howitzer

I, for one, would have missed this topic had it been posted in the Community section instead of here, because I don't read that section. While I'm not generally very interested in cars, I also find this very beautifully crafted supercar, surely among the very best of any Technic style supercars ever and I'd be really interested in examining it's inner functions better. I think the discussion about the change of the construction toy market is very important for this community and also in the bigger picture and I'd be interested in joining that discussion, though I think it's beyond the scope of this topic. I haven't formed a strong opinion myself yet, though for now I'm staying "common sense purist" - no parts from other manufacturers except for hose, string and such and SBrick and such to really bring out the best from Lego. (Note that I'm not saying my way is the best, everyone should do as they feel right, that's just the way I want to go about it for now.) I hope that we, as a community can resolve this issue to a satisfactory conclusion - and I hope that TLG can keep up with the competition without compromising quality.

My thoughts exactly. 1H 2020 at least had the mobile crane, which was ok-ish midrange set though it could've been better, and the catamaran which was something new, while not terribly functional (and required a bathtub or pool to be really playable). I'm placing my hopes for something nice in the 2H releases, as I don't see how the excavator, loader or hovercraft could be very interesting at their price points. The development cycle for new sets is around year or more, so unless they already had planned to produce a set with the dumb battery box to be released in the 1H of 2021 in the beginning of this year, they couldn't just crank something in this fast. Maybe for the 2H but sets at the size range of the Osprey often take even longer to develop so I'm not holding my breath for 2H either. Unless such a set has already been in development for a while.

42095 struck me as a way for TLG to get rid of their excess L-motors and battery boxes to make way for PU, which is why it was so cheap for a set that has 2 motors and remote control. Anyway, 42096 was a really boring set out of the box but great for modding, and I don't expect the Ferrari to be much different, unless it's indeed an F1 racer.

Massive sets tend to be released in the second half so it's not surprising to see only small and midsize sets here.

Yes it does, but it doesn't in any way prove you actually owned those sets so it's no good for an insurance company. What you need is something like photos of your collection or receipts from the purchases. As for the actual value... I don't know how insurance companies operate worldwide, but where I live, the basic principle is that regardless of the original price the insurance covers the price of a replacement. So if you paid 100€ for a set and it's only available for 200€, they should value it at 200€ for the insurance purposes. On the other hand, many items are worn out in use so they are valued lower, depending on how long they have been in use. For example, I once broke my glasses by accident, and the insurance would've technically covered them, but they were so old already that the insurance company considered them to have no value at that point. Same goes for example for old cellphones and computers. I don't know how Lego is treated regarding this though.

6 cars and 4 not-cars. Being small sets, I expect the plane and the hovercraft to be all looks and no function. If the excavator doesn't have pneumatics I'm not terribly excited about it. The loader has potential to be a good entry-level set like the buggy from this year, but entry-level sets are not that interesting to me, I want something a bit larger. All in all, this lineup is really boring to me as car sets are not interesting and the other sets are small and probably minimally functional. I hope the second wave does better, though my wallet certainly hurts less with these.

I made a quick estimation on the amount of pins and it appears that about 25% of my Technic collection is black 2L and blue 3L pins. Quick skimming over a few sets revealed that modern sets consist some 20-30% of these pins. I believe it's quite a hard to run out of basic pins while building before running out of any other parts.

Well, can't get any worse than a local fast food company that released a line of clothes and accessories with a theme centered around mayonnaise...

I'm quite sure a four year old will like 10929 better than 42115 in terms of both, building experience and playability. Different people get enjoyment out of different things and what's great fun for someone may be boring or frustrating to someone else. That's why it's nice to have all kinds of sets for all kinds of audiences.

I actually had this problem when I started out after coming back from my years of darkness. Most of my old Technic parts were "obsolete" and I didn't have vast majority of different kinds of parts at all. Most secondhand Lego is either complete sets or all kinds of bricks mixed (both System and Technic, usually accompanied by odd Duplo and non-Lego items), it's hard to find only Technic parts for affordable price secondhand. Bricklink is fine if you know exactly what you want, but when you want a generic bunch of parts with no clear goal in mind, it's not that great unless you have a lot of money to spend and can buy a little bit of everything (and even then, it's hard to know what parts are needed in large quantities and what are not, unless you're already very familiar with Technic.) Same of course goes to any other site where you pick individual parts for buying. Want to buy ads might work if there's someone around who has bricks to sell, but I haven't tried that and it probably depends a lot on how widely you advertise and who happens to see your ad. I have no knowledge on how lugs work but I understand that there's no guarantee to get what you want and that it might take a long time to get your hands on the bricks you ordered. In the end my solutions have been 1) buy interesting complete sets, either second hand or new 2) make digital designs or find interesting MOCs with building instructions, and use parts lists from them to make an order to Bricklink (or whatever) 3) don't hurry, make do with what you have for a while and when opportunities to get more parts arise, grab them.

And why would you, you're not the target audience. But Duplo sets are very playable, much more so than any architecture set or sets like SW Helmets or Technic UCS cars.

You should read the earlier discussion, this point has been debated a lot here. My quick opinion on the matter: It might happen, yes, but there will probably be a lot of third-party solutions by then. Also the motors will probably wear out long before the app support is gone, if you actually use them so unless you just let it sit on a shelf or storage, the possible end of support for the app in the future won't be what kills the motors.

Could be, though they could've also slapped 16+ badge on the Liebherr. Anyway, you're probably right in that TLG is experimenting on how the sales will be affected by various age designations so I guess there will be more consistency in a couple of years.

