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That's true to a point, but - The Ideas forms specifically say that there is no obligation to buy. If I were only to support projects that I personally would buy, considering my tastes and budget, I could only support four or five a year. More to the point, I often support projects that I personally am not terribly interested in because I see that they are well done and interesting to many people. My vote for a project like that, especially if it doesn't have a lot of support yet, is intended to make the project more visible to people who are more interested. For example, would I buy a set of four Lego dinosaur skeletons? Probably not, but I know a lot of people would, so I supported that idea so that the people who are interested in it can at least see it get to the review stage. That's my main criterion in supporting a project: do I want to see it get to the review stage? Not do I want this on my shelf. That means I will sometimes support a large group of projects of varying quality and similar subject matter or even a project that's objectively pretty bad, because I want something of that kind to get to the review stage. That means supporting every halfway-decent rocket or airplane and some very primitive builds based on an IP I like. As another example, I would absolutely not have bought the initial Saturn V submission. It was clumsy and ugly. But the set is fantastic. I don't know how I feel about a "mutual support group" for Ideas, because it does raise obvious issues of supporting projects simply because they've joined the group regardless of their quality. But I sure wouldn't call it a lie to support a project in that group that I wouldn't actually buy.

I like the idea of building Benny's command center with parts you already have, but I think the model in your August 17 post is a better fit with the walls of your base. That model looks like an integral part of the base's design, because its prominent vertical lines, shallow slopes just beneath the roof line, and flat roof echo the same lines in the profile of the walls and the 45-degree angles on the corners. This model is well done for what it is, but in context I imagine a story somewhat like this: Benny inherits the mansion of his great-great-grandfather Benjamin Star, who brought the railroad to town in 1885 and became extremely rich as a result of his rail empire (of which you've built quite a large sample). Ignoring the protests of the local historical society and the zoning board, Benny guts the mansion of its magnificent 19th-century furnishings and installs a bunch of mysterious electronic equipment. He razes the beautiful woodland park cultivated by his ancestor the railroad baron and builds his own little private spaceport in the backyard. Economic havoc ensues, but eventually everyone concedes Benny was all right when he plays some major role defeating some major threat from space. Does that sound like something Benny would do? Anyway, thanks for posting this build. Hope you get to build your favorite form of Benny's command center in real life without too much more delay. Have the parts for your Arctic-styled space base arrived yet?

The Bricklink sets won't be released until 2019, but I would be very surprised if at least one of them wasn't Space-themed. I would be mildly surprised if that Space-themed set didn't refer back to a classic Space set in some way. Of course, these won't be officially-numbered sets from Lego itself, but they're better than nothing. That said, all the wonderful Space-themed entries to the Moments in Space contest were outvoted by a kiddy ride at the mall, so you never know.

I forget the reference, but someone said recently in a semi-official capacity that weight is a more reliable indicator of price than part count. Perhaps, counterintuitive though it may seem, the bloated parts count and complexity of 42082 makes it more affordable/attractive/palatable to general buyers than a comparable kit that uses fewer parts and is simpler and more sturdy. For example, suffocation's RTC has about 3000 parts instead of 4000 and is simpler, more functional, and sturdier, but it weighs more and has more motors, so it would be priced significantly higher. If the RTC as released was suffocation's model, priced at $350 or $400 (accounting for the extra weight and motors compared to 42082's $300), how many people on this forum would balk at the high cost and perceived low value, and wait until it was discounted to $250 or $300 before buying? By comparison, the 42082 at $300 for 4000 parts is perceived as good value, though of course $300 isn't cheap by any means. Since the main idea behind the question "could the RTC have been executed at a much smaller parts count" is actually "could the RTC have been executed at a significantly lower cost", I wonder if anyone can build a comparable RTC at a much lower weight.

Speaking of Bat-trains... http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Bat-Train That should be all the excuse TLG needs to put out a set with one. Then everyone will complain that it should have twice as many cars and twice as much track, and everyone else will wonder what the fuss is all about. Since the Bat-train existed on Earth-2, on the Earth-2 in which TLG produces a Bat-train "everyone" can do both things at once.

