howitzer

Nothing is confirmed until it's officially confirmed. I'm really curious to see how this set will turn out but I don't make judgement of it's quality or if it's worth the price, until there's some definitive information available. And even then I'd rather wait on reviews before deciding if it's going to be worth the money.

Thanks! Pneumatics is what I aim for here. Today I did some hosework:

That's an absolute prerequisite for me to build anything. I have absolutely no patience to search for loose parts in mixed boxes or whatever.

Some new progress. Developing the angled outlines proved to take a lot of work, to get the geometry right. It's now entirely based on pythagorean triangles, so no danger of illegal connections. After that I started to develop the internal mechanisms, which I wanted to make as pneumatic as possible. I had to take some cylinders from 8868 as I have none of the new style short thick cylinders and the long cylinders are much too long for this kind of purpose. First I made the landing gear, as a simple folding mechanism, intended to be operated all three simultaneously with one switch. I also added a ramp in the bottom middle of the ship, but I have not yet decided how to operate it. The next one was to design the guns inside the winglets to be folded out when activated. They would be located directly over the landing gear, which makes for some tight fittings but I think I managed to make it work. The exterior casing around the guns would still require some work before I can call it finished. A couple of photos here, one of them showing also the landing gear mechanism:

I seem to have problems finishing my builds properly. I find high motivation with the initial idea and developing the mechanisms for the model, but once I have solved all the mechanical problems it often feels that there's not much interesting to do anymore, even if the model is barebones and nowhere near finished, perhaps not even working properly. All mechanisms require some testing to make sure they actually work as intended, and the testing-dismantling-rebuilding cycle is sometimes frustrating for me. A part of the frustration stems from the Technic building style where one needs to think many steps ahead and changing some little part in the center of the build requires a huge disassembly and then you'd have to remember how the rest comes back together again etc... Fortunately ABS bends, so sometimes it's possible to simply force the parts apart enough to change it, as opposed to proper disassembly. Anyway, often I just put the half-finished model aside and sometimes I might eventually finish it, but most of the time they just sit on the shelf for months or even years untouched, until I need some part from the model and take it apart. I have no idea how to motivate myself to actually finish stuff, except I've found that having a clear deadline put on by someone else helps a lot - that way I cannot procrastinate on the build and I have to either finish the build or leave it completely unfinished. This is why you see little other WIP or finished builds from me, but I'm often participating in contests - those have a deadline, and participating demands a finished build. Of course significant part of the problem is the fact that between work, family, chores, socializing and rest, I have very little time to work on my models. It can be weeks between building sessions and in that time I forget what I was doing and a part of the session is spent on reminding myself about that. Another source of the problem might be some sort of neurodivergence, perhaps ADHD or something along those lines, it's hard to keep myself focused unless what I'm doing is super-interesting. Unfortunately there are no easy remedies, for that.

True, but how far the would train drive with just the air contained in a single air tank, or even multiple tanks? So would it still need a compressor, powered by electric motor?

Interesting idea, but what problem does it solve, as opposed to electric motors? The only advantage I can quickly think of is that it's easy to route pneumatic hoses in far away places, while electric cables are restricted in length (even with PF extension cables there are practical limits). I'm not sure though if pneumatic motor would be practical in Lego form, it consumes a lot of air so pump end of the system would have to be pretty heavy (or motor speed and power very low).

You're completely right about the aesthetics of 42144, it doesn't look very nice. But your mod really nails the looks, it's much better than the original. Makes me want to buy the set just to build your version of it...

The colour is one obvious variable of course, affecting strength of parts, but that's not the only thing there is: Some people seem to have a lot of problems with cracking parts which have the bushing-type axle connection. On the other hand I have never had any issues, and I have significant amount of those bushings and related parts from five decades in perfectly usable condition. Somewhere there was speculation about the reason, and one idea why this might happen is that there are different factories providing parts to different areas of the world, and those have somehow different conditions, producing parts which look identical but have somewhat varying quality.

Now they should be fixed. Looking forward to get my work further, this should be a fun contest. I would upload a profile photo, but I don't have one that I'm happy with, so I decided to keep the non-photo until I find one. Maybe, if I'm happy with the results, I'll put my upcoming spaceship in the profile photo!

Funny, on my screen they are just over 1000 px wide. But I'll edit my posts later today to replace the images with smaller ones.

Some progress. A bit more shaping, though it's still not a proper structure, just a placeholder. The idea is to make the pneumatic actuators to open a hatch on the wings to reveal some sort of weapon-thing. The pneumatics will be powered by RI hub and PU M-motor driving two pumps. I thought about using some other hub, but all of them seem to require almost as much space as the RI hub, but the latter's advantage is that it can be charged while in place - no need to remove the hub (or even part of it) to charge the battery, which in my mind is significant advantage over PF battery box or C+ hub. Here's a photo of my progress:

Nice, a lot of new-ish parts available, though of course nothing new from the most recent sets. Still I just put in an order of about 150€, fixing a lot of gaps in my inventory...

