howitzer

I don't think TLG cares much about having some specific part count, not even when it could be used in marketing. The 8868 had 952 parts so only a little short of 1000, which would've been first 1000-part Technic set ever, and it even had many opportunities for additional parts (could've included doors for example) but still they opted not to do that. As for the Saturn V, my guess is that the set designer wanted it to have exactly 1969 parts and the set's design allowed for that so it happened, to because marketing department saw it as anything important to consider.

Most of it was not at all about the set or its alternatives but discussion about sales and pricing of instructions in Rebrickable. I'm sure @Milan will allow talk about the G500 instructions, but more general discussion about the market on third party instructions should have it's own topic (which I believe could be very interesting to read even for someone such as me who has never bought any third party instructions.)

Looks like a very interesting building experience, and an impressive display model. I'm seriously tempted on this one.

The contrast is indeed nice, though some other colour would suit even better. Maybe we need those rims with the same colour as the body

Yep, works as it used to. But this gave me also a scare, it's so useful site.

Stacking two thin liftarms is mariginally flimsier yes, but looks-wise it's not an issue, the thin liftarms stack with much less of a seam than thick liftarms as they have much sharper edge profile. So yes, stacking two 6L liftarms would work well unless the build requires rigidity.

Actually the old version of the pin joiner was assembled from two parts to make up for the lack of slot so it clicks and is strong and good-looking, but much more expensive to manufacture than the slotted version as it's 2 separate parts to be moulded and also requires assembly.

Yep, I used it in this fashion in my TC20-entry.

But haven't custom wheel arches been used in wide variety of shapes in wide variety of sets for a long time? I mean, sure the Defender got its custom wheel arch which then has been used only a couple of times "properly" (notably the Volvo hauler) and few times in NPU fashion (like the City moonbase set and the Robot inventor) where it wasn't really necessary. But doesn't the same apply for every wheel arch, Technic and System alike, and for many other parts where the shape could be approximated with standard parts only? It would be easier to agree with your opinion if the Defender had also stuff like custom hood or custom grille or something along those lines, but it only had the wheel arches which tend to have subtle but noticeable curves in very tight space, which makes them hard to replicate with standard parts so I think custom parts are justified there. As for the G500, the shape is of the liftarm-built wheel arches is passable but those prominently visible pinholes look pretty bad.

I wonder how much scattered light do the new optic fibre cables give? Could they conceivably be used for creating lighted up shapes (sort of like neon lights) from the cable itself or are they only useful as a point-like light source?

Ok, looking at the review I'm pretty impressed with this set. I'm not at all interested in cars generally, but this one appears to be a properly Technic set even if it's a car, and quite affordable too. Even just as a parts pack it's quite impressive.

This. There's a separate thread for wishes and speculation, and as long as we lack actual facts or even supposed leaks to discuss, it's pure guesswork and wishing instead of discussion about 2025 sets.

Awful lot of wishes and speculation in this thread. Anyway, while I'm not at all interested in cars, it's obvious that they sell very well and as long as proper Technic sets keep being produced, I'm not complaining too much, as the cars also bring lots and lots of new parts and recolours for us.

Nah, I'm a purist. But it's nice to hear that I'm not the only one with this idea :)

No, the shorter end has only one pinhole in one direction so it doesn't make strong connections that way.

A type of part I could've used just recently: Corner-type liftarm (90° angle like the current 3x5 liftarms) but with holes in one arm facing different direction than in the other arm and with dimensions of maybe 3x4 or so. Pinholes arranged like these and joined:

My thoughts exactly on the door design. They look very busy and cluttered with all the stacked liftarms and those axle/axle connectors instead of pinhole with axlehole connectors. The other parts of the exterior aren't as bad, though I feel the roof could also use some smoothness. 5x7 panel would indeed help here a lot. Btw., as 4L and 6L beams can be made with doubled thin liftarms easily I wonder why they didn't do that as it would be just a recolour instead of a new part. --- I like the colour, as it really stands out and introduces enough parts in the new colour to be usable in some builds. The bottom-operated difflock feels cheap, and while I wouldn't want to see the Defender fiasco repeated, I'm kinda bummed that there's no proper gearbox here, considering it's an offroader at fairly large scale.

The rear hood can be easily detached and reattached? That would be in my opinion the most important novelty if the set, it's annoying that previous set have all the cool mechanisms hidden away. Anyway, looks cool for the UCS car lineup and I'm glad that bright light yellow gets much wider parts palette with this as previously it was almost impossible to build anything in that colour. I also hope the internals of this thing won't disappoint.

If you look at the review photos, you'll notice there's two bags numbered 1 in the set, which means you'll need both to finish phase 1 of the build.

You should upload your pictures to an external site like imgur or flickr, and then link them from there.

With those sounds it's definitely a mechanical problem. Those can get really, really annoying and laborous to fix, I can tell from experience. I hope you find a way.

How exactly does the rotation stop? Does the motor simply stop turning or is there some clicking/crunching/other unhealthy sounds? Do all other functions work properly? One thing you could attempt without any disassembly is making a simple program in the PoweredUp (not Control+) app and connect your phone to the lower hub only. If the movement still stops at the same place, the issue is probably mechanical and if not, it probably has something to do with the app. As for the disassembly, I have no advice to give. It's probably going to be quite difficult.

I've been wanting for a long time more parts for making half-stud offsets and something like this along with the forementioned 4-pinholes+axlehole part would be greatly useful. The current selection of such parts are much too restricted in the ways they allow connections.

Yeah, having motors directly drive the sprockets without any gears would definitely be better, though then they'll also turn quite fast so there's speed to consider and that might require reduction with gears. You could position the motors side-by-side facing opposite directions and then use gearing to bring the power to sprockets with reduction as needed. Also consider that the motors have many pinholes and are very sturdy, you should find ways to use them as structural elements in addition to beams and frames.

I believe Seasider was being sarcastic, considering how few Backhoes there have been (4 main models I believe, last one in 2013, unless I've missed something?)