Thanks for posting this. I've thought about doing Shiptember for the past couple of years, but haven't been up to it yet. Speaking as someone who's never built a SHIP, I applaud your determination to get it done this time. It certainly fits the SHIP standard, and it fits well with your personal interpretation of Neo Classic Space. That said, if you're not planning to build it until next year you've got plenty of time to improve the design because...well, like many Shiptember spaceships, it just looks like a shish-kebab. I can see your design process in there: you've got the engines at the back, a big comm dish at the front, some big wheels that are meant to represent spinning habitat rings, some solar panels; but aside from my personal experience with Bricklink (which suggests it would in fact be very expensive to build IRL), it just doesn't look like a seriously huge investment in parts. I guess I just like to see creations that focus on advanced building techniques to achieve clear aims in structure, shape, and function rather than simply aiming to achieve a fixed size. For instance, if the blocky octagonal sections near the bow and stern are intended to represent hangars for fighter craft, you could try to show that in the build rather than just using some castle panels to sketch out the module in the simplest way possible. Perhaps the solar panels could be made larger and more prominent to emphasize their function, or the hab rings could be enlarged and brick-built to give some sense of scale that doesn't depend on an auxiliary build of a mini Benny ship. So, those are my two cents. My opinion's only worth about two cents here, since I've never attempted a SHIP myself. My seriously huge investment in parts this month ought to be just sourcing the missing parts for all my incomplete sets and the various little creations I've posted here. You've certainly done a good job in showing how to do that kind of thing sustainably and affordably. You said you've ordered the parts for the walls of your Classic Space base - have you been able to order the parts for the "embassy" yet?

I just meant that one of the things I look for in a top-of-the-line X-wing build is that the fuselage sides at and just behind the cockpit canopy are tilted ever so slightly away from the vertical, and that the facets in the tailcone are flat rather than curved, since fuselage curves are characteristic of the T-70 rather than the T-65. That's the way I think of the X-wing, anyway - I'm certainly no authority! I think the cehnot and inthert builds are better in that regard, but it's a small thing and I like your nose solution much better in general. I spent all day yesterday talking myself down from buying the instructions and ordering the parts...better to build my little retro T-65 first before tackling this beauty! I think it's perfectly clear why TLG made the new X-wing canopy the way they did. It's a "compromise canopy" that needs to work well across a range of lines for a variety of different vehicles, and that's easier if it has a rectangular base. (Same reason why the old X-wing canopy was inaccurate.) Also, they would need to adopt the cehnot/inthert/jerac/dmac/atlas/gray mouser nose standard before it would help to introduce a canopy mold that's an exact replica of the real canopy: a canopy properly tapered front-to-back wouldn't help the look of 75102/75149/75218 much if they retained the 4502/6212/9493 nose technique, which they do. Compared to the old canopy, the new one has a better taper in the side profile and also in the front profile, just not in the top profile. Two out of three's not bad.

Thanks for posting this brilliant build, and also this great write-up of the design process. The thing I really like about this model compared to other recent X-wings (especially inthert and cehnot) is the nice, smooth, stud-free nose. I also like how the underside of the fuselage is smooth, composed of flat panels, and nearly completely enclosed even with the retractable landing gear. The landing gear itself also looks like it works a lot more smoothly than in other models. The tiled wing interiors are great too. I think the other models get the subtle angles in the central fuselage and the tail cone a bit better, but having never built anything this complex myself I really can't complain. Thanks for making the instructions available, and for taking the time to make the model relatively stable for the sake of the instructions. I tried to build inthert's X-wing once, but all the illegal connections made it so unstable during the build process that I never finished it. Does this model have any illegal connections or places where the geometry doesn't <quite> work out, like the inthert nose?

Thanks again for posting the pictures and the instructions. I made a few changes while building, but the result is still basically your childhood A-wing: For comparison, this was the childhood A-wing that my brother built: And this was the childhood A-wing that I built: Clearly, builds like yours were way out of my league back then, and builds like yours are still way out of my league now! Hopefully it won't take another ten or twenty years to get up the moxie to build your excellent A-wing, X-wing, and TIE fighter in real bricks. However, after building it virtually I'm not sure your old model quite fits with my retro X-wing and TIE fighter builds. It's still a bit too big. Still, thanks a lot for posting this build!