I wasn't sure at all about participating at first, but then I took a look at the Galaxy Explorer (10497) at my shelf, and thought, what if the space pirates commandeered such a vessel, and turned it into a tool of crime IN SPACE! So I set out to make an outline of a ship, to work out the basic geometry and scale that I might be working with. What I have done so far is about finding out how the angles connect, and if I even have enough parts for this thing. At the moment it appears that it'll be much larger than the inspirational set, and also will feature different angles and such as I want to keep the geometry simple enough to manage. Larger photos of my progress will be uploaded to http://www.jousimo.fi/lego/TC24/ Some features I planned (some perhaps pneumatic, some manual): - Folding landing gear - Wings that split open to reveal some sort of rayguns or whatever - Openable cargo hold to store the contraband - Some sort of small rover and its stowing hold (in the spirit of the Galaxy Explorer) - Mode-switching engines I will take no pressure in finishing this, as I have been experiencing significant back pain lately that flares up when spending too much time at my Lego table. But I hope I can make something finished enough to count as a valid entrant into the contest.

I love it! My only complaint is the fractured look of the rear side window, but that complaint is directed towards TLG for not making proper window parts for cars.

POOP = Part out of other parts. Meaning a part that is essentially a combination of other parts and those parts could in principle replace it in a build. For example part 18671 is essentially two 2x2 plates and two 1x2 plates combined. But if you try replace 18671 with such a plate combo in a build, you'll end up with structure that is much more fragile than when using 18671.

Yes I meant a part like the one on the left in your picture. If 39793 can be manufactured, I don't see why that one couldn't, it would just require similar slots to enable the bores needed by pinholes. As for the uses, it would be a compact part with many connecting options to reinforce structures in tight spaces, while at the same time offering support for axles etc. going through those spaces. The middle pinhole is important for the latter, in a way that a similar frame couldn't work, as there's no support in the center. It's of course a sort of POOP but then again, there are many highly useful POOPs out there, as they provide rigidity and stability that separate parts never could.

Not that you're wrong in your assessment from engineering perspective, but there still are many parts which can be used to make half-stud offsets and such offsets are employed also on official sets in many kinds of different ways, so it's obvious that half-stud offsets are supported to some extent by TLG. Not sure if @gyenesvi's suggestions are the first ones I'd take if I had a freedom to choose new parts for supporting more half-stud offset builds, but at least in the connector category the current selection is severely lacking and when you do need to make a half-stud offset in your build, it can be really painful or clumsy to design one. So one thing I wish would be more connectors enabling half-stud offsets, and while I don't have any specific kind of connector in mind, almost anything would make life easier when designing such builds.

All of these I would gladly see released. It's especially frustrating that half-beams in shorter lengths are only available with axleholes at ends, all-pinhole variants would be great. I believe the flip-flop beams are coming, at least in every odd length of 5 and above, up to current 15L, but it may take a while before the designers can find an excuse to demand one for an upcoming model release. The 2x3 panel extender part can often be used as a 2x3 L-beam but obviously there are situations where the curved surface is in the way. Another part I've been dreaming of: But with perpendicular pinholes at corners (in addition to center) and parallel pinholes at sides.

I know, and I don't think I mentioned 1L beam at all in my post? I don't mean fragile in the sense that it would fall apart at slightest touch, but more like in the sense that people would attempt to use those beams as a load-bearing elements in heavy builds and they would get bent and twisted. I'm also not sure what problem such a long beams would solve, that can't be solved with current parts. As for your ruler, I would venture to guess that it has a much larger cross section than the thinnest part of a liftarm, and that you haven't attempted to use it as a load bearing element in your builds so it hasn't been exposed to too high stresses. Screws and nuts btw. did exist, at least in a sense, long ago as threaded axles and corresponding nuts. They were discontinued more than 30 years ago though and I assume the reason is, again, their fragility.

Bush can't be inserted on a pin, while axle can't hold on to a pinhole. Sometimes when working with halfbeams it would be useful to have a counterpart to bushing with pinhole. This can be used, but it's slightly thinner than a bush, and coloured metallic gold, which makes it a bit too conspicuous.

I doubt TLG will ever make longer beams than current 15, perhaps 17 is doable but beyond that they will get too fragile. Thin beams much longer than current 7 are even more fragile. Very long beams such as those you suggest would also be really hard to use (both in design and actual insertion/removal) and to store and I see very little practical usefulness for parts like that, considering they are so fragile they couldn't bear no meaningful loads. You'd have to reinforce them and in that case you're fine with current beams anyway. Even length beams in shorter (4, 6, 8) lengths could actually be useful though. What function would 1L pins serve beyond the current half and 3/4 pins? 4L pins would probably be feasible but beyond that, I don't think longer ones are either necessary nor practical either, and most of their purpose is covered by axles anyway. They be would be fragile and very hard to insert and even harder to remove and open many new opportunities for impossible to disassemble builds, especially if they came without stoppers. Stoppers are also necessary to prevent them from drifting as the joint is stressed, with no stoppers the pins could eventually move out of their intended position and the build would fall apart. As for 2L/3L pins, very few variants don't exist already, and even those could be replaced by axles, except maybe in some very rare circumstances.

Yes, exactly. But yeah, I'd like them to have friction so they could be used to support parts (panels etc.) in set positions. Second both of these. I've also needed these parts many times. Oh, and 3x4 L-shaped liftarm. Another nice one would be liftarm with two bends in opposing directions, sort of like 2 L-shaped liftarms fused together in Z-shape fashion (but with 90° corners of course).

Pin with ball socket with friction. Kinda like Mixel joints but for Technic.

I've also noticed the lessening amount of spares. My speculation is that they have better counting machines at production facilities today than before. The spares were usually there because the counting machines weren't accurate enough, so they calibrated them to include an extra of the smallest parts, rather than have bags with missing parts.