CrankyCraig

Amazing at this scale. Very impressive indeed.

In all fairness, from what I've seen, 42100 does seem very good from a functional perspective. I don't own it (yet) but I can't see an advantage swapping over to pneumatics. However, at that size and weight, I can see a whole bunch of challenges that would take someone far more experienced than myself to overcome. 8868 was such an incredible set for it's time. At 8 years old, that's where my love for Technic began (and remained for a long time). I built those vehicles soooo many times. I'd build it, and the figures would briefly get to drive it about and use the functions, but then it would almost always be involved in some kind of road traffic accident with another Technic set. It used to get launched into walls / off ramps / down stairs, with a resulting explosion of pieces each time. I'd recover and briefly examine the crumpled wreckage, and then immediately set to work restoring it. That set in my hands took some punishment.

Oh man, when I saw the first pictures of 42100 ...then when I realised the tubing was just for show Pneumatics are by far my favourite, but most other Technic fans seem to favour RC. I'm not a hugely into control plus, but if it continues to sell Lego I'm all for it - there'll always be something of interest amongst it. It's a little surprising we aren't getting a pneumatic flagship this year, but no pneumatic sets whatsoever?! C'mon! Still, it's an opportunity to save until they release another - I bought 3 Arocs last time around.

The one thing I'd love to see over and above everything else, is Lego better supporting and collaborating with some of the MOC projects. This could vary from offering up a complete, unmodified parts package to enable the MOC's to be built at a more affordable price, to working on the original design to release it as an official set, and everything in between. 2 heads are better than one as they say, and there are some worth a lot more than that lurking around these parts. There's a wealth of largely untapped brilliance on here just waiting to be explored, and although some of the Chinese companies seem to recognise this fact and produce MOC sets, Lego, it seems, doesn't appear to appreciate it.

Looks pretty great to me. Loving the - not sure the other name will make it past the autocorrect - rotary engine. As seems to be the tradition to suggest possible improvements, one thing I'd like to see is a little more curvature to the roof. Perhaps the same 3X11 curved panels T Lego suggested? Really, no excuse? Oh, come now.

I had half a dozen or so replaced by Lego less than 6 months ago, almost all of which had cracked and been super-glued over the years. The sets were bought several years ago, so I wouldn't have thought it entirely unreasonable on their part if they'd refused to replace them, but their customer service was impeccable. I'm betting you should still be able to get a replacement. I'd have a hard time believing this to be the last we see of powered pneumatics. That would be a sad day. Was the Arocs the success (sales-wise) that it deserved to be? The brilliance of that set still astounds me.

Please allow me to give a different perspective on this. I view building the creations of others, whether from TLG or a MOC, as an opportunity to share design techniques and ideas, and one which will in turn help to grow the popularity of Lego. I don't yet have the skill to create a MOC in a time frame that wouldn't either exhaust or frustrate, but thanks to those that create and share instructions (TLG & MOC's) I'm able to not only able to see the techniques required to create a model, but can express my own creativity by modifying these builds to suit my preferences. At this point, it takes me the same time to do this as it probably would for a proficient builder to complete an entire MOC to the same standard, but that's OK, because there's a lot to learn, and for me this is still an enjoyable challenge that I otherwise wouldn't get to experience. In my view, some of the greatest creations we see are born from a collaboration of thoughts and idea's. It affords those who aren't necessarily one of the few top tier, all-round builders to be able to contribute in their area of strength. We see this when TLG release a flagship model, and the community here collectively dissects and improves it. 42056 serves as just one example of a set that, in it's official guise, was considered by many to be underwhelming, but the result of the community working on the same basic foundation created something quite impressive, and this was accessible to everyone. Though understandable, it's a shame we don't see this same collaboration as often with MOC's, and TLG working to improve them (Lego Ideas) is even rarer. Both TLG designs & MOC's are not equal, although both are equally capable of both impressing and disappointing. Both have their place in the world, and both help to make it a little better as a result. Generally, TLG have a more consistent and balanced approach to building, resulting in a more predictable model, whereas MOCS, as a collective, have a lot more freedom to be focused and uncompromising. With MOC's, a specific parameter can be assigned priority above all else, such as looks, functions or RC performance, and the requirements to achieve these parameters can be varied, such as the cost, size, use of illegal pieces or connections. We each have preferences concerning these, and this means that while the official releases may not resonate with them, with the vast amount of MOC's, it should be possible to find one that does so perfectly. Whether you have the time, patience, money and luck to do this, is another matter. To attempt to discuss which is 'better' out of MOC's & official sets, then we may as well be discussing which is better; tomato sauce or mayonnaise. There's no wrong answer. ...unless of course you picked tomato sauce.

Perfect! Just the kind of thing I was looking for. Made my way through them and learned some new tricks. Thank's very much thire5

Hi everyone, I've spent far too long staring through the window at this community, and it's about time I made some meaningful contribution to it. Before I feel I can though, I need to get to grips with the digital element. I've spent the past couple of days playing about with studio.io, and as a complete novice to graphic design I've found it quite intuitive and enjoyable to use. Having said that, there are a couple of things I'm struggling with, specifically how to quickly and easily align and connect some of the more complex angles in the likes of, for example, the pistons & rods in a Lego Technic engine. Can anyone point me in the direction of a resource (be it a video, thread, book or whatever), that demonstrates techniques beyond the very basic? Youtube is my usual point of reference for such things, but in this case I couldn't find what I was looking for. Having jumped straight into studio with no prior experience of any other CAD to serve as a reference, and now having some idea of what it's about, I'm also interested to know how it compares to the others, such as LDraw and LDCad, in case they'd better serve my requirements. I'll be primarily using it for Lego Technic. Thanks in advance. Craig.