Wtf, Duplo is all about playability. Of course the playability in let's say Barracuda Bay is very different kind, as Duplo is meant for the littlest of kids. Still, I've built and played a lot with my kid with Duplo and these times have been great parent-child time. Also one of my fondest, dearest memories of my father playing with me as a kid involved Duplo. Beyond that, there seems to be tendency for the sets marketed at older people being less playable and more about displayability, like the Sian or the SW helmets, but there are also exceptions like the Haunted house or the aforementioned Barracuda Bay. As for size and complexity there doesn't seem to be a clear trend of sets marketed to older people being larger or more complex or at least there's a lot of exceptions. The helmets are not complex or big and the mosaic sets are "big" but their nature is very different from other large sets. Then there's sets like Liebherr, which is very large and complex, but still comes with age rating of 12+ and similarly sized Rough Terrain Crane had age rating of 11+, both of which are very much in the kids territory, even if they are also enjoyable to adults. The smallest sets seems to be missing from the 16+ or 18+ categories though, the range of sets with less than 500 pieces or so, which is understandable, as for adult with disposable income wanting a set it doesn't really matter if it costs 30 or 60€ but coolness factor does matter a lot and it's hard to make an adult-cool display piece that's also small. The Architecture theme might work in this regard, but it's marketed at 12+.

I think it's all third party parts, but of course some haven't been found yet. In addition to guns and such, at least one shop selling chrome-plated bricks and one other selling generic hose for pneumatics have had to move their non-genuine parts business elsewhere.

It's very hard to see TLG releasing an auto chassis set like in the old times. Without bodywork it would be unrecognizable, and Technic is all about recognizable licenses today. Even considering the non-licensed sets the days of Technic being "liftarms with gears inside" are long gone. Lego sets have to compete for attention in both store shelves and online, and the best attention-catcher is good looks, whether it comes with license or not. Technical functions are of course important when it comes to actual buying decision but they don't matter much if the set doesn't first catch the attention of the customer, at least when it comes to non-AFOL customers.

Maybe you should take a look at this: http://technicopedia.com/fundamentals.html. Somewhat out of date and incomplete, but still a great introduction to basics of Technic.

They are single-sided bevel gears so no, they don't work, and the same goes for 20T single-sided bevel gears. But you can use double bevel gears with 24T spur gears. The non-bevel spur gears naturally won't work in other positions than parallel and single-bevel gears work only in perpendicular position so they are incompatible. If you for some reason need a gear ratio of 1:2 in perpendicular position, you could use 12T double bevel along with 24T crown gear.

The old 14T bevel gear meshes with itself and the oldest of differentials and the old 24T crown gear. The 14T gear is very weak though, so unless you're reconstructing an old set there's very little reason to use it as it can't transmit much of torque but will break instead. I think all the other Technic gears mesh together, double bevel gears can be used like spur gears so they also mesh with spur and rack gears with no problem. The very oldest of gears (pre-Technic) like Samsonite and Expert Builder gears don't mesh with Technic gears, and obviously neither do Duplo gears or the so-called splat gears (35446 etc.) but beyond those all gears should work together.

As the saying goes, anything is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. I collected stuff as a kid but gave up on it long time ago, still sometimes feeling the urge to do it - now I just resist it. But some people obviously enjoy collecting things so why not let them do it? Of course for some people it goes beyond pastime and into obsession but then, it's possible to develop an obsessive addiction to just about anything, be it alcohol, gambling or work. Collecting stuff at least is generally one of the less harmful obsessions. TLG is obviously just doing what's good for business with the CMF series, perfectly in line of what can be expected from a large company in the capitalist world we live in. From this angle it's pretty hard to criticize TLG without criticizing the whole basis of our economy.

I've also built a photography stand for phone and used it with success. I also had an idea of building a Lego whip or flogger to be used in BDSM activities but that still at just an idea stage.

I'm not surprised either. In the spring when the pandemic was at its strongest in many countries, building Lego was something that is both safe and enjoyable for almost anyone. Later the pandemic's impact on general economy will probably be seen in TLG's profits too, but it's hard to say how big that impact will be. Lego will still be enjoyable activity with all the social distancing going on, but as others have pointed out, the ripple effect from layoffs and bankruptcies will affect TLG too. Sadly, there's probably not much that TLG can do about it, in the end Lego is a luxury product which will be cut out from family spending when the finances go south. Still, I'm betting that TLG will emerge from the pandemic among the less affected corporations.

Minifigures are a bit special though, as they must be unique and recognizable to a theme and they can't be put together from generic parts like the sets are. So new molds/prints are introduced with almost every set including a minifig. They are also highly valued by customers (kids and AFOLs alike) so they easily return the value invested in them.

System parts often have much wider scope of potential applications, as System is the standard way of building Lego. Technic, being a minor theme with its own special parts, naturally gets less new parts. They also are often complex and expensive to make, like pneumatics or linear actuators or frames. For System, most new parts seem to be introduced when a completely new theme is designed, like Trolls or Super Mario. I'm not sure if City for example gets many new parts, unless they are also needed elsewhere? That being said, wider selection of parts would naturally be useful, like more of different kinds of angled beams. But it's true enough, that new parts are not usually introduced unless it's absolutely necessary. When I came back to Technic after my years of darkness, almost every part was new to me and I accepted them as the "default" parts selection. Later I learned that many of them had only been introduced recently and somehow sets were made to work, say, 10 years earlier with much narrower parts selection.

Yep, the orange balls are 0,66€ in B&P, which is cheaper than any ball of any seller in Bricklink for quantities more than a couple. Balls from PV-Productions are less than half of that though, but of course they are not genuine Lego. Should be of high quality though. Not accounting for delivery costs here, which might or might not be significant, depending on where you live and how many you're ordering.