Is there any risk of malware in the act of opening a spam topic so as to be able to report the post? I don't know how to do it from the activity stream.

@Forresto - Thanks for your kind words! I sure hope I can show you the ship in real bricks sometime. In the meantime, I've updated the first post with tonight's build.

When I go to Ideas, the first thing I do is log in. Then I click the "Discover" link on the left side of the page and filter "Type" to "Product Idea." The result is close enough to the site layout prior to the redesign that it doesn't bother me much.

I think a Lars Homestead set could get by without the gory bits just fine. Just leave out the skeletons! After all, the Tuanul Mesa attack in TFA was represented in 75149 without any of the real atrocities. When I watched ANH as a kid, I never realized the burning skeletons were meant to be Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru; I just saw blackened burning debris that blended in with the rest of the scene. I didn't realize it was supposed to be a disturbing, gory scene until I was a teenager. TL;DR: I'd like a Lars Homestead for the 20th anniversary too.

Do you mind if I build this myself from the instructions on Brickshelf (or better yet, can you send the LXF)? This would go perfectly with the retro-styled T-65 X-wing and TIE fighter I posted recently. I've been thinking about building an A-wing in a similar style, but I hadn't yet figured out how to do it without making it overly large compared to the X-wing. I think this build would fit pretty well. My main idea is just to revisit the makeshift builds of my own childhood (A, X, Y, TIE), but it would also be nice to have these physically built by the time the Juniors A, X, Y, TIE come out next year. Edit: One more question, if you don't mind: what year does this model date to?

I couldn't afford 10210 in 2010 and I certainly can't afford it now! But maybe with a bit of Bricklink luck and a bit of time at a sewing machine I can afford something similar. I downloaded TheCardinal's Stud.io file for 10210 and made the following changes: Hull colors inspired by USS Constitution and French ships of the line ca. 1800 Mast and spar colors inspired by HMS Victory and British ships of the line ca. 1800 Added platforms ("tops") to masts Deleted stern gallery Added framework to hold ship's boat with sail aft of the mainmast Added equipment to suspend ship's boat without sail behind stern Added ladders for belowdecks access Added four cannon Added extra stores Added boarding netting on top of the bulwarks Added fittings for twelve hammocks belowdecks Will use home-made fabric sails instead of sails from 10210 Will use a less expensive crew than 10210 Regrettably, the change to a black hull and the addition of extra cannon, boats, and hammocks probably outweighs any savings from the changed mast colors and the omission of the sails and crew from 10210, so this probably isn't any more affordable than 10210 itself. What do you think? What are best practices for building affordable sailing ships? (This is my first Pirates MOC as an adult.) Thanks for all questions, comments, advice, and critiques. Overview - bow Overview - stern (before removal of stern gallery) Stern detail (after removal of stern gallery) Boat framework detail Hammock detail (not all parts attached in Studio; the antennas should fit underneath the parts at the end of the top hammock) Ship's boat detail

Rustic? More like rusty! :) Besides the availability of parts, the purpose of the dark red with black highlights and trans-clear glass is to echo the color scheme of set 75186, which I've previously mentioned as a next-generation Galaxy Explorer. I haven't yet figured out how to translate into bricks my idea for a base to go with 75186, so this is just something small to fill the time. Here are the rocks I settled on for my 928 redux moon base. I decided it was more important to keep things simple than to reproduce the vintage crater plate or include an exploding function. The spacemen will just have to dig the top off the hill by hand if they want to get at the crystals. The flagpole should have the CMF series 16 astronaut's flag.

