian’s textbook colour is olive green (albeit metallic).

Thinking about it, it's a bit of a shame that it's Defender green. That wide promo shot with the fake dark bronze/bronze colour was really cool