Thanks for posting pictures whenever you take a step forward in your digital and physical builds. Your steady, methodical approach to improving your layouts without breaking the bank is something I'd like to emulate, but I haven't yet figured out how to Bricklink parts affordably. Your Classic Space base is pretty big - if I asked Bricklink to pull together an Easy Buy set of carts, it would probably ask me for $700 or so! How do you get it down to even the (still unaffordable) price of $250? As for this build itself: I like the front grill and the trunk, and I'm sure the car would be fun to have around in person. However, I like to have a bit more clearance in Lego cars so that they can handle carpet instead of just smooth table tops. Have you considered lowering the wheels a plate or two? Also, the roof would look a lot better and would still be just as structurally stable if it used this part at the front. Would it be too much trouble to modify the car to seat a third person behind the front row? I know it can really complicate the build, but I like to get as many seats as possible into a car, and it looks like there's room under the roof for one more person.

@Digger of Bricks: Thanks for your suggestion. I found another solution that satisfies me, but I don't have pictures of it yet. In the meantime, here's a 918 redux that will be built physically as soon as I can figure out how to make Bricklinked parts affordable. I'd have preferred to build it in blue with a yellow canopy, but the wedge bricks in the rear fuselage aren't available in blue. The main goal is simplicity, but it has a few play features: room to store a few accessories behind the seat, a removable engine module, and a hinged flap on the underside just in front of the rocket engine.

@JarJarBonks: Thanks for your comment. I've updated the first post with tonight's build: a TIE fighter built in the same style.

King's Castle + Robot Command Center = Fortrex. Perhaps not to your liking (nor mine), but certainly innocent and whimsical. EDIT: Sorry, I don't mean to start a discussion about Nexo Knights, "classic" themes vs "modern" themes, the current Space and Castle drought, etc. The line above was just a reflexive response. Seriously, though, those are fun advertisements and they make me want to track down an affordable 6080 King's Castle or 7946 King's Castle (the closest modern equivalent). As a kid looking at Brickset, I didn't pay much attention to Classic Town, but as an adult I can see in Classic Town several kinds of vehicles that I wanted as a kid and couldn't get in then-current 90s Town or World City. I recently ordered a little red Classic Town car from 1984 (I think, don't want to check Brickset right now). It's great - trim, compact, nicely enclosed, with good-looking lights and even an opening hood. I've been tempted to get the Classic Town police car and doctor's car pictured above, but they're relatively low priorities on the wanted list.

In a post office, there are many possibilities for the background "story" that goes with the Modular Buildings. Remember the money launderers next door to the Brick Bank and the smugglers next door to the Detective's Office? I bet that crime ring has the postal service twisted around its pinky finger. Plus, there are all sorts of ways to reference the various shops and other establishments at Assembly Square and the Downtown Diner (even the Old Fishing Store) by means of parcels stacked in the back room awaiting delivery.

Do you have piece counts for the other Juniors kits?

The hero's ship is, in-universe, probably a T-65 X-wing drastically modified for air racing, similarly to how some of today's top air racers are heavily modified from warbirds like the P-51 Mustang and the F8F Bearcat. However, it reminds me of another thing: the old Expanded Universe's E-wing fighter. If the T-70 X-wing of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi is the new canon's answer to the old canon's "XJ" next-generation X-wing, maybe this ship is the new canon's answer to the E-wing. I'd normally be pretty confident that we'd get it as a set in 2019, but I'm not so sure, seeing as how the T-70s from The Force Awakens prevented a T-65 from hitting shelves in time for Rogue One, and the A-wings from Rebels and Return of the Jedi prevented an RZ-2 A-wing from The Last Jedi from hitting shelves in time for The Last Jedi. Maybe Lego won't want another ship so obviously inspired by the X-wing hitting shelves so soon after 75218, and before it 75149 and 75102. There's enough other material in the trailer that they could probably get away without including the hero ship in the first wave of Resistance sets.

Hi and welcome to Eurobricks. Here are some links you may find useful - Brickset page Bricklink inventory PDF instructions PS - It's customary not to post in threads that haven't been current for years.

Maybe the problem was having the Soviet flag in the background of the image. The person who reviewed your project probably didn't check to make sure it was a public domain image. If you just submit pictures of the build itself, you should be okay. Edit: I just looked at the projects you linked to. I have no idea how to help.